Finding A Nit To Pick

I think this post is going to wander all over the landscape of Annihilation: Super Skrull, but I'll tell you the general theme is a question about the death scene at the end. If you haven't read #4 yet, there are going to be spoilers, but that's a chance you'll have to take.

My problem is that as I read that scene, where Super Skrull absorbs all the heat that Praxagora is putting out as she prepares to explode, I started getting this weird feeling of similarity to Jade's death in Rann-Thanagar War Special. In that case, Jade died taking a hit meant for her former fiance, Kyle Rayner, and then gave him some power, which at the time was supposedly his to begin with. Which seems kind of sucky, because Jade gets portrayed as weak and only useful as someone to take away to throw the male protagonist into a more fragile mental state. Of course the Ion series said she gave him the Starheart power she inherited from her father, not just any Green lantern energy he'd given her previously, so maybe that improves it a bit, I don't know.

But with Super Skrull and Praxagora it felt like she got cheated. She's the last of her people, she's been captured, tortured and debased, and now she has a chance to strike a real blow against the Annihilation Wave. The Harvester of Sorrows is the primary source of energy for the soldiers, and an army travels on it's stomach. Even if its loss doesn't stop the Wave, it would at least slow them down, as they resort to less efficient methods to feed and supply their forces.

But she doesn't get to deliver the deathblow. Super Skrull decides that she's only there because of him, nevermind she's got her own grudge against these bugs, and so he absorbs all the heat she's releasing and does the explodey thing himself (which has to go down as a Surprise Moment of 2006). She's left with just enough energy to find an escape pod and flee, and he gets to deliver the big hit. She gets to live. . . and tell everyone how awesome Super Skrull was. Something about that just feels wrong. Maybe I'd feel better if I'd seen some evidence that her energy regenerated over time, so that we could see she went on and continued to fight after this. For all we know right now, she'll never again have enough power to be a major player in Annihilation, which would mean she got depowered so the guy could have the big moment. Granted he was the title character, so you would expect big moments to go to him, and she's not dead, so it's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be.

I think the thing that's really hanging me up is her comment that Super Skrull is one of two men she's loved. That whole plot (which only popped up last issue) just felt forced, when it would have been easier to simply depict her as having great respect for Super Skrull, both as a warrior and as a leader, and that's why she's willing to die for him. That worked for Preak, why not her? But the love thing starts making me think she's not trying to kamikaze the Harvester out of a desire for revenge, because of what they did to her and her people, but because she loves this guy, and it's what he wants. Now maybe it's more noble to sacrifice yourself for someone because you love them, rather than because you really, really want to kill these people, but it still feels off. I really feel that's the one misstep that Grillo-Marxuach made in this mini-series, so like the title says, I'm really nit-picking here.

Oh, and I'd like to give a shout-out to R'Kin. Poor little traitor, the one good thing you did, you did unwittingly: You made the Super Skrull realize there'll never be a better time to lose his life in battle. That comment about them escaping and then Super Skrull could 'go wage his stupid, dirty little wars until he died' made K'lrt realize he's never going to fight in a bigger battle than this, so why is he thinking about abandoning those who're dying for him? So he can fight in some future little skrimish against the Kree?