The Infinity Post
Jul. 11th, 2012 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficBeen, ah... catching up on Jim Starlin's seminal works in Marvel canon (way better than his semenal work in Fourth World canon). You have Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and Infinity Crusade (working my way through that, but by then, the tie-ins really start to balloon).
1. Infinity Gauntlet still holds up really well as a story. There are clear stakes, everything seems to tie together, and it's just a fun read. Most of all, the Earth superheroes get a pivotal role in the climax, whereas by Infinity War they're more like a bunch of goobers who fart around to show the seriousness of the situation while Adam Warlock and his lot solve things (I guess in modern day, this is solved by having Cosmic Marvel be its own thing and not even bringing Wolverine into it. Which is good, as I prefer losing the Every Marvel Hero In Existence panels to having them and giving them nothing to do).
2. I could see Gauntlet pretty easily working for a movie adaptation, at least the sections with Thanos and Mistress Death. Say, replace Mephisto (the literal devil, who metaphorically sits on Thanos' shoulder) with Red Skull and Nebula (Thanos's maybe grand-daughter, who gets turned into a zombie and then makes a grab for the titular Gauntlet) with Loki. Loki fangirls will love seeing their boy get whomped and then 'save the day', while Red Skull fans... are there Red Skull fans? Anyway, who can say no to a Nazi supervillain giving a mad god tips to seduce Death?
3. It's funny looking back, but even though almost every death is undone and none of the cataclysm last, there's still a sense of story progression in that the characters change and grow. It's a bit nicer than marking every Big Comic Event with the death of a B-lister.
4. Of course, one of the tie-ins is a flashback to Gamora's origin, and a really gratuitous gang rape origin story. "Well, let's see, I've worked out this origin where she gets beaten half to death and Thanos turns her into a cyborg. That seems traumatic enough to define her personality." "Nah, let's have her be raped too. If one thing sells comics, it's gang rape!" Oh, Starlin. I mean, aren't all these rape backstory characters the same. "After I was raped, I decided I would be the toughest bitch around and NEVER TRUST MEN AGAIN!" How many takes on that character do we need? Like, we have Dr. Strange, we have Dr. Druid--after that, Marvel stops with the lame wizard characters. But apparently we need fifty rape victim characters? I mean, c'mon.
Plus, Gamora's design of "sexy green woman in fishnets" doesn't really scream cyborg to me. I hate to be one of those "Superman should wear Kryptonian armor blah blah" fans, but a redesign to emphasize the advanced technology traumatically grafted to her body would seem to be in order. Even Seven of Nine had a little "this character got fucked up by the Borg" design elements underneath the sexy, sexy catsuit thing. I think something like that would be in order, even if it made a female character (ho shit!) not sexy.
5. The premise of Infinity War is that Adam Warlock's evil side starts causing a ruckus, and the premise of Infinity Crusade is that Adam Warlock's good side recruits all the religious superheroes (yikes) to start a ruckus. My question is, how many of these cosmic disasters jump directly off Adam Warlock's dick? One day, I want to write a crossover where Adam Warlock's latent homosexuality recruits all the gay superheroes to make the universe more fabulous. We'll call it InfiniHEEEEY Gauntlet.
1. Infinity Gauntlet still holds up really well as a story. There are clear stakes, everything seems to tie together, and it's just a fun read. Most of all, the Earth superheroes get a pivotal role in the climax, whereas by Infinity War they're more like a bunch of goobers who fart around to show the seriousness of the situation while Adam Warlock and his lot solve things (I guess in modern day, this is solved by having Cosmic Marvel be its own thing and not even bringing Wolverine into it. Which is good, as I prefer losing the Every Marvel Hero In Existence panels to having them and giving them nothing to do).
2. I could see Gauntlet pretty easily working for a movie adaptation, at least the sections with Thanos and Mistress Death. Say, replace Mephisto (the literal devil, who metaphorically sits on Thanos' shoulder) with Red Skull and Nebula (Thanos's maybe grand-daughter, who gets turned into a zombie and then makes a grab for the titular Gauntlet) with Loki. Loki fangirls will love seeing their boy get whomped and then 'save the day', while Red Skull fans... are there Red Skull fans? Anyway, who can say no to a Nazi supervillain giving a mad god tips to seduce Death?
3. It's funny looking back, but even though almost every death is undone and none of the cataclysm last, there's still a sense of story progression in that the characters change and grow. It's a bit nicer than marking every Big Comic Event with the death of a B-lister.
4. Of course, one of the tie-ins is a flashback to Gamora's origin, and a really gratuitous gang rape origin story. "Well, let's see, I've worked out this origin where she gets beaten half to death and Thanos turns her into a cyborg. That seems traumatic enough to define her personality." "Nah, let's have her be raped too. If one thing sells comics, it's gang rape!" Oh, Starlin. I mean, aren't all these rape backstory characters the same. "After I was raped, I decided I would be the toughest bitch around and NEVER TRUST MEN AGAIN!" How many takes on that character do we need? Like, we have Dr. Strange, we have Dr. Druid--after that, Marvel stops with the lame wizard characters. But apparently we need fifty rape victim characters? I mean, c'mon.
Plus, Gamora's design of "sexy green woman in fishnets" doesn't really scream cyborg to me. I hate to be one of those "Superman should wear Kryptonian armor blah blah" fans, but a redesign to emphasize the advanced technology traumatically grafted to her body would seem to be in order. Even Seven of Nine had a little "this character got fucked up by the Borg" design elements underneath the sexy, sexy catsuit thing. I think something like that would be in order, even if it made a female character (ho shit!) not sexy.
5. The premise of Infinity War is that Adam Warlock's evil side starts causing a ruckus, and the premise of Infinity Crusade is that Adam Warlock's good side recruits all the religious superheroes (yikes) to start a ruckus. My question is, how many of these cosmic disasters jump directly off Adam Warlock's dick? One day, I want to write a crossover where Adam Warlock's latent homosexuality recruits all the gay superheroes to make the universe more fabulous. We'll call it InfiniHEEEEY Gauntlet.
