Amadeus and Delphyne’s love story, Pt. 3

Hercules died.  At least for the short time that this article takes place.  In an awkward tip of the hat to Delphyne’s intuitions/grudges, Athena betrays Hercules by having him get caught in a god-destroying explosion.  She totally feels bad about it, but that doesn’t stop her from doing it.  To somewhat justify her actions, Athena’s only allowed one “champion” at a time, and in order for Amadeus Cho to have risen to that honor, Hercules had to go.  Like the mob, it was strictly business.  Luckily, with Amadeus wielding Hercules’ adamantine mace, Bruce Banner’s Bannertech shields, and his own genius mind and sharp fashion sense, the new Prince of Power puts up a fairly solid fight.  But first, a reunion.

After Hercules perished, Amadeus now devotes all his time to locating and retrieving his dear departed friend. Gods can totally die in the Marvel universe — ask any Asgardian.  Fortunately, Amadeus discovers a way to access omniscience (y’know, the ability to know everything about everything).  But when the supervillain Vali Halfling steals all the ingredients, Amadeus and Thor team up to find and presumably hit Vali with blunt weapons.

But our focus’ll be turned away from these two for a while.  While our article today will totally end in a full confession of passion and delight for our two lovers, the climb will be slow and bloody.  Before the inevitable make out session, Delphyne has some goals of her own to accomplish first.  Like getting out of the awful Olympus Group prison that Athena put her in.

Though Amadeus has that crazy high intelligence that lets him know exactly how maneuver his body to avoid attacks or know exactly wear to smack his mace to subdue opponents far stronger than he is, Delphyne possesses no superpowers.  I guess poisonous snakes for hair counts as something, but an escape from a prison full of gods will take every bit of her skill, bullets, and gloating — of which she possesses multitudes of all three.  My goodness is this next scene amazingly awesome:

We always forget the fringe benefits of being a cursed reptile.  How can Amadeus not fall in love with this woman?

I know Amadeus stated to Delphyne’s face last article that he doesn’t date those who murder.  And he probably didn’t enjoy the whole her-trying-light-him-on-fire thing.  But one never forgets their first love, right?  Besides, Amadeus currently is a full-fledged superhero, and he needs a woman who can protect herself.  Poor Spider-Man keeps pushing ladies away by making them unwilling targets in his supervillains’ eyes.  But Delphyne?  That girl only gets turned on by gunfire and bloodstains.

Curious as to what Amadeus is up to?  Battling Thor, it turns out (for the second time).

I understand that some fans may be upset by Thor being taken down in a single strike.  Let me defend Amadeus.  First, Thor got hit with his own wildly powerful lightning blast.  Second, Amadeus totally sucker punched Thor.  Third, it’s a comic book and fictional characters will occasionally have varying degrees of vulnerability due to story-related matters.  And fourth, it’s important that Amadeus battles Vali solo, because of the cross-symbolism between Amadeus and Delphyne.  It’ll make sense in a second.

The next few pages allow comic books to truly shine as a literally medium.  As Amadeus fights his opponent, Delphyne fights Atlanta at the exact same time on the exact same page.  It’s a small beneficial joy of comics and it works wonderfully — after all, what better way to prove the two are worthy of each other’s affections?

Is this the ending you hoped for?  What other literary medium would have the former Amazonian queen/gorgon snake lady kissing the Korean teenager Prince of Power super genius?  And right after she shot a magic arrow at a traitorous Asgardian god mere moments away from accessing the omniscience of infinite multiverse knowledge?  This isn’t exactly The Notebook.

A happy ending!  Next week: more fights.  I promise the only kissing’ll involve a superhero’s fist smooching a supervillain’s face.