Marvel Comic Update: [Spoiler] Die A Painful Death

Marvel is first and foremost a comic company. That is the root of the publisher and that is how they made their fortune. The movie franchise may have saved Marvel from bankruptcy but it’s the comics why the artists keep going. The passion of comics is something known only to a true comic nerd or someone who has worked in the industry for a long time. There is a joy in creating stories, in telling tall tales of decrepit and desolate futures where no hope remains. It seems rather chilling to sit through the ups and downs of super powered beings who could rule the world, if they wanted to, but still choose to defend it.

It seems rather interesting that in the comics its always the villains who are trying to change something and the heroes are the ones who fight to keep the things as they are. It is rather surprising that our heroes would fight to protect the status quo than try to change the society for the better. I mean these superheroes are the epitome of our human existence, right? they seem to be able to do everything that we wish we could in our miserable lives. Superheroes are the products of our imagination and it should be these protectors of humanity that lead the charge for positive change in our society.

And yet, in some way or the other, superheroes end up propagating and perceptualizing the status quo. It’s always just more of the same than radical change. Is it so surprising that a world full of super-powered individuals be so different from that of our own? I wonder how all of this actually works considering any socialist could be considered a villain by these individuals. Setting apart the morality issues of vigilantism and the need of villainy and social change, have you ever given thought to the possibility of the villains triumphing in the end.

Yes, I know that Thanos won infinity war, but I am not talking about a short-term victory. The entire premise of infinity war was to start the end of the first series arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, it is completely possible that the events of Infinity War become completely immaterial come Avengers 4.

On the other hand, the comics have much more freedom when it comes to character deaths in story arcs. Comics can also take liberties with action sequences because the comic is just an idea presented on a paper, it does not need to be filmed and it takes substantially less amount of money to develop in comparison to a feature-length action movie.

Let’s talk about the latest dose of gore that Marvel comics threw at fans. Any Marvel fan worth his salt knows of a comic series called Old man Logan, the series follows Logan in a desolate future where the villains have won and the Avengers have been long dead. We meet Wolverine, old and defeated living on barren land with a small family.

We then meet the inbred children of Hulk and She-Hulk, they run a gang that extracts a toll on people living in the wasteland. Sort of a protection racket. The rules are much harsher in this reality and Logan is very very tired.

Old man Logan is based off of this crazy idea that the villains one day decided to band together and just murder the heroes without remorse or reason. Red skull rests in the rotting white house and the other villains rule divided up city-states as they wish.

In this rotting world, we see and old Logan team up with a Hawkeye that’s going blind. Although the Old man Logan story branched into the battle world and god doom storyline, the backstory of the Hawkeye of this world seems to be much more gruesome. The death of the original Avengers was a precursor in the old man Logan comics but in the old man Hawkeye #7 we get to witness the deaths of these Avengers.

Through this comic, we learn that the thunderbolts assisted the villains in murdering the Avengers so they could get on the good side of the new overlords of the world after the death of Avengers.

After all, Hawkeye was the character who was the most betrayed by the conspiracy pulled by the thunderbolts. It is quite surprising how Clint waited to grown old and gray before setting out for his revenge. But that is a different story altogether and it is much better told in the source material.