[Looks at empty box of Ritz in horror.]
Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow - Season 1
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I agree about Iron Man. (And the Guardians, as mentioned) The rest of them?
I'm not sure I can think of a single scene where they killed when they didn't have to. The closest I could possibly come is the attack at the start of AoU, but I don't actually recall if anyone even died there.
The fact that they don't speechify about the value of life doesn't mean they don't believe in it.
I'm not saying they're all the same. I'm saying - with the exception of the anti-hero model, which absolutely does seem to include this show - the vast majority of them are a far way away from a callous disrespect for life. Does the overall trend seem to lean more towards forcing heroes to recognize that some situations are so desperate that you have to kll, rather than allowing them to solve everything without killing? Sure, that's true. Probably a sign of the times. And it would be nice if things weren't leaning quite so far in that direction. But, at the same time, I'd prefer a genre that's able to show both sides of the coin (even if the balance isn't perfect) far and away above one that's stuck in ancient tropes about never killing no matter what.
But, either way, this team is definitely shaping up to be more anti-hero than hero. I can certainly understand if that's not your cup of tea, or even if it's a major disappointment (since some of these characters don't really seem the anti-hero type), but that does seem to be the character of the show, so I don't really see any point in judging it by more heroic standards.
Karen Page.
Not a superhero.
Only because my brain would blow up if I had to see Karen in tight leather body armour, or dare I wish: Spandex and boots.
Sounds like other parts of you might blow up, too.
And I disagree emphatically that it's an "ancient trope." It's still very much a part of many comics characters' personalities. It's a defining trait of comics characters like Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man in the present day, regardless of how the movies have compromised those characters. For a while in the recent Spider-Man comics -- maybe still ongoing for all I know -- a recurring story/character thread was that Peter got tired of failing to save people and committed himself to a policy that nobody, good or bad, would be allowed to die on his watch. I've only read a few stories from that period, but I gather that the challenges and difficulties of such a policy, and no doubt the disbelief and disagreement of many of Spidey's peers, were very much a topic of exploration in the stories. (For instance, if he were teamed up with Wolverine.) Daredevil's first season on Netflix was all about Matt wrestling with his determination not to kill under any circumstances, and the second season is clearly going to be contrasting that with the Punisher's more brutal approach. Supergirl on CBS has occasionally touched on the question, with Supergirl insisting that she does not and will not kill, and finding herself challenged on that question by her sister and others.
So your dismissal of the value or currency of the idea of a hero refusing to kill is not grounded in the facts. It's not a dead or discredited trope -- it's still an idea very much worth exploring, precisely because it challenges modern society's glib and callous assumptions about the "necessity" of lethal force. It takes great courage and commitment to stick with such a policy despite all the peer pressure telling you to compromise, and great creativity and intelligence to find nonlethal ways of solving problems. And that can generate interesting stories and engaging character interactions.
It's just that in this particular case, they were killing dozens of people in one fell swoop, by sucking them all out into space. That's a pretty horrific thing to have to do. But the episode didn't acknowledge that in any way. If you're going to do a story about characters who take lives, okay, that can be valid -- if you actually treat the taking of life in an intelligent manner, acknowledge it as a dark thing, show the characters being affected by it in a realistic way. Real people -- those who aren't psychopaths -- can't just casually kill a bunch of people and feel nothing about it afterward. There should be shock, guilt, PTSD. At the very least, there should be some contemplation of the grim necessity. But the episode didn't bother with any of that. It just sucked them all out the doors, then whee, let's watch Ray and Kendra make out! That's not the sophisticated, mature treatment of lethal force you're claiming, it's juvenile, shallow, and lazy. Compare it to Arrow's first season, where Oliver killed his enemies but had to wrestle with the guilt and morality of it.
I can live with stories where the heroes sometimes have to kill. What I dislike are stories that treat death as a trivial action beat, even a matter of fun.
^Yes. Perfect example.
It was kind of like any of DCs possible futures..it won't happen if the team succeeds in their mission and/or are returned to the proper timeline. In my opinion, it kind of means they were important all along despite Rip's claims to the contrary in the pilot.
Right now, 2 legends are missing/dead, so when they get back, the present they arrive at, is going to still lead to a different new future that is not the same as if none of them left.
Who's to say Carter wasn't supposed to die anyway--and we still don't know what Mick's ultimate fate is going to be.
If they had never left, which is what was supposed to have happened, before Rip derailed history, Carter may have died the next day, or he may have lived to be 90. Point is that none of them were supposed to go with Rip because it's a time crime to take them.
It was the same kind of "potential future" as the projections Gideon showed of 2016 hellhole versions of Star City or Central City -- the future that would come to pass if the inciting change (i.e. removing the team members from the present) were not undone in time to prevent it.
Carter may be dead but there are still quite a few "Khufus" to encounter.
I don't think it's been shown yet whether this is BTTF-time-travel (if you go to the future it's allowed that you eventually return to your 'present' so you can see your older self) or if you simply disappear from time at the moment you left. Anyone in Star City who commented didn't say whether Sara/etc weren't around because they'd time traveled and just been removed from the timestream or because they died at some future point in their mission and weren't around to come back anyway.
(I have a headache now)
(I have a headache now)
This show implied heavily that because thy were off journeying, they weren't in the past to fulfill their life missions, therefore the bad 2046 future. It should go away as soon as they are returned to their proper places. (If anyone is a Heroes fan, remember the very first time Hiro time jumped, before he KNEW what he was doing? Ando said he had been missing for weeks.) Which is actually, IMO, the "proper" way of doing time travel.
Rip didn't explain anything well to these people.
Mic Rory thought that the bad future would still exist if they left him there, and then they changed the past out from under him.
JENGA!
Mic Rory thought that the bad future would still exist if they left him there, and then they changed the past out from under him.
JENGA!
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Presumably it would for him.