crime-comics

"I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless. It’s frightening, turns the legs to jelly. I ask you to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives all the same. And now it's here. Or should I say, I am."

"Fun isn't something one considers when balancing the universe, but this (laughs) does put a smile on my face."

"Fine, I'll do it myself."

"But return to me again empty handed... And I will bathe the starways with your blood."

"Your politics bore me. Your demeanor is that of a pouty child."

"Adam Warlock, a being who wished nothing more than to spend the rest of his days within the peaceful environment of the Soul Gem. He now possesses the Infinite Power and the responsibility that goes with it. While I, whose entire life was dedicated to the pursuit of power, now find myself scraping out a living from the soil. Irony worthy of the drama. Yet strangely enough though, I envy not Adam Warlock. Somehow I feel, that in the long run, Thanos of Titan came out ahead in this particular deal."

"I should have known I couldn't fool you."

"I would prefer death to imprisonment! Pride: my one fatal flaw."

"The Universe will now be set right. Made over to fit my unique view of what should be. Let Nihilism reign supreme!"

"Am I not Thanos?! Did I not butcher the woman who gave me birth, who force-fed me into this hell called life?! Is not the wake of my passing crimson with the blood of my enemies and allies alike?! Death is with me every second of the day! My every moment is spent in either dealing out death or worshipping it! So tell me, who under the stars is better suited than I to be Death's consort?"

"I now hold omnipotence. What should I do with such almighty power? The answer to that is actually quite simple: Anything I want. Anything. I am incapable of error. Any result that displeases me I can simply reverse. There is nothing I need to worry on, for I am Thanos. And Thanos is supreme. Supreme god."

"Who would have thought that becoming God would be such a back stamping victory."

"Destiny awaits."

"My name is Thanos, and my name means Death."

"I don't even know who you are."

"They'll never know it... because you won't be alive to tell them"

"I'm thankful... because now... I know what I must do. I will shred this universe down to its last atom and then, with the Stones you've collected for me, create a new one teeming with life that knows not what it's lost... but only what it has been given. A grateful universe."

"I thought that by eliminating half of life, the other half would thrive. But you have shown me... that's impossible. As long as there are those that remember what was, there will always be those that are unable to accept what can be. They will resist."

"You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me."

"I... am... inevitable"

"In all my years of conquest, violence, slaughter, it was never personal. But I'll tell you now, what I'm about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet...I'm going to enjoy it. Very, very much."

"Impossible."

"I love you, Jan. I always have... even through the bad times."

"You're all talk, Nefaria! If I had half the guts or savvy of the other Avengers, you'd be pulp by now!"

"Wonders are many, and nothing is more wonderful than man. - Epitaph"

"Long have I accepted that my friends' lives would end before mine, that a mortal life is as a candle-flicker to an immortal's - BUT CAPTAIN AMERICA IS MORE THAN A MAN! He is among the best of his people - and he should not have died thus! Blow, winds! For by my hammer, he shall be - avenged!"

"The day I fall to the likes of you is the day I hang up my shield. (After defeating M.O.D.O.K. in Marvel vs. Capcom 3)"

"But when Captain America came out, America wasn't yet in the war, so the American Nazis weren't happy with what we did to their beloved Fuhrer. ... We had a couple of personal encounters with the Bund (an American Nazi group). But that didn't stop us. If anything, it added fuel to the fire."

"We knew what was going on over in Europe. World events gave us the perfect comic-book villain, Adolf Hitler, with his ranting, goose-stepping and ridiculous moustache. So we decided to create the perfect hero who would be his foil. I did that first sketch of Captain America, and Jack and I did the entire first issue before showing it to (publisher) Martin Goodman at Timely Comics. He loved it immediately."

"I was always thinking about heroes and villains, with all sorts of ideas swimming around in my head…I had a hot fudge sundae sitting in front of me, with the vanilla ice cream, and the hot fudge is running down the side. It was intriguing. The hot fudge looked like limbs—legs, feet, and hands—and I’m thinking to myself. Gee, this’d make an interesting villain, I mused. We’ll call him Hot Fudge … Just put a face on him, and have him ooze all over the place. But I looked again at the sundae, and I saw the big cherry on top. The cherry looked like a skull. “Wow,” I said to myself. “Red Skull … that sounds good.”"

"I didn't have a lot of objections to putting a crew on the first issue ... There were two young artists from Connecticut that had made a strong impression on me. Al Avison and Al Gabriele often worked together and were quite successful in adapting their individual styles to each other. Actually, their work was not too far from [that of] Kirby's. If they worked on it, and if one inker tied the three styles together, I believed the final product would emerge as quite uniform. The two Als were eager to join in on the new Captain America book, but Jack Kirby was visibly upset. "You're still number one, Jack," I assured him. "It's just a matter of a quick deadline for the first issue." "I'll make the deadline," Jack promised. "I'll pencil it [all] myself and make the deadline." I hadn't expected this kind of reaction ... but I acceded to Kirby's wishes and, it turned out, was lucky that I did. There might have been two Als, but there was only one Jack Kirby ... I wrote the first Captain America book with penciled lettering right on the drawing boards, with very rough sketches for figures and backgrounds. Kirby did his thing, building the muscular anatomy, adding ideas and pepping up the action as only he could. Then he tightened up the penciled drawings, adding detailed backgrounds, faces and figures.""

"Captain America was a product of the way I felt at the time. I come from New York City and – especially on the block where I lived – there was plenty of action. There were fights and people would come from the next block and we would fight and either win or lose. That would be the routine. I grew up with that type of activity and I accepted it in my professional work. I believe it was also the times in general. Hitler was in power. The world was immersed in a general atmosphere of war. The war was coming and so there was a lot of turbulence. It was a very turbulent period and people reacted in a turbulent fashion. When I met partner Joe Simon, we immediately got our heads together and came up with Captain America who was typical of times. He was a patriot. He was a fighter. We were Americans and, in our plu cial[sic] minds, we were winners. Captain America was a winner. And sales were phenomenal."

"For White, who teaches philosophy at City University of New York and who has published widely on ethics as well as written about other comic-book heroes, the Captain is loyal to “timeless principles of freedom, equality and justice.” These principles are distinctively American, White believes, but he is keen to dispel “any illusion that Captain America is a jingoist flag-waver ... Instead he embodies an inclusive patriotism that balances idealism with clear-eyed pragmatism.” His principles are universal: as White puts it, he believes “American ideals apply to everyone—not just all Americans, but all people around the world.”"

"Appearing in the run-up to U.S. entry into a world-shaking conflict, the Captain has always embodied the good in human beings. In his new book, Virtues of Captain America: Modern-Day Lessons on Character from a World War II Superhero, Mark D. White argues that there can be no better model of ethical behavior today: “Cap’s ‘old-fashioned’ moral code is exactly what we need to restore civility and respect in the 21st century in both our personal lives and our political debates. He is what ancient philosophers—yes, more ancient than Cap—called a moral exemplar.”"

"When he first appeared in March 1941, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a skinny art student from New York who had been transformed into a super-soldier by the U.S. army. Trying to enlist, but rejected because of his scrawny physique, Rogers agrees to be used as a subject in a secret project. Injected with a special serum and exposed to a course of radiation with “Vita-Rays,” the scrawny young man acquires astonishing strength, resourcefulness and courage. Captain America isn’t a superman; he is an average human being whose powers have been enhanced to the nth degree. It may be the fact that he is so recognizably human that makes him the most modern of the comic superheroes."

"In a story from the early 1980s, Captain America uses his amazing powers to destroy a renegade American intelligence agency that is plotting an attack on the Soviet Union in order to make the United States the last remaining superpower. Confronting the plotters, the comic-book hero makes one of many declarations of faith that resound throughout his more than 70-year-long career as a fighter against evil: “I represent the American dream! A dream that has precious little to do with borders, boundaries, and the kind of blind hatred your ilk espouses!”"

"On Olympus, we measure Wisdom against Athena, Speed against Hermes, Power against Zeus. But we measure Courage ... against Captain America."

"Your name's Zero? Hope you don't fight like one. (when up against Zero in Marvel vs. Capcom 3)"

"You think I'm going down to some pampered punk like you? (when up against Iron Man in Marvel vs. Capcom 3)"

"We Avengers will always fight the good fight! (When winning with the Avengers team in Marvel vs. Capcom 3)"

"What are you ladies waiting for, Christmas?!"

"Yeah, I'm gonna fight you. You know why? Because I fought besides Russians during World War 2. They were good and decent men, and they made terrible painful sacrifices to save their country. And to their country then turn around and put monsters in prisons with nuclear landmines... to see people like you, proudly complicit in this nightmare... Yeah, I'll fight you. You've waited forty years for me in this hellhole, I feel it'd be impolite not to kick your head in."

"Surrender??!! You think this letter on my head stands for France?"

"...so we worked our way up from the south and met with leaders from the Maquis to help plan the attack. I've seen a lot of combat...and I'd seen a lot before I got to France...but the savagery inflicted on these people. I never saw anything like it until we got to Buchenwald. That's why it galls me when I hear my own people dismissing the French as cowards. We're talking about a people who never gave up fighting the Nazi occupation. Their country may have surrendered, but they didn't..."

"These are dark and desperate times. I know that some of you are afraid. It's alright. It's perfectly natural. But I want you to know that I am not. I am not afraid to die this day because what we do here is necessary. It may seem impossible, our enemies may appear to be endless, but that doesn't matter. Because there is no one else. Look at me. I believe in an idea, an idea that a single individual who has the right heart and the right mind that is consumed with a single purpose, that one man can win a war. Give that one man a group of soldiers with the same conviction, and you can change the world."

"Courage, Honor, Loyalty, Sacrifice. You're braver than you think."

"Listen to me -- all of you out there! You were told by this man -- your hero -- that America is the greatest country in the world!"

"Captain America is not here to lead the country. I'm here to serve it. If I'm a captain, then I'm a soldier. Not of any military branch, but of the American people. Years ago, in simpler times, this suit and this shield were created as a symbol to help make America the land it's supposed to be... to help it realize its destiny. Ricocheting from super-villain duel to super-villain duel doesn't always serve that purpose. There's a difference between fighting against evil and fighting for the common good. I'm not always able to choose my battles... but effective immediately, I'm going to make an effort to choose the battles that matter. Battles against injustice, against cynicism, against intolerance. I will still serve with the Avengers. I will continue to defend this nation from any and all threats it may face. But as of today, I am not a "super hero." Now and forevermore, I am a man of the people. Together, you and I will identify and confront America's problems. Together, we will figure out what we are and what we can be. Together, we will define the American Dream and make it an American reality."

"Do you actually think the fact that you know how to program a computer makes you more of a human being than me? That I'm out of touch because I don't know what you know? I know what freedom is. I know what it feels like to fight for it and I know what it costs to have it. You know compromise."

"Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — "No, you move.""