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Mr Incredible had a Government handler, so I would assume all the supers had one. And when those supers started disappearing one by one they would get nervous. Are they going back to being a super hero? Becoming a super villain? When you consider just how many supers Syndrome took out, they had to have tracked it back to the source.

But what if Syndrome was providing tech to the government? What if he pointed out just how much money they were costing the government? How much time and resources wasted monitoring them? And especially how they are still a threat to the government if they or especially their children were to turn against it?

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    Ehhh... Incredible's handler only seemed to get involved when the situation warranted. If there was no news, and no collateral damage, would they look? Or just assume that since they're not hamming it up from the nearest skyscraper, that they just cut ties and went somewhere even less known? They're supers, what could possibly happen to them? Maybe a few handlers tried to investigate, but Syndrome's entire schtick would've made the handlers the first people they'd deceive.
    – Radhil
    Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 23:36
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    Also Syndrome seemed to be working on taking out supers over the course of several years, maybe as long as 20 years. It's possible the drop in supers was gradual enough the government didn't pick up on it
    – childcat15
    Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 23:50

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It's not clear what the feds knew but there's absolutely no indication that the govt knew that Syndrome was killing supers, nor that they wouldn't have immediately tried to stop him if they'd found out.


As to the question of why the National Supers Agency aren't doing something about it, the people tasked with hiding the supers (notably Rick Dicker) do appear to have knowledge of their secret identities but only seems to involve itself in their affairs when they accidentally reveal their powers, and then only to help the supers to remain hidden rather than investigating what they're up to.

Beyond that, the detection of mysterious superhero disappearances appears to be a simple police matter, one dealt with by "local authorities".

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There's also a few other things to take into account:

  • The implication is that the "Supers" department has been heavily de-funded since the supers were forced underground. Rick Dicker complains about the extravagance of having to relocate the family again.

  • The disappearances have happened over an extended period of time (certainly years and potentially decades), making any sort of pattern hard to spot.

  • The missing superheroes are likely to be from all over the US, meaning that there's less chance for the connection to be made by local police.

  • Mirage actively encourages the supers to lie to their loved ones about their movements. The police are far less likely to assume foul play if they find that the disappeared person has been leading a double life.

  • The supers lack any sort of centralised communication among each other. The winnowing of their numbers has evidently gone unnoticed.

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