Standout Scenes

I can only think of three occasions on which I've bought a comic for a single scene. It's not uncommon for a standout scene to sway my decision to purchase a book, to prove to me that the writer or the story has something special to offer. (The "you cut down the tree, but you still miss its shade" scene in the first issue of Brett Matthews' Lone Ranger, for instance.) But to buy a single issue of a comic, without picking up the larger storyline of which it is a part, simply because of one scene so good that I needed to have that in my library, that's only happened to me thrice.

The three scenes in question:

1) X-Men #59 (Scott Lobdell) - Jean Grey-Summers finds her husband Scott hiding out in a movie theater, watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Many readers think of Scott Summers merely as Cyclops, humorless general of Xavier's army; it's great to see him in a quieter moment, to recognize he has hobbies and passions that have nothing to do with the X-Men or the mutant cause.

2) Marvel Knights 4 #4 (Roberto Aguire-Sacasa) - Reed Richards talks a jumper down off a ledge. When Reed makes a promise to the jumper, and assures him that not even Dr. Doom or Galactcus could keep Reed from fulfilling it, we know this is no exaggeration; Richards is as honest as his legs get long.

And lately, 3) Ultimate Fantastic Four #58 (Joe Pokaski) - A flashback shows how Reed Richards and Ben Grimm became friends. We know their unlikely bond is going to carry them through the direst of circumstances, including the failed experiment that traps Grimm beneath the Thing's rocky hide.

None of these scenes has anything to do with super-powers (unless you count Reed taking a giant stretchy step up to a ledge) or saving the world. They're simple stories, well told: a wife learning something new about her husband, the compassion of a stranger, two boys each finding a brother in the last person they'd have expected. None of these moments would be out of place in a stage play, yet they're all the more meaningful for being set against the colorful, hyperbolic backdrop of comic book super-heroics.

- JC

[He's not mentioning how big a part simple comic scenes like these have played elsewhere in his life, like when he had to show me a panel of Reed and Sue talking about kissing after our first make-out session. I'm not even joking. - RD]