Might as well continue with the 2nd engagement mentioned by people at the beginning of this thread: Superman v Diana in the storyline "For Tomorrow". I'm nebulous on exactly what happens in the complete arc, which spans many issues, but the gist of it seems to be that Superman helplessly experiences the complete disappearance of Lois Lane and many others, and is apparently blamed for attracting the attention that caused the occurence, as he is unfairly blamed for many crazies harming others to get at him, historically, I suppose. The twist is that, somehow, a machine, apparently called "The Vanishing", which presumably was at least somewhat responsible for the occurence to begin with, has the ability to bring all those people back, alive and well.
Problem is, Superman is apparently the only one who believes the machine can be made to that. Even his close friends, Wonder Woman included, believes that the Vanishing KILLED all those disappeared people, and will, in all likelihood, result in Superman's death if HE tries to use the machine to trace or restore those victims. THAT is why Wonder Woman is intervening in this case. She is actually trying to save Superman's life, and determines that either destroying the machine, or getting Superman to back down forever from any plan of using the hellish device is the most sensible, the only, true recourse.
Obviously, those visions AREN'T reconcilable, since, in the mind of either hero, the course of the other will result in likely permanent death for a friend or many friends ...
I like the last 3 scenes I showed for the kind of leg strength they show Diana possesses; not so much the helicopter pilot's expletive in the original comic.
I edited THAT to an ellipse instead of a swear word, in keeping with KMC's family-friendly format...
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Storyline: "For Tomorrow."
Source: Superman #211, Volume 2
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Penciller: Jim Lee
Date: January 2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Superman_Vol_2_211
This thread has been around for more than 2 YEARS.
It is ENTITLED "Superman versus Wonder Woman".
The biggest COMPLAINT of the starting posters is that the 2 most FAMOUS post-Crisis fights between these two are NOT in the respect threads of either character,
let alone any numerous other Diana/Clark fights throughout DC history.
One person finally comes and begins providing material to CORRECT misperceptions like "Diana was bloodlusted", to give only one example,
which you can find on page 1, which she wasn't, and that it was Superman that was enraged and out of control in Sacrifice, as even the Moderator of this forum himself has stated,
yet pointing this out, and visually backing up these counters here,
again, some of which were mentioned by posters specifically STATING they wished someone could provide issue numbers or visuals and/or had someone to remember where these things took place
is "SPAM" in your mind?
In all seriousness, how exactly does THAT seem a reasonable and fair evaluation to you?
Here is a reason you should do this in a vs thread: more people will see it and you will get a discussion. The vs forum is far more active than this one. Honestly, I stopped reading whatever you were posting after I saw that it was you posting like 20 times in a row.
I explained the necessity of numerous posts earlier on in this thread.
KMC, as an Image Host Provider (IHP), the only truly secure ihp FOR posting on KMC, at least based on my own personal experience, has a size limit of 250 kilobytes.
A very SMALL size limit that is.
I'm glad they have one at all, but it IS small.
Posting anything large enough to see from a comic page, therefore, means essentially posting individual panels from a comic.
I select carefully and cut out extraneous, offensive, or unnecessary material, but there is a bare minimum that has to be posted to really communicate anything.
Yet almost nothing has been off-topic, save answers to questions P.R. himself asked me. And, really, given that mine was the first update to this thread in roughly 2 years, I don't think a reasonable amount of discussion on related if technically off-topic material will do anything to violate the integrity of KMC.
On the other hand ...
Well, I've got to say I'm glad my first intro to KMC was via the respect threads. THOSE are generally done the way a fan thread should be done. Lots of happy focus on people's favorite characters, heavy on comic scans and celebratory feats, light on attacks or inappropriate behavior toward other posters.
The "Versus" threads ... ?
MY but I'm glad P.R. has seen fit to keep this thread clear of that forum these past 2 years ... ! Hope he does it another 2, at least.
I would suggest you peruse the boards as an unregistered "guest" periodically, though. This is definitely NOT an untrafficked forum. Proof is in the "view" counts. This particular thread is somewhere around 4,900 so far. Started off around 4,000 when I began posting here, though. Most of that, presumably, for the 2 years the thread had been around. So in only 2 weeks or so, my posting has brought in several hundred viewers. I wouldn't consider that a bad thing.
It even brought in YOU! You had not posted before in this thread, after all. And, despite any talk of not reading what I posted, you felt involved enough to write in today.
And it is an interesting topic with equally interesting side-issues, after all. A place, as this has been so far, where people can CORDIALLY explore that subject certainly has ME intrigued ...
I was reading this thread before you posted. I only posted something because I feel that a better discussion would take place on the vs thread. There are plenty of people there that know a lot about Superman that don't come here. Also, just seems like you're beating your head against the wall when you keep posting and posting and posting and there are no responses. I am aware of why you have so many posts, but ususally people wait for a reply before they continue to keep hammering whatever point they are trying to make home. It just seems like you're having an argument that no one seems interested in here.
Also, I am not saying that this thread should be moved. I simply suggesting you start the same kind of thread in the vs forum and also keep this one going, and if they get merged at some point, so be it. Frankly, since you seem so hell bent on proving your point you'd think you'd like to prove it to a larger audience...
Already on space with the sun, if she was unable to break on earth, here it will be even harder, but she has that piece of Kryptonite so the "amp" gets null and the box of K is already open and facing SM so He is getting the radiation. She breaks free by pain complaince to SM's eyes.
NOTE: Please note here the SUN is on WW back and Superman is about to punch Diana into the sun and finish this fight for good, at the speed this fight is taking place, this punch is coming fast
Why? because SM wanted DD to suffer, a mental handicap sm that is. Fight should have ended right there.
Sm punching Diana into the Sun, but no, We can't kill Diana she has to save the day. This whole fight lasted less than 2 minutes, this near sun kill is happening with in a minute of the start of the fight. A MINUTE!!!
Diana has already a broken wrist and 3rd degree burns on her face, what does SM has?
The more I learn of "For Tomorrow", the more I dearly wish Brian Azzarello had a website or some center where fans could ask him questions. For I am almost certain I know where the inspiration for "The Vanishing" came from.
And that is the 1988 Dutch film of the exact same name.
Which was released here in America 2 years later.
And also given a remake.
Wikipedia has the following to say about the opening plot ...
" A Dutch couple, Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege), are on a cycling holiday in France. As they are driving, Saskia tells Rex of a recurring dream that she had, in which she is drifting through space in a golden egg. She tells Rex that this time there was someone else in another golden egg, and that if they were to collide, everything would be over. She said that being stuck in the golden egg was terrifying loneliness. Their car runs out of gas and they are stranded inside a tunnel. They quarrel for a while, but make up and eventually get going again..."
There's much more to the story.
I'm debating creating a thread for that topic.
For that 1988 Dutch film is based on a 1984 Dutch novel.
And the name of that Dutch novel is The Golden Egg.
And what we see of the Vanishing globe Superman contemplates as Wonder Woman flashes her own egg-shaped shield is nearly exactly what readers of that novel would have seen on the cover:
Short on time today. No time to go through the hour-long effort that would probably be necessary to condense this the PROPER way.
Instead, please, read the following, to get the gist of what subject matter the ORIGINAL "Vanishing" really was dealing with.
Be warned.
This can be more than a little disturbing, as, now that I think of it, can be said of much of Azarrello's work.
Again.
Be warned.
This may prove EXTREMELY disturbing reading for some:
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... Dutch couple, Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege), are on a cycling holiday in France. As they are driving, Saskia tells Rex of a recurring dream that she had, in which she is drifting through space in a golden egg. She tells Rex that this time there was someone else in another golden egg, and that if they were to collide, everything would be over. She said that being stuck in the golden egg was terrifying loneliness. Their car runs out of gas and they are stranded inside a tunnel. They quarrel for a while, but make up and eventually get going again.
Later they stop at a petrol station, where Saskia goes into the shop for drinks and never returns. Rex waits, getting more worried and nervous by the minute as Saskia does not emerge. He soon starts to question people if they have seen her, but no one has any idea as to where she is. The only clue he has is a blurred photo he took of the surrounding area, in which he can just barely make out her red hair in a group of people next to the gas station entrance.
Rex cannot accept his loss and spends the next three years compulsively looking for her. He has a new girlfriend, Lieneke (Gwen Eckhaus), but she becomes so fed up with Rex's obsession to understand Saskia's ultimate fate that she leaves him. His quest even results in him explaining her story on television, revealing that he had the same dream as Saskia about the golden egg, and this has inspired him to continue searching.
In a series of intermittent flashbacks, Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), a respectable, middle-class chemistry teacher — and Saskia's kidnapper — appears both alone and with his family, intricately plotting and planning his scheme to kidnap a random woman.
Eventually, Raymond, fascinated by Rex's fanatical compulsion to know what happened to Saskia, confronts Rex and admits to kidnapping her. He explains that he felt the need to test himself, to find out whether he could commit what he considered the ultimate act of evil. Rex's ultimate curiosity concerning Saskia keeps him from killing Raymond, which Raymond is fully aware of. Raymond finally invites Rex to the very same park and gas station where Saskia disappeared, and simply tells Rex that if he drinks a cup of coffee, which he tells Rex is spiked, he will experience what happened to Saskia. Rex eventually drinks the concoction, passes out, and wakes up in a coffin buried under the earth. His own disappearance soon makes the headline of a local newspaper...
The above was Wikipedia's summary of the "The Vanishing" FILM's plot.
Below, again be warned, it can prove equally disturbing to read,
is a synopsis of the original NOVEL's plot:
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... Rex Hofman and Saskia Ehlvest, have traveled to France for a bicycling vacation. One night they have a minor argument but quickly make up, and Rex pulls over at a convenience store to refuel. He and Saskia bury coins to mark the spot, then she goes into the station to buy drinks and is never seen again.
Eight years later he is still haunted by her disappearance. He is now in a relationship with another woman named Lieneke, who is both sympathetic to, and frustrated by, the hold that Saskia's disappearance has over him. Despite her misgivings, however, they become engaged.
It is at this point that the reader is introduced to Raymond Lemorne, the man responsible for whatever happened to Saskia. The novella reveals that Lemorne once saved a young girl from drowning; having proven to himself that he is capable of great goodness, Raymond then begins to wonder if he is capable of an act of pure evil. He then comes up with an idea to murder someone in the most horrible fashion he can imagine. The book follows his meticulous preparations, and his long months of trying to find a suitable victim. This section of the novella ends with him abducting Saskia, but we are still not told what happens to her, though the book does provide clues.
At this point the narrative switches back to Rex. His obsession with discovering what happened to Saskia has grown to such an extreme that he has taken out a large loan to post advertisements in papers throughout France, hoping that someone might be able to provide him with information. His quest has also driven a wedge into his relationship with Lieneke. One night he is approached by Lemorne, who reveals that he is the one who abducted Saskia, and in a bizarre show of sympathy he offers to satisfy Rex's determination to discover her ultimate fate, but only if Rex agrees to undergo the same ordeal that Saskia suffered.
After a long discussion between the two men, Rex agrees to Lemorne's proposal, and proceeds to drink a cup of coffee laced with a sedative. He awakens sometime later to find himself buried alive, and suffocates while imagining himself to be with Saskia.
In the epilogue it is revealed that several newspapers commented upon Rex's mysterious disappearance and its eerie similarity to Saskia's. Their fates are never discovered; it is as if they vanished from the face of the earth...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Egg
Disturing to even read ABOUT, let alone actually read, but almost surely what inspired Azarrello when he was writing "For Tomorrow".
The parallels are too close to miss.
Globe imagery/mention precedes Vanishing in the novels and film.
Globe imagery precedes Vanishing in the comic.
Rex is obsessed with a "vanished" lover.
Superman is obsessed with a "vanished" lover.
Rex's wife quarrels with him, severely, over his obsession.
Wonder Woman quarrels with Superman, severely, over his obsession.
Rex, despite the protests of his wife/fiancee, succeeds in pursuing, and finding, the cause of his lover's disappearance, and "vanishes" himself.
Superman, despite the protests of Wonder Woman, succeeds in pursuing, and finding, the cause of HIS lover's disappearance, and "vanishes" himself.
Had I far more time, I would pin down and match the Superman #211 scenes that parallel those points exactly.
But it's no matter either way.
Salsa, the point is this, all the preceeding was just to corroborate:
The Superman/Wonder Woman encounter is not a traditional comicbook battle. Superman's face is calm because he has reconciled himself with the very real possibility of death. For all anyone knows, The Vanishing resulted in the DEATH of the million or so people disappeared, including Lois Lane. Wonder Woman sees that Superman's obsession with trying to bring Lois and those people back, will, in all likelihood, lead to his OWN death. She even CALLS it suicide, and Superman ACKNOWLEDGES as much in the comic several times. He has thought it over long and hard and prepared himself. He even calls a PRIEST in to make sure he has confessed any sins and is as pure as possible in the likely event that this DOES prove his ultimate demise. But he HAS to find out the truth; life without Lois has little meaning to him now, and if you'll search your comics you'll see THAT sentiment expressed in various ways, too.
He's already reconciled himself with death, concluding that is an acceptable risk over the alternative that he is living.
Why would a man in THAT frame of mind NOT be calm when explaining that to his friend? He's already crossed the point of no return in HIS mind...