ILLUMINATI: Personal responsibility

[starwolf_oakley]

Oracle once wondered if the Bat-family was culpable for the Joker's crimes since they never did anything permanent to stop him. Here's a few pages from the NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI special where a similar discussion about culpability is discussed.





First, a page where the Black Panther shows how smart he is.



T'Challa's smart, but... The problem with the general public of the Marvel Universe is that they are idiots. Some of the smarter idiots are worried superheroes might subjugate those they protect. This isn't Tony's intention here. He just wants to subjugate other superheroes. Which he eventually does. Idiot.

The full two-page spread of Hill and Stark's conversation.



Spider-Man has a simple reason for not killing Osborn: Neither Aunt May nor Uncle Ben would like it. And Spider-Man is now the *only* Marvel Superhero who thinks killing people is wrong.

Comments

[korvarthefox.livejournal.com]

Man, Dreamwidth needs an "upvote" button :) I can't stand the "it's the superhero's fault for not killing bad guys" argument. It assumes that superheroes have all the power, and poor lil' human society can't do anything.

And of course the real reason Osborne or the Joker or whoever is constantly getting out and killing people is meta-textual. The comic writers want to do yet another Osborne or Joker or whoever storyline, the marketing people want to put those faces on more lunchboxes, and so on.

Trying to make in-universe people "to blame" for meta-textual stuff is just silly.

[twigcollins]

Trying to make in-universe people "to blame" for meta-textual stuff is just silly.

Yes, this.

[hatman]

Not to mention that it's not the superhero's place to do such things any more than it's a police officer's job to be judge, jury, and executioner. Even less so, since most superheroes have no legal authority in the first place.

If you really believe that Norman Osborn or the Joker or whomever is an incurable homicidal madman with no chance of rehabilitation and no chance of being contained by a prison, if you really believe that the only way to stop him is to see him dead... then the solution is to argue for the death penalty in court.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

Gotham has the death penalty. Vigilante executions in the DCU, as I and Adrian Tullberg understand them, rarely go well.

[hatman]

Whether the death penalty is allowed or not is a matter for the state legislature. What I meant is that if you think the Joker needs to die, you should argue for him specifically to get the death penalty the next time he's brought to trial.

As for vigilante executions - we all saw what happened when Wonder Woman tried that. The crowd reacted differently when Magog did it, but that didn't end well, either.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

Something's bugged me for a while now; is Wonder Woman an official ambassador, or a symbolic one? If it's the former, why doesn't she have diplomatic immunity? Does Theymiscra have an embassy?

[grazzt]

She was an official ambassador. However, when a diplomat is accused of a major crime, like murder, the home country usually either waives the diplomatic immunity they granted their diplomat or charges them with the same crime on home soil, rather than risk an international incident. Examples of the former include Gueorgui Makharadze, and examples of the latter include Andrei Knyazev.

I think that's what happened to Wonder Woman.

Also, Themyscira did have an embassy, although it was closed down along with the island itself. You should read Rucka's run on Wonder Woman; there was a decent amount of focus on the people in the embassy, including a minotaur chef.

[bluefall]

She is an ambassador, she does have immunity, and she voluntarily waived it of her own accord (which the amazons had no real choice but to go along with), because she knew that letting humanity try her was the only way to prove to humanity that they could still trust her.

[starwolf_oakley]

Plus she had to defend herself without revealing Maxwell Lord had Superman under his control. That would have been bad.

[hyperactivator]

I just wish they would do better jail break scenes. It seems like these days they don't even bother to explain why a villain captured three months ago is menaceing people now. It is so lazy.

What's worse is when they bring people back to life witout showing the explaintion on panel. Somtimes all we get is "Heard you were dead." "You heard wrong." Okay."

Lazy! Prison breaks and escaping or faking ones death scenes used to be one of the main ways of reintroducing the villain. Plus you could also show off the new trick he learned that he's sure to use against the hero.

No wonder most villians seems so bland and sameish these days.

[fifthie]

Trying to make in-universe people "to blame" for meta-textual stuff is just silly.

Emphatic agreement with this correct statement.