Rarely do you see superheroes have a real job and then go fight crime or whatever. Superman is a reporter, Spider-Man is a photographer, Daredevil is a lawyer. But what superhero just had a regular office job or something?
Mr Incredible very specifically has a boring insurance office job
How can anyone in insurances be a hero?
Did you not see the first movie? He was helping people skirt by the system so they would get approved. It’s been a minute but I’m fairly certain his boss calls him in the office to chew him out for having so many people get approved for stuff. This all happens fairly early in the movie.
No I haven’t seen the movie.
Oh do. It’s an exemplary movie. 10 out of 10 in every category you can judge a movie by.
This is correct. As a grown arse-man, this is a fantastic movie. Number is great too, and there’s not many movie I am actually looking forward, but the 3rd Incredibles movie makes the cut.
Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk) is a lawyer.
Ben Reilly (Scarlet Spider) is a barista.
Guy Gardener (Green Lantern) is a social worker.
Kyle Rainer (Green Lantern) is a comic book artist.
Wally West (The Flash) is a mechanic.
Luke Cage is a bartender.
Do we mean an actual job, or can it be a cover? Terry McGuinness of Batman Beyond, to the outside world apparently had a job as a PSW for an elderly rich guy.
If we have to stick to actual “I need to do this job to pay the bills” - I believe Squirrel Girl was a nanny for Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and was like, actually doing that job for much needed cash. Nanny is a pretty normal job.
But in both those cases, the fact that their employers were superheroes might ruin the “day job” thing. So, I’ll go with Frank Castle as my actual answer. Now, Frank doesn’t always have a job of any kind. Frank and stability don’t mix. But when he is working, usually between killing sprees, he works normal blue collar jobs. Construction in the Netflix show. He worked the line in a Meat Packing Plant for a while in the comics. Hilariously, he worked as an overnight security guard for awhile, which is a great set up for the unluckiest burglar who ever lived.
Lastly, I want to throw out one VERY strange example in my favourite superhero - Moon Knight. Moonie has something similar to Dissociative Identity Disorder. Maybe. Look, when an Ancient Egyptian Moon God of Vengeance sets up shop in your head, it’s complicated. But the point is, Marc Spector’s job was soldier, but blood money wasn’t usually how Moon Knight paid for all his toys. Billionaire Stephen Grant, another one of Marc’s personalities bank rolled everything, seduced beautiful women and was genuinely useless at everything else. Does it count as having a day job, if you literally become an entirely different person to go work in the financial sector?
The Tick had the most mundane jobs for characters, I think. Arthur was an accountant. American Maid was a hotel cleaner.
Ant Man worked at Baskin Robbins for a time, but… Baskin Robbins always find out.
Donald Duck took in is orphaned nephews, that makes him a super hero to me. Also he can’t keep a steady job because of it, always has a different job.
Ant Man is mostly unemployed by the time he becomes a superhero. That seems most relatable in these times.
Ant-Man as a Baskin-Robbins cashier? Peter Parker as a pizza delivery boy? Captain America and many others as soldiers? Many X-Men are teachers, albeit for a specialized school. Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider is a mechanic. Can’t think of any DC characters that fit the bill apart from maybe Jay Garrick Flash as a college athlete.
Can’t think of any DC characters
Hal Jordan/Green Lantern was a pilot.
John Stewart/Green Lantern was in the military.
Clark Kent/Superman is a reporter.
Barry Allen/The Flash is a CSI (he’s basically like Dexter and Masuka).
Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce) – High school principal
Most of those are less normal than what I was aiming for. Even being a reporter seemed too uncommon for what I wanted to list.
Ant-Man as a Baskin-Robbins cashier?
Of the things listed so far, I think that that’s the most-common, at least by US standards. By descending size:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2024/may/area_emp_chart/area_emp_chart.htm
Largest occupations in the United States, May 2024
- Home Health and Personal Care Aides
- Retail Salespersons
- Fast Food and Counter Workers
- General and Operations Managers
- Registered Nurses
- Cashiers
- Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Customer Service Representatives
- Office Clerks, General
I thought being a soldier stood a fair chance, at least at the time of original publication. Not sure if your data considers that position?
Well, it’s easy enough to check, but I imagine that it does. Most countries don’t honestly have that many peacetime soldiers (though wartime is going to affect things). If you’re North Korea, maybe, as they have a very large military.
kagis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces
In the US, even if you counted every single active-duty person in all of the armed forces as a “soldier” — which I’m sure is not actually the case — you’d have 1.3 million people.
The smallest category in the chart I listed was office clerks, at 2.5 million.
goes looking for North Korea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People's_Army
North Korea also has 1.3 million active-duty people in its military, but it has a far-smaller population than the US does, 26 million instead of 340 million. So in North Korea, if you counted “uniformed services” as one profession, it’d be easily higher than any occupation as a percentage-of-population than those listed above for the US. The largest category for the US — the home and health care aides — has 4 million, so 1% of the population. The active-duty military would be 5% of the population for North Korea.
I guess I had initially interpreted “normal” meaning the percent of people who have once in their life held that job, rather than the percent of people holding the job at any given time.
probably wolverine as a lumberjack, or deadpool as a mercenary.
Wonder Woman (Diana Prince) is a museum curator in Paris.
Batman (Bruce Wayne) is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.
The Hulk (Bruce Banner) is a scientist – not sure if he’s a biologist, chemist, biochemical engineer or all of the above.
But they all have offices that they work from. You’ve got me curious now! 😃
Jack Knight from James Robinson’s Starman ran a vintage antiques and clothing store.
