Al Ewing's 10 Favourite Comic Book Scenes

3. Avengers #689 - “Honey, I Don’t Play.”

Like Trifecta before it, Avengers: No Surrender was an opportunity to work with two other great writers on one story, and it was a blast – but the one scene I enjoyed writing most was Lightning’s climactic poker game against longtime Avengers villain the Grandmaster.

We’d established Lightning right at the start as a poker player who specialized in psyching his opponents out, and he’d spent the story worrying he wasn’t good enough, despite the fact that he was one of the most powerful heroes around. And here was where I got to pay that off, as he beats Grandmaster without his powers, by betting his own heroic legacy – knowing he doesn’t care how he’s remembered, but Grandmaster does.

Grandmaster folds, and is left begging to know what Lightning’s hand was - but he’ll never know, and neither will we. We know one thing, though – Lightning doesn’t mess around.