However, even back in the pre-movie days, there was maybe a teeny tiny bit of flexibility in that oath, if Superman was P.O.'d enough, and you got DC Science involved.
The situation: alien a-hole Amalak is out to get Superman, and has sent Jevik, a shape-shifting Klynn, to Earth to fight Kal-El. He also infected Jevik with a plague, and, while disguised as a cute stray dog, the alien has spread the disease to an entire convention of journalists in Central City, including Steve Lombard's son, Jamie.
Jamie has just collapsed from the illness, and Superman is not happy...
Wait.
WAIT.
Jevik can communicate..."take in fuel"..."excrete" (thanks for that, Marty Pasko!)...reproduce (ewww)...follow orders and display intelligent thought..."hypnotically control how others see it"...and he's still really "dead"???
SCIENCE!!!
That's one damned convenient definition of life and death, Superman. Hopefully, he pulled out this piece of BS in the post-events-of--Man Of Steel interviews to justify himself: "Oh, Zod was a Kryptonian, and he was already in his death phase..."
Not to mention, when you call Jevik "a monster" and "the lowest" and the "most despicable," those seem like moral judgements that usually are applied to living sentients, not dead things. "Hey, rock, you're despicable!"
Again, damned convenient, Kal-El.
Of course, now we know that if the Man From Tomorrow ever guest stars in the Walking Dead, he'll have no qualms about taking out zombies...
Ahh, but wait...now Amalak takes out his space harmonica, and...
Meanwhile, Jevik grows to his "living" huge size and goes on a rampage. Superman eventually stops him, and...
I can hear the excuse now: "You see, Steve, the Klynn in their living form don't need air or heat, and..."
So remember, villains and aliens--Superman is just one tortured rationalization and made-up biology lesson away from killing you!!
From Superman #314 (1977)
Small correction:
ReplyDeleteJevik can communicate..."take in fuel"..."excrete" (thanks for that, Marty Pasko!)...reproduce (ewww)...follow orders and display intelligent thought..."hypnotically control how others see it"...and he's still really "dead"???
At least from the panel construction shown, the line "they take in fuel... etc" directly follows from "in their living phase the Klynn...exhibit all the signs of carbon-based life". While in the "dead" phase, we're only told they can move, talk, and hypnotically control how others see it. So if that phase is supposed to be the equivalent of a caterpillar's cocoon, that could be somewhat excusable as being able to move and deceive would be advantageous to a species that would normally be vulnerable during metamorphosis.
Fair cop. I misread it--the cost of doing a post at 7am, I guess.
ReplyDeleteStill, Superman does say it's only "like" a metamorphosis. He emphasizes several times that Jevik is d-e-a-d dead. If he was only in a transition between living states, I wouldn't think that Kal-El could justify destroying him. And Kal-el certainly didn't believe that himself, stunned as he was at Jevik's revival.