R4 fought animals to extinction

He circled around Hale's shoulder. Animal Man was radiating--something, a dark aura that made Hale hesitate to step in for the first punch. It didn't seem like he wanted to fight, and yet he seemed so angry...

"Do you know that you hunted at least eight different species to extinction?"

Hale smirked. "At least."

"Not for its body," he continued, "Not even for profit. Do you realize how--insane--it sounds, that you fought and killed so many things that were alive, and felt pain like you and me, and did it in the most inhumane and grotesque way I could imagine, because you wanted to fistfight them? I've wanted to ask you, ever since I learned what you'd done. Do you feel any shame at all?"

Huh.

This topic. He remembered this. This was something that got Hale negative attention before. Most human opponents posed no challenge to Hale, so he took his fights to the animal kingdom, battling the rarest and most exotic creatures and wrestling them with his bare hands. Those fights were usually to the death. Sometimes the animal was the last of its kind. There were these talks, and arguments, and protests, and lots of people shouting at him. They dared to talk that way to Saxton Hale! Nobody tough at all, a bunch of flowy-haired hippies telling him how to live his life, saying he couldn't do this and that!

That was just what the bastards back at Mann Co had done! Just what Mishima and those government stuffed shirts had done! They were always prodding and poking him, criticizing them, trying to fit him into one of their boxes, trying to make him what they wanted him to be! It was like people didn't even want him to exist anymore! All these people that didn't understand him, could never understand him! Because Saxton Hale was an individual, God broke the mold on him, never to be used again, born the strongest, elevated above everyone else, looking for a true equal!

They didn't know what it was like to be alone.

"I make it a policy not to regret anything," Hale said, at last. "I'm a killer. I'm a ruthless, gun-dealing son of a bitch, and I don't shed any tears. It thrills me, even. Knowing that I snap my fingers, and a million weapons ship out and change the world. It's even better when you're right in the thick of the action yourself. Breaking an elephant's neck over my knee as I twist its body into an impossible grapple. Tearing an arm off an endangered gorilla on the highest Himalayan peak. I admit it, I did it all, I killed so many of those critters it'd make your head spin right off your block. And I didn't do it for sport, or for pride. I did it because I am Saxton Hale. I am not nice, I am not easy, and I am absolutely not weak. If I didn't prove it every day, I wouldn't exist anymore. So let me ask you a question, you self-righteous thrift store superhero wanker. Do you have a problem with the way I live? If you do... you'd better be ready to settle it with your fists."

Hale put his dukes up. Two guns more powerful than anything he'd ever sold, already twinkling with sweat and stained in blood. Animal Man gave it a quick glance, then back up to meet Hale's eyes.

"It sounds to me," Animal Man said, "Like it'd be safer for everyone if you were locked up for good."

"They don't make chains strong enough for me."

The two of them stepped forward at the same time, and vanished. And then, with a crack of thunder, they collided.