These 5 DC Heroes Have a Shocking Amount of Blood on Their Hands (Including a Surprising DC Icon)

DC Comics have created some of the biggest legends in superhero comics. Their heroes are often looked at as the exemplars, the ones that every other hero looks up to. For years, DC’s heroes could seem a little lame; they had very little edge and were as goody-goody as that implied. However, this is a reductive way of looking at the heroes of the DC Multiverse. In the Golden Age, heroes were more likely to kill than they were in later years, especially once comics became for kids, and many DC heroes didn’t really have a problem killing. As comics changed, the morals of the heroes did as well, to the extent that killing became verboten for the hero community.

However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t kill. Over the years, many DC heroes have done a lot of killing, even several of the most well-known heroes in the multiverse. They have taken more lives than it seems they should have, pushed into situations where sometimes the only way to win is to kill. These five DC heroes have a shocking amount of blood on their hands, and one of them is a surprising DC icon.

5) John Stewart

Earth has made the greatest Green Lanterns, including John Stewart. John may not seem like it, but he has become something of an icon. Although he hasn’t often had his own solo series, he was the Green Lantern of the Timmverse Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, with millions of fans falling for the character. However, none of them fans realized that their favorite new Green Lantern was actually a mass murderer. In Cosmic Odyssey, the brash Green Lantern raced ahead of Martian Manhunter to defuse a bomb meant to destroy the planet Xanshi. However, this was back in the days of Green Lanterns being weak to yellow and the bomb was painted that color. If John would have brought J’onn with him, they could have defused the bomb, but since he didn’t, billions died. John’s own action damned an entire planet. It took him years to get his head straight, but he’s since become one of the most important Lanterns in the Corps.

4) Midnighter

Midnighter first appeared in the Wildstorm Universe as a new member of Stormwatch, a perfectly engineered supersoldier that was a homosexual Batman pastiche. He’d end up joining the Authority and killing everyone he could until the Wildstorm Universe was folded into the DC Multiverse. In the New 52, he was finally brought to the prime Earth and has become one of the most fun characters around. Midnighter takes an extreme amount of glee from hurting bad people and is one of the most dangerous hand to hand fighters imaginable. Most fans who have been following him since the mid ’90s know how much blood is on his hands, but fans who haven’t been around for long can’t really picture it. He’s earned the respect of heroes like Nightwing and Superman, but both of them are often taken aback by the sheer amount of violence that Midnighter deploys. The best way I can describe his proclivity for killing is to compare it to the way someone like the Punisher or Deadpool kills. He’s a mass murderer, but at least they’re all bad guys,

3) Hawkman

Hawkman is one of DC’s most confusing heroes. He’s been around since the Golden Age and has been a killer since day one. Archeologist Carter Hall is the reincarnation of the pharaoh Khufu, using the mysterious Nth metal to fly, armed with the greatest weapons of antiquity and bringing an old world sensibility to fighting evil. The Silver Age would introduce Katar Hol, the alien version of the character, and later, it would be revealed that he had been reincarnating though time and space. He started his journey as K’tar, the leader of the army of the Deathbringers. He spent years slaughtering worlds, killing millions, but he fell in love with the angelic being Sh’ra. The two of them began reincarnating through time and space, trying to save lives to make up for all of the death K’tar wrought. He was killing planets millennia ago and has spent the intervening years killing all kinds of evildoers all over the history of the universe. His death toll is insane and there are few heroes out there in any genre who can match it.

2) Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman has something of a reputation nowadays for being a killer. Now, there’s nothing really wrong with that. She was trained by the Amazons of Themyscira as a warrior and they certainly would have taught her to kill. However, they also taught her temperance. Diana would kill, but only when it was needed. For a while, it was just various monsters, even the sentient ones, but then she snapped Maxwell Lord’s neck and suddenly, she was the hero who would kill. This got blown out of proportion for a few years, when she started carrying a sword all the time. She started to kill more and it honestly didn’t really fit her very well. She was a warrior, sure, but she shouldn’t be out there slaughtering everyone. Recent years have seen her become less of a killer; she’ll still do it, but not nearly as much as some have been led to believe. In fact, as far as it goes, she kills a lot less than a lot of more casual fans imagine, to a shocking degree. They’re shocked by how little actual blood is on her hands.

1) Hal Jordan

The Green Lanterns have changed DC history in numerous ways, with Hal Jordan leading the charge. Jordan was one of the Silver Age heroes created to take the place of the Golden Age characters, stepping into the mantle of Green Lantern, which was heavily revised. He became a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force that didn’t kill. Hal embraced this, using his power ring in non-lethal ways, and defeating the worst enemies. However, the loss of Coast City drove him mad and he went on a rampage. He ended up killing the entire Corps, stealing their power, then going after the Guardians of the Universe, killing Sinestro, and becoming Parallax. He killed thousands of his fellow Lanterns, becoming a pariah. He tried to recreate the multiverse using alternate timelines, and would sacrifice his life to rekindle the sun. Hal would become the Spectre, where he did a fair amount of killing, and then returned to life. During “The Sinestro Corps War”, the rings were given the power to kill, something that Hal has used when he needs to. He still kills to this day, but he’s rather reasonable about it.

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