Killing

Killing
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Official Name	Killing

The superhero community has to deal with it as a moral, legal and political issue in crime fighting. Lethal force used against super-villains and other criminals is usually met with negative public opinion, as heroes working outside the law can't be held up to the same standards as regular m

Killing is the act of intentionally causing the death of any other living creature, and it has a highly controversial position in the DC Universe.

History

The superhero community has to deal with it as a moral, legal and political issue in crime fighting. Lethal force used against super-villains and other criminals is usually met with negative public opinion, as heroes working outside the law can't be held up to the same standards as regular members of law enforcement. The psychological effects and the philosophical implications of ending another person's life make this a line that most heroes choose never to cross.

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Heroes who regularly kill or have lost their killing virginity:

• Arsenal killed the Electrocutioner for his role in Lian Harper's death.
• Antaeus murdered the leader of a middle eastern country.
• Atom Smasher killed the dictatorial president of Kahndaq, Black Adam's home country
• Authority
• Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) was trained from an early age by the assassin David Cain, and committed her first and only murder at a very young age. This completely traumatized her.
• Batman (Earth Two) killed several of Hugo Strange's "Monster Men" with machineguns. He killed the vampiric Mad Monk and his vampiric concubine Dala, with a gun, while they slept, using silver bullets. He killed Dr. Death's Cossack henchman Mikhail, by swinging on a cord and kicking him in the head so hard that his neck broke.
• Batman (New Earth) was forced to shoot Darkseid in the chest with a Radion bullet to save existence itself during Final Crisis.
• Black Adam murdered countless people across his lifetime, most notably killing millions in the country of Bialya and multiple superheroes and villains in the World War III event.
• Black Canary was forced to kill Everyman while he posed as Green Arrow on her wedding night.
• Black Lightning murdered corrupt corporate executive Martin Somers to avenge the death of his niece Joanna Pierce.
• Black Thorn
• Butcher
• Captain Atom
• Captain Boomerang, Jr.
• Catwoman killed Black Mask after he brutally tortured Maggie and killed Simon Burton.
• Chief Justice Max
• The Crimson Avenger (Earth-Two) dropped one mercenary off the roof of the 22-story Smythe Building.
• Crimson Avenger (New Earth)
• Damian Wayne
• Doctor Fate killed an unnamed evil magician, and the sorcerer Haldane, killed one spaceship's worth of alien interlopers, destroyed one undersea civilization, and destroyed an entire hostile alien planet.
• Dawnbreaker
• Dollman
• The Elite
• Enchantress killed the Pentacle member White Rabbit.
• Faust relit the fires of Hell by killing the Enchantress.
• Fire murdered villain Colonel Computron.
• The Flash killed Professor Zoom to protect his fiance Fiona Webb after Zoom killed his first wife.
• Frankenstein
• Ghost Fox Killer
• Green Arrow (Earth-Two), in his first published appearance, killed fleeing felon Ezra Samson.
• Green Arrow (New Earth) struggles with the lethal force conflict significantly more than most others. His first kill was a sniper he accidentally shot fatally when his arm slipped at a crucial moment. The next was a man in the middle of torturing his girlfriend Black Canary who intended to rape and murder her. The Cross Roads storyline where he began to doubt his motivations and acted more as an antihero saw him kill 14 criminals during his adventures, although it is implied there were more. Cry for Justice had him murder Prometheus in cold blood after the super-villain murdered thousands of Star City inhabitants with a massive terrorist plot.
• Green Lantern Corps
  • Boodikka
  • Guy Gardner generally avoids killing, but he took out Sinestro Corps member Duel Eknham with a shot through the head when he was really very upset.
  • Hal Jordan
  • Hannu relies more on his own strength than his Ring, and killed his Sinestro Corps counterpart Horku by punching straight through him.
  • Jack T. Chance
  • John Stewart
  • Kilowog
  • Salakk
• Gunfire
• Hangman
• Hawkman killed all but one of the first dozen supervillains he encountered, along with several accomplices and henchmen, and destroyed an entire undersea civilization. Individual kills: Anton Hastor (Note: Hawkman shot Hastor in the the chest with an arrow, intending to kill him, and left the scene believing that he had killed him. Hastor's improbable survival does little to change the moral dynamic of this event.), Alexander The Great , Una Cathay and Count Torgoff , Abdul ben Hathor and Hasan ibn Sadah , Sheik Abdullah and one of his riffs , Boris Nickaloff and Czar .
• Hitman
• Human Bomb killed the supervillain, Doctor Polaris, after witnessing the Freedom Fighters slaughter.
• Huntress
• Jason Todd
• Jonah Hex
• Katana
• King Faraday
• L.E.G.I.O.N.
• Looker
• Magog
• Manhunter
  • Kate Spencer murdered Copperhead in cold blood as revenge for killing dozens of victims to start off her career as a murderous vigilante. She also murdered Monacle and later her own father, Walter Pratt.
  • Kirk DePaul
  • Mark Shaw
  • Paul Kirk
• Musketeer
• New Gods
  • Orion
  • Mister Miracle
  • Big Barda
• Nightwing once beat the Joker to death with his bare hands during Last Laugh, believing him to be responsible for the death of Robin. Robin was not actually dead, and Batman revived the Joker so Nightwing wouldn't have blood on his hands.
• Obsidian killed his abusive, adoptive father James Rice.
• Omega Men
• Peacemaker
• Princess Projectra
• The Red Torpedo killed two submarine crews, most if not all of the crew of a battleship, , all of the crew of a 3rd submarine, , a 4th submarine crew, , and punched one guy off a cliff.
• Sonny Sumo killed mercenary Megayakuza.
• Star Boy
• Starfire
• Starman
  • Jack Knight Jack has killed on two instances but only to save his own life. He first killed the Mist's son Kyle in a battle over Opal City. Later, he was forced to kill the alien Medphyll.
  • Mikaal Tomas
• Superman (Earth-Two) wasn't averse to killing his enemies for some period after his debut. While in San Monte, he killed two of its military men, including by tossing a torturer far away and causing a pilot's plane to crash. He later watched as the munitions magnate Lubane choked to death due to the gas he had accidentally dropped. While merged into a single being with his Earth-One counterpart, Superman made a premeditated decision to kill the conqueror Krogg of the Interdimensional Limbo. Superman also struck the death blow against the Anti-Monitor in the original telling of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Anti-Monitor was however reborn after Infinite Crisis.
• Superman (Earth-One) made a vow never to take a life, even the lives of lower life-forms such as insects and bacteria if it could be helped, but in spite of this, he has taken lives, or intended to, on several occasions. As Superboy, he deliberately destroyed the original Bizarro, and as an adult years later, Superman allied with Bizarro #1 to destroy a "new" Bizarro, although Superman justified both cases to himself as Bizarros are not technically alive. Superman threatened the space-pirate Grax with destruction by his own K-meson bomb to lower a force-field trapping Superman within the Earth's atmosphere as it counted down, and the detonation of the bomb outside the force-field would have killed Grax if it weren't for the alien's unforeseen ability to turn intangible. On the execution-planet of Morgu, a de-powered Superman used a death/torture device, which would gradually transform its victim into plant matter, against its intended handlers to escape. Superman also dislodged an unstable nuclear reactor and threw it into a crevice in the ground, attracting a horde of Four-Armed Terrors to pursue it into the chasm to their deaths. Superman caused an energy-weapon fired by Intergang hitman Tombstone Greer to recoil, reducing Greer to a pile of ash. Superman defeated the Galactic Golem during their rematch by encasing him in an iron-nickel alloy at the Earth's magnetic north pole, immobilizing him until he exhausted his internal supply of hyperstellar energy and "died." However, like in the case of Bizarro, the Golem did not fit the traditional definition of a living being in spite of possessing sentience and self-awareness. Superman deliberately caused Karb-Brak to go into a state of clinical death from acute inflammation, although he had every intention of resuscitating him using medical equipment at the Fortress and believed that inducing an extreme allergic reaction would be the only way for his body to develop a tolerance to Kryptonian antigens. When the Parasite tried to enhance his energy-absorption capacity with the Prism of Power, Superman defeated him by swiping the Prism off his person, causing an energy-overload that disintegrated him. Superman knew this would happen because he got the idea by recalling their first battle, which ended when Parasite disintegrated from an energy-overload. While merged into a single being with his Earth-Two counterpart, Superman made a premeditated decision to kill the conqueror Krogg of the Interdimensional Limbo. Superman ended the life of the villain Ultimate Man by overloading him with his own evolution-ray, though it is ambiguous whether a fatal outcome was Superman's intent.
• Superman (New Earth) executed three Kryptonian prisoners using Green Kryptonite, General Zod, Quex-Ul and Zaora of the Pocket Universe. They had committed global genocide by murdering every single human on Earth in their reality, and swore that they would do the same again if they ever escaped. He also killed Doomsday in their first encounter, although dying of his wounds shortly thereafter, and shattered the Cyborg Superman's chassis at the end of their battle in Engine City. In spite of Superman's words at the time to imply otherwise, he later indicated that he was never truly trying to kill the Cyborg.
• Tawky Tawny killed Kalibak during battle.
• Ultramarine Corps
• Vigilante
  • Adrian Chase
  • Dorian Chase
  • Justin Powell
• Wild Dog
• Wonder Woman snapped Maxwell Lord's neck during Sacrifice to prevent him from taking over the planet with a mind-controlled Superman. Also snapped the neck of the monstrous half-demon, Grendel, who was feeding on prisoners in a prison camp.

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See Also

• Appearances of Killing
  
• Concept Gallery: Killing
  
• Catalogued images related to Killing
  
  

Links and References

• Homicide at Wikipedia.org