#martin stein

[karen13-rockleek]

1+1=1

[erodingsinner]

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW ( 2016 - 2022 ) TITANIC ( 1997 )

[vanta-bat]

Ronnie and Michael should bond over playing football except it brings out their bloodthrist.

[dcdreamblog]

So with the Joker Box discussion going, it got me thinking:

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

If anything, I feel like we should all appreciate that more.

[moonamood]

[augustheart]

this is how the "martin orchestrated firestorm" retcon feels to me

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

It is I, Beebo, risen from the grave!

Leo Snart, Beebo, Dr. Martin Stein, Jefferson "Jax" Jackson, Ray Palmer, John Constantine, Mick Rory, and Nate Haywood in Beebo the God of War (3x09): Best of the Legends [22/?]

[lemmmmmmmmmmonade]

hhhhhhhhhh im so tired of modern martin stein characterization already. he's just a fucked up and evil master manipulator. he doesn't even have any nuance. like yeah he has a dead son but. that's stupid as fuck. and he's been mentioned twice ever so I can't even force myself to care about him outside of being annoyed about his existence.