Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The by Mark White Page A

rest content with having used the Kree-Skrull War as an opportunity to examine some of the issues that occupy the work of military ethicists, issues quite relevant to all of us, and about which careful reflection is still much needed. 10
     
    NOTES
     
1. The story that will be discussed in this chapter is collected in the volume Avengers: Kree-Skrull War (2008), which reprints Avengers , vol. 1, #89–97 (June 1971–March 1972), also reprinted (in black and white) in Essential Avengers Vol. 4 (2005).
2. For more on organic machines and their status compared to humans, see the chapter by Charles Klayman titled “Love Avengers Style: Can an Android Love a Human?” in this volume.
3. See his Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations , 4th ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2006). For more on Walzer and just war theory, see the chapter by Louis P. Melançon titled “Secrets and Lies: Compromising the Avengers’ Values for the Good of the World” in this volume.
4. Walzer’s book covers matters in much greater detail than we will be able to here. For a brief yet thorough introduction to the morality of war, see Brian Orend, “War,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war .
5. Also, many just war theorists believe that a war can’t be just unless its declaration has political authority. The closest thing to an international body that could give the Avengers’ actions political legitimacy in this sense would be the United Nations, and they’re not in the picture at the time of the Kree-Skrull War. For more on the Avengers and governments, see the chapter by Arno Bogaerts titled “The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Problem with Proactive Superheroics” in this volume.
6. Yes, cows, albeit not by choice, but as a result of their battle with the Fantastic Four.
7. For more on the ethics of secrecy and deception, see the chapter by Melançon (cited in note 3) in this volume.
8. See Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , Section II.
9. For more on consequentialism and deontology, see the chapter by Mark D. White titled “Superhuman Ethics Class with the Avengers Prime” in this volume.
10. Many thanks to the devoted, anonymous fans out there who, in articles on Wikipedia and forums, helped me fill in the blanks on some of the more recondite angles to the characters who appear in “The Kree-Skrull War.”

PART FIVE
     
    WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO THE AVENGERS LIVE IN?
     

Chapter 13
     
    CAN KANG KILL HIS PAST SELF? THE PARADOX OF TIME TRAVEL
     
    Andrew Zimmerman Jones
     
Jessica Jones: Is this a time travel thing? ’Cause I hate time travel things.
     
Iron Man: If it’s Kang, it’s a time travel thing.
     
Jessica Jones: See. That’s why I hate Kang. 1
     
    Ever since H. G. Wells, time travel has been a staple of science fiction and its close cousin, superhero comics. In the Avengers canon, perhaps the best-known time traveler is Kang the Conqueror, a warlord from the thirtieth century whose attempts to gain a foothold in the earlier centuries have frequently put him in conflict with the Avengers. At various times, he has shown up not only in the identity of Kang, but also as Immortus (the “Master of Time”), the Pharaoh Rama-Tut, the Scarlet Centurion, and Iron Lad (the founder of the Young Avengers). Kang’s time-hopping manipulations of the Avengers actually predate his own first appearance. In the second issue of Avengers , the Space Phantom attempts to turn the Avengers against each other, resulting in the Hulk’s departure from the team. The Space Phantom is, of course, later revealed to be a minion of Immortus, the more scholarly (and manipulative) incarnation of Kang. 2
     
    For nearly a century, scientists and philosophers alike have seriously debated whether the laws of physics, metaphysics, and logic permit time travel. The problem is that once you allow time travel, logical inconsistencies come up, which eventually transform into