SPOILERS for the Eclipse series V&V comic book of the mid 80s.  But if you STILL haven't read it then you really don't deserve a spoiler warning anyway!  Lol!  No, seriously.  If you haven't read it yet, send me a pm.

For one thing: I *really like* the comics.  Not for their artistic mastery (although I enjoy it, too.)  Not for the interesting new characters (although I enjoy them a LOT, too.)  But for the simple fact that the comics develop the story from the adventure!  And what a story!  To go from simply "defeating your enemies" to "leveraging the Crusaders' assets to pull off possibly one of the biggest heists etc, etc."  Here's something to think about: what if the Crushers had won?  You saw how far the American government was willing to go in the comics to deter a paranormal threat.  Imagine the American government losing trust in vigilantes as a result of this: "Manta Man, it was YOUR computer and YOUR shuttle that was compromised and used to commit this 'crime of the century' as the papers are calling it.  We're bringing charges against everyone in the Crusaders, including Shatterman and Condor.  And Congress is already considering the Anti Paranormal Act again."

Whoops!  Back to the subject!  Lol!  In the second issue, all of the Crusaders are placed in some kind of "sleep tubes" that (according to the adventure the comic is based on) requires the prisoner to have one wake up roll per hour maximum.  This prevents the players from recruiting too many Crusaders to help them.

So anyway, Manstar (the newest Crusher) asks "why don't we kill them now" and the final answer (from Mocker) turned out to be "Rest assured they will be dealt with permanently."  That's probably not the precise quotations since they're entirely from memory.

Ok, but that doesn't answer the question.  So why didn't they?  A simple answer would be "in case they were needed before the Crushers escaped in the space shuttle."  If they needed a password or something, they could just turn off Manta Man's tube (and make sure he didn't have his gadgets) and wait for him to wake up.  Since no one was aware of the situation within the Citadel, they had time to wait.

Far better to put them in some sort of death trap, where the villain can then endlessly monologue, allowing just enough time for the hero(es) to escape!