Let Your Characters Control Your Plot (Instead of the Other Way Around)

Last week, we talked about the pratfalls of forcing your characters to serve the needs of the plot. I used a classic Legion of Super-Heroes story from Adventure Comics to demonstrate how writers can unintentionally make their characters act like puppets in order to do what the plot requires them to do.

This time, we’ll look at a different Adventure story to illustrate how plot should flow from the characters instead of the other way around. This story gets the balance between character and plot just right.

“The Legionnaire Who Killed” (Adventure Comics # 342, March 1966)

Spoiler warning: The rest of this post discusses plot elements of the story in question. Read at your own risk.

Arguably one of the most famous Legion stories of all time, “The Legionnaire Who Killed” had lasting repercussions for the titular characters for decades to come. It is also one of the last Legion stories written by Edmond Hamilton, a noted science fiction author who had been one of the Legion’s two regular writers (the other being Jerry Siegel) during its formative years.

Copr. and TM DC Comics Inc.

Hamilton’s stories represent both the best and worst of the Silver Age DC Comics. His fertile imagination produced some of the most memorable Legionnaires, planets, and technology, yet his wildly implausible plots and characters often seemed silly even by 1960s comic book standards.   

In “The Legionnaire Who Killed,” however, Hamilton crafts a story that honors his characters as individuals, respects the difficult situation they find themselves in, and trusts the readers to embrace an ending that does not turn out the way we hope.

The story centers on Star Boy (Thom Kallor), a Legionnaire known for his purple and white costume, crew cut, and power to make objects super-heavy.

Feeling lonely because the girl he likes, one-time Legionnaire Dream Girl, is far away, Star Boy takes a leave of absence to visit his parents on a distant jungle world. Arriving just after they’ve left, Star Boy is confronted by Kenz Nuhor, a baddie whose advances Dream Girl has spurned because she’s in love with Star Boy. Like a typical psychopath, Nuhor decides the way to win Dream Girl’s heart is to kill his rival.

Star Boy, his power useless against Nuhor’s special shield, does what any clear-thinking individual would do under the circumstances: He picks up a gun dropped by a hunter Nuhor has killed and shoots the villain dead.

The problem? Killing is against the Legion’s code.

Thom's Legion buddies haul his butt before a court martial.  During the trial, several significant issues are raised: Did Star Boy break the Legion’s code even though he acted in self defense? Could he have stopped Nuhor without killing him? Should Legionnaires have the right to kill in self defense?

While the Legionnaires grapple with these issues and Thom’s fate, they behave in manners which are wholly appropriate to their characters. Their actions, in turn, drive the plot:

• Brainiac 5, serving as prosecutor, “proves” that Thom could have disabled Nuhor by making a thick tree limb above Nuhor’s head heavy enough to fall on top of the villain. (Never mind that doing so might have broken the villain’s neck, leaving Star Boy in the same fix he’s in. The prosecutor’s role is only to create an element of doubt, and Brainy—cold and composed—does so in a manner that would make Jack McCoy proud.) Brainiac 5 serves as the story’s antagonist by continually thwarting the hero’s desire (to be acquitted).

• Superboy, serving as defense attorney, goes to great and sometimes questionable lengths to get his client off. He stages a mock attack with a dangerous beast to trick other Legionnaires into trying to kill the beast. He turns the tables on Brainiac 5 by accusing the latter of having previously killed a foe. Superboy’s efforts fail because, in both cases, he has not done enough research. However, his failures keep the plot moving forward and heighten the tension.

• Star Boy, once the trial begins, can do nothing but sit tight in the Legion’s holding cell and express his faith in Superboy’s defense. But even here Star Boy remains our protagonist—the one we care about and sympathize with. We know he “broke the law,” even though we understand why he did so, and we want him to win even though we know there must be consequences for his actions.

• Dream Girl is more than a love interest here. Although she starts the story as a MacGuffin, she plays a crucial role in supporting Star Boy and adding tension when the latter suspects her ability to predict the future has foretold that he will lose the case. (In a brilliant bit of story telling, we’re never told if she has foreseen the outcome of the trial or not; this is left to our interpretation.) Dream Girl also plays a significant role in the ending by turning the tragic outcome of the trial into a positive for Star Boy: she convinces the Legion of Substitute-Heroes to take them both on as members.

The main characters’ actions spring logically from the situations they find themselves in. Their reactions, in turn, drive the plot and bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

The lessons for us as writers are four fold:

1. Know your characters well enough to anticipate how they will react in any given situation.

We care about Star Boy because Hamilton spends some time letting us get to know him. He misses his girl. He wants to visit his parents. He finds himself in an impossible situation and must act. Star Boy comes off as Joe Average, someone anyone can identify with.

2.  Let your characters’ actions and reactions drive the needs of the plot.

If you’ve done No. 1 well, No. 2 will almost write itself. Your characters will be strong and proactive but also human. Their human weaknesses will keep the plot moving forward. (If Star Boy hadn’t overlooked the tree limb, there might be no story. If Superboy had done his research, the trial would be over too quickly.)

3. Give your characters reasonable but competing goals.

Though he’s the antagonist, Brainiac 5 is not the villain. He wants what every Legionnaire wants—what’s best for the Legion. But his goal is to uphold the Legion’s code as it exists—this means Star Boy has to go. Star Boy’s goal, obviously, is to be exonerated and stay with the Legion. Their competing goals create the story’s conflict.

4.  Let your story resolve itself into its inevitable conclusion.

This can be a tough one because sometimes the ending we want to write (or the ending the audience expects) isn’t what the story needs. It was risky for Hamilton to expel a Legionnaire—particularly one he’s spent so much time making us care about—but that’s what makes this story memorable. If Star Boy had been acquitted, it would have been business as usual. 

A story should never be business as usual.

Letting your characters control the plot instead of the other way around keeps them from acting like puppets. More, readers might just remember your story for years and even decades to come.

Do Your Characters Act Like Puppets?

My pleasure reading these days includes old Legion of Super-Heroes stories and reviewing them for the Legion World message board. It’s always risky to go back and re-read stories you grew up on.  They may not live up to the hype imposed by memory and childhood wonder.  

However, revisiting old stories can also produce insights for writers. We can learn from the choices previous writers made, both good and bad.

Two recent re-reads, for example, helped clarify in my mind the relationship between character and plot—specifically why plot should emerge from the characters instead of the other way around. 

In looking at these two stories, we can get a sense of how not to treat our characters like puppets of the plot.

“Target—21 Legionnaires” (Adventure Comics # 348, September 1966)

This story was written by Jim Shooter, who made comics history when he became the regular Legion writer at the age of 14. Shooter was roughly the same age as the Legionnaires he wrote and so he was able to bring a lot of realism to their personalities and dialogue. Shooter also created many of the Legion’s most memorable villains, including, in this issue, Dr. Regulus.

However, Shooter was still developing as a writer, and that explains why certain actions in this story are not wholly believable.

Dr. Regulus, a disgraced scientist who harnesses the power of gold, holds a vendetta against a particular Legionnaire, Sun Boy, and arranges for the latter to suffer from amnesia while Regulus steals the Legion’s clubhouse headquarters. However, the other Legionnaires track Regulus down and board his massive ship. 

Here’s where the plot forces the characters to do a puppet-like dance.

Copr. and TM DC Comics Inc.

As the Legionnaires separate to explore the ship, Colossal Boy enters a room that is tailor made for him—it’s giant-sized.  It also contains a giant robot that dukes it out with Colossal Boy and ultimately overpowers him.

But what if Colossal Boy had entered some other room? Are we to believe every room on the ship is giant-sized just to trap him? What if Colossal Boy hadn’t been part of the Legion team that went after Regulus?  The latter would have gone to all that planning for nothing.

A few pages later, Cosmic Boy, whose power is magnetism, becomes distracted by a noise and backs into a wall. Bad move, Cos. Gold bands emerge from the wall and ensnare him, his power useless against gold. 

What if Cos had backed against a different wall (we’re not shown similar traps on other walls) or hadn’t touched a wall at all? 

Meanwhile, the amnesiac Sun Boy wanders into a nuclear power plant, where he falls asleep. Not to worry, though. Atomic radiation (the source of his solar powers) restores his memory—and just in time, too, for he’s able to come to the rescue of his teammates aboard the ship.

I’m willing to grant the comic book logic that atomic radiation can restore the memory of a character whose power was created by atomic radiation. But I find it less plausible that, of all the places Sun Boy could have snoozed, he happened to find an unguarded nuclear power plant with an energy source that has been carelessly left open.

There are more examples of coincidence ruling the plot. And it’s a shame because “Target—21 Legionnaires” is an otherwise exciting story with several positive qualities (the realistic dialogue and personalities of the Legionnaires and a formidable villain being at the top of the list).

But because Shooter needed certain things to happen in the story—the Legionnaires get captured, Sun Boy arrives to save the day—he has the characters do things that fit the needs of the plot rather than behaving in credible ways. 

Perhaps we should give Shooter a pass for being so young when he wrote the story (and, indeed, his talents as a writer are well evident here); however, Shooter had an adult editor, Mort Weisinger, who should have known better.

In my next post, we’ll talk about the other story, published a mere few months earlier, in which the writer gets the balance between character and plot just right.

How Fiction Helps Us Cope With Reality

I was all set to write a post about my novel, The Power Club™ —to begin a series of profiles of the main characters, their powers, and their conflicts—when I walked into a restaurant this morning for breakfast.

I often do my best writing in restaurants and coffee shops, so I had pen and notebook in hand. As such, I was poised to jot down the conversation of the couple next me (who were talking so loud I couldn’t ignore them).

Their conversation went something like this:

Woman: If someone was banging your head against concrete twenty times and you had a gun, what would you do?

Man: I’d shoot him. 

Woman: That’s right. And that’s exactly what he did. What people don’t understand is that kids are doing what they’re not supposed to be doing and going where they don’t belong. [Later:] George Zimmerman has been consistent in every one of his statements.

They were talking, of course, about Zimmerman's trial in the February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL. The trial has dominated the news, and, thanks to certain fast food chains’ ubiquitous television screens, you can't avoid it even while eating a breakfast burrito.

Events in the news have a way of intruding into our fictional worlds, as well. Listening to the couple's conversation (no matter how much I tried not to) drove away any desire to write about kids with super-powers. How could it not? A real kid is dead, and a man is on trial for murder.

Reality Vs. Fiction?
 
It’s hard not to watch news coverage of this story or to listen to discussions about it and not form an opinion. Judging by Facebook posts, viewers are already becoming polarized into one camp or another, just as they were during the OJ Simpson trial nearly 20 years ago.

In a way, polarization is understandable. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so, too, do our brains abhor lack of information. We hate suspending judgment and letting others (say, a jury) decide. We want answers. We want them now.

Everyone seems convinced they know what went down that night in Florida and who is responsible.

Really?

If the truth were that easy to uncover, Zimmerman would have been convicted or exonerated by now.

So, what are we supposed to do in the face of unspeakable, senseless tragedies (and Trayvon Martin’s death surely is one, regardless of who bears the blame)?

Turn to fiction.

Fiction: More than Escape

It may sound flip or clichéd, but fiction serves a more vital purpose than escapism. Fiction can actually help us make sense of reality and show us more positive ways of responding to tragedy. And insights from fiction can come from the most unexpected sources.

While reviewing classic stories for the Legion World message board this week, I re-read Adventure Comics # 332, May 1965. Adventure  # 332, written by Edmond Hamilton and drawn by John Forte, is notable for two reasons. It features a rather silly looking green monster called the Super-Moby Dick of Space, and it’s one of the first comic book stories ever, if not the first, in which a super-hero is crippled.

Summaries and reviews of the story can be found here, but what struck me the most while re-reading it is how timely this story remains today.

Copr. & TM DC Comics Inc.

Wounded war veterans, the treatment they have received (or, too often, the appalling lack thereof), and their difficulties in adjusting to civilian life have been much in the news lately, and deservedly so. Our culture continues its love affair with violence and war, judging by summer blockbusters, while the sacrifices of real heroes—soldiers, firefighters, police officers, or teachers shielding children from harm—are given cursory acknowledgement, if anything.

Mirroring what can happen to real-life heroes, Lightning Lad in this story loses an arm in the line of duty.

How Heroes Respond to Tragedy

At first, he responds the way you would expect. Bitterly, he vows to track down the creature responsible and kill it. His thirst for revenge is so great that his teammates question his mental stability. He recklessly endangers a spaceship while pursuing the creature.

The story borrows heavily from its literary source, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, in this regard, but, unlike Melville’s Captain Ahab, Lightning Lad comes to his senses and finds a way to render the creature harmless without killing it.

In other words, Lightning Lad shows that it is indeed possible to overcome passion and rise above the desire for revenge (which too often is confused with justice).

Spectators who argue so passionately for one side or the other in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case were not personally injured by the tragedy. Yet many react as though they were.

As I said, such reactions are understandable. A young man is dead. We want answers.

Yet reacting to events out of anger and rushing to judgment is not healthy, either for individuals or for society.

How Should the Rest of Us (Who are Not Heroes But Maybe Want to Be) Respond?

So, what is a healthy response to senseless tragedy?

Read a book.

Any book will usually do, but fiction works best.

Do not even look for answers. Answers—or, more accurately, insights—will come when least expected.

Most importantly, do not rely exclusively on the news for everything you need to know about the case. Our 24-hour news cycle has the paradoxical effect of giving us too much information and not enough context from which to draw meaningful conclusions. 

More, the editorial slants of certain news programs feed into our prejudices and past experiences. In the absence of more objective information, we draw on emotional sources to complete the picture.

It is not wrong to have an opinion or to express it. But opinions can be mistaken for facts, and even facts can be distorted to support whatever opinion is already held. (Did Martin really bang Zimmerman's head against concrete twenty times, as the woman in the restaurant implied? And if so, did he do so because he was afraid for his life—as anyone facing someone with a gun would be—or was he just a mean kid who went somewhere he didn't "belong"? How does she know?)

If you don't know all the answers, it's okay to know that you don't.

Read a book.

3 Ways to Write a Story Your Readers are Sure to Forget

TM and Copr. DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Every writer wants to write stories that are memorable, change the lives of the audience, or appreciated as something special and unique.

And yet every writer is guilty of crafting stories which look awesome but aren't, stories which leave the readers wishing they'd spent their time more productively, such as reading the phone book.

One such example is "Lex Luthor Meets the Legion of Super-Heroes" from Adventure Comics # 325, October 1964, written by Edmond Hamilton and drawn by John Forte.

Luthor, as every super-hero fan should know, is Superman's number one enemy: a bald, brilliant scientist who has bedeviled the Man of Steel since they were boys (at least in the original timeline). Their Silver Age feud began when Lex lost his hair after Superboy blew out a fire caused by a chemical experiment of Lex's gone wrong.

What most fans may not know is that Lex also fought Superboy's friends from the future, The Legion of Super-Heroes. But if you didn't know this story existed or forgot that it did, don't worry.  Despite the promise showed by the cover, it's not a memorable tale.

Analyzing what went wrong can help you avoid writing an equally forgettable story.

Spoiler warning: If you don't want to know how this story turns out, don't read the rest of this post.

Here is an abbreviated version of my recent review on the Legion World message board:

Adv. 325

This is one of those Legion stories which I know happened, but I often forget that it did until I re-read it.

Then I remember why I had forgotten it.

"Lex Luthor Meets the Legion of Super-Heroes" could have been an epic story, but it's not. Superboy/man's arch enemy finds a way to travel into the future and get his revenge on the Legion. How could such a story miss? Well . . .

It starts off with an excellent idea that could have developed into an outstanding story. A pre-evil, pre-bald Lex travels into the future where he learns he is destined to become one of Superboy's greatest enemies. Oh, the anguish! Oh, the drama as the Legionnaires try to find some way to prevent this likable guy from becoming one of the worst villains in history.  Well, that's what should have happened.

Instead the Legion brushes Lex aside with enough scientific babble that would put Star Trek to shame and then merrily sends him on his way. But no matter. Lex's pre-evil status is a ruse anyway; he yanks off his toupee and reveals he's truly evil as soon as he's alone.

Even at this point, the story could have been awesome as Lex puts his horrific scheme into motion. He builds a dissolver ray and ambushes the Legionnaires. He takes Mon-El, the mightiest Legionnaire, by surprise and he ambushes a handful of Legionnaires after calling them back from various missions. 

But by the time he disintegrates the rest of the Legion, all drama has dissipated as these scenes fail to build upon one another. Lex (who, oddly enough, serves as the story's protagonist) doesn't truly risk anything and has no obstacles to overcome. His victory over the entire Legion is far too easy.

But wait! It's trick ending time. It turns out that Lex couldn't build a dissolver ray, after all (why not?), so he had to settle for a paltry Phantom Zone projector. One would think if he could build the latter, he could build the former. But, in any case, it turns out he didn't actually dissolve the Legionnaires. He just sent them into that eerie, twilight place where Kryptionian criminals used to be sent and where no one ever ages.

This turns out to be a mistake, as Lex's first victim, Mon-El, has plenty of experience with the Phantom Zone. Mon spent 1000 years there until a cure could be found for his lead poisoning. He leads his teammates into messing with Lex's mind so that it is Lex himself who unwittingly frees the Legion from the zone. His scheme foiled, Lex returns to the 20th century with his tail between his legs and vows further revenge (which he inexplicably fails to carry out).

Ho hum.

So, what does this story teach us about how write an unmemorable story? 

1. Make your protagonist as unlikable as possible. 

Here, Hamilton was constrained, in part, by the Comics Code Authority, which mandated that criminals be shown to be unsympathetic. But that makes it all the more odd that he chose Lex to be the protagonist of this story. Lex is as unlikable as they come.

He's a classic Silver Age baddie, and, as such, not someone the reader is supposed to identify with.

And yes, even though the title of the series is "Legion of Super-Heroes," Lex serves as the protagonist of this particular story. It is told mostly from his point of view, and he has a goal and actively seeks to carry it out--the classic definition of a protagonist.

It's easy to see why Hamilton chose to tell the story from Lex's point of view; after all, he's the only character who knows what's going on. But, even so, it's hard to care about him, much less like him.

2. Make sure nothing is at stake. 

Even if we're not supposed to like Lex, we could feel a perverse sympathy for him if Lex were putting himself or something valuable to him at risk in order to accomplish his goal. (For example, in classic origin story of Batman's enemy the Joker, we're meant to feel his sense of tragedy at being disfigured, though we deplore his criminal actions.)

But sympathy--perverse or otherwise--doesn't happen. Lex simply sneaks up on the Legionnaires, presses a button, and they vanish.  In effective stories, suspense is built when the characters take risks. Such risks are all the more necessary when the protagonist is a villain or antihero.

Think of all the movies featuring bank robbers as protagonists. Will they get caught? Will their scheme work? Will something happen to their loved ones? (I'm thinking of Dog Day Afternoon here.)

In Adventure 325, Lex risks nothing.

3. Make sure nothing changes as a result of your story. 

If your story ends with the heroes laughing as the villain gets away, something's wrong.

Granted, Lex couldn't be captured and sent to prison in the 30th century.Yet in an imaginative series such as the LSH and with a writer as creative as Hamilton, something should have happened to make this story worthwhile.  

The Legion could have mindwiped Lex into forgetting about their existence. Lex could have escaped on his own after the Legion struggled valiantly to capture him. He could have been transported back in time by another Legion villain, the Time Trapper, whose agenda is always mysterious.

It doesn't really matter how the story ended--the Legion or Lex (and, by extension, the reader) should have learned something or been changed as a result of this story.

Interestingly enough, the Legionnaires don't do much in this story. They have no competing goal that conflicts with Lex's, and they don't even struggle much to get out of the Phantom Zone, so it's hard to care for them either.

Characters you don't care about + nothing at stake + nothing changes = recipe for a forgettable story.

Conversely. if you want your story to be memorable, do three things: 1) give the reader a reason to care about your protagonist, even if he's a bad guy, 2) raise the stakes, and 3) have something of consequence happen.

If you like this post, you might also like:

• Silliest Story Ever? What Writers Can Learn from Adventure Comics # 267
• How to Kill a Super-Hero: The Death of Invisible Kid
• Finding New Inspiration in Old Stories: Daredevil # 120-123

3 Comic Book Stories that “Work”

In previous posts, I discussed comic book stories some deem silly or heinous, and a lot of comments, both here and elsewhere, agreed with those assessments.  

However, I don’t want to give the impression that comic book writing is necessarily bad.

In fact, comic book writing requires a special set of skills similar to movie making.  The comic book writer serves as scriptwriter, cinematographer, dialogue and scene editor, and researcher, and has to convey ideas from all of these disciplines to an artist who will draw the story (unless, of course, the writer and artist are the same person, in which case he or she wears even more hats – penciller, inker, and often colorist.)

The comic book writer must also be a team player who is willing to modify her original vision of the story to accommodate contributions from the artist and, often, dicates from an editor.

Having written both comic book and prose stories, I can tell you that, for me at least, the former were  much more difficult to write.

So, here’s an attempt to even the score by highlighting “good” comic book stories.   I confess up front that these stories are very old and are biased toward Marvel and DC.  Since we’re talking about super-heroes, the latter seems appropriate, and, as for the former, a good story should be memorable – which means neither you nor I should have to think very hard to recall it.

1. The Avengers/Defenders War

Avengers # 115-118 and Defenders # 8-10, September-December 1973

Source: GCD.  © and TM Marvel

Writer: Steve Englehart (with principle art by Bob Brown)

The skinny: Two teams of heroes are tricked into fighting each other over a powerful weapon that can alter the world.

What works:  Hero teams battling hero teams is nothing new, but I’ve rarely seen it done so well as here.  Every development of the story flows organically from who the characters are and from what they want.

For example, when the Avengers are tipped off that the Defenders might be up to something, they disperse to the far corners of the world to investigate.  The Silver Surfer (a Defender) accidentally triggers a volcano, demolishing an Avengers quinjet and injuring the Scarlet Witch.  Her beau, the Vision, is so overcome with rage that he attacks the bewildered Surfer – and their fight “confirms” the lie the Avengers have been told about the Defenders’ motives.

My favorite chapter, though, is from Avengers # 117, when two apparently mismatched heroes – Captain America and the Sub-Mariner – decide to trust one another and come to realize they’ve been had.  Only Cap – because of who he is and his past association with Namor – is able to see beyond the latter's imperious threats and put aside his own ego, which turns the tide of battle.

2. “The War Between Krypton and Earth”

Adventure Comics # 333, June 1965

Writer: Edmond Hamilton (with art by John Forte)

Source: GCD. © and TM DC Comics

Inc.

The skinny:  The Legionnaires travel back in time and take sides in a war between two alien races which seek to colonize prehistoric earth.

What works: Both sides – the Kryptonians and the Vruunians – establish a legitimate claim to earth.  Both have traveled great distances to give their people a new home, and neither wants to abandon their dreams and search for a new world to colonize.

Neither side is portrayed as villains, yet their war escalates due to factors beyond their control (when weapons intended by the Vruunians only to stun prove lethal to Kryptonians).

The story serves – in the best science fiction tradition – as a metaphor for how wars get started among people of “good will” and how they can escalate – and why they should be avoided.

The story also ends on a tragic note (rare for the Silver Age) when Superboy returns to the future and unearths Kryptonian records that reveal why their colony did not survive.

3. “Flashback”

Amazing Spider-Man # 181, June 1978

Source: GCD.  © and TM Marvel

Writer: Bill Mantlo (with art by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito)

The skinny:  While visiting the grave of his Uncle Ben, Spidey recalls his own origin and history.

What works:  The ending, plain and simple.  Spidey’s origin has been recounted numerous times, but this tear-jerker leaves the reader with a little something extra.

Spidey leaves a gift at the grave – the microscope Uncle Ben gave him years ago which inspired young Peter Parker’s interest in science (and which indirectly led to him becoming Spider-Man).

After Spidey departs, a gravekeeper finds the microscope and takes it home to his young son.

When I first read this story, I wondered if the gravekeeper had done the right thing by stealing a gift from a grave.  But the microscope would have been ruined by the weather or stolen by someone else.  Instead, the story ends on a positive note, with Peter unknowingly passing on Uncle Ben's gift to another child – a gift of science and love.

Significantly, the gift is a microscope – not a web-shooter or some other token of Spidey’s long career as a hero.  Just a simple microscope.  The story affirms that “ordinary” objects can fuel the imaginations of kids, and who knows where that will lead?

Furthermore, it drives home  –  in a wonderfully subtle way  –  how important science is to all of us.

Are these stories perfect?  No.  But they don’t have to be.  All they have to do is do what stories everywhere and since the dawn of time have sought to do: entertain the reader and leave him with something extra: a thought, a feeling, a reaction.

What about you?  What comic book stories “work” for you?