Poll Position: Relationships

Our thought-provoking comics-related question of the week is:

{democracy:119}

Discussion after the jump.

  • Classmates: I was thinking Xavier's School, X-Men style school here, not your more typical jocks-beating-up-geeks junior high setup. If the former, not so bad. If the latter ... no, since I was one of the geeky ones. I don't want to think of some of those guys having both super-powers AND the responsibility for watching my back.
  • Family: Models for this would include the Fantastic Four and the more recent Noble Family series. To a large extent, this would depend on the family members in question. If you have a jerky little brother, imagine him with the power to read your mind. Or blast you with fireballs. Yeah, not a pretty picture, is it? Plus families can be wearing even when you all love each other, throw having to work together all day running around in spandex and it can be a little daunting.
  • Government-sponsored: This has the advantage of some job-security, a steady paycheck, maybe retirement benefits, and probably some neat gadgets to play with. On the downside, you have no privacy, you're probably going to be asked to die for some bureaucratic oversight, and you have very little power over your day to day career.
  • Greek gods: To some degree this depends on which God you get to be. And they were all kind of jerks most of the time.
  • Law enforcement: This has a lot of the upside of Government-sponsored, without some of the more egregious drawbacks. There's definitely a camaraderie to being in a "-force" of like-minded people, and you have clearly defined enemies -- law-breakers -- versus just whoever the government decides they're pissed off at that day.
  • Paramilitary: Sort of a mix between working for the government and being in law enforcement. Although, technically law-enforcement IS the government, but I was thinking more of a Police Department vs. the Pentagon vs. a mercenary outfit. Paramilitary to me seems like a lot of morally gray areas, and a lot of rules, without much backup. On the other hand, you'd be free to do the bidding of your own conscience more than you would if you were a government agent.
  • Patriots: I was thinking here of your Captain America "band of brothers" type of thing, I suppose. Meh.
  • Snakes: Because snakes are cool, and get to go on planes.

Overall, I'd probably go with Family. I actually like my family, they're fun and moral and relatively easy to get along with. There's a trust factor there I wouldn't have with more casual acquaintances too, but I can see how someone from a less pleasant familial situation would avoid this like the plague.

Which would you choose, and why?