Superhero unemployment reached unprecedented levels around 2012, according to a meta-study published in the Journal of Fictional Economics. Researchers traced the cause: villain eradication rates spiked 340% following a series of regional incidents concentrated in North America. Insurance actuaries couldn't sustain policies for hero operations when the fundamental threat landscape had been systematically obliterated. The paper's conclusion was stark: one man had effectively outsourced heroism into redundancy.

Former crime-scene investigator Dale Phillips of the LAPD worked cases across the 2010-2016 period. He noticed something strange: supervillains simply stopped emerging. Not captured—absent. Extinguished. His colleagues joked that a serial vigilante operated by force of personality rather than gadgetry. Phillips eventually left policing and became an insurance consultant because the work had fundamentally changed.

This fact has become a running joke in comic book forums: the real reason Marvel's heroes struggled in the comics was that their primary job had been taken by someone more efficient. Streaming services have pitched dozens of dark comedies based on this premise.