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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thor and the mistake of not trying

Comic Book Wisdom is an effort to find great and inspiring quotes from the pages of comic books. If you're not regular reader, or one of those people who still thinks that comic books are only for kids (Boo, shame on you!), you may be surprised by the numbers of great quotes in the comic books out there.
I am going to try to share as many of these wisdom as possible under this label, Comic Book Wisdom.
The page above is from Thor #10, published by Marvel a few months a go.
Never in my whole life of reading comic books, have I ever been a fan of Thor. I love Marvel Comics but one thing that bugged about Thor is the Shakespearean English. For a non-native English speaker like me, just try reading those "thou" and "thee" is enough to make me suffer from a headache.
Marvel hired J. Michael Straczynsky (or lovingly known by fans as JMS) the writer of the newly-relaunched Thor and Frenchman Olivier Coipel as the artist. For those of you not in the know, JMS is a famous TV and comic book writer. His previous comic book works are a legendary run on Amazing Spider-Man, his own work Midnight Nation (which also won appraisals from both fans and critics), and many more.
But for those of you Indonesians, he's probably most widely known as the producer/writer for the 90's sci-fi space opera Babylon 5.
He also recently wrote an Angelina Jolie flick Changeling and his other movie is soon to hit theaters near you-Ninja Assassin (hit imdb for further reference).
JMS wisely used "poetic" English but doesn't let himself be trapped with the Shakespearean English used since Stan Lee wrote the book. For an illustration, the English used in the current incarnation of Thor is similar to the dialogues in Lord of the Rings movies : poetic, beautiful, yet doesn't make you want to scratch your head every five minutes.
JMS also makes Thor a very contemplative and spiritual comic book, like his aforementioned Amazing Spider-Man. How many superhero books can claim that?
Read the dialogue above ( second panel, first row) and see what I mean.
For those of you having trouble reading it, it says,
"Biggest mistakes I ever had were in listening to guys like that, instead of listening to my own heart...what my granddad used to call 'the tyranny of reasonable voices'."
"Mistakes you MAKE can always be worked out, the mistakes you DON'T make because you do NOTHING, because you don't TRY, you don't RISK, those are the ones that haunt you when you get old."
"REGRET, that's the real killer."

How can you not love a dialogue like that?

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2 comments:

  1. im currently reading thi book as i write this, man jms is a great writer one of the best books i read so far

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  2. Thanks for visiting and sorry for the late response!
    I agree JMS is a great writer. I also would recommend Midnight Nation as a further proof of his brilliance.
    Now that he's going to write Superman, I have high hopes that he will continue to mix spiritualism with superheroics and leave the ugly "One More Day" storyline at Marvel.

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