The Comics Professor

Green Lantern Annual #1: Of Free Will, Tolkien, and the Wonder Twins

All in all, Green Lantern Annual #1, written by Geoff Johns and pencilled by Ethan Van Sciver and Pete Woods, is one of the most exciting books to come out of the DC New 52 so far. Faint praise, perhaps, but this felt like the build-up to Johns' previous GL events like "Sinestro Corps War" and "Blackest Night," and that feeling has been sorely missed over the last year.

I don't think there will be any major plot spoilers in this post aside from what already appeared in the online preview (the first six pages on the comic). I will show a couple images from later in the comic, but nothing really revealing--but be warned in any case. SPOILERS!!!

As you may have seen from the preview, the Smurfs Gone Wild have decided that the threat to the universe lies not in emotion in general, nor in individual emotions, but in the very willpower that powers the Green Lantern rings--or, as they put it, free will.

We need to be clear on they mean by "free will." He does not mean it as the term is used in metaphysical debates over free will vs. determinism. That sense of free will describes any being's ability to be the "uncaused cause" and "first mover," to be able insert his, her, or its decision-making power or agency onto a world of physical cause-and-effect. It is not up to the Guardians or anyone else to eliminate free will if it exists--it either does or does not. And if there is no free will, no one has it--including our Guardians.

No, what they mean by "free will" is true choice, agency, or autonomy, the ability to make choices independently of external (and possibly internal) authority or undue influence. Free will in this sense can exist regardless of whether metaphysical free will exists, since this variety of free will operates on a psychological level, not the level of elementary particle physics. Even if we are not truly "in control" of our thoughts and actions in a deterministic universe, we will still "make" choices independently of others' choices--in the end, they simply are not our choices at all. (For more on the various meaning of free will, see this article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

Basically, the Guardians don't like that their Lanterns think for themselves, for then you end up with rebels like Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. (In fact, the middle Guardian above sounds a lot like the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg--he probably thinks the Lanterns drink too much soda too.) They want mindless creatures that will do their bidding--hence, the Third Army. And they're purty, too:

(I would have thought the word "assimilate" had been trademarked by the Star Trek people by now, but I guess not.) These soliders (for lack of a better term) have no mind, no identity, no free will. They will not make their own choices, they will not question the orders of the Guardians--they will be tools, pure and simple.

This story seems like a natural progression for Johns' broader Green Lantern arc, and I'm interested to see how it plays out. I do hope the Guardians eventually return to being good guys, if imperfect ones. Jordan and Guy Gardner disagreed with them often, of course, but at bottom they all sought the good, only disagreeing on how to pursue it. I hope Johns redeems them, or some of them, at the end of this storyline--but if the rest of New 52 universe is any guide, I'm not holding my breath.

I can't end this post without a couple panels from this comic that I found hilarious. First, we have the long-lost Guardians of Middle-Earth:

I guess they're the Lords of the... nah, too easy.

In the scene below, Hal and Sinestro have to combine the last flickers of energy in their rings to summon Sinestro's power battery. I guess Hal was a fan of the old Superfriends show, but Sinestro is none too happy with it.

Green Lantern powers, activate! Priceless.

On Spider-Man, torture, and character in comics

Inspired by my friend Colin Smith's post on his blog, Too Busy Thinking about My Comics, regarding our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man's questionable actions in Amazing Spider-Man #685, and then further spurred on by a vigorous debate with Spidey editor Stephen Wacker on Twitter this morning (joined by Colin and several other stalwart discussants), I need to put my thoughts on this matter down for whatever counts as posterity these days.

Although my comments will much be broader than this specific instance, here is the page-of-interest:

While Colin was firmly against what Spidey did in this issue, his larger concern (as I understand it) is with the lack of context and discussion of what Spidey did. No more reflection, no consideration of the principles or consequences involved--he just "did what he had to do." (Another concern of his was with the increasing proliferation of acts like this, one of which I mentioned in an earlier post, and is also related an another post on DC Comics' devolving views on killing.)

One issue that arose in the Twitter discussion this morning was selectivity when applying moral standards to characters. I was accused of sanctioning Batman's practice of child endangerment over the last 70 years, but not Spidey's recent transgression. I replied first that I wasn't sanctioning or condemning either hero's actions, and then elaborated on two points:

1) Batman's actions towards his various Robins have been discussed extensively in the comics--for instance, in Devin Grayson's wonderful Gotham Knights run, as well as Peter Tomasi's current Batman and Robin, which also deal with Damian's penchant for killing. (There is also a chapter titled "Is It Right to Make a Robin?" in Batman and Philosophy.) It is not the controversial nature of Spidey's actions, so much as lack of recognition of any controversy, that is distressing to me.

2) Batman and Spider-Man are different characters, with different moral codes, implying different limits and lines they won't cross, as well as different processes of judgment. The Punisher is different, as is Captain America, and Superman, and Daredevil. Even within the Batman family, we see Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian all making moral decisions differently--and the fact that we can read that in the comics, that the characters are so well-defined that these differences come out, is a testament to comics storytelling.

It is this second point about character on which I want to focus here: not only is the lack of reflection or context in Amazing Spider-Man #685 troublesome, but it seems out of character for Spidey to do what he did. (To be fair, he does acknowledge this briefly--see the panel in the lower right-hand corner in the image above--but then seems to dismiss such concerns.)

Despite this long legacy in the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man is perpetually represented as the kid among grown-ups, representing a still-developing moral idealism alongside the more solidified moral positions of Captain America and Iron Man. We see this when he sided first with Iron Man and then Cap during Civil War (which I described in my chapter "'My Name is Peter Parker': Unmasking the Right and the Good" in Spider-Man and Philosophy, edited by Jonathan J. Sanford, as well as in this blog post). He also serves as the point-of-view character for events like Civil War, and he has gained the status as the moral center of the Marvel Universe--not in the sense that he is always right, but rather that he hasn't got everything figured out, and therefore he considers his actions like a conscientious young person would. For example, he makes idealist pledges like "no one dies," which makes his all-too-easy acceptance of torture all the harder to reconcile with his character.

Torture is a hot button issue to be sure, and deservedly so. You could say it's the ultimate "trolley problem," in which grave consequences will follow if one adheres to cherished principles. Several years ago, I compared Batman's continued struggle over whether to kill the Joker to a trolley problem and to the contemporary torture debates. Among its other lessons, the trolley problem (which Spidey has also faced, of course) shows us the difficulty of adhering to moral absolutes. It is too easy to say "I will never kill" or "I will never torture," no matter how high the costs, until you're actually in a position--as a government official or superhero--to have to accept those costs on behalf of those who will bear them, in order to maintain your principles. (For a magnificant academic treatment of these issues, see Michael S. Moore's paper "Torture and the Balance of Evils" in his collection Placing Blame.)

For that reason, I am no moral absolutist when it comes to torture (or anything else). As a Kantian I am a strong devotee of moral duty and principle, but no matter how firmly we adhere to a moral principle, there can always be another moral principle can that be judged to be more important--and this importance can be based, in part, on consequences. But this is a decision that everyone has to make for himself or herself--including fictional characters like superheroes that find themselves in these situations much more often than the average Jane or Joe.

As much as I admire the character of Captain America, I find it more believable that he, compared to Spider-Man, would engage in torture, with a tremendous heavy heart, when he judged it to be necessary. Ideally, his struggle with such a decision would parellel America's struggle with it. It would rip him apart inside, representing a betrayal of his core principles of respect for human rights and dignity, and he would only do it if the costs of not doing it were unacceptably high, as in the "ticking time-bomb scenario." (He would not, however, be as flippant about it as he was in Secret Avengers #21, shown at the right.)

As I understand the character of Spider-Man, he would be far less accepting of the "inevitability" of torture in whatever few circumstances Cap would. Spidey would want to look for another way, not stopping until he found it, no matter what the costs to himself (as with his "no one dies" pledge). If anything, he may be guilty of ignoring the costs to others of sticking to his own principles in the face of the "Ends of the Earth," and a thought process like this may in fact explain why he resorted to torture in Amazing Spider-Man #685. But we don't know this, because it wasn't fleshed out (at least not yet). As it stands, it appears that Spidey adopted this morally extreme course of action too easily, and that seems out of character.

Why does this matter? (This question was at the core of much of the Twitter discussion this morning, and is a point I explored in my other chapter in Spider-Man and Philosophy, "The Sound of Fury Behind 'One More Day.'") It matters because the character of Spider-Man has been around for 50 years now, and for the most part has been defined very precisely, to the credit of the dozens of writers that have told his stories over the years. He has changed and he has grown, but organically within the stories, not suddenly or abruptly--except in cases like the deal with Mephisto in One More Day or the incident that prompted all this hubbub.

That rare cases like these stand out is because they are exceptions to the "rule," or in this case, the character that is Spider-Man. If you've read his stories long enough, you feel you know him and you come to care about him, despite his being a fictional character. (This is the problem with the ciphers walking around in familiar costumes in DC Comics' New 52.) Just as we call out our friends for doing this that are out of character ("this isn't you, Jimmy, it's not who you are!"), we can think of our fictional characters' action the same way--even moreso, actually, because fictional characters, no matter how complex, are much simpler and well-defined than people in the real world.

If comics publishers and creators want our loyalty to their characters, they have a responsibility to portray the characters consistently--and if they choose to have a character do something surprisingly, they should deal with it in-story so it feels organic. The backlash against One More Day is a obvious example of readers' feelings of betrayal at out-of-character writing based on editorial fiat. On the other hand, the frequent back-and-forth between Cap and Iron Man since Civil War, each calling out the other's hypocrisies, is fantastic, because it deals with issues of character and consistency in-story--between the characters themselves, even!

To me, and to many other readers, Spider-Man never seemed like a character that would accept torture as an acceptable means to an end. If that is a true representation of the character as he's evolved, then I hope the creators will draw that out--that could make for some thoughtful and enjoyable superhero comics. But I also wonder what other lines he refuses to cross, and that fills me with despair.

Batman Incorporated #1: Grant Morrison (!) brings the fun to the DC New 52

I'm no fan of Grant Morrison, especially on Batman. But I will always thank him for bringing the "product" of Son of the Demon into mainstream continuity in the form of Damian Wayne, which has led to a Batman/Robin relationship unlike any that preceded it. Rather than purity of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, or the loose cannon that was Jason Todd, Batman now has a partner with training and devotion that equals his own, but few of the principles that keep Batman from crossing the ultimate line into naked vengeance. (See this earlier post for father and son's discussion of killing from Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin.)

Batman Incorporated #1, written by Morrison and illustrated by the incomparable Chris Burnham, continues the Leviathan storyline from the pre-relaunch title, but seems just as much like Morrison's own work on Batman and Robin (when Grayson wore the cowl). And it was fun! If I found Morrison's work in the Batverse very up-and-down before the relaunch, it seems like a breath of fresh air now. His "technicolor" vision of Batman is more than welcome, not so much within the current Bat-titles, but more against the backdrop of the New 52 as a whole, which is distinctly lacking in fun.

Don't get me wrong, I love what Snyder and Capullo have been doing on Batman, beating down Batman until he just can't take any more--and then he still comes back, because he's Batman. (Can't get enouh of that kind of story, sincerely.) And Tomasi's Batman and Robin has been a quality title, but Daniels' Detective Comics has been pedestrian at best, and the less said about Batman: The Dark Knight, the better. None of the other Bat-titles excite me either; as much as I wanted to enjoy Batwing, Batgirl, and Batwoman, they all leave me cold.

But Batman Incorporated #1, now this is fun. More details after the jump--and there may be spoilers.

Earth 2: The return of dignity and heroism to the DCU, or its death knell?

OK, the title is a little melodramatic, but I think this book deserves it. Earth 2 #1, written by James Robinson and drawn by the incomparable Nicola Scott, has me wishing (with qualifications) that this new Earth 2 were the mainstream DC Earth. (Its companion book, Worlds' Finest, by Paul Levitz, George Pérez, and Kevin Maguire, was also excellent, but pales in comparison to the cinematic bombast of Earth 2.)

I can't discuss this book without massive spoilers, so proceed with caution! More below the jump...

The Alpha Lanterns and the rendering of justice (from Green Lantern Corps #8)

Last week's Green Lantern Corps #8, written Pete Tomasi and illustrated by Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna, featured an interesting discussion among the Alpha Lanterns regarding what to do about John Stewart in light of his killings of a fellow Green Lantern who seemed close to revealing Corps secrets under torture by the Keepers.

This exchange raises terrific questions about the nature of criminal justice as well as the role of the Alpha Lanterns in particular. From Boodikka's comment that "our duty is to be impartial and render justice," it sounds like the Alphas are more than just police. As usually understood, police do not "render justice" but merely play a role in it by investigating and apprehending suspects--an important role, of course, but not quite "rendering justice." So let's assume Boodikka was getting ahead of herself, and continue to understand the Alphas as the internal affairs division of the Corps.

The more interesting issue here is about the proper role of incidental consequences to the execution of justice, even at the level of arrest and arraignment. There seems to be no question among the Alphas regarding what Stewart did; the only question is whether to arrest him for it (and presumably transmit him to the Guardians for "trial," as they did with Laira before the relaunch). Boodikka and Relok Hag take the position that they must arrest Stewart no matter what the consequences, especially those due to "emotion," in order to serve justice. Green Man and Varix, on the other hand, urge consideration of the broader consequences, particularly those that impact their ability to enforce justice in the future.

The first position has clear appeal: the Alphas have good reason to believe John Stewart committed a crime against the Corps, and he should be brought in for future questioning. Arresting him should imply nothing about his guilt (though the Alphas have grounds for reasonable suspicion), and the Guardians will pronounce judgment at trial. But the second position is more inclusive: it doesn't deny the importance of arresting suspected wrongdoers, but it admits other factors relevant to the decision whether and how to do it. Stewart is a leader in the Corps, widely admired and respected by his fellow Lanterns as a pillor of honor. Bursting into a crowded room to arrest Stewart (as they do at the end of the issue) is an extremely bold show of force, especially toward someone like Stewart who would likely submit himself willingly for trial. John's popularity, the moral ambiguity of his actions, and the Alphas' brashness in response make it likely that the Green Man's prediction of divisiveness will come true, and as Varix said, "the ability to enforce justice will be severely put to" the test.

Green Man and Varix are not suggesting that they don't arrest John at all, but merely that they do so in a way that preserves the Alpha's authority and whatever respect the rest of the Corps has for them. By following Boodikka and Relok Hag's hardline position (especially in the way in which they did it), the Alphas will compromise their own standing and make the pursuit of justice more difficult in the future. In other words, justice viciously served is self-defeating. Once the arrest decision is made, the Alphas should consider how best to take John into custody to make sure that they are seen as fair and--yes, Boodikka--impartial in their "rendering" of justice. This is not a compromise in the pursuit of justice, but a way to make the pursuit of justice better. Arresting John the right way will serve justice in this particular case and ensure that they will enjoy the respect and authority necessary to continue to serve justice in the future.

But what if Green Man and Varix had been suggesting that they not arrest John at all (at least not until the Guardians ordered them to)? Do the Alphas have that kind of discretion? In a sense they must--as far as we know, there have only ever been five of them at any given time! Unless the 7200 rank-and-file Lanterns are extremely well-behaved (or the potential violations that would attract the Alphas' attention are very few), the Alphas can't possibly investigate and apprehend every wrongdoer among the Corps.

In the real world on Earth, police have tremendous discretion over which crimes to address, especially regarding misdemeanors like traffic violations and littering. Even in areas with a lot of officers per capita or square mile, they can't possibly go after every wrongdoer they see, and so they must use their judgment regarding which ones are most important to spend their time and resources investigating. Of course, people who double-park are one thing, but we wouldn't like to think of police letting murderers get away. Prosecutors, however, can certainly decide to drop a case against a suspected murderer if they think their limited resources can be better used somewhere else, either because of a weak case or even community pressure (though this is obviously a dangerous and inadvisable road to take). This is a tremendous amount of power, of course, and we trust our prosecutors to use it wisely and sparingly, but given the scarcity of their resources, they cannot possible prosecute every crime that comes across their desks, and must own judgment in choosing amongst them.

The idea that the Alpha Lanterns "embody the independent thought process of a Green Lantern along with the efficient logic of the Manhunters" is extremely intriguing one to a philosopher, especially one who has interests in rationality and judgment. This issue was the first of the "Alpha War" arc, so let's hope there is more to talk about in future installments.

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For more on justice and scarcity, see Michael Cahill paper's "Real World Retributivism" (Washington University Law Review 85, 2007, pp. 815-870), and my paper "Retributivism in a World of Scarcity" (from Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics, edited by Mark D. White, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 253-271). The Alpha Lanterns and the trial of Laira are discussed in two chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy (edited by Jane Dryden and Mark D. White, Wiley, 2011): Andrew Terjesen's "Will They Let Just Anybody Join?: Testing for Moral Judgment in the Green Lantern Corps" (pp. 53-68) and my "Crying for Justice: Retributivism for Those Who Worship Evil's Might" (pp. 162-174).

Another perspective on why Batman doesn't kill--and the problems with it

This week's Batman and Robin #8 (written by Peter Tomasi and illustrated by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray) was a welcome denouement to the Morgan Ducard/Nobody storyline that culminated at the end of #7 when, as Bruce explains to Alfred, "Nobody's dead. Damian killed him." (Imagine parsing that statement if you hadn't been keeping up with the storyline!) As Bruce and Damian recover from their injuries (gee, good thing Bruce hasn't gotten thrashed lately in any other title), father and son talk about what happened. Bruce shares his oral diary, revealing his own desire to kill Ducard, to show Damian that the urge is natural but that he must never give into it.

Bruce argues that he adheres to a principle of not killing that doesn't "allow for exceptions." This sounds very much like a Kantian perfect duty, which is fantastic--to a degree. In an ideal world, it is easy to say "I will not kill" or "I will not lie," regardless of the circumstances, and it is an admirable person that tries his or her best to stick to them. But such a person must also recognize that there can be circumstances that will force him or her to question whether these duties or principles are truly absolute.

Take Kant's infamous "murderer at the door" example: Your good friend shows up at your door one day, frantically trying to escape someone who's trying to kill him. You agree to hide your friend, and minutes later the would-be murderer shows up, asking if your friend is about. What do you do: lie to the murderer to save your friend, or tell the truth and help the murderer?

Kant said you must not lie. According to  him, you have one concern and one concern alone: following your strict duty not to lie. If you tell the truth (or simply say nothing, which will save the same effect), your hands will be clean. If you do right, you're not responsible for anything that happens as a consequence, whereas if you were to lie, and the murderer went on to kill someone else (in mistake, perhaps), you would be responsible for that.

But Kant was wrong, and he was wrong by his own standards. The murderer-at-the-door example appeared in the Berlin Press as a retort to Benjamin Constant, a French statesman, but in his more considered work, he wrote that no one can apply simple rules, including the duties one derives from the categorical imperative, to real-life situations without using judgment. For instance, even if you decided not to lie to the murderer at the door, you would need to use judgment to decide what to do instead: tell the truth, stay silent, or say "look--a squirrel!"

More relevant is the need for judgment to settle conflicts between obligations, and this provides a more reasonable answer to the murderer-at-the-door example (and much-needed perspective on Bruce and Damian's discussion). Clearly there is more than one principle, duty, or obligation at play when the murderer comes to your door--specifically, you should also help save your friend's life, based on a moral principle to prevent wrongful harm to others. I think most morally reflective people would consider that to be a more important principle in this case than the principle that you shouldn't lie. Of course, this judgment is contingent on the context of the situation: the harm threatened is severe and the lie would be to a person intent on doing wrong. In a different situation, the judgment may be different, though the two principles are the same, because the context gives the principles different relative weight.

In the second panel above, Damian essentially states the opposing principle to his father's: "But if killing them is the only way to stop them..." Bruce knows this principle well: while he says in this issue that he made a promise to himself ("and on the souls of my parents") not to kill criminals, he also made a promise that night (as seen in countless retellings of his origin) to make sure what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone else. Bruce and Damian recognize both a principle of preventing wrongful harm and a principle of not killing--but for Bruce, the latter principle always takes precedence, where I think Damian is more open to weighing the principles against each other in any given situation. (I realize this may be due to his early training by the League of Assassins, which leads him to minimize the importance of the no-killing principle. If nothing else, Bruce is helping him see the importance of this principle by adhering to it with no exceptions--the opposite extreme to Damian's dear mother and grandfather.)

Bruce does give other rationales, familiar from previous Batman stories in which killing has been discussed. He gives the virtue argument, that killing makes you a lesser person ("bankrupts your soul") and makes you no better than those you're sworn to fight. (His caution against indulging vengeance can be considered part of this, and is the clearest argument he makes; few would defend a principle based on vengeance.) He also presents the consequentialist argument ("reinforcing the same cycle of violence") that killing only leads to more killing. But note that neither of these escape the need for judgment: is your purity of character more important than saving lives, and does killing necessarily lead to more killing--or may judicious use of it lead to less deaths instead?

Bruce's continued idealism on this issue is particularly welcome following Geoff Johns' flip comments about killing earlier this week. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, Johns may have been thinking much the same as I wrote here when he said, "there are heroes that, when they need to cross that line, they do it," citing Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman as examples. I would just like to see more discussions like the one in Batman and Robin #8, in which these heroes defend their decisions and explain why they "need to cross that line." I'm less interested in whether or not they kill than I am in how they justify it.

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Kant presented his murderer-at-the-door example in an essay titled "On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns," available in the Hackett edition of his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Philosophers have spilled much ink and killed many trees trying to reconcile the absolutist position given there with the rest of his philosophy; my favorite is Christine Korsgaard's "The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil," available in her book Creating the Kingdom of Ends, which focuses on the difference between ideal and nonideal moral theory. Finally, I wrote about Batman and killing, relying chiefly on the Joker and the trolley problem (which can easily be framed as a conflict of principles as above), in my chapter "Why Doesn't Batman Kill the Joker?" in Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul.

What do chocolate and radishes have to do with Green Lantern?

At The Atlantic today, Hans Villarica interviews Dr. Roy Baumeister, one of the psychologists chiefly responsible for the ego-depletion or "muscle" theory of willpower. Under this conception, people have a limited amount of willpower at any given time; as they use it, it is depleted in the short term but strengthened in the long term (just like a muscle used in work or resistance training). In the interview, Baumeister describes one of his early experiments in which he tempted people with chocolate while asking them to eat radishes instead; this used some of their reserves of willpower, leaving less for other tasks, compared to the control group who got to eat the chocolate.

In addition to informing my academic work on willpower and character, Baumeister's work was the basis for one of my chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this Book. In chapter 2, "Flexing the Mental Muscle: Green Lanterns and the Nature of Willpower," I draw from years of stories to show that Lanterns' willpower has long been portrayed as a scarce resource. Below, I list some of the quotes I used in the chapter, showing that the version of willpower used in the Green Lantern stories corresponds with Baumeister's work--some even decades before Baumeister and his colleagues published it!

On willpower as a muscle:

"Your mind is like a muscle unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring." (Sinestro to Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Rebirth #5, April 2005)

"...the will is very like a muscle. In Abin Sur, that muscle was once extraordinarily strong—so strong that the Guardians of the Universe made him custodian of a battery of power, an amplifier of the will... and of a power ring, a device to focus that amplified will." (Action Comics Weekly #642, June 1989)

On willpower as a scarce resource (which can be replenished):

"[That] took lots of willpower. That—and escaping from the energy net—has left me exhausted. I need to regain my strength." (Action Comics Weekly #625, December 1988)

"I know my ring’s got limitless power—but it is powered by my willpower. Have I got the strength necessary to make this work?" (Green Lantern, vol. 2, #149, February 1982)

"Willpower’s like a muscle, and I’ve gotten better with it year after year!" (Green Lantern, vol. 2, #200, May 1986)

On willpower, focus, and distraction:

"Can’t take much more of this. I’ve been up all night trying to find the alien... . I’m exhausted... keeping this building together is taking all my concentration... all my will!" (Action Comics Weekly #628, January 1989)

"Finding it hard to concentrate, aren’t you? With me hitting you, I mean! And unless you can focus your willpower, your ring can’t work!" (Hal to Sinestro, Green Lantern, vol. 2, #124, January 1980)

For more on Baumeister's work, pick up his latest book (cowritten with John Tierney), cunningly titled Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

Verily, let's have a Valkyrie ongoing series!

The 12-part biweekly (semimonthly?) series Fear Itself: The Fearless, which focused on Sin's plan to reclaim the Serpent's Hammers after the end of Fear Itself and Valkyrie's attempts to stop her, came to its conclusion last week. I found the series much more enjoyable than it's predecessor, perhaps because it was not weighed down by the event status of Fear Itself, and the creators were more free simply to tell their story.

Along with Chris Yost and Fear Itself scribe Matt Fraction, Cullen Bunn crafted a story of a strong female Asgardian warrior fulfilling her destiny, finding her lost love, and leading her fellow heroes in the fight. And as rendered by Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier, the series was remarkably devoid of any of the blatantly sexist imagery that fills so much of comics these days. It's fairly safe to say that Bunn and his colleagues write Valkyrie the way I wish Wonder Woman would be written--fierce yet noble, compassionate yet uncompromising, and informed by a mythology that reinforces these ideals, rather than upends them for shock value.

So I ask the powers-that-be at Marvel, why not try an ongoing series for Valkyrie? Let's admit it, you've struggled with female-led titles for years: after some success with She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel a few years ago, the most recent Black Widow series was short-lived, as was Green Arrow/Black Canary Hawkeye & Mockingbird. We all have the highest hopes for Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel series featuring Carol Danvers, but you could certainly use another female-led ongoing. Along with Ed Brubaker in Secret Avengers, Bunn showed in The Fearless that Valkyrie can be a compelling character with ties to both Asgard and Midgard--and with The Mighty Thor and Journey into Mystery, it would give you a trilogy of Asgardian titles. (Can you say "crossover"? I knew you could.)

And best of all, I have it on good authority that Bunn wants to do it!

Yes we can, Mr. Bunn. Yes we can.

Two-Face shows us both sides of the virtue ethics/situationism debate

In the back-up feature to last week's Detective Comics #8, written by Tony S. Daniel and illsutrated by Szymon Kudranski, Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, appropriately adopts both sides of the recent philosophical and psychological debate over character traits.

First, Harvey shows us the situationist position:

Situationists such as John M. Doris, author of Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, argue that people do not have general character traits like honesty and courage, but rather that their moral behavior depends very strongly on the circumstances of any particular situaiton. This work is based on psychological research showing that, for instance, people are much more likely to help a stranger after finding a coin in a phone booth (or other seemingly irrelevant and trivial cues).

This is widely seen as a criticism of virtue ethics, which claims that people do have robust character traits or dispositions that correspond to the virtues. Luckily for us, Two-Face also represents this position:

Virtue ethicists respond to the situationist critique in a number of ways. For instance, they argue that they never claimed that character traits and action were correlated precisely, so there is no problem with observing some situational variation in behavior. Also, they argue that the experiments don't show that circumstances change any particular person's behavior; they simply separate those with robust character traits from those without. (Showing his own professional virtue, Doris lists much of his critics' work here; Gopal Sreenivasan's "Errors about Errors: Virtue Theory and Trait Attribution" is particularly good.)

So heroes in the DCU can kill when they "need to" or "have to"?

Hmm. Here's Geoff Johns, discussing the future of the Green Lantern book with Vaneta Rogers at Newsarama:

Nrama: Going back and looking at the relaunch, I know everyone talked about it being a "soft" reboot and pointed quite often to Green Lantern and Batman as the places where not a lot of changes took place, but it's obvious this Hal Jordan is a little different. You're playing him a lot younger and a little more brash, especially in the Justice League title. But I think a lot of readers were surprised that Hal Jordan killed a Sinestro Corps member in a way that appeared light-hearted, as he made a funny comment. Did you want to show that he was a little different now?

Johns: Yeah, because Dan [DiDio] and Jim [Lee] wanted the timeline rolled back to five years, there are differences with Green Lantern. He's a little bit younger, but also, all the stuff he's been through, I think he's a lot more sure of himself. I think he's a little less patient with the stuff he goes up against.

...

With that Sinestro Corps member he killed, when Hal goes up against one of those guys, he's going to take him out if lives are at stake.

There are certain heroes that kill. Among those are Green Lantern, who definitely has to, although he doesn't do it very often. But he does it when he has to. Aquaman sure does. And we've seen Wonder Woman do it too.

So there are heroes that, when they need to cross that line, they do it.

Does this herald a mjaor shift toward "heroic killing" in the DCU? The rest of the Marvel community tolerates the Punisher--and welcomes Wolverine onto every team--with little controversy (usually from Captain America), but I've always thought the DC heroes were more firmly against killing (hence the reaction to every iteration of the Vigilante that pops up). Of course, there have been exceptions, but they were always treated as such, like Superman's killing of the Kryptonian criminals that led to his "Exile," Wonder Woman's breaking Max Lord's neck during "Sacrifice," and most recently the Guardians' enabling the Green Lantern rings to kill members of Sinestro Corps during "The Sinestro Corps War."

I'm no absolutist when it comes to moral prohibitions, but Johns' attitude strikes me as disturbingly lacksadaisical. Green Lantern "definitely has to, although he doesn't do it very often. But he does it when he has to"? Why does he "definitely" have to and not other heroes? And what defines when he "has to"? One has to presume some consequentialist calculation (the one life taken versus the many saved or perhaps threshold deontology (where the hero refuses to kill unless the cost becomes "too" high), but why does this apply to some heroes and not others? Is it a difference in ethical codes, character traits, or situations?

These are interesting questions, to be sure, but Johns seems too glib about it all for my tastes, simply saying that "there are heroes that, when they need to cross that line, they do it." Let's just hope that when they consider crossing that line, we see them struggle with it--if they feel they "have to," at least let the readers know why, and let them judge if they agree or not.

(As for Johns' statement about "all the stuff he's been through"--in his short five years, of course--and how this supposedly informs his character, see my recent post on history and character.)