Wedding Bells

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Four scans from Fantastic Four #569.

This is the final issue of the extended Mark Millar run (because of Hitch's mother's death, he had to stop working on the art for this issue or give up doing Reborn).

So the Marquis is defeated, Doom gets a really, really big power upgrade, and the issue ends with the Ben/Debbie wedding, which runs into a snag when Ben doesn't show up.  Debbie eventually finds him.




Debbie gets a drink, then leaves and runs into Sue and a bunch of other heroes, who have also been trying to find Ben.



English nerd interjection:  They're both wrong (and, quite possibly, Millar knows this); Tennyson was talking about the death of a friend.

Anyway, Debbie remarks that that must be a guy thing, because she doesn't know any women who'd make the same choice (Sue agrees).



Johnny heads off, and Reed's buying.

Stuart Immonen does a great job of mimicking Hitch's art here.

And two from Wonder Woman #34.

While most of the issue is Diana and Dinah girling it up, there's an interlude on Themyscira, as regime change continues.



Ah, Philippus; you never get to actually do much, but you're always there.

One of the things I found odd about the "Rise of the Olympian" arc was how little Achilles actually did during it; from what's been shown of him so far, I do like him.



Zeus's replacement-Diana has apparently inherited real-Diana's awful taste in the opposite sex.  "On this distrustful island, she's the most distrustful and man-hating of them all!  Marry me, baby!"

Comments

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

While Phillipus giving up her weapon in the service of not making life difficult makes sense, I'm really surprised none of the Bana walked up and tried to gut Achilles the moment that "he means well" spilled out of his mouth.

[xammax.insanejournal.com]

Why should they bother. They know he'll get screwed soon enough. Diana wasn't betraying her people, she abandoned the ship that's been sinking for 3000 years... Zeus' wisdom.

[seawolf10.insanejournal.com]

Heh.

I confess, I'm going to be interested to see Artemis' reaction (since I highly doubt she's actually dead) to this when she gets back.

[thokstar.insanejournal.com]

So, how long until Sebastian Bellesteros is brought back to fight Achilles?

If you're going to do a gender flipped version of Wonder Woman (and so far that seems to be the idea behind Achilles), you might as well go all the way.

[spooky_lemur.insanejournal.com]

It's not fair that Millar can get Ben so right but screw up just about every other aspect of the F4 and Doom.

Poor Ben.

[spooky_lemur.insanejournal.com]

And who is the guy in glasses that "corrects" Namor?

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

I assumed it was Bruce Banner, and the girl in question Betty.

[spooky_lemur.insanejournal.com]

Ah that makes sense. Thanks.

[rzerox21xx.insanejournal.com]

If Spiderman is invited to weddings and other hero gathering and it was shown in public. Why is he still hated by public? it been 10 freaking years snice he supposly started. New Yorkers should be used to him and not get so stupidly hostile towards him.

So Ben, I see Alica is still alive and fine. There's a stupid logic in breaking up with your girlfriend just cause you don't want to endanger her. She's still has the connection and villians who do their research will logically still target her even if the hero send her away. Doesnt mean she can't still be used as bait or a weak point.

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

There's a stupid logic in breaking up with your girlfriend just cause you don't want to endanger her. She's still has the connection and villians who do their research will logically still target her even if the hero send her away. Doesnt mean she can't still be used as bait or a weak point.

Motto. It's not like a villain is going to think "hummm, I could kidnap and/or murder this woman, whom the Thing loves, but she is not his wife so I shouldn't bother." If anything, as his wife, she'd be more protected because she'd live in the Baxter Building and she'd be almost always near heroes.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

Alicia's got connections to superheroes, supervillains, and cosmically powered being. THey're scared to death of going after her.

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

There is a certain logic to picking the most disagreeable person. In a "If I can make THIS work everything else should be a piece of cake!" kind of way.

Probably not the wisest course of action, but still.

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

I kind of feel sorry for Achilles. He obviously thinks that the regime change is bullshit and that the "let's make a thousands-year warrior race suddenly give up their beloved weapons!" policy is incredibly idiotic, but he can't bring himself to disobey his God and maker, so he ends up taking all the blame and resentment for Zeus' decisions. Talk about crappy luck.

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure on one thing: is this guy THE Achilles whom Zeus brought back to life, or is he just a newly-created guy who was named Achilles because it's an important name?

Zeus's replacement-Diana has apparently inherited real-Diana's awful taste in the opposite sex. "On this distrustful island, she's the most distrustful and man-hating of them all! Marry me, baby!"

Probably he is thinking something along the lines of "if I can convince her to accept me, all the others will follow."

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

He appears to just have appropriated the name; he certainly doesn't act like someone with previous life experience (nor does he particularly act like myth-Achilles).

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

If that's so, then, even if he looks like a man, he is actually a little child.

Now I feel even sorrier for all the crap he is going through :(

[barnesarama.insanejournal.com]

What, dressing up like a serving maid for his boyfriend?

Is Gail going to make any reference to how Achilles and Patroclus met up?

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Been reading too much Enderverse, lately. Keep thinking "Ay-sheel" instead of "Uh-kil-lees" . . .

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

The superhero genre as a whole seriously needs to quit with this bullshit of I HAVE TO SPURN THE WOMAN I LOVE BECAUSE OTHERWISE SHE'S DOOMED TO DIE OR SUFFER A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH, because seriously, if you can't unpack the unholy fuck-ton of misogynistic WRONGNESS that's inherent in that belief ...

[warpedhand.insanejournal.com]

It's not really misogynistic as much as it is stupid. Ben deals with otherworldly crap that's trying to kill him and the people he associates with all the time. So the assumption that they would go after his wife, who doesn't deal with that sort of thing, and physically doesn't really have any way of protecting herself, isn't exactly totally crazy. However, the idea that whoever it is would have a thought process similar to "Hold everything! If there's no ring, we can't touch her! Guess we have to go home empty-handed!" is ridiculous.

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

Keep your enemies close...

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, why would you seat all those guys together? (But yay! Dorma!)

I think it's a bit rubbish to introduce sexist language as well as the physical battle of the sexes ("sheathe your claws").

[stig.insanejournal.com]

...Jeez, I couldn't even tell.

Marvel doesn't give Stuart Immonen enough credit. He and Kathryn are WALKING GOLD.

[ghosty732.insanejournal.com]

I could barely tell, it just looked like Hitch had improved even more (and I love Hitch's art).

Who knew Immonen could draw like this? I love their normal style, too, but this is just amazing.

[stig.insanejournal.com]

You should see NEXTwave vol.2, if you haven't already. The protagonists are forced to undergo bleak, pointless versions of their individual lives, aka Darkseid's Omega sanction; Immonen manages to homage Sixties underground comix, Hellboy, and Daniel Clowes, and does it beautifully.

[thatnickguy.insanejournal.com]

I believe it. Ever seen his work on Superman: Secret Identity? It's a piece of beautiful art, I tell you.

[oddpuppets.insanejournal.com]

Don't remind me. I'm still trying to find a copy of that. I loved it when I first read it, in no small part due to the art, but I was going though a frugal phase in my life and now I am such a sad panda.

Yeah me too..

[steverodgers5.insanejournal.com]

Weird that the last issue Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch have any input on, is the one that's the best at the sort of things they normally do quite well, and yet it's also the one they had the least to do with? Huh!...Irony..

Still despite the possibly valid logic gaps people have pointed out below..I really enjoyed this issue, certainly more than any other Marvel title this week..(Though I admit the twist at the end of this week's Thunderbolts was surprisingly good..But then that's a discussion for another page..)

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

Why does Namor appear to be interested in whatever Spidey and Daredevil are whispering about? That's rather unlike him.

Hell, he's even leaning back and twisting his head to hear them better. I guess they must be talking about Sue's underwear or something.

[ghosty732.insanejournal.com]

Hey, sometimes beneath his hart exterior, even Namor wants to fit in and gossip.

[naebler.insanejournal.com]

Probably Osborn Jokes. And Namor wants some he can share with his new man love Doom.

[thatnickguy.insanejournal.com]

I'm just happy he's actually drawn properly for a change!

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

The "oh noes, dead girlfriend/wife!" thing makes me want to beat my head into a wall.

[fredneil.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

To be fair, it might lead to some bad writing, but having a dead girlfriend/wife really does suck.

It probably sucks even more when someone did it deliberately and still more when that person is still walking around.

How could Spider-Man not think about it every day when Norman Osborne is probably in the news every day?

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

Of course it sucks. And I'm not reproaching Spider-Man for mourning Gwen or thinking about her constantly.

But it's still a problematic trope that walks almost hand-in-hand with fridging ("Raise your hand if you're a superhero with a dead girlfriend!") and often leads to the "I'm ending this for your own good!" stuff seen here, which can be gratingly paternalistic. Combined with the anvilicious "See how good it is we put in the genie back in the bottle and undid the Spider-Marriage, because it means he won't have a love interest in mortal danger!" spiel Daredevil just gave Spider-Man, I'm rolling my eyes here. (Plus, we almost never see this situation with a female superhero and male love interest.)

[felinephoenix.insanejournal.com]

Exactly. I actually found this to be a good version of this old, tired cliche story - I do understand and sympathize with Ben here, even though I think he made a mistake - but that doesn't mean the trope isn't in and of itself problematic.

To be honest, I think it's kind of OOC for Peter to advise Ben not to go through with his marriage out of fear. Because Peter's been there. Even though he'll always regret what happened to Gwen (and nice touch there, I much prefer that take to the Saint Gwen nonsense) he knows better than the other guys that you can move on and have a good, lasting relationship even if your girlfriend/wife/whatever dies on you. Out of all those men, I believe he's the only one who did in fact move on.

... hahahaha oh WAIT silly me that's right I keep forgetting the marriage didn't happen.

[oddpuppets.insanejournal.com]

That's the problem with using the 'trope'. On one hand, you understand why the hero does this. They can't bear to see the person they love in danger for their association with the hero, especially with a public hero like the Thing, so they say "I can't do this to you." On the other hand, by doing this they are seizing all the responsibility in the relation ship and not giving their significant other a say in their relationship - key word there, because its not just about you, Ben/Hero of whatever novel or book.

Slipping in between these two hands comes a tentative, shy little bugger of an extremity who goes "Well, yes, but if you are in love you do stupid, selfish things, because of a variety of factors that would take far too long to explain in this one little quote here - essentially boiling down to, in a purely selfish manner, he can't imagine dealing without her so doesn't want to go that way." Another hand pops around and says, " 'Tis true. Love is all about opening up and letting someone in and well, let's be honest, we're not very good at that."

At some point a hydra/Shiva-like creature of many, many hands try to wrangle their way through the argument and it all ends in tears. Essentially, I think that while people are right in pointing out that the trope is not only overdone but rarely satisfyingly, it's also a bit too much to claim paternalistic. That would imply that his actions are either deliberately thought of through or caused by a paternalistic impulse, whereas I think that in this case, and probably in most cases, it's mostly selfish. Especially in character-driven books, since obviously we're supposed to look from the point of the protagonist(s). And you know what, that's okay. I just would rather they try to deal with it honestly and don't either Spat-fight or Martyr-Accept.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

On the other hand, by doing this they are seizing all the responsibility in the relation ship and not giving their significant other a say in their relationship

An individual has to make his own decisions about whether he/she wants to be in a relationship; if he's uncomfortable with it, he should reasonably explain why (which Ben does), but at the end of the day he has to decide that for himself. He's taking responsibility for his own participation.

[fredneil.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I think his point is that even if you can have a good, lasting relationship, there's still the fear (and more importantly, the possibility) that the person you're in a good, lasting relationship with will be killed. He moved on and Gwen's still dead. If Ben got married and his wife were killed, Ben would move on and his wife would still be dead.

As good as the marriage with Mary Jane is (it's eventually coming back. It's just a question of when) and without getting into the question of who Peter loved "more," which is a silly question anyway, I have no doubt that if he were offered the chance to go back in time and save Gwen's life, but it would mean he never married Mary Jane, he would do it. And without thinking about it, I just came up what would have been a better way to get rid of the marriage than what they actually went with.

[thatnickguy.insanejournal.com]

That's Immonen!? Holy crap. I knew there was a reason he was my favourite artist. Can we just have him draw everything? =D

Also, I guess they wanted to bring everything right back to status quo...again. No big changes here, no siree! We gotta have our Fantastic Four the exact same all the time, no matter what! Because, you know, a happy moment for a longtime and beloved character isn't what any reader wants to read.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Hey, is Aunt Petunia really dead, or was that just an illusion?

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

It's not mentioned again (even here, where if it was real it might make for an important anecdote on Ben's part), so presumably it wasn't (everything else the Marquis did in that issue was a projected torment).

[(Anonymous)]

He SHOULD talk to Scott Summers

[jcbaggee.insanejournal.com]

That wouldn't work.

"Don't worry Ben, she comes back every six months."

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

::spittake::

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

You know, one of these days, the women are going to cotton on and say "No inviting your superhero buddies if you're going to use their lives as a reason to leave me at the altar."

[oddpuppets.insanejournal.com]

You know what really didn't make any sense? Daredevil. Because I mean man, there should be so many more dead ladies hovering over his head. Also, he's a bad example because Elektra did come back from the dead. He's the lucky one! ....Sorta.

This icon is endlessly relevant

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

"Ben, she doesn't always die! Sometimes, she turns into a murderous supervillain and beats the crap out of you. Or, y'know, ends up in an insane asylum. Like my wife and Typhoid, ha ha oh god I need a drink."

[jcbaggee.insanejournal.com]

Just throwing this out there, I know it's all been done to death, but Spidey's line right there? Heart breaking.