Spider-Man: Ve Haf Vays of Making You Talk

[cyberghostface]

 So this page from an earlier issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#685 to be exact) is causing some controversy as seen here in which Spider-Man goes along with some...erm..."enhanced interrogation techniques". I figure I'd post the page in question and let you decide.

Comments

[flidgetjerome]

Does everyone else remember how Dan Slott used to write great, funny comics with a deep understanding of the characters and universe he was working in?

I didn't just imagine that, right?

[tsunamiwombat]

It's hard to say, like so many things it was just...dust in the wind.

[hybrid2]

You to?

I'm so glad I wasing just imagining thing.

I remember a Thing comic,She Hulk others I think.

[auggie18]

Nah, I loved the man's She-Hulk. Main reason I defend him as a writer so much.

Haven't really seen a lot of his other stuff.

[nefrekeptah]

I remember the last time I read a Dan Slott comic that was both funny, fun, and showed an understanding of the character. It must have been, oh, a whole few weeks ago. In the latest Amazing Spider-Man.

[stolisomancer]

This entire storyline has been overwrought almost to the point of parody, but seeing as how he's essentially running a bluff here, I don't really have a problem with it.

I would like to see a scene like this, for once, where the hero actually does have to stop himself or his ally, instead of musing quietly to himself seconds after the bluff paid off that it was a bluff.

[icon_uk]

As they're already dripping the acid on him, isn't the fact it HASN'T hit the magical grain more random chance than anything?

[pyrrhocorax]

Wow, classy >:(

[nyadnar17]

I don't have a problem with this scene so much as I do the treatment of torture in fiction in general. One of the big differences between torture and interrogation(even enhanced interrogation) is than an interrogation takes into account the fact that people lie...people especially lie when they hate you and they have reason to believe you have no other way to verify the information other than their word.


The idea that you can get people to tell you to the truth if you just hurt them enough does neither side of the argument justice and muddles the issue when we in the general public are debating the issue.

[glprime]

Hear, hear.

[stillanerd]

Here's the original article from Colin Smith's Too Busy Thinking About My Comics blog and his follow-up entry:

http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/why-i-loathe-and-despise-spider-man.html
http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.com/2012/06/marvels-steve-wacker-it-seems-on-spider.html#comment-form

Also, not only can the "acidboarding" scene be argued how it's grossly out-of-character for Spidey to take part in, let alone allow, Silver Sable to do this to the Sandman, but it also doesn't work even from a storytelling standpoint. Remember, in the very next issue, Spider-Man is able to convince Mysterio to switch sides by pointing out the simple logic that, if Doc Ock succeeds, then Mysterio will not live to enjoy the full pardon and two billion dollars Doc Ock himself was able to get for all the members of the Sinister Six. This is important because the whole reason why Sandman even joined up with Doc Ock again--something which previous issues and "Ends of the Earth" itself point out--is that he's trying to get his daughter back.

So in light of all this, are Slott and Wacker et al saying there was no other way to get Sandman to cooperate other than to have Silver Sable pour acid on him that could have potentially killed him? Spidey couldn't have pointed out Doc Ock's plan was putting even the life of Sandman's daughter at risk and that if he helped them he was also potentially saving her life? So even the whole notion that Spidey had no other recourse but to do this doesn't even work based on what the story itself already established.

[dr_archeville]

Would that (melting the 'magic grain') even work? I mean, hasn't Sandman been turned into glass, a process which would've altered that 'magic grain'?

[md84]

Maybe it wouldn't work, but how could Sandman know that? Heck he didn't even know the magic grain existed in the first place.

[bewareofgeek]

Pop Quiz:

When you think of Flint Marko, how do you think of him?

1. Classic Spider-Man villain.

2. One-time Avenger.

3. Mainstay of Silver Sable's Wild Pack.

4. Central villain of Spider-Man 3.

5. "Magic grain of sand"

[icon_uk]

1 or 2.

To borrow a phrase from Kitty Pryde's assessment of Magneto "Some people remember the villain, I remember the man who tried to change"

[maseiken]

*Sigh* Do I have to post a scan retrospective of Maximum Carnage now?

Yes. Yes I do.

[lascoden]

I don't have that big of an issue with it. It doesn't cause him any physical pain, so it's a scare tactic. I suppose you could put it as psychological torture, but scare tactics such as this are often used in superhero stories.

[mrstatham]

"There's been some idiots leaving offensive comments which contain the contention that the above scene isn't torture because the Sandman can't feel pain. To those who've accused me of either not reading the page or being plain stupid, may I present the obviously radical idea that terrorising a man with the apparent imminence of the extinction of his consciousness is, pain or not, the text-book definition of torture."

From one of the articles linked to in this thread. It's way, way more than the average scare tactic. What if Marko had refused to tell him?

[md84]

Reminds me of that one scene in Justice League when Flash took a page out of Batman's book and hung a thug off the edge of a building to intimidate him for info -- then actually DROPPED him and ran down the side of the building to give him one more chance.

Somehow it's way creepier when a hero like DCAU Wally West Flash does something like that than when Batman does it.

[silicondream]

Comic Wally's deliberately killed before--Cobalt Blue, Kilg%re, arguably The Suit, possibly some Durlans--although I'm not sure he's killed any biological humans before. He certainly didn't work very hard to keep Savitar's speed ninjas from expiring. And he's also happily threatened thugs with death to get them to talk.

I think of him as someone who doesn't kill because he generally doesn't want to, but (like Barry) would do so if he was pushed hard enough. Whereas Batman's capable of enough rage to want to kill, but doesn't because of his far-more-rigid moral code.

[hazmat]

Disliked this scene intensely. Been enjoying this arc otherwise, but this scene made me go 'ugh'.

[silverzeo]

Anyone else curious how the "infamous" Peter Park' luck turn out for Spidey in this one?

I'm guessing he is right, but everyone else will think he is wrong... maybe even himself...

Or he could just be stone cold wrong...

[jcbaggee]

They already revealed how the Parker Luck took turned out last week. Few blips and then the spoiler...
...
...
...
...
...
...
SPOILER!!
...
...
...
...
...
...
The tech that Spidey had created to defeat the Sinister Six before and that was being used for the benefit of the general public has been utilized by Doc Ock to shut down The Avengers and create the Global Warming MacGuffin he's using.

[starwolf_oakley]

When Marvel was first pushing CIVIL WAR, there were hints that "enhanced interrogation" was going to happen. It never happened (as far as I know) but it is interesting/horrifying to get Spider-Man involved in that. Peter came *very* close to torture in JMS's Black in Black to find the sniper and who hired him.

There's just the question of is Spider-Man torturing someone to punish them or because he wants information out of them.

[mrstatham]

I think that maybe, if done right, there could be some merit in the notion of Spider-Man having to resort to torture or something close to it - if only for a story - to explore the notion of his responsibility and the things he might have to do in order to save the day. But in a story like this, which is, for all intents and purposes, a basic supervillain doomsday plot that isn't even an incredibly big storyline for Marvel?

It's ridiculous, it's ham-fisted, and it's incredibly poorly done here. I think Slott's tried moving out of his comfort zone a little too much here and it really, really hasn't paid off.

[cypherfdp]

IN THIS ACTION-PACKED ISSUE: Spider-Man visits Guantanamo Bay!

[arise]

Ew. I really wish comics wouldn't try to get ~topical~.

[deepspaceartist]

I don't think real world ethics always apply to super hero comic situations though. With the mind-bogglingly big stakes that often come up, I feel that there are many situations that blur the lines between what is acceptable and what is not.

I'll be honest. If I truly believed that billions of people would die and the only way to stop it was to kill and/or torture one of the guys that is responsible for it, I would probably do it. When that many lives are at risk, the human rights of a would-be murderer of billions just don't measure up.

[rdfox]

Motto, so much.

I hate to say it, but ethics and morality really aren't black-and-white issues; there's an infinite number of shades of grey involved. I've said before that if I was a missile control officer at an ICBM base, if the order to launch came through and wasn't a drill, I'd turn that key in a heartbeat... and then probably eat my sidearm for not wanting to live with the guilt of being the man who "pulled the trigger" on a few million people.

And at the same time, sometimes Spock is right--the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. I wouldn't LIKE it, but when the lives of billions are on the line, I would be willing to do whatever it took to *one* person--particularly someone involved in being the threat--to save them. Even knowing I'd be a marked man for life, even knowing that there would be no point in defending myself afterwards, I'd use whatever means necessary to save the world--and not one iota *more* than that. (i.e., psychological torture would be something I'd try before physical torture, for example.)

Not to mention that honestly, if someone isn't cooperative, *all* means of interrogation are essentially psychological torture of varying degrees. Think about the classic "good cop/bad cop" routine--it's all about convincing the subject that the "bad cop" is a loose cannon who wants to hurt or kill him, while the other one is the "good cop" who wants to try and protect and help the subject--but can only do so if the subject tells them what he knows, because the "bad cop" can overpower (or use seniority/rank to overrule) the "good cop," and only the "good cop" getting the information can allow him to placate the "bad cop."

Honestly, the big reason that torture isn't allowed as a police interrogation technique (any more--remember the old 1930s gangster movies with the hot lights and rubber hoses?) is that if you already *have* a theory that you believe, unless you're right about it, even a *real* confession won't convince you--and with torture techniques, once you "break" the subject enough to get them to start talking, you'll keep going until you get an answer that satisfies your theory--and the subject will start saying anything to get you to stop, even if it's completely false. Eventually, with the "broken" subject throwing random shit at the wall to see what sticks, they'll hit on your pet theory, catch a clue that it's what the interrogator wants to believe, and spin a tale around that. (This is why police interrogators are required to stop, take a break, and privately discuss the subject's statements every so often; that way, they can take a step back and see if the subject's statements fit the evidence and indicate an alternate theory of the crime.)

(And yes, I did do a research paper on the use of torture by the KGB back in a college lit course, comparing and contrasting it to the Ministry of Truth in 1984, and some of the techniques described from the Beria era still give me nightmares, why do you ask?)

[captainbellman]

I haven't read the issue - is there an indication that Sable feels any emotions, like, at ALL, for the FORMER TEAMMATE she is torturing? Is she just being downgraded into "remorseless killer stereotype #3"?

[lascoden]

She's kinda playing up the role. They do bring up their mutual past, and he basically tells to to screw off. Here, he's afraid of her, so she using that, and playing up the fear.

[md84]

My biggest problem with seeing the good guys torture people in fiction -- besides the ethical connotations -- is that it has too high a success rate.

Torture isn't useful for getting the truth. All it's really effective at is getting people to say or confess to whatever you want them to say.

Take this example. For all they know, Sandman could be leading them on a wild goose chase or into a trap, and they wouldn't know until it was far too late. They couldn't just point out that Sandman's daughter is one of the billions of people whose lives he helped put at risk by helping Doc Ock's scheme?

And as someone mentioned earlier, if they were willing to negotiate with Mysterio -- a less powerful but far less sympathetic criminal -- why does Sandman warrant worse treatment?

[trobadora]

This, so much!

Torture isn't useful for getting the truth. All it's really effective at is getting people to say or confess to whatever you want them to say.

While in fiction it appears to be a guaranteed success. Which makes me sick. :(

[blackruzsa]

The most sickening part of this is that they acid-board him while he's convinced or he's at least pushing that they're doing the right thing.

Well, no, actually, the most sickening part of this is that they're doing it in the first place. Spidey being "the good guy" doesn't make this any better. That makes it a hundred times worse. The worst thing about torture is assuming torture is okay just because it's for the good of the mission/the country/the world. :[

[liara_shadowsong]

So... this writing is kind of shit. I don't particularly want torture in my comics, especially not from the "heroes". It's not like that's even a good way of getting accurate information in the first place. >_< Not pleased with this turn of events.

[nefrekeptah]

For my two cents; I've been loving this story arc, I love how it's made Doctor Octopus an interesting villain with a grander scheme then ever, because this time he's got nothing to lose. And yes, this scene made me uncomfortable, and I get the feeling that it's supposed to make you uncomfortable.

[cyberghostface]

And yes, this scene made me uncomfortable, and I get the feeling that it's supposed to make you uncomfortable.

That depends on whether or not Slott was condoning the use of torture to get information as a writer or if the intention of the scene was to make us think SpIder-Man was crossing a line that he shouldn't have.

Steve Wacker at least defended Spider-Man's actions as being in the right so he probably thinks that there's nothing wrong with what he did.