Garth Ennis Week - Hitman/JLA: Part 2
Mar. 18th, 2010 12:09 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyThe JLA are trapped in the Watchtower, with their powers deactivated and Superman trapped outside with the alien parasites. The JLA and Hitman see what appears to be the astronauts walking across the surface of the Moon towards the JLA's base, carrying a mysterious box.
They get into the building, oddly enough without having to use the coded panels,
The parasite-infected astronauts attack the depowered JLA with duplicated versions of their superpowers, and Tommy begins shooting them. This angers Batman, but after a fightfist between him, the rest of the JLA and the astronauts, he too is infected with an alien.
They end up in the space underneath Aquaman's watertank, where they try to get a grasp over what to do. Tommy suggests that they try and shoot the parasite off of Batman to see if that uninfects him, but the possessed Batman tells him "Kill one two die", letting them know that they can't follow through Tommy's plan without killing both the host and the person it's attached to.
So Tommy tries shooting off the non-vital looking parts of the parasite, which doesn't go well with Diana,
Diana and Tommy set their plan into action,
The unpowered Diana falls down the shaft battling the parasites and yelling words of encouragement to Tommy, which leads him to call her a "Gutsy Broad".
Meanwhile, on Earth, the President of the USA is going over a report about how the spacecraft got infected (apparently the parasites were on a small asteroid on the edge of the solar system), and has been requested to nuke the Watchtower as that could be used as a launching post for a global invasion.
Tommy eventually reaches the top of the shaft, where he comes face to face with Superman. Unfortunately for Tommy, he's been infected by the parasites. Hitman pulls the old "I know you're in there somewhere" cliche, and it works because, hey, he's Superman, but the effort of tearing the parasite off has severely sapped Clark's strength.
Tommy tells Superman that the reason why he seems to be going into shock is that you aren't supposed to get them off you that way, and that the parasites have to chose to let you go of their own freewill. He tells Clark that he has to make a move on the controlroom before the parasites work out how to use Bruce and Diana's bodies correctly and to try and stop the US from nuking them.
Tommy goes and defuses the situation by shooting the majority of the infected astronauts, and then tortures one of the seperated parasite into telepathetically telling its friends to let Bruce and Diana go. Hitman tells Wally and Kyle that it's okay to come out, but since their powers are working again they kind of already figured that out. Then Wally notices the bullet-ridden bodies littering his "clubhouse"...
Naturally Batman and the rest of the JLA are furious at Tommy murdering the dozen or so innocent infected astronauts, and Batman promptly hands him over to the GCPD once the situation has been contained and the remaining parasite cyogenically frozen.
Being handed over to the cops doesn't really do any good though, as the ones in question happen to be friends of Tommy's and they just drop him off at his local pub instead of the policestation.
Cut to the present, and Clark is telling the story, off the record, to a young ex-journalist (he was fired after getting involved in a warzone hostage situation) who was writing a book about the "shuttle disaster" that was used to cover up the incident.
Chopped off words: There are...
creator: garth ennis
They get into the building, oddly enough without having to use the coded panels,
The parasite-infected astronauts attack the depowered JLA with duplicated versions of their superpowers, and Tommy begins shooting them. This angers Batman, but after a fightfist between him, the rest of the JLA and the astronauts, he too is infected with an alien.
They end up in the space underneath Aquaman's watertank, where they try to get a grasp over what to do. Tommy suggests that they try and shoot the parasite off of Batman to see if that uninfects him, but the possessed Batman tells him "Kill one two die", letting them know that they can't follow through Tommy's plan without killing both the host and the person it's attached to.
So Tommy tries shooting off the non-vital looking parts of the parasite, which doesn't go well with Diana,
Diana and Tommy set their plan into action,
The unpowered Diana falls down the shaft battling the parasites and yelling words of encouragement to Tommy, which leads him to call her a "Gutsy Broad".
Meanwhile, on Earth, the President of the USA is going over a report about how the spacecraft got infected (apparently the parasites were on a small asteroid on the edge of the solar system), and has been requested to nuke the Watchtower as that could be used as a launching post for a global invasion.
Tommy eventually reaches the top of the shaft, where he comes face to face with Superman. Unfortunately for Tommy, he's been infected by the parasites. Hitman pulls the old "I know you're in there somewhere" cliche, and it works because, hey, he's Superman, but the effort of tearing the parasite off has severely sapped Clark's strength.
Tommy tells Superman that the reason why he seems to be going into shock is that you aren't supposed to get them off you that way, and that the parasites have to chose to let you go of their own freewill. He tells Clark that he has to make a move on the controlroom before the parasites work out how to use Bruce and Diana's bodies correctly and to try and stop the US from nuking them.
Tommy goes and defuses the situation by shooting the majority of the infected astronauts, and then tortures one of the seperated parasite into telepathetically telling its friends to let Bruce and Diana go. Hitman tells Wally and Kyle that it's okay to come out, but since their powers are working again they kind of already figured that out. Then Wally notices the bullet-ridden bodies littering his "clubhouse"...
Naturally Batman and the rest of the JLA are furious at Tommy murdering the dozen or so innocent infected astronauts, and Batman promptly hands him over to the GCPD once the situation has been contained and the remaining parasite cyogenically frozen.
Being handed over to the cops doesn't really do any good though, as the ones in question happen to be friends of Tommy's and they just drop him off at his local pub instead of the policestation.
Cut to the present, and Clark is telling the story, off the record, to a young ex-journalist (he was fired after getting involved in a warzone hostage situation) who was writing a book about the "shuttle disaster" that was used to cover up the incident.
Chopped off words: There are...
creator: garth ennis
no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 05:49 am (UTC)Do people on the Internet see "Mary Sues" lurking under beds and in darkened closets? Is that actually something you consider a reasonable, accurate criticism?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 04:14 pm (UTC)I think the charge has some validity.
The charge is inherently intellectually lazy. It has been for years. It can be literally translated to "I don't agree with the author" in all but the most obvious of circumstances.
Tommy spends the entire story getting dumped on up until this point, where he manages to squeak out a win. Then he gets dumped on some more, arrested, and sent to jail. The point of the story isn't to give Tommy some kind of cheap heat; Ennis is writing a story about the differences between "ordinary" heroism and "super" heroism. You're letting fanfic terminology blind you to the story beats, and acting like the professional writer's work is motivated by the same factors as a thirteen-year-old's DBZ story.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 04:11 pm (UTC)The other part's that people on the Internet start whipping the phrase out and swinging it around every single chance they get, and in 90% of the occasions that they bring it up, it's oblivious shorthand for "I don't like the protagonist."
Yeah, there are characters in professional work that, if they were appearing in something you read on the Internet, you'd roll your eyes at; Anita Blake springs immediately to mind. That said, the term gets whipped out any time a protagonist has an unusual physical characteristic or manages to pull out an unlikely win. It's been utterly devalued and usually makes me think less of the person attempting criticism.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-18 04:34 pm (UTC)