Huh? We skip from Mercy gunning down people stupid enough to pull a gun on her when she already has two leveled at them, to her with her hands in the air? And the “lawman” goes from a flying tackle on two other guys with no guns in hand, to suddenly being on his feet with two guns of his own leveled at her? She’d have gunned him down herself before he had the opportunity to do that, especially since she had the initiative and caught everyone else by surprise.
Sorry the scene pushes your “credibility” button. For what it’s worth, here are a couple of points I’d like to make in response. One, Mercy isn’t a non-discriminating trigger-finger, despite her facility with a gun. You’ll see that she actually doesn’t “gun down” anyone in this scene: she shoots the gun out of one brawler’s hand, which is enough to convince the other to drop his weapon. And two: Mercy knows she is then facing a sheriff: a lawman. That’s a different situation entirely from being barrel to barrel with some street gunners. Mercy might be passionate and impulsive to a good degree degree, but she’s never out of control. Particularly with a gun in her hand. And shooting at a duly appointed law officer would be a tremendous error, regardless of how she might regard them. That’s how I was seeing the scene, at any rate.
I won’t disagree with your assessment of Mercy’s discrimination or morals. But in panel 3 she is definitely shooting at one “criminal” while covering the other who has his hands raised; the flying gun in panel 3 is from the “lawman” tackle. And while it’s obvious to everyone she’s a Trekker because of her uniform, the “lawman” isn’t wearing any such thing; in fact, it looks like he was trying to go plainclothes to blend in, if indeed he has any affiliation with the law at all. In this case the first thing the “Sheriff” should have done was to put his hands in the air and wait to be recognized so he can show proper identification. A plainclothes on the street trying that stunt with a uniformed officer would get himself gunned down; why should Mercy evaluate the situation any differently?
One other thing to add. Even if the “lawman” is in fact wearing a recognizable uniform, it is still in extremely poor taste to demonstrate hostility towards and pull a weapon on a fellow lawman – it’s the sort of thing that invites friendly fire incidents. And while Trekkers might not be respected, they *are* recognized as being lawfully enabled to do exactly what Mercy is doing here.
I am a huge critic of gun scenes in movies/books/etc. There is generally no regard for bullet counts, actual time it takes to do things, instinctive reactions to situations, discriminating targets based on script versus what a person would see in real life, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
However, with that said, I want to defend Trekker in this respect. First of all, Mercy has a long track record of (in my opinion ill-advised) conversations with her targets, because she is decidedly not a kill-first talk-later person. She gives as many opportunities as she can to avoid killing. That’s in her nature from what I have seen.
Secondly, I think panel 3 is a clear indicator that Mercy knew not to shoot the sheriff right off the bat, since he is clearly at odds with the people she just disarmed. She’s able to assess the situation in the bar from the doorway. Not to mention, she probably took a look in before opening fire to figure out who she wanted to defend. Although she obviously didn’t know the sheriff was the sheriff at that point, she knows he’s the one that she is going in to help. When he pulls his guns on her, she’s not just going to change her position and shoot him down, since he was clearly the one that needed her help. She was going in there for the thugs.
Yeah, for the most part you DON’T shoot cops, no matter how much of an asshat they are.
Huh? We skip from Mercy gunning down people stupid enough to pull a gun on her when she already has two leveled at them, to her with her hands in the air? And the “lawman” goes from a flying tackle on two other guys with no guns in hand, to suddenly being on his feet with two guns of his own leveled at her? She’d have gunned him down herself before he had the opportunity to do that, especially since she had the initiative and caught everyone else by surprise.
Sorry the scene pushes your “credibility” button. For what it’s worth, here are a couple of points I’d like to make in response. One, Mercy isn’t a non-discriminating trigger-finger, despite her facility with a gun. You’ll see that she actually doesn’t “gun down” anyone in this scene: she shoots the gun out of one brawler’s hand, which is enough to convince the other to drop his weapon. And two: Mercy knows she is then facing a sheriff: a lawman. That’s a different situation entirely from being barrel to barrel with some street gunners. Mercy might be passionate and impulsive to a good degree degree, but she’s never out of control. Particularly with a gun in her hand. And shooting at a duly appointed law officer would be a tremendous error, regardless of how she might regard them. That’s how I was seeing the scene, at any rate.
I won’t disagree with your assessment of Mercy’s discrimination or morals. But in panel 3 she is definitely shooting at one “criminal” while covering the other who has his hands raised; the flying gun in panel 3 is from the “lawman” tackle. And while it’s obvious to everyone she’s a Trekker because of her uniform, the “lawman” isn’t wearing any such thing; in fact, it looks like he was trying to go plainclothes to blend in, if indeed he has any affiliation with the law at all. In this case the first thing the “Sheriff” should have done was to put his hands in the air and wait to be recognized so he can show proper identification. A plainclothes on the street trying that stunt with a uniformed officer would get himself gunned down; why should Mercy evaluate the situation any differently?
One other thing to add. Even if the “lawman” is in fact wearing a recognizable uniform, it is still in extremely poor taste to demonstrate hostility towards and pull a weapon on a fellow lawman – it’s the sort of thing that invites friendly fire incidents. And while Trekkers might not be respected, they *are* recognized as being lawfully enabled to do exactly what Mercy is doing here.
I am a huge critic of gun scenes in movies/books/etc. There is generally no regard for bullet counts, actual time it takes to do things, instinctive reactions to situations, discriminating targets based on script versus what a person would see in real life, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
However, with that said, I want to defend Trekker in this respect. First of all, Mercy has a long track record of (in my opinion ill-advised) conversations with her targets, because she is decidedly not a kill-first talk-later person. She gives as many opportunities as she can to avoid killing. That’s in her nature from what I have seen.
Secondly, I think panel 3 is a clear indicator that Mercy knew not to shoot the sheriff right off the bat, since he is clearly at odds with the people she just disarmed. She’s able to assess the situation in the bar from the doorway. Not to mention, she probably took a look in before opening fire to figure out who she wanted to defend. Although she obviously didn’t know the sheriff was the sheriff at that point, she knows he’s the one that she is going in to help. When he pulls his guns on her, she’s not just going to change her position and shoot him down, since he was clearly the one that needed her help. She was going in there for the thugs.