akbogert

@Manbehindthewires: Quite fair. I'll shoot you a message.

And in the interest of topic preservation: I don't know whether it will be cancelled next, but I obviously would be thrilled if Arena ceased to exist.

But really, I am very happy to see so many folks saying they don't drink because they're underage.

Speaking just for American culture, we glorify alcohol and take for granted that every teenager who attends a party will probably have done a keg stand by the age of 18. Heck, "college life" in general is almost always beer-drenched, despite the fact that most people don't turn 21 until their Junior or Senior year. Waiting until legal age before drinking is a huge accomplishment, and I commend those of you who have committed to upholding it.

@Manbehindthewires: Whether you meant it or not doesn't change whether you're deriving pleasure from something hurting other people or not. It's one thing to say "I'm enjoying the high stakes, but I wish there were a way to do it without hurting people's emotions." It's quite another to say "I'm enjoying the high stakes, and the fact that this is hurting people's emotions is a good sign." Even if I give you, personally, the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean the former, there are plenty of people saying the latter, and that sickens me. As it turns out, I don't enjoy these books because these characters risk their lives. I don't consider death or "ultimate" stakes fundamental to good action, and I consider them far less fundamental (perhaps even antithetical, as they're prone to misuse) to good storytelling and character development.

Risk, by the way, is only really a useful thing when used in tandem with choice. If I do something risky, I am doing something despite knowing it could end badly because I've decided that the ultimate consequence is worth the potential bad. So yeah, in a sense Marvel is being risky in that it's risking pissing off and/or losing readers, and has decided that's worth it because it might drive sales due to the controversial nature of the book. None of the characters, however, are risking their lives, because none of them had any choice over the situation and can do absolutely nothing to make themselves safe. None of them has a higher goal they are putting themselves in jeopardy for in order to accomplish.

If the evolution of comics is characters who don't want to kill being forced to kill, and kids who want to be safe being forced into death traps, and the only way to make people care about your characters is to physically and psychologically torture them, then we are "evolving" towards extinction.

@Manbehindthewires: Deathlocket didn't exist two months ago. But most of those characters did. Kirkman created those characters; he has license over whether they die (and hey, Hopeless created Deathlocket, so ditto). The people who already cared about these characters don't want to see them die.

But that's an old song and dance, debated to death elsewhere. What really aggravates me is people saying they are deriving pleasure from other people's anger or suffering. That is textbook sadism.

@FadeToBlackBolt said:

No. The day someone like Superman starts freely killing, is the day the term "superhero" should no longer be used. They'll all just be superhumans.

QFT.

That said, there's still a place for "true" vigilante justice. The heroes catch the people that slip through the cracks in the flawed justice system. But I think there's a place for those who catch the people that slip past the heroes. At the end of The Killing Joke, it would have been wrong for Gordon to kill Joker. It would probably also be wrong for Batman to kill him. But someone, anyone else, really should have just put a bullet through his head. Would have saved countless lives and prevented a great deal of physical, emotional, and psychological damage to a great many innocent people.

The issue, of course, is that we won't agree on what "justice" actually means. Say what you will, but most of us want to see a killer killed, sentenced or not.

@Manbehindthewires: Aye, that's just what Marvel needs. Two huge middle fingers to devoted fans. It'd be stupid for them to actually respect or care about their readers.

@consolemaster001: Considering the hot water DC went through when they tried to can Gail Simone, I don't think they'd try to pull any fast ones on Babs for quite a while. If the fans didn't kill them for taking out Barbara, Simone would.

This is a weird question, though slightly easier to answer since you provided choices.

As Red Hood is the only one on that list I'm actually already reading, that was a no-brainer.

@JonSmith: This was fantastic. Thanks for sharing!

@Ultimate_Riddler: Thanks, I was pretty happy with it. Hopefully I can come up with others I'm equally happy with.

I also thought about merely asking when 4 Georges were the same as 1 George (phrased a bit better, of course), but I love $2 bills too much for that.