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Silver Surfer: Requiem is a 4-part Marvel Knights out-of-continuity mini-series by J. Michael Straczinsky and Esad Ribic. In this story, the Silver Surfer learns that he is dying, and the comic focuses on all the people he touched and the lives he saved, and gives a very hopeful, uplifting message for a story about death. It's also one of the comics I've read that captures the sensitive and compassionate quiet majesty of the character better than anything else. I could pretty much put the whole comic here, but instead I'll focus on a particular moment from issue 2. In this scene, he tells Spider-man that he wishes he could help humanity on a grand scale before leaving, to help us see we can be so much better than what we're content to be, to show us we don't need to hate and murder and suffer as we do. But for all his power, he doesn't really see how he can do that. Spider-man runs through several scenarios where he applies his fantastic powers to effect massive change, but figures none of them would really work and would probably just make things worse, as real change can't be forced by an outsider and must come from within. Surfer then offers to show Spider-man what it's like to travel the stars as a goodbye present, but Spider-man declines and brings Mary Jane over so she can experience it instead (it's her birthday). To allow her the ability to truly experience the trip and to protect her, Surfer temporarily imbues her with a portion of the Power Cosmic, complete with cosmic awareness, which allows her to "feel the heartbeat of the world" and know freedom on a spiritual and intellectual level that's nearly inconceivable. Upon seeing how profoundly affected she is by the experience, Peter finally knows what the Surfer can do to help us.      This entire comic is one of the most beautiful things I've read in my life and it brings a tear to my eye every single time. E: Re-uploaded at a more legible size. Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jun 25, 2011 |
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Jun 25, 2011 20:10
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Yeah I'm glad to see Jubilee act like Jubilee. I don't know what the hell they were trying for in the Wolverine + Jubilee mini-series but she was intensely dislikeable and out of character there.
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Jul 9, 2011 05:06
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You might wanna check your image links there.
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Sep 1, 2011 11:31
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It's a great story, but I think it's one of those stories where every single panel is necessary to convey the proper emotional impact.
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Sep 12, 2011 04:47
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Retromancer posted:hasn't all of new york been destroyed around a half dozen times? Right but that's not the same as every single person in the city dying while all the buildings are left mostly intact.
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Sep 19, 2011 09:58
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I keep thinking of that Family Guy episode that ended exactly the same and it ruins the scene for me.
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Dec 17, 2011 10:54
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muscles like this? posted:Johnny also has his own Annihilation Wave. Well, there was no death scene, so that's easy. Everyone just assumed he died, which in comics is always an incorrect assumption unless you see a bloodied corpse (and even then).
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Dec 23, 2011 14:49
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So Rick Remender's Venom is an amazing comic that completely shatters the idea that there's such a thing as a "bad character", rather than a character that's been handled by awful writers. What I'm about to post is kind of spoiler-y, because I really feel the panels need context, so be warned. Much of the series is a parable about alcoholism and addiction, with the symbiote standing in place of booze. Even though Flash Thompson's intent in becoming the new government-approved Venom was pure, the secret missions and the influence of the suit cause him to lie to and push away his loved ones more and more. The suit also affects his judgement and causes him to give in to rage rather often, doing some hosed up violent things, which fills him with guilt. Couple that with the fact that the suit is becoming addictive and that he's currently being blackmailed by a super-villain, and Flash's life is spiraling rapidly out of control and heading somewhere bad. A major subplot has been concerning Flash's father. He's a serious alcoholic who would turn violent and beat Flash as a child when he got drunk, and generally abused and debased him. It's strongly implied that the rage and hate Flash manifests as Venom is simply repressed feelings from this abuse being brought to the surface by the symbiote. When Flash came back from Mosul as a war hero with his legs blown off, his dad showed up at the welcome back party with his one-year sober chip, ready to reconcile with his son. Flash warily welcomed him back in his life, sympathetic since he'd had a dark period of alcoholism himself. In the midst of his life falling apart due to being Venom, Flash gets a call from his mother that his dad's gotten drunk and gone missing again, and his mother is beside herself with worry. Flash angrily dismisses the situation as not his problem, since he swore to himself that he was never going to let his father's drunkenness ruin his life again, and that at the first relapse he'd cut ties with him again. Thanks to some prodding by his good buddy Peter Parker and his girflriend Betty, Flash does go looking for his dad in every dive bar in town, eventually finding him in the drunk tank. His dad is completely pathetic and hostile and even takes a swing at him. Flash dodges and barely restrains himself from breaking his dad's face, but his father still collapses in pain. Turns out his dad's been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, and he wanted to spend his last few days drunk. Flash is disgusted at how selfish and callous that decision is and angrily leaves his apologetic father lying on the hospital bed. He spends the next days burying himself in his Venom work, fuming about all the ways his father's let him down and how much he hates him, how much he doesn't deserve a happy ending, etc. Betty keeps calling him and he keeps brushing her off. It's strongly implied the symbiote is reinforcing those negative emotions the whole time. After an encounter with Anti-Venom, who preaches to Flash about just how insidious the suit is, Flash realizes just what his life's turned into and rejects the suit. Even though he puts it back on seconds later because he needs it to complete a mission to save the city, the symbolic rejection of the suit and all the dark emotions that come with it seem to give Flash a moment of clarity. Here's what he does with it.   This next scene isn't quite as powerful, but when Flash rejects the symbiote, it latches onto the weakened Anti-Venom, aka Eddie Brock, its favorite host. Eddie's life was loving destroyed by the suit, it turned him into a serial killer and defined his life even years after getting rid of it, and the highly religious Eddie considers being Anti-Venom a chance at atonement granted by God. He hates and fears the symbiote more than anything else in the world, and knowing that made this page incredibly harsh for me:  Look at how loving terrified the poor guy is. 
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Dec 24, 2011 18:29
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Maybe? That sure looks like and is priced like a hardcover, but it also looks like it says it only has the first issue in it? I could be reading that wrong.
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Dec 25, 2011 00:02
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FredMSloniker posted:And that would solve the problem of an innocent soul being trapped in, and essentially digested by, the wendigo how? That's what's so horrible about the story: there really is no solution to the problem. Here you go!   Oh... wait... no...  (Spectacular Spider-man 181)
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Feb 6, 2012 04:11
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TwoPair posted:metahumans Are people still using this word? I thought we were past that.
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Feb 23, 2012 09:34
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Jefepato posted:Beg pardon? Is there a better word? Answered in derailed.
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Feb 23, 2012 10:31
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It's really difficult for me to enjoy that admittedly well written touching moment of glimpsing Vader's humanity when it flashes back to the setting of the movie that destroyed everything cool about his character.
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Mar 5, 2012 08:34
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If you like that, you should read the Ares mini-series it's paying homage to. It's pretty much entirely about how fatherhood changes a man, and a really good epic (in the traditional sense) in its own right, and has a similarly touching ending.
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Mar 5, 2012 11:50
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prefect posted:People see Peter David having fun with puns and forget that he wrote incredible stuff like "The Death of Jean DeWolff", which still makes me sad when I think about it. The guy's got talent, and he's gotten a lot of people having lovely attitudes toward him just because he was originally in the sales department. I knew pretty much the entire plot beat for beat (including who died) when I went in to read the Death of Jean Dewolff, and I was still on the edge of my seat and taken in by the mystery and genuinely worried for the characters. It's a really great story, and full of amazing character moments. Having said that, Peter David's written some lovely things since then, including that godawful run on Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-man not so long ago. X-factor is usually a good read, but I don't think it's for everyone, and it has its lousy moments. I'm not saying Peter David went all Frank Miller or anything, but I can't blame anyone who doesn't care about him nowadays.
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Apr 15, 2012 14:15
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Gavok posted:I think what makes it even better is how 99% of the time, Hulk and Thing hate each other. I always viewed that antagonism as pretty one-sided. Sure, Joe Fixit was a dick to Thing, but he's a dick to everyone. The rest of the time Thing just takes out his insecurities on Hulk with little provocation.
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Apr 17, 2012 03:12
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Please stop this argument about how invincible/moral Superman is.Gavok posted:The current goings on in Fantastic Four reminded me of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #48, the final issue of the series. It starts off with Galactus at the end of time with some monitors showing his first battles with the Fantastic Four while it regularly cuts to the team acting like a family together. Future Galactus calls to them and requests their help, which they grant. The universe is about to end and it's his job to move on to the next big bang. Unfortunately, there are some immortal cosmic beings out there to stop him. Galactus needs the Fantastic Four to take them out so he can continue on. D'awww.
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Apr 18, 2012 06:52
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I never caught onto the subtext to that interaction the first time around, but I'm guessing Osborn knows exactly what it feels like to think of yourself as a good person then suddenly remembering you're actually a monster.
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Jul 1, 2012 11:47
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He got likeable pretty much the minute Jeph Loeb left the book.
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Jul 16, 2012 08:11
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Issue 25 of the "Hulk" (no Incredible) book is where Jeff Parker got on, and it stars Red Hulk right off the bat and is generally very strong all the way to the present. The first arc is collected here and basically makes Rulk transition from defeated villain to reluctant, and then not so reluctant, hero.
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Jul 16, 2012 08:18
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Sentinel Red posted:Why on Earth would you ever conceive a child in the Negative Zone, where would you even find the time? Isn't it full of murderous psychotic bug-things constantly trying to kill everything? Negative Zone's a dangerous place with lots of terrible people in it but it's also mostly uninhabited. Captain Marvel and Rick Jones used to just float there for days at a time and just be completely bored out of their skulls.
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Jul 30, 2012 05:25
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This next sequence might seem silly to some, but it really got to me.     Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #4, by Brian Clevinger and Zack Finfrock.
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Aug 5, 2012 02:36
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Waterhaul posted:If only there was a writer around now a days great enough to save us from the million grim and gritty Rob Leifeld books that have taken over comics and bring us back to the glory days of 40 years ago. The comic is set in 94 and it's sad because Robo doesn't age but things he cherishes fade away or change irreversibly.
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Aug 5, 2012 12:31
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Waterhaul posted:Everything said about the 90s "Dark Age" can be applied to the current state of the industry. And it's in such great shape nowadays.
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Aug 5, 2012 13:11
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TwoPair posted:The Thunderbolts are stranded in the far flung future of I wouldn't say they've done no wrong, they're pretty clearly a 2000AD style fascist dictatorship that's only the "good" side by virtue of their (oppressed, marginalized mutant) enemies being slightly more chaotic and brutal. Plus there's the whole genetic purity thing going on. The part that makes this truly wrong is that it's going to help no one, it's just a French Revolution style slaughter of the privileged class by those who have nothing, but in this case it'll end with neither side having anything, and one of the sides being slaughtered horribly.
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Sep 25, 2012 02:39
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WickedIcon posted:The beginning of Punisher MAX #50. It's a real shame about the Chaykin art, because that's some powerfully-written stuff. Brubaker's last issue of Captain America was published this week. Cap gets closure on a recurring subplot of the run, which also acts as closure for the entire themes and stories of the run, as well as sums up who Captain America is as a person and it's just great stuff all around. But the important part is this:      Cap confronts what amounts to his evil twin in the hospital, and he thanks and salutes him. Captain America #19 is on sale now and you should really buy it, it's a wonderful ending to Brubaker's stellar run and features a really cool afterword. Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Oct 27, 2012 |
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Oct 27, 2012 01:25
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Len posted:Where did his run start? I've heard nothing but good things about it but don't know where to start. The series got relaunched as Captain America #1 in 2004. I think it went back to the old numbering at issue 600, then there was a weird situation last year where the numbering of the book was given to Captain America And _____, of which Brubaker only wrote the first arc, as Captain America proper got re-relaunched at #1, before ending at issue 19. So yeah, I can see why you'd be confused. Start with this and work your way through the other trades and you should be all right.
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Oct 27, 2012 02:57
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Adam Strange posted:Brubaker really felt like he lost steam after Reborn and I don't think he really got it back until Winter Soldier (the book) launched last year with real cool + trippy art from Butch Guice and Bettie Breitweiser. I think the run remains solid for most of it, but it does have some lulls in quality. I think the relaunch mostly seemed weaker because it had less talented artists working on it. They were fine, but they just weren't quite on Epting's level. At any rate this final issue is a really good closer and everyone should buy it.
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Oct 27, 2012 04:19
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Throwing your dog into the vacuum of space doesn't seem like the best cure for hypothermia.
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Nov 11, 2012 04:29
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redbackground posted:Bravo, Nintendo Power. A long, long time ago I had two of those same posters up on my wall Howard recently had a failed kickstarter for a cell phone trivia game that included comics that nicely parallel these and explain his reasoning for leaving: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358562997/gamemaster-howards-know-it-all/posts/317527
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Dec 7, 2012 07:31
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I don't get it. 
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Jan 6, 2013 01:17
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muscles like this? posted:Secret Warriors reveals where the first LMDs came from and its kind of disturbing. And kind of stupid and definitely never going to be referenced again unless Hickman forces the issue in another of his books.
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Feb 1, 2013 06:54
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Electric Slug posted:I know this was way back on the first page, but I really wanted to thank you for putting this up. I know this is going to sound sound corny as all hell, but I had read this way back when this thread first started about a year ago, and I was reading the thread again when I saw that again, and I actually teared up a little bit. That's really touching, dude, and you have my condolences. You shouldn't be ashamed that something 'silly' inspired you, art and how we react to it is a very personal thing and some art can really help us deal with emotions like these, which is why this thread is good, even if it feels bad a lot of the time. Also, since you made me look at page 1: Rhyno posted:
I didn't catch it the first time, but Superman can't even bring himself to flat-out lie to Supergirl. "Supergirl is in the past." is technically true. That's such a corny detail, but it's 100% Superman, and it makes the scene that much more genuine.
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Mar 20, 2013 00:34
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Colon V posted:As much as I like these panels, they're kind of undermined by how completely loving retarded the situation setting them up was. Matlock posted:Injustice 1-3 were really, really terrible. Like, worst comics of the last decade terrible. Injustice 4 was lackluster, but then from there on out it's been amazing. I don't get the hate. Sure, killing off a pregnant Lois Lane is unpalatably grim and kinda disappointingly sexist in 2013, but it's not like the comics were horribly written. There's tons of great dialogue and clever moments leading up to it, including a great exchange between Bats and Supes. Retarded is something I'd save for Nick Spencer's writing. Am I missing something? Are you guys just upset that something grimdark happened to Superman?
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Mar 27, 2013 11:41
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7744 posted:It's more than "something grimdark happening to Superman". Reading just the panels posted, it's extremely hamfisted and completely out of character for all parties involved. Superman telling Batman he's in love with the joker and is a bad father, Batman punching him in the face and it having zero effect for a comic that's supposed to be a tie-in to a fighting game, Alfred ice burning him, etc. I feel like I'm reading Irredeemable and not a Batman / Superman joint. Well, you're wrong as hell because this isn't the part anyone is complaining about and it's totally in-character for the story, but whatevs. Batman punching Superman in the face and smashing his own hand is something that straight-up happened in the 80s, so I don't know why that's suddenly "hamfisted" just because it's a fighting game tie-in.
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Mar 27, 2013 14:41
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McSpanky posted:Please do, because it's really a great treatise on the whole "well why don't superheroes just fix the world with brute force?" problem. Though really, all four books are different perspectives on that theme. The big difference is that superheroes are selfless by design, so reasons must be contrived for why they can't fix everything, whereas the depressing reason governments and other bodies of power don't fix things is generally that they benefit from whatever injustice is at hand or, if we're being extremely charitable, they would anger certain volatile elements by intervening. What I'm getting at is Superman's reasons for not fixing everything are complex and based in idealism and philosophy, while the US government does things like prop up the Khmer Rouge to win a dick waving contest with the USSR. Real fascism doesn't arise from a desire to help everyone or fix everything, and we are sadly more Lex than Clark.
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Apr 3, 2013 06:44
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Rhyno posted:Joe Shuster was CANADIAN.  There's nothing more American than co-opting the work of immigrants to serve corporate interests.
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Apr 4, 2013 04:18
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SirDan3k posted:Everything in those pages down to the deliberate choosing of words that can be misconstrued "I had to" not "I was forced" or the equally ambiguous "They made me" makes it feel like a cheap grab at my heartstrings and makes me not care. I'm reminded of a horrible novel I read where a woman is raped and her fiance sees it happen in a way that makes him think she's cheating on him, then kills himself. About the same level of writing, there.
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Apr 8, 2013 04:15
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Just pretend I posted an image of Spider-man saying vampires can't exist.
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Apr 13, 2013 08:57
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His F4 just lands in the gigantic pile of "a book about the FF no one's gonna remember" for me. FF is something special, on the other hand.
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Apr 27, 2013 06:07
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