Bookends / Comic Books

So we made it onto the last page of the last chapter of the last volume.

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• 52:
  • The series begins and ends with similar◊ covers◊ (emphasizing Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman's absence during the Time Skip that took place after Infinite Crisis).
  • Issue one ends with The Question removing the bat decal from the Bat-signal, and replacing it with a question mark. He then shines it on Renee Montoya's apartment (who has elected as his successor), and asks "Are you ready?". Issue 52 ends with Renee Montoya, now The Question, removing the question mark and putting the bat decal back on the signal. She then shines it on the apartment of Kate Kane's, who is both her girlfriend and Batwoman. "Are you ready?".
• On the cover of the first issue of the ALF comic book, ALF is beholding a large stock photo of himself and exclaiming, "Robert Redford!" The last issue's cover featured the same scene, except the photo is now stamped "CANCELLED!" and ALF declares, "Ha! They KILL me!"
• Astro City: The story "In Dreams" starts and ends with Samaritan dreaming about flying.
• Batman:
  • One Batman story begins with Batman trying and failing to convince the parole board not to let Penguin out of prison. He watches Penguin closely, convinced that he's up to something. It turns out that Penguin is providing legitimate jobs to other ex-cons, and being secretive because under the terms of his parole he's not allowed to associate with them. The story ends with Batman trying and failing to convince the parole board to overlook the violation.
  • The Killing Joke, which begins and ends with a shot of rain hitting the ground, and the joke which is starting in the beginning is completed at the conclusion.
  • The Batman (Tom King) storyline "The Gift" begins and ends with Booster Gold watching an AU version of a Justice Leaguer killing themselves with a single headshot. The first time, while he's a bit shocked, he thinks it's kind of cool, because it's not like it's the real Hal, right? The second time having got to know Alt!Bruce, gone a bit mad, and realised that this is all his fault, he has a total breakdown.
• Blackest Night: The series begins and ends with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen talking in front of Batman's grave. Likewise, the cover◊ for Blackest Night #1 is the Batman clone's skull spewing Black Lantern Rings, while one of the covers◊ for Brightest Day #24 is a similar image of Swamp Thing spewing White Lantern Rings.
• Bone: Part of the opening scene the series has Smiley Bone unexpectedly charging Phoney Bone a dollar for a random tattered map he found on the ground. Phoney's angry reluctance to pay this impromptu fee causes Fone Bone to chide him that they're lost in the middle of the desert, so he should cough up the dollar. The very last scene repeats this occurrence, with the map replaced by one of their food rations.
• Daredevil: Daredevil: End of Days is one to Bendis and Mack's first Daredevil story in the early 2000s, Wake Up. In the back matter of the series hardcover, Mack notes this was an unexpected side effect. They were even able to use the same real-life kid as the model for Timmy, all grown up in the time that's passed between Wake Up and this. Possible Fridge Brilliance there in-story: Some of the dialogue suggests Timmy is not biologically Ben's son and that he lives with Ben because years before Matt Murdock brought Timmy there. Take another look at the ending to Wake Up: Urich adopted Timmy, and Matt kept an eye on the kid.
• ElfQuest:
  • In the first set, there's a bookend that occurs within the main storyline while Cutter and Leetah have been struck by "Recognition", a biological imperative that's trying to force them to mate and have kids. In one scene Cutter knocks on the window of Leetah's hut to demand why she's continuing to resist, and she angrily rebuffs him. It's probably not a spoiler-worthy surprise that she eventually gives in, and the scene is bookended by Cutter knocking at her window again, only this time it's to invite her to make love under the stars. Aaaah.
  • The first time we see Leetah in the Siege at Blue Mountain arc, just before the plot hits the fan, she's enjoying an uninhibited nude dance with her friend Nightfall. At the end of the story she's naked again, only now looking very vulnerable as she contemplates the future.
• Cable & Deadpool: The series begins with Deadpool sitting alone in his shitty apartment, watching TV and lusting after Bea Arthur. The scene is revisited in panel-for-panel recreations a couple of times throughout the series, and then the final issue ends with Deadpool sitting alone in his shitty apartment, watching TV... and then being joined by his friends.
• Daisy Kutter: Chapter 1 opens with Daisy getting bored of her mundane, non-outlaw life running a General Store. She picks up a toy gun and practices trick shots before heading to Middleton's Poker Night with ex-boyfriend and current town Sheriff Tom McKay — Daisy plays, while Tom marshals the event. Chapter 4 ends the same way, except that Daisy has taken over as the Sheriff of Middleton while Tom is adjusting to life in a wheelchair, and she's messing around with a toy gun in his old office before heading off to Poker Night with him. Daisy is supposed to marshal, but she winds up playing a few hands.
• Doom Patrol:
  • When Robotman first meets Crazy Jane, he consoles her over the rain ruining her painting by instructing her to come in out of the rain. Later, after Crazy Jane is teleported to what is apparently the real world, Cliff says "Come in out of the rain" again when he sees Crazy Jane on another rainy day.
  • The covers to the first and last issues of John Arcudi's run both depict the rest of the team reflecting in Robotman's head, the former having him think to himself "We're doomed" while the latter has him state "I was right. We are doomed."
• Green Arrow
  • The ending of Chuck Dixon's (aka, Post-Zero Hour) run on Green Arrow has this in spades. Green Arrow #0 starts out with Oliver Queen returning to the ashram he once stayed at following the "death" of his friend, Hal Jordan, and later returning to the role of Green Arrow and taking a young 18 year old monk named Connor Hawke with him. The ending of Where Angels Fear To Tread (Green Arrow #101) has Oliver Queen die to save Metropolis with Superman there for his final moments and Connor Hawke becoming the new Green Arrow. The start of Connor's run in the role (#102) has the ashram being taken over by the billionaire Fritz Mueller to become a fighting dojo. The finale of the run (#137) features Superman telling Connor Oliver's last words, fighting Seljuk in a rite of passage to reclaim the ashram, retire from the role of Green Arrow actively and returning to the ashrem, and sees Oliver Queen get revived by The Spectre.
• Green Lantern: The story "Tygers" has a prologue and epilogue depicting Abin Sur's plummet into Earth. Both begin with the words, "Years later, he died," and both end with the words, "He fell...and all the way down, in his mind, he could hear them laughing."
• The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael: The comic has the Opening Narration, "His name is Ichabod Azrael". It ends with the words "His name was Ichabod Azrael".
• Hawkeye: Hawkeye (2012)'' begins and ends with Clint fighting off the Tracksuit Draculas and saving his apartment building.
• Hound:
  • Morrigan begins and ends the story with the assertion that she is the Last of Her Kind and that she was there during the events of the story, unlike any other storyteller.
  • At the story's beginning, Morrigan carries Setanta away as a baby to her lair at Brunaboyne. The final battle takes place around the same mound.
• The Incredible Hulk: Hulk: The End begins with an elderly Bruce Banner narrating about how he feels cold, and proceeding to bitterly remark that he can't feel the cold. After the Hulk (the aforementioned "he") kills Banner for good and is finally, truly alone just like he always wanted, the Hulk's narration lowers to a whisper as he comes to grips with what that truly means:
  Hulk: Hulk strongest one there is... Hulk only one there is...
  Hulk... feels... cold.
• Iron Fist: Immortal Iron Fist begins its first and final issues with Danny being held at gunpoint by Hydra soldiers.
• Justice League of America:
  • Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare, the miniseries that set-up JLA (1997), saw Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Wally West Flash, the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter deal with (an enslaved) Dr. Destiny. While Mark Waid would ignore it in favor of presenting JLA #50^note the issue where Batman rejoins the League after JLA: Tower of Babel as the first time since the mini they met, Morrison ends his run with Oracle informing them that Dr. Destiny was stirring up trouble and them heading off to stop him.
  • The first arc of Justice League (2011) kickstarted the New 52 era with the Justice League forming after fending off Darkseid. The Grand Finale of both the series and the New 52 era, Darkseid War likewise sees the League vs. Darkseid.
• Kick-Ass: Volume 3 ends the same way Volume 1 began; with some loon trying to fly from the roof of an NYC skyscraper, drawn almost identically to the panels in the original. This time, instead of his plummeting to his death in a dark illustration of just how ridiculous the idea of super-heroes really is, he actually pulls it off and soars into the air.
• The Kingdom: Ignoring New Year's Evil: Gog, the series begins with what is presumably the Golden Age/Earth-2 Superman flying over his version of Metropolis banging on a sky barrier, being imprisoned on what appears to be a copy of Earth-2, and ends with him in the sky realizing that the barrier is now gone and that he can fly right past it, giving a wink to the reader that someday he will. Whether that was actually the same Golden Age Superman as the one who went into the paradise dimension with his wife Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor, Jr. from Earth-3, and Superboy of Earth-Prime near the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths was left ambiguous at the time.
• The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck begins and ends in the same setting where Scrooge is introduced—in the timeframe where "Christmas On Bear Mountain" takes place.
• Marvel Mystery Comics: The first issue (just called Marvel Comics) featured the origin story of the (Golden Age) Human Torch. The final issue (before a rename and retool) retold the Torch's origin story.
• Marvel Zombies: Marvel Zombies begins with the Zombie Sentry going into Earth-2149 from his dimension. Marvel Zombies Return ends with him leaving his dimension to Earth-2149.
• My Little Pony Micro Series: In the short story in Issue #3 Hayseed's face at being heartbroken after initially meeting Rarity is matched at the end when Spike claims Rarity's taken.
• The Punisher: The most recent Punisher: War Journal's first issue involved Frank killing Stilt-Man. The last issue was about Frank deciding not to kill the Stilt-Man gang.
• Red Sonja: Gail Simone's run opened with Sonja sleeping off a hangover when she is attacked by three thieves. Simone's final scene before passing Sonja off to another writer was a nun scribing Sonja's story, beginning with the same attack.
• Rising Stars begins with a burst of energy hitting a small town, giving unborn children super powers. By the end of the series, the last surviving member of The Specials (who now has all the energy of all the deceased specials combined) has built a spacecraft, and uses it to find another inhabited world and crashes down like a fireball, starting the whole process over again.
• The Sanctuary Tree: The story begins with Donald in a tree, and a fat female guard below, furious, making threats. The story ends with Donald once again in the same tree, trapped by the same guard, but this time, with her madly in love with him and making promises of love.
• The Sandman (1989), more subtly than most examples, begins and ends on the words "wake up".^note Well, discounting the three "epilogue" issues following The Wake.
• Howling Commandos: In an odd meta example, the first run began and ended with the same story, as the last issue reprinted the story from their debut.
• She-Hulk: The second run of The Sensational She-Hulk (basically John Byrne's run) has the first cover telling readers that if they don't buy her comic, she's coming over to their house and ripping up their X-Men comics. The final issue's cover has her telling them to hand them over.
• Spider-Man: The Superior Foes of Spider-Man begins and climaxes with Boomerang throwing a baseball game and being forced to become a criminal. Notably, the two events are similar but end up having completely different meanings; the first time was his Start of Darkness, but the second time serves as his ultimate failure to escape the supervillain lifestyle.
• Star Trek: Debt of Honor begins and ends with Kirk going out boating with Dr. Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, who is still working with the humpback whales they rescued and brought to the future to repopulate the species. Gracie the whale has her baby in the epilogue.
• Strangers in Paradise: The first and last issues have nearly the same covers; the first showing Francine and Katchoo in an art gallery as young girls, and the last issue showing them in the same pose as mature women.
• Supergirl:
  • Sterling Gates started and ended his run by using a Cat Grant news piece. In the first issue, Cat wrote an article titled: "Why the World Doesn't Need a Supergirl". At the end of the final storyline Day of the Dollmaker, she wrote a reluctant recantation: "The world needs a Supergirl".
  • In the cover of the first issue of the 1996 book, main character Linda is holding her skateboard. In the last panel of final storyline Many Happy Returns, Lois Lane is holding it.
• Superman:
  • The Krypton Chronicles reveals the first Kryptonian born with the surname El was named Kal. His great descendant and last male of his House, Superman, was named Kal-El after him.
  • At the beginning of New Krypton, Lois Lane is placing flowers at her father's grave as her sister Lucy reminds her angrily that Sam Lane never liked flowers. At the final issue, Lois visits her father's grave again. When asked why she didn't bring flowers she replies her father didn't like them and doesn't deserve them.
  • In For the Man Who Has Everything the story begins with Superman in a Black-Mercy-induced fantasy which ends with the words "he is content." The last scene in the story is Mongul now in a Black-Mercy-induced fantasy which ends with the words "he is content."
  • The Great Phantom Peril: In the second chapter, the narration box points out that "We started this episode at the Fortress of Solitude— and that's where we end it!"
  • Let My People Grow!: Many fans tend to regard the Bottle City of Kandor's shrinking (The Super-Duel in Space, 1958) and enlarging (Let My People Grow! 1973) as bookends for Superman's Silver Age.
  • "Luthor Unleashed": The first and final pages feature an upset Superman flying away in the aftermath of a battle, as a bruised Luthor crawls out of the wreckage, pondering he has been pushed beyond his limit and swearing revenge.
• Through the Woods: "A Lady's Hands Are Cold" begins and ends with the same verse, except the last lines are changed.
  There was a girl
  & there was a man
  And there was the girl's father
  Who said, "You will marry this man."
  …
  There was a girl
  And there was a man.
  And there was a lady with cold hands.
• Tintin: Tintin and the Picaros uses two very similar panels to show that despite Alcazar's regime replacing Tapioca's, nothing has changed for the ordinary people.
• Teen Titans: Titans #15 has this example of Aquaman at the start of the book, an outcast of his people, leading Atlantis, and Tempest, Aquaman's former sidekick Aqualad, as an outcast of his people, leading Atlantis.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: An early panel has Cyclonus hug Whirl in order to whisper a death threat to him so Rodimus won't hear. The panel is replicated in reverse at the Distant Finale of Lost Light, with Whirl hugging Cyclonus — but sincerely, this time, when Cyclonus offers him lodgings.
• Transmetropolitan: The first issue is Spider driving down from the mountain, the last issue is Royce driving up the mountain. Some of the panels are staged almost identically, with Royce in Spider's place. Additionally, it incorporates an off panel Brick Joke involving a beating Spider promised to a tollbooth attendant in Issue 1.
• In-story example in Edward Gorey's illustrated short The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel. The titular author, C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass, begins the first draft of the manuscript for The Unstrung Harp with "It had begun to snow" and finishes with "It was still snowing."
• Watchmen:
  • The story begins and ends with a red-stained smiley. (And every chapter ends with a panel visually reminiscent of the first panel of the chapter.)
  • The first and last chapter feature the death of a main character: The Comedian and Rorschach, respectively.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron: A one-issue set of bookends happened in issue #5, the first part of The Phantom Affair arc. "When you are a child◊, the world is full of wonders. When you grow up◊, though, wonders tend to have more mundane explanations." "The world is◊ full of wonders when you're a child. But sometimes, just sometimes, even a grown-up can meet with one."
• Y: The Last Man: The first issue begins with Yorick in a straitjacket (practicing to be an escape artist) while on the phone with his girlfriend, asking her if she knew that Elvis had a stillborn twin brother. In the last issue, he poses the same question to one of his clones, who doesn't even know who Elvis is. He's in a straitjacket again, this time because he's been placed on suicide watch.

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Hm... Isn't this how it all started?