InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "A deals a deal."

neuhallidae (neuhallidae) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-30 15:37:00

Entry tags:

char: immortus/kang the conqueror, char: thor, char: wasp/janet van dyne, char: wonder man/simon williams, creator: kieron dwyer, creator: kurt busiek, group: avengers, publisher: marvel comics, title: avengers

"There Are No Words"
Or, silent movies in comic form.

Seven scans from Avengers vol. 3, #49.

Kang has once again launched an offensive against Earth, after weakening the Avengers by putting them through battle against old enemies. In an attempt at retaliation, a group lead by Captain America and Iron Man launch a space attack against Kang's fortress and another entity called the Triple Evil, but wind up stranded in space after the fight against the latter. Kang, claiming that by attacking his fortress, the Avengers have removed the fight from "fair battlefields", decides to stop being benevolent and start eliminating civilian targets. One of his forcefield rings has enveloped Washington D.C., keeping all civilians and politicians from escaping as Kang attacks with Sentinels he commandeered from the US military. A small team of Avengers made up of Thor, Wasp, Wonder Man, and Firebird make it into the shield to take out the Sentinels, only to find out that while Kang's image is holographic enough that they can't hurt him, the reverse definitely isn't true. Wasp comes across a downed helicopter full of Secret Service and the President, and Thor uses Mjolnir to open a portal to get them out. He can't open one big enough for the entire populace, though, so their only chance is to stop Kang. Thor orders Wasp and Firebird through the portal, since he and Wonder Man can survive anything Kang might throw at them.

They still weren't expecting this.

Faced with the prospect of Kang doing this to every other major city on Earth, and having run out of defenses, the governments have no choice but to surrender.

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	starwolf_oakley 2009-08-30 09:39 pm UTC (link)
	This story is mentioned often by critics and parodies regarding CIVIL WAR. Kang killed thousands of people, but somehow that wasn't as bad as a small part of Stanford blowing up. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-08-30 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	This is sadly very true. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	daningram 2009-08-30 09:45 pm UTC (link)
	In all fairness though, this was caused by an outright major villain who overcame the Avengers. Stamford was a sting gone wrong, done for ratings (Fucking Millar...) who's main victims were children. Pulls at the heart strings more. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-08-30 09:57 pm UTC (link)
	Up to a point yes, but continental/world devastation on the order that Kang pulled off WOULD innure the population to such things to some degree or another, especially when, and I can't repeat this often enough, the New Warriors did NOT blow up Standford, the supervillain recruited to cause trouble, and with the power to consciously detonate, did. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

daningram
2009-08-30 10:10 pm UTC (link)

I know Nitro did (Lord do I hate Millar's depiction of the Warriors, much less defending it), but the Warriors pretty much screwed up from the word go.

They were doing it for ratings, they allowed themselves to be seen and failed to control the situation. The Warriors...sigh...hold a good deal of responsibility for what happened. It can't all be blamed on Nitro. Law enforcement, naturally, is held to a higher standard of conduct than criminals, and always should be.

That's why there are rules with police chases these days. Because risking dozens of lives trying to catch a guy who might have only stolen a radio simply isn't worth it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	xandertarbert 2009-08-30 11:21 pm UTC (link)
	From what they all knew of Nitro, he normally had the detonation strength of around a hand grenade. So having an entire school bus (and half the engine wrapped around him) should have protected all of the students. They didn't know he was hyped up on the mutant drug. It was like having someone pull out a handgun, and it somehow fired an RPG. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	daningram 2009-08-30 11:45 pm UTC (link)
	So? The point remains, the Warriors jumped the gun and people died as a result. Had law enforcement actually been involved, then that would have been someone's career and head. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

xandertarbert
2009-08-31 12:50 am UTC (link)

That had info on everyone in the house. They were shown knowing the powers, and that they could deal with them. The only one who was any kind of super-dangerous was Nitro, so the strongest member of the team went after him. Sending someone with Namor-like abilities is even overkill for Nitro's threat level. In law enforcement, this would have been public apology and voluntary retirement. The fact all of the team but one died would have resulted in the harshest known crackdown on villains and villain suppliers like Tinkerer.

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daningram, 2009-08-31 02:01 am UTC

colonel_green
2009-08-30 09:57 pm UTC (link)

That's never worked for me as a singular criticism of "Civil War". This story was ignored by every single comic published subsequently (and concurrently, for that matter), because the consequences of Washington being completely obliterated would irrevocably change the world. Washington was swiftly rebuilt and its destruction never mentioned again.

And it's hardly alone in that; the absurd punishment that Planet Earth takes in the course of your average widescreen superhero story would never be forgotten, but it always is.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

blakeyrat
2009-08-30 10:40 pm UTC (link)

Hell, most movies start ignoring it before the credits roll. The most recent example being Watchmen.

To take a non-comics example (but surely in the same spirit), it always bugged me that Independence Day had a "happy" ending despite approx. 4 billion people dying in the course of that movie. The original it plays homage to, the 50s movie version of War of the Worlds, had a much more appropriate tone.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlbarnett 2009-08-30 10:54 pm UTC (link)
	not completely. They did a tribute thing as the final issue of the arc and the place was in pieces. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	colonel_green 2009-08-30 10:55 pm UTC (link)
	That was in the story itself. After that, it was never mentioned again. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	icon_uk 2009-08-30 10:58 pm UTC (link)
	And yet apparently restored to pristine wonderfulness within mere weeks.And I would put good money on any other contemporaneous appearances of Washington in the MU not mentioning the devastation. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	khamelea 2009-08-30 11:02 pm UTC (link)
	That's not something I particularly like about the genre. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	tpsreports 2009-08-30 11:29 pm UTC (link)
	I had the same problem with World War Hulk and Ultimatum, you just can't level New York or Washington and not have major consequences. (Reply to this) (Parent)

joysweeper
2009-08-30 10:36 pm UTC (link)

So this wasn't a What-If and/or didn't get cosmic retconned?

And people just went and... got over this? Rebuilt all these buildings, sorted out and buried all the skeletons, cleared stuff away, and repopulated... however much of the city got that got decimated?

This is my problem with when superhero comics try and reflect the real world and real-world tragedies. In superhero comics, the population is almost terrifyingly resilient. Things of insane magnitude, not necessarily like this but certainly very big, happen, and once the immediate crisis is over, it gets mentioned a few times and people just... rebuild and get on with their lives. Policies don't change unless it's like Civil War, where it's an essential part of the plot. Religious principles don't get challenged. Memorials don't get put up except where a major hero died, or whatever. Remember that red flesh-eating bacteria that spread like crazy in that one Avengers arc, which fans remember mostly because it had Steve and Tony with dramatic mouth-to-mouth? In-universe it didn't pretty much take over, well, everything the way it would have here.

Which is fine for their world, but it's just weird when they try to apply real-world consequences to some events and not others. I don't know. I think I lost my point somewhere.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	blakeyrat 2009-08-30 10:43 pm UTC (link)
	Godzilla movies generally work your criticisms into the plot. At least until it starts wearing down the franchise, at which point they reboot. (The reboot generally keeps the original 1954 Godzilla as canon, and all else flies out the window-- that way, everybody can be shocked all over again when Godzilla "comes back".) (Reply to this) (Parent)

vignettelante
2009-08-30 11:27 pm UTC (link)

No, this is a problem I've always had too.

I think the worse offender for me is the ever-climactic JLA "World War III". Everyone on Earth gets superpowers and flies into battle alongside a host of angels, and no one ever mentions this again? What?

See also: the end of "The Ultimates vol 2", where the entire country gets invaded and occupied for a while, and the only other mention of it is, I think, something like this in Spider-Man:

"My aunt broke her leg." "What, in that Ultimates thing?" "No."

Yes, the entire US is invaded and the president is kidnapped and one person refers to it later as "that Ultimates thing." Why do people care about Ultimatum and not this?

(However it's probably safer to just assume the Ultimate Universe ended after Ultimates vol 2, because...yeah.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	scottyquick 2009-08-30 11:53 pm UTC (link)
	which fans remember mostly because it had Steve and Tony with dramatic mouth-to-mouth? ?!?! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	neuhallidae 2009-08-31 12:04 am UTC (link)
	Ahahaha, oh, I am so posting that tonight. It must be seen to be believed. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	scottyquick 2009-08-31 12:18 am UTC (link)
	YOU HAVE TO. I seriously cannot believe I did not know about this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	neuhallidae 2009-08-31 12:32 am UTC (link)
	Images all edited up. Now to upload and type me up a post. :D (Reply to this) (Parent)

	neuhallidae 2009-08-31 01:04 am UTC (link)
	And done! :D (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	scottyquick 2009-08-31 01:28 pm UTC (link)
	Thank you :D! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ashtoreth 2009-08-31 03:03 am UTC (link)
	Hm. I always thought people were referring to the first time Kang attacked, where the Avengers looked like idiots. Yet they were forgiven..probably because eventually they drove Kang away. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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