The Moral Imperatives of Wonder Woman

[mabfan]

For those looking for my next Infinite Crisis speculation post, I'm afraid that you're going to have to wait until Sunday or Monday. A combination of Rosh Hashana and the Ig Nobel Award Ceremony made it difficult for me to read through all the tie-in comics deeply enough to make further speculations. (Although I am amazed at the revelation of Donna Troy's status as the Anti-Harbinger.) So to give everyone something to think about while waiting for my final speculation before Infinite Crisis #1 hits the stores next week, I thought I'd open up a discussion about the recent choice made by Wonder Woman.

To recap, as part of the events surrounding The OMAC Project, Maxwell Lord took control of Superman's mind, fooling him into almost killing Batman by making him think Batman was one of many villains threatening Lois's life. When Wonder Woman finally confronted Lord, he told her that the only way to make him give up control of Superman would be by killing him.

And so she killed him.

The repurcussions are being felt throughout the other comics. In Wonder Woman #221, released this week, the world finds out what she did before she has a chance to turn herself in to an international tribunal, and people's loss of trust in her becomes evident. Although both Superman and Batman benefited from her actions, they have distanced themselves from her. Diana has become that one thing a superhero never should become: a killer.

But is she a murderer?

Wonder Woman has often viewed herself as a soldier in a war. Soldiers in war kill without committing murder; it's entirely possible that one could justify her actions under that perspective. Even Superman seemed intent on killing Doomsday when there appeared to be no other choice.

On the other hand...she did have other options. She could have brought Lord to Zatanna for a magical lobotomy. Or she could have found a way to keep him unconscious until they had a chance to figure out a form of safe incarceration. From that perspective, her actions might be considered morally repugnant, saved only by the defense that she killed him in the heat of the moment, without really having a chance to ponder her other options.

So...was Wonder Woman justified? Were her actions moral?

What do you think?

Comments

[sdelmonte]

Here's the problem: super-heroes don't kill. Why? Because killing is wrong. Which is it. Except that cops kill in the line of duty when necessary. And soldiers kill. The distinction between hero and everyone else doesn't really ring true sometimes. No, I don't want all the heroes to emulate the Punisher. But it makes no sense for all of them to think this way.

(OK, the real reason heroes don't kill is that they are not deputized by the law, and thus their actions would be murder - or at least manslaughter - under the law. As silly as the Trial of the Flash was back in 1984, it wasn't entirely wrong to assume that a hero could be tried for such actions. But let's ignore that for now.)

So I can live with Wonder Woman killing Max Lord. It's not murder. She IS a soldier. To be honest, I think that this should have been a source of conflict between her and the rest of the heroic community for years. And as a soldier, she did what whe thought was needed. Max was a threat. Now he's dead, and that's it for the threat. And I have to say, I think that any other alternative might have come up short, given how powerful Max's mind control got, and how ineffective mind-wiping seems to be.

What I can't live with is the holier-than-thou attitudes given to Supes and Batman about this. Anyone else remember Batman clsoing the door on the KGBeast int he semi-classic "Ten Nights of the Beast"? Anyone else remember Supes killing the Pocket Universe's Zod and friends?

At the very least, the three should try to talk it out like adults. The tension between the Big Three feels artificial. The one problem I have with the build-up to the Crisis is that everyone is acting this way, with maybe the execptions of Wally West and Hal Jordan.

I will accept that Batman holds the idea of not killing as sacred in most cases. There was a great Denny O'Neil story about 15 years ago in Legends of the Dark Knight which explored that idea. In it, Bats said that it might be the one thing he truly believes in. And there is even evidence that Bats opposes the death penalty (though I don't buy that). And he does tend to hold everyone to his standards. But I still don't buy how absolutely cold he's been to WW about this.

Then again, I never quite bought that the current versions of these heroes were that close, let alone capable of having feelings for each other. Again, the characters are forced to act a certain way by the writers and editors, and then forced to act another way by the next writers and editors.

Anyway, I don't condemn Wonder Woman for this action. I just feel sorry for her, in that it's costing her her reputation and her friends.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you brought up Superman killing General Zod of the pocket universe. That's exactly what I keep thinking about every time Superman seems to waver on whether he should condemn Wonder Woman for her actions. I hope the writers have actually remembered to keep this piece of his history in mind when exploring his reaction.

[adn-heming.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Doomsday. Because fine, Clark didn't have a choice, Doomsday was bent on killing everyone and everything. Well, using him as a weapon, Max would make Clark kill whoever he wanted, quite easily. Quite happily. And no, Clark, you don't get off on the "Doomsday wasn't human" clause.

[sdelmonte]

1. I am not sure if that story is still continuity, following Birthright. I hope it is.

2. You hit on the one thing I am having the most trouble with: Superman wavering. About everything. He's become far too irresolute of late.

[batman1013.livejournal.com]

It is still in continuity. In Sacrifice it was said that part of the problem was that Superman had killed Zod and it had flipped a switch in his brain. If he killed again, at least something that wasn't sentient (as Doomsday appeared not to be), it would fracture his mind. It was somewhere in the issue of AoSM, I know.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you could rephrase that last sentence and repost? (Check my info page - I have a "no obscenity" policy here...)

[fhwqhgads.livejournal.com]

appologies, michael!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

No problem!

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

This is probably none of my business, and I'm sympathetic to one not wanting obscenity on their friends-page: I don't like it either. But you are aware, I trust, that the post you made isn't in your personal journal; it's on an LJ community page. (That's where I read it, anyway.) I know you crossposted it on your own LJ, but the point is, the commenter was commenting on a post in an LJ community, NOT your own journal. So, when you post onto a COMMUNITY, should anyone who responds reasonably be expected to call up your user-info page before they respond? I know I don't access the user-info pages of everyone who comments on one of the various LJ communities I'm on before I respond to their posts, nor would I expect people to do so for me when I post onto a community. Granted, I tend not to use obscenity in comments anyway, but the point remains valid.

To summarize: It's reasonable to expect people to abide by your guidelines when they're responding to posts on YOUR journal. But it's probably unreasonable to expect that when people respond to posts on a COMMUNITY, a PUBLIC journal.

I hope no offense is taken. Anyway, for what it's worth, I agree that the writers are essentially manipulating all the characters -- Superman, Batman, Max himself, J'onn (come on, would J'onn EVER have been as dismissive of Beetle as he was in "Countdown"?) to do what they want them to. EXCEPT for Wonder Woman, who DOES seem in character.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

Please disregard my comments above -- I just realized that you in fact were linking to your own journal, and that you did make the obscenity note in the body of the post. My mistake, and my apologies.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You hit on exactly the reason why I make the point in the community post which refers people back here, and no apology is necessary.

If people want to use obscenitites in replying to my post in the dc_clocktower or dc_universe communities, I agree that I have no moral authority to tell them no. But what's been happening is that people come over here and then forget (as you yourself did) that they're commenting in a personal journal, not in a public community. Which is why I've made the point when posting the referrals.

[fhwqhgads.livejournal.com]

I think that part of why Superman is reacting so poorly is because of guilt.

He feels tremendous guilt over both 1)killing General Zod, and 2)being used in a way to force one of his best friends to make the same choice he did.

So now, every time he looks at Wonder Woman, he sees part of himself that he would rather not think about. He hurts tremendously from both what he's done, and what's been done to him, and the one thing Superman isn't familiar with is being hurt. Unfortunately, his way of dealing with it for the time being is to lash out at Diana.

So, super or not, he's still a man, and I can understand why he's reacting this way.

Batman, however, is a jerk.