Dandello wrote:
As for Luthor, Superman has abducted him and is guilty of unlawful imprisonment as well as taking him across international boundaries.
Then again, if Superman is right and Luthor's empire collapses, Luthor will be too busy running to try to expose what Clark did to him.
While it's true that Luthor would probably be too busy running to make any allegations against Superman, the story would have to come out someday.
And then how could we trust Superman? He's abducted a free citizen of the U.S. and transported him somewhere against his will. That does indeed fit the definition of kidnapping. (If Tempus, for example, took Lois to the far future against her will and just left her there - as in Tank's yet unfinished story [hint-hint-nudge-nudge] - then he'd be guilty of kidnapping. Same thing.) In this untwist (which is, admittedly, funny on some levels), Superman has chosen to execute preemptive justice upon someone who has not been accused of any crime, let alone convicted of one. He has also chosen to perform this action after a period of rational thought. No one's life, health, or liberty is in danger at the moment of his act, so he has no affirmative legal defense available to him.
If Superman can decide that someone is guilty all by himself, then execute a sentence upon that someone - even if that someone is not physically harmed - he becomes a vigilante. I don't see that this action is defensible on any level. While it might have been something the early 1940's Superman might have done, the Superman of today is supposed to stand for truth and justice. There is no justice in stranding Lex Luthor on a desert island; there is only vengeance, and a preemptive vengeance at that.
It's entirely possible that I'm reading too much into this vignette, that I'm over-reacting to it. But under the surface, it says that - for Superman, at least - the end (dethroning the criminal mastermind Luthor) justifies the means (kidnapping, unlawful restraint, violation of various civil liberties). And I don't think that's true. I wrote "Rebuilding Superman" recently, where Superman faced a trial for killing Bill Church at the moment he discovered that Intergang had just murdered more than forty people. And I still believe that Superman should have gone to trial for that action. The verdict in the trial generated a great deal of feedback and some very erudite expressions of belief both for and against the final outcome, which I viewed as healthy. I hope this response is also viewed in the same light.
