Now would be a good time to grab that box of Kleenex
People.
People, people, people.
There is a fantastic article up over at Robot 6 called Three Comics That Made Us Cry. Get your tissues out, friends, because some of the examples are completely going to make you lose your shit.
The beautiful thing is that there are almost two hundred comments of people chiming in with other examples of writing in the medium that brings the reader to tears, be it heroism or pathos or tragedy, and goddamn but is Silver Surfer: Requiem on almost everyone's list (mine, too).
So many of my personal picks were already listed by the time I got over there, but I'll go ahead and iterate a few anyway.
1. J. Michael Straczynski's Silver Surfer: Requiem miniseries. The last issue, Agnus Dei, had me crying with those huge, uncontrollable gulps - the kind of crying where your body completely takes over, you can't get enough air, you're shuddering, and left completely gutted.
...Nothing really to say that could possibly convey what I felt reading that (and every single page before and after).
If you know Norrin's very early history, there's an extra layer of richness in this page because you know why this final moment is so. Beautiful. As to the end so was the joy of the beginning. "I'm flying, Shalla-Bal, I'm flying."
2. Skurge's last stand in Thor #362. Walter and Louise Simonson at their best:
..."And though the Executioner stands alone, and the warriors of Hel seem numberless, not one sets foot on the bridge that crosses the River Gjoll."
Yes. There were comics in the eighties that were this good. As someone over on Scans Daily 2.0 called it, THAT is a Frank Castle moment. Skurge: the Patron Saint of Frank Castle.
3. Garth Ennis' Mother Russia arc in MAX Punisher. The story so skillfully wove together a delicate, fragile emotionalism -- Frank and little Galina were like spun glass, so vulnerable, both of them, so going to break, and all of it set against the horrific consequences of raw and unfeeling brutality. The ending. It rips my heart out every single time. I warn you, if you want to read this, you better sit down with at least two boxes of tissue and a glass of chamomile tea, because you're about to be thrown into an emotional thresher. Frank finds a horribly abused child, slaughters her tormentors, and then holds TWO COUNTRIES hostage to keep her safe? Yeah. Screw that "It takes a village" crap - all it really takes is Frank Castle.
"Don't be afraid."
You KNOW that Frank's talking to two people here: Galina, and to Lisa, his own dead daughter. You know that he'd give anything to have said those words to Lisa while she lay dying.
And this, this moment of pure and embodied Frank Castle awesome:
(Pro tip, flist: if you find yourself on the opposite side of Nick Fury and the Punisher in an argument, you are doing it wrong.)
Even without Galina, this arc would go on my list because 1) of the epic bad-assery that ultimately happens and 2) because of the final moment where Nick Fury tells Frank Castle that the reason he picked Frank out of all the people in the world to go on this mission? He picked Frank Castle because Frank is the last person in the world that would ever harm a child and Fury is, of course, right. Say what you will about Ennis' other work outside MAX Punisher, but you can't argue this: he got Frank Castle on a level that most writers never do. Why anyone at Marvel thought that Frank Castle should appear in any Marvel comic after Ennis' run ended is a mystery eternal.
(There's also an exceptionally skillful display on Ennis' part in this story in how he writes Frank as dealing with a traumatized child; either Ennis did some serious damn research into how you triage an abused child or he's got far more instinctive emotional intelligence than anyone gives him credit for, and he imparts that to Frank Castle with abandon. But that deserves its own separate post, because it's subtle, and I suspect that only people who suffered abuse as children and those who work with them in a therapeutic capacity will pick it out right away. Let's just say that I got it. I got it the moment it appeared on panel.)
And, of course, the final page of The Slavers arc in MAX Punisher.
4. Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel. I had no idea that comics could be like that. None. It blew my mind when I first read it. When your lifelong mortal enemies show up to pay homage to you as cancer is about to take you into the abyss? When Thanos the Mad Titan himself offers you one final glorious battle so you can go out fighting? You have lived a life worth living, my friend.
Mar-Vell's final words to Elysius. They still get to me, and it's been almost twenty years.
5. The end to Peter David's Captain Marvel series when Genis makes the ultimate sacrifice. That was hands down the most heroic thing that I have ever, ever seen a character in a comic book do, and nothing will ever come close to it. Genis' hand closing over his baby son's mouth - my god. In total, though, to be fair, Peter David's run on Captain Marvel had numerous moments of true pathos, particularly during Genis' crazy phase where he was so damaged, so out of control, and desperately alone.
6. Uncanny X-Men #137 and #138. Jean's death. Her last words to Scott.
7. Greg Rucka's entire run on the Elektra book, where Elektra is pushed and pushed and pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, hating what she sees in the mirror, utterly without her center. It was, overall, a devastatingly sad read. The issue where she meets Matt Murdock at her own grave? Left me staring at the wall in silence for a couple of hours afterwards.
8. Rex Tyler's fate in JSA. His last words before disappearing...I turn to those pages every few months and read that sequence to remind me of what heroism is.
9. The Pride of Baghdad. Period.
10. Paul Cornell has gotten me twice in the last three years: the first is the final two panels of the MAX Wisdom miniseries when you realize that Pete is calling Kitty on the phone. So spot on, so sad, so inevitable. The second was in the recent Captain Britain annual when Meggan spends an eternity traveling through hell, and when she leaves her mark on the inferno, that mark is hope.
11. Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman. So many wonderful moments.
12. Green Lantern: Rebirth. Hal getting up from his dais: "Get the hell away from them." I SCREAMED IN GLEE.
13. Hawkman vol. 4, #49. Carter telling Kendra that he'll always love her as they hold hands and fly hell for leather straight into the end of the universe.
14. Avengers vol. 3, #76. The death of Jack of Hearts. That issue, even with its plot weaknesses, has four final pages that surpass brilliancy. "It's been a fun game, but I'm tired, too." Poor Jack. Poor, poor Jack.
15. The Authority #12: The Death of Jenny Sparks. Jesus, was that a perfect death. No speeches. No grandstanding. No exposition. She did what needed to be done, she knew it would kill her and she did it anyway, and she died killing God.
Your choices, flist?
In other news?
Seth Rogen to play Captain America.
This HAS TO BE A HOAX. My mind will NOT allow any other possibility.
People, people, people.
There is a fantastic article up over at Robot 6 called Three Comics That Made Us Cry. Get your tissues out, friends, because some of the examples are completely going to make you lose your shit.
The beautiful thing is that there are almost two hundred comments of people chiming in with other examples of writing in the medium that brings the reader to tears, be it heroism or pathos or tragedy, and goddamn but is Silver Surfer: Requiem on almost everyone's list (mine, too).
So many of my personal picks were already listed by the time I got over there, but I'll go ahead and iterate a few anyway.
1. J. Michael Straczynski's Silver Surfer: Requiem miniseries. The last issue, Agnus Dei, had me crying with those huge, uncontrollable gulps - the kind of crying where your body completely takes over, you can't get enough air, you're shuddering, and left completely gutted.
...Nothing really to say that could possibly convey what I felt reading that (and every single page before and after).
If you know Norrin's very early history, there's an extra layer of richness in this page because you know why this final moment is so. Beautiful. As to the end so was the joy of the beginning. "I'm flying, Shalla-Bal, I'm flying."
2. Skurge's last stand in Thor #362. Walter and Louise Simonson at their best:
..."And though the Executioner stands alone, and the warriors of Hel seem numberless, not one sets foot on the bridge that crosses the River Gjoll."
Yes. There were comics in the eighties that were this good. As someone over on Scans Daily 2.0 called it, THAT is a Frank Castle moment. Skurge: the Patron Saint of Frank Castle.
3. Garth Ennis' Mother Russia arc in MAX Punisher. The story so skillfully wove together a delicate, fragile emotionalism -- Frank and little Galina were like spun glass, so vulnerable, both of them, so going to break, and all of it set against the horrific consequences of raw and unfeeling brutality. The ending. It rips my heart out every single time. I warn you, if you want to read this, you better sit down with at least two boxes of tissue and a glass of chamomile tea, because you're about to be thrown into an emotional thresher. Frank finds a horribly abused child, slaughters her tormentors, and then holds TWO COUNTRIES hostage to keep her safe? Yeah. Screw that "It takes a village" crap - all it really takes is Frank Castle.
"Don't be afraid."
You KNOW that Frank's talking to two people here: Galina, and to Lisa, his own dead daughter. You know that he'd give anything to have said those words to Lisa while she lay dying.
And this, this moment of pure and embodied Frank Castle awesome:
(Pro tip, flist: if you find yourself on the opposite side of Nick Fury and the Punisher in an argument, you are doing it wrong.)
Even without Galina, this arc would go on my list because 1) of the epic bad-assery that ultimately happens and 2) because of the final moment where Nick Fury tells Frank Castle that the reason he picked Frank out of all the people in the world to go on this mission? He picked Frank Castle because Frank is the last person in the world that would ever harm a child and Fury is, of course, right. Say what you will about Ennis' other work outside MAX Punisher, but you can't argue this: he got Frank Castle on a level that most writers never do. Why anyone at Marvel thought that Frank Castle should appear in any Marvel comic after Ennis' run ended is a mystery eternal.
(There's also an exceptionally skillful display on Ennis' part in this story in how he writes Frank as dealing with a traumatized child; either Ennis did some serious damn research into how you triage an abused child or he's got far more instinctive emotional intelligence than anyone gives him credit for, and he imparts that to Frank Castle with abandon. But that deserves its own separate post, because it's subtle, and I suspect that only people who suffered abuse as children and those who work with them in a therapeutic capacity will pick it out right away. Let's just say that I got it. I got it the moment it appeared on panel.)
And, of course, the final page of The Slavers arc in MAX Punisher.
4. Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel. I had no idea that comics could be like that. None. It blew my mind when I first read it. When your lifelong mortal enemies show up to pay homage to you as cancer is about to take you into the abyss? When Thanos the Mad Titan himself offers you one final glorious battle so you can go out fighting? You have lived a life worth living, my friend.
Mar-Vell's final words to Elysius. They still get to me, and it's been almost twenty years.
5. The end to Peter David's Captain Marvel series when Genis makes the ultimate sacrifice. That was hands down the most heroic thing that I have ever, ever seen a character in a comic book do, and nothing will ever come close to it. Genis' hand closing over his baby son's mouth - my god. In total, though, to be fair, Peter David's run on Captain Marvel had numerous moments of true pathos, particularly during Genis' crazy phase where he was so damaged, so out of control, and desperately alone.
6. Uncanny X-Men #137 and #138. Jean's death. Her last words to Scott.
7. Greg Rucka's entire run on the Elektra book, where Elektra is pushed and pushed and pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, hating what she sees in the mirror, utterly without her center. It was, overall, a devastatingly sad read. The issue where she meets Matt Murdock at her own grave? Left me staring at the wall in silence for a couple of hours afterwards.
8. Rex Tyler's fate in JSA. His last words before disappearing...I turn to those pages every few months and read that sequence to remind me of what heroism is.
9. The Pride of Baghdad. Period.
10. Paul Cornell has gotten me twice in the last three years: the first is the final two panels of the MAX Wisdom miniseries when you realize that Pete is calling Kitty on the phone. So spot on, so sad, so inevitable. The second was in the recent Captain Britain annual when Meggan spends an eternity traveling through hell, and when she leaves her mark on the inferno, that mark is hope.
11. Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman. So many wonderful moments.
12. Green Lantern: Rebirth. Hal getting up from his dais: "Get the hell away from them." I SCREAMED IN GLEE.
13. Hawkman vol. 4, #49. Carter telling Kendra that he'll always love her as they hold hands and fly hell for leather straight into the end of the universe.
14. Avengers vol. 3, #76. The death of Jack of Hearts. That issue, even with its plot weaknesses, has four final pages that surpass brilliancy. "It's been a fun game, but I'm tired, too." Poor Jack. Poor, poor Jack.
15. The Authority #12: The Death of Jenny Sparks. Jesus, was that a perfect death. No speeches. No grandstanding. No exposition. She did what needed to be done, she knew it would kill her and she did it anyway, and she died killing God.
Your choices, flist?
In other news?
Seth Rogen to play Captain America.
This HAS TO BE A HOAX. My mind will NOT allow any other possibility.