• The Death of Doctor Strange
    • 1. ANGER AND ALCOHOL. Hawkeye
    • 2. DESPAIR'S CHILD. Doctor Strange.
    • 3. ENVY. Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil.
    • 4. SEX AND MAGIC. Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Hulk.
    • 5. THE HOOD'S HOODS. Thunderball, Wrecker, Hawkeye, The Hood.
    • 6. EGO. Yellowjacket, Ultron.
    • 7. FOXES AND RABBITS, RABBITS AND FOXES. The Invisible Girl, Sub Mariner, Doctor Strange, Defenders.
    • 8. A QUESTION OF LIFE. Thanos, Doctor Strange, Avengers, Hulk, Valkyrie
    • 9. SHH... Beast, Tigra
    • 10. FAVOURITES. Spiderman, Thuderball, Iron Fist, Luke Cage
    • 11. IGNORANCE AND BLISS. Reed Richards, Galactus
    • 12. GRUNT. Doctor Strange, Spider Woman, Avengers
    • 13. CLAWS AND SHIELDS. Captain America, Wolverine, Avengers.
    • Intermission
    • 14. THUNDER'S TEMPER. Thor, Loki, Avengers
    • 15. FRIENDS IN DARK PLACES. Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer
    • 16. WITHIN THESE GREYS. Nick Fury, Avengers, Doctor Strange
    • 17. A SOLDIER'S DREAM. Captain America, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange
    • 18. REAP WHAT YOU SEW. Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Avengers, Defenders
    • 19. WITH MADNESS SCREAMING. Doctor Strange, Spider Woman.
    • 20. OF ANGER AND APATHY. Thor, Silver Surfer
    • 21. THE STORM IN THE EYE OF THE STORM. Doctor Strange, Spider Woman
    • 22. MEDITATION AND MURDER. Everyone.
    • 23. A TIME TO DIE. Doctor Strange, The Ancient One
    • 24. DEATH. Doctor Strange, Spider Woman, The Beast, Silver Surfer
    • 25. EPILOGUE. Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Beast, Power Man, Spider Woman, Wolverine, Spiderman, Hawkeye

Chapter 20. OF ANGER AND APATHY

4/21/2015

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Picture
They come at me, all those who can fly. I slide through them, light through air, gravity but another shade.

   Thor is the mightiest. His hammer tears through time and space, rips through logic, raw and exposed. I admire it, more so than I do its owner.

   When the hammer hits, I’m carried back two miles before my board catches up, arching me to the left, the hammer returning to the right. I barely feel a thing.

   We, the board and I, beat Thor’s weapon back to him. I’m bored, lazy. Holding back my cosmic power, I crash into the Thunder God with my body, as if letting a wave raise and dump me on shore.

   Still, I barely feel.

   Some of his allies come at me with parlour tricks. They seem so fragile, like ghosts. I must be careful dealing with them, try to care.

 

   Thor is shouting something, like always, as if angry, offended. I can’t be bothered, so set the air on fire. With any luck it will stop his bragging, smother his lungs.

 

   Iron Man and Reed Richards make their play. Such egos tripping over each other, they are my real foes. Science. I am born of it. But a science that, like the calcium in their teeth, and iron in their blood, was born of the Big Bang, made in the heart of suns.

   I am tapped into the wonder of exploding stars.

   These two are far more cleaver than me, but they don’t have the speed of a nova.

   Cosmic rays take out Richards, I watch his chin, and they follow my fingers there, pushing through the fabric of atoms on jagged, lightening lines. I strip Iron Man of his mask before he can unravel me, sending him, panicked, earthward, looking to breath.

   A momentary diversion. I try to care.

 

   There is a fungi on this planet, in the tropical forest. It will infect an ant, eating all non-vital organs, taking over its muscles and nerve systems, forcing it down, like a zombie, into the north-east facing vegetation of the lower canopy, where the climate and morning light suits the fungi’s growth. It then slowly consumes the ant from the inside leaving nothing but the tendons to its pinchers, so that the last thing the ant does before it dies is bites down on the underside of a leaf, locking itself on. The fungi then eats the rest of its insides, leaving the ant’s outer shell for protection, like armour, from weather and rival fungi. Then repeats the process by letting off its spore. In this, one microscopic fungi, can wipe out an entire colony.

   Fungi.

   I see these things.

   And solar systems with five rotating suns, and planets with creatures of liquid fire, that whisper such poetry with their flame. I bask in a space whale’s song, play with the speed of light, marvel at the lives of microscopic creatures that live off dust...

   And find it all more interesting that Iron Men and bores.

 

   Thor charges again, as persistent as he thinks he is relentless. Like me, hard to stop. I watch him, his scrunched face, its anger. Watch his mouth, teeth, tongue as he roars.

   Daddy’s child. A spoilt boy.

 

   We collide again, then again, like moths at war. The sky around us bleeds and dies.    

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    Author

    Superhero battles. Nothing finer, ever. The cover of Silver Surfer #4 will always be in my heart as the greatest piece of comic book art of all time. Not just for the art, or the mightiness of the combatants, but because everything about them was opposite. I hope I have used this fact at the core of this battle.

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