Long have I been absent from the Society of the Cafe (in the sense that I haven’t started any CS threads in a while). But lo, I have returned. Kill the fatted calf or something.
As much as I love super-hero comics, I must admit that they tend to be ridiculous when it comes to declarations of love and grief. This isn’t simply, or even mostly, because both death and love are so evanescent in this medium; primarily, I think, it’s because the writers go so far over the top when depicting any emotional scene. Consequently, it’s always refreshing to come across a genuinely touching scene. Here’s your chance to name some.
I’ll start with a one that’s twenty years old–spoilering it to be nice, though I don’t expect everyone else to:
It’s the death of the original Superboy (or version 2.0, depending after you look at it) after Crisis on Infinite Earths. He’s sacrificed himself to save his fellow Legionnaires and Earth in a suitably heroic manner–but he’s unfortunately had to do so in Smallville, meaning his parents witnessed the whole thing without being able to help. As Jonathan Kent comforts his shocked and grieving wife, he says five simple words:
Don’t cry, Martha. He’ll hear you.
It’s like the Bizarro version of Chris Claremont, it is.
There’s a scene in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing where he offers Abby a fruit, she munches it, and… well, basically, psychedelic plant sex ensues, and it’s really bizarre and trippy but it’s also one of the sweetest, most genuinely romantic things I’ve ever seen. You have to read it for yourself.
Also, Iron Man is being a fascist dictator pig in Civil War, and they ruined this scene with what followed right after it, but man, this tears me up.
In The Dark Knight Returns, the poor lady on the subway with crayons in her purse for her little kid who gets a grenade planted on her and blows the hell up. Still ruins me, all these years later.
Speaking of Swamp Thing, there was a scene where, after some sort of adventure with John Constantine, Abby woke up in a hotel bed next to him (and had no memory of the night before).
She was horrified by the thought that she’d committed a marital indiscretion with John and paces around the room in a near panic…
…until John looks under the covers, throws them back, and says “For what it’s worth, I’ve still got me pants on.”
It was an uncharacteristically kind and good-natured thing for John to do and I got a kick out of it.
I can’t stand Batman these days, but there’s one moment that works for me, even though current events have robbed it of meaning. It’s in A Death in the Family, when Jason Todd dies–or, rather, after it, when Batman is searching the warehouse for his body even though he knows there is no hope. When he sees Robin’s dead body, he immediately knows his sidekick/adoptive son is dead–and checks for a pulse anyway. For that one tiny moment he’s a human being, and it kills me.
Several beautiful and touching moments in James Robinson’s Starman, including Ted Knight’s heroic and self-sacrificing death to save Opal City (#72), the funeral for Ted Knight with eulogies by most of the Justice Society and other heroes (#73), and Jack Knight’s conversation with Superman about fathers and sons (#75). I think all those issues made me well up a little.
The Transmetropolitan issue where Spider talks about the woman from “our time” who was essentially defrosted in “his time” (the bizarre dystopian future where the comic takes place), and the sadness and horrors she faced acclimatating to the strange new world alone.
Sandman – Morpheus after the death of Orpheus, and the eulogies during the Wake. Oddly touching and moving, despite the fact that Morpheus had been such a prickly bastard throughout most of the series.
Fables - The background story of the Frog Prince from the graphic novel. All happy, family stuff… gearing up for war… and then it all goes wrong. The shot of the frog, under the table. Those eyes! Linky.
Scotty (shortly after ST4) is informed of the death of his former wife. The issue is a series of flashbacks, showing these two and their decades-long on-again, off-again love, fitting into the background of various Trek milestones (death of Peter Preston, pre-TMP Enterprise refit, five-year mission, etc.) and ending with their first meeting in childhood.
Morpheus is a prickly bastard, and a whiny, emo, self-absorbed jerk, and you’re wondering why the frack you sympathize with him at all.
Then you have people like Death going, “You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification in this or any other plane!” in The Sound of Her Wings and Unity Kinkaid saying “You’re obviously not very bright, but I shouldn’t let it bother you,” in Lost Hearts. And you have moments like him giving death to Orpheus, and going out to fulfill his promise to Nuala at the cost of his life, and you realize: he’s supposed to be all those things. He’s a human–flawed and imperfect–with the powers of an Endless, and so when a normal person cries and watches Titanic after a bad breakup Morpheus throws his ex-girlfriend into Hell for ten thousand years.
But he grows up, and he learns better, and (for me, at least) that’s what makes The Wake so touching–that he does end up being someone you sympathize with, at last.
I never warmed up to Sandman for that reason – well, that and Gaiman’s extreme pretension. Some of the stories are really nice, but I just hate the character of Morpheus and wonder how much he is a “Mary Sue” for Gaiman himself, the sad, poncy old goth.
The scene that immediately came to mind on reading the thread title: the ecstasy on Nuala’s face in A Game of You when, just as an afterthought, Morpheus turns back and says “You did the right thing,” before going on his oblivious way.
