The Hoard Potato makes a note.

[athelind]

I'm watching Justice League Unlimited again, a disc or two each week.

Man, Superman is really surly in this show. He comes off as snarky, sarcastic, and irritable-while Batman seems relaxed and comfortable and cracks a genuine smile now and then.

It's surreal.

Amanda Waller, however, remains the scariest person in the DCU.

Comments

[cpxbrex]

It's because Superman's not in Metropolis with his wife, whereas Batman is away from Gotham making googly eyes at Wonder Woman. ;)

I mean, if I was Batman, I'd probably see the time in the League as a kind of pleasant escape from the constant barrage of horror that is Gotham City.

[notthebuddha]

Speaking JLU and Gotham, why doesn't Green Lantern or Dr Fate or anyone else with ineffable powers say, "Batman, let me help you with that Joker problem." or better yet, just take care of it. It would totally be in character for Deadman.

[cpxbrex]

Because 1. Gotham is Batmans' city. Just ask him and 2. he takes care of the Joker himself. There is copious evidence of this. ;)

[notthebuddha]

I'm not sure that Batman's "care" is effective. Has a year gone by without the Joker killing more people? Meanwhile, GL has the moral responsibility and arguably the authority to protect people in the entire sector including Gotham City.

[cpxbrex]

Batman's care is highly effective. It's Arkham's care that is ineffective! And Bruce Wayne has, in good conscious, fairly consistently attempted to make Arkham a better holding facility, but the incompetence and corruption of Gotham City make that impossible - but not through lack of effort.

Plus, it isn't like the sci-cells of the GL Corps are any better than Arkham. Crooks walk in and out of them all the time, too. ;)

I would also hesitate to put the GL Corps up against the Joker. Eventually, the Joker would meet, say, Parallax and the gig would be up for the GL Corps!

[notthebuddha]

Batman turning the Joker over to the cops knowing he'll end up at Arkham is exactly what I mean.

The Guardians let Sinestro openly rule as an absolute monarch and execute people, so obviously there are alternative to sci-cells. If I was a GL living on earth and read about the Joker's tenth killing spree in the paper, I'd feel obligated to do something, like strand him on an asteroid or Bizarro World.

[twentythoughts]

At the same time, Joker's a relatively low-level guy. He CAN be taken out by Batman.

The high-level supers need to have their hands free to deal with high-level threats. If they took on every low-level villain there was, there'd be no time for eating or sleeping.

Plus, there's probably some "we work WITH the authorities, not as vigilantes" thing there.

I'd recommend reading the "Astro City" comic at some point. One of the first stories involves that universe's Superman equivalent, who basically gets 2-3 hours of sleep every night, and spends pretty much every waking moment flying around the planet stopping natural disasters, rescuing people, stopping supervillains, etc.

[notthebuddha]

I know all about the Samaritan; he makes time to show up at dinners and banquets people give. The Joker crossed the line into high-level threat when he threatened to nuke New York.

[cpxbrex]

So, you're saying Batman should murder the Joker? Or build his own extralegal internment camp and become judge, jury and executioner?

[notthebuddha]

Certainly not! Wonder Woman should kill the Joker

[cpxbrex]

I'm pretty sure Batman does not, in fact, murder people. He does do a certain amount of private incarceration, but generally only for limited periods of time, but I can think of at least one exception . . . but considering he escaped, well, the problem really is that Arkham and Blackgate just can't hold these guys.

But there are all kinds of reasons why WW shouldn't kill the Joker, or anyone else, really. She's doesn't have a lot of legal status in the US and killing a US citizen would make her a murderer.

Plus, why focus on the Joker? I mean, pretty much all of Batman's bad guys are irredeemable mass murderers, most of them quite insane. And, frankly, the Joker isn't the worst of the lot. Ra's al-Ghul is. But even in terms of body count, well, he's just not exceptional in Batman's rogues gallery. Does the Joker really have a higher body count than Two-Face? Killer Croc's a cannibal as well as a mass murderer. Mr. Freeze has wiped out a whole lot of people. Even reasonably goofy guys like the Mad Hatter have enormous body

[notthebuddha]

I picked the Joker because he's the most visibile, most accessible, and least powerful, so there's a very low barrier to entry to encountering him. Plus, he's pretty erratic and random in his targets, unlike the rest, and has no particularly placatable psychology, but you are correct in that Two-Face and the rest deserve some attention as well.

I doubt Wonder Woman would care that destroying such a depraved monster would be considered murder by some Americans, and it's not like there would be any motivation for a DA to indict and try her. And what's 20 years to an immortal if she did go to prison and declined to break out? There would be about 4 opportunities a year to earn a pardon by helping save the world if the governor didn't give her one or at least a commuted sentence because she finally killed the friggin' Joker! Much the same goes for various other Leaguers

[cpxbrex]

Some of those Americans who would care have names like "Batman" and "Superman", so I'm not so sure she'd blithely dismiss the opinions of Americans. And YES she WOULD likely be indicted, like she was with the murder of Max Lord. One of the key roles of government is monopolization of violence and it's a role they traditionally take very seriously - certainly the US government does. As a Westerner, it is superficially easy to find many cases of vigilante justice being met with overwhelming government force even when the victim of the lynching was guilty of serious crimes - crimes as serious as the Joker's, might I add.

And, no, breaking into people's houses and interrogation techniques that quite often go into assault territory is both morally and legally different from premeditated mass murder - which isn't just committing a crime but becoming the government. It is quite literally taking the law into your own hands, which is why it would be treated far more seriously than the B&Es and violent interrogations that Batman does. It

[notthebuddha]

Superman? The guy who was party to emplacing an orbiting strategic laser weapon and firing it into the territory of the United States? And hoards god knows what kind of advanced alien technology? He's one to talk about undermining the authority of the state.

Not necessarily premeditated mass murder. She could be out to apprehend the Joker and when he reaches to spray gas on the crowd or to set off a detonator, she used lethal force to stop him.

Or she could be on the government's side. After the Troubalert flashes the Joker's eleventh escape from Arkham and subsequent hostage situation, she decides its time for woman's touch and offers her services to the governor, and he deputizes her and sends her in to neutralize the Joker so no more policemen or hostages have have to die.

[cpxbrex]

Are you honestly saying that Superman would be comfortable with Wonder Woman murdering people? Also, two wrongs do not make a right. (And I'm not sure if we're talking about the Timmverse or regular continuity Superman, here. It is my recollection there was considerable backlash for using the big space weapon inside the US. Which more speaks to my point, that if they started behaving beyond the law in a frequent way there would be a tremendous backlash.)

Well, that would be murder. Because, frankly, the Joker couldn't hurt Wonder Woman at all would mean she would be morally and legally obligated to use a minimum of force in her apprehension. Her tremendous power would be a factor in her restraint, which would certainly be the case if she was a law enforcement officer

[notthebuddha]

Dude, this is superhero comics - airtight moral justifications are not required to motivate the protagonists, in fact some of the best stories are about them struggling with conflicting motivations. While all of what you say is true, it needs to be overtly addressed at some point. Providing a pretext of the kinds I've mentioned lets you have a story about the attempt to deal with the "Supervillian Problem" and end the stalemate. Would you find it more thrilling to read about off-duty Leaguers lounging around the satellite on a slow weekend having a beer-fueld bull-session about the hypothetical moral dilemma above, or to see a splash page with WW marching into a bank, stringing up the Joker with her lasso, and drawing back for the coup-de-grace and before going into a flashback to show how it all happened to that point