Daredevil Message Board

[DesignDevil]

"a structure of laws that society has created to keep such men in check. The moment one man takes another man's life in his own hands, he is rejecting the law... "
This reasoning actually ignores that the law allows for instances of self defense or eminent threats like the one I mentioned with Milla. I think this was Miller being constricted by Silver Age mentality. Pretty much all his later Daredevil stories show Matt willing to kill if given no other choice.

See I actually kinda agree with some of your points. Matt leaving Bullseye to die on the train tracks would have been murder (though I do agree with the "logic" of Bullseyes taunts as they start to apply later on as Bullseye comes back again and again to specifically target Matt and his loved ones.) If Matt had shot Bullseye in the hospital in issue 191? that again would have been murder and would hurt the character. Though had Matt shoved his billy club through Bullseye's throat when he was about to murder Milla, it would have been totally justifiable. In a fight if someone is trying to kill you, you try to kill them right back.

By your logic Matt should have let the girl die at the end of "The Man Without Fear" or the numerous people dying in the last issue of "Born Again".

Again, I don't want characters like Daredevil or Batman to become like Frank Castle, and DD should never want to kill and when he has he regretted it deeply.

[Dimetre]

[Darkdevil]

If Shadowland was more about the corruption of DD, of Matt embracing his dark nature by leading the Hand, then for me, his killing Bullseye would've been more dramatic. It was shocking of itself but seeing as how it merely let some demon 'possess' Matt, it was cheapened.

Matt is no murderer, that is never his intention when he goes out as DD. He may feel that the legal system should judge Bullseye but that same system has consistently failed to do so. Bullseye's latest actions of detonating that apartment building with all the tenants inside was a good last straw for Matt. Because Matt had forsaken the law, had taken up leadership and authority of the Hand, he felt it was his personal responsibility to deal with Bullseye now.

If Shadowland was about Matt going to the dark side, about his friends trying to bring him back, about Matt trying to find redemption after seeing the effects of what he had done, and throw out all the demon rubbish, killing Bullseye makes more sense. I can understand why Matt would have wanted to do that but here, in that setting and story, it was just a shock stunt, nothing else.

[dsugar]

It should have been a better story to kill someone like bullseye. Probably something big that happend that very moment and then....
Even heroes make mistakes and can snap when being tortured. Being the fact that he is a lawyer it should never get to that level but he can beat the crap out of them.

[Sewersaint]

Wow, this is why I like this forum, everybody has a well thought out argument and opinion.

Now to the question at hand. Do I think Daredevil was right in killing Bullseye? Yes. Of course, I also believe in the principle of the death penalty. I do not live in a country with the death penalty but I am still capable of recognising that there are some serious major problems with the implementation of the death penalty. However, Bullseye is a known killer who has thus far been unrepentant, a prime candidate in my opinion for the death penalty. What fascinates me about the should killers be killed debate is the alternative to the death penalty - essentially imprisonment for life. Locking somebody up until they die.

Back to Matt though, should he, as a hero, been the executioner? I guess it depends on whether or not you want to read about a hero or a protagonist. I choose to view Matt as the latter, somebody flawed. Honestly, Matt is a terrible hero to emulate, I mean look know further than the way he's treated women in the past. BUT that's why I like reading Daredevil, because he has a moral code that he tries to live by, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.