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!

Today we continue my spur of the moment middle-of-the-week theme week where I look at cool moments in comics where the cool moment is for a character who does not normally appear in the book in question. This time around, we take a look at an award-winning issue of Hitman by Garth Ennis and John McCrea.

Enjoy!

Garth Ennis has always had a bit of a reputation for disliking superheroes. He never seemed to pass up an opportunity to take the piss out of various superhero characters, and in fact, earlier in Hitman, Kyle Rayner guest-starred and Ennis was about as mocking as you can be and not cross the line with his depiction of the straight-laced Green Lantern.

However, in Hitman #34, Ennis decided to set the record straight a bit, and show that he does not hate all superheroes, with a heartfelt talk between Tommy Monaghan (the Hitman) and Superman.

Superman stops off on a rooftop where Tommy is, when he discovers Tommy, they begin talking, and Superman explains how he had a rough day - he saved some astronauts earlier by fashioning a shield to save them from the dying core of their spacecraft, but he missed one that the other said was already dead, and just as Superman's makeshift shield gave way and the ship exploded, Superman discovered the astronaut, who had NOT actually died, but he then died. As Superman explains, he could just see it in the man's face - "You're Superman...and you're not going to save me."

So Superman is shaken up, and Tommy is a willing listener, leading to this great exchange...

And the "twist," of course is that the very next page, Tommy blows Figs' brains out with a sniper rifle, which was the whole reason he was on the rooftop in the first place.

Great twist.

And a great, heartfelt issue (I believe it won the Eisner that year).

As for "the" moment, I guess I'll go with...hmmm...I guess the conclusion of Tommy's "I'm an American" speech.

Good stuff.