Well, Sport, it appears that everything has gone tits up and the goodies have to resort to summoning David Bowie to save the day. Meanwhile, an election goes poorly for the bastards and they respond the way bastards always do. And for some reason, people think there’s hope.
A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4 is written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Valerio Schiti, colored by Marte Gracia and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Sean: If it’s any consolation, I am in no way responsible for the end of the fucking world. I died a couple of years back when some reality show people ended up blowing up a school in the summer. The worst part is I didn’t even attend North Mianus Elementary, I just played on the playground. But that’s what I get for living near Stamford, Connecticut.
Rasmus: I sadly can’t make the same claim. Denmark isn’t as important to the Marvel Universe that we’ve ever actually appeared (aside from when Doom lived in Copenhagen in the Ultimate Universe. That was fun.), let alone been wiped out. So … sorry, everyone?
There’s a lot of judging going around in this issue, and we start to get a better idea of how people are being judged. It’s a very interesting sequence, seeing who passes, who doesn’t and especially why. So let’s get to it!
Every Time the Curtain Falls on Some Forgotten Life …
Sean: Structurally speaking, we’re returning to the snapshots of humanity the previous three issues have provided us. We see familiar faces like Jada and Katrina get judged by God on the standards that God has laid out for them.
What changes is the addition of the superfolks. We see God judge Spider-Man and Daredevil and Doctor Doom. Everyone is important, as God put it, and everyone is equal. The test might not be the same and we might not realize we’re being tested, but the test is nevertheless there.
Rasmus: Everything is a test.
Which is why it’s good that Eros doesn’t go along with Sersi and the rest of the schemers’ plan. They want to plug him into the machine, amplify his love powers, broadcast them to the world, bringing the entire world together in love (for one day) and fool the Progenitor. Like last issue’s “Let’s beat up God!” plan, it sounds like the kind of superhero plan that would work. But that’s not how things work here.
Eros himself remarks that “If I use my abilities like this, I will fail the test. We will all fail. If we can’t pass the test, we deserve to fail.” We’re once again reminded that there’s no cheating, no easy way out. We have to pass or fail on our own merits, on whatever judgment is passed down by the Progenitor. And he works in mysterious ways.
Sean: The interesting thing about the logic of God is that it’s based not on one simple morality, but on character. Not simply being true to who you are, but true to your persona. The obvious one to go with is Doctor Doom. His test is being told up front that if he admits Reed Richards is better than him, he will pass. To which he laughs his ass off and passes anyway.
It’s the story Doom tells that ultimately results in their passing or failing. That he is the sort to be above it all. Other characters fare poorly or better because of their narratives. Matt Murdock fails because of his immense Catholic guilt. Katrina fails because she didn’t tip the lobby boy. Spider-Man passes because he’s Spider-Man and doing anything else would be tantamount to admitting defeat. And looking back, the story of Captain America failing the test makes sense since that story is that of bringing the best out of America, being the exemplar. And, well …
Rasmus: Yeah, the logic used by the Progenitor is very interesting. It is very clearly multifaceted. There’s a bit of morality in there, but it has far more to do with character and persona. It seems the central tenet is “to thine own self be true.” Those who are true to their persona, who are doing everything they can to pursue the essence of their character, those are the ones that are being judged in a positive light. It’s less about who you are, than about you being who you are, with all your fiber.
Sean: Our stories judge us based on who we are. It’s the quintessential Gillen narrative: living up to a good lie. Which makes God’s inability to judge Komali interesting.
Rasmus: She does have a strong and compelling story.
Her husband died in the streets, for nothing, for yet another of their pointless superhero things. The Progenitor did that, and he is guilty of Komali being without her husband. She would judge him and he would definitely be found wanting.
Now is one person’s grief more powerful than the story the Progenitor is telling itself about itself? Who knows. I do suspect we’ll find out before the event is over.
But you know who definitely deserves to be judged, ASAP? That asshole Druig.
Crisis on Infinite Fuckwits
Sean: Show of hands, who here had, “Space Logan Roy kills the world” on their Marvel bingo card? I know I had him for the DC one. It was perhaps inevitable that the craven politician would embrace the fascist persona. That is, after all, historically how fascists gain power: Some centrist and/or conservative figure sees they’re losing power to lefties and decides the only course of action is to give a fascist power. And, well … that does not end well for anyone.
Rasmus: At some point, you’d hope people would learn.
Thankfully, Uranos’ rule is short-lived. It’s over in a mere five pages. Which brings me to one of the main things about this event. It moves. There’s a lot of things happening, they happen quickly and then we move on. It’s not that things are moving too fast or that we don’t have time for the smaller moments, to create emotional beats, too. It’s just that things are stretched out. In another event, Uranos taking over could be an entire third of the story, not to mention the focus of its own spin-off. Not here, here it’s merely a part of the larger story. It’s an interesting and welcome change of pace.
Sean: Yeah, Gillen knows how to pace a six-issue series, where to place the big action scenes, where to slow things down and how to make it all sing perfectly. Here, we only get snapshots of the death and destruction conducted by Uranos upon the Earth and it feels like enough. And Schiti does fantastic work depicting the destruction. My god, the hand. That is quite possibly the most horrific hand I’ve seen. It doesn’t do anything but appear in the comic, but it doesn’t need to do more than that.
And of course, Uranos attacks Paris with a deadly bee weapon.
Bees. My god.
Rasmus: Not the bees!
The onslaught of Uranos’ armory makes it clear — yet again — that he is a planetary threat and he must be dealt with. Things look dire, but the heroes have an ace up their sleeve, in the electromagnetic pair of Storm and Magneto (newly heartless).
Through immense power and some trickery, the heroes do manage to defeat Uranos, though at great cost. It turns out you can’t live without a heart. Not for long. Magneto falls. Dead, in Storm’s arms, as the captions speak of Magneto seeing “the one he thought lost. She smiles and waves, approvingly.” And he dies with a grateful smile on his lips.
It’s one of those smaller moments that give the event emotional weight, even as dense as it is.
Then, having defeated the immediate threat of Uranos, Eros tries to save us all.
Let Us Assume That We Are …
Sean: The key word in that sentence is “tries.” You wouldn’t think the conflict at the heart of the event would be resolved four issues into a six-issue miniseries. Equally, the plan at the heart of Eros’ ambitions is “Love will save us all. Time lets us be better.” And this is a Gillen comic, so the universe decides that time’s up. (This is foreshadowed by Luke Cage’s judgment, who failed because he had to take care of other business.)
Love, ultimately, is a complex idea that refuses to cohere into something tangible and sane. The stories of love — which are arguably the heart of the Marvel Universe (Compare Darkseid to Thanos: One is a monster who is doing horrific things for the sake of mathematics. Who sees life as nothing more than a cog in the machine of his magnificence. The other is a nice guy who thinks if he’s just man enough to be a chad, he can woo a girl who’s just not into him. He’s pathetic and miserable and makes it everyone else’s problem.) — are ones that will change the world. But change requires time and energy, and the Marvel Universe has a lot of the latter and none of the former.
Rasmus: Time runs out.
Wait, wrong Marvel event. My bad.
“Love will save us all” is another of those ideas that seems like they should work but just doesn’t. The Progenitor isn’t that kind of antagonist. We’re not being judged on whether we’re “good.” It’s much more complex than that, and the heroes, the good guys, fail to see that, for obvious reasons.
So even after Eros’ passionate plea for all of Earth, the Progenitor deems life on Earth a failure and fire rains from the sky. Captain America’s shield protects him, but everyone around him is reduced to charred skeletons.
It’s a bold move of Marvel to release two more issues of the series — and an omega issue as well! — with nothing but barren dirt, but I applaud it.
Jury Box
- The final panel of the issue is just perfect. The sheer numb horror on Cap’s face as he says those words, lettered expertly small by Clayton Cowles to highlight the horror of the moment. Just perfection.
- Cowles really does great work in this series, even in less impactful panels. The subtle placement of each caption on the six-panel crowd pages, the space between captions are all just perfectly chosen, lending just the right amount of weight to each. Cowles’ work has the biggest chance of being unnoticed, as the rest of the creative team does more immediately impressive work, but make no mistake. Every member of the creative team is firing on all cylinders.
- To demonstrate this, consider Marte Gracia’s color work. Because holy shit, it’s fantastic. But I would like to give special mention to the scene in the Uni-Mind where everything is depicted in pinks and light blues that make it look simultaneously otherworldly and like you just stepped into the greatest dance club in the universe.
- That Kieron Gillen has yet to get a Daredevil book is either a sign that he knows what too much is (LIES!) or that someone at Marvel is making a mistake. Because everything about his one panel in this book is perfect.
- As one-half of ComicsXF’s Official Daredevil Review Team, I concur.
- In fact, every character who only appears in one panel is perfectly highlighted. Doom is perfect in his self-assurance, Spider-Man is perfect in his straightforwardness and Professor X is perfect in being a jerk.
- So Rasmus, how exactly did you fail the living people of the Marvel Universe?
- …
- …Uhm…
- …
- See you all next week for our discussion of Judgment Day #5!
Rasmus Skov Lykke
Rasmus Skov Lykke will write for food (or, in a pinch, money). When not writing, he spends his time with his wife, their daughter and their cats, usually thinking about writing.
