|
idonotlikepeas posted:Have we established that? The closest we came that I can think of was Clevin, and she was counting on Alison to save him. "Oh poo poo! They got Bingos!" kid's friends, who were guilty for, as far as I can tell, knowing about what happened or for associating with him. It's not exactly explained what role they had, just that they were who that girl named. Then there's Miles who was possibly going to attempt to rape that girl, and maybe he's done it before/intended to do again??? It kind of depends on what your personal views of innocence and guilt are. Though generally speaking, it's well established that so long as Mary has enough reason to THINK they're guilty, well then there goes all their blood. With Furnace, I think the whole showmanship thing was because he was on TV going on about how the people killed were innocent, and women are evil bitches, and he's going to stop the killer, etc. I think her plan was to dope him up on truth serum, make him confess to raping someone, kill him, and then release the video to the press to justify herself to everybody else, and also to posthumously rub his dead nose in it. Which she can't really do if he's too dead to confess. Still doesn't explain why the gently caress she jumped off of the fenced-in platform to throw a shrapnel bomb, when throwing it without falling a serious distance would have accomplished the same goal. Or, if it's an illusion, why Furnace would be fooled into thinking Mary's actually there, when he already knows that Allison was tanking the electricity literally less than a minute ago. The positioning and panel layout really don't convey what's going on too well, though I assume the next page will clear it up.
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 05:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
Radiochromatic posted:Or, if it's an illusion, why Furnace would be fooled into thinking Mary's actually there, when he already knows that Allison was tanking the electricity literally less than a minute ago I assume anything Furnace does in the next few pages is going to be explainable by the fact that he's dosed to the gills on sodium penthol, is a quick-tempered moron, and has had a really bad day so far.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 05:55
|
|
|
Radiochromatic posted:"Oh poo poo! They got Bingos!" kid's friends, who were guilty for, as far as I can tell, knowing about what happened or for associating with him.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 06:47
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Have we established that? The closest we came that I can think of was Clevin, and she was counting on Alison to save him. No we haven't  I distinctly remember reading a page that had an exchange along the lines of "Stop before you kill someone innocent" / "I've killed hundreds of people, some were probably innocent", but reading back through the archive I can't find it. Memory's a funny thing. Speaking of which, new page! I sincerely hope Furnace can keep his cool and doesn't blow up.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 09:09
|
|
|
Wait so... no tricks, no illusions, mary got gut-shot by the bomb and landed in the water. But somehow didn't actually take any damage to her exposed FACE. I really liked this comic. All that being said, I'm loving the visuals on Furnace in this strip.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 10:01
|
|
|
I see the next page playing out in one of two ways. Either Furnace triggers some sort of fire prevention device and get's doused for his troubles, or Allison does something to help him "cool" his head. Either of these options may also kill him. He has a really cool look to him in the last panel though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 10:30
|
|
|
Radiochromatic posted:With Furnace, I think the whole showmanship thing was because he was on TV going on about how the people killed were innocent, and women are evil bitches, and he's going to stop the killer, etc. Not sure if this is supposed to be Moonshadow's interpretation or your actual reading, but for the latter Furnace didn't ACTUALLY go so far as to call the victims innocent. Everything he said except the MRA chunk wasn't actually wrong, he was just a huge rear end in a top hat and hypocrite about it. Moonshadow WAS picking targets in the news, which meant as long as she was at large public accusations that made the news WERE in effective going "hey invisible slasher extrajudicially kill this dude" and soliciting murder is in fact a crime. Huge hypocrisy for the extrajudicial killer to complain about, massive rear end in a top hat about the whole thing, but not strictly speaking wrong (except, again, for the MRA spiel.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 11:13
|
|
|
Mikl posted:No we haven't I'm pretty sure that text was changed, for one reason or another.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 11:58
|
|
|
Radiochromatic posted:"Oh poo poo! They got Bingos!" kid's friends, who were guilty for, as far as I can tell, knowing about what happened or for associating with him. It's not exactly explained what role they had, just that they were who that girl named. Then there's Miles who was possibly going to attempt to rape that girl, and maybe he's done it before/intended to do again??? It kind of depends on what your personal views of innocence and guilt are. Though generally speaking, it's well established that so long as Mary has enough reason to THINK they're guilty, well then there goes all their blood. The implication is that all four of the jock squad participated in the rape, although we don't know exactly how (and at this point it would be weird to go back to it, and frankly I don't expect the authors of the comic to provide details of how a rape happened). One of them did seem to feel regretful based on a handful of expressions, but that was about it. Miles definitely had raped people before, that was revealed here:  Check Clevin's dialogue, but also the newspaper article in the bottom middle panel. Mary has gone out of her way to make sure she only kills guilty people, or at least people who she is 100% convinced are guilty. It's the way she justifies the serial killing to herself. As she says, it's the same thing she was doing as a superhero, only she's targetting a different group of people. Is there a difference? This is the question we're supposed to be asking ourselves, as the audience. I don't believe the comic has stated a position; there are people who hold different views. Mikl posted:I distinctly remember reading a page that had an exchange along the lines of "Stop before you kill someone innocent" / "I've killed hundreds of people, some were probably innocent", but reading back through the archive I can't find it. Memory's a funny thing. I think Alison has said something like that before, actually. She's got a more realistic view of things than Mary does in this way; she knows that she's killed people who didn't deserve it. Mary, for all her research, has probably gotten it wrong at least once. For all we know right now, Furnace is one of those times.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
I didn't notice that reveal before and imo it just makes that scene worse in hindsight.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 17:24
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Wait so... no tricks, no illusions, mary got gut-shot by the bomb and landed in the water. But somehow didn't actually take any damage to her exposed FACE. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 21:10
|
|
|
Is it established that Alison was on a murdersquad superteam? I thought that her team was generally fairly even-handed. I recall her first team-up with Feral, she objected to Feral's methods (presumably, being all lethal and gun-based. At least, that's the impression I got.) It's seems hat she's killed before, but the way people talk here is like she practically did wetwork for the government, and I don't think that's right at all. thespaceinvader posted:Wait so... no tricks, no illusions, mary got gut-shot by the bomb and landed in the water. But somehow didn't actually take any damage to her exposed FACE.  I don't know if you've noticed, but the art in this comic isn't very sophisticated. Like, it took the artist how many stories to figure out how to draw people and objects in basic, one or two-point perspective? And she still doesn't have it quite right.I think you're just supposed to let it go as comic book physics. While this is a comic that seeks to deconstruct some superhero tropes, deconstructing all of them is beyond the scope.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 22:41
|
|
|
Zerilan posted:I didn't notice that reveal before and imo it just makes that scene worse in hindsight. Honestly it kind of dumps all over the storyline in general. It's eye roll-y enough without "No but see the real question is IS SHE STILL A CRIMINAL!?" And the answer is a resounding yes. I'm pretty sure we heard about Alison arresting criminals, not murdering them, for poo poo as heinous as giant robot death squads.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:05
|
|
|
I have to say, I think that Moonshadow's crazy is getting too much attention in this chapter given that she's pretty much just a deranged serial killer lashing out. I was interested in "is it okay for me, a superhero, to treat the symptom instead of a problem if that risks supporting the illusion that the symptoms are the only problem?". I'm not really interested in Mary's inner life; she needs to be locked up and taken to a psychologist and that's pretty much all there is to it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:31
|
|
Wittgen posted:-The arc is poorly structured but not dumb.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:43
|
|
|
The question the comic is asking in this chapter is substantially more nuanced than that. What it was doing before it lost its way with people giving random speeches about their worldview, and what it's gotten back to now, is: what, precisely, is the difference between a superhero killing a supervillain in a fight and a superhero killing an average person who happens to be a rapist in a fight? Is it the fact that the superhero is more powerful than an average person? Does that mean that the villains and the heroes have to be matched up by power to make it fair? Is it the accidental nature of the killing or the fact that it might be driven by urgency? Does it make it more urgent if you believe it's the only way to prevent the crime from being committed again? Does it make a difference if the person believes that the crime will never be prosecuted, or it has already been proven that no punishment will be forthcoming from the State? As much as this issue of the comic is about rape, it's actually even more about vigilantism. Under what circumstances is it appropriate for a person to decide to punish another person for committing a crime? This is why I'm glad that Moonshadow's victims are all people she was 100% certain are rapists. Because the question becomes way, way too easy if she's just killing random people. Of course you shouldn't kill random people! That's super bad! I still think vigilantism is bad even if they ARE rapists, but that does call the whole superhero framework into question as well in a way that absolutely does not work if she's just killing people on vague suspicion or hunches.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:49
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:what, precisely, is the difference between a superhero killing a supervillain in a fight and a superhero killing an average person who happens to be a rapist in a fight?
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:52
|
|
|
Nuebot posted:She's not fighting them though. They can't even fight back. It's an assassination Fair. Let's posit a different case. Doctor Eliminato, the notorious supervillain, is hatching a plan to release a genetically engineered supervirus that will kill half the city. He's in his lab working on it right now, and who knows when he'll be done? You're across the street with a sniper rifle. He is standing in front of a window, about to close the blastproof shutters. You could kill him right now and stop the plan, or you could call in the cavalry (literally, your super team rides horses and wears revolutionary war uniforms, it's totally your thing) and lay siege to his lab, risking the chance that he'll finish the virus before you get in and kill more people. Is it okay to assassinate him in that case even though he can't fight back?
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2015 23:57
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Fair. Let's posit a different case. Doctor Eliminato, the notorious supervillain, is hatching a plan to release a genetically engineered supervirus that will kill half the city. He's in his lab working on it right now, and who knows when he'll be done? You're across the street with a sniper rifle. He is standing in front of a window, about to close the blastproof shutters. You could kill him right now and stop the plan, or you could call in the cavalry (literally, your super team rides horses and wears revolutionary war uniforms, it's totally your thing) and lay siege to his lab, risking the chance that he'll finish the virus before you get in and kill more people. Is it okay to assassinate him in that case even though he can't fight back? I would still say no and that being able to snipe is the worst super power ever.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:02
|
|
|
Nuebot posted:I would still say no and that being able to snipe is the worst super power ever. Nobody asks to be Sniperman. The power of Sniperman is bestowed upon you and you have to rise to the occasion. But yeah, it's totally legit to say no even in that scenario, which means you're going to say no to what Moonshadow is doing, too. But there are plenty of people who want to say yes to that kind of assassination but no to the other one. (Like me, for instance.) And I like stories that make me think about things like this, which is why I feel like this issue is really good... if you cut out about a third of it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:07
|
|
|
Punch the Sun, Baby
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:27
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Fair. Let's posit a different case. Doctor Eliminato, the notorious supervillain, is hatching a plan to release a genetically engineered supervirus that will kill half the city. He's in his lab working on it right now, and who knows when he'll be done? You're across the street with a sniper rifle. He is standing in front of a window, about to close the blastproof shutters. You could kill him right now and stop the plan, or you could call in the cavalry (literally, your super team rides horses and wears revolutionary war uniforms, it's totally your thing) and lay siege to his lab, risking the chance that he'll finish the virus before you get in and kill more people. Is it okay to assassinate him in that case even though he can't fight back? I totally shoot him solo so as to hog all the XPs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:35
|
|
|
Cat Mattress posted:I totally shoot him solo so as to hog all the XPs. You get all the loot to yourself too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:38
|
|
|
You already got a kill this mission, though, so you're going to get promoted once you get back to base anyway.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:39
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Fair. Let's posit a different case. Doctor Eliminato, the notorious supervillain, is hatching a plan to release a genetically engineered supervirus that will kill half the city. He's in his lab working on it right now, and who knows when he'll be done? You're across the street with a sniper rifle. He is standing in front of a window, about to close the blastproof shutters. You could kill him right now and stop the plan, or you could call in the cavalry (literally, your super team rides horses and wears revolutionary war uniforms, it's totally your thing) and lay siege to his lab, risking the chance that he'll finish the virus before you get in and kill more people. Is it okay to assassinate him in that case even though he can't fight back? absolutely yes and anyone who says else is a baby
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:48
|
|
|
if someone is in the middle of committing thousands of murders, and you kill them, its not a bad thing to do.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 00:48
|
|
|
So, Moonshadow feels that she is in that situation right now. Captain Rapist is across the street, getting ready to rape again. What can she do to prevent it? The proper authorities have already declined to do anything about it (explicitly in at least one of the cases she acted on, probably two if you count Miles) so it's not like she can tie them up and leave them for the police as per usual superhero spec. She could build some kind of prison on her own and put the guy in there... with what resources? And supervise it how? She's all by herself on this. Killing Captain Rapist is the simple, direct solution that she's already been trained to do and is very, very good at doing. And who cares what happens to a rapist, anyway? She could arrange a "fair" fight in which she uses no superpowers, but why would she, when that runs the risk of her losing and Captain Rapist escaping to rape again? She could acknowledge that killing a bunch of random rapists doesn't change rape culture... but this is what the story she told is about. It won't save all the starfish, but it will save the ones she throws back, that is, the specific human beings that won't be raped by Captain Rapist because he's way too dead to do it. Even if you don't agree with her logic, there is some there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 01:03
|
|
|
I think the problem is less the specifics of these theoretical problems and more that people, like Moonshadow, treat these problems as though they have anything to do with how solving problems in real life works. Most importantly, in real life you almost never go into a situation with complete certainty about what's going on.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 01:18
|
|
|
Figuring out how to solve a problem in your head IS how you figure out how to solve it in real life. But the certainty aspect is actually my major objection to her behavior. Our criminal justice system, flawed as it is, exists to boil as many biases as is possible out of the determination of guilt or innocence. You can't substitute the judgment of a single random person for that system, no matter how talented that one individual is, and the moral and legal structures in society can't be based on the idea that people will behave like this. Even if the person is, say, Patrick. He'd know immediately if anyone committed a crime. But if you wanted to say it was okay for him to just murder whomever he liked, you'd have to trust his judgment completely both in terms of who should be punished and in terms of his moral character, because all he'd have to do to abuse that power is lie. There's also a reasonable question about whether rape should be a capital crime. Yes, it's unfortunate that Moonshadow can't do anything to stop the rapists non-lethally, but does that mean it's okay for her to stop them lethally? That's way too big a jump. In the case where someone is about to kill half the city, the scale of offense makes it harder to argue. The point of diving into her attitude is not so much to say what she's doing is okay as to raise the question of whether it is and why it is or isn't. This is what the comic has been about, all along; there is not going to be a straightforward story where the hero punches evil and brings the bad guy in and there are no moral questions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 01:35
|
|
|
intellectually i think that its probably bad to kill people who do crimes unless they have been shown to be completely incapable of rehabilitation, but emotionally theres certain people who if i saw on the street im not quite sure if i would or would not try to murder them
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 01:44
|
|
|
The problem with with your typical "superhero murder morality" debate is that people do kill people, justified or not, and this is a fact of life that the world has to deal with one way or another. So it comes off as a lot of handwringing from a bunch of sheltered nerds, especially when someone decides that Sniperman must be evil because he prevented a biological WMD from being unleashed on a major city. I'll also note that the Marvel movies tend not to dwell on the deaths of "bad guys" very much. The very first one, Iron Man, had terrorists and a supervillain killed on screen. Hydra soldiers, from WW2 and up to the modern day movies, are also killed without forced emotional anguish on the part of the people who killed them. In the real world, is Seal Team Six reviled for killing Osama Bin Laden in his bed? Maybe among some people, but that's not the majority opinion in the US.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:20
|
|
|
Is this the real life? Or is it just fantasy?
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:35
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Figuring out how to solve a problem in your head IS how you figure out how to solve it in real life. I'm the last person to knock theory; I'm just saying that "assuming perfect or even pretty good knowledge" is where most of these attempts at a moral calculus go wrong.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:36
|
|
|
Captain Bravo posted:Is this the real life? [Is this] just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality~
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
T.G. Xarbala posted:I'll also note that the Marvel movies tend not to dwell on the deaths of "bad guys" very much. The very first one, Iron Man, had terrorists and a supervillain killed on screen. Hydra soldiers, from WW2 and up to the modern day movies, are also killed without forced emotional anguish on the part of the people who killed them. Coincidentally, the people being killed in those movies are terrorists and nazis, both groups we consider to be inhuman cartoon villains to the point where murdering them in fiction (and in real life) tends to lead towards celebratory high-fives rather than anything else. There's a reason video games keep leaning on those groups to produce disposable targets for the protagonist to mow down. Rand Brittain posted:I'm the last person to knock theory; I'm just saying that "assuming perfect or even pretty good knowledge" is where most of these attempts at a moral calculus go wrong. Fair enough, I just misunderstood what you meant. Mea culpa.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:55
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Coincidentally, the people being killed in those movies are terrorists and nazis, both groups we consider to be inhuman cartoon villains to the point where murdering them in fiction (and in real life) tends to lead towards celebratory high-fives rather than anything else. There's a reason video games keep leaning on those groups to produce disposable targets for the protagonist to mow down. True, there's a ton of ways to desensitize people to killing irl.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 02:56
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:So, Moonshadow feels that she is in that situation right now. Captain Rapist is across the street, getting ready to rape again. What can she do to prevent it? The proper authorities have already declined to do anything about it (explicitly in at least one of the cases she acted on, probably two if you count Miles) so it's not like she can tie them up and leave them for the police as per usual superhero spec. She could build some kind of prison on her own and put the guy in there... with what resources? And supervise it how? She's all by herself on this. Killing Captain Rapist is the simple, direct solution that she's already been trained to do and is very, very good at doing. And who cares what happens to a rapist, anyway? She could arrange a "fair" fight in which she uses no superpowers, but why would she, when that runs the risk of her losing and Captain Rapist escaping to rape again? She could acknowledge that killing a bunch of random rapists doesn't change rape culture... but this is what the story she told is about. It won't save all the starfish, but it will save the ones she throws back, that is, the specific human beings that won't be raped by Captain Rapist because he's way too dead to do it. Even if you neglect the fact that she has no way to be 100% sure if her victims are guilty ,the big problem with this is that you (or rather, Moonshadow) assume that the only way to prevent the Dread Rapist from striking again is to slit his throat in the street. You absolutely must get this guy off the street? Frame him for another crime! Rob a bank while disguised as him with your magic illusion powers that nobody even knows you have. Or better yet, use some of that social capital you've saved up by being a national hero for a decade and bring the story to the national stage; sic the public on them. While you're up there in the public eye, maybe even try starting a public discourse on rape culture?
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 04:19
|
|
|
pretty sure shes not trying to stop rape here. shes punishing people. totally different goal
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 04:26
|
|
|
Now we find out if Furnace is dumb enough to go super nova under a dam. I believe the answer will be 'yes'.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 04:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
Say Nothing posted:Now we find out if Furnace is dumb enough to go super nova under a dam.
|
|
#
?
Sep 2, 2015 04:56
|
|
