InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Kat, stop reading Tweak Says."

superfan1 (superfan1) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-11-11 17:39:00

Entry tags:

char: booster gold/michael jon carter, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: dan jurgens, creator: matthew sturges, creator: mike norton, creator: norm rapmund, publisher: dc comics, title: booster gold

Booster Gold #26
.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

nevermore999
2009-11-12 12:32 am UTC (link)

Booster totally should have opened his speech thanking Diana for kill Max. Just to watch Superman and Batman lose it. He should have just made his funeral speech off the top of his head

"So Di, thanks for killing Max. The rest of y'all suck. Especially YOU Batman! Guy, Ted loved you even though you were a dick. Oh, and Babs Ted loved you even though you were WITH Dick. Ted rocks, peace out, love Booster."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	zegim 2009-11-12 12:37 am UTC (link)
	I approve of this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	sailorlibra 2009-11-12 12:47 am UTC (link)
	I also approve of this. And if I could draw, I would draw this. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	leikomgwtfbbq 2009-11-12 01:20 am UTC (link)
	I would've loved to read that. XD (Reply to this) (Parent)

	neotoma 2009-11-12 01:48 am UTC (link)
	That does seem more like a Booster-type speech. And the reaction shots would have been priceless. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jacobmb 2009-11-12 02:15 am UTC (link)
	That. would. be. Awesome! And then Batman's head explodes, making it even awesomer! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ladymirth 2009-11-12 04:42 am UTC (link)
	This wins five internets. Does anyone else feel that the DC superheroes "no-kill" policy is childishly simplistic and downright ridiculous at times? I mean, okay so the Authority took it to the other extreme, but at least they were more concerned with saving innocents than the moral high ground. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ex_darkblade992
2009-11-12 05:07 am UTC (link)

My personal thoughts on the standard "no kill" rule is that it doesn't quite work out but doing away with it completely quickly turns the characters into monsters.

I really think that superheroes should employ a manner of threat assessment to decide if they should kill the villain in question or not. In a similar manner to police procedure. I.E. if there are no possible non-lethal options for taking down the villain in a manner that reduces bystander and allied casualties to the absolute minimum then lethal force is acceptable. Otherwise the no kill rule stands.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ladymirth 2009-11-12 06:20 am UTC (link)
	Well, that's just my point too. Hell, cops and soldiers are authorized to kill, judges can dole out capital punishment but superheroes don't kill, ever, even to save lives because they're somehow suposed tobe better than everybody else. If that isn't condescending and egostistical bullshit, I don't know what is. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	deepspaceartist 2009-11-12 12:50 pm UTC (link)
	Well that's the problem. Heroes are not authorised to kill. You and I can't just go out and shoot someone because we know (or think we know) they killed someone. While I agree they should be willing to kill to save people in immeadeate danger, anything else beyond that and they risk crossing from vigilante to murderer. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ex_darkblade992 2009-11-12 03:37 pm UTC (link)
	Thats one of the reasons I liked the idea of Marvel's SHRA. While the rest of Civil War was a clusterfuck of stupidity the basic idea of training and licensing heroes so they have some degree of legal power is a fundamentally good idea. (Reply to this) (Parent)

ladymirth
2009-11-12 05:54 pm UTC (link)

And yet, civilians are allowed to kill in self-defense and in defending other civillians. Even cops aren't allowed to just run in and kill a perp, there has to be some kind of immediate threat to their own person or other people involved. I don't see why superheroes don't get that same right.

Can you imagine any jury who would have convicted Diana of murdering Maxwell Lord if they had known it was to prevent Superman murdering the one guy capable of stopping the OMACs? But no, the public wasn't given the context or the situation, it was just this mass outcry of "murder, murder, MURDER!" And even the superheroes who DID know, including Batman whose life she just fucking saved thank you very much, decided that she was some out-of-control homicidal maniac.

Other things that grate the hell out of me - Dick agonizing over nearly killing the Joker in Last Laugh, Dick endlessly flagellating himself for letting Blockbuster take that bullet, Batman being all chummy with Two-Face even after he'd once beaten the shit out of Dick when he was little, Batman saving the Joker's ass from the legal system in Devil's Advocate, Superman not killing Joker even to save Lois, Batman continuing to save Joker's ass...after a while, it becomes less about superhuman self-control and more about something inhuman.

This is why my favourite moments in comics include Selina shooting Black Mask dead and Jason Todd beating up the Joker seventeen ways to Sunday and confronting Bruce about letting him run loose, Helena Bertinelli dangling Yasemin by the throat over a ten-storey drop for threatening her students. Now those are supremely human and above all pragmatic reactions I can get behind.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

deepspaceartist
2009-11-12 06:53 pm UTC (link)

Those killings I personally have no problem with. Killings where somebody will be murdered unless the murderer is immeadatly killed are fine. It's just that some people seem to want 'brutally kill criminals, even if they can easily be taken alive with no threat to others' style of superheroes. Superheroes serve as cops for threats that normal police can't handle, and while police can take out people that pose an immeadiate threat they cannot shoot captured or unarmed criminals just because of what they did.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

majingojira
2009-11-12 06:12 am UTC (link)

There is no defending it, IMO. It is childishly simplistic.

One day, I will concoct a morally repugnant method of imprisonment that is so worse than death that even the heroes of DC will be appauled by what is being done.

The person doing it will repond with a "What, it's not like I killed 'em or something."

Unfortunatlly, the nonlethal methods being employed and whitewashed are getting more and more morally repugnant every day.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ladymirth
2009-11-12 06:31 am UTC (link)

I was working on a fic where a Batman is forced to work with a vigilante who is determined to hunt down a psychopath who killed her son. Bats gives her an ultimatum that is she is to work with him she will stop herself from killing at all costs. She agrees - and then proceeds to maim all four of his limbs, and then paralyzes him so his brain and sight are fully intact, but he will never be able to move more than his eyeballs ever again. And when Bats finds him, the mutilated criminal is begging with his eyes to put him out of his misery. And Batman can't make himself grant him that final mercy because he has vowed never to take a life.

...

What? He killed children; it's totally justified. *is evil sociopath*

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ex_darkblade992 2009-11-12 03:25 pm UTC (link)
	Umm no. Just no. While I like the concept of deconstructing Batman's refusal to kill the rest of the plot sounds like it crawled out of the bottom of the hole I've been trying to bury the 90s in. That is the only way any superhero would let anyone get away with something like that before beating her within an inch of her life and dragging her to Arkham. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ladymirth
2009-11-12 05:36 pm UTC (link)

Well, that's one reason I haven't put it up for public consumption. There are some fics you write to share with others and some which you write simply to excorcise your own ~~rage issues~~ inner demons.

You're missing my point. It's not about what she did or whether she got away with it. It's challenging the widely-held assumption that killing is the ultimate do-not-cross line.

That is the only way any superhero would let anyone get away with something like that before beating her within an inch of her life and dragging her to Arkham.

Yeah, because this works so damn well with the Joker. Also, IMO, beating someone within an inch of their life is not that much better than killing them. I wonder how many times Batman has caused some unlucky thug permanent damage that way.

There isn't just one clearly defined line that ensures your moral purity, especially if you're working as a vigilante. Sometimes you need to destroy in order to protect, and that means making tough judgement calls about life and death.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ex_darkblade992
2009-11-12 07:12 pm UTC (link)

I know there is a fine line it's really for the best the line remains for most heroes.

Kingdom Come, The Justice Lords from DCAU and The Authority (most of the time) are well written examples of what happens when you do things like that. Once the heroes start killing off villians then the game changes and they'll have to kill more and more often and it won't be long before the law stops tolerating them.

Further more heroes that kill are a concept that should only be allowed to be touched by very good writers. It is way to easy (as demonstrated by most of characters created and/or revamped in the 90s) to turn the heroes into remorseless psychopaths gunning down other remorseless psychopaths and that doesn't make for a good story.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

(no subject) -

freezer818, 2009-11-12 11:14 pm UTC

(no subject) -

ex_darkblade992, 2009-11-12 11:31 pm UTC

(no subject) -

freezer818, 2009-11-13 12:12 am UTC

jamspread
2009-11-13 03:01 am UTC (link)

Um, no? Because this is a comic book?
I'm not saying that all comic books have to be PG, but to me this is like saying "does it seem simplistic and ridiculous that Wiley Coyote blows himself up and walks away every time?" Of course it is, but there are rules to every story-telling medium, and this is one that comic books have had for a long time. Even when the rules are broken and we have grizzly character death, stuff like Marvel Adventures pops up to counter balance it. It's really up to DC the direction they want to take the characters and the audience they want to reach. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with a "no-kill" policy, but if you want realism, I see how it can bother you.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ladymirth
2009-11-14 06:13 am UTC (link)

Wiley Coyote is a kid's cartoon character. Adults like kids' characters to, but they are not directly marketed toward adults and teens the way the comics in question are. Marvel Adventures is also a book that's more fantastic and targeted at a younger reader demographic than their mainline books.

I didn't tell them to get gritty and realistic and adult. They decided to do that all by themselves in order to appeal to a wider adult audience, because those children who had followed them in the 60s and 70s had grown up and moved on. Personally, I like the more complex storylines and greater character depth they bring out in modern comics, but they appear to think that "realism" equals the worst gore and murder and darkness the real world can conceive, which crosses the line from realism to outright cynicism. Not to mention, this is a world protected by super-powered beings and magic ninjas, who nevertheless cannot seem to stop the world being a pretty shitty place to live. I feel this is even more depressing.

What I find the most outlandish, however, is that even in the face of a failing system and clear evidence that their ideals are not in fact making much of a difference, the heroes continue to be idealistic and sanguine. Sure, it's great that the character has some inner reason to continue believing in their methods, but the reader is just not seeing it, therefore the reader cannot relate to the character and all the reader can see are the heroes trying to pretend that they didn't just get their asses handed to them. So basically, your escapist fantasy becomes even worse than the real world, because at least in reality psychos like the Joker would have been killed by now and no actual city has been subjected to plagues and earthquakes and city-wide gang wars that cut the population in half.

The reason fantasy appeals to me is because the bad guys usually get punished and the good guys win. That's not something you get to see in the real world.

It's easy to sneer at people who complain about the lack of realism in superhero stories without actually thinking about what they're saying. Even in fantasy, there are ground rules. The reader agrees to suspend their disbelief as long as the story plays by those rules. In this world, there can be superpowered aliens and undersea empires martial arts are near-magic. But in exchange for that, the characters must play within the scope of of their powers, must stay true to their characterization and there must remain some parallels in the way their world and ours works. Meta-humans can wear spandex, but non-meta heroes must wear Kevlar. The Justice League can exist but you can't rewrite the US constitution to allow Gotham to be forcibly abandoned. Without these rules, any lame deux-ex-machina (which the comic bok world knows as retcons) can replace the integrity and ingenuity of good story-telling.

In this way, comic books have to balance themselves on a fine line between realism and fantasy. So just because the fantasy rule is that a guy who dresses up in a Batsuit can scare the crap out of hardened criminals, doesn't mean they don't need to explain why said criminals would continue to be frightened of him once they cotton on to the fact that he won't kill them or harm their families and the worst he can do is drag them off to the revolving door of Arkham.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

jamspread
2009-11-15 01:43 am UTC (link)

Yes, this was the point I was trying to make, and thank you for taking it a step forward and pointing out the real problem. Comic books are trying to mature to keep up with their aging audience, but they're still stuck on the old rules. As a result, the villians can get grittier but the superheroes have to stay "pure" and kiddy-friendly.
What I mean when I say I like the no-kill policy is that I like it when the heroes aren't forced to kill. There's a big difference between a mad-cap, crazy scheme to steal forty cakes and a serial kller, and there's a different set of rules to deal with each situation.
So, in the case of superheroes having to deal with the latter, yes, I argree that the "no-kill" policy is ridiculous. Foolishly noble, but fultile. On the other hand, I personally would rather read a story about tracking down a crazy cake stealer, because comics books to me are suppose to be fun and optimistic.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ladymirth 2009-11-15 05:29 am UTC (link)
	I find it very telling that out of all the comics I have read so far, Young Justice remains my favourite. It's everything a comic book should be, IMO. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jamspread 2009-11-15 09:34 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, I absolutely agree on that. Even though looking back some of the jokes are not as cool as I remember, I can read it now and it's still the most fun I've had reading a comic book. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	pepperspray101 2009-11-12 06:48 am UTC (link)
	applause XD (Reply to this) (Parent)

parusmajor
2009-11-13 04:59 pm UTC (link)

Ahahaahaha, best comment ever :D Agreed; Booster at Ted's funeral was a bit anti-climactic and I would've wanted to see Booster really open up and be vitriolic. After all this time I'm still kind of sore about Ted's death, and I imagine Booster would've felt much much worse than me. I hated how the big heroes of Justice League were being jerks to Ted right before he died. And I really hated the insensitive, inhuman, horrible way that Batman informed Booster of Ted's death... that scene is a big reason why I dislike Batman.
Also, seeing how Wondy was the only character who was actually listening to Blue&Gold's problems back then, I'm a bit confused why Booster chose her as his venting target. *shrugs*

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -