Batman with Ben Affleck-- Rumors, pic, etc;

[Christopher]

I wasn't talking about Peter David...I was talking about what he was evidently building upon, from a decade earlier...specifically The Incredible Hulk #227, Sept. 1978, written by Roger Stern ("with an assist from Peter Gillis"):

Yes, of course I know that Peter didn't introduce the idea. But he did develop it extensively during his lengthy and legendary run on the series, and in his novel What Savage Beast, which I've owned for decades. I wasn't talking about who invented it, I was pointing out that I've been familiar with the idea for a long time and don't need you to lecture me on it. And that it doesn't in any way refute my point about how the Hulk was written in previous decades.

The kill count didn't come with any kind of source description on what exactly they're even talking about. And the fact that I might have misremembered Iron Man 3 doesn't come anywhere close to proving that the MCU as a whole is built on a foundation of all the heroes killing as a matter of routine.

Perhaps not, but they're more casual about it than I'd prefer.

Certainly this argument seems very different from what I thought we were talking about. You're not just concerned with heroes killing, you dislike the very inclusion of death in these movies in the first place.

Absolutely wrong. I have no objection to villains killing; that's what makes them villains, their contempt for life and willingness to destroy. But that's exactly why I think heroes should have reverence for life, because that's what makes them better than the villains and worth rooting for. I don't want to see heroes sinking to the villains' level. I want to see them defeat the villains by being better than they are. Not just tougher or stronger or luckier, but morally and philosophically superior and smart enough to find a better way than brute destruction. The ability to kill is nothing to admire or find impressive. A falling rock or a pool of water can kill. What's impressive is the ability to create, to preserve, to heal. The real victory is for a hero to prevail using the hero's own methods, rather than compromising them and sinking to the villain's methods.

What I object to is filmmakers undermining the nobility of the heroes by contriving excuses to "get around" their regard for life and either have them make an exception for the villain or be unable to save them. Because that plays into the narrative that the villain should die, that their death is something desirable to be celebrated, and that weakens the presentation of the hero's commitment to preserving life, reduces it to mere lip service on the storytellers' part.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say that forcing characters into a no-killing mold kills the creative process. You look at these and say 'Sure, it's dumb as hell, but at least they tried'. I say, 'Who cares what they were trying to do when what they actually did was so idiotic that it's basically unreadable?'

The point is that at least they had the heroes hold themselves to a standard of morality, even if the execution of that idea was sillier in some hands than others. None of the MCU movie heroes other than Ant-Man has ever declared a policy against killing. I'm not happy to settle for your argument of "Well, they don't kill that often and it's kinda ambiguous." I want heroes who actually assert a regard for life as a positive principle, like Daredevil does, like Supergirl does. Who actively strive to live up to that principle, rather than just leaving enough wiggle room to argue over exactly how often they may or may not have killed depending on how you interpret this scene or that shot. I want it to be -- what's the opposite of a sin? -- a virtue of commission rather than omission.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Yes, of course I know that Peter didn't introduce the idea.

But the post that I was responding to gave the appearance of giving credit for the idea to Peter David. I was setting the facts straight, which you champion as a noble pursuit when you're the one doing it.

When I'm the one doing it, a two-line post in response to your 10-line post becomes a "lecture".

 

[JD]

Have Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America specifically said they have a rule against killing in the comics?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Have Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America specifically said they have a rule against killing in the comics?

Most superheroes of that vintage did. Cap's the only one I read reguarly and I think he mentioned it.

 

[kirk55555]

Most superheroes of that vintage did. Cap's the only one I read reguarly and I think he mentioned it.

I don't think it was ever a big part of the heroes though, unlike Batman and Superman's non killing codes. Cap has basically been killing nazi's in every one of his incarnations, and while Thor generally won't kill humans he'd kill sentient beings from other realms, like Dark Elves, trolls, etc.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think it was ever a big part of the heroes though, unlike Batman and Superman's non killing codes. Cap has basically been killing nazi's in every one of his incarnations, and while Thor generally won't kill humans he'd kill sentient beings from other realms, like Dark Elves, trolls, etc.

I beleive they covered that by saying Cap was a soldier then and now he's not, so he follows a different set of rules. For the most part deaths in Cap`s post WWII career were accidents or self inflicted. IIRC there was a storyline where Cap was all bent out of shape because he killed someone. Might be in Gruenwald`s run.

 

[Christopher]

Have Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America specifically said they have a rule against killing in the comics?

Yes, of course. That was par for the course in the comics, because for most of their history, they were written for children. The modern tendency for comics to be as self-consciously "adult" and gritty and violent and gory as they can get is the aftermath of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns in the mid-'80s, and the darkness and violence of those miniseries was itself something of a deconstruction of the decades-long practice of minimizing comics violence, at least on the part of heroes.

Of course, the earliest comics were often quite violent. Batman only explicitly killed people (as opposed to vampires) once in his first year of existence, and his editor immediately imposed a no-guns rule in reaction to that, but Superman often killed at least indirectly in his first few years (e.g. crashing through the hull of a plane to save Lois from an abductor and then doing nothing to prevent the ensuing crash from killing the villain). And in the WWII-era radio series, Superman sometimes single-handedly destroyed entire invasion fleets. But before long, the rule set in that superheroes didn't kill, ever, and that was the norm from the mid-40s through the late '60s at least, depending on the character. And the rule has remained firmly in place through the present day for many of the leading heroes like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and others.

 

[Thestral]

Batman only explicitly killed people (as opposed to vampires)...

 

[JoeZhang]

I beleive they covered that by saying Cap was a soldier then and now he's not, so he follows a different set of rules. For the most part deaths in Cap`s post WWII career were accidents or self inflicted. IIRC there was a storyline where Cap was all bent out of shape because he killed someone. Might be in Gruenwald`s run.

It was - it was also pretty stupid* - while I can believe that Cap goes out of his way not to kill, given he was desperate to join up and go kill Nazis, you will not get me to buy he has some inherent code against it - especially as it was in a situation where a terrorist was about to kill score of people. The Gruenwald's story is a bit of a retcon and various writers such as Brubaker, Ellis and other have Captain America either kill people or acknowledge having killed people.

It's the same for others - Daredevil has killed people and so has Ironman in various retellings of his origins.


* which isn't as dumb as how the New Frontier has Hal Jordan as a fighter pliot who refuses to shoot at anyone during wartime.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not a fan of Gruenwald's rum myself. It often came across as a rehash of better told stories. But yeah, Cap's attitude toward killing should depend on the situation. Wartime different than stopping a robbery.

 

[Christopher]

* which isn't as dumb as how the New Frontier has Hal Jordan as a fighter pliot who refuses to shoot at anyone during wartime.

Except there are plenty of documented historical examples of people in war who did try to avoid shooting people -- soldiers deliberately aiming to miss the enemy troops in ground combat, firing squads where all the squad members missed the target on purpose, etc. Even for soldiers, taking human lives isn't as easy and casual a thing as writers of fiction tend to misrepresent it as being.

And if we can accept the fantasy of a magic wishing ring that lets you breathe in space and hit people with reified daydreams, is it really so "dumb" to be open to the fantasy that a smart and principled person could find a better alternative to bloodshed even in the midst of war?

 

[Reverend]

^A random infantryman being intentionally bad at aiming is one thing. A fighter pilot who refuses to engage when ordered is another. The former can go more or less undetected if they're 1) *very* lucky and 2) not killed. The latter is an excellent way to loose your flight status. Governments don't generally entrust military equipment worth millions a piece to pilots prone disobeying orders.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Why would Jordan even be a fighter pilot if he doesn't want to engage? He could pilot non combat craft instead.

 

[Christopher]

Why would Jordan even be a fighter pilot if he doesn't want to engage? He could pilot non combat craft instead.

How much choice would he have had, though? Maybe he was assigned to fighters against his preference because he was better qualified for it than anyone else, in terms of skill at piloting, acrobatics, handling g-forces, etc. In the military, as I understand it, you don't exactly have free rein to pick your assignments. There's this thing called "orders" that apparently comes into play from time to time.

 

[JoeZhang]

Except there are plenty of documented historical examples of people in war who did try to avoid shooting people

Except his CO notes it in a log which as someone else points out would have him pulled from flight duty and he's happy to lead people into the guns of others which makes his position rather inconsistent - Happy for other pilots to have to pull the trigger as long as he have clean hands.

And if we can accept the fantasy of a magic wishing ring that lets you breathe in space and hit people with reified daydreams, is it really so "dumb" to be open to the fantasy that a smart and principled person could find a better alternative to bloodshed even in the midst of war?

It's not accepted as an alternative and he kills someone later making it even odder - it doesn't work in the story as presented.

How much choice would he have had, though?

Plenty he could have gone down the I-W service route.

It sounds like you haven't even read the story? So besides throwing up generic objections - maybe read it and get back to those of us who have?

 

[Christopher]

^Maybe, but that's about the execution, not the concept. It doesn't mean that it's automatically "dumb" to portray a character as not wanting to kill.

 

[JoeZhang]

^Maybe, but that's about the execution, not the concept. It doesn't mean that it's automatically "dumb" to portray a character as not wanting to kill.

Don't shift the goalposts - we were discussing a specific story, it's just easier to say "I haven't read it, I couldn't comment on that specific story".

 

[Thestral]

Even generally, it's kind of a problem to choose to portray your hero as a soldier, fighter pilot, warrior god, etc., and then raise some qualms about them ever killing at all. If you want your hero to have an absolute (rather than situational) no-kill rule, why would you give him/her an origin based in killing as opposed to newspaper reporter/photographer/firefighter/student/scientist, etc.?

 

[Christopher]

Don't shift the goalposts - we were discussing a specific story, it's just easier to say "I haven't read it, I couldn't comment on that specific story".

Hey, that's uncalled for. You brought up New Frontier as a specific example in the larger discussion about the portrayal of superheroes using deadly force. I'm not "shifting the goalposts" just because I'm paying attention to the whole game rather than a single play. And I am familiar with the story of New Frontier, both from the comics and the movie adaptation. I didn't say anything that would give you reason to conclude otherwise, so I don't know where that came from. Your responses are getting unpleasantly ad hominem, and I have no interest in continuing this if you're going to go there.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Are you planning to see Civil War anytime soon, @Christopher ? There's a scene in it that I think you'd love.