Don Karnage: feared, ruthless, bloodthirsty buccaneer or big softy? Actually, he's neither, but as the title of this editorial suggests, I'm going to use a traditional analogy to make a simple hypothesis about our beloved Captain… his bark is worse than his bite.

By his bark, of course, I'm referring to his threats. He makes plenty of them, none of which sound too pleasant. They include:

-  Being boiled in vinegar (and maybe some salt, too).
-  Being hung by one's pinkies.
-  Being torn into little bite-sized pieces and sewn back together with dull needles.
-  Being brained (given you have a brain).
-  Using one's hide for seat covers.
-  Keeling (as in keelhauling).

… and so on and so forth. To explain a bit about some of the above examples that might not be understood, to brain someone is basically to crack their skull wide open and thus allowing their brain to ooze out (or plunge your hand in there and rip it out, if you're the impatient type). To keel, as in to keelhaul, is an actual method of punishment used by seafarers generations ago… a person was (usually) stripped naked, tied to a rope, thrown overboard, and dragged under the keel of the ship, where his body would scrape against barnacles and whatnot. Yeowch!

Yet, for all his vicious talk, what does Karnage actually do? How big is his bite? We've seen how he treats his prisoners. The worst thing that happens to them is that they have to scrub Dumptruck's boxers while they're in the brig. Cruel and unusual punishment? Definitely. But it's a clever idea, since he's putting his poor plundered peoples to something constructive for his crew.

So what happens to the prisoners after they've overstayed their welcome? Does Karnage feed them to the sharks? Leave them marooned on a desert island without food or water? Make them walk the plank from ten thousand feet? To my best estimation, the answer would be none of the above. I'll touch upon that later. Killing prisoners would serve him no good. Rather, the solution that best fits his character would be to "mercifully spare" their lives—say tossing them out wherever with a parachute or setting them adrift in a boat—so that they might return home to tell everyone how ferocious a pirate he is.

Karnage romanticizes the thought of being a dangerous pirate, feared by all. He wants to be, in essence, Blackbeard-esque. It's clearly illustrated just by his wardrobe, a style straight out of the "golden age of piracy," circa the eighteenth century.

I can tell you, ruthless pirates like Blackbeard didn't receive their infamous reputations by being known as nice, noble thieves. When seamen saw Blackbeard coming their way, if you'll pardon the expression, they messed down their leg. Don Karnage undoubtedly revels in the same fearful reaction from his (soon-to-be) victims. But whereas pirates like Blackbeard freely committed atrocities of the most gruesome nature upon their victims, Karnage does not, despite his big bark.

His big bark, however, is an effective weapon in its own right. Given that there is a viable fear of the air pirates held by the common person, Karnage has seemingly made many people believe that his threats are not as idle as they actually are. In fact, I don't think Karnage himself realizes just how idle his threats are most of the time. He actually doesn't mind musing about doing really painful things to people, especially when he's angry… but when it comes down to it, his maliciousness is nowhere near where he claims it to be.

For instance, it's known he takes savage glee in torturing people… but with vats of boiling vinegar? No, not quite. He uses such unmerciful methods as screeching claws on a chalkboard and feathers on "bear" feet. What a barbarian!

Let's also take keelhauling for an example. Karnage can threaten it, but a keen observer would note that even if he intended to keelhaul someone, he wouldn't be able to. He does not have a proper sized seafaring ship, and who in the world would have a rope long enough to drag someone underneath the Iron Vulture? But of course, Karnage would threaten it, because of its implication with the golden age of piracy. On that same token, notice how all the examples of his threats listed above are exaggerated, to a comical extent, which all but corrupt any literal credibility they have. I would imagine, though, that when Karnage fumes enough to want to hang you by your pinkies, your tail-section is in for some kind of trouble. Just not as severe as it sounds.

Any of this, however, does not exclude Karnage from ever attempting to seriously harm, even kill someone. He has, although rarely, attempted to deliberately kill before. I'm not going to say that's okay, but I am going to state a rather awkward opinion, so bear with me. For a villain, he has incredibly bad karma. The worst villain karma since Dastardly and Muttley. Whenever he tries to be his rottenest, nothing ends up going right for him. Honestly, the guy couldn't even commit a simple homicide like throwing a mutineer off the Iron Vulture without some twist of fate keeping him from being successful. It happened in every episode he tried something really atrocious in, and had the series continued longer, it would have happened in every episode further, therefor it could just as well be considered a constant.

It is my opinion that Karnage has never actually murdered anyone before. I make this conjecture because if he did it once and didn't feel guilty about it, he would have done it more often. Yet there are countless times in the series where he had point blank opportunities to terminate his most annoying foes with one swipe of his cutlass, and he never did. At one point, he even felt bad about using his cutlass to kill someone.

Speaking of which, notice how rather reckless he can be with his cutlass? Sometimes he swings that puppy around like nobody's business. I often wonder how many nearby crewmen he's clipped. I think his prided cutlass is an important status symbol to him, not as much to present himself as being a captain, but being a pirate. Hence, being very articulate with it doesn't matter as much to him as just having it to swipe around. Although, I'm sure he fancies himself to be quite articulate at his swordsmanship, but that's another topic altogether. My point is that his "deadly" tendencies are almost always directly correlated with his reckless side, and thereby they are not as seriously dangerous as he would like to have his victims believe.

Also, by the same reasoning, Karnage does not maliciously plot to kill. He might not care who lives and dies, but that's just it… he rarely ever cares enough to actually rub someone off. And even in the very few times he did in fact order his men to kill, he did not ever predetermine to do so. Those incidents happened more or less on the spur of the moment. Likewise, remember me mentioning that he really doesn't realize how idle his own threats are? That's because he actually doesn't care enough about hurting someone to actually think things through to do it.

Building more upon this concept, could it also be plausible that Karnage is somewhat inwardly intimidated from taking a life on his own? (Unless you were to really get him riled, I suppose.) I'm not going to stand too firmly on that idea, but I think it's worth noting. In almost every incident I can remember where he wanted someone to kick the bucket, he had one or some of his men try to do the dirty work (also notice, Karnage's karma is seemingly contagious).

Now, I know that some viewers are inclined to believe that Karnage is an infamous killer, because of two lines from Plunder & Lightning. One being Karnage saying, "Do not be silly, I never let anybody go!" In other words, once he captures someone, their doom is sealed. He's lying, because we've seen a number of times that he lets his "prey" live once the plunder is over. Sure, he may knock their plane out of the sky, but that's what an air pirate does. Secondly, he said that line in a room full of other pirates, and it's important to him to sound "as bad as bad can get" in front of his men.

The other line is Mad Dog's, "Why'd you let 'em live, boss?" Does that prove that Karnage has killed before? And even killed a lot? Absolutely not! All that line really proves is that the air pirates believe Karnage is as malicious as he wants them to believe.

However, isn't interesting that there are certain people that do not fear Karnage at all? Isn't Baloo rather calm when he encounters Karnage? If you were in the presence of a person who you honestly thought would seriously harm you, wouldn't you be a little nervous? I think it could be said that Baloo doesn't believe any such harm would befall him… as long as he's careful, maybe.

More importantly, Kit doesn't show any fear towards Karnage either… and he doesn't care whether he's careful or not! Karnage's pirates obviously do fear their captain, yet Kit, a pirate for a year's time, does not. Why? Because Kit knows better. This is of great K&K significance because it indicates that Kit is familiar with Karnage in a way in which the rest of the crew is not, connoting that Karnage had exposed a more benevolent personality that Kit had identified as his true character.

By benevolent, I don't mean like Mother Teresa. I'm not claiming that underneath his reddish-orange fur lies the heart of some noble saint, but he in no way should he be misinterpreted as being a sociopath simply because he's the "bad guy", or being void of any moral conscience or heart. True, his bite might not be lethal, but it can still hurt. The fact is, after all, Don Karnage is a pirate, and he does get a kick out of being mean.

But be honest… don't you enjoy watching it? :-)