Wandering Observer wrote:And here I thought that the chapter would be a big, long fight scene. Now things get interesting...
sun tzu wrote:Interesting indeed.
"When is it okay for super-heroes to kill?"
Marvel and DC have plenty of heroes with very strict "no killing" rules. Batman and Daredevil have actually gone out of their ways to save homicidal maniacs such as the Joker and Bullseye...But that might have less to do with personnal philosophy than with the writers needing the rogue gallery to stay alive.
To be perfectly honest, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that it's not actually immoral for a hero to kill a supervillain who's himself relying on lethal force - not any more than it's immoral for a policeman to shoot back when a criminal's trying to gun him down. That a super-hero still tries to catch the villain alive isn't then a moral requirement - it's heroic.
Of course, Lightbringer and Linkara have somewhat differing perspectives. Lightbringer's a super-hero who's been assisting the police; Linkara, as far as I can tell, has been waging a war. To Lightbringer, Dark's basically a criminal who has to be arrested; to Linkara, he's an enemy soldier who needs to be killed before he kills you.
At least, that's my interpretation.
For a superhero, though, it's different. The fact that they tend to have powers above and beyond the normal human means that they shouldn't have to resort to the same tactics as a police officer and a soldier.
Linkara wrote:Yeah, I guess it's a matter of opinion on it, but I'd rather have superheroes more willing to save everyone than kill one villain to save the bystanders. To each his own. ^^
Linkara wrote:Well, I just believe that there is always a better alternative than to kill. As a matter of ethics, as I said, I believe taking another life is immoral.
But I don't want that in my superheroes, because I truly believe there's always a better way when it comes to individuals or the small factor. Wars are forces in themselves, primarily beyond the control of individuals because there are too many factors to consider, especially when it comes to the greater good. But then we have individual criminals, be they superpowered or not. Wars are fought over ideologies and the defense of the innocent, but individual criminals serve no positive benefit to society and people like superheroes, who actively choose a dangerous life in order to improve things, should not be willing to implore the same unethical tactics as criminals in order to achieve their goals.
Thirdly, with a suit made compeltely of kryptonite, a chunk of it that large would probably KILL Superman after a brief time of exposure. And even if it didn't, the radiation itself would prevent his heat vision from being activated. But going beyond just those boundaries, the advantage of a shared universe is that Superman is not alone and he has some damned powerful friends. Batman could easily come up with some type of acid that would dissolve the suit or Martian Manhunter could pass through the suit, grab Lexaro, and pulls him out of it. Or Wonder Woman could just punch the damn thing really hard or throw her tiara at Lexaro's head with enough force to not kill him but knock him out. Or, to use a situation from a recent issue of 52, Steel could just beat the crap out of Lexaro.
Fourth, look, I get your point, but I disagree with it. The problem is any smart man can come up with a scenario where a hero might be forced to kill. And you know what? Odds are the hero will probably take the easy way out and just kill the villain and I wouldn't blame them for it. But I'll be damned if they don't at least beat themselves up over something that is unbelievably wrong. No one has the right to take away another person's life, no matter what atrocities they commit. Intention is irrelevant. Should they necessarily be punished for it? No, because circumstances sometimes force people into doing things they wouldn't necessarily do. Like I said, it's still wrong, but sometimes in a crisis situation they don't have the time to think out a different plan. While I wish and hope for them to be able to think up a different plan, odds are they won't be able to in the brief amount of time they have, but what I'm saying is that an alternate, nonlethal plan DOES exist.
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