>write comic about the moral dilemma of Superman's refusal to use lethal force
>show examples where lethal force benefits more people
>resolve the dilemma by having Superman beat up the other guy
Am I the only one bothered by this? The comic raises a lot of valid questions and then writes them off because Superman is stronger than his ideological opponents
ending didn't make sense to me either, he just used a scare tactic to get people to not kill in the future, I don't get the point.
Why is it so hard for edgelords to understand some people really, really, really, REALLY don't want to kill anyone?
Superman played by their rules and it was terrifying. That’s the point.
That isn't the point. Some people need to be killed. B-but that would be scary. Yeah, but so is a Atomic Metahuman allowed to run free.
Superman has no problem with people being killed if found guilty and executed by the justice system.
I'm not saying that can't be the ultimate conclusion, or even that it isn't better. My problem is with how the comic addresses the argument. Superman doesn't really ever counter their points, he just wins because he's stronger.
First, Superman put them on the receiving end of their own philosophy. He was ruthless and cruel or so it seemed, and they experienced the brutality they were inflicting on others.
Second, despite their own considerable power and the fact they outnumbered him, Superman did not give in to brutality to solve the problem, though it could be argued that by having them believe what they did even for that short time amounts to the same result psychologically. But he did demonstrate the feasibility and virtue of respecting life, even an enemy's.
He not only forced them to empathize with those they had slaughtered, he showed them up by defeating them soundly without having to kill them.
But that only holds true because of how powerful he is. It's easy to say never kill when you can always win without having to do so, but what about if that's not an option?
>It's easy to say never kill when you can always win without having to do so, but what about if that's not an option?
His position is quite often that there is always a way, user. I'm certain it's his stance somewhere near 100% of the time.
>he just wins because he's stronger.
Hardly, it was also some cleverness on his part. The team could have killed him face to face, surely it would have caused mass casualties from bystanders, but Superman solved it by being a lot more clean than they operated and instilling the fear of Superman in them as well.
>he just wins because he's stronger
It's against his beliefs and he beats them down and shuts their power off and shows the fight to everyone. He shows them what a Superman that takes the law into his own hands is like.
It's not so much about countering their points, it's about him sticking to his beliefs and why he does so. Were you really expecting him to issue an essay with sources cited and analytical statistics as to why he's right?
No, he just doesn't want to do it and he doesn't want other vigilantes to do it either. So what are you going to do about it?
Why does he look like Obama?
>>show examples where lethal force benefits more people
Nope.
Showed examples where lethal force was ONE possible alternative solution; furthermore, showed that it was neither ideal NOR superior solution, if you had your standard-issue reading comprehension.
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>His position is quite often that there is always a way
This seems intellectually lazy. "What do you do if you can't solve things peacefully?" "Through the magic of plot armor, that scenario never happens."
>Hardly, it was also some cleverness on his part.
That's not my point. When I say stronger I mean that he is able to defeat them.
Except their examples of lethal force benefiting people involved murdering a whole lot of civilians. You think the Libyan army were the only ones left in the city?
Old guy here.
It's the ultimate "you had to have been there" comic. It wasn't really about Superman, it was more about the state of superhero comics in general at the time. It was like DC saying "we tried too hard to be edgy this past decade and we're sorry". If you look up old fan reviews from when it came out you'll see it being discussed in the context of the genre as a whole at the time. A lot of people saw it like "finally a writer says what we've all been thinking these past few years". I think The Superman Homepage still has their old-ass review from back in the day still up. Try reading that if you want to understand the context of its time a little better.
It's not Superman going "I'm better because I don't kill people". It's DC going "superhero comics don't have to be this way, and WE can do better". That was a long needed olive branch to the fans at the time. And people responded in kind.
Aka, Butthurt whiners getting pissy about the Authority kicking ass and writing a strawman team of them. So fanfiction tier bashing.
You really can't expect anything smarter from a corporate mascot who is written in a way that doesn't upset the existing consumer base so the comic can continue to print money through brand loyalty.
Neat. Thanks for the history lesson
It's more like "edgy superheroes don't have to be the standard, it's OK to make traditional superhero comics and we are sincerely trying to get back to that" (which at the time they actually honestly were). THAT was the only real "message" of the story, and that's why fans responded so strongly to it.
But if you weren't reading comics 17 or 18 years ago or whenever it was released, then I imagine it must be a surreal story for younger readers.
The beat down makes sense because they were constantly sprouting off that might makes right and the strong should decide the law. Edgelords never consider that they could ever be the ones being ruled over, they are always the ones in charge in their fantasies.
Gets turned into a edgy version anyway, just a badly written one. Thanks to Nolan, Goyer and Snyder.
"Hey you! Stop reading the authority."
Hey stop having interesting character designs and powers. Don't you know we only serve flying bricks in tights around 'ere boi.
>It was like DC saying "we tried too hard to be edgy this past decade and we're sorry"
I feel like that was half of what DC was putting out in the 90s
Which was also about not beating the foe with words, but just beating them up. Moral fags are so uncreative.
Kelly is cringe in general. Read his JLA run. It is unreadable due to Kelly trying to bring morality in a universe where logic doesn't exist. It accentuates the flaws even more.
By the end of the decade it kind of was. It really started around 1998, then went full steam in like 1999 with the massive line-wide overhauls to the Superman and Batman books. And it's exactly what they should have done. That was a really cool time to be reading DC.
You're confused. Killing isn't edgy, edginess isn't derived from the actions themselves but from how those actions are presented and contextualised. Superhero writers avoid (or are forbidden from) exploring genuine ethical dilemmas where meaningful choices have to be made, because aknowledging those kind of complexities is discomforting and upsets readers. These are commercially made comics after all, money comes before integrity.
>By the end of the decade it kind of was. It really started around 1998
Even earlier than that, going so far back as Knightfall. Azbats was pretty clearly O'Neill's critique of the demands of the comic industry, and his point was emphasized by consistently portraying him as in the wrong. Bruce eventually defeats him literally because of Az's bulky armor.
No, YOU'RE the one that's "confused". THE COMIC ISN'T ABOUT KILLING.
It is also about killing, despite your protests. Irreversible destruction, such as death, is the culmination of physical force and as such relevant to a story where two parties settle a dispute through violence.
You only get thinks one (you) just so I can tell you I'm glad no one took your bait
maybe, but who gets to decide? you? a powerful individual? a country with nukes?
>genuine ethical dilemmas
but comics are about those, just not in realistic manner, which doesn't make them less genuine or real. it seems you dont like the message itself.
I was reading comics back then and had it forced upon me by the shop owner.
It was my first and last purchase of a Superman comic.
I thought it sucked.
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We all know that the reason this shit exist is because killing villains would mean writers have to come up with new ones every month
this isnt exactly a typical superman comic although it's often cited as such
my point exactly
Because all it takes is a modicum of greater understanding and suddenly you realize that with a person of Superman's power and capability, for him to declare he won't kill is selfish and retarded. He claims to want to protect mankind, but then says he doesn't want to do the one thing it takes to effectively do so.
yeah, he should just put the whole world in a bottle and be done with it
Anyone who doesn't think that Superman ruling Earth with an iron fist is better than selfish, retarded humans trying to govern themselves is delusional. I would fucking sign everything over to him in an instant.
I should probably be more surprised the number of people so willing to give into an authoritarian dictator, but I'm really not.
give 'em enough rope etc haha
>show examples where lethal force benefits more people
I don't recall that.
This is also wrong because medical development also benefits animals and plants through the sacrifice of a few
That is a good point. I should've written
>Superhero writers refuse to address the complexity of ethical dilemmas and promote passivity over responsibility.
What's So Funny about Truth, Justice & The American Way is framed as a popularity contest between two authorities who promise to relieve the public of responsibility. There's one neglected element that I think is rather important in order to compare the ethical positions of Superman and The Elite: when is something 'external' in a way that allows Superman to intervene without appearing political? Isn't the externalisation of threats like supervillains in itself political? Superman does not exist on the outside, so his self-imposed neutrality is a sham. In his setting, he is a critical component of the system, taking care of outbursts of excessive violence so that their causes never need to be addressed properly. Superman simultaneously claims that he doesn't decide for others, while having decided that he prefers a certain status quo and will prevent change that threatens it (hat status quo being american liberal capitalism, the system his writers identify with). This portrayal of Superman essentially makes him a NSA/CIA spook who sends people to Guantanamo instead of straight up murdering them. In this sense he's a more dishonest version of The Elite.
And that's the point.
Superman and Batman wither should go full AUTHORITY or they should not kill, not the joker, not lex, not anyone.
Dumb amoral neckbeards values shouldnt be mirrored by superman.
Most comics are pro-capitalist, neoliberal and pro-american propaganda anyway.
>First, Superman put them on the receiving end of their own philosophy. He was ruthless and cruel or so it seemed, and they experienced the brutality they were inflicting on others.
Yeah, but their point wasn't "Criminals actually don't mind to be killed", but that they need to be killed for the greater good, showing is not pleasant to be on the receiving end doesn't address their argument at all. I mean i'm sure most don't like to punched and imprisoned either, but that never stopped any superhero from doing their job.
>Second, despite their own considerable power and the fact they outnumbered him, Superman did not give in to brutality to solve the problem
Not a hard thing to do when he was overwhelming more powerful than them.
Unironically all of this. Even the name of the story is political.
>he just wins because he's stronger
He shows them what could happen if they were on the receiving end of their tactics and then adding insult to injury shows that he didn't need to.
>but that they need to be killed for the greater good
They NEVER had the greater good in mind, they were smug egotists based on Ellis's personal powerwank fic.
If the story was better it would have been handled ala an Otto Binder story with Clark solving the issue via an absurd, incredible solution. The message gets muddled when he starts punching people.
>They NEVER had the greater good in mind
Yeah, but the way the whole comic is presented is as an ideological conflict the the notheauthority and superman, of course Kelly makes notheauthority into a bunch of straw mans who are cowards and don't really care about people, but that still does not make their defeat an ideological victory for superman, which is the way the comic presents it.
it's not even the highpoint of Kelly's run
OP here, this pretty much sums up what I was trying to say. The comic is almost a textbook strawman argument, complete with beating up the strawmen.
>It's the ultimate "you had to have been there" comic. It wasn't really about Superman, it was more about the state of superhero comics in general at the time. It was like DC saying "we tried too hard to be edgy this past decade and we're sorry".
No, I was there when it was published, too. That's not what happened. What happened was that Ellis and Millar's Authority became popular and Action #775 was a reaction toward it. I mean for fuckssakes, the entire team is visually loosely based on The Authority, not just any 90's edgy hero archetype. Yes, Authority was published under DC (through Wildstorm) but it wasn't like DC was making all their books like The Authority at that point in the late 90's to 2001.
You're right that it was a "you had to have been there comic", though, because I think by now not many people remember The Authority.
>"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
>It's more like "edgy superheroes don't have to be the standard, it's OK to make traditional superhero comics and we are sincerely trying to get back to that" (which at the time they actually honestly were).
But that's the thing, the only comic during the late 90's that'd be "edgy" like the Elite was The Authority. And even then the Elite was a strawman team the same way the superheroes were strawmen in Marshal Law or The Boys, they're exaggerated caricatures.
At the time Marvel was still in their retro phase (Claremont back on X-Men, Byrne still doing stuff, Busiek still writing Avengers, etc etc) and only just got Quesada as EIC. Action #775 was out in January 2001 (its cover month was March, and DC books were usually out two months before the cover date), Kelly and Mankhe would only be working on it around the time Millar just had only his first issue of Ultimate X-Men out. And Ultimates was years away. The only other "edgy" thing from Marvel at that time was Ennis' Punisher and that doesn't seem like it needed to be commented on.
DC's big book at the time was JLA. And I'm pretty sure most of DC's lineup wasn't "edgy" at the time that was written.
The Authority was selling like hot cakes.
Kingdom Come is like that as well. People try to read it as this big critique of society, but it's really about the state of comics at the time.
It kinda was but looking at Comichron the book was consistently around the 30,000's,.with a spike in sales to around the 40,000's in late 2000 (which would've been when there's was a lot of buzz about what crazy thing Millar wrote in it).
Considering the time it was published (a lot of comic shops had closed down) and the Wildstorm imprint's sales levels, I'd say it was a pretty good success by Wildstorm standards, but not as big as Ultimates or the 90's Image launches.
It's a story about how superheroes should be more morally upstanding than the average citizen. With their abilities the elite could solve problems the way superman does but they prefer to keep people terrified so that no one will commit crimes. Superman's way is shown to be effective in the same comic.
> edgy 90's comics
If anything the 2000's were way worse about that at DC. "Grounded realism" was way more of a turn off to me as a reader than the excess of the extreme era.
>Show example where lethal force benefits more people
Such as? I'd say It's the opposite, actually. Superman managed to contain the alien traffickers without a single life being lost. The Elite killed a fuckton of people when they stopped that giant monster in Lybia at the beginning
Superman values life above all else. He isn't meant to sheperd humanity or halt their progress, but to stop threats to their integrity, whether it comes in the form of alien conquerors, giant monsters, natural disasters or average criminals. How is stopping a giant gorilla a preservation of "american liberal capitalism" instead of a preservation of everyone who might be harmed by the monster? Just because whatever communist drivel you've been fed tells you that changing the status quo justifies harming and killing people doesn't mean superman should have to act according to that line of thinking.
>If Superman truly believes that heroes shouldn't be killjoys, then he shouldn't punch villains. He is a hypocrite.
Edgyfags, everyone.
I don't like the story either, but I think the point is that Superman went all-out on them, and it scared the shit out of everyone involved. He's pretty much just going "Yeah I can do that hardliner shit too, but now you know why I don't."
>The Authority was selling like hot cakes.
It was selling way less than JLA.
There's a difference between an elected government acting on behalf of the people choosing to execute a convicted criminal, and some guy with godlike power arbitrarily deciding who gets to live and who has to die.
Superman is a character. He doesn't have values, writers do.
>How is stopping a giant gorilla a preservation of "american liberal capitalism"
That depends on the gorilla's intentions. If he puts on a suit and starts a legitimate business selling banana energy drinks, Superman isn't going to do anything at all.
But Superman doesn't allow the Atomic Metahuman to run free. he stops his rampage, without resorting to homicide and massive collateral damage, like the Authority did.
>I want Superman to be the judge, jury and executioner of mankind!
wew lad
Don't worry, Bendis will fix this.
The point is might makes right is a flawed philosophy to live by if the big guy always gets to make the rules.
But at the time it doesn't really disproves "Might makes right", if anything it supports it since Superman only won trough his might and thus ends up getting the final say in what's right and what's wrong.
Fucking screencapped for next time an idiot tells me that women want to be under a totalitarian government for their own protection
ITT: edgelords fail to understand a comic that debunks their ridiculous bullshit, even when it's explained to them several times. Oh, and , who just doesn't like the story but understands the message behind it, which is cool.
You can always count on a namefag to claim superiority over everyone else without actually making an argument
Respecting man's ability to govern themselves does not mean "not having problems".
It can be both