Spider-Man General Discussion

Morlun's an immortal vampire, he'll be fine.

True, but Spider-Man didn't know that the first time.

Also, pretty much everybody comes back to life in the Marvel universe, so you can't really use that as an excuse.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 23rd 2019 at 7:44:44 AM

Wasn’t Morlun killed by his own lackey the first time? Granted, Peter didn’t know that his gambit wouldn’t kill Morlun, but still.

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The first Morlun storyline had Peter poisoning Morlun with radiation and then thinking about whether or not he should let him die...at which point his lackey shot Morlun and killed him. During The Other, however, Spider-Man stabs Morlun in the wrists with his new stingers and then tears out his throat with his teeth. That definitely kills him.

Morlun's only "immortal" in that he can be cloned again and again, but he can still be killed.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 23rd 2019 at 8:00:04 AM

And he did do it to save MJ. Then again it was pure instinct too soooooo.

Also OMD technically retconed that moment too.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 23rd 2019 at 8:05:17 AM

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

I'm pretty sure everything still happened exactly like it did, except they weren't married. So, yeah, The Other still happened.

And Spider-Man also "died" doing that to Morlun right? He was actually on his deathbed when he did that to save her, and then died, and came back later.

As far as killing goes, vampires and super-beings is a gray area for me, because of What Measure Is a Non-Human?. Batman: Arkham Knight had this DLC with Ra's Al Ghul where they touched on that. Batman has a choice of witholding the cure from Ra's and shut down the League of Shadows, and Alfred kind of says he should let Ra's die since Ra's already lived out his mortal life several times over, he's going to die a natural death, and withholding the cure won't kill him. Or as Alfred says, "Is preventing some ungodly resurrection truly the same as taking a life?"

Morlun is a jackass vampire who extended his mortal life by parasitically feeding off the lives of others. This guy isn't human, he's cheated and exceeded his natural life several times over, so to me aside from being evil, to me killing him wouldn't qualify as murder any more than killing a disease would, or...killing an insect does in the real world.

according to dialogue, the reason why Kaine is the Other now is because thanks to OMD Peter never accepted the deal with that spider thing or never died, and Kaine is around because he accepted the deal. So it's entirely possible Morlun's second death never happened.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

"Every story still happened only they weren't married" my ass...

I mean The Other is not a favorite of mine, but Spider-Man's comeback against Morlun was a terrific moment there.

I don't usually like using listicles (because they usually use loopholes like "This was done by an alternate universe Spider-Man!" or "This happened when his mind was taken over by Doc Ock!"), but this list definitely shows some moments when Spider-Man actually killed people. The examples that I believe actually count:

• Charlamagne during Spider-Man vs. Wolverine. Sure, Charlie wanted to die, but Spider-Man didn't realize that and essentially killed her because he didn't know his own strength. Sure, it was assisted suicide, but Peter still killed her.
• The Latverian Liberation Front from Amazing Spider-Man #50. Spidey redirected their missile up into the air...when it blew them up. Sure, Spidey didn't know it was going to kill them, but he's still responsible.
• Morlun, as I've already stated.
• Whisper from Web of Spider-Man #91. This was just a straight up murder — Spidey could have dodged Pulse's attack, but instead used Whisper as a human shield.
• Modular Man from Marvel Team-Up #90. In fact, Spider-Man even expresses regret over this one: "We may have destroyed a man, Beast! I know it was necessary and we didn't have a choice, but I don't have to like it!"
• The rest were pretty much robots, radioactive zombies, or life-sucking spirits (or Benjamin Buttons with magic mirrors that...cause them to deage?), most of them really flimsy.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 23rd 2019 at 8:42:42 AM

Also jack do you really believe that trope? I agree with Alfred's sentiment, but it's a little more gray with Morlun. Yeah he's a vampire but he's still technically a sentient being. Plus Spider-Man isn't the type to practice what measure is a non human? Ain't some of the avengers he hangs out with occasionally aliens? Also again, Spider-Man wasn't in his right state of mind at the time.

Plus if we want a better story to talk about, there is Spider-Man's threat to the Kingpin in Back in Black. I can totally buy Spider-Man murdering after that.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

In any long running series you are going to have stories that drop the ball but it would be a mistake to consider such stuff as representative instances rather than lacunae. To get back to windleopard's points about Ultimate Marvel, yeah you can argue that stuff in Ultimate Marvel has precedent in 616 at least in extreme instances but it would be a mistake to assume or extrapolate that the extreme stuff is representative. Like yeah Charles Xavier apparently nursed a crush or unrequited one on Jean and yeah that was creepy, but that wasn't a constant regular thing, like he had romances with Moira Mactaggart, Lilandra which were more meaningful and shown that way. Like technically Ultimate Magneto isn't far off from the 616 character before Claremont came in, but it damn sure isn't the Magneto that became the iconic and memorable villain. The most iconic and popular version of Magneto, which informed Ian McKellen's portrayal is a tragic Byronic Hero who is at times villainous, and at times noble, and always believes he's acting for the good of mutantkind. If you are making him a petty murderer without any virtues, and say you are going to back to the character Lee and Kirby did, you would be correct on paper but you would also be going against the norms and the spirit of the thing. Grant Morrison with his Planet X is a famous example of that. He said that "Well, actually, Magneto was originally a terrorist and not any noble guy". Yeah he was right, but there's a reason Marvel quickly deleted that entire thing at lightspeed and blinked it out of existence.

As much as we all like writers being Armed with Canon and doing Arc Welding and avoiding Critical Research Failure. There's always a downside to that. Like yeah if you search through the mountains of stuff, you can find instances of Superman and Batman killing, and I know Snyderistas brought that out to defend Zack Snyder's claim about it being true. So to me stuff like the list above showing Spider-Man's willing to kill, especially since most of these are obscure minor stuff, and in the context can be written as accident or self-defense and collateral damage, feels part of that. In the case of the most notable example — Spider-Man V. Wolverine #1 has long been controversial, as is that comic because of Ned Leeds' gratuitous death coming because the writer Jim Owsley (who was also Spider-Man's editor) ordered it to d—k around with Defalco/Frenz's planning of the Hobgoblin story. That story has long been criticized for basically making Spider-Man look like a moron next to Wolverine. And Priest had his own hangups about that story.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Feb 23rd 2019 at 9:22:00 AM

I always felt that you could do a Marvel crossover or Civil War about this stuff. Since such stuff is usually relegated to the Mutant corner of things since mutants having dodgy legal recognition is why many of them have been subject to abuse, enslavement, and experimentation. Norman Osborn killed Ben Reilly at the end of the Clone Saga. Now if I were Goblin's lawyer I would say, "Your honor, Ben Reilly is a clone. He's not a human being. So my client cannot be charged for homicide since there are no laws recognizing the existence, sentience, and rights of clones". You could try Norman for his murders of non-powered human beings. I kind of do feel there would be different laws regulating criminal activity against superbeings, by superbeings, and what self-defense would mean. And some of this is acknowledged. Let's not forget that in Spider-Girl once Mayday gets powers, Peter and MJ insist she quit basketball not only because it would draw attention but it would also be cheating for a superhuman to compete with regular sportsmen. Obviously there are ethical issues there.

In the case of Morlun, it's debatable if he can be considered an American citizen or if he has jurisdiction. He has sentience but he's also someone outside regular human comprehension.

But in either case, it's for the best that such stuff isn't addressed directly. Or not dwelt on too much. Is Peter's attack on Morlun where he kills him shown as murder or is it a case of Peter pushing back against a foe with all his might and resolve. What is it that the writer is trying to convey? That's what counts. Ultimately it's only a murder or kill when the writer paints it as one. Everything else is collateral damage or accident, or fight against a metahuman guy who can take it.

IF you notice such odd stuff in that, then it's a lacuna and weak execution, and not really something in the story and character.

I don’t think Peter and MJ ever insisted that

As I recall it was an ethical decision Mayday came to on her own when she found out another member of the team was a mutant and was using her powers to win, she told her she shouldn’t do that and then realized that she was in the same boat

Edited by Bocaj on Feb 23rd 2019 at 12:39:52 PM

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Those are interesting points, do i hope you don't believe in that trope Morally, just ethically. Sure Peter ain't too cool about his clones but he does care for them as human beings.

Honestly a series like that is something Daredevil or She hulk would explore.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

That's a stupid argument. "If you did notice something, it's not real!"

Those stories still happened. Peter Parker still killed people. The end.

Is Spider-Man's actions acknowledged and painted as a murder, do later writers and editors highlight that and say it's murder? Is this a consistent or regular thing in multiple stories or just a handful of stuff? In any serial continuity, you need to look at that stuff. I mean you can't treat mainstream superhero comics without looking a that extraneous stuff.

Because this is absolutely the kind of logic that leads to stuff like Zack Snyder saying he's true to the comics (which he may well believe) and show Superman and Batman as violent a—holes. What next, Carol Danvers being defined by Avengers #200?

There are no superhumans in real life so it's moot. If you mean clones, in the case of the Clone Saga, I don't consider Ben Reilly and Kaine to be human beings in the same way Peter Parker is. I don't consider them as characters. I don't believe in them, and as such I didn't care when Norman killed Ben and revealed him to be a clone. I didn't get into the Clone Saga at the time, and I know a lot of readers liked Ben Reilly, but I came later, and I could never get the fuss. I guess the novelty and the mystery of "Clone or not clone?" and the idea of Peter having a brother (which wasn't what Reilly was intended for anyway) appealed to people...but again the minute they tried to make the switch stick, the audience ran away in droves.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Feb 23rd 2019 at 10:06:02 AM

Spider-Man's enemies have a variety of goals and motifs to them which don't primarily rely on killing. Throw a rock at Natman's rogues and you're bound to hit someone who's either a serial killer, assassin, terrorist or both.

The recent Superman animated movie had Superman killing Cyborg Superman. You can excuse this by saying the Cyborg wasn't human but neither was Zod in MOS. Snyder's Superman is as much a violent asshole as any other version. And let's not act as if Batman being a violent asshole is something Snyder invented. Hell, he isnt even the first director who had Supermqn and Batman kill people.

As for Magneto, pre-Morrison writers had him do stuff like sinking a submarine, enslaving people in the Savage Land and setting off an EMP across the globe. I don't blame Morrison for thinking a guy who had stuff like that on his conscience is nothing more than a terrorist and if Marvel were smart they'd have realized that. Mass murdering terrorists shouldn't be treated as misunderstood woobies. Weep for the devil all you like, it won't change the fact he's the devil.

And finally, superhero fans really need to learn the difference between murder and self defense. I'll give you a hint: the latter is what Spider-Man does.

Edited by windleopard on Feb 23rd 2019 at 10:50:38 AM

Donny Cates has recieved death threats over Venom issue 11

Take that argument to the fellas at the Superman board and see if they agree/disagree. For the record I disagree. Superman being a violent asshole is not common across all versions and not by default.

Mark Millar's Marvel Knights Spider-Man has Mary Jane carrying a handgun. Peter frowns on that but is okay with MJ using that to defend herself since she doesn't have superpowers and needs to defend herself. And MJ unloads the gun on Goblin when he tries to do the cover version of his one trick. So I think Peter does agree that using lethal force for self-defense is okay for non-powered but he doesn't think someone with his abilities has the right to use it or consider it. That story might have inspired Web of Romance where Peter gives MJ miniaturized web-shooters of her own for Valentine's Day, which got carried over in the finale of Superior Spider-Man.

The fact is that there's a difference when Peter's actions do amount to killing his enemies and when he doesn't. If you want to see Spider-Man kill his rogues, like say Venom, Dr. Octopus, and one other guy, check out Dan Slott's Renew Your Vows where being a Dad has made Peter suspend his no-kill rule. What Spider-Man does in that series has no equivalent or counterpart to anything in 616.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Feb 23rd 2019 at 11:06:34 AM

When I said he was as much a violent asshole as any other version, I meant not at all. I'm not claiming other versions of Superman are violent assholes, I'm saying Snyder's Superman doesn't do anything other versions of Superman who are also viewed as herioc don't do.

You were the one who called Spider-Man's actions murder not me.

Again: just because it isn't brought up again doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Batman despite his rep as a supposed controlling blood knight sociopath among certain people, is more than willing to let Alfred use a shotgun for protection despite his own personal dislike of guns, but that doesn't mean he's willing to kill, just like the example Jack gives with Peter and MJ. I agree with Windleopard that if Spider-Man kills it's usually in self defense like Morlun. In contrast to RYV Spider-Man who did murder Venom and Doc Ock in cold blood for a good reason but still cold blood.

But speaking of Morlun, in Spider-Man's defense, again killing Morlun was pure heat of the moment and Peter was affected by that Other mystical mumbo jumbo, when Peter meets Morlun again, he's all NOBODY DIES.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

Yeah Jack, just because Marvel doesn't like to bring up OMD or the fact that Peter was selfish in that story doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

I'm not saying that Peter Parker doesn't have ethics or morals. He definitely prefers that nobody dies. But, again, he doesn't have a super strict "no-kill" rule, because he has definitely killed before, even if it was accidentally or in self defense.

In contrast, Batman definitely has a no-kill rule, since it is repeatedly brought up and repeatedly tested. The only times Batman has killed was during the Golden Age, before the no-kill rule was in place. (And I think we can agree that those Golden Age stories have either since been retconned or took place on a different Earth.) That's why those moments when Batman picks up a gun are so shocking.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 24th 2019 at 12:42:33 PM