In honor of Dwayne McDuffie: Beyond!

[proteus_lives]

Greetings True Believers.

The comics world was dealt a heavy blow yesterday. Dwayne McDuffie passed away.

In honor of him and at the request of others, I'm posting some of my favorites from his body of work. Scans from the Beyond! mini-series.

RIP and godspeed Mr. McDuffie.



I loved his mini. McDuffie was a great writer and he showed how regal and badass Medusa could be and could make The Hood a decent character.






















Gravity makes the ultimate hero move.















The man was a damn fine writer. He will be missed.

Comments

[aaron_bourque]

Only time I liked The Hood.

[akodo_rokku]

Not in the original mini? I thought it was great.

[drmcninja]

I agree. Still, with the sheer number of his appearances, its a pretty shabby track record.

This mini was fantastic because the characters had legitimate personalities, Hood included. Even the mention of his wife (who it seems like many writers like to try and forget) just adds a bit more to his character, just like the original did. They should have done so much more with her, kind of like they did with Toxin.

[akodo_rokku]

The blame lays squarely with Bendis. He turned the Hood into a completely different guy, made him a "power junkie" with little other personality, and since he's Marvel's golden boy everybody else has followed that version of the character since.

It is probably the thing Bendis has done that I hate the most, as I *loved* The Hood when I was binging on BKV a few years ago.

[drmcninja]

I know, right? He had such a promising start! And the whole power junkie thing could have been a great addition to the character if it had not scarpped his entire family like and personality to go along with it. It could have turned into a twist of the classic "power vs. family dilemma." I really would have liked the character to go in that direction.

[proteus_lives]

Yeah, I loved the original mini too.

Real potential there. A character with one foot in the world of heroes and one in the world of crime.

Conflict, real problems. He could been a new Peter Parker dealing with power and responsibility.

But alas.

[aaron_bourque]

Never read the original mini. Never could find it anywhere.

[proteus_lives]

You have inspired me. I shall post it this week.

[stubbleupdate]

Medusa is badass

[icon_uk]

Some terrific stuff here. For some reason though, the bit that always stuck with me is what Medusa relays from Black Bolt to Gravity's parents at the end. "If you ever need anything from any Inhuman, you have but to ask".

No limits, no strings, no qualifiers, nothing but an absolute promise from an entire civilisation. That's... frankly rather awesome in a respectful way.

[greenmask]

It's enormous, isn't it? Smacks me in the face every time.

[sir_mikael]

So good.

[cypherfdp]

Wait, Spider-man died?

[aaron_bourque]

It's not really Spider-Man. Get the series, it's really great.

Yeah..

[steverodgers5]

The real Spider-man would have avoided that due to you know his Spider sense..

(Well except of course in the Raimi movie world where it only seemed to exist after the 1st film when it was needed for the plot..)

But this was a great confrontation. Love that this 'Spiderman' mistakes Medusa for MJ..

[proteus_lives]

Motto to what aaron_bourque says.

It's a great mini.

[icon_uk]

Aunt May sold her marriage to Uncle Ben to Mephisto to bring him back

I kid, I kid!

[citygod]

hey-yo!

[big_daddy_d]

Now that's a good joke.

[lucky_gamble]

I never thought this particular series as good since *shallow alert here* there were no big names attached to it besides Parker. Hence, I never read it.

This is a great piece of comic it is. Love the writing and the portrayal of Medusa. Now I know she isn't some push over.

WWDDD?

[capt_satellite]

I had fully expected BEYOND! to be an exploitative piece of crap....but out of curiosity I picked the first issue up, and it knocked me out.

"I'm a grieving piece of crap."

Priceless.

[neuhallidae]

Confession: I. Hated. This. the first time I read it. My primary annoyance was that it took a lot of Avengers characterization from the godforsaken Chuck Austen run I had just finished slogging through, and for that reason, I didn't give it the chance it deserved because I was too disgusted that anything would further cement that crap as canon. Re-reading it being more knowledgeable about the Marvel universe in general, particularly about the Spider-Man and cosmic!Marvel mythos, I still hate the Avengers handling, but it's a much, much better series than I gave it credit for.

[q99]

Was this canon?

[drmcninja]

Yeah, Gravity comes back as the wielder of the uni-power or something in a Fantastic Four plotline, and gives it up to feed Galactus and return to Earth. That was a pretty decent little story too.

[q99]

What was the deal with this Spidey then?

[aaron_bourque]

Read.

The.

Series.

[drmcninja]

Seriously, just read the series. Its fantastic and everything will be explained, and just do it. It really is just an amazing mini. 100% worth it.

[mrstatham]

Competently written Bendis-era Wasp? Competently written Bendis-era Hood? Has.. Has the world gone mad?

Seriously, kudos to Mr McDuffie. This is damn fine superhero comics with none of the boring stuff I loathe about Bendis. The more I see of McDuffie's work, the more I kinda regret not reading more of his stuff. Truly, the comic world's a little bit dimmer, now. DC really should've used him better as a writer, especially on Justice League.

[psychopathicus_rex]

This is pretty cool stuff, but - may I ask what's going on? I'm not familiar with the concept for 'Beyond'; evidently it's some sort of continuation of 'Secret Wars', but I don't know much more than that.

[sir_mikael]

Similar to Secret Wars, a group of super-characters (of various ends of the moral spectrum) have been drawn to a big circle/arena shaped ship thingie. They all of the sudden find themselves in that circle thingie in space and hear "I AM FROM BEYOND! SLAY YOUR ENEMIES AND ALL YOU DESIRE SHALL BE YOURS! NOTHING YOU DREAM OF IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO ACCOMPLISH!"
Spider-Man and Wasp, having been a part of the original Secret Wars, recognizes the set up, but as the bad guys and the good guys aren't separated, hijinks quickly ensue.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Ah, so plot-wise, it's basically a retread of familiar ground.

[sir_mikael]

Well no, not really. That's basically the set up to begin with. Things play out very differently and it's worth reading. As you can see people are very committed to not spoiling things in this post because there are some good surprises in this mini.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, there are other factors besides plot that make stories readable. There are plenty of comics/movies/books/etc. that have stories we've seen a million times, but are still worth reading/watching for all that. I'm not saying 'Beyond' is one of those, but it wouldn't necessarily be off-putting if it was.
Anyway, it does sound like it's worth reading. If I run across it, maybe I'll give it a look-see.

[sir_mikael]

I see what your'e saying, that's very true. The execution is really important in basically all things. :)

[psychopathicus_rex]

Exactly.

[misterbug]

That is a snazzy outfit for the Watcher. He should have kept it.

[bjornwilde]

This series also opened my eyes to how cool Pym actually could be.

[darkknightjrk]

So, what exactly makes this different from Secret Wars?

All is not what it appears..

[steverodgers5]

With the original Secret Wars, fun as it was, you pretty much got what you paid for.

This though went off on some unexpected directions, which I don't want to spoil for folks reading these comments, but it's worth picking up sometime..

It's not, by any means, the best thing Mr McDuffie ever wrote, but it does have it's moments..