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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
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Who was a terrorist. Who was threatening Lois's life if I remember correctly. And why is Doomsday an issue? The entire point of Doomsday character is that he was a force so powerful even Post Crisis Comics Superman had to actively try and end his life because, again, Doomsday.
Edited by Bobdude on Aug 30th 2018 at 12:33:14 PM
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Even Henry Cavill says
that he feels killing Zod could have led to interesting Character Development for Superman in future movies, but the fact that the priority was instead placed on setting up the Justice League and crossing over with Batman derailed that.
Though I'm not sure why we're discussing this in an MCU thread.
Age of a Ultron made jokes about the heroes killing very conspicuously refused to actually show them doing so on screen. Making passing humor about it, in contrast, is something of a cop out: an inverse of Show, Don't Tell by relying on telling to imply the affect they have no interest in showing.
Infinity War is a noticeable exception, yes, which I’ve been chalking up to directors: none of the Russo’s films have had any real exception to the heroes killing, especially if it results in something cool. Though it’s still to be noted that the movie also relies on the age old weasel of having the heroes kill aliens and monsters, not human beings.
The closest to it is the scene in The Winter Soldier where Cap says that they have to assume that everyone aboard the Helicarriers is a HYDRA agent, and thus killing them would be an acceptable sacrifice to save the millions of civilians who are about to be killed.
I agree for the most part, but they do definitely kill people in the opening scene. Black Widow grapples two HYDRA goons and a distinct Neck Snap sound effect is heard, Hulk and Thor toss around a bunch of people like ragdolls, and I'm pretty sure we see Hawkeye take out a gunner mount with an exploding Trick Arrow.
EDIT: Found the scene.
Edited by comicwriter on Aug 30th 2018 at 12:52:51 PM
I guess it's happening here because all the other DC threads got locked. Which could maybe be some degree of relevant, though given how fast this thread is moving it's clearly something people want to talk about.
The problem people have with the neck snap in MOS is about tone rather than moral necessity. (The necessity of killing Zod was badly choreographed, but leave that aside for now.) It's a statement of purpose, and it undercuts many of the more interesting conflicts Superman has, the lines he won't cross. Having him cross his most uncrossable line in the first movie, where he's largely been held at a distance — the sense of character development isn't there, it doesn't feel earned. It feels like, as mentioned earlier, a cheap shock moment, and then the following movies don't really make anything of it.
Superman winning a physical victory against any given punch-monster is something you could do with anybody. It's kind of a waste of Superman to have the usual thing where he tries and tries to overcome the villain and he just can't quite make it happen until — dramatic reprise — then he can. Like, I want to see Superman rushing around saving people, and how that makes those uncredited extras feel. (That was a sequence I did actually like in AOU.) Make me that movie, DC.
Edited by Unsung on Aug 30th 2018 at 2:46:47 AM
The only real exception there is Widow. Otherwise it’s as I said: it’s all indirect and kept away from the audience’s view.
Hulk slams into a bunch of guys and tosses them around, but they’re all just offscreen so you don’t see them flying - or anything but the moment of impact itself. Hulk tosses cars into buildings, but not the people themselves (at best you see mooks flying up but not coming down). Thor knocks guys off a building, but the camera is fixed above the floor so you again don’t actually see anyone fall: and when the camera pans down nobody’s on the ground. Iron Man and Hawkeye cause explosions, but the explosions have been the #1 way to have heroes kill without requiring the audience to internalize it for decades.
In short, it’s all smart editing or plotting to ensure that the audience can infer there’s death going on if they so choose, but dont have to see or internalize it.
In contrast, at the end of that seen we actually do get a direct scene of one of the heroes attacking someone, and it’s a gag that ends with them groaning and cursing Tony’s name but very much alive. Meanwhile, in pure Samurai Jack fashion, the heroes really get to go to town on the robots because the audience won’t register them as human.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 30th 2018 at 1:07:17 AM
Not solely because of that incident, but it’s the start. First he has misgivings about killing at the Hydra base, then the Johannesburg incident escalates into the Hulk assaulting a city, he considers running away at the farm, and at the climax is forcibly turned into the Hulk and so gives up on remaining with the team.
This is the same movie where a guy dies, with visible blood splatter, from being hit in the head with a wooden box. Warlord Guy’s spine is paste.
It’s been a plot point in multiple incarnations of Doomsday that killing him or even just immobilizing him has raised concerns about the Justice League’s reach of power. As is treated in this film, though, DD being a mindless beast is a way for the movie to sidestep the very question it raised of if Superman should have the right to kill.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 30th 2018 at 1:14:47 AM
We actually see that other guy die.
And there are other incarantions where no one gives a damn about him being imprisoned or killed. Notably the first story in which he appeared.
Hell, it's canon that Superman's no killing rule doesn't apply to non-humans.
Is it out of character though? The guy's always been a Blood Knight even after his development in his debut film.
All the Avengers are way out of character in AOU. Thor in particular is much dumber in both Avengers 2012 and AOU than in his own movies. Like, I could see him making that joke while hanging out with Sif and the Warriors Three, but I don't really buy him not getting that this is not the time, or the room, for that line.
Edited by Unsung on Aug 30th 2018 at 5:22:56 AM
I didn't hate AoU, but there's a long list of problems with it. Most of them are minor, but there are so many they add up.
I really don't know what got into Whedon. He wrote everyone fine in the first movie. Was there a secondary writer that wasn't around for AoU?
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff."Fine" is the key word here, I think. Everybody's just a little bit off in the first Avengers, but it doesn't matter because there are no major character beats other than the team coming together. AOU was where Whedon brought in some individual character moments, which he might well have always intended but didn't really fit the characters as we had come to know them in the other movies.
Edited by Unsung on Aug 30th 2018 at 4:02:25 AM
I feel obligated to remind everyone that Whedon caught flak for his writing of Thor in Avengers 1 too because of an off-color joke.
In this case, it was using "He's adopted" to distance himself from Loki's crimes after proclaiming that he would not hear his brother disparaged two seconds prior.
That said, I'm actually more bothered by Thor disassociating Loki from the family for the sake of saving face than I am with him failing to recognize that Banner is not a valiant brother in arms eager to hear tales of his conquests. I can see the logic in the idea that Thor sees Banner as a mighty warrior and doesn't understand how sensitive he is to violence.
But that Loki joke runs against everything that Thor's about in his relationship with Loki in every single movie including that one.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 30th 2018 at 5:34:12 AM
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Yeah, the "he's adopted" line is totally OOC for the sake of a joke.
I actually kind of find the Blood Knight Compliment Backfire line to be humorous and in-character, because I do think it seems like something Thor might say to a fellow warrior he liked/respected.
I've definitely mentioned this before, but Whedon's writing is what really soured me on Tony. Broadly, it's the combination of him being obviously Whedon's mouthpiece and taking his jerkishness to a level where I think he's sometimes indistinguishable from the Ultimate and "Superior" versions of the character. I continue to think that the Droit du Seigneur joke is something Tony would never make, and it's a very labored joke as it is given that it uses the Latin name for the practice which almost no one ever does.
Needless to say, this also connects with how Whedon treats Steve, which is very much as a "stick in the mud" and "not all that great". Confession time, I've never watched Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, but as I understand it, Whedon's Cap is a lot like Riley on that show. I guess basically, what it comes down to is that when Tony has that line about Steve being nothing without the serum, I can't shake the feeling that the audience is intended to think "You're absolutely right."
Edited by Hodor2 on Aug 30th 2018 at 7:26:48 AM

At the very least, that AOU bit actually led to something.
At the end of Age of Ultron Banner decides the Hulk is too dangerous to be kept on Earth and leaves for parts unknown.
After the end of Man of Steel Superman vows not to kill- oh wait he just smashed that guy through a wall. And doesn’t feel the slightest hesitation about killing Doomsday.