Thanos' Favourite Comic Page: A Silent Finale

John Arcudi and James Harren’s Rumble #3 (2015), p. 20:

---

Deciding on a favourite comics page is not an easy task. Just like asking yourself "What's my favourite book?", there are too many factors, and you proceed to spiral down, making endless lists and remembering your reasons for loving many different books, comics, and in this case, pages. Creative works make us feel things unique to ourselves, a tribute that wasn't intentionally made for us, but which still exists.

This page is a homage to a personal sense of return and displacement that I can relate to. It portrays the return home of the main character, Rathraq. He has recently come back to life, a once-fearsome war god in a scarecrow's brittle body. Earlier in this issue, the protagonist awoke from the dead, screaming as if he was born again.

On this page he is back home. He finds his weapon and dog waiting for him, but not as he left them. The last three panels of the page are Homeric, not in the sense of narrating an epic tale of gods and humans, but in showing a moment of tender and raw humanity, as Rathraq realises that not everyone has forgotten him. He came back to life shrieking, but upon coming back home, his true return to life, there is no need for words.The silence of the last panel makes me hope that Rathraq gave a mute blessing to his dog, just as Homer’s Odysseus whispered to his Argus, right before he died.

I think of it as my favourite page not because of its technique and composition, but because of how everything comes together for a silent finale.