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Unspoken issuers. Now we're going to get into our sixth
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story here. It is titled Yule Memory. This is an
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eight page story features Thanos. But listen to this creative team.
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Jim Starlin writing Ron Limb on pencils inked by Terry
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Austen and lettered by Brad Joyce and colored by Tom Vincent.
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We got to talk real quick about the dynamic team
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of Jim Starlin and Ron Limb. So these two are
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pretty synonymous with Marvel Cosmic. I took a look at
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their works on Mike's Amazing World of Comics and cross
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reference to what books they worked on together. It looks
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like the first book that they worked on was Silver
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Surfer number thirty four, which released December nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine,
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and from that point forward they were pretty regular on
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Silver Surfer all the way up to issue fifty around
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July of nineteen ninety These two work on Thanos Quest
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issues one and two, and then of course Starland works
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on Infinity Gauntlet and Ron Limb jumps in on issue four,
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five and six with him. So that's in nineteen ninety one,
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and then nineteen ninety two rolls around and we have
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Infinity War issues one through six, and that is kind
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of where this story lands because it's right in between
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Infinity War number six, which dropped September of ninety two.
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This story in Marvel Holiday Special was on shelves November
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of nineteen ninety two, and then in about five months
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in April of ninety three on the shelves Infinity Crusade.
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And they will work together up until Infinity Crusade number six,
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and then they come together for one more work for
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Marvel after this Thanos Annual number one. The story is
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titled Thanos Damnation and Redemption, and that was in twenty fourteen.
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Now these guys also head over to DC. They are
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in the mid two thousands, about two thousand and seven.
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They both work on Mystery and Space, write a couple
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Captain Comments stories, and then the ran Thanegar Holy War
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one through eight in two thousand and eight. This team's
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been together. They know Thanos and Marvel Cosmic. I'm a
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big fan of Ron Limbs pencils. I love how he
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renders some of the figures. The figure work is amazing.
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Let's get into the story. Your memory follows Thanos as
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he supervises the cleanup of one of his old hideouts
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and orders his servants to dispose of forgotten relics from
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his past. When he notices a small doll among the
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discarded items that triggers a memory of raising Gomorrah as
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a child, Thanos recalls how he tried to give her
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fragments of a normal childhood, birthdays, holidays, and even Yule
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celebration modeled partly on Earth's Christmas, while simultaneously training her
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to become a deadly warrior. During one such holiday, Gamora
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receives a doll as a gift, a rare moment of
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warmth and innocence between her and Thanos. But Thanos also
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recalls when an assassin infiltrated the base and nearly killed Thanos,
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only to be stopped when young Gamra intervenes and saves
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his life. The resulting blast destroys her doll, and Thanos,
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shaken promises to take her to the lagoon to watch dolphins,
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an unexpected gesture of kindness. Back in the present, Thanos
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reflects on how Gamora ultimately turned against him and dismisses
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the dolls meaningless, ordering it destroyed alone. He insists that
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he feels nothing and that caring is weakness, even as
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his hesitation and anger suggests otherwise, leaving the story on
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an unresolved note of denial and buried regret. So for
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my thoughts on this one, I'm not used to Thanos
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as much of a father figure. I'm kind of used
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to him in the MCU in the comics, though I
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didn't read enough stories to gather him as a father figure.
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So if I would have picked this up and read this,
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this would have been probably new to me for sure.
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But the MCU Thanos is cold, calculating, but he's still
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affectionate to Mora in the movies, so seeing him as
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a father
Load full transcript
figure here doesn't feel too out of character.
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And for nineteen ninety two, this was probably a fresh
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take on Thanos actually caring. The emotional tone of this story,
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it's reflective. It's a subdued tone landed for me, it
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felt like a rare look into Thanos's inner life. There
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wasn't a whole lot of surprise here matched his brooding
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and introspective nature. As for young Ga Moore, I mean,
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she's shown as a child here, even though Thanos is
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training her to be this deadly weapon. She has this
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innocence about her. Every killer starts somewhere. Thanos shaped her
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into what she's going to become, but seeing her as
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a kid adds this emotional weight. And what I think
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this story really is about it It's about regret, emotional repression, denial.
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The last scene in this story is Dano's walking over
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to a panel after he has ordered the doll to
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be destroyed. He has his hand on an electronic panel
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and you can see that he is gripping it so tight.
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All of a sudden, it just crumbles underneath him. So
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you can see that he's wrestling with these feelings. He
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thinks caring's a weakness. But who's he angry at? Is
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he angry about the fact that or does he regret
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the bond that he once had with Gomora or does
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he regret that he ever allowed himself to care for her?
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And yes, Thanos says he feels nothing here to me.
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It kind of reads like he's just trying to deceive
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himself or convince himself. He pushes down these feelings because
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he sees emotions as weakness. But I feel that deep
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inside him he knows he's wrong. Does this humanize Thanos
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a little? Bit. Yes, I think it definitely does. I mean,
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he tried to give Gamore things he knew weren't normal
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for her situation, birthdays, holidays. He didn't have to do that,
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but that right there shows that there's some type of
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compassion that he's feeling. I did think it was great
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that Jim Starlin and Ron Limb came together to tell
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this tiny little story. And if anybody understands Thanos's psychology,
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it's Jim Starlin. Ron Limb again, big fan of his art.
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There's an assassination sequence in here where that assassin tries
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to kill Thanos. There's no dialogue, it's just pure visual storytelling.
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It's great is Ron Limb giving you a little bit
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of a Christmas present? And as for the pacing of
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the story, eight pages, again we're fitting a lot of
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stuff in here in a short story range. The story
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didn't feel too gimmicky. I almost compare it to the
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Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It's a great short film.
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Cosmic holiday stories can work, and that's a perfect example.
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I think this did a fine job of using Christmas
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as a vehicle to tell the story in a cosmic setting.
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I know that many people including myself. When the holidays
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roll around, you start to look at some of the
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things you've done in the past, some of the regrets
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you might have. Thanos is dealing with the loss of
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his daughter, whether he likes to try and say that
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he cares or not, most likely he does. And there
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are plenty of people out there that won't pick up
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a phone to call somebody that they haven't talked to
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in years because they've convinced themselves that they don't care.
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Thanos is a great representation of that. You can talk
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yourself into believing you feel no emotion, you have no
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emotional attachment to somebody, yet you have all those great memories,
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but something happened and now you don't talk. When I
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revisit this at the holidays, probably not a seasonal reread
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for me. I mean, it's more interesting as a character
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study of Thanos in my opinion. As the story goes, though,
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the most memorable moment has got to Bemora saving Thanos
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by throwing her doll at this assassin. Thanos realizes he
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owes his life to her. It's very hard to read
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Thanos's face to find out or any emotion. He's just
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a brick wall, but these past actions show that he
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did care. The tragedy is him and Gomora are so
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far apart from who they were then and who they
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are now, and I sympathize, but I mean, really, Thanos
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has written to be cold, he's written to be cruel.
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Maybe he's a bit misguided and convinced emotions or weakness,
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and that belief shaped everything he became. So where does
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this story land when it comes to the rest of
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the ones in this book? I want to say it's
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going to be top four just because of Ron Limb
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and Jim Starlin writing a Thanos story. And this is
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peak nineties Infinity era folks, This is what are revered.
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Marvel Cinematic Universe in its heyday was basal h mm hmm.