Shut the Fuck Up, Fanboy!: Infinity Gauntlet - 2004-09-03 4:43 AM
SHUT THE FUCK UP FANBOY!
This time period's review:
THE INFINITY GAUNTLET,or
THE MOST AWESOME THING I'VE EVER READ
WRITER: Jim Starlin
ART: George Fucking Perez (Issues 1-3 and sorta 4) and Ron "Does this guy even work anymore?" Lim (Issues 5-6 and sorta 4)
I have fond memories of The Infinity Gauntlet. As a lad, a cousin of mine used to have a small comic collection. When I say small, I mean like a few issues. Only two really stood out: that issue of X-MEN during the late Claremont years with the dude who wants to kill Dazzler on the cover "I love you, Dazzler®... TO DEATH!"), and an issue of Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer issue stood out for one reason: it featured the corpses of all my favorite Marvel characters: Cylcops (who I vividly remember as being decapitated), Captain America, Iron Man, and yes, even Wolverine. I MARVEL®ED at this scene. What had happened to them? And why were Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer just floating above these characters and exchanging cosmic banter?
I finally got the answer a few years later when I read THE INFINITY GAUNTLET. Upon first reading it, as a stupid kid who didn't know any better, I found the whole affair depressing, what with Thanos, who always seemed to me a version of Darkseid without any real authority, kicking the crap out of all the superheroes and the final issues not involving any SKINTing or ZARKing or even any THWIPing that my idiotic younger self so very much craved.
Upon rereading it a couple weeks ago, after years of letting it sit in my semi-organized comic boxes, I have come to appreciate it. It's really a great read.
Thanos is in love with Death. That's right, the skeleton in a robe is a chick. And Thanos envisions her as a hot white woman for some reason. I guess Thanos has a fetish for human beings. Regardless, he has come into the possession of the Infinity
Gem, which, when placed on the Infinity Gauntlet, a big orange glove, gives the wearer godlike powers. I forget the name of
the Gems, but in the SNES video game, I always chose to equip the one that doubles my health.
Too bad that Death won't give Thanos the time of day. To get her attention, he decides to give her more souls to claim. Yes,
that's right, to get someone to like you, just give them more work to do. Watch the cute redhead in the office salivate when you put a stack of reports in her inbox. She can't help but push everything off her desk and fuck you right on top of the TPS Report! Anyway, so Thanos kills half of the population of the universe.
This has some irritating reprocussions on Earth. The Avengers have to save everybody while planes are falling out of the sky
and tsunamis are crashing down upon people. It's quite thrilling to see Namor pull a small child out of a pile of SENTINEL back issues. Remember, it's George Perez drawing Thor saving an airplane. Very cool.
Eventually, one things are under relative control, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, and some other cosmic fellows
assemble a team of superpeople to beat the shit out of Thanos as a part of some plan to defeat him. What's funny is that all of the big Marvel characters are very alive: Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Nova for some odd reason, Hulk, Cyclops, etc. I guess nobody wanted to see Speedball, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Blade, Hawkeye, and Doc Samson get stepped on by Thanos.
This leads to an all-out brawl between the superheroes and Thanos plus his newly-created daughter, whose name might be Nebula. I forgot. Anyway, Thanos slaughters EVERYBODY, and in different and creative ways to boot. What's great about this scene are the unexpected bits of dark humor, like seeing Nebula with Iron Man in a headlock in the background in one panel, then seeing Iron Man's head bounce off the ground in a corner of the following panel.
The issues that follow were the ones I didn't like when I first read it. Now, I enjoy this part even more than the previous one, which is probably due to my recent enjoyment of The Silver Surfer. After the heroes "fail" in defeating Thanos, a bunch of cosmic beings are assembled to take down Thanos, including Galactus and that big cosmic thing that had sex with the DC Universe (I think) in JLA/AVENGERS: COME WHAT SHIT. This part of the series just screams "Holy shit!" as Thanos battles with the forces that control the universe itself. This is what is missing from Marvel Comics nowadays. All that great cosmic stuff. Screw Earth! Ego, the Living Planet is much more interesting! Howzabout Brian Michael Bendis write something about
him? Dammit.
What I like most about this story is what happens with Thanos at the end. I don't want to spoil, but I like that he doesn't meet the end that a villain would typically get. If I had the comics available to me at this point in time, I would elaborate, but alas, they are a couple hundred miles away.
George Perez's art is a highlight, regardless of what you think of the script. He does great creative things with the page layouts instead of a typical story board format all the time. Ron Lim's art... well, to be honest, I find it hard to tell
between the two, until you notice the blank expressions on the characters' faces. That's Ron Lim. That's really my only gripe with the miniseries. George Perez should have done the whole damn thing. Maybe he broke his wrist again.
GRADE: A.
