Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #5

[stolisomancer]

I've decided that most of the Marvel crossovers seem to work better if you pretend the actual main book doesn't exist. Fear Itself has been better than most of them about this, with a lot of fun, interesting work being done in the various spin-offs and limited series, with some newer creators and some of the less-exposed characters.

Youth in Revolt is essentially another volume of Avengers: The Initiative, and in keeping with my last post on the subject, I wanted to show off another nice Cloud-9 moment, in which she and Thor Girl participate in a time-honored Marvel Universe tradition.


Long story short: Hardball was the leader of a team sent to stop the Juggernaut from destroying Las Vegas. They managed to do it, but in so doing, Hardball killed a number of homeless people who were too stubborn to evacuate the area. (Sort of a "I am about to punch the Juggernaut so hard that I'm hoping to send him flying outside of town. If you are too stupid to leave, I do not care if you die" sort of thing.) This didn't sit well with anyone around him, particularly Gravity, who flew into town to beat Hardball to a pulp.

Unfortunately, between Juggernaut stomping around and two powerful superhumans fighting each other to a standstill, they've managed to trigger a fault line under Nevada. The Initiative starts rescue operations, with Cloud-9 and Tarene appearing to help out. They're yanking people out of one of the casino vaults when Abby realizes that A) the entire building is about to fall apart and B) there are a lot more civilians to evacuate than she can handle at once.





Abby starts freaking out that she's about to die, in a long monologue about her life flashing before her eyes. "And when it's over, as every last never-was and never-will-be bids you farewell..."



The Marvel Universe: lifting heavy objects with the power of pep talks since 1966.

Comments

[lieut_kettch]

It wouldn't be complete if I didn't supply the original moment alluded to:

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

This is why I say any definition of the real Spider-Man must include the words "written by Stan Lee."

[espanolbot]

I thought that Steve Ditko wrote this?

I was under the impression that he came up with the idea for a story, but the artists came up with the dialogue and the arrangement of the panels and such.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

I thought Lee always wrote the dialogue and usually did the plotting, though Ditko did some. This might be one of the issues where he was credited as such.

It's just my guess, but I think the basic idea of who Peter Parker is was mainly Lee's work. I get the impression that in the collaborations with Ditko and Kirby, they were mainly responsible for the superhero aspects and Lee was the one behind the human, soap opera aspects.

[biod]

Lee definitely did the dialogue for this.

[arbre_rieur]

Lee was always credited as plotter or co-plotter, but it's generally understood that in the later stage of their collaboration, Ditko was pretty much drawing the issues without any story input from Lee. After the finished pages came in, Lee would then write the dialogue (the actual dialogue was always 100% Lee), sometimes sticking to Ditko's intent, other times diverging wildly. Not sure if this issue was written at that stage of their collaboration, though.

[rordulum]

I think I've heard Stan Lee talk about this particular sequence (perhaps in those interviews he did with Kevin Smith a few years back), and that this was exactly what happened.

Ditko drew it all first, to a loose outline he was given, and Stan went in, filling in the dialogue, interpreting Ditko's intentions as best he could.

But given the actually artwork, I'd credit Stan with a lot of this. There are so many ways you could read that artwork, without the dialogue, and the inner conflict and struggle really only comes through in the dialogue.

[nomadicwriter]

From what I understand, Lee would give the artists a plot outline, they would go away and draw the pages how they wanted based on that rough plot, and then Lee would fit the dialogue to it afterwards. So basically it's usually his story ideas and always his dialogue unless someone else is credited with the script, but the artists had complete freedom to pick their own panel layouts and decide how the outline broke down into visual beats.

Which is why the Marvel method made for some pretty amazing collaborations, because the artists weren't restricted to following a rigid panel layout decided by the writer but drawing whatever they thought looked best, and Lee's dialogue was basically him 'narrating' what was happening on the page as he saw it for the first time.

[arbre_rieur]

"From what I understand, Lee would give the artists a plot outline, they would go away and draw the pages how they wanted based on that rough plot, and then Lee would fit the dialogue to it afterwards"

In most cases, yes, though the outlines could be incredibly rough to the point where the artist was contributing a lot of the plot. For example, the Silver Surfer plays a huge important role in the original Galactus story, and he was wholly created and added into the story by Kirby.

Lee and Ditko are a special case, though. During their Spider-Man run, they eventually got to the point where Ditko was drawing his pages with pretty much no input from Lee. That's how you get bloopers like the one where some henchmen refer to their boss as the Cat one issue but then the next issue are shown to be working for the Master Planner. Lee didn't know what Ditko was planning with that subplot so he attributed the wrong boss to the henchmen in their first appearance.

[wizardru]

If you read some issues of the Jack Kirby Collector magazine, they often show many of the original artwork that Kirby submitted to the magazine, which highlights exactly this. Lee might give the most general of plots (Galactus is defeated...and then Johnny goes to college) and then tell Kirby to have 26 pages to him by a date.

Kirby then plotted and drew the entire issue, complete with with dialogue suggestions. Lee sometimes used them, sometimes completely ignored Kirby's dialogue/plot. You can often see side-by-side comparisons and how Lee would make changes. When necessary, another artist might be called in to modify the artwork to fix the plot. The Silver Surfer came out of left field for Lee, but was so substantial he couldn't be removed...something Kirby knew.

[aaron_bourque]

I think you mean "Responsibility."

Not "Youth."

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; or deals with the freakin' devil!

[funbox]

This moment has inspired me for most of my life. It made me a believer in the fact that when the chips are down, all you need is the will power to get it done. I love every variation of it, and this is no different, thanks for sharing!

[proteus_lives]

The first and the best.

[amancalledblaze]

I'm very much reminded of a certain Kaylee and her "to hell with this, I'm gonna live" moment.
*GLEE!*

[bipthefool]

Glad i was not the only one to think that.

[magus_69]

So that whole speech was an admission that Abby wants to have sex with Tarene?

'Cause I could go with that. Just saying.

[bruinsfan]

Hey, it's at least as believable to me as Simon Tam wanting to have sex with Kaylee (or any woman).

[shadowpsykie]

we all know he wanted captain tight pants.... or Jayne... or both... consecutively.... then concurrently ...

No disrespect meant....

[capt_satellite]

...but kinds of a bad day to be wearing heels, Tarene.

Re: No disrespect meant....

[pyrotwilight]

Oh after this I'm sure they'll be flats.

[nightauditguy]

You know, I wish someone would post the last few pages of Home Front where an elderly and cancer ridden Asbestos Man tries to cash in on Fear Itself and not even the Great Lake Avengers want to fight him.

[mrstatham]

Well, that just sounds like bad taste.

[pyrotwilight]

Depressing mostly. D:

[bariman]

Yeah, what superhero is going to fight an elderly man with cancer?

Well, that was that one villain in "Invincible," but he was about to detonate a dirty bomb over Denver, so I guess it was okay then.

[bluestar86]

A lot of the time, this is true in real life, all it takes is a sudden decision, typically in the form of "fuck this shit, I'm not going down that easily" for someone to perform feats of incredible ability. Once, back when I was in the army, we were running, our platoon leader was pissed at us for failing the PT test, which wasn't really fair, we were on a friggin' mountain, and we had literally just came from basic, which for tankers is a 4 month long affair, where they emphasize our brains over our physical ability. I was never that fast of a runner anyway.

Anyway, it was 5am, and our platoon leader decided that instead of going to formation, we were going to run out butts off, along the way I made the decision "no matter what, I'm not falling back", and that's precisely what happened. We ran and ran (and ran), and through sheer willpower, I kept up.

Though, this doesn't always work. I never could climb a rope very well.

[tacitoz]

This is kind of like shounen manga
"oh no, I can't go on."
"Fuck you man, you're our ONLY HOPE!"
"WELP it's time to get a sudden power boost due to FWIENDSHIP/POSITIVITY/WHATEVER!"
that said, this is still a nice moment :)

[sianmink]

DON'T BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!

BELIEVE IN ME WHO BELIEVES IN YOU!!

[proteus_lives]

I am enjoying this mini.

Lots of great B-characters.

[heckfire]

I'm torn which is more awesome: Thor-Girl's lifting, or Cloud-9 overcoming her claustrophobia enough to realize that, as a (demi-?) goddess powered by belief, Tarene's strength is based on her believing in it.

[glimmung]

She is powered by belief? Are all of Marvel "gods" like that?

[heckfire]

Apparently this one is, LOL...I think it was mentioned a couple of times, I think in "Incredible Hercules," that gods get stronger when mortals believe in them.

Either that or she has the same weakness as Gladiator of the Imperial Guard, that her powers only work as well as she believes they do.

[icon_uk]

Also Captain Britain now has that limitation

[aaron_bourque]

It it belief in others, or is it a Gladiator-like self-confidence issue?

[biod]

It's been established that they don't need belief for survival, but that it does increase their power and in some cases act as sustinance like a delicacy would.

[bruinsfan]

Also, the ones that go without belief for extended periods of time (like thousands of years) have a habit of degenerating into demons.

[biod]

YES! Cloud-Nine still has her aviator look!
And I'm always a sucker for willpower overcoming impossible obstacles.

[lieut_kettch]

"Scanning sector 2814-616..."

"SENTIENT FOUND."

[biod]

http://bio-d.deviantart.com/favourites/38100951?offset=168#/d11mbcs

Peter Parker of Earth, welcome to the Corps.

[drmcninja]

Still one of the greatest Spider Man scenes ever. Hands down.

[halloweenjack]

"...that's when you finally remember you've stared down evil aliens and mass murderers and that not having a normal life has granted you the nerve to say to Fate: 'Oh, fuck this.'"

Motherfucking motto.

[shadowpsykie]

The Marvel Universe: lifting heavy objects with the power of pep talks since 1966.

we should make this a week. like Power of Friendship/peptalks/positivity....