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jlroberson (jlroberson) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-08 14:51:00

Current location:	Seattle
Current music:	John Cage
Entry tags:	char: adolf hitler, char: midnighter, creator: chris sprouse, creator: garth ennis, in-joke: inna nertz

Midnighter Meets Hitler, Kicking Of Ass Ensues? Well...No, Not Exactly.

Following up on the Kirby Captain America post, in which Hitler gets punched, and the post someone put up of the Reborn cover, an interesting discussion arose about the taste issues of kicking the crap out of Hitler in comics, I've decided to add something eminently tasteful and serious to the discussion. Garth Ennis.
Here's some pages from issues 2 and 3 of Ennis' Midnighter story(mods: 7 pages from #2, and two from #3), in which he's forced to kill Hitler.
Yes, that's right. He's not too happy about it, but only because he's being forced with a bomb in his chest.

(No spoiler to tell you yes, he later does. And worse.)
(You should know, "Rourke" is the dude with the mustache--who you see here in this suit that damps Midnighter's abilities--and when he kicked Midnighter's ass, he threw in a homophobic insult)
See, there's this guy who claims his parents died in the concentration camps. He's very rich now. He has a time machine. He wants Hitler dead, so his parents will live. But Midnighter refuses. Besides that he doesn't like being forced, he will not kill children. Not even baby Hitler. (except in one case, but that would be telling)But that's not what the guy has in mind.

He's dropped in the midst of WW1 to find a certain corporal.

But the thing is about killing Hitler: everyone wants to. And there are cops for that. They freeze time and try to arrest him. But...

NO respect.

.
I heartily recommend this, by the way--read the rest.(c)DC/Wildstorm.

(Post a new comment)

icon_uk
2009-07-08 10:31 pm UTC (link)

I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "The Dead Zone" (I nicked this quote from IMDB)

Johnny Smith: [John has "seen" Stillson become President and trigger WW3, and now is making up his mind how to prevent Stillson's holocaust] If you could go back in time to Germany, before Hitler came to power, knowing what you know now, would you kill him?

Johnny Smith: What about my question?
Dr. Sam Weizak: Huh? Huh? Oh, you mean the one about Hitler?
Johnny Smith: What would you do?
Dr. Sam Weizak: I don't like this, John. What are you getting at?
Johnny Smith: What would you do? Would you kill him?
Dr. Sam Weizak: All right. All right. I'll give you an answer. I'm a man of medicine. I'm expected to save lives and ease suffering. I love people. Therefore, I would have no choice but to kill the son of a bitch.
Johnny Smith: You'd never get away alive.
Dr. Sam Weizak: It doesn't matter. I would kill him.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	mechanicaljewel 2009-07-08 10:42 pm UTC (link)
	I always felt that was the flaw in the Valkyrie plot. Von Stauffenberg expected to live, and so arranged a method of assassination that didn't require him to even be in the room at the time. If you want to kill Hitler, you pull out your gun, shoot him in the head, then get shot down and die hoping you did the right thing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	taggerung301 2009-07-08 10:53 pm UTC (link)
	well, I didn't watch Valkyrie, but I thought that Von Stauffenberg was trying to get power instead of doing the right thing? might be wrong though (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2009-07-08 11:12 pm UTC (link)
	Depends who you ask - most of the books say they tried it to save Germany the bashing it got right afterwards. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	unknownscribler 2009-07-09 04:52 am UTC (link)
	My understanding was that von Stauffenberg needed to live, as he was pretty much the only person with the requisite military authority to ensure certain parts of the coup would actually work. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2009-07-09 03:46 pm UTC (link)

Remember, the killing of Hitler was only the FIRST phase of the plan. Just because you assassinate Hitler, doesn't mean the Reich will topple. Stauffenberg and his allies had planned to assassinate Hitler, and then, with the help of one of the Generals (who only agreed to help once Hitler was disposed of.) stage a coup, wrest control of the German government from the Nazi Party, and then surrender to the Allies.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

halloweenjack
2009-07-09 04:09 pm UTC (link)

I like the book version of that scene better. Johnny is talking to his new grandfather-in-law (his dad remarried), who is a WWI vet, and asks him the same question... and the old man takes out his pocket knife, and Stephen King goes into how the old man had the same knife with him in the trenches, and how most of his comrades were killed by the machine guns and the mustard gas, and how it had all been for nothing, and the old man had lost his son in WWII, because of Hitler... and the old man says that he'd stick the blade in Hitler's black heart, and twist it a few times, but that he'd coat it in rat poison first.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	I'll just leave this here... omgwtflolbbqbye 2009-07-08 11:33 pm UTC (link)
	http://www.teleologic.com/archives/2008/05/very_very_funny.html (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: I'll just leave this here... midnightvoyager 2009-07-09 12:13 am UTC (link)
	picks up, peruses ... DIES Okay, that was worth clicking. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: I'll just leave this here...

oddpuppets
2009-07-09 12:38 am UTC (link)

GodsDAMN that was freakin' hilarious.

Though SilverFox is wrong. If fifty million Chinese people are saved because the Taiping Rebellion does not occur, you substantially change the history of the world. Fifty million is not a drop in the bucket. How about the ramifications of having an extra fifty million people in China, of having a major rebellion that inspired not only further rebellions but also was an inspiration of sorts for Mao?

I mean, let's not talk about the ramifications of people around the world not hearing about the Rebellion, the sort of concerns that affect the consulates and fiefdoms of the colonial powers in China, the effect on the Qing dynasty, etc.

Still, hilarious.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'll just leave this here... jlroberson 2009-07-09 12:49 am UTC (link)
	Fifty million extra people in China. Well, that would geometrically expand with generations, so you're really talking about lots more over the long haul, even assuming only half have kids and only one apiece. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'll just leave this here... oddpuppets 2009-07-09 01:19 am UTC (link)
	That's what I mean. The ramifications of even a hundred people saved quite big - fifty million must be ENORMOUS. (thats what she said) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'll just leave this here... jlroberson 2009-07-09 01:50 am UTC (link)
	Even now, most people are Chinese. Wow. History would be...quite different. (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: I'll just leave this here...

jlbarnett
2009-07-09 09:25 pm UTC (link)

I think Silver Fox is also wrong about the affects of no Third Reich. What, a bunch of engineering geniuses are going to sit around with their thumbs up their asses cause no dictator was around to make them build the stuff. Hell, with the Soviet Union in the 30's and 40's they might still have ended up making weapons for Germany.

I remember one short story where competing groups kept going back to try to take him out and they'd blow themselves back in time somehow then a new group based on the history change would show up or just a group sick of all the history changes until they ended up screwing up the space-time continuum and creating a new sentient speicies.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: I'll just leave this here... cmdr_zoom 2009-07-09 12:43 am UTC (link)
	Beat me to it. I believe the original title of that story is "Wikihistory", by the way. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bean_montag 2009-07-09 04:07 am UTC (link)
	I love this storyline! And Midnighter's chin, for some reason. Now just waiting for Apollo's series where he fights villains with bad hair. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-09 04:16 am UTC (link)
	The ending of this is totally worth the read too. Not at all what you'd expect. I like the way Ennis writes the Midnighter. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bean_montag 2009-07-09 04:32 am UTC (link)
	Me too. He kicks ass and uses big words while doing it. Loved the weird empathy (if that's even the right word) he showed at the end before Hitler's death. (Reply to this) (Parent)

gypsydavy
2009-07-10 09:17 pm UTC (link)

You know, I had heard so many people bad mouth Ennis' run on the Midnighter series, so when I actually read the series I was quite surprised.

I really liked his take on Midnighter too. I wasn't too thrilled with the whole "I am not a lover, I am not a father..." stuff, but all of that certainly paled in comparison to the stupid that would ensue once Giffen started writing the series.

Overall, I really liked it. I felt like he didn't just do the same old thing with Midnighter and he did a pretty good job of examining the character.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-11 02:25 am UTC (link)
	The character is tailor-made for Ennis. After seeing this I cannot imagine a better writer for the character. The one and only thing I did not like was that Sprouse was not the artist all the way through. Though Peter Snejberg was an acceptable substitute. I love the scene between Midnighter and the dumb Nazi children. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	gypsydavy 2009-07-12 05:12 am UTC (link)
	That is my favorite issue of his run. Those kids were hilarious. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	20thcenturyvole 2009-07-09 06:26 am UTC (link)
	Heh. "... Hitler? Hello? Hitler?" just cracked me right the fuck up, for some reason. I'm not usually an Ennis fan, but he does have his moments. So, does anyone know what's going on with The Authority this month? I heard Apollo's coming back. (Reply to this) (Thread)

gypsydavy
2009-07-10 09:11 pm UTC (link)

Okay, so, spoilers for anyone who actually came this far down the comments.

Yep, Apollo is back, but he had Warhol Fever and the rest of the team were able to open a Door and transport him to a very very cold place because intense cold kills the virus. So, he's alive, he's on Earth, but he's in terrible pain and still has a virus that wants to take over the entire multi-verse inside of him.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this. At least he's not dead. But hell, can there be one series of The Authority where Midnighter and Apollo don't have to go through hell as a couple?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	20thcenturyvole 2009-07-10 10:48 pm UTC (link)
	D: D: D: Well, uh... at least he's back? Aw, man. I just hope they take the Warhol virus somewhere interesting for all this. AND THAT THERE IS SUNSHINE AND HAPPINESS AND JENNY QUANTUM AT THE END. I'm manfully resisting the urge to go all Morbo and shout, "Viruses do not work that way! Goodnight!" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

gypsydavy
2009-07-11 12:39 am UTC (link)

I'm trying to be optimistic. I think there's a reason both The Doctor and Jenny have yet to really make an appearance. I think it would really suck to have either of them show up and fix everything with their magic uber powers from a storytelling viewpoint, but at least things would be good again.

Viruses do not work that way is exactly what I thought when the whole, oh, the virus doesn't die in Apollo because he's a metahuman with more endurance, oh, and also, heat makes the virus thrive so going to the sun doesn't help! Really? The sun can't burn that thing up? The frickin' sun!

But, honestly, I'll let it go if they just don't kill him. Apollo is my favorite and he has to live to see a day when come comic writer can actually do something with him besides being Midnighter's reason to be sad/pissed off. Please,please,please!

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-11 01:12 am UTC (link)
	The sun part makes no sense, unless you consider that a virus kind of becomes part of you. (which is why it thrives in him--a successful virus isn't out to kill its host but to turn the host into a factory) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

gypsydavy
2009-07-11 01:24 am UTC (link)

I can see that explanation working in a comic book science way, but that is not how it's explained at all. It's basically explained as, heat makes it stronger, so the sun makes it very strong. The virus was able to live longer in Apollo though, but that had more to do with Apollo being resistant to disease than the virus taking on his strength.

To be fair, it's only being called a virus by the characters who don't know everything about it yet and could in fact end up being an entity that's supposed to be kind of like "God" from a previous Authority story, but it hasn't really been explained in detail yet.

Still, the thing does basically act like a virus, so I don't know. Perhaps all silliness will be handwaved away.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-11 02:08 am UTC (link)
	I like my explanation better. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	gypsydavy 2009-07-11 02:22 am UTC (link)
	I do too. Let's pretend you're the writer! Quick, put Jenny back in the book! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-11 02:23 am UTC (link)
	I'd put Jenny SPARKS back in the book if I could. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	gypsydavy 2009-07-12 05:11 am UTC (link)
	That would be great, but I have no idea how anyone could work around the whole it's not the 20th Century anymore thing. Time travel? Black hole? Wizards? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-07-15 08:06 am UTC (link)
	Well, dang: turns out Hitler really DID have only one ball, and Garth Ennis' theory may not be far off: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3481932/Nazi-leader-Hitler-really-did-have-only-one-ball.html (Reply to this)

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