Life is sacred - unless you're a no-good dirty Skrull!

[crippler]

*potential spoilerishness with regards to Secret Invasion*


There are characters in the Marvel U who are opposed to killing. Spiderman, the X-Men (except for Wolverine of course) and any number of the other 'big guns' treat life as sacred and do not kill as general rule.

Now, along comes Secret Invasion and all of a sudden everyone is pitching in, rolling up their sleeves and making sure that the only good Skrull is a dead Skrull. What's up with that? Can someone explain to me why characters who would normally stop someone else from killing a human, are allowing Skrulls to be killed indiscriminately? This is actually turning into one of my prime issues with Secret Invasion.

Spiderman allowing the Skrull Captain America to be butchered seemed particularly harsh and against character. These faux-heroes seem to actually believe they are who they say they are. So, why kill the fake Steve Rogers?

Also, in Captain Britain and MI-13, Capt. Britain goes from swinging Excalibur and eviscerating Skrulls to saying that we need "Heroes who won't kill" on the very same page! What the hell?

What say you iFanboy forums? Is it ok to kill as long as your enemy has a different skin colour and ridged chin?

[optimus187prime]

This is actually a really good point. Maybe because it is a kill or be killed type of situation. Now that I think about it, the Skrulls are taking more effort not to kill than the heroes are.

[horatio616]

Err... I never really thought of that! Good question.

[hank41]

This is actually a really good point. Maybe because it is a kill or be killed type of situation. Now that I think about it, the Skrulls are taking more effort not to kill than the heroes are.

but these guys go into a lot of "kill or be killed" situations and always opt to not kill. great question

[optimus187prime]

but these guys go into a lot of "kill or be killed" situations and always opt to not kill. great question

They are just racist then.

[hank41]

finally an answer. screw dem greenies!!!

[zombox]

Here's my attempt to explain this, you need to go back to the first issue for the answer. The MI13 approach the battle with the skrulls as a war. Not a hero vs. villain situation. So they treat it as a war where they don't expect mercy and they don't give it, as opposed to a traditional hero vs. villains situation where neither side is earnestly trying to kill the other. With the skrulls removed from Britain entirely they no longer have a 'war' situation on their hands.

That said, yes... it seemed out of place given the tone of the book so far.

[esophagus]

Yeah, I think the War thing pretty much answers it. Most soldiers generally don't approve of murder in other situations, I'd guess.

Its a shakey answer, that probably deserves some philosophical debate, but I think thats the reasoning behind it.

[mari0]

Since the world is in a state of war it can be argued that it wouldn't be considered murder but a casualty of war.

[crippler]

The more I think about it, the more of an issue I have with this. I mean, didn't we just have a war (of the Civil variety) in the Marvel U? Who got killed? Practically no one. When there was a fatality, everyone went 'ooooh' and stopped to think about what they had done.

I'm going to try and focus on the Spiderman scene in particular. Let me describe that same scene in a slightly different light.

It's a bank in NYC and there's some nutjob who thinks he's Captain America running around in costume. He's threatening people, he's unstable and he's violent. Spidey arrives on the scene just in time to hear the police sniper receive his instructions to 'take the shot once he's clear'. What does Spidey do? You KNOW what he'll do. He swings in, knocking the guy down and ruining the sniper's shot, then he beats up the Cap wannabe, and delivers him to the police. He would NOT let someone kill the guy if he could help it. From what I remember of that scene in Secret Invasion, he could have done SOMETHING. Instead he did nothing and the Skrull was murdered. Oh, by the way, when a soldier kills an enemy soldier who's already been dissabled... well, I'm not going to go all Geneva convention on you, but... Cap Skrull was out, they should have let him live.

I'm sure there are other such situations during this run. I would just t

[crippler]

Since the world is in a state of war it can be argued that it wouldn't be considered murder but a casualty of war.

When a police officer shoots an armed bank robber it's also not considered murder. How many bank robberies has Spiderman thwarted over his illustrious career and how many of those incidents resulted in someone dying? Er, that is, assuming all pre-Brand New Day bank robberies actually happened. Maybe the answer is none. Stupid magic. ;-)

All I'm saying is that these heroes are not soldiers. They're something else entirely and some of them appear to have a strong moral compunction against killing.

[mari0]

All I'm saying is that these heroes are not soldiers. They're something else entirely and some of them appear to have a strong moral compunction against killing.

I agree with you that heroes aren't soldiers normally but in this event they are stepping into that role. In a "normal" fight the hero beats up the bad guy and ties him up for the cops to arrest, but this method doesn't work with a worldwide assault (spidey just doesn't have enough webbing). You'll have to make sure the enemy doesn't get back up or you'll be going in circles.