31 Days of Scans - Combo punch!

[icon_uk]

I've actually been sort of torn on what to post the past couple of days since the same characters sort of fill multiple slots..


Favourite Male Character, Favourite Friendship, Character I would most want to bring back from the dead all sort of combined... (Look he was dead for so damn long (literal, actual DECADES) that I have a lot of "He's back?!?" inertia to overcome... I'll get there eventually). I should probably try harder to think of something new, and I may well do, but in the meantime, it's back to the old favourites.

Long time, or even relatively new readers of s_d should have no problem identifying who I mean...



The little mutant that could... and his slightly strange buddy! (and I'm STILL not sure which is which)


Cypher, with the most unassuming power in X-history (at least as he started out) and out of his depth so often he probably has metaphorical water wings...

But though braver than anyone expected even after, for example being accidentally shanghied into being a dishwasher in a mead hall in Asgard, and not being dumb enough to hang around which has just been the scene of a mass slaughter by the Enchantress's monsters (Y'know, as you do) he always had a friend he could rely on...



And Warlock was always defensive of Doug, even if the threat wasn't quite what it seemed, like realising that Dani was now a part time Valkyrie and that meant death was sure to follow..



Which led to THIS scene, which has been posted a time or two before, but never stops being deliciously subtext-y.


Warlock had a rather direct view of the world, breaking people down into "SelfFriends" or "NotFriends" but after this experiene, Warlock added the honorific "SelfSOULfriend" ONLY for Doug.

And when there's a threat to the whole team, who is the first person Warlock thinks to save?




Of course, the course of any friendship is never entirely smooth and when Warlock leaves unexpectedly (and inexplicably) to join the Fallen Angels with Sunspot, Doug is left bereft for several months and is deeply depressed... until their happy reunion....



I refuse to post the next bit because it's depressing, but... well, let's just say that it didn't end well and I don't think we need to dwell on it, or the fact that Warlock missed his little friend so much he borrowed the corpse in an attempt to jumpstart him back into life...



(Hint: It didn't work.... like.. AT ALL! Unless the aim was to torment a younger, somewhat-still-depressed-by-issue-60 Icon_UK, in which case, kudos to all involved!)

It's easy to see what Doug got out of their friendship, a friend who allowed him to live out his adventure-seeking fantasies on a more equal footing than his mutant powers alone would allow. A friend who made him stronger, faster and was a sodding human-sized Gundam any time he wanted/needed one. Also someone who allowed him to see the world through completely alien eyes booth metaphorically (in conversation) and literally (as Douglock).



For Warlock it was nothing so physical, he's from a race where violence is the standard, where parenticide is the only way to advance, and concepts like friendship or empathy are utterly alien. Doug gave him friendship unreservedly and served as a model of what it meant to be human which Warlock wished to emulate. (Wish I could find my M-Tech Warlock issues, where Warlock discusses that)

When twenty plus years later, Doug DOES return as a Selene-controlled techno-organic zombie slave in Necrosha, it's Warlock who, despite having been ripped to shreds by Evil-Doug earlier, is determined to release his friend from her control...







So damned sweet...

And though Doug is never quite as "ordinary" as he had been in the past, he and Warlock retained their friendship...




Ah... those dorks! :)

And so it goes, even into their new, and sadly short lived, run in All New X-Factor, where they were sadly underused IMHO, but at least they were used (Though as it's a PAD written story, I can't post it here) and their friendship endures...

And for those of you who have slogged this far down the page, a couple of treats of art you may NOT have seen already.

First up is a sketch of Doug and Warlock, done by the legendary Alan Davis, for a friend on tumblr (who I am ACHINGLY jealous of)



It is both gorgeous, and has a rather sweet story about it's origin which I will just leave a link to.

This one IS mine, from the delightful Vylla-Art



Woof! :)

So a hybrid sort of a contribution, but one I stand by!

Comments

[ozaline]

aww excellent post, I thought Dick was your favorite guy, but this duo is a great choice for all the categories so far.

[icon_uk]

I am always torn as to my favourite character, Dick is sort of the character I most admire for taking his natural skills, maximising them and turning them towards the cause of justice, and still being one hell of a decent stand-up guy to boot. (Him being ridiculously good looking from every angle is gravy.. a lot of very good quality gravy I grant you, but gravy)

Doug on the other hand is the guy who has been dealt a very sarcastic hand by fate, he's got mutant powers that make Sentinels target him just as much as they would Cyclops or Magneto, but has such a relatively harmless power in physical combat it's alsost depressing. And STILL he wanted to do the right thing and do what he could to help other mutants, sure there was the side of him that wanted adventures (and boy howdy did he get them) but he also wanted to be a hero, because trying to be a hero is the right thing to be.

I appreciate that many other mutants have it much worse in terms of physical deformity (by human norm standards) and Doug can walk down the street without fear or image inducer, but that was part of the point I think. He was still normal, but he still wasnt'.

He was also very relatable to me: He was the normal kid, from a normal home environment, with normal parents who loved him and vice versa, who came from a normal background, who had normal friends and a normal life, who suddenly and without warning had an internal secret that he kept from his parents and everyone because he was worried they would all hate him if they knew (He knew the odds were in his favour with his parents, but it was not a chance he felt he could take). As a gay guy in a small town, I related to his situation.

Dick is the guy I hope is somewhere out there helping the world, Doug is the sort of guy I hope to be when I finally grow up.

I could have (and might anyway), do one for Dick, and use Dick and Donna as best friendship because they are/were adorable together.

[ozaline]

That definitely makes a lot of sense.

[q99]

I think you cut off a paragraph:
It's easy to see what Doug got out of their friendship, a friend who

[icon_uk]

I did indeed, thanks! :)

Now amended with another scan too.

[ozaline]

Insomnia strikes, so I was trying to run that binary through a translator... it's not actually words in binary is it? There's no hidden messages to be found huh?

[skemono]

Depends on how you encode/decode it. But it's certainly not typical ASCII, no.

[icon_uk]

Alas no, the last time I posted that page there was much speculation along the lines of it being a REALLY good compression algorithm they'd ahve worked out between them, or possibly adding tonal pitch to the values, which would offer up a near infinitely complex series of possibilities.

[starwolf_oakley]

This sounds harsh, but I'm not sure that Doug *should* have been brought back. I mean, Doug's death is partially the reason Magneto went bad (again) and why certain New Mutants decided to become X-Force. Yes, all the time between doesn't negate everything. I'm just surprised they brought him back and kept him around.

[icon_uk]

I confess that it stunned the hell out of me too. I suspect a part of it was that people of my age were now moving in positions of power in the comics writing industry and had fond memories of him, and his potential in a post-Internet day (Since Doug was killed off only a few years before the invention of the World Wide Web which would have made him a lot more relevant... even if "only" as an Oracle type character). So for the same sort of reason as "Barry Allen is the only Flash that really matters and Hal HAS to be the primary Green Lantern" over at the distinguished competition, though less divisive.

Doug's death was one domino (an important one, and a cute one, but only one) in a long line of things which pushed Magento off the rails of "Xavier School"-dom. Ilyanna dying certainly didn't help matters either.

I don't think Doug's death was a lot to do with X-Force, which happened nearly years later, and even Cable only came along a couple of years after Doug died, so he was more or less a footnote in X-history... was he specifically mentioned by anyone as being part of their cause?

His death, and Magneto going slightly nuts, was a cause for the New Mutants to sort of want to get away from the whole "School" thing, though as it also got them those horrible Brett Blevin's costumes... so he might be more a trigger for that...

[starwolf_oakley]

I don't think Doug's death was a lot to do with X-Force, which happened nearly years later, and even Cable only came along a couple of years after Doug died, so he was more or less a footnote in X-history... was he specifically mentioned by anyone as being part of their cause?

Yes, that is a jump in logic on my part. For a while, the only members of X-Force who even *knew* Doug were Sam/Cannonball and Bobby/Sunspot.