How Best To Protect The Crowd In A Battle

Back to Power Girl #4 for a moment. Right before they start dealing with the magical attack on the bridge, Power Girl tells Terra to protect the civilians as they flee, while she goes and hits the monsters. Terra objects to be placed on crowd patrol, because she wants to hit things too. Power Girl responds that she's the one who hits things, while Terra's the one who saves people, and that people will like her more for them.

Looking at the first part of that final sentence, I find it kind of interesting that Power Girl sees herself that way. She doesn't see herself as a lifesaver, but as a fighter. Except fighting giant monsters does save lives. Plus, she restarted her company, and it's all about ideas that are supposed to have practical applications to make people's lives better. And, she didn't simply trounce the villain behind the troll outbreak, she offered her a job where she can channel her energy without causing property damage. Hopefully. If it works, she keeps that girl from falling into a cycle of being tossed in jail, escaping and embarking on another destructive crusade, only to be tossed in jail again, and so on. She's stepped in before the young lady winds up as warped as Ultra-Humanite. I'd say that counts as saving a life. I wonder why she doesn't see it that way*.

The second part is kind of interesting too. People will like you more for escorting them to safety, than if you go fight the baddies. I can sort of see the logic in that. If you're there with the crowd, they know you're protecting them, whereas if you fly right at the monster and start punching, they might think it's just another mindless super-brawl, and that no one concerned cares about the regular Joe. Though that's more the mindset of a Marvel citizen, it does exist in DC, albeit in smaller quantities**.

On the other hand, if the hero is near the crowd, that means they expect the threat to get near the crowd as well. I think I'd prefer the hero go fight the threat some place far away from me, and I'll try and escape on my own.

* There's always the possibility she was just using that as a way to get Terra to stop arguing with her and go protect the crowd. She figures if she makes crowd protection sound better, Terra won't feel as bothered that she's left in charge of it.

** Morrison used it in his first JLA arc, where the disguised Martians started fixing everything, and some people told Superman they wanted heroes to do more than just fight.