Violence In Rainbow Arc of Fire

Where do I stand on violence in my own stories and series?

If a story required violence of some sort, I did not shirk from going there and writing that. Not to give away too much, but in the second book, AUTUMN SAGA, there was plenty of violence. A beheading, a strangulation, several vicious attacks are defined in detail. But the reader has to decide what ultimately happened. One reader/reviewer on amazon got it all wrong, unfortunately.

In the Legion story when Lightning Lad was killed by the freeze ray, he did blow up Zaryan's Earth-invasion ship in space. Since he was dying and Saturn Girl then attempted to get him back down to Earth before he died, I don't really see how Zaryan and his minions in the destroyed ship managed to escape being killed when their ship blew up in space. The vacuum and the cold would have killed any human being in about a minute or less. (I guess the fluids in your body turn to gas. You also suffocate and freeze.)

However, even with the Legion code of not killing, this incident was glossed over by the writer, editor, and artist. All we know is that the invasion of Earth was stopped by LL's actions. No word was mentioned about what happened to the vast invasion force (in the single invasion ship?--even that part was not handled very well).

In a later Legion tale, when every single Legionnaire but one is killed by the Doll Man, no Legionnaire kills him even though they all die. I am afraid that my own characters would not allow themselves to be killed off without punishing their attackers. And, of course, the Rainbow Arc of Fire heroes do face a deadly invasion fleet in space, and they do know that if any of these invaders lands on Earth, humans will be killed. So, what do you think would be their response?

Realistically, I don't believe you can have stories, and invasions, on this scale and *not* have anyone in the invasion fleet not be killed. It would be far, far too difficult in the dangerous and even deadly realm of space to destroy invading ships and not kill the invaders within those ships.

The Rainbow Arc of Fire heroes certainly would not take a life needlessly or unnecessarily, but I never felt I would ever saddle them with a no-kill code. This isn't like a Death Penalty provision in the legal code. When an individual hero, or a team of heroes, is fighting powerful enemies to the death, I don't think it would be realistic to expect them not to kill those who are trying to kill them. And how many more Earthlings would die when you restrictively attempt to stop invaders from landing and killing the human inhabitants of the planet?

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