Good Is Not Soft / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

Comic Books

Comic Books

• The Avengers: As a whole, the Avengers strictly practice Thou Shalt Not Kill, not Thou Shalt Not Maim. During his stint as Captain America, Bucky Barnes's preferred tactic for dealing with Mooks was Knee-capping. Hawkeye once ricocheted an arrow so it hit a villain in the back of the neck, paralyzing him.
  Hawkeye: "He'll live. Not well, but he'll live."
• Fantastic Four: Ben Grimm, the Thing, both figuratively and literally; he is one of the 4's most popular members, and is good with kids. But if anyone dares to harm his family and friends he'll pummel them to paste.
• Doctor Strange is noble and a good judge of character, which means he will often spare villains whose intentions aren't wholly evil, particularly when they merely got in over their heads. But for the irredeemable? He won't offer them the chance to try again. The only ones he spares are the ones he can't permanently De-power or kill.
• Nova: Richard Rider is one of the most idealistic heroes Marvel has, and a very firm believer of Thou Shalt Not Kill, for example when dealing with a violent assassin who is trying to catch him and re-assimilate him, he refuses to kill her, instead just knocking her out. However, he is not above killing when there is literally no other option, as Annihilus learned the hard way.
• The Punisher: Believe it or not, when in the general public or just interacting with people who aren't criminals or scumbags, Frank Castle can be fairly civil and even polite. It seems he only goes full-on scary, nightmare vigilante with the people he's either shaking for information or actively hunting. Honestly, outside of his Punisher work, Frank is actually a pretty decent guy.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spidey is an example in that he does want to help because it's his responsibility. That responsibility does not extend to his fighting style, which is fairly brutal. Some storylines revolve around him becoming more vicious, usually after donning the black suit.
  • Though it's often mentioned that when dealing with people like Kingpin or Doctor Octopus or just everyday criminals, he has to decrease his strength considerably as he could kill someone with little effort. The events that led to Ends of the Earth, and later, Superior Spider Man, started because even holding back, constantly engaging in physical combat with Spider-Man over the course of years had damaged Octopus' body so much that it eventually just started shutting down completely.
  • Then came the day that he explained to Kingpin that his web-shooters in fact do have lethal applications, and he's been using them as non-lethal tools for his entire career entirely conscious of the fact. There is a remarkable difference between a faceful of webbing and a lungful of webbing.
• X-23: Laura Kinney demonstrates even from her first appearance in X-Men: Evolution that she's this: first going on an utterly understandable Roaring Rampage of Revenge due to her abuse by forcing Logan into a confrontation, then realizing Hydra is her real target she foregoes Non-Lethal K.O. and attempts to drive off Wolverine so he won't be caught in the crossfire. She puts up with the abuse Zebra Daddy deals out to her and his girls and it's only when she is gunned down and he tries to kill her friends that she acts. Bred to be a Living Weapon Laura exhausts every other option first, no matter how inane it may be. Trying to buy one of her old pimp's girls so she won't be abused anymore for example, then when the issue is forced not only kill him and his goons, but everyone linked to said abuse.
  • All-New Wolverine has her as more or less the moral center of the Marvel universe, with even the likes of Strange and Steve Rogers being antagonistic, as well as for the most part a complete softie to the point when Fin Fang Foom attacks her solution is to use herself as Distracted by the Sexy. For the most part Laura is a complete softie: when attacked her beating the Alchemix soldiers after her to near death is her holding back. She slices the Taskmaster's hand off. She wipes the floor with Old Man Logan. And has no problem fighting Cap, Fury, SHIELD, or anyone else who threatens her.
• X-Men: Some members of the X-Men fall into this category; those who are firmly idealistic or genuinely want to do good also use their mutant powers to shoot Eye Beams or Mind Rape.
  • Nightcrawler is one the kindest, most compassionate X-Men (alongside Jean Grey), but he is not a pacifist and is perfectly willing to fight to protect his friends.
  • Storm's one of the nicest members of the X-Men. However, if she is pushed too far, either by her friends being threatened or the arising of a situation that her ethics will not stand for, she will go to extreme lengths in retaliation. Two instances were her first battle with Callisto, and years later, her battle with Marrow, Callisto's extremist protégé.
  • Part of the reason everyone was so concerned about Sunspot potentially turning evil starts very early on in the New Mutant days when, during the gang's first run-in with Selene, Sunspot kicks her into a lava pit. Everyone else is horrified, but he simply points out A: she really deserved it, and B: she'll likely be back anyway. And he was right on the bean.
  • Early on in X-Man, Nate is a hero through and through, but he can also be bullheaded and abrasive to the people around him. And when it comes to combat, he does not hold back, expressly rejecting the traditional Thou Shalt Not Kill philosophy of the X-Men due to coming of age in a much more hard and brutal world than the one they know. Later, he gets more polite and more morally ambiguous.

Films

Films

• Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Steve Rogers aka Captain America is shown to be one of the nicest, sweetest people you would meet. However, when fighting HYDRA and the invading Chitauri, he is merciless, including throwing HYDRA soldiers off airborne aircraft, hacking off Chitauri arms and even throwing a knife into a mook’s hand as he tries to signal for help, which is straight out the Punisher’s playbook. Steve does dip into the more extreme Good Is Not Nice end of the scale in later films, to the point of being a borderline Well-Intentioned Extremist in Civil War and in Endgame, is willingly to cruelly exploit his past self's grief over Bucky just to get away from him.
  • Natasha Romanov aka Black Widow is capable of showing great kindness and affection (in particular to Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and the Barton family) and jokes with Steve about setting him up on a date while at the same time coldly killing mercenaries and HYDRA mooks. Played with slightly in that she is legitimately disturbed by some of her past kills.
  • Tony Stark aka Iron Man at his best (i.e. not being an egotistical jerk) is a Friend to All Children who’s more than willing to sacrifice himself for his team and for the sake of humanity on several occasions as the Big Good. But even when saving innocent villagers, he mows down terrorists like a ruthless killing machine, though he will spare surrendering mooks, as seen in Iron Man 3.
  • Thor, a Boisterous Bruiser who’s pure-hearted to the core, is still an incredibly violent Blood Knight who will go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against those who have hurt his loved ones. He even takes his time making Thanos hurt in revenge after he killed his brother Loki.
  • Peter Parker aka Spider-Man manages to be more kind-hearted than even Captain America, but when pissed off, can be extremely ruthless. He’s got quite the body count by the time of Avengers: Endgame, thanks to Instant-Kill mode, and Mysterio and Green Goblin both discovered the hard way what happens if you push him past his breaking point.
  • The Vision is a Benevolent A.I. and unlike other heroes, is willing and able to talk his opponents down rather than just overpower or kill them. Push him, however, and he’ll show you how powerful of a Flying Brick he is. He’s also okay with stabbing his foes In the Back as seen in Infinity War.
  • T’Challa aka Black Panther, a charismatic Nice Guy and noble king of his country, will go full Terminator on anyone who hurts his family and even kills his own cousin when the latter usurps his throne and tries to take over the world.
  • Bruce Banner aka The Hulk, when not a green rage monster, is an unfailing polite Non-Action Guy who is definitely a more kindly Science Hero than his best friend Tony Stark. Although even then, Bruce is perfectly willing to choke a young woman out, admittedly one who had performed a Mind Rape on him a few days ago. Bruce also manages to (unintentionally) kill pursuers even as his mild-mannered alter ego in Thor: Ragnarok.
  • Scott Lang aka Ant-Man II is a goofy, kind-hearted man and a devoted and loving father. He's also perfectly willing to horrifically crush a man by breaking his shrinking suit to protect his daughter and will literally kill an enemy by casually stepping on him as Giant-Man.
  • Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy is easily the Token Good Teammate of the team, being an All-Loving Hero and Friend to All Children. But even then he’s still willing to rip an alien thug’s nose off and be a Mook Horror Show who flashes a carefree smile to his friends after brutally killing an army of foes.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: pretty much applies to all the main characters, save Ward. They're nice, kind-hearted folks as long as you're not a HYDRA mook or head — or Grant Ward — in which case they'll kill you in cold blood or order the same. Coulson, May, Skye (especially after she gets her superpowers, though she is later shown slaughtering a group of HYDRA soldiers using a regular gun), Bobbi, Hunter (a close-to-comic-relief character who midway through Season 2 commits an unambiguous cold-blooded murder of a HYDRA leader on Coulson's orders, with Bobbi watching), and even Simmons, who attempts to murder Ward and spends most of Season 2 devising ways to kill people with superpowers.
• Daredevil:
  • Claire Temple is an ER nurse who first met the eponymous hero when she hauled him bleeding from a dumpster and tended his wounds when he refused to be taken to a hospital, she continues to stitch him up on occasion, as well as have a minor romantic subplot. You'd expect a nurse to be nurturing, gentle, meek, and generally an All-Loving Hero, right? As it happens, while Matt/Daredevil is interrogating a Mook in order to find a kidnapped child in a human smuggling ring, she goes from too horrified to speak to instructing Matt precisely how best to make him hurt. She is brisk, calm, and will not accept Matt nearly dying in her apartment and then leaving without explaining how he's any better than the people he goes after. A reason she helped him in the first place is that she believes the scum of Hell's Kitchen deserves punishment, having seen the pain they cause on a daily basis in the ER.
  • The titular character himself counts. He goes for bone breaks to incapacitate his opponents and can be quite brusque when dealing with civilians as Daredevil. But he's as gentle as possible when dealing with victims, especially children. A good example of this is "Cut Man", where he tears through a small army of human traffickers, then takes his mask off so the little boy he's rescuing won't be scared.

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