Oh, boy, it doesn't get much better than this... this week's Green Lantern #61, featuring the Spectre, Atrocitus, and the Butcher, talking about vengeance, justice, rage...
SPOILERS after the jump...
After several pages with Atrocitus looking for the Butcher, the rage entity, we find him at the state execution of a murderer (and implied rapist) of a little girl. He starts to taunt the girl's father into a wild rage, which attracts the Butcher to take claim him as a host. Enter the Spectre, who orders the Butcher off Earth, only to have Atrocitus come and try to claim him for himself. (In case you're wondering, no Green Lanterns appears in this issue, despite Hal being on both covers.)
The three main characters get into some good discussions of justice versus vengeance, which happens to be the topic of one of my two chapters in Green Lantern and Philosophy
For instance, the difference between (retributivist) justice and vengeance is covered, as is mentioned several times in Green Lantern #61. The Spectre accuses the Butcher of being "uncontrollable vengeance born from the blood of the spilled," which corresponds to the standard view that vengeance, as practiced by victims of a crime, is personal and emotional, while justice, as exacted by an official authority, is impersonal and impartial. In fact, Atrocitus holds this against the Spectre later in the issue when he says "You may be objective and calm in your judgments, Spectre, but once you pass them you are no longer haunted by their victims." This can be taken to reflect the view that systems of criminal justice pay too little attention to the needs of the victims of crime, one that communicative and confrontational views of punishment, which stress the relationship between the wrongdoers and those harmed by their crimes, try to remedy.
After the Spectre attempts to punish the girl's father for killing her murderer while possessed by the Butcher entity, Atrocitus also touches on the lex talionis, the well-known "eye for an eye," which the Spectre refers to as "my gospel" (yours, really?). Atrocitus argues that the murderer's life does not make up for the little girl's, so justice has not yet been done. This also touches on currently raging (pun intended) debats among retributivists over what counts as appropriate punishment, and whether it should be based on the criminal's amount of suffering, especially compared to his victims'. (Let me mention also that holding the man responsible for what he did while possessed by the Butcher brings to mind Hal Jordan's responsibility for his actions while possessed by Parallax, which is also discussed in Green Lantern and Philosophy.)
I just happen to have an edited book titled Retributivism: Essays on Theory and Policy coming out next year from Oxford University Press (details to come), so this issue was a great holiday treat for me, and I hope you enjoyed it too.
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