Man of Steel vs Superman #32

[GreatKungLao]

I was thinking about how MoS and S#32 have put Clark in similar situations and the more I thought about how DC Rebirth handled it, the more bothered I've become. I might be misreading something, but the issue implied that Superman should let Lois die in order to save his moral codex rather than killing Deathstroke in order to save a much more decent human being. I don't know, I think this whole "saving morality above everything else" is becoming a sick obsession that doesn't allow super heroes to make difficult (but right) decisions and live with it.

In Man of Steel Clark did the right thing by saving innocent human lives at the cost of one kryptonian genocidal maniac, but Superman #32 would have him rather let those humans die and try to find a "better" solution to handling a villain of the story.

Was anyone else borthered by how Superman #32 handled Deathstroke tempting Superman to kill in order to save a life and he refused and Lois was ok if she died, but Deathstroke would live just for Superman to find a way in order to lock him up according to the law?

Maybe I'm just seeing wrong implications in that issue, but this is exactly what I saw the moment I read it back when it was released and now when I decided to read it again in order to try prove myself wrong.

Should Superman keep his "not killing" thing at the cost of innocent lives? Or maybe he shouldn't be put in this kind of situations ever because he can't be allowed to make this kind of decisions? Because as MoS reaction shows, a lot of people would rather have the latter option.

[MajorHoy]

Are you talking "Man of Steel" the movie, or the six-issue comic book mini-series by John Byrne from 1986, or the comic book series Superman: The Man of Steel that ran from 1991-2003, or something else?

Never having seen the recent movie, nor ever planning to, I can't be certain of what did or did not happen in it.

[Soubhagya]

Its definitely about Man of Steel film. In that film to save a family from being killed by Zod, Superman snapped Zod's neck, killing him. It was particularly controversial among fans.

[Netherman14]

The no-kill code is a stupid way of neutering Superman and having the character avoid making any hard choices at all, and Kal should choose to off the villain almost immediately if it means he can save more lives. regardless of how irredeemable said foe is.

[Soubhagya]

I am all for killing them in such a situation when there's no other way out. That's how it works in real life. Sometimes to save lives one has to kill.

But comics are different. I am all for this moral code. After all morals are so important in real life. And in comics apparently no moral code exists except for no killing. Generally speaking the rule is do not kill. It applies to both real life and should be so in comics unless the hero in question happens to be someone like Punisher. But as with any rule, exceptions exist. In that case one has to look at both the spirit and the letter of the rule.

Superman exists in a unique place. Almost all the time he can get away with saving lives while not killing the villain. And he is actually someone who can literally kill anybody without catching a breath. He needs to be especially strict with regards to morality. Just like the leaders are supposed to be examples worthy of emulation for the common people. So, such a strict adherence to rules is good for Superman in my opinion. Without morals and principles where are we? And how different are we from animals? For higher principles one shall be ready to lay down one's life. Had that not been the case, evils like slavery might have existed even now. By the same principle in comics i am fine with it.

Morality however is much more complicated in reality. For example suppose my principle is not lying. Now some rioters are trying to kill an innocent family. And i know where they are hiding. If i stick to speaking the truth i would be doing an injustice. And this morality turns into something immoral. That does not mean that speaking the truth is not an unworthy moral by itself. We lie all the time. Most of the times to hide our mistakes causing a lot of harm. Going the opposite direction thus turns out to be unworthy too. Its about the application of morality. That is something in which the wisest of people fail. I don't expect a nuanced take on such stuff in comics. Go with the simple principle that principles are more important. So, much so that one can lay down one's life for that.

Lois saying that was fine. Superman's was problematic. Morality and principles are subtle. When you try something like that in the framework of Superman where things aren't so subtle one finds incompatibility. I was fine with the issue. Superman actually is like that. His viewpoint in 99% incarnations have been so that he sees the world in black and white.



"There is a right and a wrong in the universe and that distinction is not hard to make." -Kingdom Come


Mark Waid is among the best Superman writers. He caught that part of Superman's character quite accurately. But is it the only way? I would say better not tackle such a thing. It becomes controversial. And that morality part of the character shall be kept. Both for aesthetic reasons as Superman is supposed to be a paragon of humanity. He has to hold up to ideals. He can't go around like Avengers in films and kill people left and right. And practically too. For all talk of Batman killing Joker no one wants to see that happen for real. With that Joker will stop appearing in stories. That makes the comics poorer and its not a good move for DC. And furthermore, how permanent death is in comics anyway.

In most cases Superman can actually come up with solutions. He is simply too powerful. Better not tackle that in comics. But if you are tackling that go ahead in full steam. There shall be no half measures. Exile story tried something good. Killing someone changes a person. So, go ahead with that kind of story. I can't deny that Superman's choice in Superman #32 did not make me a bit uncomfortable. But i was taken aback by the logical inconsistencies within that story to really notice that. For instance, Superman goes to put off a fire and within that time somehow Deathstroke has captured Lois and hidden her. I can't remember exactly but reading that issue there were so many head scratching moments. A significant step down from the previous issue which in my opinion was pretty good.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

The no-kill code is a stupid way of neutering Superman and having the character avoid making any hard choices at all, and Kal should choose to off the villain almost immediately if it means he can save more lives. regardless of how irredeemable said foe is.

Empowered actors get away with killing innocent people under the guise of saving lives all the time. To have people as powerful as Superman resort to killing only reinforces the narrative that sometimes "you just have to kill", and framing it as making a hard choice means making the choice made by an empowered to kill a moment of pragmatic heroic sacrifice because killing makes them feel bad and they have to live with it.

It just might be the worst defense of superheroes killing.

And think of how absurd it is to say that not having Superman open to killing means not making hard choices available to the character. Do you really think that someone that goes through their entire life without ever having to choose whether to kill someone or not has avoided making hard choices their entire life?

[Jon Clark]

The problem with most of these scenarios is that they shift the responsibility from the person doing the killing to the hero. And then paint the hero's actions in a right/wrong way.

I inject you with poison. That makes me the person who causes your death. Regardless of who else is present and what actions they take I am the one responsible for you dying. While you can speculate what actions someone could have taken to prevent me from killing you back to my parents for conceiving me, they don't make anybody more responsible than me. And then the next most responsible person for you death becomes anyone who took actions intended to aid me in taking your life. So the gau who sold me the poison with full knowledge of why I wanted it or the guy who made sure no one else was in a position to prevent me from making the injection. You have to go a bit down this list before you get to people who chose not to act for reasons other than wanting you dead.

But somehow in these discussions the focus always becomes on assigning the blame to Superman as if his main motivation and intention is the deaths that occur. It attempts to create a morality that compels Superman to act by flipping the responsibility from the criminal to Superman. It isn't Zod or Deathstroke whose morality is on trial, it's Superman who is made responsible for the death.

And any attempt to justify Superman's actions becomes equated with both a condemnation of someone else who chooses to act and a license for the actual killer's actions.

I can hold that Superman has a right to choose not to act without at the same time stating that a policeman or soldier should not make a choice to act. If anyone has seen the movie Hacksaw Ridge, I ask if you can simultaneously admire the conscientious objector in that movie and his fellow soldiers who chose to fight. If so, isn't it possible to admire Superman for his "no kill" code without implying that it makes police officers who do kill less moral?

And isn't there something wrong with limiting Superman's choices based on the actions of the bad guy in a story? With saying that if Luthor does X then Superman has no other moral choice but to do Y and that any action other than Y is immoral, That in effect Lex is the one who makes the choice for Superman by forcing him to make a decision which really isn't a choice at all since we only allow for one right answer.

[Netherman14]

Empowered actors get away with killing innocent people under the guise of saving lives all the time. To have people as powerful as Superman resort to killing only reinforces the narrative that sometimes "you just have to kill", and framing it as making a hard choice means making the choice made by an empowered to kill a moment of pragmatic heroic sacrifice because killing makes them feel bad and they have to live with it.

It just might be the worst defense of superheroes killing.

And think of how absurd it is to say that not having Superman open to killing means not making hard choices available to the character. Do you really think that someone that goes through their entire life without ever having to choose whether to kill someone or not has avoided making hard choices their entire life?

I'm not saying Superman should be killing criminals 24/7, but if you have a Deathstroke/General Zod going around Metropolis threatening to kill people. should they not be offed so innocent civilians can live to see another sunshine? case in point, Slade threatening to kill Lois.

[Powerboy]

I am all for killing them in such a situation when there's no other way out. That's how it works in real life. Sometimes to save lives one has to kill.

But comics are different. I am all for this moral code. After all morals are so important in real life. And in comics apparently no moral code exists except for no killing. Generally speaking the rule is do not kill. It applies to both real life and should be so in comics unless the hero in question happens to be someone like Punisher. But as with any rule, exceptions exist. In that case one has to look at both the spirit and the letter of the rule.

Superman exists in a unique place. Almost all the time he can get away with saving lives while not killing the villain. And he is actually someone who can literally kill anybody without catching a breath. He needs to be especially strict with regards to morality. Just like the leaders are supposed to be examples worthy of emulation for the common people. So, such a strict adherence to rules is good for Superman in my opinion. Without morals and principles where are we? And how different are we from animals? For higher principles one shall be ready to lay down one's life. Had that not been the case, evils like slavery might have existed even now. By the same principle in comics i am fine with it.

Morality however is much more complicated in reality. For example suppose my principle is not lying. Now some rioters are trying to kill an innocent family. And i know where they are hiding. If i stick to speaking the truth i would be doing an injustice. And this morality turns into something immoral. That does not mean that speaking the truth is not an unworthy moral by itself. We lie all the time. Most of the times to hide our mistakes causing a lot of harm. Going the opposite direction thus turns out to be unworthy too. Its about the application of morality. That is something in which the wisest of people fail. I don't expect a nuanced take on such stuff in comics. Go with the simple principle that principles are more important. So, much so that one can lay down one's life for that.

Lois saying that was fine. Superman's was problematic. Morality and principles are subtle. When you try something like that in the framework of Superman where things aren't so subtle one finds incompatibility. I was fine with the issue. Superman actually is like that. His viewpoint in 99% incarnations have been so that he sees the world in black and white.



"There is a right and a wrong in the universe and that distinction is not hard to make." -Kingdom Come


Mark Waid is among the best Superman writers. He caught that part of Superman's character quite accurately. But is it the only way? I would say better not tackle such a thing. It becomes controversial. And that morality part of the character shall be kept. Both for aesthetic reasons as Superman is supposed to be a paragon of humanity. He has to hold up to ideals. He can't go around like Avengers in films and kill people left and right. And practically too. For all talk of Batman killing Joker no one wants to see that happen for real. With that Joker will stop appearing in stories. That makes the comics poorer and its not a good move for DC. And furthermore, how permanent death is in comics anyway.

In most cases Superman can actually come up with solutions. He is simply too powerful. Better not tackle that in comics. But if you are tackling that go ahead in full steam. There shall be no half measures. Exile story tried something good. Killing someone changes a person. So, go ahead with that kind of story. I can't deny that Superman's choice in Superman #32 did not make me a bit uncomfortable. But i was taken aback by the logical inconsistencies within that story to really notice that. For instance, Superman goes to put off a fire and within that time somehow Deathstroke has captured Lois and hidden her. I can't remember exactly but reading that issue there were so many head scratching moments. A significant step down from the previous issue which in my opinion was pretty good.

Very good summation.

I tend to look at the instances in the comics where Superman killed and what the circumstances were.

In the Golden Age, he killed regularly and often unnecessarily but that was before the Comics Code and before a solid idea of how popular he was going to be.

I'm probably missing numerous examples but the only one I remember from the Silver Age was the one where he went back in time and tricked a Kryptonian madman into killing himself.

I don't remember any from the Bronze Age but that doesn't mean they didn't happen. I would count "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" as Bronze Age but it was an imaginary story/ Elseworlds and it happened at the end of his career where he had the option of retiring.

Then, Post-Crisis, there was the Byrne story, of course, done in Byrne's last issue and leaving another writer to deal with it.

There's the highly questionable events of Superman II. Did he or did he not kill Zod? Right after, he goes into the restaurant and spins the bully so fast he's a blur yet it didn't kill him so the "Nobody could survive the impact Zod took" argument doesn't work and there are alternate endings.

Then there's "Man of Steel" the movie.

Every case where he kills is either way early in the first incarnation of his career or at the end of his career (or in a writer's last story before he ran for it and beat the fallout) or an alternate reality version which is what the movies are, not the main canon.

So I think it is meaningful but problematic to have him kill in the main canon if anything lasts long enough now to even call anything a main canon. In "main canon", I think it would be better to have him find a way out and then simply admit to himself that he would have killed to save an innocent person and maybe even that he got lucky. I'm not saying this is dramatically better but better in terms of how most people will react to it.

Note that in the Iron-Man movies, Iron-Man, who traditionally has the same Code against Killing that Superman does kills people right and left casually and almost nobody even blinks or they blink and then on with it. Same with Captain America and so on. But, the instant Superman does it, even when it was far more necessary than when those other characters did it, it's as if you just spit on a religious icon. Then again, I don't hear much about his killing that guy in B vs S by putting him through a solid brick wall or whatever it was to save Lois. Maybe it was because he had already killed or maybe it was because a huge production number wasn't built with that as it's centerpiece. It just happened and onward.

At most, I think Superman killing should be something that happens at most once in a particular reboot. But, again, if it's a main canon story, I think you've got to deal with the fact that it goes very much against most people's expectations of Superman.

[Jokerz79]

I'm not saying Superman should be killing criminals 24/7, but if you have a Deathstroke/General Zod going around Metropolis threatening to kill people. should they not be offed so innocent civilians can live to see another sunshine? case in point, Slade threatening to kill Lois.

Because in a world where people can be mind controlled or possessed you don't go around killing people unless you want potential innocent blood on your hands. Also a "hero" just by nature shouldn't play judge, jury, and executioner.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

I'm not saying Superman should be killing criminals 24/7, but if you have a Deathstroke/General Zod going around Metropolis threatening to kill people. should they not be offed so innocent civilians can live to see another sunshine? case in point, Slade threatening to kill Lois.

You're talking about scenarios crafted so that Superman killing is morally defensible while I'm talking about the broader implications of that kind of writing and what it entails. Superman killing just plays into the narrative of empowered actors having to kill because they had no choice, it was to save others, etc.

There's already too much killing by "the good guys", people that are by default considered heroes, there's no reason for Superman to be a part of that.

[Powerboy]

Empowered actors get away with killing innocent people under the guise of saving lives all the time. To have people as powerful as Superman resort to killing only reinforces the narrative that sometimes "you just have to kill", and framing it as making a hard choice means making the choice made by an empowered to kill a moment of pragmatic heroic sacrifice because killing makes them feel bad and they have to live with it.

It just might be the worst defense of superheroes killing.

And think of how absurd it is to say that not having Superman open to killing means not making hard choices available to the character. Do you really think that someone that goes through their entire life without ever having to choose whether to kill someone or not has avoided making hard choices their entire life?

But that just means that "Feeling guilty about killing" is overdone.

But, in recent movies, when has it been done at all? When have Iron-Man, Captain America, Thor or numerous other characters felt the least bit bad about killing even when it was unnecessary? Presumably, when Iron-Man headshots those terrorists with bullets, that's the first time he has ever directly and personally killed someone. Yet he doesn't seem to have the slightest hesitation about it or the slightest negative afterthoughts about it. On the rarest occasions where Superman has killed, he reacts like a real person having to do this for the first and hopefully only time and absolutely horrified by what he has to do like a real person instead of a strutting action movie macho fantasy and yet he gets endless flack for it.

It's because Superman is not a character for a lot of people but the embodiment of our every ideal and having him have to do something ugly no matter the circumstances is ruining the escapist fantasy and maybe tarnishing our own "inner world" where we hold to certain ideals even if they are illusions.

As to Superman still having to deal with harsh realities and decisions even without killing, yes he does. And look at the same reaction when he does that. The moment he has to do anything that isn't a purist ideal fantasy, it gets the same reaction as killing does. Because, again, for many people, he's an ideal, not a character. He doesn't just have to try to live up to ideals. He has to literally be the living representation of the ideals.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

But that just means that "Feeling guilty about killing" is overdone.

But, in recent movies, when has it been done at all? When have Iron-Man, Captain America, Thor or numerous other characters felt the least bit bad about killing even when it was unnecessary? Presumably, when Iron-Man headshots those terrorists with bullets, that's the first time he has ever directly and personally killed someone. Yet he doesn't seem to have the slightest hesitation about it or the slightest negative afterthoughts about it. On the rarest occasions where Superman has killed, he reacts like a real person having to do this for the first and hopefully only time and absolutely horrified by what he has to do like a real person instead of a strutting action movie macho fantasy and yet he gets endless flack for it.

Different approaches to killing, neither are good.

It's because Superman is not a character for a lot of people but the embodiment of our every ideal and having him have to do something ugly no matter the circumstances is ruining the escapist fantasy and maybe tarnishing our own "inner world" where we hold to certain ideals even if they are illusions.

As to Superman still having to deal with harsh realities and decisions even without killing, yes he does. And look at the same reaction when he does that. The moment he has to do anything that isn't a purist ideal fantasy, it gets the same reaction as killing does. Because, again, for many people, he's an ideal, not a character. He doesn't just have to try to live up to ideals. He has to literally be the living representation of the ideals.

I don't disagree that some people have a problem with Superman killing because they don't think Superman in particular killing is ok, while if an equally powerful character was put in the same situation and did the exact same thing, they would be more accepting but that doesn't mean Superman killing is the right choice for writers to make.

How much people adhere to ideals like "killing is wrong" is greatly exaggerated.

[GreatKungLao]

So what I'm getting is that Superman has the guts to kill.if that's absolutely very last resort, but he shouldn't do that because he is not that kind of character whose general image can go through something like that without been tainted in the eyes of general population? Thus creating a major gap between those thinks that it is fine under certain circumstances and those who think that Superman just shouldn't be put into position like that.

I myself think that sometimes, some stories, like MoS should show Superman going through a difficult decision in order to show how someone like him would deal in situation like that. Isn't it ever weird that DC universe has heroic characters killing, but not Superman, even though he suppose to inspire to never do that a always "find a way"? But I guess it all comes down to that Superman is an impossible character and should be constantly allowed to do the impossible, because that's what he represents, that humanity can do the impossible, accomplish wonders.

[Midnighter]

I was thinking about how MoS and S#32 have put Clark in similar situations and the more I thought about how DC Rebirth handled it, the more bothered I've become. I might be misreading something, but the issue implied that Superman should let Lois die in order to save his moral codex rather than killing Deathstroke in order to save a much more decent human being. I don't know, I think this whole "saving morality above everything else" is becoming a sick obsession that doesn't allow super heroes to make difficult (but right) decisions and live with it.

In Man of Steel Clark did the right thing by saving innocent human lives at the cost of one kryptonian genocidal maniac, but Superman #32 would have him rather let those humans die and try to find a "better" solution to handling a villain of the story.

Was anyone else borthered by how Superman #32 handled Deathstroke tempting Superman to kill in order to save a life and he refused and Lois was ok if she died, but Deathstroke would live just for Superman to find a way in order to lock him up according to the law?

Maybe I'm just seeing wrong implications in that issue, but this is exactly what I saw the moment I read it back when it was released and now when I decided to read it again in order to try prove myself wrong.

Should Superman keep his "not killing" thing at the cost of innocent lives? Or maybe he shouldn't be put in this kind of situations ever because he can't be allowed to make this kind of decisions? Because as MoS reaction shows, a lot of people would rather have the latter option.

Co-signed. I agree completely. A moral code should guide you not be treated as an absolute.