Should Heroes That Kill Be Heroes?

[SonOfVoorhees]

As long as they kill the bad guys then im with them. Look at Batman, all "i cant kill" bullshit, and how many lives could he have saved if he killed The Joker day one? You would think after the 50th time he escaped and killed loads of people Batman would get the message. This just, for me, makes Batman retarded.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I'm guessing this thread is supposed to be about comic-book super heroes. Which is a shame, because most of my favourite fictional heroes are from fantasy novels. And they kill all the time!

Seriously, think back to the Lord of the Rings (or the films, if you never read the books) and have a guess at Aragorn's body count. Even if you don't count orcs as people (discrimination!) there are plenty of Southern men who will never return to their loving wives.

Even outside of war, fantasy heroes tend to do a fair bit of killing. I swear Anita Blake leaves at least one corpse at the end of every book. (Although some of those people were technically already dead.)

 

[Woodsey]

I'm pretty sure a number of those aren't even considered heroes, so saying we can't discuss anti-heroes kind of fucks everything up.

 

[Your once and future Fanboy]

The mark of a hero is subjective but I usualy follow the defenition:
"A hero is one who tries to do the most good by the least evil means"

So I belive that if a murder is the only way to save something greater (i.e the world, universe, a shitload of people, etc), than the true hero would sacrefice the life and his own moral comfort for the greater good.

Just don't fall in the trap of thinking; Hero = Icon / symbol of good.
A real hero can be an icon, a shimering light for all to follow, but I would rather take the chance on the dude (or dudette) who'll get things done when the other heroes are debating philosophy and posing for the Daily Planet

 

[Kroxile]

Sometimes the best way to help is to permanently remove dangerous persons.

So yeah, killing is justified in some cases.

 

[Shadowsetzer]

Too complicated for a simple answer. Yeah, some villains should probably be killed (the Joker comes to mind), but should the hero be the one making the choice? Killing a villain in and of itself doesn't make someone 'not a hero', but context is important.

Edit: Removed part of my post, since it was just confusing and irrelevant to my point.

 

[Erttheking]

Well yeah, they can be. The Avengers movie handeled this pretty well, sometimes you have no choice. Captain America is one of the most pure heros in the Marvel universe, and even he's killed. He fought in WWII for pete's sake.

I can understand the slippery slope idea and that some heros will become all powerful and consider themselves gods and amoral, killing without a second thought if they let themselves slip (like the Justice League in that mirror universe episode) but sometimes you NEED to kill. This is the policy that (most of) the X-men follow, don't kill someone unless you completly NEED to.

 

[briankoontz]

I would have to go the other way around. Heroes that don't kill are partly responsible for the crimes of those that they didn't kill. Batman to me is the worst offender in this. How many people has the Joker, Mr Freeze, the Riddler, Killer Croc, and all the rest killed after their first appearance. Well we know Jason Todd wouldn't have been killed, and Oracle wouldn't have been in a wheel chair.

Or Superman. His greatest enemy Darkseid, has killed a lot of people but he still refuses to kill him. I would want a hero that does what needs to be done.

I wouldn't want a hero at all. Supervillains are supercriminals and need to be handled by the police, not by "superheroes".

"Superheroes" are vigilante lunatics with righteousness complexes and are criminals themselves, given the amount of destruction they cause in the name of "stopping the villain".

Throw them all in prison and they can continue to jack each other off.

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

heres the thing. anyone that calls themselves a hero is not a hero. a hero is determined by how others see them. as to if hero's that kill deserve the title. we call soliders heros everyday and its part of there job to kill. In my mind i belive someone can be a killer and a hero. it just depends on how they live there life. wether they're willing to put themselves above others and if they can show true compasion for others, though not nesacarily everyone.

I don't belive that a hero has to be a siant. Just someone willing to do whats right because they can.

 

[FilipJPhry]

I don't call Red Hulk and Deadpool heroes. Wolverine is a hero because he does the right thing. Deadpool only does good things because he is hired to be a hero. Most of the time, he's mercilessly killing everyone. Also, when the Hell did he lose his scars?

 

[CrashBang]

Depends but, for the most part, I'd say no. When Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord she was shunned by the rest of the DC heroes for quite some time and Superman, as far as I know, has never killed. Hal Jordan has never killed, either (not counting when he became Parallax). He did technically kill Sinestro but he survived so that's a confusing one...
Still, I'd usually class a hero who kills as an anti-hero, like The Punisher.

 

[Furioso]

Yuri from Tales of Vesperia is one of my favorite protagonists and he ends up killing a few people, terrible people of course, but they do bring up vigilantism VS. the law, all in all I think it needs to be decided on a case by case basis

 

[ShindoL Shill]

If a criminal is on a violent rampage and a cop shoots him to death, is the cop not a hero?
So if Cyclops blasts that same criminal's head off, what is the difference?

 

[RJ 17]

Sure, why not? If police are authorized to kill (when absolutely necessary) in the line of upholding justice, why can't super heroes do the same?

I think the better question is how do super heroes manage to NOT kill the foes they fight? Batman isn't a super hero, he's a hero with super gadgets, super resources, and super intelligence. In a fight, however, he's just a very highly trained martial artist.

Superman, on the other hand, is a being who can - from what I've been told - literally grab the fabric of reality and pull the entire frickin' galaxy to a different position...tell me how the hell he's supposed to fight someone NOT made of the same stuff he is and NOT just utterly destroy them even if he were to only flick their ear?

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Depends on who they kill and why. In some circumstances, when the villain will clearly never stop trying to bring pain and suffering to the defenseless until someone kills them, would it not be in fact more irresponsible to let them live, knowing that it will cost more innocent lives in the long run. One of the really interesting things about Batman as a character is how his stance on killing is explored. He doesn't kill, ever, but on plenty of occasions he probably would have been a better 'hero' for the people if he had, and his complete aversion to the concept is presented as a borderline mental illness just as much as it is selfless nobility.

 

[MrAkuma201]

Doomsday there are some volumes where Superman has killed him but Doomsday comes back stronger each time he dies.

As for Deadpool has some sanity and morals left in Uncanny X force when he had a fit when Fantomex killed a child Apocalypse Saying "I didn't sign up for THIS!"

 

[Lunar Templar]

yes.

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