Not Another Comic Reboot!

I just read the news that Marvel, the comic book company, is planning to end the Marvel Universe (all of them) as we know it in 2015 with their Secret Wars mini-series. I admit that I have long loved the idea of superheroes as they provide a particular means for telling fantastic stories. I have long loved characters like Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk and Iron Man because I identify with them on some level (notice there are no DC comic book characters on my short list, which is not to say I’ve never enjoyed DC comics). But I stopped reading comic books years ago as comic book writers and other story tellers started going in for reboots more often as they apparently became displeased with what they’ve tried to give readers. As I lamented some time ago, why can’t the story ever be the story? I became particularly enraged by these storytelling misfires when the movie Spider-Man 3 re-wrote the story of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben’s death for absolutely no good reason. With Marvel’s latest news – which DC Comics has already tried with mixed results several times – I am enraged again.

As is ever the case, story tellers often begin a story with no ending in mind and this is perhaps the most cardinal sin in all of writing, regardless of the medium. As it pertains to comic books, it’s as if writers take on a hero, change a few of their previously essential plot points in order to get readers interested enough to buy the hero’s latest adventures and coast until the hero’s readership dies off (again). This is the essence of what Marvel is trying to do this year, but on a grand scale. Their hopes for destroying all their comic universes and combining all those universe’s best elements are ambitious to say the least, only you can’t help but wonder what is going to happen as soon as the editors decide, you know, we don’t like what we’ve done. Cue the reboot and find a way to undo what we did with Secret Wars back in 2015! You don’t need a crystal ball to figure this one’s a’ comin’. It’s like placing a bet on whether Wolverine, Marvel’s most popular character who was killed off in 2014, will ever be seen again. I’m sure Secret Wars will rectify that mistake.

I am quite sick of it. You don’t see anyone re-writing The Lord of the Rings or see Peter Jackson deviating too much from the original book’s lore in his LOTR movies because the story was written right the first time. (Which immediately makes me wonder how long before 50 Shades of Grey gets rebooted. Oh, wait, that was already a reboot of Twilight. Sigh.) I am seriously pleading with comic book writers to decide on what they want to do with a character, from start to finish, and be proud of what they’ve written, so proud that they don’t want their stories altered. Constantly altering characters deprives their stories of any impact, as demonstrated by Peter Parker regaining his secret identity despite the events of Marvel’s Civil War mini-series. I want to be able to feel that the things that happen to a character, although I know they are fictional, are real and that it matters and will be remembered. Am I asking too much?

The current state of comic books would be enough to make the government in Orson Welles’ 1984 proud.

Things That Don't Make Sense in Comic Books

As I am in the process of writing a superhero novel, I am trying to steer clear of some of the more ridiculous plot point that seem to haunt superhero comic books in general. Here’s my list of things that don’t make sense in comic books…

If Bruce Banner, a brilliant physicist, is at all disturbed by the fact that he turns into the Hulk every time he gets angry, don’t you think he’d find a way to keep himself from getting angry? There are plenty of legal or even illegal drugs that would help.

Why doesn’t Batman kill the Joker? While Batman may think the act of killing is inherently wrong, his belief that it would make him just like the Joker is incorrect. He is nothing like a homicidal criminal who kills untold numbers of people for fun; he would be killing to stop hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people from dying at the Joker’s hands. One, or even a few criminals, stopped with lethal force does not make the executioner the same as the people they kill. And why bother putting the Joker in prison? He’s just going to escape. Why not give Joker the death penalty?

What’s the point of a character dying if they’re going to come back to life later? The ‘death of’ trope is abused so often these days that it might as well be pointless. What’s the point of a whole bunch of heroes mourning Captain America or Superman when they know that – chances are – they’ll be back in just a few months?

Why don’t superheroes ever use their powers properly? For example, Thor can easily send any difficult enemy into another dimension with his hammer, so why has he only done it once (to Juggernaut)? Why doesn’t Superman ever use his super speed to prevent an enemy from landing a punch? Argh! And why don’t superheroes ever get tired during a fight? Even world class boxers need a rest between rounds.

Why would a non-super powered criminal take on a superhero? If you’re a ninja assassin for The Hand, are you really going to fight Wolverine? If you’re a bank robber, are you really going to shoot at Superman when he arrives? Better yet, if you’re going to be a criminal, why not move somewhere where there are no superheroes?

Regarding Superman, why would a yellow sun give him powers? Our Sun only appears yellow due to the way light scatters in our atmosphere; if you’re in space, the Sun appears white. A better explanation would be that our Sun gives Superman his powers due to what our Sun is made of. I guess comic book writers don’t do much research.

Speaking of gaining super powers, why do incidents that would kill anyone else (like radiation exposure) give some people incredible abilities? (At least this didn’t make sense until Marvel Comic’s Earth X series.) Moreover, why do people always decide to become a hero or villain after gaining super powers? If I suddenly found I could turn invisible, I probably wouldn’t announce it to everyone.

Why do so many superheroes and super villains know each other “off the record,” in their private lives? For example, Spider-Man knew several of his foes before they were villains, like Norman Osborn, Curt Connors, and Eddie Brock. And believe me, that’s just the (really) short list!

Speaking of Spider-Man’s, his spider-sense warns him of impending danger. So why didn’t it warn him not to get married?

Why do allegedly brilliant scientists always use themselves as test subjects? And given how often an experiment goes wrong, why do they always experiment in a heavily populated area?

With a few notable exceptions like Batman and Iron Man, most anyone with a load of money or access to resources is a super villain. Why?

How come civilians never die when there is a huge city battle? There’s got to be some collateral damage they’re not telling us about.

Why do almost all non-Earth beings look exactly like humans? Even Marvel’s Inhumans look really, really human!

…Feel free to come up with your own list and share, share, share. Maybe our collective ire will make comic book writers a little less lazy.

Utilitarianism vs Deontology

Having just read a chapter in The Best of Super Heroes and Philosophy titled “Why Doesn’t Batman Kill the Joker?” written by Mark White, I am prompted to revisit the apparent moral dilemma between consequences and taking certain actions. The chapter likens Batman’s moral dilemma not to kill his arch enemy to the well-known “trolley problem,” one of the more ingenious (in its simplicity) thought experiments in moral philosophy. When it comes to Batman’s dilemma, the Utilitarian view would contend that Batman should kill the Joker so that the least suffering and greatest happiness is achieved through such an action; by Batman killing the Joker, future lives will be saved. [While there is no guarantee the Joker will kill again after any given victim, his history indicates that he most likely will.] The other side of that coin is the Deontologist’s view that Batman should not kill the Joker because the act of killing is in and of itself wrong. Batman appears to agree and has long contended that killing villains would make him no better than them. As it relates to the trolley problem, a Deontologist would let the trolley take its course and kill five people (assuming nothing is known about the five potential victims versus the one potential victim on the other track) since there is nothing wrong with inaction.

It is with the Deontologist’s view that I cannot abide by, seeing how they try to make a distinction between action an inaction, a distinction I disagree with. In this case, the Deontologist would say that Batman cannot kill the Joker because killing is inherently wrong while not killing the Joker, though the Joker will likely kill again, alleviates Batman of responsibility for the Joker’s future victims. The Deontologist is contending that to take certain actions (such as killing) are wrong across the board while inaction (such as not killing a homicidal maniac) does not leave someone like Batman responsible for the consequences. But whether Batman does something or not, both are actions. Killing the Joker would be one action and going off and doing something other than killing the Joker is also an action, with ‘inaction’ being something of a misnomer. Unless one is dead it is impossible to take no actions. For Batman to take an action other than the action of killing the Joker is just as bad, if not worse, than killing the Joker since the sum total of all the Joker’s killings – which are inherently wrong on the Deontologist’s view – would be much more inherently wrong than Batman making a single exception to his rule about not killing criminals. The Deontologist may object here and say that each instance of killing is wrong and cannot be added together to arrive at a seemingly consequentialist conclusion, but such a defense is arbitrary; there is no objective evidence that prevents the wrongness of an action to become greater the more one does it. If the defense is arbitrary, it is tempting to look at the problem from a practical point of view since this is how people act in the real world: If I’m Batman and I know that if I don’t kill the Joker, countless lives will remain at risk. But if I kill the Joker, I could more ably live with one act of wrongness than letting the Joker continue his numerous acts of wrongness.

Of course, not killing the Joker may make Batman extremely happy, so happy in fact that he may think that he is actually being a Utilitarian. For if Batman were to become so distraught over killing the Joker he could not go on being Batman, this would ultimately cause the world a greater amount of suffering than if he were to kill the Joker. However, most of Batman’s enemies are nowhere near the level of homicidal mania the Joker displays, so for Batman to think in these kinds of Utilitarian terms appears to be a weak defense. (This view may also be downright egotistical considering there are so many other superheroes around, one of which you would think would kill the Joker. Where’s Marvel Comic’s The Punisher when you need him?) One way or another, Batman is going to wind up morally culpable for whatever the Joker does after the next time Batman refuses to kill him.

On a related note, the death penalty as it is practiced is institutionalized on Utilitarian grounds while those seeking to abolish the death penalty take the Deontologist’s position, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of a criminal’s wrongdoing and potential to be a grave threat to the general public. And again I would argue to not take certain actions against such a criminal would amount to such vast wrongness that the wrongness of a few applications of the death penalty pales in comparison. It’s akin to choosing the lesser of two evils. Sure, one will be wrong either way, but the Deontological position is ultimately worse than the Utilitarian position. In the trolley problem, passively allowing five people on the train tracks to die is five times worse than flipping a switch and intentionally killing one person. Not flipping the switch to kill one person is still an action, meaning one is still responsible for the results, intentions be damned. (Those who think intentions actually make a difference in these types of situations are those who subconsciously and overwhelming value an individual’s right to autonomy, which conveniently absolves one from helping in situations help could be given. Of course, it is not practical to provide help every time one could and we let Deontologists – and ourselves – off the hook on these grounds.)  

When given a choice in Batman’s situation between being a Utilitarian or a Deontologist, Batman should opt for killing the Joker, given that the Deontologist’s position is facetious. Yes, if you ever have the choice to be Batman, be Batman. Just remember that Utilitarianism requires you to kill the Joker.