I have a confession: I suck at endings. I’ve never been able to write one that I’m happy with, and even the most perfect ones in fiction always leave me emotionally devastated afterwards, to the point where I’ll go back and watch earlier episodes to remind me of less-final moments in my imaginary characters lives. When “Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?” came out in 1986, I was a callow youth who mocked it’s emotional core. Now, I can’t even think about the end of that story without misting up a little, not to mention what happened to poor Krypto. (*Sniff* Good dog.) Still, a good solid finale, no matter how much emotional wreckage it leaves behind, can really cement a story as great, which leaves us to today’s every-season-of-Critical-Hit query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) probably loves comics because of their joyful refusal to ever proceed past Act 3 of a story without a happy-ending reversal or retcon, asking: What’s the most emotionally devastating finale of all?
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Lone Wolf & Cub is up there. Although, if you’re familiar with the genre even a little bit, there was no other way it to end.
Too many to list them all here.
Those that stand out:Zero Hour and its devastating results to the JSA and the Legion.
Crisis on Infinite earths with the losses of so many and the original Superman/Earth two heroes,Flash and Supergirl.
I would say watchmen, with the fake alien attacking NYC