MCU Casualties

[Saelune]

Gonna play daredevil's advocate here (pun ) and say that if casualties were to be super high, then what's the point of super-heroes?

In the words of Captain America from the latest Civil War trailer: "We try to save people. That doesn't mean we can save everyone."

Something to remember is that if New York has 10,000 people die from the invasion, that would still be an improvement over a nuke being dropped on the city or a prolonged Chitauri invasion being dealt with by the military and national guard.

They didn't save everyone. A couple of hundred people died. In all honesty though, its just a case of picking a number. I doubt anyone who made the movies was actually doing casualty math and picked numbers at relative random.

 

[SirSullymore]

I never got the hate MOS got for 'not saving enough people', like it was one farm boy versus a squad of trained soldiers, he was doing his best damnit! haha

Plus the fall out of that battle is the major catalyst the next movie so there's that.

 

[hermes]

I think that was a response of the main criticism Man of Steel had, namely that Superman, during his fight with Zod, made no attempt to minimize civilian casualties. In fact, he made no attempt at all, and civilians and buildings were little less that props in that fight.

Personally, I think that criticism is blown out of proportion, but it was one of the most vocal one, and Marvel has made conscious decisions to make sure "their side" handles casualties better. There is even a scene in Avengers 2 where Tony scans a construction site for life signals before diverting a fight with Hulk toward it. Have there not being such criticism, I don't think that line would even be there.

 

[SirSullymore]

Yeah, I'll have to rewatch MOS, but I don't remember it seeming like he didn't care about people (in fact him caring about people is what led him to kill the only other member of his race, another complaint that I feel people blew way out of proportion), it seemed more like he was in way over his head.

 

[hermes]

I never got the hate MOS got for 'not saving enough people', like it was one farm boy versus a squad of trained soldiers, he was doing his best damnit! haha

I think the point is that goes counter to the character, and gives it a weird twist when he kills Zod to protect a single family of extras (as opposed to, you know, the countless other people he and Zod killed as collateral)

 

[SirSullymore]

I never got the hate MOS got for 'not saving enough people', like it was one farm boy versus a squad of trained soldiers, he was doing his best damnit! haha

I think the point is that goes counter to the character, and gives it a weird twist when he kills Zod to protect a single family of extras (as opposed to, you know, the countless other people he and Zod killed as collateral)

I guess I can see that, but I felt a major theme was he felt torn between his people and humans, and that moment was to indicate his final decision, Earth over Krypton. Again, I never felt he was actively ignoring civilians, just that he had a lot on his plate (solders who are almost as strong as him and way better trained, world destroying engine)

At lest he killed Zod reluctantly and for a reason, not in cold blood for no reason like he did in the Reeves film.

 

[Czann]

These numbers are ridiculous, childish and laughable. An alien invasion, gods, air carriers falling from the sky and a murderous AI only killed a handful of people?

ISIS kill more people in a day.

 

[Laughing Man]

So that's 274 deaths over the course of 3 major alien/terrorist attacks in densely populated areas....is it just me or is that number insanely low. Like the Avengers seem to be doing a bang up job from these numbers, the premise of Civil War seems a tad wonky.

Numbers isn't really the factor, even collateral damage isn't really an issue (Avengers 2 showed that Stark had some sort of fund in place for these events) the ground work for Superhuman registration was being laid by Agents of Shield way back before Avengers 2 with the Inhuman's and ACU plotlines. The fact that Talbot (US military general) has now taken over the ACU and the fact that the government is now working in conjunction, albeit quietly, with Shield probably ties in nicely with the Superhuman registration events taking place in this movie. The reason for the fighting in Civil War is not so much a simple case of those for vs those against. Those factors are just the division between the two groups the actual catalyst for the combat seems to be around some unexplained bombing that is shown in the latest trailer and the events revolving around Bucky.

 

[eberhart]

Held accountable for what? Being to good at saving people? Well Avengers 2 was Tony's fault but now hes on the pro-accountability side. so hell if I know whats going on. Still, more people die from heart attacks each day than the entirety of these disasters, if I was in the MCU i'd feel pretty safe.

More people die every day of heart attacks than are beaten to death by the police. That doesn't mean we don't hold the police accountable.

Superhero body cams are the answer!

I'm just being nitpicky because I feel like way more people should have died, plus I'm pretty disappointed with Spider-man so I'm looking for things to be annoyed by. haha

Hey, don't hate on Spider-man, he is an early adopter of your body cam idea Granted, he made a quick buck on the side, selling his photos, but still, not bad for The Menace ^^

 

[Redd the Sock]

I never got the hate MOS got for 'not saving enough people', like it was one farm boy versus a squad of trained soldiers, he was doing his best damnit! haha

I think the point is that goes counter to the character, and gives it a weird twist when he kills Zod to protect a single family of extras (as opposed to, you know, the countless other people he and Zod killed as collateral)

I always thought people missed the point of that one badly. To paraphrase Kingdom Come: it was a fight that in time would swallow the Earth. Superman had no way to restrain Zod if and when he could manage to incapacitate him. No Kryponite. No easy access phantom zone projector. No STAR labs full of metahuman experts to whip together red sunlight generators in 30 minutes or they're free. That was the point int he fight he realized Zod would just keep killing and destroying, and killing him first was the only way to stop him.

Then, I've always felt that MoS was a rebuttal to Avengers: no vacant streets. No avoiding structural support damage. No aliens herding humans into a group instead of just shooting them. (pre-emptively) no Helecarriers landing in the river instead of the street. It just sometimes upsets people to take the comics rules of "no one or few people die" off the table.

At least the comic version of Civil war blew up school kids. That's usually more than enough to make people panic and over react.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Really, numbers are somewhat irrelevant. As many people have pointed out, you're way more likely to die of heart disease than you are to be killed by a gun (in the US at least), that doesn't mean you therefore don't ever worry about gun violence.

Further, as someone mentioned, I think it's going to have way more to do with the fact that the Avengers were all basically working for SHIELD, an organization that essentially committed high treason and was actually harboring huge numbers of Nazis for years. I don't really blame the public for saying "wait, you want us to just trust these super-powered people using the excuse of "oh well we didn't know"?

 

[Veylon]

The numbers really were ludicrously small.

In real life, even small walk-over battles that barely register in the history books claim thousands of casualties. The Liberation of Paris - remembered mostly as a parade - cost 5000 lives.

 

[Orga777]

The numbers really were ludicrously small.

In real life, even small walk-over battles that barely register in the history books claim thousands of casualties. The Liberation of Paris - remembered mostly as a parade - cost 5000 lives.

Real life battles don't have super powered demi gods fighting. Iron-Man, Hulk, and Thor all together equal more than anything any single army can scrounge up for a single battle.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Bit reductionist to only look at direct conflict casualties. Even if you magically limit the damage to a few city blocks, if those city blocks just so happens to be central Manhattan, that's tens of thousands homeless, untold investment losses, longterm infrastructure damage limiting effective services and the flow of traffic.

"Hooray, only hundred or so people died! Now we can deal with the thousands upon thousands homeless, stranded, locked in broken elevators, buried under debris, looting, disabling of services ...." Let's face it ... you have a nation with a quarter of a billion guns. You have a multitude of destroyed banks and abandoned storefronts. I'd be half tempted to loot as much as I could in the chaos.

By the time the army mobilised past the deadlocked traffic, I reckon I could pack a few bags full of stuff that isn't mine. Who's going to stop me when protecting your stuff for the average person is less valuable than going out and looting that abandoned armoured truck full of some bank's money? They could use their pistol to protect their crappy tv, pc, and bed ... or they could use said pistol to abandon that crap and forcibly 'withdraw' a few million from those looters. What do you think the person is going to pick?

So the economic situation may alone be worse than the miniscule amount of life lost. As heartless as it sounds ....

 

[Zontar]

Bit reductionist to only look at direct conflict casualties. Even if you magically limit the damage to a few city blocks, if those city blocks just so happens to be central Manhattan, that's tens of thousands homeless, untold investment losses, longterm infrastructure damage limiting effective services and the flow of traffic.

That's the entire setting for the state of Hell's Kitchen in Daredevil and the other Marvel Netflix series. The damage ruined the community, gone from a gentrified up-scale community to a slum where everyone who could afford to leave has done so, crime is at levels unseen since the 70s when daylight shootings where common, there's scaffolding everywhere and half the place isn't done rebuilding.

Hell, the money for reconstruction being stolen by criminal controlled construction companies is what drives the plot of Daredevil's first season.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

That's the entire setting for the state of Hell's Kitchen in Daredevil and the other Marvel Netflix series. The damage ruined the community, gone from a gentrified up-scale community to a slum where everyone who could afford to leave has done so, crime is at levels unseen since the 70s when daylight shootings where common, there's scaffolding everywhere and half the place isn't done rebuilding.

Hell, the money for reconstruction being stolen by criminal controlled construction companies is what drives the plot of Daredevil's first season.

Haven't seen it ... but there's real world examples where the run on effects are often far greater than even the height of the damages sustained. Hurricane Katrina. You had police officers fire on innocent civilians who were merely trying to flee to higher ground days after the initial storm and deluge. HK killed either directlky or indirectly 1400+ people. And that was with an astounding 85~90% evacuation rate.

We've known from models of the Cold War and nuclear attack civil defence strategies that evacuation is impossible unless one is notified of attack days before it happens. Even then you can only retract a certain number of people who already live in fringe suburbia. (Edit) It's part of the reaqson why the Australian government mobilises its armed forces in preparation of storm damages due to supercells and massive storms. If you don't have emergency services on the ground before something happens then it's impossible to control the situation.

 

[Cicada 5]

The thing is that the MCU movies has always made it a big deal that they try to prevent casualties. It's not like they were Man of Steeling it and hoping people could survive two super powered beings ramming through their living room at the speed of sound. In Avengers 2, we see Tony send the Iron Legion in to protect the people in a local village, for example. In Avengers, they were making an effort to keep the fighting contained and making the effort to protect civilian populations, like when Cap went to protect that diner.

I won't say that I think those numbers are realistic, but in universe it makes sense that the casualties aren't absolutely catastrophic.

That's just it. The idea that casualties are this low is too straining on suspension of disbelief. Showing a higher body count won't make these people less herois, just show they have limits.

 

[MCerberus]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the inciting incident Cap jailbreaking Bucky? So an Avenger springs a known terrorist on top of all previous shenanigans.

 

[Zontar]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the inciting incident Cap jailbreaking Bucky? So an Avenger springs a known terrorist on top of all previous shenanigans.

A known terrorist involved in one of said previous shenanigans on top of it all.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It is a low number. The MCU doesn't make any sense. A few terrorists in Paris managed to kill more people in a few hours than aliens managed in the entire New York. Superheroes or no superheroes that doesn't make any fuckin' sense.
And that's why we have this thing called suspension of disbelief.

This "Avengers need to be held accountable" is the most sci-fi thing in this franchise too. Especially since no government on Earth could possibly tell someone like Thor what to do, and Tony Stark could simply buy the corrupt US government the way corporations do all the time.

If you look at death statistics, things like terrorist attacks are so low on the list that intelligence agencies really shouldn't have nearly as much power as they have. And most drug related crimes could be solved by simply legalizing most drugs so law enforcement agencies should be stripped of some of that power too. But the government doesn't seem to care too much about law enforcement accountability or its own accountability. Avengers on the other hand are the only ones equipped to take on alien threat. Yet the government is worried about their accountability. Because plot reasons. Nothing makes sense. So take it easy. It's just a silly superhero movie.