Why is it I feel that the word hero which use to be so cool, is now lame and without point?  Is the hero not the one who saves and protects the innocent?  Is a hero only a hero based off of what length he/she goes to protect the innocent?  Or is a hero someone who obeys the laws of man to the letter while he protects?  what am I getting at you ask?  A very familiar yet somewhat controversial subject within extremely heroic characters, killing.  When a hero steps over that line is there ever really a greater good?  I would like to reference "Batman under the red hood", how many of you have seen it?  And those of you who saw it did you see the slightest point in what Jason Todd was saying, why let some of these lunatics live just to have them come back and take more lives? prison can't hold them and seldom changes them for the better.  Maybe these villians need to stay alive to give our "hero" something to do.  Were not talking about Ted Bundy serial killers we're talking superhuman killers and terrorists trained in everything from espionage and hand to hand combat to escape, definitely to dangerous to let live or let free regardless of sentence or Jury.   If Batman just did away with the Joker Barbara Gordon would be able to walk, Jason Todd would  never have gone through his ordeal amongst other things.  If DD would have dealt the death blow to BE a little sooner maybe Robert Reynolds wife would be alive and he wouldn't have gone power crazy, maybe those innocence blown up by BE would still be alive.  Maybe those soldiers BE killed to escape in shadowland would be alive.  Now I understand circumstance dictate logic and there are some pretty twisted things associated with hero's that do kill in the MU, deadpool, punisher they are eccentric.  However despite how crazy they are in a heartbeat they'll dish out a shell if it will solve an ultimate or potential mass problem.  Now if you look at it from a writers point a view I guess if every hero did that we would have a million villians because one would need to be created after every major story line, so keeping them alive does give us as readers something to look forward too but is that enough?  Is creating new villian a little more often so bad?  Am I the only one who gets tired of some villians, will they just be putting them behind bars again and again and again until they are to old to do anything about it or the hero's are?  Is this a hero's greater good?  what's your view?