Now, I’m a relatively young dude who grew up after the passing of the Silver Age of comics that many people are nostalgiac for. I understand that the violence and adult nature of many of today’s comics makes a lot of old-school cats shake their heads and ask, “Where? Where did it all go wrong?” I can appreciate the jabs taken at the new, hyper-aggressive brand of heroes and anti-heroes by Kingdom Come & Action Comics #775.
Nonetheless, I still have to wonder how a “big blue boyscout” became of this rampaging maniac…
It’s the most famous comic book ever, and I’m sure many funnier people have already pointed this out, but I’ll go ahead and wear the tread thinner on the same jokes about the above, with the twist being an expression of admiration. Here you clearly have a Superman who is hell bent on defeating whatever unknown, craggy foe he’s bludgeoning with some poor schmuck’s car (I’m betting it’s the dude in the red tie, whose pained expression reads less “I’m terrified of that man’s unimaginable strength!” and more “Dear God my wife’s still in the backseat!”). This is the original Superman, attacking mountains with vehicles heedless of regard for human life. A guy who didn’t go out of his way to kill the bad guys, but didn’t exactly put in the extra effort to make sure he didn’t kill them or destroy other people’s property in the course of battle.
A guy who definitely wouldn’t be caught dead looking like this…
You know how I came across this picture? I searched “Superman crying” and there it was, first page. Google snickered and said “Man there are soooo many pics to choose from,” before I was done typing it. (Conversely, I Googled “Batman crying” and a Batarang shot out of my monitor and struck me in the throat.)
Look, I don’t want to be another one of those comic book nerds who picks on Superman for being “too wholesome.” Truth is, I’m a fan, when he’s not openly bawling into Diana’s Wonder-plated bosom (God’s sake man, have you no Super-shame?). But you have to pick on Superman when talking about things like this because he’s the original. If he says “killing is not allowed” then all others follow suit. He sets the standard.
So How did Supes go from a Kevin Garnett level of psychotic intensity to the Downy-softest super icon in the world?
Probably a number of reasons, but what the hell, I’m gonna blame the “No Killing” code. I understand the ostensible purpose of it, but in actuality it’s careless and wuss-ifying and, most of all, completely idiotic. And here are the reasons why…
Lousy Comic Book Penal Systems
If comic books operated like the real world, where prison escapes are relatively rare and multiple escapes by the same prisoner rarer, and frequent escapes by mass-murdering sociopaths pretty unthinkable, then simply imprisoning an offender would be fine.
Unfortunately, comic books operate in a world where every hero needs an arch-nemisis – or several – and said arch-nemesis needs to make regular appearances lest he be downgraded from “arch-nemesis” to “that dude Superman smacked with a schoolbus that one time.” Here’s the rub: you can’t have the villain constantly evading the hero, else your hero becomes an inept buffoon (see “Inspector Gadget”), but you can’t have the villain stay in prison forever either.
The solution? Your hero wins and locks the bad guy up, the bad guy escapes and starts a new scheme, and the process repeats itself. Ah, but this actually makes the rub even rubbier, as now you have to do something to prevent your regularly scheduled conflicts from falling into a routine of Tom vs. Jerry hijinks. What do you do? Raise the stakes, of course! Nobody can take the stories lightly if there is life and death hanging in the balance! A brilliant solution except for one tiny side effect…
All of Those Innocent Casualties
As an admitted Batman fanatic, I understand that my reason for exempting Batman from the “mega-idiot” category reserved for other No Killing Code abiding heroes (Bruce Wayne’s pathological focus, mild insanity and ponderous arrogance make his adherence more understandable) might be a bit suspect. So I’ll now take this opportunity to skewer him for not having killed The Joker years ago.
The above reasoning for Batman’s refusal to kill notwithstanding, he should have buried The Joker by now. Everybody has to have a breaking point. The Joker has bludgeoned Batman’s partners with a crowbar, then finished him off with a time-bomb chaser, paralyzed another partner and then took photographs of her nude body and showed them to her father (Batman’s buddy, Commissioner Gordon), and murdered the father’s wife. That’s just the people Batman knows.
The Joker exemplifies the problem with just raising the stakes. The villains become more and more villainous, their actions become increasingly deplorable, their body counts look like zip codes, meanwhile the good guy is still playing whiffle-ball. Shouldn’t Batman have at least beaten The Joker comatose by now? Broken his spine? Something?
When the villains are breaking out of prison and robbing banks and making threats that never come to fruition then the No Killing Code is all good. But if you’re going to let Cyborg and Mongul wipe out Coast City and kill 7 million people in the process, you need to give Green Lantern the green light to wreck somebody. You can’t say that you keep heroes from killing because comic books are meant for children when you let Dr. Light rape Sue Dibny. The shit makes no sense!
For God’s sake, how do citizens in comic book universes even sleep at night?
“You hear about Coast City?”
“Yeah. I hope they get the bastards who did that.”
“They already did.”
“Killed ‘em?”
“Nah. Exiled them to some asteroid or some shit.”
“What? So they can break free like they always do and come back to annihilate another city? How many cities have to get obliterated before they cut this “No Killing” bullshit? Our superheroes suck man! Hell, I shot a guy the other day after he wouldn’t ’stop in the name of the law,’ as I had plainly instructed.”
“I know. I sniped like eighty people in ‘Nam. Sometimes you just have to lay somebody out…”
Which segues to the next headline…
Actual Heroes Actually Kill
There’s this notion that Superman doesn’t kill because he was raised with rural, Midwestern values. Truth, justice, the American way and all that jazz. Truth is, the American way of justice often results in dead motherfucking bad guys. (You see what I did there with flipping the “Truth” and the “justice” and… yeah…)
A soldiers go to war, kills the enemies who tried to ambush his boys: he comes home a hero. A police officer shoots down a guy who’s holding a gun to a hostage, he’s going to get a medal and a deserved “thank you.”
Now I’m not saying that Superman should swoop down and casually snap a bank robber’s neck because he saw the guy holding a gun, but if he’s battling a supervillain with comparable powers he might need to resort to some supermurder to save a life or two. I’m just sayin’…
I’ve been giving DC a hard time, but when it comes to demonizing the act of killing a bad guy Marvel runs things. The Punisher, The Scourge and Wolverine are all guys viewed as “on the fringe” by other heroes. Borderline lunatics who nobody trusts or wants to work with. They’re Riggs from Lethal weapon with only a fraction of the justification for using deadly force and without the heartwarming “I’m not crazy” – “I know” exchange with their veteran black partners at the end of their adventures.
How over-the-top are the Marvel killers? Wolverine is probably the most “balanced” of the bunch, and his signature fighting style is simply referred to as “Berserker rage!” A guy whose weapons are only good for engaging in bloody, vicious, horrifically entertaining slaughter…
This guy is the most stable killer on the roster? We can’t throw in one balanced, “I’m not thrilled about killing but sometimes you just have to go there” character?
Even when a classic hero isn’t directly responsible for someone’s death they often go overboard in lamenting their role in it. Professor X merely mindwipes Magneto and immediately expresses remorse for the action, nevermind Magneto having just ripped the metal out of Wolverine’s bones and, oh yeah, having just killed countless people by deactiving every electronic device on the planet.
But you know, Charles is a decent dude, so he sorta feels bad about putting an end to all of that carnage. Lest the point of “Killers never prosper” elude us, Marvel decides that Charles’ action was uncharacteristically ruthless enough to help spawn the ultra-villainous, global-threat Onslaught. See what happens when you get too reckless Charlie?
Of course, all of this remorse and the requisite extreme consequences is all the more absurd when you consider…
Nobody Stays Dead Anyway
Magneto? Yeah, in a few years he was fine and back to his old mischief, that rascal! Just like so many others who wear a cape or a mask or both and bite it (or come close) in a comic book. There used to be a saying in comic books that nobody stays dead except for Bucky (Captain America’s version of Robin), Jason Todd (Batman’s version of a Joker-victim-sidekick) and Uncle Ben (Spider-Man’s surrogate pops). Only the people who coined that phrase forgot that Bucky and Jason were superheroes, even if they lacked powers, making them very eligible for rebirth–which came about for both just a couple of years ago.
So really, the only people who stay dead in comic books are the ones who are just regular Joes and Janes trying to get through the day, and the only people killing regular Joes and Janes are the supervillains. Death, in the comic books, is like a better version of prison, one that it takes a little longer to escape from. So really, what’s the harm really in killing a bad guy once in a while?
C’mon Supes! I’m not saying you have to go on a killing spree. But for every scene of you blubbering like a baby there needs to be one like this…
I don’t know what all the smoke is from, but I like to presume it’s the remains of his opponents after a well-deserved vaporizing. That’s what I’m talking about…
