It's a "no kill rule" debate episode where the antagonist just ends up being a power-hungry psychopath since the...

>it's a "no kill rule" debate episode where the antagonist just ends up being a power-hungry psychopath since the writers can't think of any good reasons for the hero not to kill mass murderers

This whole plot is retarded, Superman kills mass murderers all the time.

He wasn't power-hungry, he was self-righteous about might making right, while he coincidentally had a shitton of might.

Supes spelled out exactly why he can't kill, because him taking the law into his own hands as executioner, nobody would ever feel safe around him again because he'd shown the capacity for killing.
Him trashing the Elites without actually harming them was essentially Supes' entire fucking point. He COULD have taken their easy way out, but strength of character tops superpower. Him finding ways to succeed without resorting to their means proves that their methods inefficient.

>tfw there are few heros who technically follow the "no kill rule" but it's only because what they do to the villain is arguable a fate worse then death

Tell that to the people murdered by Atomic Skull

>"Hey you.... Stop reading the authority".

Man, Kelly must have been salty as fuck when he wrote that.

This. Superman's whole "there is always a way" spiel doesn't hold water when it comes to villains who cannot be reasoned with, whose entire MO is "kill as many people as possible because it's fun" and containing them is just a temporary solution. They have to die.

The thing is, comics Supes is well aware of this and even he has exceptions to the "no killing" rule because of it, it's just that whoever wrote WSFATJATAW was obviously butthurt about The Authority and left out that part of Superman's character to make a point.

That's not supes fault. You could make a stronger case for it being the governments fault for not adequately containing Atomic Skull as, unlike superman, protecting people is one of the main reasons for having a government in the first place.

doesn't matter if it's not superman's fault, superman let atomic skull live and atomic skull killed more people, manchester black's solution would mean that those people would have been spared, and he would have been in the right if he didn't try to take over the world afterwards

>He COULD have taken their easy way out, but strength of character tops superpower.
except that's just a fucking cop-out since Superman was so fucking above the Elite that he could take his sweet ass time without even trying. If he and Manchester Black were an even match, Superman's character would matter more

He murdered Atomic Skull in cold blood after the battle was over. If it had of been to stop him from killing someone then alright fair enough, but Atomic Skull was literally on his knees beaten and he just killed him. He even made a spectacle out of it, the whole way he did it was kinda messed up,

Honestly I don't understand why haven't the goverment passed a law to be able to put a kill on sight order on mass murderers they can't contain.

If Superman really fucking cared he'd put more effort into improving the governent ability to contain and if needed kill those who cannot be changed and who's MO is to KILL AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

Superman does have supertechnology in form of phantom zone prisons and stuff.
However, it's dubious if one ought to give the government access to such technology, as the governments then tend to use it for their own nefarious use.

and governments execute murderers who are locked up, you may or may not disagree with that, but if the murderer is almost guaranteed to escape from prison and murder more people anyway, then I doubt anyone would object to executing them when they have the chance. Black made a spectacle of the execution because he's an asshole and a narcissist, but that doesn't prove that what he did is wrong

Is Manchester Black a City or United guy?

Why didn't Superman just depower Atomic Skull permanently?

If the murder is almost guaranteed to escape then the government maybe should do something about.The GOVERNMENT should make this decisions on a case by case basis in certain situations. That's why the death penalty only exists in certain circumstances. Saying anyone should just kill a criminal, even one as heinous as what Atomic Skull is depicted as, after he's already been beat in pure cold blooded murder and should not be tolerated in a civilised society.

Why doesnt superman deliver supervillains to the proper authorities who will then execute them?

It isn't even just that. From the start they are clearly bad guys. A skinny unhealthy looking Brit with a fucking full chest tattoo. A snake lady. A skinny unkept Asian. And a big hulking, deranged black guy

Vs

Superman. Square jawed, jacked, neat White guy.

The fact that so many people still call bullshit on both the comic and film, just shows how shit the writers were.

I kinda of still want a Elite ongoing thought. Decent power set and a nice potenial dynamic. A better, more metahuman focused version of the Suicide Squad.

yeah it's the government's job but if your government is shit at their job and keeps letting the fucker escape and murder more people, there's nothing wrong with taking matters into your own hands for the sake of innocent lives

>City fans actually existing outside of Indonesia

lol

What? Like the government of the American federal state where the Atomic Skull committed his crimes?
As far as I remembered, Superman did in fact do that.
It just happens that for whatever weird reason, that American state decided to not kill the Atomic Skull.
Whatever state Metropolis lies has an incapable governor.

City will win CL

governments are incompetent, who knew? oh wait, superman knew, yet he still just let atomic skull be someone else's problem

This is the only time I'm going to recommend Worm

Every community deserves the government is voted for with its system. Their own fault if they aren't updating the system or replacing the government.

The Elite did nothing wrong

They're not government sanctioned.

>United fans existing outside of India

maybe the community, but the individuals? did that one kid deserve to see his father incinerated in front of him by atomic skull because his government was faulty? superman should be looking out for the individual, and sometimes that means getting your hands dirty or at least throwing his ass into the phantom zone without permission from the government

Yeah.
Nothing wrong with that

>Supes spelled out exactly why he can't kill, because him taking the law into his own hands as executioner, nobody would ever feel safe around him again because he'd shown the capacity for killing.

Except they werent, people were cheering about them killing. Also I dont think Black gave a shit even if they did.

>Him trashing the Elites without actually harming them was essentially Supes' entire fucking point. He COULD have taken their easy way out, but strength of character tops superpower.

So might makes right? Superman was stronger so he got to make the rules, because he sure as fuck wasn't convincing people of the alternative.

Yes, the kid deserved it, because his dad voted for the government that allows supercriminals like the Atomic Skulls to break out all the time.

surely there are no problems with comic book governments sanctioning superheroes that do what they tell them to do while banning and hunting down those who don't

Appointing yourself the judge, jury, and executioner with zero oversight is pretty wrong tbqh

In supermans defence, he's seen where that line of think invariably leads. He's worried if he goes down that road he could decide he could do a better job than the government and take it over. Which he know's from some of the other universe is a frighteningly possbile thing for him to do.

He's worried that if he goes that line of thinking to it's inevitable conclusion he'll end up like some of the tyrants he's worked so hard to beat.

What if you appoint yourself as thier judge, executioner, jury, executioner, jailer and executioner?

If the governments officially give existing superheroes the rights to do that, sure, no problem with it.
In fact, there are lots of official government supers. The problem is that those official government supers tend to blindly obey the orders of the government, killing normal people and all that bullshit, causing them to come into conflict with the independent supers.

What government supers need is a little bit more critical thinking and less blind obedience.

Superman won't magically turn into an evil tyrant just because he allows himself to kill someone to prevent more death, saying so is a gross misinterpretation of his character and why I hate Injustice's story so much. Plenty of other powerful superheroes allow themselves to kill in extreme circumstances and they don't turn into tyrants

>Superman kills mass murderers all the time.

Yeah as a last resort. What the shit heads making this thread seem to always fail to realize is that there's a huge difference between being force to kill a villain when there's no alternative and straight up executing them on the spot. Even Judge fucking Dredd won't kill unless he needs too.

Superman's still a private person. Because Superman officially lives in the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, that makes him an Eskimo. As an Inuit, he's not allowed to kill anyone on American soil.

No one's saying that Superman should execute people all the time you poopyhead, the argument is specifically about the movie where the villain was a mass murderer who repeatedly escaped prison

It's fine, though.There will be some ultracrisis that will unmake the entire universe together with a bunch of other universes, then a new universe will come to be.
Their deaths ultimately mean nothing, because every 10-20 years, everyone except the superheroes die, to be transposed in a really similar newborn universe.

Pretty sure that Injustice Supes didn't become a dictator because he killed one villain. Hell, after his initial moping, he seemed more intent on helping the world. But Batman's autism, combined with Wonder Woman goading Supes into taking over the world because she had a ladyboner for a warlord dictator type, was what pushed his already fractured mental state into fullblown meltdown.

Superman already breaks the law by acting as a viglantes. He and every other Superhero that isn't a goverment agent / asset already thinks the rule of law has failed. Stop pretending like killing is sone great leap.

Even Batman's autism and Wonder Bitch shouldn't have pushed him so quickly to the point where he would murder Green Arrow in a fit of rage

Assisting local law enforcement in apprehending a criminal is not forbidden.
The problem is that the local government is not equipping officers with the necessary equipment and training to be able to deal with a superpowered criminal. But as long as the supervigilantes are not executing the superpowered criminals, the supervigilantes are not doing anything wrong. The sole right to end a person's life lies with the government.
A government is given legitimization by the people it represents.
So, supercriminals that mass murder people all the time is the fault of the people for not pushing for new laws that allow them to deal with the threat of superpowered massmurdering criminals.

I seriously doubt the majority of the public would have even a shred of a problem with Superman killing the most dangerous criminals on the planet if he had to.

Nobody would fucking care.

But that is the problem. People should care. They are the ones who must consent if it's okay about who gets to be officially killed or not.
The Superman should not get to decide if he takes the matter at hand. The Superman does not want to take this decision for all the people. That decision is the responsibility of all the people. Not his.
The Superman did his job in helping law enforcement catch the criminal. Now the people must decide what to do with him. The people are represented through their law makers, their judges and their executives enacting the will of the people.
The Superman does not enact the will of the people. He is only a helper, who wisely limits his contribution.

If people want the Superman to kill the Atomic Skull, then they should vote for the Superman to be their lord and leader with the right to take somebody's life.
But as long as they haven't done that, the Superman will not do so.

At the end of the movie he 'cut loose' and people were terrified of him until he revealed it was as a trick

That not the point, the point is it COULD happen, and Superman isn't going to take the the chance that it could when so many people would suffer and die from it. The villains breaking out and causing damage is bad. Him going off the deep end is far far worse.

Police officers use deadly force when faced with the possibility of harm coming to themselves or other people. There’s literally no reason the same shouldn’t be true for superheroes.
I’m all for holding law enforcement to standards but this “if he ever kills a dangerous criminal it means he’s allowed to run the world” is just a worthless slippery slope argument.

Then this same logic should apply to him punching someone or stopping criminals in the first place.

He's a vigilante and shouldn't be doing ANY crimefighting or he's a fucking hypocrite.

Police officers are allowed the right to bear arms to deal with a situation. If people die through the involvement of the law officers, a court determines if and how the law officers were justified in taking matters into the hand in the context of the situation.
The Superman is not a law officer. As such, he has no right to take somebody's life. The law allows the Superman to assist the law officers in apprehending criminals. That's all there is to it.

Everything else is the job of local law enforcement and the judges and the lawmakers. If a superhero is given the right to enact judgement and carry out the sentence, then he must be given the right to do so by the law. And the law is decided by the representatives of the people.
People must decide if the Superman shall be judge, jury and executioner.
It is the responsibility of the people. They alone get to decide that.
If they do so, it shall be written in a contract.

Ok. Well in a non retarded Marvel and DC universe the death penalty would be in FULL effect for any superpowered mass murderer..

Superman would hand over a mass murdering villain and the government and lawful authorities would be sharpening their syringes getting ready to execute.

Most likely, yes.

I think most people generally wouldn't care if the alleged hero kills, only if they kill the "right" people.

IIRC he was pissed off because of Millar's run when the Authority killed a real world dictator (whose name was censored by DC) and he went all like "Supes don't kill reeeeeeeeeee"

Private citizens can bear arms too. Superman can act but beholden himself to the law all the same.

Too bad for the people. If they don't bother with the question about if the hero shall have the right to kill or not, then he won't kill for them.

Yeah, see this is the issue. Superman has never been against the death penalty, seeing as how his job is just to bring in the criminals and let the people with the proper authority deal with the sentencing. He'll stop one of Luthor's plots sure, but if Luthor can pull enough strings to get himself out of jail time, Superman can't do much without appearing as though he can act above the law, which is something he clearly doesn't want to do.

When people get mad at the heroes not killing the supervillains, they should really get mad at the governments who instead of executing them or prioritizing containment, instead keep them alive to stick bombs in their necks and send them off on black-ops missions. Superman shouldn't be help responsible every time one breaks out, he's just unlucky enough to be the only one strong enough to clean up their mess.

Repeat offenders of MASS murder would I think be the exception to any place against the death penalty.

>then he won't kill for them.

That's entirely dependent on the hero in question.

Why doesnt someone just a clone a shit ton of James Gordons to make up all of Gotham Police? no corruption in the police when everyone is a clone of the best guy in it.

>mass murderer killing people
>some guy comes up and shoots him
>court decides he acted in justifiably defense of others
There is literally no problem here.

So basically all of Injustice?

You see this is the direction of society that Superman doesn't want it to go down. People forget the whole dream speech he did at the end, saying that he'll keep fighting for a world where problems don't exist wherein they can be solved through violence. And that speech isn't directed just at civilians or other heroes, it directed at the villains too. Superman genuinely sees good in people, constantly pressuring someone like Luthor to use his influence for good, same with Batman, who puts his villains in Arkham in an attempt to rehabilitate them and integrate them back into society. A lot of Flash's rogues are just guys that went down the wrong path in their lives and turned to petty crime.

Having any old fucko on the street decide that "yep, this guy clearly deserves to die because he broke the law" is a societal direction that would lead to rampant vigilantism and the complete disregard towards helping people that end up turning to crime. Superman doesn't NEED to save anyone, but he does anyway, and he figures that he may as well try to convince more people to be nice as well.

yeah it's a great game but what does it have to do with superman?

Of course. And the Superman decides that he can stop the criminal without having to kill him, and then hand him over to the authorities. He does so because his might allows him to suppress the criminal in a nonlethal way, and that is no problem here either.

The Superman's way is even more efficient for him, because by not killing anyone, he doesn't have to answer to a court whether he was justified in doing so or not. This saves lots of time, and allows the Superman to commit more acts of heroism and save kittens.
The guy who shoots the mass murderer meanwhile will be tied up in a court preceding if it was the right thing to do or not. Even if everyone knows that it was the right thing to do, and that he will be spoken free, and even be granted a medal for his acts of heroism, he will still have to be there to stand ready to answer to the judge and the jury.
There's time consuming formalism that needs to be considered.

>That's not supes fault. You could make a stronger case for it being the governments fault for not adequately containing Atomic Skull as

Well by that logic its not Supermans job to fight Atomic Skull in the first place but the governments.
But they clearly cant, just like they cant contain him... so if Superman fights him, shouldnt he also find a way to keep him locked?

What if a government sentances a villain to death but are unable to do so and ask Superman to finish the job for them?

>and that is no problem here either.
That’s actually a huge problem if the keep fucking escaping.

Then they give him a contract that allows him to do so. Or if the Superman doesn't want to kill (remember, he doesn't have to do that), then find somebody else that can do so.
In an universe with aliens and gods and supermachines from alternate realities, it's ultimately not a problem to find a being willing and capable of killing a supercriminal. It's just finding the right one.

Build better prisons. The money and the technology is there.

Superman isn't a government lackey, he's a representation of what humanity should strive towards morally and ethically. It's not Superman's job to deal with supervillains, he just deals with them because he can do so and it would be the right thing to do, protecting the innocent and upholding the law and what have you. But he doesn't work for the corrections department, he isn't a government worker, he can help them out, but at the end of the day, the government needs to step up their game and look towards more viable solutions towards dealing with villains as opposed to just letting the heroes deal with them. They are criminals committing acts of crime on their soil, an appropriate response NEEDS to be in place. Superman should be pressuring the government to change, not the other way around.

>People forget the whole dream speech he did at the end, saying that he'll keep fighting for a world where problems don't exist
That’s nice but its just a fantasy world scenario especially when literally all superman does is beat up bad guys with his fists.
You also presume that there can be only one solution to existing problems when there could and should be multiple based on circumstance.

>there can be only one solution to existing problems when there could and should be multiple based on circumstance.
Of course, but out of those solutions, none of them should involve violence. Superman is trying to show that there can be alternatives to solving an issue as opposed to immediately going straight to the violent option. Killing should be the last option taken after all other possibilities have been exhausted (pic related), and in the DC universe at least, there are plenty of ways to deal with the supervillain problem alone.

Superman is wrong in that case. It is everyone's right and duty to kill MXYZPTLK in all dimensions and realities.

I do like the explanation for why some incarnations of Batman have the no killing rule. They know just how unstable they are mentally and fear that if did start killing super villains it would lead them down a slippery slope that ends with them killing regular civilians.

As for Superman I don't believe his incarnations are usually anywhere near that level of mental instability and can take killing a super villain or few as long as it's a last resort. The phantom zone might be a bit silly but if it exist in the setting try using that to imprison people that have gotten powers that make it where other humans can't keep them contained.

>none of them should involve violence
Violence is all superman does.

>superman can make you a vegetable with his heat vision

Would Superman be cool if a government was successful in enacting measures restricting the activities of vigilantes and killing self-proclaimed supervillains on sight with their own anti-villain/meta kill teams without going full retard police state?

Sometimes, it's also spinning the world backwards and changing time.

Just because you use violence doesn't mean you like it. A soldier might have killed people but that doesn't mean he enjoys killing and it certainly doesn't mean that he can't advocate for peace so he doesn't have to kill.

Simple enough solution, if the government feels putting someone in the phantom zone is necessary then just have Supes or another member of his family, assuming they're a thing in the setting, bring the projector down from the fortress. Then when they're done they take it back. The government has use of the projector but only when a member of the Superman family is around to make sure they don't misuse it.

He probably wouldn't support it morally, but he wouldn't restrict their activity either. He'd do his own thing and wouldn't bother them if they didn't bother him. Several stories have had Luthor become President and Superman doesn't immediately laser vision his balls off, he doesn't like it, and publicly expresses that, but he won't act unless they cross a line. Just like a Luthor Presidency, he'd mostly just watch them like a hawk and swoop in once they do something inexcusable.

He would accept it. Then he would most likely try to find solutions that prevent people from becoming criminals and supercriminals in the first place. Like, make it that everyone has enough food and water to drink, a job and a healthy relationship and access to mental health care if their life situation has worsened.

But that sounds so dreadfully efficient and rational that nobody would read it, so to generate reader's interest, writers will change it to show that the government metakillers are actually babysoul-drinking demon monsters from Hell that hate the American way of life and want to take over the world.

Tell that to Duterte.

sadly all the government ever does is approving Waller's control.

Perhaps the US governments big meta-criminal control program are the Suicide Squads, whittling down supervillains one-by-one whilst cleaning up their dirty work. Unfortunately, they end up breaking free from their control and escape anyway so that plan is fucking bollocks too.

Simple, logical, rationale, and democratic.

That means that the idea is rejected. A comic book government must always be depicted as conspiring evil warmongering cabal that seeks to take over everything.

>comic book government must always be depicted as conspiring evil warmongering cabal that seeks to take over everything
That's just a normal, real-world government though, minus the gross incompetence.

The comic version is even less subtle.

>but what does it have to do with superman?
What they have in common is that both Worms and Superman has an S in their names.
Worm on the other hand doesn't.

>Police officers use deadly force when faced with the possibility of harm coming to themselves or other people. There’s literally no reason the same shouldn’t be true for superheroes.

Police officers are also sanctioned to use deadly force and trained in how best to do so. Most vigilantes, super or otherwise, are not.

Every state has their share of mooks that support brutal strongmen, no matter how many of their personal liberties are trampled on or bystanders that have to eat shit because of it.

Then again, it's the fucking Phillipines, they still have a significant amount of the population that excuse and praise Marcos even after he cleaned them out and bailed, they deserve whatever idiocy they put on their plate.

>What they have in common is that both Worms and Superman has an S in their names
what does the S stand for?

It stands for plural in english, meaning there is multiple worms and not just one worm.

For Atomic Skull's case, could the government even execute him if they wanted to? Hanging, lethal injection, firing squad, the electric chair, etc. Would any of that shit even work on him?