Ruins (comics)

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Ruins is a two-issue, limited series comic book, written by Warren Ellis with painted artwork by Cliff & Terese Nielsen set in a dystopian version of the Marvel Universe. The main character, Phil Sheldon, is also the central character of the Marvels series by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, and this series can be seen as a darker retelling of this story. Like Marvels, the comic was published in prestige format, with fully-painted artwork and acetate covers, further creating the impression that it is a more twisted companion piece.

[edit] Summary

Ruins follows reporter Phil Sheldon as he explores an alternate Marvel Universe where the myriad experiments and accidents which led to the creation of superheroes in the mainstream world instead resulted in more realistic consequences: horrible deformities and painful deaths. He hopes to write a book after interviewing people who were involved with these events, but is on a timetable to complete it because he is dying.

As the story opens in issue #1, the last Avengers Quinjet is destroyed by a Patriot missile fired by the government, killing both Captain America and Iron Man. Flashbacks reveal the fates of the Avengers, who became a secessionist rebel group in this reality after the U.S. government violently cracked down on Vietnam War dissenters in the sixties. Tony Stark's heart injury and subsequent creation of the Iron Man armor, originally a result of triggering a booby trap in Vietnam, was instead caused after the California National Guard loosed grenades on protesters and he was struck by shrapnel.

It is clear that the Avengers-led rebellion did not succeed, from news clippings and photos that Sheldon has collected. The Black Panther was jailed along with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, Hawkeye was executed, and the Scarlet Witch turned state's evidence in exchange for government immunity. In addition, Daredevil is never empowered; as a boy, he is simply killed by the radioactive waste that gives him his super-senses in the mainstream universe.

Sheldon goes to a bar for a drink and encounters Wolverine, whose flesh is slowly falling off from the toxicity of his adamantium bone structure. A shaken Sheldon proceeds to a Kree internment camp in Nevada, which is situated on a nuclear test site. Clad in a radiation-proof suit, he interviews Captain Mar-Vell, one of the Kree prisoners, who tells him why their invasion failed. The Kree came upon the Silver Surfer, who had gone mad and torn open his own chest in a futile attempt to experience respiration once again. Only moments after realizing that the Power Cosmic emanating from the Surfer's body had been interfering with their scanners, the Kree invasion force detect a salvo of nuclear missiles. Earth's nuclear barrage destroys ninety percent of the warships; the United States imprisons the few survivors who fall to the ground. They are left to die from the terminal cancer afflicting all of them.

In Washington, D.C., where he encounters Northstar as a dying bum on the street, he arranges a meeting with government agent Nick Fury. The meeting does not go well, as Fury pummels Sheldon and almost shoots him after he reveals the central conceit of his book: interviewing the people who witnessed weird phenomena in this universe will prove that the world took a wrong turn somewhere, and he wanted to hear what Fury knew about Captain America. Fury disavows any knowledge of the Avengers' activities and says he 'proved he was clean,' then mocks Sheldon's idea, saying that it doesn't matter why horrible things happen.

After this, however, Fury gives Sheldon an anecdote about his prior connection to the Avengers, saying that in 'the war' it was Captain America who introduced him to eating human meat. Jean Grey appears as a prostitute and offers herself to the two men for twenty dollars, but Fury shoots her repeatedly, then dourly observes that 'we killed America with a Patriot missile last week,' grins to himself, and blows his own head off with his pistol. A copy of the Weekly World Enquiry lying on the ground is splattered with Fury's blood, with the headline "GOD FOUND DEAD IN SPACE" and a large front-page picture of the corpse of Galactus floating past Mars.

After his encounter with Fury, Sheldon visits Chicago and goes to Rick Jones's apartment complex, where it is seen through a chance encounter with a woman who also lives in the building that the Son of Satan has been born with a talking fistula in his chest. However, all the fistula can say is "Your Lord is dead."

Rick Jones is now a morphine addict living with fellow addict Marlo Chandler, and wrote to Sheldon to be able to tell his story. He was traveling through Arizona and was sitting down and playing his guitar when Dr. Bruce Banner drove up on his motorcycle and shoved him into a ditch to save him from a gamma radiation blast; however, instead of transforming Banner into the mighty Hulk, the radiation transformed Banner into a monstrous green mass of pulsating tumors. Jones tells Sheldon that Banner is still alive somewhere, imprisoned by the CIA. Chandler taunts Jones for being a junkie, and as he begins to beat her, Sheldon leaves the apartment complex, noting to himself that liquid morphine is not a junkie drug, but a terminal cancer patient drug. As he walks, snow begins to fall. He trips over the corpse of The Punisher in the snowfall, and the issue ends with him on his knees as he begs to be allowed to show the world how this state of affairs came to pass.

Issue two starts with Sheldon sitting on a plane with Mystique trying to interview her. However, her brain implodes due to her constant shapeshifting that gave her a severe personality disorder. She forgot to take her medication for it, and died. Sheldon is walking through the airport when a security guard bumps into Magneto, who is thought to be a bum in this universe. But when the guard bumps into him, he sets off a "home-made bomb" that Magneto had under his jacket.

The next scene shows Sheldon in a special prison. He thinks it's in Texas, but due to his condition, he is not sure. Wilson Fisk is the warden at the prison, and is giving Sheldon a small tour. He first shows him Scott Summers, who after incinerating his family, was blinded to prevent further harm, and then placed in the Shock corridor with the other patients. Scott asks if the president, President Charles Xavier, is there to see him. Fisk smacks his hand back with a baton. The next patient introduced is Kitty Pryde, who had tried to escape; however, she phased back while still in the cell door, and Fisk says she, "Lost three feet o' intestine." She is seen sitting by her cell door holding her stomach. Sheldon sees Kurt Wagner, who is chewing on his own tail just before seeing Kitty. After this, Sheldon keeps walking with Fisk, and sees Quicksilver, who's arms and legs were amputated. He is shown with bandages over where his limbs were cut off and is sitting on the floor in his cell. Throughout seeing the patients, Fisk tells Sheldon that occasionally President X vists the inmates. Sometimes he talks to them, sometimes he just stares. Fisk says one time, he pulled down his pants and shouted, "You all came from this!" Fisk tells Sheldon the only reason he was allowed to see the prison was because President X knew he was dying, and wanted to grant a dying man his wish.