"This is a question for Cinnabar," a reporter speaks out. "But I'd also like to throw it open to any and all the other new Avengers to hear their take on the matter. Cinnabar, your father's death was a terrible blow -- not just to you personally, but to the other heroes around the country, and to the nation as a whole. But his death brought home an important (and often overlooked) truth about superheroic activities -- that sometimes the good guys don't win. Can you share with us your feelings on this dangerous, potentially deadly job you're about to take on? "
Kolbrandr lets the silence draw out a few moments more before he again shifts forward, drawing attention to himself. He does not smile, and the resolve in his expression is steely, his tone fierce.
"Unseemly sir. Unseemly. I do not speak of so overly grim and wounding a question on a day of revels, but rather, thy implication on valour. On sacrifice. "sometimes the good guys don't win"? I say thee nay, nay a thousand times! Every moment of the Vision's life and death was triumph, was victory. Hast thou not taken notice that for every hero, there rampages a whole gallery of villains? That in the history of the champions of Midgard, it is often the appearance of such vileness that brings forth warriors to oppose it, despite the treacher words of the virtueless that imply the opposite?
It is the burden all men bear that there is as much baseness in their souls as there is sterling nobility, and all too many are lured in by the easy temptations of their darker selves. And yet the Vision, though made in darkness, with the mind and soul of a man he embraced virtue. And yet the Vision stood with his fellows as exemplar shining, proclaiming to the world that we can be that better part of ourselves. That we can stand against evil, though it seem about us as the endless sea.
And thou dares't.. thou /dares't/ to say that his death had greater power to hurt us, than his life had to teach us? To enoble us? Little wonder that Cinnabar should not respond to thy words, to hear them is to be enraged at the apparent failure on thy part to have let his heroism reach thee.
To judge the measure of a man by tragedy, is easy. Evil, is easy. To rise to the good in us, to be the people we should be, is so hard that it should be seen as the peerless miracle and true wonder of this earth that we so rise. It can be so fragile a grace that without those to show us it can be done, we would be lost.
From his life to his death, the Vision spent nearly every moment so showing. There are heroes now because of it. There are heroes standing before you because of it. The Vision did his part to ensure that good would not pass from this world to let evil stand unchallenged. The blow his death dealt? To the very last, he has given us strength that helps us stand unbowed! Is that not a worthy life? Is that not a worthy death? How can any man dare to rob him of that legacy in how he is remembered?
The true dolorous stroke would be to forget that. The true dolorous stroke would be to let his memory stand not for strength, but sorrow.
It is the doom of the valiant to so rarely leave this world peacefully. But it is their greatest gift to leave it inspired to greater bravery and virtue of spirit still. From the most mortal of local constables to the most cosmic of titans, that is the best of what their heroism gives us. In ever continuing that legacy, in ever rising to the challenge of nobility, in the spite of pain, of trauma, of tragedy, or even at times the world itself, the.. good guys.. /always/ win. The fight itself, is victory.
It is that, as Avengers, that is the most worthy of the tasks before us that we swear ourselves to. To be the heroes of today. To inspire the heroes of tomorrow. To show always, in life or death, sadness or glory, that we will e'er battle to keep goodness in this world, that so long as we have ensured that there are souls about us fired to embrace their own virtue, it will not matter if or when we pass from this world. We will have won. Let that be what thou commemorate. Let that pledge be what drives us to celebrate this day. Let us as one roar challenge into the fetid sea of evil and send it blasted back, tremulous and craven. So says the son of Balder!"