Supervillains for Justice?

Fathers’ rights protesters, infamous for dressing as superheroes and scaling public buildings, are crying foul over new tactics adopted by the British police in an attempt to curb their activities. “It was diabolical – I could have been killed,” complained forty eight year old Clive Rumpty, who suffered a fractured collarbone and two broken ribs when he fell from the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice after being bombarded with rolled up umbrellas, fired from a small cannon by a policeman dressed as The Penguin. “It was bloody lucky that my Batman costume’s reinforced codpiece protected my bollocks from serious damage – those umbrellas were flying up at a fantastic speed, tip first!” However, Rumpty wasn’t the first ‘Batman’ to suffer at the hands of one his arch-enemies whilst protesting. Last month Dominic Barnford, a van driver from Watford, was forced to abandon his protest atop the Houses of Parliament after one of his co-protesters – dressed as Robin – was captured by The Joker (alias PC Frank Earnshaw of West End Central Division), and subjected to hideous tortures. “The bastards tied him to the clapper of Big Ben – the next time the clock chimed he would have been pulverised,” says a still traumatised Barnford. “As it approached Midday my nerve went – I just couldn’t take the risk that they might be serious!”

PC Earnshaw remains unrepentant over his tactics. “Look, they were the ones who started it – dressing up like clowns! What do they expect?” comments the copper, who claims that he bases his portrayal of The Joker on Cesar Romero’s camp interpretation in the classic 1960s TV series, rather than the darker version essayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film. “I don’t want to frighten the kiddies by coming over as too menacing – I like to show them that super-villainy can be fun!” However, not all of the police attempts to counter the ‘superheroes’ with appropriate villains have been quite as successful: whilst chaining himself to the gates outside Downing Street recently, ‘Spiderman’ found himself confronted by a bald man wielding several giant rubber penises and accompanied by what appeared to be a giant lump of slime. “It was an innocent mistake,” claims Sergeant Jim Willicks of Charing Cross Police Station. “I’m not a comics fan myself and simply misheard what was said at the briefing – I could have sworn the Inspector said that Spiderman’s arch-enemies were Doc Cock and the Green Gob!”

Whilst public reaction to these unusual police tactics have been generally favourable, concerns over health and safety issues have been raised. In particular, there has been much criticism of the recent incident in which ‘Superman’ was forced from the ramparts of the Tower of London by ‘Lex Luthor’ wielding a glowing lump of ‘kryptonite’ – actually part of a highly radioactive fuel rod from a nuclear power station. “It is highly unlikely that ‘Superman’ received a fatal dose of radioactivity, although we can confirm that he has been rendered sterile and therefore incapable of producing any more bloody children he refuses to support,” the Metropolitan Police Commissioner told a press conference, in an attempt to reassure the public. “I can also confirm that the officer who played Luthor will receive a commendation for acting above and beyond the call of duty – he shaved his head specially for the part, you know.”

Church and educational groups have also raised fears that by having the police impersonate well-known villains to defeat lawbreakers dressed as suprheroes, the moral values of young children could become confused. “This sort of thing could have serious repercussions – the complete inversion of value systems amongst impressionable youngsters,” opines leading child psychologist Professor Neville Champfer. “The apparent triumph of evil in the name of law and order and the oppression of the ‘heroic’ paternal figure could lead to the demonisation of authority and a perception of fatherhood as an emasculating experience.” Inevitably, the authorities take a somewhat different view. “What absolute bollocks! Quite frankly, it’s no bad thing for children to see these costumed vigilantes taken down a peg or two,” replies the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. “If you ask me, they set a very bad example – implying that the police are incompetent to fight crime and have to rely upon the efforts of amateur have-a-go heroes! Young people need to be made to understand that you can’t go around taking the law into your own hands without facing very serious consequences!”

Despite their apparent disapproval of vigilantes, the police have expressed admiration for the actions of thirty four year old Amanda Dreck, who single-handedly ended her former partner Michael Riff’s Silver Surfer costumed rooftop protest at the National Gallery by donning a Wonder Woman outfit and kneeing him in the groin, before tying him up with her golden lasso and handing him over to the police. “The mad bitch – I might never be able to have children again,” complained Riff who, despite not having worked for six years due to a recurrent groin injury has fathered five children by three different women, as prison medics attempted to take down his testicular swelling with ice packs. “What kind of psycho dresses up like that and assaults people?” Dreck, however, has no regrets over her actions. “He was singing a different tune when he got me to dress up as Cat Woman and give him a good licking,” she reveals, claiming that kinky sex games were, in fact, the origin of Riff’s superhero costume collection. “Apparently he had a different one for each of his girlfriends, it was the only way he could get it up!”

Riff has countered these allegations by asserting that he was never the submissive in any relationship. “Listen, I was always the superhero capturing and restraining the lady villain – it’s the natural order of things, isn’t it, the bloke on top and in control? Women superheroes, it’s just all wrong – they’ve got to know their place,” explains Riff, who hasn’t seen any of his children for over a year, following a court restraining order brought after allegations that he was involving them in various criminal activities, including shoplifting and pick-pocketing. “It was all a mistake, I was just trying to teach them about the male’s true role in the family group – the scavenging hunter-gatherer using all means to provide for his family. But it was a woman judge – what can you expect? Bloody irrational! A bloke would have understood!” Dreck, meanwhile, has vowed to keep up her fight against bizarrely attired good-for-nothing lowlife absentee fathers, and has formed her own group of costumed female vigilantes – Mothers For Justice – in order to make public buildings safe for ordinary people once more.