SuperHero Morality

If you watched the 60s Spiderman you would see a seemingly perfect super-hero. Unlike more modern day incarnations he didn't care if JJ started bitching about Spiderman; He would just make some sort of cryptic remark and wink at the camera (usually something which anyone would half a brain would be able to translate into "I am Spiderman"). And when whether he was up against random thugs or super-villians he would alwlays bring them in alive. In many ways he was a paragon of super-hero-y virtues.

Something always bugged me though and now that Rocket Robin Hood (Robin and his merry men share views similar to that of Spiderman) is back on the air I've seen that it carries over into more shows.

Neither Spiderman nor Rocket Robin Hood show any regard for the lives of sentient non-human villians. I was watching a Rocket Robin Hood clipshow yesterday and on it Robin and his men wiped out an asteroid full of the Amobea People (not before blasting many of them into oblivion first however). I've not seen enough Rocket Robin Hood to know if the situation is as bad as on Spiderman though.

Spiderman has single-handedly wiped out many civilizations. Off the top of my head I can think of the mole people and the sentient plant civilizations that were utterly destroyed by Spiderman (the leader of the mole people did want to take over the city so there's at least A LITTLE justification there but the plants existed in another time period all together). I know there are other races that Spiderman wiped out but I'm too tired to recall them.

What sort of message are we supposed to draw from this callous disregard for life? That you should treat life with dignity only when dealing with people who are the same as you are? Not exactly a great virtue to pass on to the kiddies.