Superheroes Don't Kill

[FirstNameLastName]

It's not so much a no killing rule as there is a don't show the bad stuff on one side rule, because that is how you make the "good" guys perpetually look good.

Yes Iron Man might have torched that tank and let the 6 crew inside burn to death, an extremely torturous way to go. But as long as they only show a tank blowing up we don't get any bad impressions of it, someone has already come up with a story that the crew of a blazing tank might survive...
See that is how you keep your heroes hands clean, make shit look like it's all awesome explosions and only baddies shed blood. If they showed Iron Man ripping that tank open and laser beaming every single persons skull to ash then the audience would get really uneasy about the whole "good guy" thing.

Same reason why so many opposing armies/police wear face concealing masks/helmets when the audience isn't expected to sympathise with them.

There are lots of cheap tricks to show the morality of a conflict ... without actually showing>/i> the morality.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I could always relate to why Batman never wanted to relegate himself to judge jury and executioner, and felt it was quite ok to just go around slamming people into unconsciousness and breaking limbs left and right. Maybe "relate" is too strong a word, heh. But still, the amount of times he's let Joker go, no matter how heinous and unforgivably evil his deeds, goes a little beyond me.

And the other thing I think about is collateral damage. Yeah they say they won't kill anyone, but come on, collapsing/exploding buildings, Superman has definitely inadvertently caused a few deaths. Granted, many of them can't be avoided, but I'm sure with the amount of mayhem in a populated area, a few people have lost their lives.

Batman though has killed on several occasions, in the movies and games. I can't cite them all now, but I know he's blown up a Tibetan castle or something with people in it. And he shot the hell out of that guy driving the nuclear bomb truck. So it's to be expected that when you have to do it, you have to do it. So it shouldn't be so much of a personal dilemma ending the joker's life, after all he keeps escaping and killing more people and presenting Batman with more moral dilemmas anyway.

 

[DerangedHobo]

Killing being some sacred line you can't cross is bullshit. "No one deserves death" is bullshit too. How many more innocent deaths could Batman have prevented if he killed the Joker? Or if Daredevil wasted Kingpin?

And that's a reasonable moral dilemma but just because they are 'evil' doesn't mean that they deserve to die and it does make you like them. The justification that "You're saving innocent lives" is an assumption, it may be an educated assumption but an assumption none the less. What if the joker does reform? What if Kingpin does stop?

Violence is a necessity (especially in todays world), sometimes taking a live is necessary. Some people just deserve to die.

People 'deserve' to die? Based on, what, exactly? That's a human construct which brings up the question of "who decides?". Who claims to be the moral arbiter and isn't doing so making them flawed as well? The idea that you should kill killers is flawed logic and is an attempt to see the world in black and white terms when it is all varying shades of grey.

 

[theNater]

I never actually said they should kill the villains to stop their inevitably escape, just that the morality of doing so should not be influenced by knowledge of the medium (with the obvious exception of playing it for laughs).

Just so long as we're clear that it cuts both ways: Batman doesn't get to know that the Joker's escape is inevitable any more than he gets to know that the Joker will be replaced if killed.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

An interesting point about Batman that's rarely touched upon, Batman usually does more than incapacitate the people he beats up, broken bones and such. These injuries will make it impossible for courts to put them in jail and will necessitate medical operations for the people with rehabilitation taking years.

The same people who resorted to crimes because they don't have any higher education or alternative and are most likely poor, in the US where medical bills are insane. Add to that the fact that these people will probably be home ridden for months, if not years, and will only have their unfortunate family (who is now completely broke) to target all the rage and hatred they have stored up. Let's say that domestic violence and health care debt is probably skyrocketing thanks to Batman, preparing the children of the criminals to take their place and probably also be broken by the bats, but what measures a mook?

to be fair I think when you go to jail you get free healthcare to deal with stuff like that. I doubt they throw prisoners in jail with a broken leg or bullet wound.

and you talk about the measure of a Mook but that one of the things I like about Batman he's not a fucking hypocrite about thou shalt not kill thing. I hate it when the hero kills 500 mooks who were probably trying to pay the bill and then he get's to the child rapist main villain he let's him live I fucking hate that but batman sticks to his guns and doesn't kill anyone to get to the joker (Bad writing notwithstanding) so at least he truly believes in it.

 

[kasperbbs]

I think it's a stupid rule thats mainly there to reuse villains in the comics. In movies it doesn't really matter all that much since most of them are doing trilogies and having the same villain in all of them is boring.
I never read comics, but i have to wonder how many times did the batdude capture the joker only to have him escape and murder people again, at some point he should have realised that theres something wrong with that system, perhaps in one of the many reboots he did..

 

[rosac]

I've just rewatched man of steel, and this is a strong point for me. Superman does not kill. Superman finds another way. What pissed me off even more is that Zod even says the line "This can only end two ways Kal-el, myself or you dying" (something like that.)

They were given the chance for Superman to do anything- absolutely anything- other than kill Zod and say "You're wrong Zod, there's always another way" before sending him into a phantom zone prison, teleporting him to some ridiculous planet, knocking him out and putting him on a krypton-similar planet with no means of escape etc. etc. That way you get the incredibly cheesy morality tale line AND establish Kal-Els morality for future films.

Superman does not kill in my mind, because Superman should represent an ideal that no other being can reach.

Batman doesn't kill because it's "The line" as mentioned in the Red Hood. He is, in some ways, as much of a villain as the Joker, the penguin, Mr. Freeze. By not crossing the line he separates himself from the criminals he fights.

As for Cap, he's a soldier. He's not a boy-scout like Superman as he is put in Kill or Be Killed situations. Thor is literally a God of War. The Hulk is the Hulk. Hawkeye is an assassin. Iron Man is in the same situation as Cap. If they don't kill or subdue their opposites to a heavy degree, they could well die themselves in the fight. This works with regards to films, but comics it's less doable and requires plot armour, ret cons or bullshit reasoning to undo.

 

[Bad Jim]

Same reason why so many opposing armies/police wear face concealing masks/helmets when the audience isn't expected to sympathise with them.

Actually I think they do that so the audience doesn't realise that it's the same dozen or so actors getting killed in every scene. And in the case of comics and cartoons, they can recycle art far more efficiently if the bad guys all look the same, often they're all exactly the same height even when they're not clones or robots.

Obviously there are some artistic justifications, but I'm sure it comes down to cost cutting in truth.

 

[GladiatorUA]

As long as the reasons are established, I don't really care if a superhero kills or avoids killing. In case of Marvel, Hulk is Hulk, his rampages probably result in deaths, Thor lives by entirely different rule set, Cap is a soldier, Stark is an former weapon manufacturer and his first Iron Man outing was life or death situation, Black Widow and Hawkeye are spies/assassins.

I don't remember what exactly prompted no-kill rule in Nolan's Batman trilogy. There wasn't much thinking about killing or not killing MoS, other than that one scene. I liked the scene, but I hate how little it does for the universe within the movie. No-kill rule is not established, there is no personal connection between Zod and Clark, there was no obvious motives for Clark to fight Zod the way he did etc.

 

[zumbledum]

always assumed this stupid no killing crap came about to make it easier to get past the censors back in teh 80's or earlier

 

[spartan231490]

It's one of the oldest, most sacred tenets of a superhero. No killing, because that makes you like them.

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2011/04/killer06.jpg

Yet in the Marvel movies, arguably the most successful division of Marvel comics, life isn't held in such high regard.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11111/111118857/4226397-6923126145-iron-.gif

It's something I realized some time ago, and was brought back to memory by that recent Man of Steel article.

When Man of Steel came out, I realized that the only superheroes on film that didn't kill were Batman and Spider-man. The Avengers, Supes, the X-men, they've all taken lives.

I've always wondered why no one really ever had problems with this, despite it being so important in the comics. When someone starts dropping bodies in the comics, you know shit is going down. In the movies, it happens every 5 minutes. It's funny, Batman and Spider-man were supposed to be all dark and gritty, yet their heroes stuck to the golden rule. In the much more lighthearted, even comedic, Marvel movies, our favorite crime fighters are ending some poor goon's sad little life like they would a fly. Some happen in pretty horrible ways, Cap threw a Nazi out of a fucking plane.

In conclusion, why do you think these movies were so successful despite ignoring one of the most important qualities of heroics?

DC superheroes are the ones with the strict prohibition on killing the bad guys. The marvel universe never had it, and that is principally the reason I find Marvel infinitely more interesting. Marvel heroes avoid killing, but they don't have the strict prohibition.