Comments on: Superhero Kills the President

By: sean

sean — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:48:09 +0000

Duck - That's not a parallel, that's identical.

By: The Colossus of Rhodey

The Colossus of Rhodey — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:27:51 +0000

Superhero kills the president... Here we go again! This summer will witness "Black Summer," a new comic series along the lines of The Authority where a superhero unilaterally judges the US president to be a "war criminal" ... and kills him. The author is......

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 07:16:56 +0000

I dunno. For the parallel to really be there, the United Nations would have had to have passed three separate resolutions calling the President a war criminal, the President would have had to have manipulated elections to keep himself in office for nearly thirty years and been personally responsible for launching nerve-gas attacks on his own population, and the superhero would have spent the last fifteen years flying around blowing up random parts of the United States while keeping food and medical supplies from entering the country.

So, no, not really a parallel case at all.

By: Alex Knapp

Alex Knapp — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:52:08 +0000

Oh my lord.... I totally forgot about Superman at Earth's End. Don't forget about the mutated, resurrected clone of Batman that he killed, too....

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:29:01 +0000

Technically, in the alternate-future comic "Superman: At Earth's End," Superman does kill Hitler. 2 clones of him. With a chaingun. While screaming something to the effect of "THIS IS FOR ALL THE BOYS THAT DIED AT NORMANDY!" It's mind-boggling.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 06:04:11 +0000

Superman couldn't kill Hitler because it would have created a monstrous continuity problem — that in fact, Hitler was still alive in real life. Plus it would have been bad for our economy. And reporting for a major metro daily keeps you quite busy — kill Axis leaders on your own time, I need my stories!

By: Avatar Press » Blog Archive » Black Summer quick hits

Avatar Press » Blog Archive » Black Summer quick hits — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 19:26:02 +0000

[...] Political Blog Inside the Beltway picks up the news - “Graphic novelist extraordinaire Warren Ellis’s newest series, Black Summer, has a great chance of being one of the most talked about comics in awhile. After all, the premise is that a superhero decides that the President of the United States is a criminal.” [...]

By: Alex Knapp

Alex Knapp — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:55:24 +0000

yetanotherjohn, In all seriousness with respect to Superman, he has a vow against killing, and also refuses to get involved in politics. A good examination of this position can be found in my all-time favorite Superman story - "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" by Joe Kelly. (Action Comics #775, also collected in the trade paperback The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told).

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:17:19 +0000

I didn't know about the "Spear of destiny". As to Stalin, I was thinking post-WWII during the cold war.

By: M1EK

M1EK — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:51:20 +0000

One reason, even given modern plotting, Superman wouldn't have killed Stalin because by the time they had seriously addressed the war, Stalin was on our side.

The Spear of Destiny was actually pretty inventive plot device considering the constraints - readers wanted to see war stories; the government wanted the propaganda; but DC couldn't exactly go ahead of current events - speculative/alternate history wasn't going to sell at that point.

By: Alex Knapp

Alex Knapp — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:13:39 +0000

Superman couldn't kill Hitler because the Nazis possessed the Spear of Destiny, which prevented any superhumans from entering Nazi-occupied territory.

No, seriously, that was the explanation DC Comics gave at the time.

As for Stalin, I don't know. Kryptonite moustache?

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:09:44 +0000

So why didn't Superman kill Hitler or Stalin?

By: The Star Clipper Blog

The Star Clipper Blog — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

by nature are practicing vigilantism. So where do you draw the line? As Ellis puts it, "If your cause is fighting crime, do you simply turn a blind eye to crimes committed in politics?" Here's an interesting story and discussion about the plot of Black Summer. No doubt the comic will be getting press all over the country once its released. After what happened to Cap, I'm sure we can look forward to many more speculations on news networks about metaphors in comics for the death of everything from the

By: warrenellis.com

warrenellis.com — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Political blog Outside The Beltway picks up on BLACK SUMMER. After all, in a broader ethical sense, is there a difference between a superhero, acting outside the due process of law, killing a President he believes to be a criminal any different than a country, arguably acting outside the law, invading another

By: Zompocalypse

Zompocalypse — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

Every single thing Warren Ellis has had published by Avatar Press, up until this point, has been an absolute piece of crap. No exceptions. Avatar seems to exist purely to publish Warren Ellis concepts that no-one else will touch. This one could be a little different. It's typical Ellis high-concept stuff. But it might just not suck. And I only say that because it should be familiar territory for him from Planetary and half a dozen other things he's written. He usually seems more