Yes In the prologue to Batman Beyond, a 50-year-old Bruce Wayne in the Beyond cybersuit Terry will someday wear intervenes in a hostage situation and takes out all the guys but one And then suddenly his heart has a twinge of angina and he falters
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And the last guy manages to overpower him and is about to kill him and the hostage, but at the last moment Bruce grabs one of the other guys' pistols and holds him at gunpoint And the guy screams in fear "No, don't!" and then the cops come
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Nothing Bruce did in this scene can be said to be morally wrong at all But you see him back in the Batcave with this thousand yard stare, ruminating on the image of him pointing the gun at the guy and the sudden fear in his eyes that he might get shot
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The smart reading of Superman killing Zod in MoS isn't even really about the civilians, anyways. Clark killing Zod is more a tragedy because it's finally extinguishing his only known, living tie to his Kryptonian heritage - it's decisively choosing Earth at Krypton's expense.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
But that relies on a lot more time spent emphasizing Clark's desire to connect to Krypton, which largely isn't really a thing in MoS.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
Like Zod knows he's outmatched, his attack against the civilians isn't actually intended to succeed per se, and his life no longer has any purpose. It's just a spiteful, vengeful attempt to hurt Clark by forcing him to put his money where his mouth is w/favoring Earth.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
Of course, MoS doesn't really communicate this that well, but the core of the theme is solid - to Zod, he is the last line of possible continuity for Krypton, for whom his love is genuine, and Clark is finishing its genocide. And it's kinda accurate!
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Both the 90s cartoon and Smallville did this better by giving it a big buildup where Clark actually thinks the other Kryptonian survivor is a good guy before the betrayal In Smallville's case he literally thought Zod was his father
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The funny thing is that MoS doesn't even actually make a strong case that Zod is like, axiomatically evil. Jor-El and Zod's conflict is abstracted bc Krypton's family structure is foreign to us; Zod's threat to purge lines isn't mass murder, but a shift in designer baby material.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @arthur_affect and
And, well, Krypton's existing government WAS incompetent & passive in the face of certain planetary annihilation! All Zod's criticisms of them are largely TOTALLY understandable and believable.
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The John Byrne "Krypton sucked actually" retcon in 1986 did open up a lot of new story possibilities over Krypton being this idealized utopia But like It also predictably really upset people invested in the "Superman as Jewish immigrant narrative"
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Yeah, it's hard to strike that balance of "this place was worthwhile but had problems" in a compressed medium like comics.
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