Anghus Houvouras on the debate over whether Superman should kill…
Ever since Superman snapped General Zod’s neck at the end of Man of Steel, fans have been debating whether or not that choice was ‘right for the character’. It’s a polarizing discussion that has divided a number of comic fans, and with Batman v Superman right around the corner the conversation continues to come up. Just the other night Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott weighed in.
Die hard fans cling to the idea that Superman doesn’t kill. It’s something relegated to fringe stories and alternate realities. In the world of comic books, Superman is a hero with a strong moral compass. He doesn’t kill. Most of the time anyway. He sure did some killing in John Byrne’s run where he executed three Kryptonian villains who had completely destroyed an alternate Earth. It was a decision that haunted him and eventually led him down a righteous path, but there was blood on his hands. Then there’s the Superman of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns who was happily serving the American Government and sinking enemy warships. I’m guessing there were more than a few examples of collateral damage.
I remember thinking of how strange all the fuss over the execution of Zod in Man of Steel. In Superman II, our hero kills General Zod and Non by throwing them into a deep chasm in the Fortress of Solitude. Even Lois Lane gets in on the murdering when she punches Ursa who then plummets to her doom, joining her Kryptonian cohorts in the icy underbelly where the cold no doubt preserved whatever remained of their splattered corpses. I imagine that makes guest tours of the Fortress of Solitude a little awkward.
Superman: On your left you’ll see my intergalactic zoo of animals from around the universe. On the right is my Phantom Zone projector that sends enemies into an ageless, endless limbo. And down below are the lifeless corpses of my enemies that I callously tossed to their deaths.
I don’t think Superman needs to kill a lot, but the idea of a Superman who never kills seems kind of… what’s the word I’m looking for… adorable. Is there never an instance where Superman wouldn’t need to exhibit deadly force? When the Earth is constantly threatened by world conquering despots looking to enslave all of humanity, might he need to snap a neck or two?
Most people get high and mighty about a murder-free Superman in the world of comic books, where his mighty moral compass is heavily woven into his iconography. But surely we have to consider that Superman occasionally has caused the death of some sentient beings in all of his difficult battles. Does he only injure the thousands of Parademons attacking him at Darkseid’s behest? Or does he just paralyze them with his mighty punches, leaving tens of thousands crippled and unable to fend for themselves, but still technically not killing them?
Has a stray bullet never bounced off that large ‘S’ on his chest and plunged through the temple of an innocent bystander? When he’s blasting through a hundred alien spaceships heading for Earth, don’t a healthy portion of those beings die in the cold unforgiving expanse of space? The point is, a Superman who never kills is kind of a silly concept that creators adhere to: a produce of nostalgia for a simpler time when all of our heroes were righteous and every villain is dropped off at jail without any due process.
Heroes like Superman are supposed to represent the best of us. What we’re capable of when we adhere to a certain set of values. Does the idea that Superman is a hero we can admire diminished by the fact that when all other options are off the table, sometimes he must use deadly force? Do we apply that logic to Police Officers who sometimes must use deadly force? Do we feel differently about the Parisian Police who used deadly force to stop the terrorists responsible for killing so many innocent people? Or do we rightly consider them heroes?
To me, that was the whole point of the end of Man of Steel. He didn’t want to kill Zod, but in order to save others he made a difficult choice. Then again, he used his heat vision ten minutes earlier destroying all those Kryptonian fetuses without so much as a second thought. I guess that means Superman is pro-choice.
I don’t want a Superman who kills indiscriminately, but the idea that Superman never kills is an antiquated concept.
Continued in Part 2: Should Batman kill?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
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Originally published March 10, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
