Who's Death was more justified? Maxwell Lord or Walter Declun?

[samurai black]

After reading Wolverine#47 and being unable to ignore the glaring similarites between Walter Declun's death at the hands of Wolverine and Maxwell Lord's death at the hands of WW, i thought to myself who deserved to die more?

Walter Declun: CEO of DAMAGE CONTROL, who assisted in the Stamford massacre of over 600 innocent people by providing Nitro with MGH. And profited hand over foot in the destruction causes by his explosion and the resulting Civil War.

Maxwell Lord: Black King of CHECKMATE, murdered The Blue Beetle in cold blood, took control of Batman's Brother I project and creating an army of cyborgs called OMACs (humans infected with a virus that transformed them into killing machines) who were responsbile for countless human/superhuman deaths. Took control of the most powerful being on the planet and used him as his own personal weapon against the JLA.

(side note) i would post a poll, but i don't know how.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Walter Declun deserved to die more. His actions of using Nitro and Damage Control were the result of his desire for more money for himself and larger profits for Damage Control.

Maxwell Lord, despite being evil, did it to protect the world. He had a good point. Metahumans have the potential to destroy the world. He went too far with his actions and went mad with power as a result, becoming that which he hated and fought against.

 

[Dread]

Walter Declun deserved to die more. His actions of using Nitro and Damage Control were the result of his desire for more money for himself and larger profits for Damage Control.

Maxwell Lord, despite being evil, did it to protect the world. He had a good point. Metahumans have the potential to destroy the world. He went too far with his actions and went mad with power as a result, becoming that which he hated and fought against.

A very logical assessment. I'll also note that Walter Declun was more of an idiot than Lord because while Lord surrounded himself with OMAC protectors, Delcun apparently underestimated anyone's attempt to find him out and foolishly tried to fight Wolverine. I mean, that was a WWE-style moment. "Let me 'roid up and fight you in the street", I can hardly buy a CEO type doing that who isn't Lex Luthor (with his silly purple/green armor). And really, Wolverine can somehow fight the Hulk and not die, what F'ing chance does a blueblood in a suit have!?

Maxwell Lord went from goober to fanatic but as you said, he at least had a point about wanting to protect the world from metahumans, although as a psychic (a rarer power in DC than it is in Marvel) he technically was also a metahuman.

Declun as you said was only interested in his own pocketbook and didn't care how many people Nitro hurt, just so long as it gave his new company business. He ended up little different than a figure like Kingpin or any one of Roxxon's endless corrupt heads.

 

[Vanguard07]

Personally i dont see the point of the question. I think that both their deaths were justifiable and thats that. Either one deserves to live or they dont to me, once you cross that line, everything past it is pointless.

 

[samurai black]

Personally i dont see the point of the question. I think that both their deaths were justifiable and thats that. Either one deserves to live or they dont to me, once you cross that line, everything past it is pointless.

Well there has been numerous discussions as to whether or not Maxwell Lord deserves to die at the hands of Wonder Woman regardless of what he did. Now we have a similar scenario in the MU, Declun was partly responsbile for hundreds of deaths and then addding insult to injury, made tons of money from the death and destruction. The only end goal for Declun was profit, while Maxwell did what he thought was necessary to ensure the human race would survive. So IMO, although both were evil and committed henious acts, Declun got what was coming to him, Maxwell didn't.

 

[KingOfDreams]

Walter Declun: CEO of DAMAGE CONTROL, who assisted in the Stamford massacre of over 600 innocent people by providing Nitro with MGH. And profited hand over foot in the destruction causes by his explosion and the resulting Civil War.

War profiteering is part of the story now? Awesome. Did this guy Wolverine killed look like Dick Cheney by any chance?

 

[hippie_hunter]

War profiteering is part of the story now? Awesome. Did this guy Wolverine killed look like Dick Cheney by any chance?

Far from it.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Well there has been numerous discussions as to whether or not Maxwell Lord deserves to die at the hands of Wonder Woman regardless of what he did. Now we have a similar scenario in the MU, Declun was partly responsbile for hundreds of deaths and then addding insult to injury, made tons of money from the death and destruction. The only end goal for Declun was profit, while Maxwell did what he thought was necessary to ensure the human race would survive. So IMO, although both were evil and committed henious acts, Declun got what was coming to him, Maxwell didn't.

Maxwell Lord got what was comming to him. Walter Declun just deserved it way more.

 

[BrianWilly]

I haven't read the Wolverine issue, but to me it sounds like killing Declun was more of a vengeance killing than it was actually anything practical (other than the fact that Wolverine tends to kill people anyway). If he hadn't Hulked out and started attacking, his death wasn't exactly any more necessary than simply putting him under arrest or something where a jury could eventually convict him. Oh right, I forget...Maria Hill won't arrest him 'cause he's a political benefactor. Isn't it great how the pro-regs are being shown letting the actual perpetrator of the Stamford incident go scot free, despite all their prattling that they need to prevent things like that?

Anyway, even with all that said, Maxwell Lord was far more dangerous. A single person who had one hundred percent control of the deadliest weapon on the planet, Superman? Along with Brother Eye and the rest of the OMACs? His death was far more justifiable in terms of the degree of threat eliminated. Declun could have been contained. Max Lord couldn't. Declun probably deserved to die more, since he was an unapologetic evildoer who causes death and pain and destruction for his own profit, but Max Lord definitely needed to die more.

 

[Tropico]

To me, MAx deserved it more. Maybe it's because I knew the character better and was "more involved". People cam justify it all they want, but Max looked only at the powers and forgot about the people that wielded them. He was never a goober, but a manipulative bastard. I also feel that the fact that he made all of these people into OMACs without their consent/knowledge adds to the list of his crimes. His hypocrisy grew at the same rate his plans did.

Declun's death...meh. I felt he got off easy. He should have been incarcerated in the worst place they could find (not the Negative Zone but somewhere infested with REAL scum of the Earth criminals) where he has no influence and be sujected to a miserable life where he was used as a human sex doll. Set him up to think he's escaping only to have Ghost Rider catch him and use the Penance Stare (I know it probably doesn't work like before, but it would on this ocassion) on him.

I felt Max's death was justified considering his threat level. Declun's death seems more deserving in an Old Testament kind of way.


Edit: Heh, I never would have thought BrianWilly and I would think so alike. Gotta post faster.

 

[Union Jack]

Max deserved it for taking control of superman more than anything else.

declun did deserve it too tho...i would have liked to have seen more to it tho,as in wolverine finding out about maybe starks involvement in it all and thusly joining cap's crusade.

 

[Tally Man]

While Declun may be a money grubbing SOB at Lord was a car salesman. What's more evil then that?

 

[Marcdachamp]

I haven't read the Wolverine issue, but to me it sounds like killing Declun was more of a vengeance killing than it was actually anything practical (other than the fact that Wolverine tends to kill people anyway). If he hadn't Hulked out and started attacking, his death wasn't exactly any more necessary than simply putting him under arrest or something where a jury could eventually convict him. Oh right, I forget...Maria Hill won't arrest him 'cause he's a political benefactor. Isn't it great how the pro-regs are being shown letting the actual perpetrator of the Stamford incident go scot free, despite all their prattling that they need to prevent things like that?

You're giving the government far too much credit. They'd never be able to prove it in court, and even if they had anything, the most he'd get was a slap on the wrist.

Wolverine's way was the only sure way Declun would get his come-uppance. Besides, that last page made the whole arc worth it. t:

 

[BrianWilly]

If the public would trip all over itself to prosecute Speedball, who wasn't even actually responsible for the incident, I think there's a fair chance that they might be just as willing to indict the guy who actually instigated it. If a good lawyer (like She-Hulk, perhaps) puts him on the stand, puts in some incidental evidence, gets testimony from some key witnesses (Ann-Marie Hoag in particular seems more than willing to put him away), the bloodthirsty jury will do the rest of the work. It would be shady to exploit the public's post-Stamford witch-hunt mentality, but at least in this instance it would be focused in the right direction for once.

And all that's assuming that they wouldn't have enough evidence for a fair trial anyway; given SHIELD's capacity as an espionage agency who can find out Spider-Man's identity through sweat samples, it's hard to imagine that they can't uncover enough simple evidence against Declun to at least get a trial. They have the big brass testes to hunt Captain America through the streets like a dog, stake out Luke Cage's house with dozens of armed soldiers in clear view of his entire neighborhood, and shoot Arachne in broad daylight in front of her daughter...but they don't have the clout to arrest a nameless, corrupt businessman?

No, the problem isn't that they couldn't bring down Declun -- there's no particular reason they couldn't -- it's that they simply didn't want to. Wolverine tells Hill straight up, "This is the guy responsible for Stamford," and her response is "Too bad, I'm not going to do anything. We've got more important things to worry about right now." Really, what she was actually saying was "He's an important man, friends with the president and, oh yes, he's got ties to Stark Industries too. And we wouldn't want that sort of bad publicity, would we?" Hell, he might even have been one of the key political figures who got the act to pass so quickly in the first place. The pro-registration side's brand of justice apparently involves letting people off the hook so long as they have the right sort of "connections."

 

[droogiedroogie2]

War profiteering is part of the story now? Awesome. Did this guy Wolverine killed look like Dick Cheney by any chance?

Maybe not, but he sure smells, sounds, and acts like Cheney, don't he?