#lameshifters

[howtohero]

#122 Being Framed

Crimes happen all the time (good job). Probably there are eight or nine happening right now (so reading this is just an excellent use of your time). Many of these crimes go unsolved (probably because our worlds’ greatest crime fighters are reading internet funny blogs). Some of them do get solved though (no thanks to you). But even the ones that are solved or the ones that are stopped sometimes aren’t stopped or solved in exactly the best way possible (that’s on you too). Sometimes in fact the wrong person is arrested and imprisoned and publicly condemned as a super criminal (making a mockery of the justice system). And sometimes, that wrongly imprisoned, or falsely accused person, is you (personally, I think you did it). 

The first thing you need to when you’ve been framed for a crime is find out that you’ve been framed. Until you know that, you can’t do anything. So you need to stay abreast of all the superhero news in the world. If you’re being accused of a crime that’s where that information is going to pop up. In fact you should focus more heavily on those sites or news programs that have more anti-superhero leanings.

“Anti-superhero learnings?” you ask, the donut you were eating falls out of your mouth which is now agape in horror. For you are horrified by the very notion. “How could such a thing be?” you stammer as your monocle pops out of your eye. You’ve never been more shocked and confused and afraid in your life. Well put that donut back in your mouth slovenly citizen, it’s true. Some people do not like superheroes. Maybe their jealous of their fabulous bodies, cool cars or walrus sidekicks. Maybe they don’t think punching ever single individual drug dealer in the groin is the best possible way to make the streets safer. Maybe a loved one was tragically killed in the fallout of an epic superhero battle. Regardless these people do not like superheroes and so they’ll be the first ones to report that you or some other superhero has been implicated in a crime or is the subject of a manhunt. While this is one of the quickest ways to find out if you’re about to be indicted, be warned, these programs are a bit hard to sit through. They generally feature two four well-dressed people smiling about others misfortunes and laughing at bad jokes! Can you imagine? These people have their own television program and they have the audacity to just sit around and make bad jokes. Unacceptable. I can excuse the anti-superhero rantings and ravings (our favorite anti-superhero rant’n’rave comes courtesy of talk show host Greg Greginski and features the line “these spandex sissies and their frikkin’ underwear on the goddam wrong side of the pants and their stupid astro… astro-motorhomes and their fancy pants cape-wearing horses! I can’t stand them! I wish they’d all be eaten… eaten by progress… the progress of society!” like that was crazy what was he even talking about why was he so mad about the horse? What a champ.) but the bad jokes are where I draw the line. These are the same people that start every St. Patrick’s Day show by saying “top o the mornin’ to ye” in a terrible accent. Just so we’re all on the sampe page.

In fact, interestingly enough, angry/jealous/insecure, morning show hosts are responsible for 62% of superhero framings. They do it to stoke those anti-superhero flames. That’s a true statistic. They commit more superhero framings than actual supervillains (supervillains tend to be very enthusiastic about taking credit for the crimes they commit. Heck, most of them broadcast their crimes on every screen in the world while they’re committing the crime). Supervillains don’t even make up the other 38%! There’s also dirty cops and non-dirty cops just being bad at their jobs. So disgruntled morning-show hosts take the lion’s share of that blame. 

Once you are alerted to the fact that you are wanted for a crime you need to immediately get out of your costume, and then not get back into it until this whole thing goes over. The manhunt can’t succeed if the man they are hunting never shows up anywhere ever again. (Or womanhunt, women can be framed for crimes too). If you want, you can even just leave it at that. Destroy your costumes, design a new one, repaint your car to match your new color scheme and you’re good to go. Even if whoever is framing you keeps framing you for crimes it doesn’t even matter. You set that identity on fire, it’s theirs if they want it so bad. The costume was never even that comfortable. You designed it early on in your career. You were younger back then, caring more about coolness than comfort. You don’t like to admit it but you were thinner back then too. The costume was much too tight, you’re glad for the opportunity to make a new one, a better one, a costume with a future. Being framed was the best thing that ever happened to you! Thank you Greg Greginski, you’ve changed one more life for the better.

If you do want to keep your identity though you’re going to need to do some damage control. Check up on all your spare costumes, make sure every one of them is accounted for. If you find that one of them is missing, then you have a potential crime scene that you can work. Scour the site of your missing costume for any clues or forensic evidence that might lead you to discovering who could’ve stolen it, and who is now probably wearing it while commiting crimes and vlogging about it. Think about who could’ve had access to this secret costume hiding spot. Which of your allies knew where it was and which of your enemies might have the powers or skillsets to break in and steal it. A missing costume is a great place to start your investigation.

Sometimes however though you’ll find that none of your costumes are missing at all. This isn’t all that unusual or even surprising. A skilled seamstress could replicate your costume just by looking at it. Heck, even a garbage seamstress could replicate your costume approximately enough to fool the shoddy security cameras at the convenience store you supposedly robbed. If you find that all your costumes are exactly where you left them you should immediately become suspicious of all seamstresses, no matter their skill level. 

Now is around the time where you should start seriously making sure that you’re actually being framed. Sure, there’s definitely someone out there assuming your identity to steal apples in order to create a worldwide apple shortage and then become rich off of their stolen artificially-rare apples, but are you entirely sure that it’s not you? Perhaps you were mind controlled, or maybe you’re a sleeper agent. Maybe you did it consciously, while in control of your body and mind and everything (I’m sure you had a good reason) and then somehow forgot about it (or were forced to forget about it). For all we know you could actually be framing yourself! To make sure that you haven’t been secretly committing crimes in your sleep or something (sleep-stealing is a real thing that effects dozens of people across the galaxy) I recommend attaching a video camera to yourself. This way if another crime is committed all you have to do is check the tapes! Brilliant! If the tapes show that you were off doing your own thing at the time of the crime then you’re golden (well, relatively, there’s still somebody defacing all the statues in the park while wearing your costume). And I know what you’re thinking, but no, you can’t use those same tapes to exonerate you in a court of law. For one thing, unless you’re wearing your costume 24/7 you’re going to give away your secret identity and we’re not quite at that point yet. Even if you were wearing your costume the entire time you had the camera on you a shrewd lawyer could just make the point that anybody could’ve wearing your costume. To which you’ll say “Yeah that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make here!” and then flip over a table and then you will be held in contempt of court.

When the public perceives you to be a criminal you’re usually on your own. The rest of the superhero community will probably turn your back on you and to be honest that might be, at least partially, our fault. So sorry about that. You see, we once said that “The average superhero is exactly one (1) traumatic event away from turning into an evil pilferer.” And all your superhero friends are definitely aware of that. They all read this blog. So that means you have to launch this entire investigation on your own (here this might be helpful).

You should try to acquire any videos or photographs or witness statements that pertain to your alleged crime. If you’re going to go after the person masquerading as you, you’re going to want to know everything that you possibly can about them. You might even get lucky and see them pulling off one of your known enemies’ signature moves! Regardless though you want to get as much information on them as you possibly can. You’ll probably need to break into your local police precinct’s evidence locker but honestly, at this point, who even cares, we have you do shady stuff like that all the time. It’s all in good fun. It’s all in the name of Justice.

Once you’ve learned everything you can about the person who’s framing you for these unspeakable crimes, you can begin checking out your suspects. The person you’re looking for will have a similar build as you and possibly a similar skill or powerset. Lots of superheroes have enemies like that, it’s like people with similar builds and powers are drawn to each other through some metaphysical drama-creating force or something. You might also actually be looking for an evil clone. Man, that would be such a hassle. Remember how annoying those things could be? Or gosh maybe it’s a shapeshifter? Those guys are such tools. It’s not cool to turn into other people! Being someone else isn’t even that hard! The true challenge, and I firmly believe this to be true, is being yourself.

Once you do track down the bad guy whose impersonating you though, you need to put on your costume again. This way (as we’ve mentioned before) the public can see that there’s both a good guy and a bad guy who have the same costume and your name will automatically be cleared. Even from bad things that you actually did! Every negative thing that’s been done in your costume, no matter who did it, will just be laid at the feet of the evil guy wearing the costume! This is a great chance to get rid of all that embarrassing stuff too. Like the time you were caught on camera in costume yelling at a pigeon who had stolen your last french-fry. Or the time you were refused service at a drive-through because technically you flew-through and there’s apparently a rule against that in the drive-through code of conduct. 

Once the bad guy is defeated and captured and their costume is taken away to either be aggressively burned or aggressively laundered, you’ll be starting with pretty much a clean slate. Once again the public will adore you and see you as the hero you are and you can go back to spending your days fighting sassy swashbuckler or attending superhero drum circles which are posilutely a real thing. Don’t expect any apologies from the pundits who disparaged you on national television or the legions of police officers who agreed to unpaid overtime just to hunt you down (or me). They’re still waiting for you to turn evil for real. Frikkin Greg.