There’s a pretty tried and true ethical thought experiment that goes: if time travel existed, would you travel back in time and kill baby Hitler? Without getting too far into the moral quandary here (killing a baby versus allowing the deaths of millions, is the short version), it’s a trope that has pervaded almost every time-travel story, including dozens, if not more, comic book storylines from DC and Marvel. So it’s almost to be expected that this week’s Marvel/DC: Deadpool/Batman #1 crossover issue would feature a similar question, this time in the crossover tale featuring Captain America and Wonder Woman: if you had the chance, would you kill adult baby Hitler? You know, the fully grown version? AKA, Hitler?
In the story written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Terry Dodson, and spoilers past this point, we’re brought to a universe where Wonder Woman and Captain America were both active in World War II — just like they were in their respective comic book universes in the real world. We cut in on them meeting for the first time in the closing days of the battle, in, of all places, Hitler’s bunker. Cap has a gun on Hitler, and is about to kill him. Wonder Woman doesn’t speak fluent German, but realizes that Hitler is surrendering, and explains she is a warrior, but a “warrior for justice.” Cap, on the other hand is furious: “Millions dead. Friends. People I love. All because of him.”
The rest of the story jumps back and forth in time, anchored by this moral debate between Diana and Steve, as we follow the rest of the history of this combined DC/Marvel universe. It’s not the mushed together Amalgam Universe from the event 30 years ago, nor is it either universe individually — Zdarsky is careful in his text to explain this is somewhere new, and has Steve muse about other dimensions where the two never got to meet each other.
But back to the main question, it comes down to what Wonder Woman presents to Cap. While she agrees that Hitler doesn’t deserve “the gift of life,” as Cap puts it, she thinks, “he’s harmed the world. Let the world have the satisfaction of determining his fate.”
They continue to discuss throughout the story, going back and forth, until Cap is convinced… They’ll keep him in Themyscira until his trial, so Cap tosses away the gun he was holding on Adult Baby Hitler, just moments earlier. And then Hitler grabs the gun, and while we don’t see it happen, it is strongly implied that he shoots himself in the head rather than be captured.
So, let’s talk about this. While you get where Zdarsky was coming from here, and Dodson’s art — alongside his wife, Rachel Dodson, on inks — is clean and beautiful as always as they explore this combined universe… Uh, weird timing on this one. I’m not going to put any specifics in here because I do not want the Search Engine Overlords to sic certain less savory members of society on me for a piece with a relatively silly central premise of killing an Adult Baby Hitler. But when we saw the execution of someone who portions of the population saw as preaching vile hate speech, kicking off a nationwide fractious debate about the ethics of killing someone… Rather than a hopeful story about the power of two symbolic superheroes, you get an uncomfortable lack of escape from the real world horror-show we’re living in right now.
That’s not Zdarsky’s fault, of course, unless he somehow wrote this last Wednesday and then they released it today (which did not happen). But there’s also the main question, and the reason I cheekily framed this as killing Adult Baby Hitler: killing Baby Hitler is a moral quandary, an ethical conundrum that has plagued heated discussions for decades. Killing regular Hitler? You know, the one who had already lived through World War II, which led to the deaths of millions, and was about to die anyway (as we see in this very issue)? Less of an ethical question than a question of timing.
Mind you, the characters in the story don’t know that. And personally, I’m anti-gun and anti-murder, so even given the opportunity, I don’t think I could go through with this sort of thing. But I am neither Captain America, who famously punched Hitler on the cover of Captain America Comics #1, nor Wonder Woman, who also famously started her career punching Nazis. Without even getting into the ethical debate about whether superheroes kill or not, if Captain America had shot Hitler in the head, would that have somehow been a less satisfying outcome for the world than a protracted trial?
Look, I’ll leave that answer up to you, as well as the answers to the rest of the questions in this piece. But, versus killing an innocent baby, if you do get the opportunity to travel back in time to kill an Adult Baby who has already done a genocide… You might want to consider your options a little more carefully than Steve and Diana in this story.
Marvel/DC: Deadpool/Batman #1 is in stores now.
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