With great power comes great responsibility. You like that? I just came up with that myself. Comic books have using that line for years, but what does it mean? I mean, responsibilities can mean a few things. Does it mean simply that the person with the power must exercise responsibility to not over step with their power? Does it mean it is morally necessary for them to right every wrong that crosses their district or that their views constitute THE rule? This post is going to concern itself with the different side of the discussion process: The Question.

Let’s start with a fun one: does being the sole entity capable of an action automatically make that person the sole authority? Does Superman have the right to decide to kill the Joker or Bizzaro because no one else can? In other words, who has the authority to imprison a person, a jury or the man with the cell key? Who has the authority to release them? To kill them? In fact, lets take this to the end point: why does Superman get to do anything at all? He isn’t police, he isn’t military, and his life and well being are never being threatened. About the only argument he has is third party self-defense, and he loses that the second he can get them one on one. One obvious exception here is Doomsday. However, in that case, it is clear that Superman was at risk, his family, friends, and very world was at risk, he really was the only one who could take him out, and, at the time, Doomsday was no more than an animal with a humanoid shape. That kill is justified and it didn’t even need to be. So what about Lex? Does his humanity save him from the heat vision execution, regardless of what he does with it? Supes gets a pass with Doomsday, sure, but what if he killed Luthor who has killed more people on Earth than Doomsday ever got to?

You may have read Kingdom Come. If you haven’t, open a new tab and go buy a digital copy immediately, read it, then return the happier, wiser, and more well rounded person it will make of you. Now, let’s talk about SPOILERS and slippery slopes. In that graphic novel, it gives a prediction of what would happen if superheroes started making that call. Suddenly, other superheroes start thinking the others make a bad call, so they go to put them down. Then, other superheroes start thinking the others make a bad call, so they go to put them down. This is what is called colloquially as a “vicious cycle”, though it is really just a cycle of viciousness, which is different for… reasons. It ends up with a group of humanized weapons all carrying out their own flavor of justice. It starts with Magog doing what so many fans have yelled at the pages of their books for generations: Just Kill the Stupid Joker Already! Jason Todd yells that very line at Batman in “Under the Red Hood”. Not Penguin, not Mr. Freeze, not even Two Face. Just the Joker. Why not take on that sin, that fault, that single criminal act to stop all the violence and death that keeping him alive ensures? Is he just squeamish, is he that viciously high minded of himself, or is it something else?

There’s a reason Batman doesn’t kill beyond the slippery slope argument everyone gives. At the end of the day, Gotham holds the authority and it seems they are anti-capital punishment. Bats is just a citizen of his city. That he is a super ninja able to straight up end multi-powered monsters is irrelevant unless the laws change so that citizens can kill bad guys in the street. Man, that would be an interesting comic: Gotham passes a law that allows Batman to kill people off of a specific list of super villains. He wouldn’t do it, but what would that ruling mean for the rest of the universe? What would it say about a city that they would trust a single individual over a ruling unit established by the government? What would it say about an individual who played it out? How would we see them? What does it say about how they see themselves?

That a person has a unique ability to end a threat through killing, doesn’t give them authority to do it. That a person is given authority, doesn’t mean they should. What crosses the line? How can we allow capital punishment at all (which is where these questions lead)? It must have some sort of justice in mind, or we wouldn’t have thought of it for our proceedings of justice. It cannot be revenge because we don’t let the victims family throw the switch and it doesn’t work as a deterrent. It must be an equal answer to crimes committed. Call it what you will, prison is not a “rehabilitation center”. While we can use the time they are sentenced to try to give them options on what to do if/when they are released, its purpose is not fix criminals. It’s to act as a punishment for crimes committed, balancing the wrongs they have done with time out of society and restricting their lives. Otherwise multiple life sentences is just silly. Instead, its a way to formally, if impractically, make a murder answer for all of his murders. Obviously, he dies once and that’s all we’ll get from him (I just assumed “he”. Is that sexist?).

So, why all the questions? Philosophy is a thing of mine. I enjoy asking questions. I really enjoy not answering them. I did really well in my classes with that method. Asking questions is a really good way to get yourself to think. This whole page can be boiled down to “when does killing become murdering or when can it be acceptable?”. To quote  Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it”. That’s all well and good, but you cannot seriously make laws around such empty statements. Asking about it and thinking on it creates moral character. Which is redundant.
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What am I doing? The name of this site is “Caped Persuader“! How cheap is it of me to not give you my side and support the heck out of it in an attempt to add another mind to the side of righteousness? I’ll give everyone my take away, though the reasons for both sides are seemingly clear if you really read the page. In Kingdom Come, the world was worse off after Joker was killed because the motivation used to to end him created a world where his actions were deemed acceptable. A society forfeits the freedom to kill whom we see fit and allows our justice system to take it over in an attempt to better and more accurately (though not perfectly) punish those responsible in a reasonable way. Finally, murder diminishes life externally as well as internally while capital punishment is an attempt to act out of justice and serve it appropriately which increases the lives of the rest.

Combat with me. Leave a comment and we’ll see where that leads.