Superheroes — why?

At this point, the general rule is that people only stay dead if it'd make Spider-Man sad, and only stay alive if it'd make Batman angsty... er.

That's one I seriously don't care about. It's actually more accurate to say no one in comics dies permanently. Superman and Batman have died in LOADS of stories, but those stories lack narrative consequences because their publishers want to keep publishing them. No one in comics ever dies because no one in comics was ever really alive to begin witg. That's true of all fiction. I don't want my favorite super heroes to die because I want to keep reading stories about them. From a creative perspective, unless you're writing a finite series, it's stupid to kill important characters because, if you abide by the actual rules of life and death, you can never use those characters again.

And on a related note, I'd like to see the "Batman's responsible for the death of the Joker's victims because he refuses to kill the Joker" and related arguments die a quick death. It's the kind of argument invented just to have something to talk/complain/needle other comics fans about. "Oh, you think you're having fun, reading comics? Well think again..."

edited 3rd May '14 3:26:30 PM by Robbery

To be fair, it was elaborated in a neighboring thread that there probably wouldn't be so many complaints if the writers themselves didn't bring it up so often, trying to milk it for drama no less. My own gripe is with how that same issue is immediately sidestepped when it comes to brutally eviscerating various scary-looking monsters or robots (angrily screaming "I AM A MAN!" optional) , even though such creatures in comics can have no less intelligence or personality, being people in all but name. You can seriously damage your liver if you toast every time someone hastily tacks on "what we're fighting isn't technically human, go wild everybody" before an ensuing fight scene, only to engage in moral posturing the moment a named villain shows up; and Hera forbid someone like Wonder Woman taking them down.

To contrast, I reckon Wolverine gets so much mileage precisely because he's an equal opportunity snikt!er so fans can be sure that, if the villain survives, it wouldn't be for lack of trying on the hero's part, nor cause great angst over it.

For that matter, death-related angst in general doesn't really befit the genre, precisely because of everyone's contractual immortality deflating the drama out of every major tragedy. Might as well drop the pretense, keep heroes staying alive and regularly blowing villains up in exciting ways, and avoid writing plot checks the genre can't cash.

Actually, regardless of how common coming back from the dead is, the act of killing a villain requires that you expect there to be a chance not to. That's the whole point. To put it in a Real Life perspective, most people die when shot in the head. However, there is a small chance that someone can survive. If you're shooting someone in the head with the intent to kill, the fact that survival or resuscitation is possible doesn't eliminate the fact that you intended for them to die and stay dead.

For example, in Injustice: Gods Among Us, Superman launches Solomon Grundy into space to stop him, and it's waved off because Grundy is immortal, and all they have to do is fly out and get him later. Regardless of the fatal methods employed, the fact that perma-death wasn't intended means Thou Shalt Not Kill was upheld.

I agree with the What Measure Is a Non-Human? part of your argument. But, most stories these days have been good about averting that.

I dunno, even one of the recent Batman anniversary shorts had Bruce and Terry take down a bat-doppelganger with extreme prejudice the moment they saw metal. I understand it when robots are used as obvious stand-ins for censorship purposes, but that's one convenience that shouldn't be abused to prop up a moral stance. A similar crutch is having a helpful villain or designated anti-hero lend a hand whenever the story does call for lethal force, and the villains are unwilling to dispose of themselves. And that's not even going into Injustice's predecessor coining the utter oxymoron that is "heroic brutality". As the MCU and even Man of Steel have demonstrated, a superhero tale can easily drop such tacked-on constraints without causing a moral panic. If anything, it's a return to the good old days when killing wasn't that much of an issue, yet ironically the heroes were much more well-adjusted. I'd call that a win-win, all things considered.

edited 5th May '14 1:57:39 PM by indiana404

That's your opinion, and I've grown tired of debating it. You think superheroes killing people is a grand idea, yes, yes. Been over this before. Still not convinced, and no longer interested.

However, until the next movie in the Man of Steel franchise is released, I think it's wiser to withhold holding it up as an example of "superheroism done right". Especially when most arguments are that it's anything but. Even Zack Snyder said that the whole killing Zod thing is going to have repercussions that leads directly into a more advent vow against killing and, supposedly, Batman's involvement. Who knows if that's truth or not, but like I said, let's not step on the movie for our soapboxes just yet.

Yeah, let's ignore all the MCU examples that also dropped the no-kill code, all without losing popularity and acclaim. If anything, MOS got more flak for being too bleak and overly dramatic than for the violence by itself; and as just noted, Batman's involvement doesn't really prevent one of his satellite characters stepping in to do the wetwork when needed.

All in all, ever since Iron Man dropped into a war-zone, freshly-painted guns blazing, it's safe to say it's a different ballgame out there, with superheroes no worse for wear over it. Nor supervillains, come to think of it, but that's another matter entirely.

Oh you were talking about out of universe popularity? That's an even more pointless conversation.

Superheroes killing in movies isn't some new phenomenon. Nor is it relevant to whether they should, in universe. Like I said, we've been over this before, so I have no interest in this.

How many Marvel superheroes have a "no killing" code in the comics? Spider-Man does, but who else that's had an MCU appearance?

The Avengers as a general rule, don't kill, though it vary between members. Hawkeye, in particular, is very against it. Movie!Hawkeye has such a different character and background he probably wouldn't have a problem with it, though.

The same goes for the X-Men. They avoid killing as a general rule, but some of them are more confortable with the idea when there is no other option while others are much more against.

They're fairly decent sci-fi or fantasy stories and 9 times out of 10 are better than what ends up in theaters. Granted, they're not always epic story telling, but usually better than most of the movies adapted from them. They come in different ratings and thus can appeal to many different audiences, unlike regular cartoons which have to be toned down.

My only complaint on comics is their price. Each issue is 3-4 bucks. If you like even as little as five comics, there just went 20 bucks. Come back next week!

You said Hawkeye was against killing and I was like "Whaaaaaaaaaat?" Then I realized I was thinking of Ultimate Hawkeye.

People die permanently in the Ultimate 'verse ALL THE TIME.

Ultimate Hawkeye is a mix of 616!Hawkeye and Bullseye. Hell, he even wore a bullseye on his forehead for a while! I wouldn't be surprised if his real name was 'Lester Barton' or something.

So, yeah, Ultimate Hawkeye is a very different character.

Ultimate Everything is different. It's weird sometimes.

... yeah, the Ultimate universe being 'different' is putting it mildly. A team consisting of a bigoted soldier with rage issues, a cyborg serial killer, a cannibalistic mass-murdering spree killer, a delusional eco-terrorist, a lecherous, drunken war profiteer, an emotion-deadened assassin, incestuous terrorist twins, an insane, abusive amoral genius with severe adequacy issues, and his unfaithful wife.

Sounds to me like a fairly nasty supervillain team. But nope, that's the Ultimates, the 'greatest heroes' of the Ultimate line (the ones mentioned are, in order, the Ultimate versions of Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch, Giant Man and Wasp). That series pretty much killed any interest I had in the Ultimate line even before the enormous clusterfail of stupidity that was Ultimatum -_-;

Just out of curiousity, what happened in Ultimatum?

A bad story happened and most of the heroes of that universe got killed.

Yeah, I see your point. But I honestly got more interested in the Ultimate line after the Ultimatum. Since acout half of the main heroes are dead, it is kinda hard for them to just re do classic stories in grittier way. So they actually started making new stories instead! Except without the constraints self imposed in the main time line. So we are actually getting new stories that actually change the status quo, which I find really cool. It is still overall darker than the main line, but not as much as it was before.

I didn't care for the post-Ultimatum stories. The reason I started reading the Ultimate Universe was to fresh spins on old concepts. I'm not ashamed to admit that.

Killing off half the universe (in profoundly horrible and immature ways) made me not care anymore. Maybe it would have been different if the Ultimate Universe were like the New Universe, Mutant X or Age of Apocalypse, where you know going in that things are different. But, you can't get me invested in a cast of characters and then callously kill them off and expect me to care about the next set of potential victims you have lined up.

I think for me it depends on how the characters die. Being killed by an enemy they've been fighting for years is one thing, but things like Blob randomly showing up to EAT Janet Van Dyne are totally different. Immature and horrible and stupid is right.

edited 28th May '14 10:06:53 AM by resetlocksley

The Ultimatum itself was terrible beyond description. I am just saying I like what came after. Once Loeb got out of the Ultimate Universe things started to improve.

Unfortunately, I will never know, because all the characters I cared about are dead.

Again, I don't wish to become reinvested in a new group of characters; why should I care when it's equally possible the same thing will happen to them?

We Are as Mayflies

Huh? I don't understand.

Well, it's better than Status Quo Is God, at least from my point of view. I kind of admire the fact that the Ultimate 'verse has actual changes with actual long-term consequences. There's no giant reset button after Magneto kills thousands of people and for the most part characters stay dead. I kind of like it that way, but sometimes the way characters die can feel a little careless, especially when it's for sheer shock value. So it's kind of a Catch-22 for me.

That's the rub with killing off characters.

Regardless of how well it's done or not, you have eliminated future stories from being told with that character. While it's well and good that you made their last story spectacular, it's still their last story.