A lampshade on "Heroes don't kill", plus a few other gems from JLA/Hitman

[thelazyreader]

Garth Ennis doesn't like superheroes. Among others, his reason being that he can't stomach the rigid 'Thou shall not kill' rule that most superheroes live by (often reinforced by editorial mandates) when in real life there are practical situations that necessitate, if not justify the need for deadly force, whether by cops, soldiers or even civilians.

So this was basically the key issue in his JLA/Hitman 2-issue series, where he made Kyle Rayner the 'straight man' of the story, voicing the layman's opinion regarding certain superhero policies.






Don't tell me you've never considered those points yourself. Interesting how superheroes generally just answer to the tune of "That's how it is. Accept it." when faced with such questions.

On a lighter vein, since I have several pages to go, a few humorous scans from the series.

-Tommy's would-be assassins arguing over who gives the orders.




-Tommy's pal Natt introducing his new girlfriend.




-Learning what became of all the forgotten spin-off characters from DC's old Bloodlines crossover.



-And the US President's dialogue during the whole fiasco.





 

Comments

[arbre_rieur]

The whole notion that superheroes find killing wrong in all circumstances is a bit of a strawman the actual stories don't support. When they have a problem with it, it's usually either because the killer did not act in self-defense or because, while it was in self-defense, alternate non-lethal methods were readily available at the time. (I believe an important point in the Flash trial story was that Kid Flash testified that there were non-lethal methods the Flash could have used to stop Zoom.) They don't really have a problem when killing is the *only* way. There are probably some oddball stories where the characters seem to follow a hard 'no killing whatsoever' stance, but they're outliers. When a character's been published for decades, name any characterization, and you'll be able to find at least a few issues that support it.

[thelazyreader]

The issue of Barry's trial was referenced in the Flash: Blitz story arc. Wally told Zolomon that his perspective had changed with experience, and if he had been in Barry's place he'd have done the same thing.