CSBG Archive
A Year of Cool Comic Book Moments – Day 363
Here is the latest cool comic book moment in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here‘s the archive of the moments posted so far!
With the year almost over, we’re going to spend five days on finales of long-running comic books. Spoilers are most certainly ahead!
We continue with the last issue of Hitman…
In Hitman #60, by writer Garth Ennis and artist John McCrea, lots of things were going on, but, using a typical Ennis theme, the underlying theme was the bond that exists between two friends.
The situation in Hitman #60 is dire. Tommy Monaghan is facing some terrible odds. Almost all his friends have been killed (Tommy recently had a dream about all his dead friends). He is trying to protect a woman from an organization with two hundred armed guards trying to kill her (led by this old bald doctor named Truman). A Gotham cop named Connolly tried to get Tommy out of it all by kidnapping him earlier in the series, but that didn’t work (Connolly owed a favor to Sean, the fellow who ran the bar that Tommy hung out at, and who had been murdered recently, like most of Tommy’s friends). Now Connolly (and the rest of the Gotham police department) have been ordered to keep out of the situation, as the CIA has a deal with Truman. So all Connolly can do is watch as the carnage unfolds.
The only assistance that Tommy and his best friend Natt have in getting the woman (Maggie) to safety is one female agent named McCallister, who was able to get a helicopter to take the two men and Maggie to safety. They’ll have to leave the country, but they’ll be safe, at least.
Meanwhile, Tommy finally split with his on again/off again girlfriend, Tiegel, gave her all of his money he’s earned off killing people and sent her out of town. He knows that if they stay together, she WILL be killed.
Okay, so their escape did not go so well. A sniper has blown one of Tommy’s hands to smithereens and Natt has been shot in the chest. Tommy and Maggie make the helicopter, but Natt does not. Tommy, naturally, can not leave his friend behind…
Can’t go wrong with the sight of the two best friends lying on the ground together, content.
13 Comments
Tom Fitzpatrick
December 30, 2009 at 8:41 am
A good ending for a fun-filled series, even for Ennis.
Though, not a totally unexpected ending for a carnage-filled career that Monaghan had did for a living.
stealthwise
December 30, 2009 at 9:43 am
I never got to the end of Hitman, but… wow. That was pretty damn cool.
chad
December 30, 2009 at 9:44 am
the best way to end a character like hitman for espically love the dream sequance of the bar tender saying drinks on th ehouse no closing time but leave guns at the door. which fits Tommy perfectly. a way to end the series
Patrick Joseph
December 30, 2009 at 10:46 am
I re-read this issue a couple of weeks ago, and and must say it is really Ennis’s best “lost” work. This is one of the very few things by him that hasn’t been reprinted, and that is enormously wrong.
Luke J.
December 30, 2009 at 12:34 pm
This was actually the first part of the series that I ever read…I was in a comic book the week it came out, leafed through it, saw the ending. Thought, “That’s incredible.”
And, since I had almost no idea what was going on, I walked out of the store with the first Hitman TPB–the first comic book I ever bought.
Jeremy
December 30, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I just finished reading Hitman and Preacher last couple of weeks. Preacher may be “better” and probably Ennis’ masterpiece, but Hitman is more fun and has more heart. Plus, it has a a cooler ending.
DC really needs to put the 2nd half of the run in trade, so I can stop relying on the POWER OF THE INTERNET.
JBW
December 30, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Without a doubt, Hitman is the best series I’ve ever read. Every issue soared, and had the ability to make you laugh out loud (thanks to a deliciously disgusting sense of humor on Ennis’s part), pump a fist in triumph (when Tommy and his friends outsmarted and/or outgunned one of their many adversaries) or feel real, genuine sorrow deep down inside (when one of the many, many well-developed characters that you really came to love met their maker). I’m not at all ashamed to say that the final issue brought tears to my eyes when I first read it, and has practically every time since. Buy the trades, find the back issues…. beg, borrow or steal, but make sure you get a chance to enjoy Hitman in its entirety. You’ll never regret it.
MRW
December 30, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Gotta agree with JBW. Preacher gets all the press, and I loved it, but Hitman was more consistent, issue after issue, and finished stronger. Plus it contains some of Ennis’s best mockery of superheroes, as well as his most heartfelt tribute to them.
Jax
December 30, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Not wanting to start a internet shit fight here, but does nobody else think this has a bit of a homo-erotic subtext to it? (ala’ Top Gun or Point Break)
Jeremy
December 30, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I know, god forbid two guys be really good friends. Look, their bodies are almost touching each other at the end! Ewww, gross! Nate should have said “No homo” before he died.
CriticalFel
December 30, 2009 at 7:51 pm
From Garth Ennis, it would definitely not be intentional. I read the whole run and don’t see it, so maybe context helps as well.
It’s just like a buddy film anyway. The subtext in those cases is in the eye of the beholder.
Dalarsco
December 31, 2009 at 9:22 am
This needs to be reprinted! I’m a sucker for things that end with a charge into impossible odds.
Rob
December 31, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I’m sitting here, a grown man, bawling like a baby. Hitman is far and away my favorite comic series of all time. Others might be technically “better” or have more “importance” but damnit, this had more heart than anything I have ever read. It’s the only series I have the whole run of, and the only series I feel the need to re-read once a year. Despite that the ending still gets me. Every single time. The ending is so absolutely perfect. There was no other way for these characters to go out. And “but you gotta leave your guns at the door” still gives you the happy ending in a way.