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Heres the thing; the word SHOULD means to hold an obigation. So when someone says Superman, “should" not kill they are saying the character is OBLIGATED not to kill, which may or may not be true depending on the specific storytelling. But regardless of that, an obligation
is a choice in how to act; it's not an actual preventative. Superman may have an obligation to his moral code or whatever not to kill but that doesn't actually PREVENT him from doing it. IT just means that, all things being equal, he would choose NOT to do it based on his code.
But Superman also has an OBLIGATION to protect the people of Earth that he has set before himself. When these two moral obligations are in conflict he has to make a choice about which obligation will achieve the most good.
It's a philosophical conundrum; the morality of immoral acts. I like to believe that Clark would hold a very Vulcan like mentality; he needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
In this case, the needs of the many humans on Earth to continue to live outweigh the needs of the one Kryptonian to maintain his obligation not to kill. This is not a Trolley Problem, which suggests each set of victims is equally innocent and your choosing whihc innocent to kill.
You have a moral justification in the fact that Zod is committing and planning to commit heinously immoral acts. Not in theory or in potential; he has ACTIVELY already tried to kill everyone on the planet and has stated he plans to follow through and will NEVER stop acting.
In this case the Trolly Problem is you have on track with five innocent people and another track with one person who intends to set the other five on fire and then kill LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET.
All things being equal of course Superman would choose not to kill. He hasn't killed anyone else, like the guy in the bar, even though the only thing preventing him from doing so is his obligation to his sense of morality.
With Zod, all things are certainly NOT equal.
With Zod, all things are certainly NOT equal.
