Favorite twist in a comic book?

What is your all time favorite plot twist from a comic?

My own personal favorite caught many off guard in early 2004 with this following twist (this is a Japanese comic so read from right to left)





The scene is from the 319th issue of the Japanese comic Yugioh (Japanese for Game King). For the last 40 issues or so the characters believe they have gone into the past and are reenacting the events of what happened 2000 years ago in Egypt. Their goal is to find the main characters real name and stop the evil god Zorc from resurrecting.
Now the plot twist was quite spectacular as it just happened utterly out of the blue, although their are arguably hints towards it, they were very suttle indeed. It turns out that the very god they have sent to stop the resurrection of (who is already alive and kicking in the present) has hijacked the "memory world" and has turned into a Yami No Game- Game of Darkness in English (basically the looser dies). This particular game was infact a giant table top RPG reenactment. The board had magic abilities so the people playing the board could manipulate the real events occurring in the game. For example if a player sent someone into battle and they were killed, that person, in the actual historical event would die. The outcome would change the course of history
What made this even more interesting is the fact only the two main protagonists actually know it's a game when the big reveal happens, and everyone else is simply a pawn. It really did make the final battle feel very epic and also explored the leadership skills of the main character. These were not simply game peaces but real living people so every death counted. Also the one sided nature of the rules really made the reader ponder just how the hell could the main characters win.
All in all I'd say it was a brilliant plot twist to an epic finale which has yet to be topped in any of the other mangas that I have read.

That idea was nicked from Marvels `Strange Tales` title circa 1967 Nick Fury has battled and finally beaten the `Yellow Claw` it all turns out to be a game played on a board by Dr Doom and his humanoid `super computor`

Whilst the idea is definatly not original, I do still think it was a brilliant twist, turning the time travel component into an actual game. Also I liked the idea that the outcome of the game was effecting real world events, changing the time line itself.Was that happening in your scenario too?

Yes! The events transposed to the `real world` Looking at the synopsis you gave they are so close as to be hardly a coincidence! But that don't matter really! You enjoyed the story! Very little in comics today is `truly` original, it depends how writers `borrow and blend` to make the current storyline stand on its own merits!

To be fair the whole sealing in a game world is a bit old now BUT it worked well with the background. Allow me to elaborate further.

Basically in Yugioh you have 4 major character- Atem, Yugi, Bakura and Zorc/Akanadin

Now the order I'll present comes from evaluating the whole series of events in the manga to give the big picture.

Original History
Egypt was under attack when Atem's father was on the throne. To defeat the aggressors he turned to his Brother Akanadin who worked with the magicians and the ancient book of the gods to find a solution. Through this they discovered a means of making 7 magical items which could help save Egypt from destruction. However to do this they needed to sacrifice around 1000 people.
Akanadin without his brother knowledge travelled to the village of Kunea- a village where theives were said to dwell and slaughtered them all, boiling the corpses in a ritual to make the magical items. However unbeknowest to him these items had a dark intelligence dwelling within them. Once made, a permanent gateway to hell appeared which could be opened by placing these items in the alloted slots.
AKanadin left the town, unbeknown to him, that one boy had survived, who was eventually driven insane by the ordeal and vowed revenge.
Eventually the boy grew up to become the king of thieves and led a war against the 6 heavenly priests (who guarded the items) and killed the chief magician, taking the "millennium ring" (one of the items) from him. The evil intelligence (revealled to be Zorc) in the ring consumed the thieves soul and eventually became one. Eventually he killed the remaining priests and stole the final item from the pharaoh, resurrecting the god Zorc necrophiliacs body, thus giving Zorc his full powers back.
Zorc was a almighty powerful god, capable of killing anything in his path. His power was seemingly limitless. Also because he had absorbed the thief's mind he was also very cunning with a knack for and games strategy and outwitted Egypts forces every time.

In a final act of desperation, the Pharaoh (now Atem as his farther was now dead) used a ritual and sealed his mind into his item, the millennium puzzle, and Zorcs back into the millennium ring.

In the future once the millenium puzzelled is rebuilt, the spirit of the Pharoph, who has lost his memory as a result of the ritual awakens and possess the body of a young boy called Yugi. By sharing each others body Yugis gameing enthusiasm rubs off on Atem, already in his day renowned for his skills as a stractition and gamer (remember Games originally came from Egypt and where used as a means of judging peoples true ambitions and nature). As a result the early volumes of the manga deal with Atem correcting injustices by challanging people to Games of Darkness and punishing them via penalty games.

Later on it is revealed that by rebuilding the puzzle, Zorcs conscienceness was also revived and used the millennium ring, now in the posetion of a boy called Bakura, to possess him, and use him as a host to locate the remaining items so he can once again open the gate to hell and revive his true form. Intially he starts by trying to find and kill anyone with an item, including Atem but fails, although he does succeeding in killing a few people and attaining some of the items.

However his plans change later on when it is revealed that one of the Pharaohs priests, as part of the ritual which banished Zorc, sealed the "history" away in a stone tablet, which can only be opened once all the items, 3 additional seals and a specific spell kept by "the tomb keepers" are placed in front of it. Additionally he learns that the final key to open the gateway to hell is the Pharaohs real name, but being he nor the pharoph know it now, it means he must help Atem gain entry into the memory world for his plan to succeed, aka find the name for himself.

Prior to the requirements of the ritual being met, Zorc seals a part of his soul into the puzzle which allows him to gain access to the world of memories whilst being outside it too. As a result he can manipulate events inside the game AND operate outside, which he uses to hyjiack the memory world and turn it into the ultimate game of Darkness- the Dark RPG. Whilst his inside counterpart hunts for the name, he controls events above.

By this set up it meant if his inside counterpart of the game was killed he had the ability to be resurrected by his outside counterpart. However unlike Atem, if he died in the game so would his outside part. The only way to defeat Zorc completely was to win the game, and this meant changing the outcome of the final battle by killing the god form of Zorc.

Given the build up it was clearly planned out as an eventual outcome which suited the nature of the theme of the manga, Justice by gaming. Also the events prior to the RPG reveal showed it wasn't just bolted on, but was clearly visualized by the author as the means of the final battle. I also think there was a lot more original elements to it than a mear copy of "oh we're in a game world" as some titles have done, and as I hope, explaining the history behind the big build up shows.

This scene from the anime may help show the relationship between the inside/outisde players

I'm going to be boringly traditional and say the old Marvel monster story where the bloke discovers an alien space craft, takes the log book to the authorities, and only then-when surrounded by armed soldiers-realises it's written in 'no Earthly language', and the only reason he can understand it is because he himself is the alien invader, rendered amnesiac by a bang on the head.

OOOOOOH I like that, very Twilight Zone

Hourglass wrote:OOOOOOH I like that, very Twilight Zone

Stan Lee basically churned these little tales out to order for about ten years before he created the Fantastic Four and revolutionised comics. A lot of them were reprinted over here by Alan Class Ltd in titles like Creepy Worlds.

I may look into getting these. I always did prefer one shot stories rather than multiple issue/back story types. It's so much simpler and enjoyable to just have a quick read. This is why I often feel its hard to get into the comic scene as its time consuming to get to know all the ins and outs.

Hourglass wrote:I may look into getting these. I always did prefer one shot stories rather than multiple issue/back story types. It's so much simpler and enjoyable to just have a quick read. This is why I often feel its hard to get into the comic scene as its time consuming to get to know all the ins and outs.

There's some truth in that. A lot of comics these days are not new reader friendly.

I guess thats why Manga is so approachable as in you can buy it in simple collected volumes if your not up to or behind reading the single issue releases. much easier to catch up on plot.

Hourglass wrote:I guess thats why Manga is so approachable as in you can buy it in simple collected volumes if your not up to or behind reading the single issue releases. much easier to catch up on plot.

Stan Lee always said 'every comic is someone's first'. A shame many of his successors forgot this fairly simple fact. I've been buying comics for thirty five years, and looking at the modern American stuff, half the time I still don't know what's going on...

tony ingram wrote:

Hourglass wrote:I guess thats why Manga is so approachable as in you can buy it in simple collected volumes if your not up to or behind reading the single issue releases. much easier to catch up on plot.

Stan Lee always said 'every comic is someone's first'. A shame many of his successors forgot this fairly simple fact. I've been buying comics for thirty five years, and looking at the modern American stuff, half the time I still don't know what's going on...

Indeed a good philosophy which I feel as you say, people have forgotten. I wouldnt be surprised if it's this one reason alone which is crippling the comic industry. it's all well and good stating "kids dont read" anymore but if your have material which is utterly inaccessible to them how/why do you expect them to relate to it and not just give up.

Hourglass wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Hourglass wrote:I guess thats why Manga is so approachable as in you can buy it in simple collected volumes if your not up to or behind reading the single issue releases. much easier to catch up on plot.

Stan Lee always said 'every comic is someone's first'. A shame many of his successors forgot this fairly simple fact. I've been buying comics for thirty five years, and looking at the modern American stuff, half the time I still don't know what's going on...

Indeed a good philosophy which I feel as you say, people have forgotten. I wouldnt be surprised if it's this one reason alone which is crippling the comic industry. it's all well and good stating "kids dont read" anymore but if your have material which is utterly inaccessible to them how/why do you expect them to relate to it and not just give up.

A recent issue of Justice Society of America (well, the last JSA Annual) picked up a sub-plot left over from the Huntress series which used to run in the back of Wonder Woman. Doesn't sound unreasonable, given that Huntress was a member of the JSA. Until you realise that the Huntress solo series in question ended mid story in 1985...

Well given that most of the comics i read are Boy's Own adventures from circa 100 years ago, there's not too many twists to the tales as they're usually straightforward.

That said one of the very early (and awful, they had lots of 'twists' which were just bad plotting) Sexton Blake stories features one of the villains falling in with an unscrupulous captain and plotting to use his ship to escape with a kidnap victim (at the same time betraying his accomplice) and keeping all of the ransom for himself. Then just as it seems like the plot will succeed it is revealed the the captain is Sexton Blake! He sails away leaving the villain to just stand on the pier repeating "Sexton Blake!" to himself. I thought this was a really good bit in an otherwise pretty rubbish story.

Another one i always remember, probably for the age i was when reading it rather than it actually being a resounding shock, is the "Dodge Awards" story in a 90's Beano Annual, when Roger the Dodger says "and the final dodge award goes to... an inflatable dummy of me which let the real Roger escape 10 minutes ago!" after he's revealed various pranks he's played on people over the year.

felneymike wrote:Well given that most of the comics i read are Boy's Own adventures from circa 100 years ago, there's not too many twists to the tales as they're usually straightforward.

That said one of the very early (and awful, they had lots of 'twists' which were just bad plotting) Sexton Blake stories features one of the villains falling in with an unscrupulous captain and plotting to use his ship to escape with a kidnap victim (at the same time betraying his accomplice) and keeping all of the ransom for himself. Then just as it seems like the plot will succeed it is revealed the the captain is Sexton Blake! He sails away leaving the villain to just stand on the pier repeating "Sexton Blake!" to himself. I thought this was a really good bit in an otherwise pretty rubbish story.

Another one i always remember, probably for the age i was when reading it rather than it actually being a resounding shock, is the "Dodge Awards" story in a 90's Beano Annual, when Roger the Dodger says "and the final dodge award goes to... an inflatable dummy of me which let the real Roger escape 10 minutes ago!" after he's revealed various pranks he's played on people over the year.

Actually, that is rather good...

It wouldn't be seen as very original today-but back in April 1970 the closing frame of "Operation I. Spy" (In the I.Spy strip) where the figure of `Boss` is seemingly alive and well after bieng killed by a huge robot- to the I. Spy characters amazement; really stunned me back then!

alanultron5 wrote:It wouldn't be seen as very original today-but back in April 1970 the closing frame of "Operation I. Spy" (In the I.Spy strip) where the figure of `Boss` is seemingly alive and well after bieng killed by a huge robot- to the I. Spy characters amazement; really stunned me back then!

How did he survive, again?

It wasn't actually Boss who was thrown over cliffs into the sae! It was a `dummy` (Readers didn't find out till later-same as I.Spy) Boss had been taken to villians HQ and hypnotised to forget the events!

The `Matic-men` robots cleared up/repaired the carnage at Spy HQ and iwith Boss denying what I. Spy had experienced-old I.Spy felt he was `losing his mind` The plot thickened to where I. Spy was jailed for a crime he hadn't committed-but that he believed in his mental state, that he had in a `episode of break down`

For what was just a `fun strip` "Operation I. Spy" had a INCREDIBLE!! plot line!

tony ingram wrote:

Hourglass wrote:I guess thats why Manga is so approachable as in you can buy it in simple collected volumes if your not up to or behind reading the single issue releases. much easier to catch up on plot.

Stan Lee always said 'every comic is someone's first'. A shame many of his successors forgot this fairly simple fact. I've been buying comics for thirty five years, and looking at the modern American stuff, half the time I still don't know what's going on...

That's okay . . . it also seems like some of the writers and most of the editors don't know what's going on, either.   

As for my favorite twist . . .

. . . Wonder Chick!

Can we be sure that she is actually doing the Twist, though?

tony ingram wrote:Can we be sure that she is actually doing the Twist, though?

Well, I think there was a better one (from Teen Titans #12?), but I can't find that doing a quick google image search, and I'm too lazy to try and find the issue to scan the panel myself.

(Picky, picky . . . )

They have TV on Paradise Island?

Lucy McGough wrote:They have TV on Paradise Island?

Well, it is Paradise . . .

Is the booze just out of shot?

Lucy McGough wrote:Is the booze just out of shot?

I think she would have been under-age . . . and they probably have Nectar of the Gods for the Amazons instead of whiskey or such.

Yeah, ambrosia! Gets you drunk twice as fast as whisky, but with no hangover.