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

[icon_uk]

I have to say I'm tired of the "We're heroes, we don't kill" debate. It's comics, a long form media where annihilating your cast isn't going to work. Just accept the fact that most of them don't and move on, constantly drawing attention to it isn't going to change anything.

And to have Kyle be the one questioning it doesn't work for me, since with the GL ring, he can kill, quite literally, with a thought.

On, and your preview image is way too large, 400x300 is the largest allowed outside a cut

[kagome654]

I just wish there was more distinction made between 'killing when it is an absolute necessity' and 'becoming a bullet spraying executioner.' In these stories, and in comics in general, it's usually the latter that is demonstrated in these arguments. The majority of heroes, given the nature of their abilities, do not NEED to kill anyone, and to use excessive force, which is what it would usually be, would be an abuse of their powers. I'd wager the majority of superheroes could make it through their career without ever having to resort to lethal force because...they're comic book characters, they have so many options and abilities at their disposal.

Also, Kyle, I know what you were getting at, but if you're looking to debate the merits of a certain hard line position I would suggest NOT bringing up the cruelties committed by US military. You're bound to get a knee jerk 'DO NOT WANT' reaction (and not without reason).

[pyrotwilight]

Odd that they would say most were maimed or killed of the Bloodliners. Given the story takes place around the start of Grant Morrison's run or thereabouts none were maimed or murdered for shock value at that point. That didn't start until Infinite Crisis.

Saying they were forgotten is another thing.

And saying the JLA didn't trust people like say England's defender Lionheart over Hitman who they see as a petty criminal still rings odd to me.

[ejne7]

I like that the ex-Spetsnaz guy don't need no big talk to impress people. Just "Spetsnaz."

Not that it does him much good in the end.

[jcbaggee]

Kyle's always kind of been in this role. Anybody else remember when Nero first showed up with the Yellow Ring, and Kyle said "This guy's bad news, we may have to kill him." and immediately every other hero went "Whooooooa, now."

I do agree that it's kind of a tired debate, and one that definitely needs a little rest, but I'm glad some writers at least acknowledge this. A lot of the heroes do have their own personal reasons for adhering to the "No Killing" rule, and for the ones who don't I'm glad they occasionally explore it.

[darrylayo]

The "no killing rules" wouldn't be a big deal if the villains weren't so bloodthirsty themselves.

If Joker is just a bank robber who likes pulling pranks besides, it's easy to say "just lasso him in and lock him up." But nowadays, we have heard that Joker has personally caused over two thousand deaths--TWO THOUSANDS DEATHS--it seems not only naive, but absolutely appalling that nobody's willing to put him underground for good. Especially considering Comic Book Jail's revolving door policy.

It's an argument that does not work because the very nature of the villainy that the bad guys get up to these days is so atrocious that the "HEROES" begin to look like enabling villains because they summarily refuse to stop them.

[turtlefu]

The people against the death penalty are the same people who support this, IMHO.
I mean, if you see that there is no circumstance where it is okay to kill a criminal (no death penalty), then the logical line of reason is that no superhero should kill at all.

[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.

[writeofway]

The "No-Kill Rule" is, like someone said, necessary for the on-going narrative. Otherwise you'd be coming up with different villains every single issue and eventually you'll run out of ideas. Now, in the real world, yes, the no-kill rule would seem impractical and more than a little bit stupid but think about it for a second.

Orbiting the planet in their satellite space station (which has weapons that could, by itself, really screw up a country's day) you have a demigod alien who is immune to all but two things, a man who can kill you without you even knowing he was in the room, a man who can kill you without you even knowing he was in the room with a red costume on and superspeed, a guy whose alien space promise ring makes anything he can think of come to life and kill someone and a woman who makes those other guys uncomfortable and it isn't always because of the bustier.

Not to mention the OTHER last alien of his kind who can mind-fuck you like a pornstar if not use his other dozen superpowers, and a man who is the king of over 70% of the goddamn planet with access to creatures that could make Great Old Ones piss their pants.

Now imagine these people routinely killing their adversaries, someone very very savvy would start whipping up public outcry and fear against those very heroes, to the point where the governments would want them to either knock it off and stop scaring the sheeple, or they'd be sorry. And from there things could devolve into the whole Justice Lords storyline from DCAU very quickly.

The reason the League is accountable for their actions is that they MAKE THEMSELVES accountable (Identity Crisis notwithstanding) and that is why they are the heroes.

[glprime]

"Candy gram for Mongo..."

Perfection.

As for the debate, I think better policies could be instituted for DC and Marvel writers in dealing with this issue of inflexible morality and "Joker Immunity" villains, but I'd say the best thing to be done is showcase a more complex world in a stand-alone original universe.

If I ever do get to script an ongoing, my "metas" would be all over the morality scale, but usually aligned by their power level. Living gods ala Superman would hold themselves to a high moral standard of behavior (and invariably suffer an emotional/mental cost because of it) while low-power or Badass Normal heroes would be very open to permanently offing villains (usually if they're walking WMDs with no compunction against killing innocents and causing property damage; legislation would probably back them up).

New villains needed all the time? Good. It's like real-world crime-fighting. Bust one crime boss, another rises. Large operations become too easy to bust up, smaller local gangs proliferate. And the whole time there's the personal cost of living in this complicated world for character development.

But yeah, most of the DCU/MarvelU couldn't handle that level of complexity (though I wish it could).

[pbalfredo]

Flash's comment about "go join Delta Force if you're keen to play hardball" got me thinking. What if there was a superhero who did kill, but was part of a legitimate military/police/peacekeeping force? As opposed to a Punisher-type vigilante who answers to no one. Would the no-kill heroes likely be fine with a lethal hero who was accountable, or would they constantly give said hero a hard time? Are there any existing heroes like this?

[btravage]

Even the strictest No-Killers such as Superman generally make two exceptions, robots and aliens. While killing a sentient robot is perhaps excusable given that, in comic books at least, a robot can be rebuilt as if nothing ever happened fairly easily. Aliens however are just as fleshy as we humans so what's the deal there? Is everyone in the DCU anthropocentric?

[psychopathicus_rex]

I must say, Natt's behavior here is uncommonly decent for this sort of comic. For all that it is OBVIOUSLY basic decency not to dump someone after such a calamity has occurred to them, it's rare that you see such things expressed by hyper-macho hitman types like these.
Also, I have to wonder - if she's elephant-headed because her genes got mixed up with an elephant's, shouldn't her head be, y'know, the SIZE of an elephant's? I mean, unless it was a baby elephant or something, an actual elephant's head is a hell of a lot larger than that. (Then again, in 'The Fly', which this obviously a reference to, the scientist didn't end up with a regular-sized fly's head, so... yeah.) Also also, if she's got a human-sized elephant's head, does the elephant now have an elephant-sized version of HER head?