# Superman killing sentient robots, ever explained? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827 "2017-01-22T15:24:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/1 "2017-01-22T15:24:05Z")
For someone who has taken a personal vow never to kill Superman certainly seems to do a lot of it, though for some reason sentient robots and other non-humanoid shaped aliens don’t seem to count. I know the real-world explanation is that the writers want to show Superman cutting loose ever so often but in-universe has anyone ever commented on his hypocrisy, has the character himself ever explained why he draws such a seemingly arbitrary line? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/2 "2017-01-22T16:04:55Z")
Taking apart Brainiac-always a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/3 "2017-01-22T19:29:09Z")
I read a golden age Superboy story where he banished himself as to the moon after he killed a girl by embracing her too passionately (he hugged her to death). He came back when he found out that he’d been punked with a Cleopatra-bot created by a mad scientist who wanted him out of the way, so he could, I dunno, rob banks or something. The point is that maybe the whole experience soured him on robots. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/4 "2017-01-22T21:01:39Z")
He’s a ???-ist (I’m sure the smart people here will be able to replace the ???, I’m drawing a blank) - he only doesn’t kill intelligent life created through biological means. If you can be restored from a backup, you don’t count. Of course, I’m sure that real people have been restored at some point in the DC universe, but the general point may stand. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/5 "2017-01-22T22:16:58Z")
In some comic involving (IIRC) Wonder Woman Superman killed a bunch of Parademons once with a massive blast of heat vision and gave himself an out saying they were “never truly living.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/6 "2017-01-22T22:31:59Z")
Robots don’t have souls. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/7 "2017-01-22T22:37:56Z")
Superman ain’t Godzilla, who the fuck wants to see him “cut loose”? ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/8 "2017-01-22T22:43:38Z")
It’s just the way Ma and Pa Kent raised him. “Robots are like tractors, son, they aren’t really alive.” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/9 "2017-01-22T22:48:01Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > Superman ain’t Godzilla, who the fuck wants to see him “cut loose”? I assume the market would have some overlap with the _World War Hulk_ fans. A Superman version of this was explored in the parallel-universe _Injustice Gods_ series (i.e. Joker and Harley Quinn manipulate Superman into killing Lois and destroying Metropolis, Superman then rage-kills Joker, the world divides into Superman and Batman factions with the former seizing global power and the latter acting as resistance). It has its moments, but it reads like Frank Miller’s _Dark Knight Returns_, i.e. the story is geared to make Batman look cool and Superman look like a jerk who ultimately becomes Batman’s punching bag. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/10 "2017-01-22T23:27:06Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > Superman ain’t Godzilla, who the fuck wants to see him “cut loose”? For sure not Darkseid. [Supes cutting loose](https://youtu.be/RdBXyeRBqxo?t=56s). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/11 "2017-01-22T23:59:13Z")
I’m sure I once saw a panel somewhere where he explains that his criterion is whether the creature has a beating heart. Which is stupid, but at least he’s consistent about it. And **Ike** , I knew before I clicked it that that was going to be the “world made of cardboard” clip. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/12 "2017-01-23T00:53:00Z")
Squeee!! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/13 "2017-01-23T01:16:45Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > For sure not Darkseid. > > [Supes cutting loose](https://youtu.be/RdBXyeRBqxo?t=56s). I like the clip, though I kind of wish Superman wasn’t determined to make his point in the middle of a major city. Also it doesn’t end well, after the clip cuts off. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/14 "2017-01-23T01:25:49Z")
According to Elliot S! Maggin… > [@Elliot S! Maggin](#): > > Living things have a kind of glow around them, like a halo. Living happy things glow in one color; living sad things in another color. Living intelligent things in still another color, living innocent things in yet another. There was no name for any of the hundreds of colors and shades in which living things glowed. They were not colors that could have been seen by the eyes of whoever it was that had made up the names of the colors. The boy did not feel he had to make up names for them; he had no one with whom to talk about them except himself, and he would know what he meant without the names. But dead things, especially dead things that have lately been alive, look awful. They’re all gray and empty. Their glow fades slowly—as slowly as a mimosa leaf closes when it reluctantly decides that the sun is going down. Then after the glow is weak and gray for a while it disappears, leaving behind a disgusting lump that is not much besides a disorderly mess of chemicals. There is nothing else like it. No metaphor, no analogy. Just nothing, where there had been something that once glowed. …that’s what prompted Clark’s vow never to end a conscious life. Machinery? Pfft. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/15 "2017-01-23T02:50:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m sure I once saw a panel somewhere where he explains that his criterion is whether the creature has a beating heart. Which is stupid, but at least he’s consistent about it. > > And **Ike** , I knew before I clicked it that that was going to be the “world made of cardboard” clip. It was somewhere around Superman 310-315 (ETA: I looked it up. Superman 314, circa 1977). He was going to um…end…an organic being that was spreading a thinly veiled expy of the then-trendy “Legionaires Disease” type sickness, but just as he was about to squish it, the bad guy made being’s heart start beating. (Superman compared it to a caterpillar in a cocoon. Which…makes no sense at all, but let’s let that pass) He’d used the same criteria before and after, but that’s the one where it was point-blank, explicitly stated that “heartbeat=alive (organic being or not)” vs “no heartbeat=not alive (organic/sentient or not)” And I agree with Chronos that it was stupid but consistent. Waldo-- I think the novel was his attempt to rationalize the DC rule. As rationalizations go, it was a decent attempt at a fix\* \*Although it doesn’t explain why he still eats meat. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/16 "2017-01-23T06:10:07Z")
In a similar vein…ST:TNG…they DISMANTLED Lore??? Really? I remember an LSH issue. Superboy is very careful with aliens in ships, sets dinosaurs and such in electro cages…but will smash the f\*\*k out of giant bugs. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/17 "2017-01-23T06:41:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m sure I once saw a panel somewhere where he explains that his criterion is whether the creature has a beating heart. Which is stupid, but at least he’s consistent about it. Just what I was going to chime in to bring up. I’m not really that big a DC fan, but I understand this “beating heart” thing wasn’t just some odd Golden or Silver Age thing, either; it was actually current as of relatively recently, like within the last fifteen or twenty years. :dubious: So, aside from seeming a bit hoary and fairy-tale-ish (at least to this jaded reader), not only are there fictional people who it would thus be uncomfortably “OK” for Superman to kill, even within his own canon, but _there are real human beings alive today_, surviving via implanted cardiac assist devices, who Superman would feel comfortable killing out of hand, by that criteria. Crikey. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/superman-killing-sentient-robots-ever-explained/777827/18 "2017-01-23T09:27:24Z")
Thanks for the answers everyone! 🙂