wylodmayer

Re: Unluck as a Power Bump

Re: The cranky thread archermoo - Yeah, I'm not too overwhelmed with excitement about being here. I'm from Nashville, one of the best music scenes in the country. Moving from an entertainment industry town to... Norman... has been a come down. Alice - Well, there are plenty of jobs out here, I suppose because most people feel about like archermoo and I do about this place. I can't vouch for how rewarding they are, though. A lot of them seem to be somehow connected to Tinker AFB. Or to cows.

Re: The cranky thread Alice, Alice... so recently you were posting in the "nice happy" thread! Sigh. Hey, you can always try Oklahoma. Norman has one of the cheapest housing markets in the US. Two story, two bedroom brick homes for $120K. My apartment, which is only a 1 bedroom but pretty sizeable, has hard wood floors, real tile in the bathroom, and gas heat... for $325 a month. Across the street from the University, too, I might add. Of course, you would be in Oklahoma. But, hell, we'll get everyone from the boards out here and make it the new center of the HERO universe... And hey, just be glad you're not in Nashville. I miss my hometown, but dude, you couldn't get a two bedroom in the 'ville for less than $650, and those are the ones in the shady areas of town. $700 to $750 is a more likely figure for anything decent.

Something I was mucking about with, inspired by conversation in another thread. Happy Friday the 13th!

Re: WWYCD: Dead Enemies are no fun. Ace and Cat are both skilled normals, so I'll assume there's other evidence that implicates them. They would each react quite differently, though. Ace believes he's innocent, and has outrageous contacts with the Avengers, so he'd be willing to turn himself in and run the trial gauntlet. He can always try to escape later, he figures, if things go really bad. Cat, on the other hand, grew up watching corrupt cops benefit off the chaos in her slum, so she trusts the gov't about as far as she can throw it. She'd stay underground, coming up with an alternate ID to investigate the crime if necessary. Terminaxx is a powerful speedster with an attitude problem. He respects the law, though. He'd go along... well, not quietly, but he'd go along. If he ever caught the guy who framed him, though... he might come close to actually killing him. Holocaust is a paranoid schizophrenic and a humongously powerful energy projector. She's also a resident alien citizen of the UK. She'd freak out - she's a genius at math and science, but she wouldn't have clue one what to do in this situation. For all she knows, she did kill that guy - she drinks heavily, which - combined with her haloperidol - produces blackouts. She'd probably run or turn herself in as her fellow heroes advised. She'd probably run, at first, though.

Re: Move Through Interception This brings up an interesting point, though, is it really true that the rules don't allow for multiple Moves Through? I mean, I never really considered it, but doesn't it seem like as long as the person making the Move Through has movement left after taking damage from it, he should be able to continue in a more or less straight line, hitting anything in his path? This is, I believe, in genre for superhero games - there are several villains that use just this sort of tactic. Hm... a check of the rules seem to indicate that you can keep moving after hitting someone, assuming you weren't stopped in your tracks - it would make sense that if there is someone in that line, you could hit that person, too. Might a Move Through be then treated as a sort of AE: Line, allowing Dive for Cover as a defense?

Re: Character help. Heh - you wanna really mess with him, throw him a lead at some point like this. The UNTIL guys who explored the base where he was found documents or evidence or whatever that points to this particular DEMON operative as being in charge of that base. So, if anyone would know, he would, right? This turns into a whole sub-arc of the campaign as he cons the other PCs into helping him investigate DEMON until he finds this particular fella. Then, when he finally gets a chance to question him... ... he reveals that when they built the base, he was already there. In fact, they had to take him down with some powerful magic spell, which is what fried his memory a bit. They stuck him in stasis to be sure, and took the thing he was guarding (looks like a rock with funny writing on it) and shipped it off to another base to be studied. Maybe the rock is magic and he's a golem or something that eventually achieved sentience. Maybe the rock is sentient, an old rock creature, and he's its child - he'll eventually "grow up" to be, well, a rock! Maybe he's a powerful sorcerer who sacrificed his magical powers to turn his greatest enemy into the rock, or trap him in it. Maybe the rock is an alien artifact fallen to earth and he's a courier who was transporting it, or a search-and-retrieve specialist who was come to get it back (leaving the possibility that his ship is somewhere around here...). Maybe the rock is an alien criminal of some kind and he's an alien cop here to get it back. Maybe he's an alien criminal, and the rock is something valuable that a partner stashed "out in the boonies" (Earth) where no one would find it, only he double crossed his partner and came to get it. Maybe he's the intergalactic equivalent of a forest ranger, the kind who live in those tall towers, watching for fires? He's stuck out here on Earth, middle of nowhere, with only his rock (their version of a communications system/internet hookup) for company, watching for... who knows what? The return of a particularly vicious race of conquerors once thought destroyed? Or general cosmic ecological disasters? Maybe he's just an alien tourist and that's his "camera." Maybe he's a hero, perhaps a well known one, who was lured to the location by a foe even DEMON doesn't know about, perhaps an inner circle to DEMON that has it's own agenda. The rock was a trap, that turned him into his current form and knocked him out for days, maybe weeks. A cell of DEMON, acting without the Inner Circle's knowledge, went to build a base, found him, etc. Of course, he could be a DEMON decoy. A walking, talking, elaborate "bug," meant to spy on heroes. Or, he was a decoy for some powerful sorcerer for good, and the DEMON guys found him and stuck him away somewhere while they tried to figure out how to use him to kill the sorcerer who sent him to their base. Maybe they did already. Maybe he wasn't guarding anything. Maybe the "rock" with the "weird writing" was near him by coincidence. Maybe there's no rock at all. If not, maybe he's a mutant who had run away to hide his newly developed deformity. He was sulking in the cave when the DEMON guys came to scout the location for their base, attacked them, spell, etc. They stuck him in a basement and forgot about him. Maybe he's not even real. Maybe he's the dream of a comatose child who always wanted to be a superhero. His lack of a history, and mysterious appearace, are all because the child has only limited creativity. His latent psychic powers have projected this hero into the world, or - worse - transformed a previously normal person into his heroic alter ego. If the other PCs learn of this, will they feel honor bound to turn him back to normal?

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? Yeah! See, I just thought of a better way to state this. If we zero out for accidents, since those can happen to anyone, and allow both Punisher and Spider Man technical perfection (that is, they don't kill anyone they don't want to kill, which would be no one in Spidey's case), Punisher's approach still requires something more, moral perfection. So even in a world which assumes as part of its metaphysial laws (genre conventions, in short) that superheroes can successfully not kill when they don't mean to, and that the Punisher can manage to only kill those he actually targets, Punisher would still require something further to make his acts justifiable. And since moral perfection is not a part of the universe he exists in, or any post Golden Age superhero universe, he's a bad guy even in worlds where superheroes can be good guys. I think that gets my point. I'll have to think on that. Argh... I should be working on papers, not doing this... I do have the excuse that this is at least somewhat related to my field, though...

Re: Sweating

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? Springald Jack - Good points, and I certainly didn't mean to sound as snippy on the "turning your brain off" thing as I apparently did. I enjoyed Hero a great deal as well, but yes, you're right, it does kind of endorse totalitarianism. I guess what I should have said is that as much as I enjoy certain movies/books, I often enjoy more those that are both entertaining and have a moral stance I can get behind. psm - No, I think we substantially agree, and I have glossed over the fact that taking the law into one's own hands even with the best of intentions to do no permanent harm is itself wrong in a substantial way. I do still think that intent would matter to the public at least some, and that one can't say the Punisher and Spider Man are precisely the same; my whole argument was that they are only separated by degrees, but those degrees are important. But that's a pretty subjective point and I'll admit there's nothing more I really feel like saying on that count. And the point about Punisher being a good guy only in fiction may be somewhat irrelevant to our discussion, but it wasn't to a previous set of posts by someone else - I was trying to make clear the distinction that someone can do something in a fictional world ostensibly identical to our own and be a good guy (to us), while still being a bad guy in any world he "actually" exists in. I think we agree on that, so that comment can fairly be said to be something that was aimed at someone else, and just got included in the post I made to you because I was still thinking about it. Basically, I think we agree, but I was trying to, in my mind, "play fair" by assuming that The Punisher had enough control to kill only those people he really wanted to kill, and the superheroes enough control to not kill people they didn't want to. That seems equitable, right? Given that, which I'll admit is a big given, but on those grounds, I think the Punisher is STILL wrong, because assuming technical ability hasn't given him moral perfection. That was the point I was going for. I was saying we could allow the Punisher the luxury of never missing his target, never killing an unintended victim, etc, but moral clarity is another thing entirely. I was basically pointing out that even if we can imagine that the Punisher is a skilled-enough human to never kill anyone but his target, there's no way to endow him with infalliable moral sense without making him entirely implausible. And the contrast to superheroes was supposed to show that, given the same amount of technical error (i.e. zero), the Punisher is in the wrong still. But I do think you're right - even stepping outside the law in a substantial way does create a danger to society. As you've said, these people aren't answerable to us. I disagree slightly in as much as I think intent would matter to a lot of people, that a hero who restricted himself very clearly in certain ways might be viewed a bit more sympathetically, but even then, yes, they would seem somewhat menacing, wouldn't they?

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? First, make sure the premises you disagree with are actually my premises. I never assert that vigilantes are police officers, so the fact that you disagree with that statement is, well, completely immaterial. Second, a superhero's intent has bearing on the consequences of his actions in exactly the same way everyone else's intentions have bearing on their actions. I never assert that violent, potentially lethal consequences will not occur because superheroes don't intend them to - again, before you disagree with something I said, make sure I said it. However, there's a big difference between someone who goes into a situation with the intent to kill somebody, and someone who goes into a situation with the intent to subdue with as little harm as possible. Is it conceivable that the person with the latter intent might still commit grievous harm, or even kill? Of course. But it's less likely, all other things being equal. You admit this tacitly, not two sentences after denying it, when you decry superheroes who jump into a fight 'without a plan', and talk about how 'methodical' the Punisher is. So which is it? Do intentions matter or not? Of course, they do matter. In fact, your example undercuts your case by being flat out wrong - a person who is trying to subdue someone with minimal force is 'less of a murderer' in the eyes of the law when someone dies. It's the difference between 1st degree murder and all other crimes. And the law happens to think it's an extremely important difference. I believe also that "common sense" morality agrees with this distinction as well. I'm not entirely clear on whether you're arguing that there's no actual moral difference in what Spider Man and the Punisher do, or whether you're saying that they would be perceived as being the same. Regardless, I disagree with both. The law clearly sees the two cases as different. If a person, you or me, tried to wrestle a mugger to the ground, we might be seen as irresponsible to an extent for even trying it, being as that it is not our place to do so. And in that regard only, yes, Spider Man is in a sense similar to the Punisher. But so long as it was clearly not our intent to kill, even if we accidentally brought about the mugger's death, we would not be tried as a murderer in the fullest sense of the word, nor would we be commonly judged as such, regardless of whether the man in question was innocent or not. Conversely, if we pulled out a gun, aimed for his head, and pulled the trigger, we'd be considered a murder, again regardless of whether the man was innocent or not. Indeed, we'd be considered a murderer in spirit even if we were to miss. I was going to do a whole thing on substantive and procedural wrongs, safeguards and the moral status of moral rules themselves, but I have a feeling it would be too lengthy. The bottom line is, no, they aren't the same. The law doesn't think they're the same. Common morality doesn't think they're the same.

Re: A Thin Moral Line...?

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? I think that's fair enough, but my point was (or rather, my view is) that the Punisher can only be a good guy as a fictional character. That was the whole reason I pointed out the difference between his falliability as a person within his own world, and his infalliability as a fictional character in our world. People seem to keep coming back to this "doing what needs to be done" theme, which completely misses the whole point of my argument. And that is that in any world in which he really exists, it would be impossible for him to "do what needs to be done" and only that. It's like drunk driving. It's perfectly possible for someone to drive drunk and not kill anyone. Heck, it's possible for someone to drive drunk and not break any traffic laws. It can happen. But the very act of driving drunk creates such a high risk situation, given human limitations, that it's still a transgression, a reckless and irresponsible act that is morally censurable because it endangers lives. The person who drives drunk cannot guarantee he won't cause a great deal of harm. Neither can the person who drives sober of course - accidents happen. But we recognize that as long as a driver does not create a situation that increases the risk of harm beyond what is normally acceptable, he's morally blameless. The Punisher might be like a drunk driver who goes, say, a whole year without ever causing an accident or even breaking any traffic laws. If any drunk driver did that, it wouldn't be because he was cautious - it would be pure luck, given human limitations. He would lack sufficient control over himself to guarantee this outcome, and even if it did come about, we would still hold him blameworthy for creating the risk. The Punisher, even if he did happen to kill all and only people who 'deserve' it, is guilty of arrogantly assuming he can guarantee that outcome. I argue that no human being has both the clarity of moral vision and the simple logistical capacity to ensure such an outcome. I say that even if the Punisher kills all and only people who really needed killing, it would be an accident; as a human, it is exceedingly likely that he will make a mistake or be forced to harm innocents or near-innocents in his quest. This is also possible with the police, of course, but we accept their risk as normal because no one police officer has such unlimited carte blanche to execute justice, and the police are answerable to us, the people. In other words, I argue that the Punisher's act is wrong per se, no matter what the actual outcome is. Bare-knuckles utilitarianism is a dead-end road, my friends - trust me on this one. Since he was mentioned, Thoreau would have found the Punisher reprehensible. His thesis was about making individual moral decisions, not imposing one's moral judgments on others. In fact, that's the whole point. The Punisher's entire concept is based on him imposing his moral judgment on others, passing sentence by himself. That's the precise antithesis of Thoreau. I do, however, agree with you about enjoying a piece of fiction without reflecting on its moral framework. I enjoy the hell out of the The Dark Knight Returns, even though I find Miller's cryptofascist subtext to be revolting on an intellectual level. That said, I enjoy stuff much more when I don't have to turn my brain off to participate. That's why I like Watchmen better than Dark Knight.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women I did think the costume idea was pretty cute. On the other hand, I actually think tights have many points in their favor as costumes go, as previously noted, even in a realistic game. You know, the thing is, I really wanted that movie to work, 'cause I love Uma and Luke both. You know, weirdly enough, one of the best movies along these lines has been the animated film, "The Incredibles." Although Ms. Incredible wears the spandexey thing, you can see she's filled out in the hips between her early, pre-marriage years and her "comeback" in the movie. Is it sad when a cartoon is the most realistic looking female hero we've seen in a while? (Not to mention a strong and level headed yet still maternal figure?) I used to collect Power Pack, way back in the day when it was a good comic, and June Brigman's extremely genuine drawings of kids made that book a treasure. Seriously, I know PP's a joke these days, but the first twenty issues or so were quite good for young teens. Recently, I found myself turning to Runaways for some of the same reasons - a comic about teenage kids was the only place I could go to get superheroes who looked kind of like real people! And of course they cancelled Alias. Jerks.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women "Flubber-Hulk" Ohmygod, if I could rep you I totally would. I'll getcha, sooner or later.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women Awesome!! Now, see, it's my turn to prepare to be flamed, because while I didn't like Hulk (or Daredevil, or ohmygodmakeitstop Elektra), I kind of enjoyed the Dolph Lundgren Punisher. Not enough to watch it ever again, mind you, but it clearly didn't take itself seriously. And, given the script, that's a virtue. Of course, "kind of enjoyed" in this context does NOT mean I'd call it "good" in any sense of the word. Just that I didn't COMPLETELY resent the experience. I didn't see the new one. I have deep and serious fears about it. It's sad, really - Spider Man did well, and we suddenly see an explosion of Marvel licenses coming to the screen. Let's recap: Hulk - blew, by general consensus (allowing for a few oddballs out there ) FF - ohmygodmakeitstop Daredevil - yawn Elektra - OHMYGODMAKEITSTOPSERIOUSLYITBURNSITBURNSPUTITOUT Punisher (new one) - *twitch* Ow Ghost Rider - (blank stare) You've GOT to be kidding me What the hell? Spider Man worked because Sam Raimi loved the character AND the genre and had a real story to tell. Can no one else figure this out? Or are they just that crass?

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? You know... something just occured to me. There was this guy I knew in high school. And he collected some comics, and gamed with us and so forth. But here's the thing. His two favorite things were his Punisher comics collection. And Star Trek. I mean like Next Gen, too, not even Kirk. Punisher. Star Trek. Punisher. Star Trek. I just realized... ...there's like a serious moral clash between these, ain't there? It's a wonder the cognitive dissonance didn't drive him mad.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? Actually, I agree with pretty much everything you said. The Punisher certainly wouldn't be universally reviled, or even close to it. I don't think that bears on whether he would be a bad guy, though, in a larger sense. The thing you said about him acting as the will of the people is extremely interesting, however. I mean, you have a great point there - characters like the Punisher wouldn't be so popular in fiction if there wasn't a current of approval, if that sort of behavior didn't express something resident in the collective psyche. We all recognize that "the system" miscarries justice as we see it; wouldn't we all like to see someone break free of the chains of the system and do justice directly? The rubber really meets the road on this one, though, in the place that separates the theoretical admiration you express for the Punisher and the fact you assert you wouldn't want him around in real life. You refer to the careful portrayal of his investigations, and that's the key. As a fictional character, the Punisher can be written as impossibly competent at making sure "the right people" receive his brand of justice. Of course, we wouldn't trust any real person with such discretionary powers, which is why we wouldn't want a *real* Punisher around, and which is why I have to call him a "bad guy." What he's doing is only acceptable in fictional terms, with an impossibly high level of precision to his vigilante activities. (You also mention that he can't just walk in, guns blazing, but I think this makes it more likely he'll kill innocents, or at least near-innocents, in the process of carrying out justice. He can't always afford to exert lethal force only on those he knows to deserve it. Sometimes, it's a part of what gets him to where he needs to be to execute sentence...) The thing is, this isn't a problem just for the Punisher, obviously. In any remotely realistic world, even "regular" superheroes would be extremely suspect. I mean, take Superman, for example. What makes Superman such an attractive character for many people isn't his enormous powers - narratively, they're a little dull. But, in giving him such prodigious abilities, the writers, somewhat subconsciously, I think, endowed him with an unerring sense of morality. Someone who is so powerful would need it! I mean, it's okay, or at least less threatening, if Daredevil is wrong sometimes, right? There's a limit to the harm he can do, in the grand scheme of things. But Superman? If Superman is even a little bit morally dubious, he's a monster. An out-and-out monster, because even small errors in judgment on his part stand to wreak so much harm. To paraphrase the guy from "Gone and Forgotten", and ape-law.com, as much as I love superheroes, if they really existed, I would be too busy hiding in my bunker to fawn all over them. So, yeah, I agree that the Punisher really taps into something we want, but he also embodies something we know we can't have. We'd love for people to deal justice directly, to those who deserve it; but we have the system we do because no one person is trustworthy to do that job. I think we're really parting ways over the point-of-view from which to evaluate him as a good guy or bad guy. It seems like you want to say that if he's only doing the right thing - that is, if he's killing the right people (as it were) - then he's a good guy. Which is fine and all, from one way of looking at it. I'm trying to evaluate what he'd be in a world where he was "real," and presumably not infalliable as fictional characters have the privilege of being, in which case, I'd say he was a bad guy even if he did happen to kill all and only the right people, because there's no way for him to guarantee that result; in other words, he's being wantonly reckless just by doing what he does, no matter how carefully he does it. So we're not so much disagreeing as talking about different things, I think. On that note, though, I'd say that superheroes would have to be very, very careful in limiting their activities, lest they be described as bad guys as well. I don't think it would take much for me to start considering some superheroes dangerous; even at it's most "ethical," the superhero practice is pretty shady in that regard, to me at least. Superheroes would have to be very restrained in the force they used to bring in criminals, the standard by which they judged criminal activity, and the collateral damage caused by their activities to get me to classify them as good guys. Of course, a lot of this goes out the window when you've got guys in tights fighting a fella who wants to sink Manhattan. I'm talking about bringing in theives and muggers here.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women I have not seen that - I'm torn by my interest in all things even remotely superheroey, and my desire to avoid punishing my eyes with what looks like a pretty bad movie. On the other hand, much as with sci-fi/fantasy, I rarely see movies I really like. I think I get really excited about maybe three, four movies a year. Mainstream ones, anyway. There's more to like in the indie/art house stream. In other words, I'm a harsh judge of pop culture. I would like to say this doesn't make me a snob; it certainly wasn't my intent. But I have a feeling I am. Then again, how snobbish can someone who likes ABBA and 3rd Rock from the Sun really be?

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? nexus - I agree with the points you raised, and I will agree that the Punisher is less clearly a bad guy in some settings... but I'm still not sure that makes him a good guy, even in those settings. To take superheroes as an example, yes, they do similar things, but the Devil is in the details, as they say. I'd say there's a world of difference between a guy who beats up some robbers with his fists and a guy who goes after a mob boss with automatic weapons. The latter is intent on killing at least one person, and wantonly creating circumstances where other deaths are extremely likely. A superhero who beats up robbers is hurting people, yes, but it's evident that he's not creating anywhere near the same level of potential for death or even permanent harm. And few would argue that it's immoral per se to use force to stop criminals who won't surrender. The police do it all the time - it's why they have nightsticks and tasers. Superheroes are technically vigilantes, yes, but not of the same stripe. Now, mind you, in my mind, a "hero" who causes enormous collateral damage is not much better than the Punisher. Slightly, yes, for lack of intent to harm or kill, but not by much, for lack of the moral responsibility to avoid creating circumstances where injury or death are likely consequences. I never argued that superheroes didn't break the law, only that the Punisher's particular forms of lawbreaking activity disqualify him from being considered a hero in just about any circumstances, mainly because of the moral argument. That does raise an interesting point, though. Heroes, of course, can be mistaken as well. It's a classic of the genre that heroes mistakenly fight other heroes, assuming they're villains. So even the average superhero is prone to one of the objections I raised against the Punisher - that he might make a mistake and target someone who has done nothing, or at least nothing worth being targeted by a superhero over. So why do I consider heroes good guys and the Punisher not? It probably has something to do with the finality of the Punisher's methods. He kills people. If he thinks you've done something bad, that's it - game over, man. A superhero does not. Ideally, a hero hauls you in using the minimum force necessary to apprehend you, and you are then given sentence by the courts - or, in other words, by the people (as in, The People v...). The hero is acting as an agent of the general morality; he does not see himself as superior to it, as transcending above it. He is not setting himself up as an independent source of moral wisdom. He is allowed to be mistaken in identifying perpetrators because he does not also execute sentence; the people decide how to punish wrong-doers. In short, he respects the moral wishes of others. The Punisher does not, and I think that is the decisive charge against him. He not only decides what to do with the perpetrators he identifies, but his decisions are extremely final. The collective moral wisdom might, upon evaluation of the case, decide otherwise, but the Punisher does not care. He is morally arrogant; he does not abide by the moral rules of society. It may well be that he believes he is merely executing (heh) the prerogatives of the conventional moral code, but he isn't. He violates the most important tenent of morality, which is respect for the moral agency of others. By removing the decision of how to punish wrong doers from the collective, he sets himself up as an independent source of morality, and that conflicts with the very essence of our beliefs. Theists believe that morality comes from a supernatural agent, but even atheists don't think it just comes from the individual, if they are believers in civil society - even the most bareknuckles materialist holds, tacitly or not, that there is moral weight to the wishes of the people as a whole. It is, indeed, the only explanation for how we can imprison individuals. Certainly, the criminal doesn't want to go to prison. His accuser wants him to. If they have equal worth as moral agents, what decides the tie? The people. Society decrees that he is morally blameworthy and deserving of punishment, and in what way. So the Punisher violates the prime rule of morality - that it's social. He takes the final judgment into his own hands. This is the characteristic of the villain, as well. The thief decides for himself when it's "okay" for him to take something, when he's justified (and most of them have very elaborate justifications for their behavior). The murderer decides when he has "reason" to kill (again, they all do, or think they do). The criminal, the villain in general, has made his own decisions about what he's justified in doing, and it doesn't include the wishes of others. The Punisher does this as well - that's why I think he's a criminal. And superheroes don't; they apprehend those who appear to be committing crimes, but they don't presume to pass judgement on them. They act as agents of the people, even if they weren't explicitly authorized by them.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? [allow me to play Devil's Advocate here for a moment. these views are not necessarily mine. but they might be.] Just because the Punisher has a moral code doesn't make him not a villain. Watch the Sopranos - those guys have a moral code. They're still the bad guys. It brings to the fore the question of what IS a bad guy? Maybe the Punisher is only offing those people who have done wrong. Maybe. But honestly, he's a human being, and one who is overwrought by his own personal tragedies at that. Do we honestly trust him to never make a mistake? To never kill or maim someone who really didn't deserve it? And even if he manages to somehow only target those who really deserve killing (we'll leave aside for a moment the feasability of that statement), since when are automatic weapons precision instruments? Even if the comics have never shown it, would we be willing to believe a character like the Punisher has never accidentally harmed or killed someone other than his intended target? And that gets into the question of when people "deserve killing." Has the Punisher ever killed a guard to get to the guy who, yes, committed multiple capital crimes? Well, what did that guard ever do? Maybe he's some punk kid, a know-nothing nineteen year old with a chip on his shoulder whose worst crime has been to beat somebody up. Maybe he's a good kid, the kind who doesn't fully appreciate who he's working for, and who will someday struggle to get free and be an upstanding kind of man. Only he never gets the chance, because the Punisher blows him up real good while going after his boss. Any moral paradigm that says that kid "deserves to die" would be, I think, by the standards of most rational people, nothing short of monstrous. Taking it further, even the people who have committed capital crimes - do they deserve to die? There are some states in which the people whom the Punisher kills would not get sentenced to death for their crimes, some of them at least. It's certainly plausible that he's at least once offed someone who committed what would have been a capital crime somewhere else, but not in his current locale. So what, right? It's only the will of the people. The Punisher thinks his moral judgment is superior to everyone else's. He kills those whom he decides needs killing. He doesn't take a poll. And it's reasonable to believe that he has killed those whom the people of a given area would have said shouldn't be killed, only sent to prison for the rest of their lives. In other words, he is usurping the moral authority of everyone else, as expressed by the laws passed by the representative elected by these people. He's telling you, and me, and everyone, "I don't care what you think. I think this guy needs to die, and so he does." That sounds like the same kind of moral reasoning used by Dr. Doom - another guy who has a moral code. He says to us, "I know better than everyone else, so I'll take over the world and you'll all benefit from my rule, even if you don't want to." The Punisher is a villain. He's a bad man. His methods are beyond the control of the people and are likely to result in the deaths of innocents or at least those who don't deserve death. He shows contempt for the moral agency of individual members of society by setting himself up as a law unto himself, answerable to no one. However flawed our system is, there's a reason - a MORAL reason - we use it.

Re: A Thin Moral Line...? I thought I'd post a document I whipped up a while back, mostly for my own use. Although it uses numbers and a chart and everything, it's by no means meant to be a "mechanization" of moral evaluations of characters, just a concept-map tool to help GMs and players fix in their heads the kind of character being created. I've had several players who, after reading this and trying to rate their characters on this system, started thinking more about the character's attitudes, and in a more disciplined, focused way, too. I also find it helpful for guessing how the public will receive certain NPCs. Anway, hope people find it interesting.

Re: Superhuman women and normal women Ehhh... that would actually kind of bother me, if it was in one of my games. Heck, there's no reason for a villain to use his hyper intellect to build robots to rob banks when he can just set up a hyper-effective credit card phishing scam. But he does anyway. It's in genre. Just like skin tight suits. This goes back to the discussion in another thread, but I am a firm believer that in some instances, you just do stuff because it's genre-appropriate, not for any other reason.