Are comic book heroes more willing to kill?

[Vendetta]

It occurs to me that, if you are a superhero, one of the motives for the "no-kill code" is that it stops you from sliding down the slippery slope of justifying more and more collateral damage.

I don't know as it's ever been expressed, but I think the best justification Superman could give is "I'm only one man, I might be wrong".

[mr friendly guy]

Sorry, never read that series. How did wanting to provide electricity and water to everybody make him evil? Or was it the methods he used to do it?

Never read it myself and most probably not likely to. But I thought they were worried the Phoenix force would be devastating to Earth. Or was that before Cyclops got possessed by it.

Although in answer to your question, I am tempted to say socialism or a topsy turvy morality - after all, the Avengers now have 2 people who tried to commit genocide on their team, so go figure.

[mr friendly guy]

Along those lines, how does the Nova Corps keep coming back. Xandar has been destroyed three times and somehow the Nova Corps keeps on going. At the beginning of Annihilation it was sort of a WTF? moment that there was a Nova Corps with made up of many species and some how Richard Rider was the punk ass rookie. He had been Nova Prime during Xandar's previous war with the Skrulls, and then essentially the only member of the corps left for a couple of significant periods, but somehow the corp was back and firmly established without him having any role in it happening.

Geez that description of the Nova Corps sound strangely familiar. Why don't they just have Richard Rider chanting "In Brightest day, In Blackest Night, No evil shall escape my sight, Let those who worship evil's might, Beware my power, Green Lantern's Nova's light. Yeah I know, comics copy from each other.

[Vendetta]

Never read it myself and most probably not likely to. But I thought they were worried the Phoenix force would be devastating to Earth. Or was that before Cyclops got possessed by it.

That was what started the problem.

The Avengers were basically "Hey, the Phoenix Force might be dangerous, you better hand over the person it's coming to use as a host to the Avengers because we totally know how to deal with something we've never had any dealings with and you don't even if you have former hosts experiences to draw. PS our buddy Wolverine thinks we should kill the host out of hand. PPS this is not a request and we have an army ready to seize her if you don't hand her over".

It only posessed Cyclops (And Emma, Namor, Colossus, and Magik) after Tony Stark tried to shoot it. (Yeah, that's a plan, it's the embodiment of life and creation, shooting it is definitely clever).

[mr friendly guy]

I thought Eternity was the embodiment of life and creation. I thought the Phoenix force was the embodiment of psychic energy or some such stuff. Or was that retcon out of existence too?

Its stories like this that makes me glad I now read a lot of comics from free sources, eg libraries etc. If my teenage self ever paid for this, I would have slapped myself.

Edit- to be fair, I still love DC. I find Marvel a bit of a mixed bag.

[Vendetta]

I thought Eternity was the embodiment of life and creation. I thought the Phoenix force was the embodiment of psychic energy or some such stuff. Or was that retcon out of existence too?

That too, consistency is not a staple feature of Marvel cosmology.

[eyl]

It occurs to me that, if you are a superhero, one of the motives for the "no-kill code" is that it stops you from sliding down the slippery slope of justifying more and more collateral damage.

In the case of someone like Batman, that 'collateral damage' takes the form of him turning into a Rorschach-like figure who routinely beats, tortures, or kills people without good justification for doing so.

In the case of someone like Superman it's even worse- because Superman's power to cause collateral damage is almost unlimited. As long as he's trying to limit it, things don't become transcendently horrible. But if Superman convinces himself that it's okay to kill a thousand people to stop a threat that would otherwise kill ten thousand... over the long haul Superman would rack up one hell of a bodycount. The awareness of just how much damage he could do to innocent people if he ever stopped caring probably contributes greatly to Superman's absolutist ethical code.

A think, though, that there's a distinction to be made between killing x innocents to save y innocents, where y>>x...and a case where the prospective killee is the supervillian who keeps on escaping and killing after every time he's stopped. (e.g. the Joker)

[Batman]

On a marginally related note, I think recent (as in Timmverse and on) superhero animation did a damned good job of showing what the collateral damage would look like (I don't think they ever show people actually dieing but they do a damn good job of showing damage that would inevitably result in scores of people dieing) and that's with at least the upper-edge heroes being severely depowered.

As for why I don't kill the Joker, as S_J said, that'd be where it starts. Why not kill the rest of them, too? I'd go down Punisher road.
A much more interesting question is why does nobody else? It would take Wally what, about a billionth of a second to sneak into Joker's cell, snap his neck, and be off without anybody ever noticing he was there?

You're not going to find a sensible in-universe reason for the no-killing rule because ultimately, there isn't one.

[RogueIce]

I suppose Batman could just snap the Joker's neck when he's holding a gun, or the trigger to a bomb or whatever else and it would be classified as justifiable homicide. But then, Batman's Super Kung-Fu usually means he can disarm a dangerous opponent without killing them, so that's what he does.

Besides, it's not like he can just make a sworn statement to the GCPD about it. Not without that whole secret identity thing getting in the way.

Similar to Superman. Sure, if some bad guy was pointing a gun at Lois Lane Supes could just fry him with his heat vision. But he has plenty of less-lethal options available, like super-speeding in front of the crook and squishing the gun in his hand before the dastardly villain ever has a chance to pull the trigger.

But doing something like snapping the Joker's neck while he's in Arkham would be straight-up murder, even if no jury in Gotham would ever convict somebody who killed the Joker, even if they just up and shoot the Clown Prince of Crime right in front of GCPD headquarters with a dozen news cameras filming the scene live across the whole world.

[Sidewinder]

As for why I don't kill the Joker, as S_J said, that'd be where it starts. Why not kill the rest of them, too? I'd go down Punisher road.
A much more interesting question is why does nobody else? It would take Wally what, about a billionth of a second to sneak into Joker's cell, snap his neck, and be off without anybody ever noticing he was there?

You're not going to find a sensible in-universe reason for the no-killing rule because ultimately, there isn't one.

Remember when Maxwell Lord used mind-control to make Superman beat the shit out of Batman, and then try to kill Wonder Woman? When Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord in order to free Superman from his mind-control, and then tried to justify her actions to a wheelchair-bound Batman, Batman angrily told her, "Get out [of the Batcave]."

This kind of inflexible, holier-than-thou attitude is one reason 4chan and TV Tropes have articles equating the "Lawful Good" alignment with "Lawful Stupid".

[avatarxprime]

The traditional superhero stance against killing or, more specifically, being against killing in any situation (even that of self-defence) has always rung hollow to me. Out of universe it's always been nothing more than a transparent ploy to maintain sales (there can't be any thrilling superheroics if all of their enemies are dead, after all). In-universe it's just too inflexible and lacks nuance. For me, the first and foremost duty of a superhero should be the protection of the innocent not of all life. It's an important distinction that many of the mainstream superheroes miss. They hold the perpetrator and the victim in the same regard. That somehow the unrepentant, superpowered serial killer/rapist is in the same league as the law-abiding citizen. Unlike them I do not believe that all life is precious. If an incredibly powerful superhuman psychopath with a known track record of mass-murder is rampaging through a city and it's a choice between the bad guy and the innocents in his or her path then there should no dilemma as to what should be done. You put the maniac down and you pick the innocents every time. This isn't the real world where the guilt of criminals is up for debate and things are more ambiguous. Many of the supervillains that the heroes face are irredeemable monsters. And yet they keep locking them up in useless holding facilities that only hold them for so long. Rehabilitation usually isn't a possibility so via this approach they're allowing these degenerates to effectively get away with murder repeatedly.

Well the issue here is not the heroes, it's society at large. Mass murdering villains shouldn't be locked up repeatedly when they show that they are clearly capable of getting out and repeating their actions. Now certainly there are issues with the death penalty and such, but it's not a superhero's job to kill a villain, it's society's job to determine an adequate punishment and maintain the safety of the public. In Superman vs the Elite they deal with this issue and why Superman doesn't go around ending baddies. Although given the way he resolved the conflict in the end the argument can certainly be made as to "why don't you do this all the time?"

I thought Eternity was the embodiment of life and creation. I thought the Phoenix force was the embodiment of psychic energy or some such stuff. Or was that retcon out of existence too?

That too, consistency is not a staple feature of Marvel cosmology.

The Phoenix is supposed to be all the life that has yet to come.

[Adrian McNair]

Well the issue here is not the heroes, it's society at large. Mass murdering villains shouldn't be locked up repeatedly when they show that they are clearly capable of getting out and repeating their actions. Now certainly there are issues with the death penalty and such, but it's not a superhero's job to kill a villain, it's society's job to determine an adequate punishment and maintain the safety of the public.

Except heroes are a part of the societies that they've chosen to protect. They do not exist in a vacuum. And yes society, as a whole and from the superhero perspective, is very much culpable when it comes to the supervillain problem. Society for not imposing more permanent measures upon repeat offenders and the superheroes themselves for not ending the threat when they were in a position to do so. I'm curious though, what exactly do you expect "society" (in this context the police and armed forces) to do against degenerates that can destroy entire cities/towns? Superheroes are usually the only ones who are capable of taking the fight to the enemy. Citing the law as an excuse for why something hasn't been done only goes so far (and is quite fruitless given that the people who devised those laws didn't have metahumans in mind).

Despite what you claim there is no fixed definition of what a "hero" is. I've already elaborated my position on that in the post you've quoted. You clearly have a different opinion.

[Simon_Jester]

Once the heroes have captured them, the question is, why does the law not end the threat permanently? You'd think that the people of Gotham would be going "dammit, DEATH PENALTY!" every time the Joker commits a crime, and you'd think that by now they'd have pressured the state government to allow it, because this guy has a body count in the triple or quadruple digits.

The heroes, being private citizens who are by nature incapable of administering due process, have every reason to be restrained about willfully killing other people. The law can afford to take its time and ensure that justice is done... so if anyone should be killing the Joker, it should be the courts.

[Batman]

Forget triple digits. Try seven figure. (Yes, it got that bad during 'Last Laugh'). And last time I did try to kill the Joker, Gordon shot at me to get me to stop. James Gordon. The man who had his daughter crippled (before she got better thanks to the nu52) and his wife murdered by the Joker. Who has seen the things the Joker does up close and personal time and again-didn't want me to kill the Joker, because I was definitely not acting in self defense at the time and whether or not the Joker got to live was for the courts to decide.

Would the world be a better place without the villains we refuse to kill? Absolutely. But we're not the only ones refusing to kill, and the governments that accept those villains into custody again...and again...and AGAIN without bothering to execute them (and yes, sorry, they DO have the technology to) are easily as culpable-more so, arguably, because they would be doing so 'legally' .

[Simon_Jester]

Complexes aside...

What it comes down to is that superheroes' "thou shalt not kill" codes make a lot more sense in the context of their own setting than society seemingly honoring the same code.

Granted, in some cases it'd take someone with the powers of a Superman to actually carry out the sentence of execution on planet-threatening villains.

But even so, if society is not willing to put such people to death as part of the due process of law, why should we be surprised if random vigilantes object to doing so on general principles?

[Adrian McNair]

Once the heroes have captured them, the question is, why does the law not end the threat permanently? You'd think that the people of Gotham would be going "dammit, DEATH PENALTY!" every time the Joker commits a crime, and you'd think that by now they'd have pressured the state government to allow it, because this guy has a body count in the triple or quadruple digits.

Oh you'd think so but the DC Universe is apparently Bizarro-world when it comes to that sort of thing:

After his battle with the Dollmaker, Batman is trying to keep peace in an increasingly restless Gotham City. With the flesh from Joker’s face hanging in the Gotham City Police Department, many people believe that Batman has killed the Joker. This causes a lot of anti-Batman and even pro-Joker sentiment.

I believe this is more New-52 related idiocy.

The heroes, being private citizens who are by nature incapable of administering due process, have every reason to be restrained about willfully killing other people. The law can afford to take its time and ensure that justice is done... so if anyone should be killing the Joker, it should be the courts.

Private in the sense of their true identities but their roles in the world are quite public. They have a greater responsibility than helping cats out of trees or foiling bank robberies. When it comes to the importance of this task, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual. How many more need to die before a line gets drawn?

Really? The courts? I'm assuming you have more faith in the American criminal justice system (fictional or otherwise) than I do but what makes you think that the trial of the Joker would be anything less than a gridlocked, media-circus that wouldn't be resolved for years (giving the Joker plenty of time to exploit things to his advantage)? No, it's much more efficient to take care of him in the field. It's been said that someone could shoot the Joker with a .50BMG sniper rifle at a range in excess of a thousand yards and it would still be ruled as self defense. I fully agree with that quote. Unironically.

And what's with all of the fixation on the Joker in this thread? There are far worse threats than him in that setting that unambiguously warrant a lethal response. A few competent (meaning not hobbled by the plot) SWAT teams could handle him. No pointless trial required.

What it comes down to is that superheroes' "thou shalt not kill" codes make a lot more sense in the context of their own setting than society seemingly honoring the same code.

Even if the setting can be really fucking stupid about it as shown in the scans_daily example? If that's the "moral" way then call me "immoral."

Granted, in some cases it'd take someone with the powers of a Superman to actually carry out the sentence of execution on planet-threatening villains.

And that's been one of my points in this thread. More than a few of these repeat-offenders are impervious to conventional means and superheroes are the only ones in a position to stop them. C'mon, is lethal injection or the electric chair even a possibility with someone like Darkseid? I'd love to see them try.

But even so, if society is not willing to put such people to death as part of the due process of law, why should we be surprised if random vigilantes object to doing so on general principles?

It's not surprise so much as contempt in my case. Contempt for their inflexibility and their unwillingness to do what needs to be done. When you're dealing with a tumor you don't remove it from one part of your body and place it in another. You excise it completely. It's not moral to let that fester and metastasize.

[mr friendly guy]

After his battle with the Dollmaker, Batman is trying to keep peace in an increasingly restless Gotham City. With the flesh from Joker’s face hanging in the Gotham City Police Department, many people believe that Batman has killed the Joker. This causes a lot of anti-Batman and even pro-Joker sentiment.

I believe this is more New-52 related idiocy.
.

Wow. I will look at the scans later, but if that's true they brought this brand of stupidity over to regular people and not just psychiatrists. I mean we see psychiatrists like what's her name in Spiderman worried about special forces actually hurting Carnage (who is her patient). Geez doc, what about the civilians and special forces Carnage could hurt?

This is why I really enjoyed the sense of poetic justice and irony in the Dark Knight Returns, when the psychiatrist is saying how the Joker's actions are all the fault of the Batman. On live television. Only for the Joker to kill him in a brutal way. That would be an interesting Darwin award. The problem IMO with these types in real life, is that they never have to face the consequences of their actions, they never have to deal with being relative to murder victims. Just look at those people who marry death row inmates while in jail or Manson gropies. Or the people who say Tookie is such a nice guy because he wrote a few books.

Edit - now that I think about it, given the number of people supporting Tookie I would say DC just took these numbers and multiplied it a couple of times. Arguably they didn't take blood from a stone as such people exist in real life and perhaps calling it Bizarro world is a bit unfair. Its still bullshit though. But clearly people with such views do exist in numbers.

[biostem]

I would argue that since many superheroes operate in an unauthorized/unaffiliated status, they may choose not to kill so that the public & government's remain somewhat on their side and/or tolerant of their activities. There are many cases where a hero is framed for killing some villain, so if they make sure to adhere to a strict no-killing code, they at least have some leg to stand on when it comes to clearing themselves of the charge. In a meta-reason, if they killed the villains, then it's be tough to keep writing comics about them, (or at least more difficult).

Think about it - the Joker is just a guy - crazy, clever, whatever you may say about him, a cop could easily end all his evil with 1 well placed shot, and no one would bat an eye, (no pun intended).

[avatarxprime]

The heroes, being private citizens who are by nature incapable of administering due process, have every reason to be restrained about willfully killing other people. The law can afford to take its time and ensure that justice is done... so if anyone should be killing the Joker, it should be the courts.

Private in the sense of their true identities but their roles in the world are quite public. They have a greater responsibility than helping cats out of trees or foiling bank robberies. When it comes to the importance of this task, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual. How many more need to die before a line gets drawn?

It's not their decision to make, they are still private citizens without the power to decide who lives and dies. If they decided to go kill a villain it would not be a lawful act unless they were doing it in a case where self-defense could be argued, and even then you would still need them to agree to an investigation into the incident. Superheroes are vigilantes acting outside the law and their presence and actions are tolerated so long as they are considered doing more good than harm on balance and even then that doesn't mean people can't have it in for them, just look at Spider-Man, or even the scans_daily posting you linked. As they are not representatives of the law they have no legal authority to punish a defeated villain, for that matter, neither would a police officer in a similar situation. Once a "bad guy" has been subdued the normal procedure, real world or comic book world, would be to restrain them and put them on trial for their actions. You'll notice that summary executions aren't really a thing in normal law enforcement, in fact if an officer has to fire their weapon there is a review on that action regardless of the outcome. That seems to be the issue here though, you seem to be taking the position of this being a war, what with "taking the fight to the enemy," but it's not, this is a case of good Samaritans making citizen arrests writ large. Superheroes should not be prosecuting wars of their own accord, that's the job of nations. Now if superheroes were like Savage Dragon and actually were trained in the art of policing then they could act in a manner more like what you suggest, but even then they would be bound by the same code of conduct as any representative of the law.

And what's with all of the fixation on the Joker in this thread? There are far worse threats than him in that setting that unambiguously warrant a lethal response. A few competent (meaning not hobbled by the plot) SWAT teams could handle him. No pointless trial required.

Except that due process is a requirement in the Constitution, and no matter how villainous these individuals might be, they should still be afforded the protections therein enshrined otherwise you make it that much easier to weaken them for everyone. Now there are certainly villains not of US citizenship that would not be protected by the Constitution and these foreign nationals could be targeted, heck the US already does it in real life, but again, that is a decision made by people entrusted with the authority to make it, not some random person who just so happened to decide to put on a costume and punch bad guys.

Granted, in some cases it'd take someone with the powers of a Superman to actually carry out the sentence of execution on planet-threatening villains.

And that's been one of my points in this thread. More than a few of these repeat-offenders are impervious to conventional means and superheroes are the only ones in a position to stop them. C'mon, is lethal injection or the electric chair even a possibility with someone like Darkseid? I'd love to see them try.

Except in comic book worlds, societies have access to super tech themselves with which they can deal with most superpowered threats (once they've been subdued), heck pre-nu52 Metropolis had Science Police that used super tech to deal with supervillains, why more polities didn't develop similar organizations to deal with badies is unknown, the issue really seems to be that the people in these worlds just don't care enough. Now out of universe it's the fact that they want the "real world" + supers rather than a realistic world with supers.

[mr friendly guy]

I think we need to differentiate
a) killing a villain virtually execution style (ie villain was almost helpless) and being open about it - for example the Authority had Midnighter using a STOP sign and decapating a villain who was begging for his life, or the Elites (DC comics) executing a helpless Atomic Skull in the cartoon where they fight Superman, or Thor killing Loki in the classical series after a defeated Loki blasts an innocent human as a parting shot after admitting defeat.

b) killing a villain virtually execution style (ie villain was almost helpless) and then claiming self defense - that is lying. I can't think of anyone off hand who fits this mold

c) killing a villain in self defence because they used lethal force in combat - this could easily happen between powerhouses. The example that springs to mind is Superman killing Doomsday in the Death of Superman (before we or any of the heroes in DC knew Doomsday will just come alive again). Although Superman again killed Doomsday in the current series, although he didn't really kill him because Spoiler

new 52 Doomsday can possess another body through spores.

In this case a good case for self defence could be made if the villains had the power to threaten the heroes. So if Supes killed the Joker it might be hard to justify, unless the Joker had kryptonite on hand. Of course with the way US self defence laws work, Supes (if he was so inclined) could make a case that he suspected the Joker had kryptonite (even if he didn't) and get away with it if it could prove a reasonable suspicion, eg the Joker had a lead case, kryptonite was reported stolen from Star Labs etc.

Now if this was Supes vs Despero or Darkseid or Doomsday, it most probably wouldn't be an issue.

d) going out of your way not to kill, even though the villain is at least comparable power level if not more powerful

Most "classical" interpretations of Superheroes behave like this. It gets ridiculous when sometimes the way to stop the villain is to kill them. For example post crisis Wonder Woman killing Maxwell Lord after he had mindcontrolled Supes to attack WW. There is clearly a case here that Supes is more powerful than WW and WW is further disadvantaged because she doesn't want to kill Supes, while he was willing to kill her. Yet she is blamed for doing that.

[Adrian McNair]

It's not their decision to make, they are still private citizens without the power to decide who lives and dies. If they decided to go kill a villain it would not be a lawful act unless they were doing it in a case where self-defense could be argued, and even then you would still need them to agree to an investigation into the incident. Superheroes are vigilantes acting outside the law and their presence and actions are tolerated so long as they are considered doing more good than harm on balance and even then that doesn't mean people can't have it in for them, just look at Spider-Man, or even the scans_daily posting you linked. As they are not representatives of the law they have no legal authority to punish a defeated villain, for that matter, neither would a police officer in a similar situation. Once a "bad guy" has been subdued the normal procedure, real world or comic book world, would be to restrain them and put them on trial for their actions. You'll notice that summary executions aren't really a thing in normal law enforcement, in fact if an officer has to fire their weapon there is a review on that action regardless of the outcome.

Firstly, I could care less about what a broken system that allows maniacs to roam free considers to be legal or illegal. It's hardly flawless or beyond criticism. Secondly, they're vigilantes - what they do falls outside of the law regardless. I'm arguing for how things should be not how they are. You can cite all of the laws and legal precedents you wish but it will not change the fact that I believe that certain heroes have been far, far too lenient (to an appalling degree) with certain individuals who deserve to die. So no, clinging to the law will not get you far with me.

The very fact that you use that scans_daily link to support your argument instead of viciously ripping into the blithering idiots showcased within says it all. These pathetic fools are staging an Occupy-style protest for a sub-human who would gleefully butcher them all. If they believed that Batman had killed the Joker then they should have pinned a medal to his chest not opposed him. In fact there's a fun little story from Adrian Tullberg that deals with this subject (only it's the Huntress who dispenses justice). I enjoyed it greatly.

And why the hell are you putting the words "bad guy" in quotation marks? These people are pretty unambiguously evil. Are you really so dispassionate that you can't recognise that fact? You may or may not have noticed that I've been using the words "repeat offenders" throughout this thread. You may find this difficult to believe but I'm not advocating that superheroes should kill first-time offenders or ordinary criminals (within reason of course. If a first-time supervillain is a danger to the entire world then lethal force should definitely be a possibility). No, it's the brutal recidivists that I have a problem with. And there are many of them in the DC/Marvel universes.

That seems to be the issue here though, you seem to be taking the position of this being a war, what with "taking the fight to the enemy," but it's not, this is a case of good Samaritans making citizen arrests writ large. Superheroes should not be prosecuting wars of their own accord, that's the job of nations. Now if superheroes were like Savage Dragon and actually were trained in the art of policing then they could act in a manner more like what you suggest, but even then they would be bound by the same code of conduct as any representative of the law.

Oh, but it is a war. There's often this misconception that superheroes are merely glorified "aid workers" or "emergency personnel" but that's incorrect. They're not firefighters or EMTs. The scope and scale of their powers proves that to be an oversimplification. They can do so much more than be "good Samaritans making citizens arrests writ large." They're soldiers on the front-line of a perpetual conflict. Batman considers what he does to be a "war on crime." He may prosecute that war in an inefficient manner but his terminology is correct. Following that line of thought, the Justice League is undoubtedly an army. One could argue that with the technologies and resources at their disposal that they are an N.G.O. superpower. So what do you do with an unaffiliated army? You put them under the command of an international governmental body (some new branch of the United Nations devised for this context) and put them to work. Give them the proper training but put them to work. There should be no further debate on that score.

Except that due process is a requirement in the Constitution, and no matter how villainous these individuals might be, they should still be afforded the protections therein enshrined otherwise you make it that much easier to weaken them for everyone. Now there are certainly villains not of US citizenship that would not be protected by the Constitution and these foreign nationals could be targeted, heck the US already does it in real life, but again, that is a decision made by people entrusted with the authority to make it, not some random person who just so happened to decide to put on a costume and punch bad guys.

Even though they repeatedly make a mockery of that very constitution on a daily basis. Right. No, fuck the system that allows the Joker and others like him to continue to draw breath! It's not a system worth supporting. It is one that has failed its citizens. This isn't the real world where escape attempts are rare and the guilt of criminals is up for debate. In these realities we have mountains of damning evidence to condemn the perpetrators with. Here, escapes by supervillains and the inevitable bloody rampages that follow are a fact of life. It's baffling that you think this is an acceptable status-quo. If these monsters existed in the real-world then they would be dead by now and we would be glad (excluding the lunatic fringe who would be broken up about it, of course).

At best your line of thinking is a false equivalency. They're different universes so different standards should apply.

Except in comic book worlds, societies have access to super tech themselves with which they can deal with most superpowered threats (once they've been subdued), heck pre-nu52 Metropolis had Science Police that used super tech to deal with supervillains, why more polities didn't develop similar organizations to deal with badies is unknown, the issue really seems to be that the people in these worlds just don't care enough. Now out of universe it's the fact that they want the "real world" + supers rather than a realistic world with supers.

It's interesting that you sidestepped the Darkseid/similarly-powered individuals issue entirely (because it would invalidate your point). But thanks for reinforcing just how poorly constructed these settings are, nonetheless.

[mr friendly guy]

The very fact that you use that scans_daily link to support your argument instead of viciously ripping into the blithering idiots showcased within says it all. These pathetic fools are staging an Occupy-style protest for a sub-human who would gleefully butcher them all. If they believed that Batman had killed the Joker then they should have pinned a medal to his chest not opposed him. In fact there's a fun little story from Adrian Tullberg that deals with this subject (only it's the Huntress who dispenses justice). I enjoyed it greatly.

Reminds me of this.

There was something I liked about this scene. Not the Joker murdering an entire studio. But the scene when that self righteous psychiatrist who most likely has zero empathy with murder victims talks about how its not the Joker's fault blah blah blah. Then the Joker kills him to show just how wrong he is. In real life some of these apologists for mass murderers, eg Manson groupies, Tookie supporters never get to experience the evil of the person they support. Not only do they have zero empathy, they are most probably not smart enough to intellectually grasp that these people are dangerous and bad.

[biostem]

This discussion kind of reminds me of how stupid it is in many comics/cartoons will depict supervillains being kept in jail while wearing their costume. You'd think that a major part of holding them would be to strip them of their villainous identity. Of course, these same mediums frequently depict the guards as not only incompetent, but also mocking said clothed supervillains.

Speaking of which, even if someone was declared insane, isn't there something better than continually throwing them in the same asylum they escaped from numerous time in the past? You'd think that someone as untreatable as the Joker would have been thoroughly searched, prevented form having visitors, and locked in solitary forever - not even being put in a room w/ bars or a window.

There was one Justice League or Justice League unlimited episode where they visited an alternate earth where Superman just decided to lobotomize the repeat offender villains using his heat ray... if killing them is out, then this seems like a good alternative.

[Majin Gojira]

The average Super Hero writer's knowledge of the legal system and/or implementation of how it actually works (or is supposed to work) is often laughable for many reasons. Unfortunately, this conversation's path has lead me to one time that it did happen and how the writer in charge of it completely fumbled the ball on almost every conceivable level.

I'm talking, of course, about Avengers Arena/Avengers Undercover and Dennis "Aptly Named"/"Deal with It" Hopeless.

Here's the scenario: the villain Arcade kidnapped a bunch of teenage supers and pulled off the lamest Forced to Fight story in a Hunger Games/Battle Royal knockoff that I have ever seen (and I've seen some bad ones). Characters died, the villain escapes and then posts the entire thing to Youtube where it somehow becomes very popular. One of their number goes a bit more nuts than the rests and goes on a quest to find Arcade because the adult heroes haven't. And he does, by getting in bed with Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil. Trying to save their fellow survivor, the others mount a raid to get him out--only to wind up Shanghaied into his Revenge mission. One of them goes Catatonic at the mere sight of Arcade, (he's running repeats of his game because rich people wanted to try their own luck at it -- yes, really), but they manage to pull through and defeat the villain.

As Arcade monologues a bit, the one in catatonia snaps, echoes the words Arcade said before he killed the one person who loved her, and returns the favor.

The story and several characters go on and on about how this incident (both the game and this incident are recorded by the villain, by the by) are Murder One. I can see the Prosecution try for it if they're total dickheads (it's the Marvel Universe, so that's almost a given), but this one can easily be reduced to Voluntary Manslaughter, and with other circumstances it could be settled out of court faster than you could say "Plea Bargain".

1) The defendant is a Minor.
2) The victim was given a level of global hate that's really hard to defend against.
3) SHIELD is always wants super human recruits

The idea that it's Murder 1 and not Voluntary Manslaughter is laughable. But this is a writer who has the 'moral voice' of the group be a space pirate who was caught in the act of siphoning fuel from a spaceship, which could very easily kill people vicariously. Also, Hostis Humani Generis and all that. The rampant hypocrisy of this is utterly lost on the writer and the story suffers greatly for it -- and this is just one of the many structural problems with these works.

But the writer's currently sticking to his guns and providing an out of "Arcade's not really dead!" which may play into just how contrived this tanking series has been. It's like the "Night in Sickbay"/"Star Trek: Nemesis" of Marvel Teen Heroes. If it weren't for Young Avengers and Ms. Marvel, it might very well have buried the whole sub-genre. Instead, it's probably just going to bury Runaways, Avengers Academy and complete the abortion of the authors OCs.

So yeah, this is a good topic for discussion, but most times when a writer tries to work on these stories within the comics, we get this sort of bullshit.

[avatarxprime]

Except in comic book worlds, societies have access to super tech themselves with which they can deal with most superpowered threats (once they've been subdued), heck pre-nu52 Metropolis had Science Police that used super tech to deal with supervillains, why more polities didn't develop similar organizations to deal with badies is unknown, the issue really seems to be that the people in these worlds just don't care enough. Now out of universe it's the fact that they want the "real world" + supers rather than a realistic world with supers.

It's interesting that you sidestepped the Darkseid/similarly-powered individuals issue entirely (because it would invalidate your point). But thanks for reinforcing just how poorly constructed these settings are, nonetheless.

What? I side-stepped nothing. I pointed out that in comicbooks, people have access to super tech they can use on individuals to carry out prison sentences or executions as determined by the courts. Even someone like Darkseid can be stopped, however that particular example has other issues you seem to be glossing over, like oh say the fact that he is a multiversal entity and can't actually be permanently killed without straight away destroying and rebuilding the multiverse, but hey, don't let facts get in the way of your opinions.

As to the rest of your post, you don't like recidivist supervillains, particularly the mass murdering kind, congratulations I'd say that means you agree with everyone who has posted in this thread. Now in your opinion superheroes should go ahead and just off these villains. Well guess what, that's your opinion and not a universal truism no matter how strongly you seem to hold to it, which I would say is rather strong seeing as you are saying you don't care about the law or the Constitution in these matters when the legal system is fully capable of dealing with these individuals. In the real world these supervillains would be dealt with, either properly imprisoned or executed as determined by the courts, which is as it should be. Superheroes are at their core regular people gifted with extraordinary power (even the non-powered heroes are basically low level supers) and are not duly trained and appointed representatives of the law and should not be handing out punishments. They are vigilantes and they are tolerated because they do not cross enough lines in their action that the general public in their respective worlds call for action against them. When they do cross those lines it tends to go down one of two ways, either the line crossing hero triumphs and takes over the world, or they are stopped (often with lethal force) and the world just gets that much worse as the infighting between heroes means you lose heroes to fight the villains.

You seem to be incapable of understanding that people would be uncomfortable (at minimum) with the idea of individuals who answer to no one distributing justice as they best see fit. Now your suggestion of having heroes, who are willing, to function under the auspices of some larger multinational framework to punish villains that have been deemed guilty under the law is fine, they could function as an arm of the international court even, but superheroes taking it upon themselves to deal out death in any circumstance other than justifiable self-defense (just as any citizen or even police officer might) and not having to deal with the consequences just because the person they killed was a bad person is wrong and an act of evil in and of itself (a lesser evil than the likes of the target given these are supervillains we are talking about) and that should be understood. It doesn't matter how good it feels or how understandable it is, that is erroneous justification.