Inspired by this thread, I got to thinking about the other side of the coin – cruelest attacks by the Heroes, whether in response to their archenemy or not. Villains are supposed to do heinous things, after all, and sometimes they really hit a home run – I think The Killing Joke is a great example of that. But what niggles at me about that issue is Batman’s musings in Arkham at the beginning, wherein he is comparing himself to Joker and not seeing a whole lot of difference. Ostensibly, the hero is defined by not engaging in the vicious tactics used by their enemies, which is why it’s usually quite powerful when they lose their tempers. What acts by ostensible heroes blur the line between heroism and villainy?
Graduation Day is my favorite Buffy season finale. I’m a big fan of Becoming as well, but what gets me in the former is that Buffy decides to go out and kill Faith to save Angel. Even though they have been enemies for half of the season, she’s setting out to kill a human – exactly the same crime that separated Faith from the Scooby Gang and ultimately drive her to join the Mayor’s team. And she’s doing it to save Angel, who in his time had committed crimes several orders of magnitude worse than what Faith did, even as recently as the previous year. Now, while the fight scene that followed was unsurpassed until last season’s finale of Alias, IMHO, this is not Buffy’s most heroic hour. Still, I can’t say that I think what Buffy did was wrong, and that kinda bothers me every time I watch it.
Good one, Bryan, Bond is a treasure trove of cruel good guy behavior.
How about when he drops Alec to his death in Goldeneye? I remember seeing that in the theater with my family (all Bond fans), and my dad was seeing red over that when we left.
Do “good guys” get any crueler than Jesse Custer of “Preacher”?
In the first arc of his comic, he pretty much forces Arseface’s father to anally rape himself, and unless I misinterpreted that scene, the guy had to pull his own penis off with his bare hands to do it. Shortly thereafter, he committed suicide.
I kinda hesitated to rain on the parade, but Cliffy is right.
When I opened the thread, I was thinking more about actual heroes than just protagonists. Anti-heroes are their own catagory, really. Not that I’m trying to control the direction of the thread (I hate when the OP does that), but really, we could have a reeeeeally long thread about cruel stuff done by anti-heroes. ::cough::Rorschach::cough::
I was thinking more in terms of heroes who we understand to be heroic in the traditional sense of the word, and stuff they’ve done that bothers and intrigues you.
Spider Jerusalem, from “Transmetropolitan”, also deserves notes as comic book guys who are good, but far from too good. Also Cassidy from “Preacher”. Even when he is supposed to be a good guy, he does some pretty wrong stuff.
That was when I stopped watching DS9. No one on the bridge questioned the legality or wisdom of Sisco’s actions. No one investigated his poisoning of an entire planet, which could be seen as a war crime.
Also on Sisko he assassinated (well, he helped) a Romulan senator and framed the Dominion, bringing the Romulans over to his side. And then learned to live with it.
He’s hard core. Diplomacy for Kirk was a phaser and a smirk, but Sisko will kill your ass.
In the movie L.A. Confidential: straight-arrow Det. Ed Exley shoots bad guy Capt. Dudley Smith in the back.
Even if that’s not a cruel attack, it’s certainly an underhanded one.
