Huh. I think I get it now.
When I first blogged about this little comic book experiment of mine, I referenced the massive web of continuity and characters as a major turn-off. The annoyance of not having a decent foothold of any kind into this clusterfuck of a universe, full of paradoxical tones and personalities, was my biggest mental barrier preventing me from really digging in to something like Marvel.
I finally see the worth in that clusterfuck. Sometimes it’s worth just jumping in and going along for the ride.
I’m writing this blog post on September 25th 2018 (apparently National Comic Book Day. Weird how that happens, huh?) and Avengers: Infinity War’s influence is still felt all over the pop culture sphere. The Thanos Snap is still a meme! Everyone and their grandmother is speculating over what the hell Avengers 4 is going to do. I enjoyed the movie a fair bit myself, but also left the theater feeling like I finally understood many of my friends’ frustrations with big comic book crossover events. More specifically, Infinity War seemed like a snapping point (haha get it) in the struggle between wanting a universe full of strong characters with individual arcs while also having that universe build up to a status-quo-shattering, arc-interrupting epic battle.
(My thoughts on Infinity War can be listened to here for those interested.)
The Rebirth of Thanos
With Infinity War still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d sit down and read Infinity Gauntlet because I was in the mood. The Wise and Wonderful Internet suggested I read the “Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos” trade beforehand for a little bit of background, and I’m happy I did. As the title suggests, the book covers the resurrection of Thanos from the Silver Surfer’s perspective, complete with a basic overview of Thanos’ now-infamous motivation of wanting to fuck the Marvel universe’s personification of Death.
It’s a decent enough prologue and – to my delight – does a pretty good job of summarizing Thanos’ story up until this point. If I recall, the Infinity Gauntlet story itself does a pretty decent job of catching the reader up too. Of course, actions speak louder than words, and we get more than enough Thanos villainy in the story proper to establish him as a threat. In a memorable scene, he tricks the Silver Surfer into spreading a plague throughout an alien species, killing a countless number of them before the Silver Surfer can cure them.
But it’s not all darkness and despair. There’s a pretty good gag towards the end of an issue that sets up a meeting between Drax the Destroyer (who is… very different from his movie counterpart) and our hero:
…Only to have a comedic run-in with some goober named Impossible Man instead. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him before reading this issue, but in a way I think that made it even funnier for me.
And when the fated encounter between the two does take place, the surfer manages to shake Drax off his trail by captivating him with cable television:
In many other stories I’d be wary of the dramatic shifting of tones over such a short span of time, but it really works here. Something that always bothered me in the past about a fictional universe as grand as Marvel’s is the sheer absurdity and tonal dissonance that ensues when you realize that the events of Spider-Man and The Punisher are happening a few blocks from one another. What this book made me consider was this: Is that not the case for our own world, too? Isn’t Earth just as ridiculous a mishmash of emotions and motivations, when you really think about it? In a way, I feel that the existence of grand cosmic entities that have the capacity to joke around like regular people gives the setting a more endearing sense of humanity.
Of course, things get a bit darker as the Silver Surfer issues conclude (culminating in a painfully-obvious fake death by Thanos) and the book shifts into the two-parter “Thanos Quest.” While the story has an awful title that sounds more befitting a classic point-and-click adventure game, it’s a tightly-told work about Thanos’ journey to collect all six infinity gems.
I enjoyed it as an introduction into the world of cosmic Marvel, which I’ve been hearing about for years, but also found it a less engaging “Thanos gets the stones” story than the movie. Here, Thanos outwits a variety of divine champions, each wielding a gem yet unaware of its true potential. There’s some clever trickery to enjoy, but it felt less effective than the movie’s set-up, where we get to see Thanos exploit our heroes’ weaknesses to gain the stones instead. Thanos Quest has a nice, poetic ending, in which Thanos is faced with the reality that his ascension to godhood has done nothing to win him favor with Death. It felt very Folktale-y in a way, and I loved it for that.
Infinity Gauntlet
The infamous death of half the universe is kept until the start of Infinity Gauntlet proper, and I have to say I think I enjoy it better that way. While it makes sense that such an intense event should maybe be kept as the climax point of a movie, I think it’s safe to say that many of us are expecting Avengers 4 to walk back on the dramatic weight of it all, easing up on the amount of meaningful consequences we’ll have to live with for the sake of continuing a behemoth of a franchise that continues to shit out cash year after year. The MCU’s version of this event is a two-part tale in which the big event happens right in the middle.
While one could make an argument that the comics are also a two-parter with the snap happening halfway in, I feel that Rebirth of Thanos reads less like the first half of a larger story and more like an extended prologue. Or, perhaps closer to the truth of the situation, more like a slice of another story that happens to include an awful lot of foreshadowing and set-up for another, much larger story.
I enjoy The Snap As Premise more than as an end in and of itself. We start Infinity Gauntlet with an understanding that our heroes (or at least, the ones still left alive… RIP Daredevil ;_;7 ) are going to attempt to reverse the situation to the best of their ability. Or, at the very least, find a way to prevent more harm from being done. It feels less like punch-pulling when you present your end-goal upfront and don’t play coy.
Oh. And this happens, which is fucking hilarious:
If half of humanity dying wasn’t bad enough, apparently the world has also drifted out of its regular orbit and a new ice age is about to start… or… something. I dunno. Could’ve done without that bit. I think wanting to fix the “half of everyone in the universe is dead” problem was good enough of a motivation, but I digress.
The story really expands here in terms of cast, and I’m happy to say that a lifetime of watching adaptations and absorbing Marvel trivia through cultural osmosis went a long way. I’ve been told by a few people that the success of superhero movies have a lot less of an actual long-term impact on comics sales-wise than most people think, but I have to wonder how long that rule will hold true, assuming it still does. The ‘90s generation I grew up in has gone through a lifetime of TV and movie adaptations of this material. Even if a lot of us still haven’t picked up a single comic, we can probably tell you an awful lot about the basic premise of a load of random characters. And with the rise of internet fandom, especially the MCU, there has never been a greater permeation throughout the culture of working superhero knowledge.
I don’t need to know what the deal is with the dude who dresses up in red and blue and can shoot spider-webs. Or the short angry guy with claws. Or the green-cloaked dictator with a metal mask. These characters are iconic, and while I may not have read the particular stories from which they originate, I have enough of a grasp on each of them from simply living life. I know just enough to make Infinity Gauntlet work. Sure, there are a few characters every now and again I was completely unfamiliar with, but for the most part I could read along just fine.
Besides, most characters in Infinity Gauntlet aren’t actually characters – they’re afforded a few lines each, have A Cool Moment in the inevitable battle against Thanos, and then fall. The real star of the show is this motherfucker:
Adam Warlock. I’ve been hearing about this guy for ages. I know he’s been teased in the MCU and is (was?) supposed to show up in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but with The Firing of the Gunn who knows what will happen at this point. One time I asked a friend who Adam Warlock was and why he was a big deal, and I’m pretty sure that friend responded with “Yeah he’s Marvel Jesus” and yeah, that’s a fair statement.
…Nah, Adam Warlock is cooler.
Adam is our real protagonist. He’s Thanos’ archrival and goes to great lengths to assemble a team of heroes and divine beings to take on the new god of the universe. For the most part, the heroes know that they don’t stand much of a chance against Thanos and that most of them will die, but are willing to take the risk. There’s a point where the Silver Surfer chastises Warlock for viewing the heroes as pawns in some sort of grand game, one in which the universe’s fate hangs in the balance. Adam responds by admitting that yes, he is viewing this as a game, but that he has to if he wants to actually succeed, and it pains him to do so. He makes it very clear it hurts to detach himself emotionally from the situation, but that he must. He has a deep respect for his allies, but war is war and not everyone is going to make it out alive. That really won me over on his character and his position as the story’s leading man, even though I knew nothing about him prior.
That being said, the actual battle itself gets a little goofier than I’d want. Adam Warlock’s plan seems to be nothing more than having the Silver Surfer swoop in really fast take the gauntlet off of Thanos when he gets the chance – and when that fails, having the divine beings come in to kill Thanos… which causes universe-scarring damage in the process. There’s even a bit where the cosmic entities realize that they’ve been losing because they’ve been attempting to defeat Thanos one-by-one. So then they, gasp, decide to attack him all at once! It’s super corny.
That said, I did appreciate the more mystical elements of the story. This really does feel like a heated battle fought between godlike figures. At times, it feels as though the medium struggles to depict it though – we get many panels of colorful, abstract explosions with boxes of narration coming in to explain what we’re seeing, how the universe is being impacted by individual attacks, etc. One of the strengths of comics I’ve enjoyed so far is the interesting midpoint it hits between other visual media and prose, but here it feels more like a weakness. It felt like a barrier was hit in terms of conveying the story and the writer had to dump some explanatory notes in to make sure we really got it. I really love the idea of what’s going on in these battle sequences, but I wish the execution lived up to the potential.
At some point, Thanos abandons his physical body and ascends to a spiritual form, but this leads to his downfall: With his body left behind, the heroes can remove the gauntlet. It then falls into the hands of Nebula, who was transformed into a half-dead zombie-thing by Thanos much earlier. She uses the gauntlet to undo the damage Thanos caused, but then proceeds to use it for her own evil deeds. Warlock manages to throw it off of her with some magical trickery and seizes it for himself, and peace returns to the universe, with most participants losing their memories of the whole fiasco.
The plotting gets a lot sloppier as Infinity Gauntlet goes on and some things feel a bit too contrived for my liking. For one thing, the assortment of justifications we have to give so that Thanos and Nebula don’t just automatically win starts to feel a bit silly after a bit. There’s a pretty good scene where Adam Warlock tears into Thanos, who he wishes to recruit over to the hero side, by revealing that he knows Thanos’ darkest secret: Deep down, Warlock explains, Thanos doesn’t actually believe that he deserves almighty power. He always leaves an opening for his enemy. He’s obtained untold power multiple times by now (once here and twice in previous stories) and he’s squandered his chance each time. Thanos’ true weakness is his self-doubt and insecurity.
But Nebula? Fuck, I dunno. Adam Warlock manages to make the gauntlet jump off her hand because he’s connected to the soul gem… or something? I think they give a half-assed explanation about why he couldn’t pull that stunt when Thanos had it, but I can’t remember off the top of my head and I’m too lazy to surf through to look at the moment.
The book ends with a few of the heroes confronting Warlock, the new wielder of the gauntlet. There’s some suspicion over whether or not he can be trusted with its power. I liked his response: Life has been under the command of an unseen force of chaos since the universe’s creation, and is there truly any difference in replacing that chaos with an unseen force of benevolent order? The reality is most people won’t even know the difference… that is, assuming Warlock keeps to his promise and doesn’t abuse his newfound godhood.
I liked the ending a lot – even with the Reset Button getting punched, this final Warlock scene conveys a sense of great cosmological shift. There’s been a major change to the very nature to the universe itself, but not in a way that is terribly intrusive to the individual stories of our heroes. A lovely compromise!
Needless to say, I really enjoyed this book despite the minor gripes. I’m sold on this comic book shit. I’m sure I’ll inevitably hit the point of disillusionment like so many of the long-term readers I know, where I start to see the cracks and the flaws in the way Marvel and DC run their stuff into the ground. But for now? I’m good with riding this wave. This is the fun I signed up for and I’m happy it paid off.
What’s next? Well, I don’t know. I’ve been in a Spider-Man mood. I’d like to get my hands on more Adam Warlock stuff, too. I should note that between this blog post and my previous post I read Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, but I never got around to finishing Dark Victory and to be honest I don’t think I’d have a lot to really write about with either of them. I did talk a bit about Long Halloween on a podcast with my friend Zach, which you can listen to here. I’ve also been reading Seven to Eternity, Captain Harlock and Devilman, but I’m holding off on bloggin’ about those until they’re finished.
But who knows? My comixology backlog just keeps getting bigger. I have a lot of shit to read, and I’m looking forward to it.
