Just How Many Things Don't Die?

In Starlord #4, Mantis gets all philosophical after Team StarLord (as dubbed by Jason) survives a run-in with some Phalanx-controlled Kree. She says that "Starlord" is an ideal, and that ideals are hard to kill, if not impossible.

This reminds me of the Chief Subjugator's comments to Ronan in Wraith #3, when we learn that 'gods can not die, they can only sacrifice themselves'. I'm still not sure what that means, but it seems like the two comments might be connected somehow. In fact, it seems like things not staying dead is a major theme in Conquest.

No matter how much damage you do to him, Wraith won't stay dead. He was being guided by a ghost(memory?) of his father, conducted through the previously thought-dead Supreme Intelligence. That same Supreme Intelligence was guiding Phyla towards Adam Warlock (though he was damn vague about it). And Quasar got a brief, but important assist, from her predecessor, Wendell Vaughn.

No matter how hard Peter Quill wants to throw the StarLord behind him, he can't get rid of it, and it keeps helping him out. The Kree soldiers wouldn't kill him because of it; at least some of his team follows him because of it, he's given about as much respect by the Kree as you could expect a Terran to get, at least in part because of something he wishes would go away. And Richard Rider got saved in part by the Worldmind using its records of all the Novas who've died to help fight off the Phalanx infection.

I still don't know what any of it means, but there it is.

Nasal Membranes, Filling With Mucous

I hate sinus allergies. Especially when they get to the point where your nose is stopped up to the point it's basically a worthless mess of bone and cartilage on your face. It feels a little bit like drowning, to the point I find a little hesitation in breathing through the mouth. Clearly, I need to learn to breathe through my ears, like Hawkeye Pierce.

- Up until now, I was basically "Eh" about the Iron Man movie. Having seen that trailer (which is linked everywhere, like at the 2 Guys Buying Comics blog, so don't expect me to make links right now), I am actually quite geared up for it now. Sure, it might wind up being bad, but I got some enjoyment out of Ghost Rider, and hell, even a little out of Daredevil (mostly from watching Jennifer Garner kick Affleck's butt), so surely it'll pass my low standards.

- 'Gods cannot be killed. They can only sacrifice themselves.' That's from last week's Annihilation: Conquest - Wraith #3. The Chief Subjugator gives that as a response to Ronan's claims that he gave the Kree Supreme Intelligence a proper sendoff back in Annihilation #5. It just seems like such an odd comment for a Phalanx to make, very philosophical somehow, which never really struck me as the Phalanx style.

I'm not really sure what he means by 'sacrifice themselves'. I mean, I get that he's saying that the Supreme Intelligence understands what the Phalanx want to use it for, and it prefers that option to the utter destruction of the Kree, but on a deeper level, which it feels like this goes to, I don't get it. The part about gods not being able to die I can sort of follow, since it's like that conversation between Don Blake and Thor in the new Thor series, about how gods live on in their people. So is the Subjugator saying that even if a god does give its life for its people, that it can always return because it lives in its people?

- Either way, I liked to mention that I said that the Phalanx' lack of interest in assimilating Starlord's crew was a sign of something bigger they had planned, and according to Wraith, I was right. OK, so technically that was just one of a series of guesses I made, but still, points for me.

Themes of Conquest

So we'll see how this goes. It's been stewing in my mind for at least a couple of weeks, maybe longer, and I've held off, because I didn't quite know where I was going with it. I'm still not sure, but it'll sort itself out eventually, I imagine.

I noticed certain things in the Conquest mini-series so far that don't quite seem to match up. Rather than complain about a lack of continuity between them, I'm going to opt for the belief that these are deliberate differences, used to highlight different things, which would I think goes along with each mini having a somewhat different tone to it. So tonight I'm going to look at Wraith and Nova thus far, Quasar and Starlord tomorrow. I figure that might keep the post from getting too long, and it'll let me get something posted tonight. So let's begin.

Wraith: Wraith is going for a definite horror vibe, along the lines of that Invasion movie I keep seeing advertised (though that may be people being replaced, where this is them being controlled). Grillo-Marxuach gives us a protagonist that emerges abruptly from the depths of space, capable of striking fear into the things that have conquered the galaxy. Yet, the hero doesn't care. He doesn't care about the Phalanx, or the Kree attempts at resistance. The pain and suffering of others is largely irrelevant (with the exception of that woman he saved from a Kree attacker in the first issue). For Wraith, pain is a welcome thing, so it is understandable that he wouldn't be too bothered by seeing others in distress. It creates a world of hopelessness, where you get the distinct feeling nobody would care if you died.

This sense of despair deepens when we first meet some old friends. Ronan, who stood tall against the Annihilation Wave, even when he was considered an outcast by the empire he protected, is a pawn of the Phalanx. He can not raise his hand against these beings that have conquered his people. Super-Skrull has fought against most everyone, returned from the dead more than once, and though he isn't under Phalanx control, he's resigned to the fact he will be soon. These aren't ordinary folks; these are beings of power that Earth's best superheroes consider serious threats, and they've been crushed.

Kyle Hotz' art, and Gina Going-Raney's colors contribute to the feelings of darkness and despair. Everything is dark and murky; there are shadows everywhere. Light, where you see it, is muted. Backgrounds are often totally black, and light rarely signifies good things. The shackles have lights. The tools of assimilation have lights. The paralyzing gas is a noticeable red against that dark background. The electro-shock torture implement Ronan uses creates light. Light is bad. It causes pain and imprisonment.

The implements the Phalanx place within those they control are large, attached with large needles, and jutting out of the body in ways that suggest they must hurt quite a lot. Indeed, if Wraith's reaction at the end of #2 is correct, they do hurt quite a bit. For some reason, the Phalanx are keeping one of Super-Skrull's eyes open continuously. Is this necessary to bring him to heel? Maybe. Maybe the pain helps to break down resistance, coupled with the fact nobody much cares. Certainly, Wraith offers no condolences to Super-Skrull upon seeing his condition. Consider the spire Wraith is impaled on when Ronan goes berserk. What's its purpose? None that was readily apparent. Why would a group so intent on making things orderly, as the Phalanx are, make things with no purpose? Unless the purpose is to cause pain. Pain that nobody will care about.

It's a dark and ugly sort of place, and the person best suited to survive it is probably someone for whom pain is a gift.

Nova: By contrast, Nova is bright and energetic, and full of clever banter between Rich and the Worldmind. The Phalanx headquarters are well-lit, you can see things clearly. There aren't seemingly unnecessary spires sticking out of the floor. Unlike Wraith, Nova is determined to be involved in the current problem, even if it kills him. Even when he tries to withdraw, it's to find reinforcements, so he can return and crush the Phalanx.

The Phalanx are portrayed a little differently as well. They are apparently able to infect beings with little more than a touch, given their questioning of why Rich hadn't been converted yet. The conversion doesn't require large, painful looking technology. It can be done with something as simple as a kiss. Rather than order their "Select" to do things, the Phalanx actually let them take command. When Gamora tells them to stand aside and let her control the Kree Sentry robots fighting Nova, the Phalanx do so. They let her decide whether to capture or eliminate Nova when she finds him. Or we're given that impression. They may just be giving her the illusion of choice. All this works well with the suspenseful, high adventure feel of the book, a little Indiana Jones-ish, or maybe Die Hard. Rich needs to retreat and regroup, but there's nowhere to retreat to. He runs into a lady from his past, and it's the worst possible thing that could happen. The beings the Phalanx send after him may be forced to fight for them, but they retain all their skills and instincts. This isn't a case where the subdued have been reduced to glass-eyed automatons.

You've also got Rich contrasted with the newest Nova. Rich enjoys being Nova. If nothing else, being a Nova and protecting the universe is something that makes sense to him, which is probably very important to him after his recent trip back home, which he couldn't wait to get away from. Ko-Rel on the other hand, just wants to get home to her son. She's been dragged into this, but she doesn't have any real interest in it. Gamora and Richard are closer to kindred spirits, but Ko-Rel's the one who winds up trying to protect Rich from the much more experienced, deadlier lady. It reminds me a bit of the two women in Goldeneye: the quieter computer programmer that ends up working with Mr. Devil-May-Care Bond, and the crazy, killer lady, that's well, trying to kill him.

So conclusion (for tonight): Both books seem to showcase the relentlessness of the Phalanx. Nova demonstrates it by showing the Phalanx in constant pursuit. The scene in #4, when Rich is under attack, and no matter what direction he turns, Gamora has stationed Sentries to block that route off, is a pretty good example. The Phalanx just keep after you until you get tired, or make a mistake, and then they've got you. Wraith seems more about what it's like once they've got you. To put it simply, they make you not care. You give up hopes of resistance. At best you feel anger because you recognize you can't fight them once they've got you. And no one will care how much it scares you, or how much it hurts.

So tomorrow, Quasar and Starlord.

Do Emotions Make It Easier For Techno-Organic Viruses To Control You?

I've been trying to sort out why the Phalanx would actually fear Wraith, and what significance that might have for Conquest as a whole.

First off, I'm trying to figure how the Phalanx can feel fear to begin with. I understand that probably at least some of them are biological organisms that are controlled by the Phalanx, and living things can feel fear, but are the Phalanx a developed enough artificial intelligence that they understand and feel emotions as well?

The Wraith says what scares the Phalanx is the sight of an exposed soul, which sounds like a fancy term for "ghost". It reminds me of something I read about spirits in GrimJack, that they're composed of pure emotion. The difference there was that ghosts were actually vulnerable to strong emotions from others, rather than the spirit's emotions being so strong that it overwhelmed others. Of course, I never saw how a spirit interacted with a cybernetic lifeform in the series, so if it's something that doesn't comprehend emotions like us, it might have gone the same way. What it leads me to think is that it's the being itself that's affected, and the person is so terrified that the Phalanx can't control them. That would suggest a certain level of independent action in the controlled. That's assuming there's anything biological in those soldiers Wraith terrified into submission. If there isn't, then I don't know what the heck happened. Maybe a machine trying to classify an emotion is like your calculator trying to divide by zero?

Then I think about what Super Skrull said, how the moment when you become one of their "Select", it's because you choose to. That until that point, even if your body is infected with the Phalanx, your choices are still your own. I'm not sure how much autonomy you have, but your thoughts and feelings are your own. Which would mean that Ronan willingly chooses to torture Wraith to extract information, since the Phalanx Chief Subjugator said Ronan was close to becoming a Select, meaning he isn't fully one of them yet.

What's interesting is that in the moment when Ronan gives in to the frustration of his situation - that the Subjugator can see into his head, that no matter what he says, the Phalanx are so totally certain that he's going to become one of them eventually - that's when he does their bidding with the greatest gusto. He loses control of himself and starts battering the Wraith, throwing him through walls, impaling him on a spire of some sort, in a concerted attempt to get information out of him. His strong emotions seem to have made him easier to control. Meanwhile, Super-Skrull is in the same boat, but he's already accepted that he will bend to their will someday, but he's focused on what he'll do to them after he gets free. He's farther from becoming "Select", perhaps because he was captured later, or perhaps because he's approaching the situation differently from Ronan.

That gives somewhat of an impression that emotion causes one to lose their sense of themselves, which in turn makes it easier for the Phalanx to assert control. For some reason that makes me think of one of Asimov's books, I can't remember which one (I know it's from his Robots series), when someone put forth the idea that humans in large groups can be overtaken by a mob mentality, which makes them easy to predict (which went on to become the idea of psychohistory that ran throughout the Foundation series). In this case, the "mob" is the Phalanx hive mind, and losing yourself to frustration can make it easier for you to get drawn into their group (I'm resisting the urge to use the word "Collective". Nope, no mention of Borgs here. . . Damnit!).

It all seems contradictory somehow. Phalanx feel massive fear and shut down, but Ronan feels massive frustration and the Phalanx take advantage. I guess it's meant to show that the side with the advantage is the one that can make the opposition lose control of themselves. Maybe if you can make a Select feel enough fear, it burns out the virus, and they regain control of themselves.