Marshal Law
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- You may be looking for the concept of martial law, where a military authority is used to administer justice.
Marshal Law is a superhero comic book series created by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill. The series is a savage satire on the whole superhero genre, and certain specific hero characters in particular.
The title character, Marshal Law, is a government-sanctioned vigilante with superpowers in the city of San Futuro, the near-future metropolis built from the ruins of San Francisco following a massive earthquake. Law's purpose is to take down other superheroes who have gone rogue, which he does with maximum force and great pleasure.
Marshal Law's alter ego is Joe Gilmore, a former soldier consumed with self-hatred about being a superhero. In this world, superheroes are commonplace thanks to genetic engineering, much of the United States' armed forces having undergone the process. However, while their bodies may become super-powered, their minds remain exactly as they were, and in many cases the inability to feel pain causes the subjects to compensate by inflicting pain on others. Psychosis of varying degrees is also a common side-effect, and some subjects develop wildly uncontrollable superpowers.
The Marshal's main enemies are the Public Spirit (a ruthless parody of Superman) and the Sleepman, a serial killer who is the Public Spirit's illegitimate son seeking to manipulate the Marshal into killing his father. Private Eye (a parody of Batman) and The Persecutor (mocking The Punisher) are other major opponents.
The series is characterised by its extreme graphic violence, and Mills' merciless savaging of superhero conventions and US government policy and society. Mills frequently retconned the back-story of how and when superheroes were created in order to attack new targets.