Bought/Thought January 28th *spoilers*

[Aristotle]

So the ends justify the means?

This one does.

 

[Franklin Richards]

Cool. Dr. Doom is my hero then.

 

[Blader5489]

How can he be a paragon when he's already morally bankrupt from compromising his "solemn vow"?

Because he's dead now.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I see. General Custer was a hero. I get it now.

 

[Aristotle]

Cool. Dr. Doom is my hero then.

He wasn't already?

Besides, when has Dr. Doom killed Darkseid? Never, that's when. He kills nice people.

 

[Franklin Richards]

He's defeated Mephisto with some assistance. So he's a good guy. The ends justify the means when you die killing the Devil. Oh wait. Doom didn't die. So I guess he's still evil. Well morals in comics aren't black and white so he could still be off-good.

 

[SouLeSS]

I don't see anyone else reading Trinity. This title has gotten sooo bad, it doesn't surprise me that nobody else is reading it. I'm just a completist, and since I'm on issue #35, I figure I better finish it. But, seriously, it has gotten so completely boring...I have to force myself to finish an issue each week it comes out.

I sat through all of countdown and up till about 20 of trinity before I finally just gave up with it. And I'm a pretty big completionist. It just got so bad.

 

[BrianWilly]

How can he be a paragon when he's already morally bankrupt from compromising his "solemn vow"?

Because he defeated Evil Itself through completely human means?

Why does no one ***** about Superman killing Darkseid? Or Superman killing Mandrakk? (twice!) Or Captain Marvel and the entire Supermen of the multiverse burning the **** out of vampire Ultraman with heat vision? Oh wait, vampires don't count but...metaphysical gods...do?

Please don't pretend this is anything about actual morality. You haven't said a single thing to contest the morality of the situation beyond incongruously absurd straw men boiling down the situation to a bland, zero-dimensional loophole that has nothing to do with moral relativism, much less with Batman. Dr. Doom? General Custer! lolwtf. You haven't been contesting the moral righteousness of Batman shooting Darkseid to save all creation because there is nothing to contest about that. You haven't bothered telling anyone why "the ends justifying the means" is particularly wrong about that situation or why Batman would think it was wrong, other than perhaps some axiom about "Batman would always find another way" that in itself is devoid of moral context. Why exactly would he find another way if the way he had was just fine?

This isn't about that. This is about your preconceived and inaccurate idea of what a character has to be irrelevant of context, and being affronted when a writer challenges that and challenges it well in context.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I wasn't aware that he compromised his morals to kill all of Evil? So now The Joker is good? Great news!!!


And why are you showing me a pic of him using a Batarang? That's what I wanted in the first place.


I wish those of us who feel that this is a total misrepresentation of Batman were as smart as you and Aristotle. If only we were a little brighter maybe we could successfully interpret the themes in this piece.


Must feel great being right all the time.

 

[Manic]

I thought the whole "I never kill" rule went out the window for superheroes when it came to killing people that don't look human. You know, like how Wonder Woman killed 9,999 monsters over her career, but nobody batted an eye until one of them (Maxwell Lord) looked human.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I wasn't quoting the "never kill" rule. I was refering to Batman betraying his solem vow.

 

[BrianWilly]

I showed you a picture where he used an exploding batarang to kill an evil god. Like I did in that last thread, which you just skimmed or something I guess. Are you telling me that if Batman had strapped the Radion to a batarang and threw it at Darkseid, that would have been fine with you?

And I don't even understand what that first paragraph means.

 

[Manic]

Which vow are we talking about, here?

 

[Franklin Richards]

 

[BrianWilly]

Please don't tell me that now your entire contention isn't even that Batman killed Darkseid, but that he used a gun to do it.

Please.

 

[Manic]

Ohhh, the firearms vow. I thought it was the killing vow.

I'll hold back on forming an opinion for now. *hasn't read it*

 

[Franklin Richards]

Please don't tell me that now your entire contention isn't even that Batman killed Darkseid, but that he used a gun to do it.

Please.

You see, Brian. When a character in a book makes a solemn vow and then in the course of the story does the exact opposite, that is what we call betraying your ethics.


Like for instance if Lancelot made a solemn vow of chastity and then had sex with the Queen. We would prolly think that was a fall from grace. A betrayal of ones ethics.


But in the case of Batman it doesn't matter. Is that how it goes?

 

[Blader5489]

He should have used a slingshot.

 

[Franklin Richards]

Seems easy enough eh?
Maybe insert the bullet into a Batarang? Doesn't he carry an empty one next to the Bat Shark Repellent?

 

[BrianWilly]

So in the end -- I'm saying "in the end" because this certainly wasn't what you were saying in the beginning -- you don't even give a **** that Batman used deadly force, you're just making a fuss that he used a gun? The multiverse was on the line, people were dying all around him, hope was literally being sucked out of reality and collapsing into the Darkseid himself, and what you care about is that Batman took one exception to the vow that he made in the first place to protect himself from crossing the line in his war on crime?

That's what you think makes him as bad as Dr. Doom or something? That's what you think makes him morally bankrupt and defied all the principles he used to stand for? You seriously would have been fine with it if he had killed Darkseid with a batarang?

I honestly don't even know what to say to that kind of unintelligible thinking. And people say Final Crisis was confusing...

 

[Franklin Richards]

No. I also have a problem with him using deadly force too but that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about him being a paragon and I said he wasn't because he compromised his solemn vow. You are the one bringing up the deadly force. I've never really said that I had changed my mind but you felt the need to manufacture a reason to change the subject.


For someone who reads so well you sure don't stick to the subject. But then again by me saying that I'm using you and Aristotle's favorite tactic. Insulting people who's opinion is not in line with my own.


Anything else? I've given you examples of my interpretation. You want to waste a few more pages of writing so that you can tell me how my opinion is wrong?

 

[BrianWilly]

If by "interpretation" you mean "declaring an absolute without qualifying it with any actual explanation or context" then yeah, you have done a lot of that.

So you weren't talking about deadly force here? What the heck does using a gun have with Dr. Doom or Mephisto, then? What the heck does using a gun or not even have to do with being a paragon of humanity? Unless you mean that he's not a paragon because he made a vow and then made an exception to it, but then you'd still have to justify why making that exception, in that context, is wrong in the first place.

 

[Dread]

I think murdering Gary's wife already puts him there...

Oh, I know that. But murdering Gary's wife, then turning his daughter into a vampire and making her fight him...that would put Zech onto Epic Superdickery level.

She's most likely talking about her alien pregnancy.

Yeah, Hood rape is secondary.

Bah! Tigra will never get her groove back until she kicks a little Hood ass.

 

[Franklin Richards]

If by "interpretation" you mean "declaring an absolute without qualifying it with any actual explanation or context" then yeah, you have done a lot of that.

I haven't explained it enough? I thought my examples and instances would be explanation. I thought my specific referal to Batman using a gun was context enough. I figured the pic of the comic was context enough.

So you weren't talking about deadly force here? What the heck does using a gun have with Dr. Doom or Mephisto, then?

I believe I was talking about "the ends justifying the means". Maybe you should quit reading the words that appear in your head and read the text before you.

What the heck does using a gun or not even have to do with being a paragon of humanity? Unless you mean that he's not a paragon because he made a vow and then made an exception to it, but then you'd still have to justify why making that exception, in that context, is wrong in the first place.

To be a paragon you pretty much have to be better than everyone. You have to adhere to a higher morality. At least that's how I interpret it. So by definition the fact that he made an exception to his solemn vow to me justifies my statement that in that context he is in fact NOT being a paragon.

 

[kguillou]

I know its all a matter of opinion but c'mon its Darkseid we're talking about. This guy is pure, unfiltered evil, he's almost as bad as the Joker. This guy was threatening the entire universe, i think he needed to be put down permanently for everybody's sake. That's just my two cents though.