 Director Nate Fox stated that much of the inspiration of the superhero story came from two DC Comics series , DMZ and Batman : No Man 's Land . Both center on a city after a large disaster . The series also inspired the crafting of the game 's grim take on the superhero genre . Fox further stated that the film Batman Begins was an inspiration for the game . However , any correlation to DC Comics ' Static Shock was unintentional . Fox considered his own personal involvement in the Seattle WTO riots of 1999 as influencing the reflection of " spending time in a lawless place " within the game . Grand Theft Auto III was also stated as an influence , in that the team could easily see themselves as superheroes in the open world of Liberty City ; similarly , Spider @-@ Man 2 was used as a model to demonstrate what it would be like to move about the city and answer random requests for help alongside regular missions . The character of Cole was created to be a " kind of an everyman " so that players could then " get into the headspace of what it would be like to be a real human being who has been granted these exceptional abilities " . The team also avoided giving Cole an alter @-@ ego or outfitting him with a costume as it would not have reasonably fit in with the character or the game 's story . 
