Is the "No kill rule" outdated and nonsensical? Should superheroes be allowed to kill or not?

Is the "No kill rule" outdated and nonsensical? Should superheroes be allowed to kill or not?

The no-kill rule is self-imposed. There are heroes that kill.

No for 99% of them, Batman should keep it but loosen it a bit. His reasoning for not killing the Joker at this point leads into more bad writing than good

Ask soccer moms and you will know.

It's a case by case basis thing.

But we either get 'no kill' or 'all kill' Batman

'Sometimes Kill' Batman is fine with me

I don't understand people who defend bats no kill rule. The joker is an unrepentant mass murderer who can't stay locked up for long.

If they kill somebody what makes them not criminals?

Yes.

>'Sometimes Kill' Batman is fine with me

No no no. Batman is too stupid to make distinctions, he would snowball from one kill into Hitler.

It's not Batman's fault the Gotham police department sucks.

No. Killing is bad, period. Doing so automatically puts you in the wrong.

But user they already are criminals. They are glorified vigilantes.

>should civilians allowed to kill outside of any sort of legal system just because I dislike the same people they do

I'm talking about comics not IRL

Eh, I'm alright with Batman's rule just being one of his many neuroses. A self-imposed restriction to prevent him from becoming like the people he fights, while never realizing that such arbitrary and ultimately harmful patterns are just more evidence of his craziness.

If Batman killed the Joker and other villains it would just be a shitty comic.

To prevent inconsistency: characters that have a decent rogues' gallery shouldnt kill, also characters that are used in kids media (like cartoons).

Movies are fair game tho.

Which the police department is only ok with because they stop crime. What do you think would happen if batman or superman started killing people left and right?

The bright Mythos of the Superhero shouldn't be tainted in unnecessary death.
You have your deconstructionist "anti-mythos" stuff like Watchmen
Your bad 90's edglord crap (and parodies of it like Deadpool)
But neither of these adhere to the core mythos of the Superhero, and shouldn't cross over with them.

The Bat Who Kills is shit. Nothing Batman does, nothing in his methodology is "realistic". Therefore having him kill "super-villains", a wholly unrealistic form of criminal is bad writing.

>"No kill rule"
That makes them a special. If Superman should start killing people the world would doomed.

Absolutely nothing. GCPD AND MCPD are only honest because of their respective superheroes inhabiting those cities.

The no kill rule is bad writing. It's just a cop out from an earlier time and excuse to keep the same rogues around.

Optimus crushed Galvatrons head somewhat recently.

>Should superheroes be allowed to kill or not?

only if the authors are so incompetent they have to keep recycling the same villains over and over and make the setting seem like it suffers from a revolving door prison and/or cannot conclude a villain's story in a satisfactory manner.

And getting rid of it will lead to good writing?

OP, stop being an edgy kid. Normal people don't kill for no reason; why expect a hero to do it?

It could. Better than playing it safe. It's already better writing by default because the Superheroes aren't being no kill moralfags.

It'll give hack writers a swifter kick in the ass to actually be creative for once.

>muh edgy
They would be more heroic if they stopped murderers permanently.

>Better than playing it safe.
[citation needed]
Creative about what?

>Is the "No kill rule" outdated and nonsensical?
People still like reoccuring villains so no.
>Should superheroes be allowed to kill or not?
They are, just not popular villains.

Now fuck off.

>[citation needed]
Comic books

No. They should not be allowed to kill. You end up with Marvel "heroes" if you let them do that.

and keeping it will lead to good writing?

>people still arguing that Batman should kill the Joker
>because that would be "good writing"
>depsite him coming back after every time he dies in the most hackneyed and forced ways because executives want him alive anyway
Fuck you, I'm tired of you faggots who wilfully ignore the actual reasons all this happens. The no-kill rule is making the best out of a stupid situation.

Some should, some shouldn't.

All heroes don't have to be the same.

Doesn't he tried to kill the riddler in the last arc?

It's better writing than the alternative.

Nexus isn't automatically better because he kills his villains. Neither is the Punisher, or Vigilante.
It doesn't encourage or discourage good writing. The same can be said for killing.

Batman's no-kill rule works for his character, it's just that the longer Batman operates and maintains it the dumber it gets.

Killing Penguin or even Two-Face would be a step too far. It's that modern Joker literally lives to fuck with Batman that makes it obvious that everyone would be better off if Bruce just fucking ended it and lived with the burden.

The Animated Series actually gets this right when Batman was totally willing to murder Joker after what happened to Robin, and never holds Tim accountable for fucking shooting Joker in the chest

>They would be more heroic if they stopped murderers permanently
Because vigilantism is the perfect justice system, right?

if there's no increase in quality either way, why argue against it

Then stop writing the Joker as a genocidal maniac. You're just not going to keep Batman's most popular villain out of the picture. Fuck he appears in every single non-comic Batman media franchise.

>Neither is the Punisher, or Vigilante
Wrong. The Frank would be a joke if he didn't kill bad guys.

It's just a narrative tool.

It can be used well. It can be used less than well. It can be used horribly.

Whimsical, Golden Age style stories can make use of the no-kill rule to show the superhero's overall positive outlook on life, on his villains even. All-Star Superman is a pretty good example of this.

Something like Watchmen, or Miracleman would simply not work if the heroes enforced a no-kill rule. The story itself requires them to be able to kill to carry across its themes, its concepts.

So whether a character "should" or not enforce it depends entirely on the story the character's in.

Who said anything about "Justice"? Seems like a subjective thing in these universes. I said heroic.

Because a change for changes sake with no actual merit behind it is fucking retarded.

He's already a joke.

So the only thing that makes his stories better is that he kills people? He would be still be a joke if he amputated criminals limbs so they couldn't commit crimes?

>stop writing Joker as a genocidal maniac

This is the answer, but audiences prefer that Joker so this is what you get.

Honestly Joker only works well in that sense in like the Nolan movies (Joker only gets to pull bullshit ONCE). In a long-standing series he should do as much goofy shit as dangerous to justify his continued existence.

so you just want a predetirmined set of rules to stay the same forever? no chance at variety?

Like at the moment or the actual Character? Too "edgy" for you?

The no kill rule only fails in a world where every villain is protected by lazy writer plot armor
in the real world bringing them to trial would see most of them executed within a month, or incarcerated for life because most escape plus are complete nonsense

but if they're popular, they have a magic card to get out because reasons

no kill only fails in comic book world

Yes.

Who is the lawyer for all the villians he's the fucking Mastermind behind all of this.

Reminder Polanski killed Tate and Manson just took the fall

Nice assumptions user.

It doesn't matter what lawyer you have. When people like Sidewinder exist people are going to regularly escape prison.

did you run out of arguments or

The actual character.
He's allowed by heroes to go around starting shootouts against thugs everywhere and only doesn't kill innocents because his plot armor regarding that is stonger than the Hulk's.
He would be fine if he wasn't in a shared universe with heroes more powerful, efficient, and vertuous than him, and if he sometimes fucked up, but as is he's only allowed to exist because of author fiat. So MAX is fine, 616 and most other versions aren't.

No. It's the difference between being a superhero and being some action movie star.

Speaking of which you've got all the cape murder you want in the movies.

If Superman can't even keep his rogues trapped in an alternate dimension like the phantom zone then what can you even honestly do besides kill them? His rogues can destroy cities and planets

>audiences prefer that Joker
Source? Seems to me like writers prefer that Joker, first and foremost.

> In a long-standing series he should do as much goofy shit as dangerous to justify his continued existence.
Well yeah, erase the unending continuity and the need for him to come back all the time, and it's fine, but we're talking about main-universe comics here.

But if a cop kills someone who is holding you hostage, they're wrong?

All characters are created by fiat by authors? Priorities are plot armor now? You haven't read punisher at all. His life is shit.

t. non-comic reader
Villains who get killed come back too.

Punisher only means anything IN a shared universe with Daredevil and Spider-Man. Otherwise it's just bloody revenge fantasy, the character's strongest dramatic purpose is to offer an easy way out for street level capes instead of at least trying to work with the law.

>He's allowed by heroes to go around starting shootouts against thugs everywhere and only doesn't kill innocents because his plot armor regarding that is stonger than the Hulk's.

So are all characters that think that going around punching people doesn't carry long-term consequences by beating people to near death. The fact that half of the imprisoned population don't suffer some form of brain damage from getting their heads knocked around is plot armor.

>He would be fine if he wasn't in a shared universe with heroes more powerful, efficient, and vertuous than him, and if he sometimes fucked up, but as is he's only allowed to exist because of author fiat.

Motherfucker, every hero or villain that isn't outright superpowered or a top-tier brick only exists only because of author fiat. Street-level heroes and villains shouldn't even be a thing in the face of beings that are or are almost cosmic in their scale of power.

Did you? You don't have any argument besides "change is good becuase". And then you proceded to assume that I'm against creativity or whatever the fuck the statement "so you just want a predetirmined set of rules to stay the same forever? no chance at variety?" was meant to convey.

>being a hero is about doing shit against the law and murder.

That's not what author fiat means.
>Priorities are plot armor now?
No, never accidentally fucking up and causing an innocent to die, while using extremely destructive methods and being a "normal human" is plot armor.
>His life is shit.
Completely irrelevant.

I'm perfectly aware of the reasons they can't do it, doesn't change the fact it tends to be bad writing. Hell if they kept it but it was executed better I'd be fine with it (TDKR and many other stories do it in a good way), but more often than not they don't.

if you need proof look at the ending of Under the Red Hood, the comic version not the animated film

If you are a confirmed and proven mass murder, you deserve to be killed. The no kill policy is bs and should not apply to them.

>Otherwise it's just bloody revenge fantasy
It already is.
>the character's strongest dramatic purpose is to offer an easy way out for street level capes instead of at least trying to work with the law.
So he's better as a supporting character than a protagonist? Sure, but that doesn't require him to be around and do his schtick all the time.

>So are all characters that think that going around punching people doesn't carry long-term consequences by beating people to near death. The fact that half of the imprisoned population don't suffer some form of brain damage from getting their heads knocked around is plot armor.
That's fair, it's also stupid.

>Motherfucker, every hero or villain that isn't outright superpowered or a top-tier brick only exists only because of author fiat. Street-level heroes and villains shouldn't even be a thing in the face of beings that are or are almost cosmic in their scale of power.
Except at least the other street-level heroes aren't being a pain in the ass and going against the codes of the more powerful heroes, like Frank is. The Avengers have no reason to want Iron Fist to stop doing his thing.

Why are these threads always full of Frankfags anyway?

>if they kept it
Blame readers then. Writers have been over this many times why it doesn't stick.

They already do shit against the law; vigilantism and assault is illegal. Murdering people who murder innocents is heroic, yeah.

change is good because variety is good. you can have both types of heroes and neither is objectively better. I asked "why argue change if it doesn't matter" and your response was "because change is retarded" so the only information I could gleam from that is that you want superheroes to be locked into one set archetype that you prefer.

>doesn't change the fact it tends to be bad writing
And villains coming back to life is WORSE writing, every fucking time. No-kill is the least damaging choice.

But all characters are created by author fiat. The definition of the world literally means "official decree". Also yeah Frank occasionally get's allies and innocent people caught up in his shit. How is that not relevant in a discussion about plot armour? He's a fucking pariah. You don't read punisher.

The day the no-kill rule is gone, I'm quitting capecomics.

Yeah alright I'll concede that point. In something like capeshit it can be really hard to find middle ground between those two extremes

user you've proved incapable of not being obtuse or you're baiting me. I said "Because a change for changes sake with no actual merit behind it is fucking retarded." I never said that the alternative couldn't exist. But whatever keep making wild assumptions.

You only read Marvel and DC don't you?

>I don't understand people who defend bats no kill rule. The joker is an unrepentant mass murderer who can't stay locked up for long.
It isn't Batman's job to kill the Joker. If Gotham as a city want Joker dead, he would be dead the next time Batman delivered the guy tied up and in a duffel bag to Gordan. It isn't Batman's place to kill Joker for Gotham.

"Author fiat" literally doesn't relate to the creation of a character, it's things that happen despite common sense dictating otherwise.
>Also yeah Frank occasionally get's allies and innocent people caught up in his shit.
How many deaths?
>How is that not relevant in a discussion about plot armour?
How is it? The plot armor argument was that he doesn't fuck up like common sense would dictate he should, not that people like him when they shouldn't.
>He's a fucking pariah.
Nobody implied otherwise, but (according to their morals) other heroes should try to stop and arrest him rather than just shun him.

I've read some Punisher, but as you can tell, I'm not a fan so I didn't read his entire library just to argue about him.

Well that's alleviating all responsibility. Gotham and the GCPD can't even incarcerate joker on their own.

variety is literally a change for change's sake

And what Gotham finally decided to kill the Joker, Batman got all defensive and stopped the execution of the Joker.

>It isn't Batman's job to kill the Joker.
It's not his job to stop him from commiting crimes either, to be fair.

>96665549

it the courts system that cant/wont kill joker.

kek

He was being framed.
It's just stupid that this was the only time they sentenced him to death.

>Well that's alleviating all responsibility. Gotham and the GCPD can't even incarcerate joker on their own.
That changes nothing about how Gotham refuse to kill the Joker.
>And what Gotham finally decided to kill the Joker, Batman got all defensive and stopped the execution of the Joker.
That was just an insane story where somehow, Joker was being executed for a crime he didn't do. Which is INSANE, consider the number of people he already killed up to that point.
That's the writer's fault, not Batman's.

Regardless of whether or not he was being framed. Joker still killed thousands of innocent people. Batman is doing a disservice to the victims by allowing the Joker to escape execution on a technicality. Could had went after the actual mastermind after the Joker has been executed.

>it's things that happen despite common sense dictating otherwise.
You're aware this is a discussion about comic books right? That is applicable to literally everything.
>How many deaths?
Off the top of my head? I don't know. His family for one. Looking it up right now he is responsible directly and indirectly for 48,502 peoples deaths.
>The plot armor argument was that he doesn't fuck up like common sense would dictate he should
Do you read punisher? He fucks up all the time. His life choices have made him a pariah, like common sense dictates.
>but (according to their morals) other heroes should try to stop and arrest him rather than just shun him.
That happens sometimes. He's fought pretty much every street level hero at one point and he's even been locked up by some of them. He's not easy to track down despite the large scale gun fights.

But they're perfectly capable of executing him or incarcerating him. There's no logical reason why Joker can continually break out except "lol plot", so even if Batman DID kill Joker, guess what would happen? He'd get "lol plot"'d back into existence.

>That changes nothing about how Gotham refuse to kill the Joker.
That's why Batman should do it.

>Except at least the other street-level heroes aren't being a pain in the ass and going against the codes of the more powerful heroes, like Frank is. The Avengers have no reason to want Iron Fist to stop doing his thing.

Why would the Avengers prioritize Frank over supervillains? Frank isn't a pain in the ass, he's a nuisance at best, a local problem at worst in the grand scheme of things, he's something that the local authorities should be handling, not the Avengers.

Also, why is it that Frank catches shit, yet someone like Wolverine, whose power is basically to kill things, has killed far more people than Frank, and is similarly just street-level, gets overlooked?

No it isn't. Genres, characters, and entire IPs aren't created on some random whim. The creator had the idea and found that it had merit and created something. Have my last (You).