Heroes With Guns

[p]The recent Blaster Archetype update gave us our first real glimpse of character creation. In taking us through the creation process of Flashfire, we got to see that Blasters can choose from the Primary Power Sets of Power Blast, Ice Blast, Fire Blast, Electical Blast… and Assualt Weapons. It was this final category that stirred up a bit of an argument on the forums, while the entire topic of guns and heroes has been raised before.

[p]There is a school of thought that says no hero can use guns, since guns (almost by definition) are a) weapons used by henchmen / the unskilled, b) are evil in themselves, unlike the nobility inherent in superpowers and c) used to kill people unlike superpowers. Guns have always been shown in a pretty bad light in the comic book world.

[p]Going way back to Golden Age material, it was only the bad guy who (usually ineffectively) used guns against heroes such as Superman and Batman. These villains were commonly gangsters or dime-store hoods and possessed no real purpose at all other than to commit a crime so they could be captured by the good guys. From such roots, using a gun in comics has always been a show of poor form.

[p]Sure, some heroes used guns, but such characters were less common. Heroes such as the Phantom or the Shadow would also be more likely to use their guns to wound or disarm their opponents. They were also very capable without their guns, unlike the pirate / gangster villains they opposed who couldn’t even shoot straight to begin with! Such heroes were typically in the minority though – for the most part heroes had powers that made guns unnecessary.

[p]This ideal has started to change a little bit in the modern age… but not too much. The Punisher uses guns, although many comic fans will argue that he is almost as bad as the villains he fights. Spawn has used guns instead of his magic… but again, he is a ‘dark hero’ and therefore perhaps able to stoop low enough to use guns. Many other modern heroes have picked up a gun at some point, but usually the writer ensures that there is a noble reason for such an action.

[p]However, when you sit back and think about it, this stigma against guns is ridiculous. Think about it – for the general non-powered populace of a comic book world, a gun is all they have to stop that henchman from breaking into their home. It’s a small step forward towards power equality. Think about it – if you thought the guy next door could shoot lasers from his eyes, wouldn’t you want a gun just in case? After all, if the guy next door knows that you can defend yourself, he’s unlikely to burn down your front door as a joke. An armed society is a polite society after all.

[p]As for the use of guns in the hero community, it’s probably pretty easy to be self-righteous about guns when you can throw plasma or punch hard enough to take down buildings. But lets face it – plasma and super-strong punches kill too, despite the number of comics where the Hulk hits a guy and he is just knocked out. That doesn’t ring true for a character that can rip tanks apart on a casual basis and if the Comics Code Authority hadn’t kept things clean for decades, I’m sure a more realistic vision of a Hulk rampage would have been frequently shown.

[p]For the longest time the attitude has been that heroes don’t kill but guns do kill and therefore heroes shouldn’t use guns. This is a cheap and unrealistic philosophy. Although it is probably nice if you can take the bad guy in alive (after using reasonable force, naturally) but this can’t always happen, despite due care being taken. People have died of shock after sustaining minor injuries, let alone being confronted by a 7-foot tall fire-breathing hero who hits them with a Fire Blast.

[p]Sure, CoH is a comic-orientated world. But believing that “heroes don’t use guns” is a narrow attitude that really does belong in the past.

[p]I love alternate future comics. The scope they provide, the new take on characters they contain – I really enjoy seeing a good writer put the characters you are familiar with and spinning them in a slightly different direction. Kingdom Come was DC’s big future-world event a couple of years ago with Mark Waid (writer) and Alex Ross (art) delivering the goods in spades.

[p]What can I say about Kingdom Come that hasn’t already been said? Probably not much, but here goes… The art is fanatastic and you can read through several times and still pick up things you missed hidden in the background. Every character design is brilliant, with both new and old characters appearing as a natural extension of what exists today in the DC universe. The storyline, centering around the issue of superpowered beings forgetting to be heroes and just fighting for their own sake is still an issue that is relevant for comics (and perhaps the greater world) today.

[p]What really makes Kingdom Come stand out for me is that it made Superman an interesting character. Sure, I respect what this icon stands for, but I find it hard to get interested in a character who can pretty much do whatever he wants. The Kingdom Come Superman is more battle-scarred and experienced, having perhaps learnt that as good as he is, he wasn’t enough one time when it counted. All the other DC mainstays are visible as well, but for the most part this is Superman’s story.

[p]I won’t ruin the experience for you, but think that all comic fans should pick up Kingdom Come. There was a sequel about a year later in the form of The Kingdom, but I haven’t read it after hearing some mediocre reviews about it. The full graphic novel contains an epilogue you can’t get in the regular series that I think is great – at the very least flick through it to see a Clint Eastwood-esque Bruce Wayne ordering food in a franchise.