Speeches Should Be Good

[Brian Cronin]

Comic books are often noted by some pretty dramatic speeches and monologues.

What are some of your favorites?

-Brian

[suedenim]

Captain America had a really good one in Captain America #275, written by J.M. DeMatteis. The plot concerned a conflict between Jews and neo-Nazis in Brooklyn. The Nazis are having a public rally/speech, and a young Jewish guy decides it'd be a good idea to round up a bunch of friends, storm the stage, and beat up the Nazis. Cap puts a stop to this, and then starts speechifyin' - about how the Constitution protects *all* speech, not just the "good" kind. Which is all well and good, but the follow-up is even better. Cap's got a right to free speech himself, and tears into the Nazi (verbally), telling the Holocaust-denying scumbag how he was *there*, he saw it and smelled it, and wishes he could take this asshat back there to show him.

Cap often gives speeches, but they don't often match up to that one for two-fisted rhetoric.

[Crash-Man]

It wasn't really a comic book speech per se, but Aunt May's "I believe there's a hero in all of us" speech in Spider-Man 2 is easily the best bit of comic-related talk that I've ever heard.

[Sean Whitmore]

I kinda liked the Vietnam spiel that the bad guy from Ennis' Fury mini series made.


SEAN

[stealthwise]

Not really a speech, but Cooke's use of Kennedy's speech at the end of New Frontier, and on the same lines, BKV's use of James Dean's speech at the end of volume one of Runaways.

[Brian Cronin]

Yeah, Kennedy's speech was good.

-Brian

[Lorendiac]

Comic books are often noted by some pretty dramatic speeches and monologues.

What are some of your favorites?

-Brian

There was a speech Magneto made in "Uncanny X-Men #150" about his motivations. Something like, "Mine was an extensive family. Search our homeland now and you will find NONE who bear my name!" and so forth. I think that was the speech that first established him as a Holocaust survivor who figured that by golly, trusting governments around the world to do the "right thing" (instead of butchering anybody they felt afraid of) was a recipe for disaster. It didn't work out for his older relatives and cousins, and he didn't see it working out for mutants either.

[ACertainMrDoe]

It's not a speech as such, but I was keeling over when I read a scene in one of the Marvel FF Essentials:

Sue Storm: "Oh Reed, please forgive me, I acted like a fool!"
Reed Richards: "No, Sue, not like a fool, only like a female! You couldn't have acted differently!"

Now THAT's a sign of the times! Good ol' sixties! :p

[Reptisaurus!]

I've been thinking about this a few days, and I can't think of anyone who does the comic book speech better than Bendis.

My favorite is the first appearance of Gwen Stacy in Ultimate Spider-man, but there's probably a solid dozen I could nominate.

[Nitz the Bloody]

The best speech ever in comics is, in my opinion, the final issue in Preacher where Jesse is pleading with Tulip to forgive him, crying for the first time since he was five years old. Most romantic moment in any comic I've ever read, an excellent climax to an excellent series.