This one's been brewing in my mind for a couple of weeks now, and I still haven't ordered it terribly well. Just have to see how it goes.
Earlier this month, Chad Nevett was reviewing New Avengers #58, and he mentioned his annoyance with the simplistic morality of superhero comics, where the heroes usually claim that their refusal to kill their foes, no matter how terrible the villain's crimes, makes them better (morally) than the bad guys. Nevett didn't want all heroes to start pulling Frank Castle's and kill every crook, but he would like to have seen some nuance to the debate, rather than just "Killing bad, ALWAYS" which seems to dominate*.
Is it OK to kill a villain? When? How many chances do they get? What kind of effect does it have on the hero to have done that? Does it get harder for them, having killed once, to resist solving more conflicts that way? Does it cause them to lose hope (which is kind of what I was discussing with regards to Star-Lord a couple of days ago), because they feel they failed somehow (Bill Willingham did that with Tim Drake, briefly, at the start of his run on the title)?
I certainly wouldn't mind Norman Osborn biting the dust, but thematically, it feels like Spider-Man ought to do it. This is his arch-foe who's gotten out of control and wrecking lives left and right. Under the proper circumstances, I could see Spider-Man killing** him, though given Norman's regenerative abilities, Spidey would have to get pretty extreme to make it stick. I'm thinking decapitation, and tossing the head and body in separate incinerators, which I'd be uncomfortable seeing Spider-Man do. So maybe I'm not OK with Norman Osborn being killed, after all.
At various points in the past, I've mentioned that I'm a sucker for redemption stories, and I think that's part of the problem for me. Marvel and DC have dozens of characters that were villains and became heroes. Some of them make it stick (Hawkeye), some don't (Spider-Man's Sandman), some yo-yo back and forth (Namor & Quicksilver), some seem to settle comfortably in a gray region (Catwoman, Harley Quinn?). If the hero kills the villain, that removes any possibility of the villain reforming. I would think that for the heroes, knowing that some of their foes have become allies is what gives them strength that it is the right choice not to kill them. They hold out hope that the others will come around too, someday.
We could probably say the Joker is never going to reform, but I wonder if fans in the '60s would have said the same thing if you told them that in 20 years, Sandman was going to be an Avenger. He fought Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four regularly, he can't be a good guy! So how far can the villain go before the hero ought to decide that's enough? If they try to turn things around, but fail (Two-Face, for example), does that buy them some extra chances, or should that be taken as a sign that they'll never reform? Is there a level of property damage, or loss of life which the hero can't excuse by saying "Everyone's life is precious, including yours"? Is it OK if you've beaten them and they're unconscious, to just go ahead and off them, or is it only acceptable if they're actively threatening someone's life at the moment (that's the one I feel can most easily be accommodated, where it's the villain's life or that of Innocent Bystander)? What if the hero is wrong about how how much of a threat the villain is to that innocent life, though? Maybe the villain was bluffing, and now they're dead, and the hero can't take that back, ignoring the seeming ease with which characters return from the dead. Which would be a strike against killing them, since what's the point if they just come back five minutes later?
I think Esther at 4thletter had a good idea when she suggested fewer homicidal maniac villains, more bank robber, art thief, kooky mad scientists out to prove their intellect types. If the hero defeats those villains, and carts them off to jail, it seems more reasonable than to try something similar with Deathstroke after he blows up a city, especially since as readers we know the prisons are wholly inadequate to hold the villains.
I feel like there ought to be situations in which it's acceptable for heroes to kill. Not every hero has to take that opportunity when it's presented though. Whether they do or not, there ought to be some sort of consequences, whether legal, the loss of friends (who died, or disagreed with the choice), or emotional issues (guilt/doubt/worried because there is not guilt or doubt). Preferably, the issue would come up sparingly, because the hero would only occasionally be confronted with a situation that dire.
* At least at Marvel, their cosmic titles don't seem to take this approach, but that could be due to the foes often not being Earthlings, and as Secret Invasion demonstrated, Earth heroes tend to take a more lax attitude toward not killing when it comes to aliens. Annihilus was out to kill everyone in the universe, Nova killed him. Adam Warlock/Magus was going to end up ruling every universe in existence, Star-Lord kills him. Doesn't want to, but he does it.
** Though if he couldn't do it in the immediate aftermath of Norman killing (or assisting in killing if we're going with the "the sudden stop caused by the webbing made her neck to snap" story) Gwen, it's gonna have to be pretty dire.
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4 comments:
I agree. In general killing nameless aliens is almost always fine by the marvel heroes stand point. Back in the 80's, even before wolverine started killing everything that moved the X-men were actually quite psyched at the idea of blowing up an entire planet of aliens (the Brood of course, but still a whole planet). And the Avengers have killed their fair share of Skrulls and Kree over time. In that regard though the heroes are, in one way or another, operating under a limited authority as the defenders of Earth (or in the case of the X-men in Space, the Shi-ar).
I think the argument against killing Earth-based villains though comes down to the central theme of the first Illuminati comic (right before Civil War). At its core the question it asked was who gives these people the right to make decisions for the rest of the world? They were mostly chosen by random chance after all.
If Spider-man does kill Osborne, as much as the guy deserves it, what authority is he operating under? Little more than the argument that might makes right. In that regard then the heroes do start to operate under the same Law as individuals like the Kingpin. Yeah, it's a little black and white, but the heroes are already vigilantes for the most part. Their actions, just by existing, are already shades of gray. The "oath" against killing is what keeps them from sliding entirely into the black.
That's why individual characters like Punisher and Wolverine really strike me almost more as villains than as heroes. If a brand new character was introduced who acted like them, we'd call them villains in most cases.
If I'm not mistaken, Batman used the "maybe he/she can reform" rationale at some point in the past. I think it was actually in reference to Catwoman, actually.
And of course, Catwoman is a good example of the other extreme. Because if anybody deserved a bullet to the head it was the original Black Mask...
An interesting debate, particularly in view of my recent re-reading of the early 90s Deathlok.
Michael Collins was a pacifist, and ordered his computer to institute a "no killing" parameter in any of their actions.
This produced a firestorm in the letters column. For the entire run, every issue had a letter or two insisting (hell, demanding) that Deathlok be allowed to kill.
One note on Osborn/Joker: the decision whether or not the hero should kill them would be considerably more moot if the writers didn't artificially create a situation where they escape from prison/Arkham at least once a year (ie, the writers can't come up with new villains, so they have to keep re-using the old ones). If the comic universes were more like ours (Charles Manson is in prison, he hasn't escaped, and he's never getting out), the debate as to whether heroes might kill their villains would be considerably different...
seangreysoN; I think the some heroes not killing because they're already operating outside the law as is makes a lot of sense. As you said, once the start killing, what's to distinguish them from the folks they fight in the eys of law enforcement (which probably barely tolerate them as is).
I guess government-sponsored superheroes wouldn't have that issue, but they'd probably have to deal with inquiry boards if they killed a villain, to determine if they did the right thing.
diamondrock: I wouldn't doubt it. I was introduced to the idea from another blogger, who brought it up after Dini had Harley Quinn mend her ways.
snell: You're aboslutely right about the prisons. That's why I usually like it when writers try and create new villains (though, Vulcan never grew on me) during their runs. Too bad so few of them seem to catch on.
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