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I think this chapter is going to try and set up a comparison between Allison and the invisible slasher with how they choose to handle non-super powered criminals. The mentality that Allison exhibits is a bit of a slippery slope. Sure she may not have hurt the guy too badly but who cares right? He was technically a potential rapist so if he get's roughed up a bit it isn't that big a deal right? It doesn't matter that Allison was in control of the situation the moment she noticed what was going on. She can outrun and outclass this one normal person without any effort so why is it that her lifting him by his neck is an acceptable response? I mentioned it in the webcomics thread but she could have easily just stood in front of the door leading off the roof and grilled him instead of choking him to get the attention of everyone at the party. She also could have just put her hand on his shoulder and "gently" held him in that spot until the party goers noticed? The problem here isn't that she may or may not have hurt someone. It's that her display of force completely goes beyond what the situation called for.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:47
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Phylodox posted:That was the whole point of that scene. Nothing she says or does is going to convince these people that someone they know and like could be a rapist. Even Violet, ostensibly Allison's friend, chose to believe Allison was mentally deranged rather than accept that some guy she knew from a class they took together could be a raping shitheel. And I agree with this to a point. At least for Violet and the vocal minority, they doesn't want to see what is going on in favor of thinking that Allison is off her rocker. Their reasons are not good ones; "He's my friend he would never do that", "You're just being paranoid", "Why would you do that to him". But what makes this situation really hosed up is that odds are we've all seen it play out in some shape or form and some of us may have been people in the crowd; either blind to what is going on or willfully ignorant to what is happening right in front of us. Speaking of which, do you think that every person noticed that guy walking by? No, Some are looking at the skyline and some are chatting up one person or another and mingling. Most of them probably didn't see what was happening until Allison hoisted that guy up by his neck and started shouting. So they weren't aware of what he was doing (or what he was going to do). Pavlov is right, the moment Allison acted the way she did the situation stopped being about this potential rapist, it became about her bullying someone. Allison may be getting things done but that doesn't mean that she isn't accountable for her own actions. Right now there is an alarming pattern of her inappropriate actions garnering no actual backlash save a verbal slap on the wrist and most of the other times she get's to take on her Holier-than-thou attitude to whoever she is talking too. Kill a guy and threaten a parking lot full of people. It doesn't really count because he was a murderer and they were bigots. Heck, she didn't even have to go to trial for something that most other agents of the law would be held accountable for. And that's the thing about Allison, she's not a cop, she's an adult with too much power and not enough wisdom to use it responsibly. That's what makes her so interesting as a character. But obviously nobody gave her the "with great power comes great responsibility" speech because no matter how you try and spin it her reaction to this situation is overboard. She was in control the moment she saw that guy walk by and everyone in this thread should know that.
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Jun 18, 2014 09:40
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Captain Bravo posted:You can blame the partygoers all you want for turning a blind eye to Miles, but they still have their reasons for doing so. He's a friend, it's a regular thing, she's "asking for it", they know each other, etc. There's a billion excuses they use to not see him as a bad guy. And the most important thing, as a reader, we don't know for a fact that he is a bad guy. He's purposefully written as an arrogant, entitled douche, and the kind of person we would easily believe as being a rapist, but we don't know poo poo for fact. All this adds up to a situation where Alison sees it as black and white, good vs. evil, and she's surrounded by people who disagree. Her friend is 100% correct in that she's instantly reverting back to the kind of life she led as a superhero, and is being recklessly dangerous with her use of force. Alison is also right, in that her friend is ignoring a real situation with a real solution, in favor of not having to think too hard about the people she chooses to surround herself with. The whole thing is one giant shade of grey, with nobody truly 100% correct. As much as I'd like the writers to be creating a more complex situation that doesn't seem to be the case with this party-goer. We have reason to doubt the guilt of at least one of the 4 boys who were shanked in that convenience store because the events surrounding Kaylee's rape are still not known.  And said drunk girl has just admitted that she was waiting for her friends who didn't show up so it's obvious that she probably only knows Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 21:54
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Phylodox posted:Miles, not Mitch. Ask yourself this question, if Feral had perished in that fire would Allison have stopped before she hurt more people? quote:And why, by God, does this situation need to be "more complex"? We don't need more media perpetrating the myth that there's more than one side to rape. We pretty much have an entire culture dedicated to perpetrating that idea. If you are talking about the roof-top scene, it's pretty cut and dry. The other scene could set up a better shade of gray because we the viewer aren't aware of what actually happened yet. Were all four of those guys guilty of raping Kaylee or did three of them do it and the last kid just had terrible choice in friends. If it's possible for Violet and some of the party-goers to have a friend like Miles and be blind to how he might act at a party, it's equally likely that some people might still associate with actual rapists even after a trial for whatever reason they might have. I think it would be necessary for a story centered around superheroes and vigilante justice to address that there are limits to what is acceptable in handling a real world situation. If you knew that someone with enough strength to level building could accost you for whatever crime you might be guilty of in any way they saw fit would you be comfortable with that? What if you were accused of a crime you didn't commit and someone decided to take action into their own hands? That is the situation I am in favor of. Miles doesn't apply to that. I'm not defending rapists here or whatever definition of rape culture you might be using. But being perfectly honest, I'm tired of seeing every rape scenario in fiction demonize men and victimize women. I know for a fact that rape statistics are closer to 50/50 but every time I see it brought up in the news or popular fiction it's polarized to keep one group of people colored as perpetual aggressors. Is it too much to ask that every once in a while there is a situation where it isn't what it looks like?
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Jun 18, 2014 22:39
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Tender Child Loins posted:Hey, Violet. There is a stark difference between Violet not wanting to see one of her friends as a rapist, and me stating that I'm tired of every rape story always having to be male on female. If you've been paying attention you'll notice I'm not excusing or justifying Mile's actions. I'm glad Allison stopped him, I also think she went too far. Phylodox posted:That was an entirely different situation. Allison thought that someone she cared about had just been murdered. Allison didn't lose control with Miles and use more force than she intended to. She used exactly as much force as she meant to. If you, like some people here, are arguing that the force she used was excessive...then we just disagree on a fundamental level. We will have to agree to disagree then. I see plenty wrong with someone who clearly outclasses another person physically basically manhandling them in a dangerous way. The flamethrower wielding murderer may have been a more direct threat and emotions were high so Allison's actions can be justified up until she enters the parking lot and yes, loses control of her actions. Allison has a pattern of losing her cool pretty easily and like Captain Bravo stated it's a trait Allison is aware of but isn't taking steps to handling. Look back at this page when she lifts Miles up. You can see the point where she starts to lose control over herself and defaults to acting like a thug. I'll also add that I find it understandable that she does, it's human and natural to get frustrated and angry especially with people like Miles. But that doesn't mean that her other actions are defensible given the myriad of better alternatives that were available to her. quote:I don't think the scenes with the shadowy figure and Allison choking out Miles are meant to reinforce a common idea (that of super-powered beings having free reign to exact whatever justice they see fit), but are there to contrast each other. The shadowy figure murdered those four guys, not to prevent a crime from happening, but to avenge one that had already happened. It circumvented due process and carried out an execution. Allison, on the other hand, saw a crime in progress and used her powers to stop it. Once the crime had been prevented, she concerned herself with the well-being of the victim. The way I interpret it is that what the shadowy figure did was wrong, it was an example of super-powers being abused, while what Allison did was closer to the ideal, super-powers being used in the aid of another. Obviously how the story plays out from here will either validate or invalidate my view on it, but that's how I'm reading it so far. I think the authors are setting up a direct comparison because the actions that lead one person to use force and violence to stop a situation that didn't necessarily call for it are the same that will cause people to use violence when it can only make things worse. Allison circumvents due process a number of times. She doesn't subdue or arrest that flamethrower guy at the hospital and he was guilty of three counts of murder (the surgeon and his staff) and one count of attempted murder(Feral). Where is justice for the families and friends of those hospital staff? They will get no answers or resolution as to why their loved ones had to die aside from he was targeting someone else. That killer could have been used to figure out who hired him (Maybe with Patrick's unique powers) and maybe arrest them as well. Think about our current killer, if the police ever trace that assassin back to Kaylee she's going to jail and so if her family. They all willingly hired a contract killer, in the U.S that means they can also be tried for murder. She was a victim but now she and her family have become the criminals and are no worse than the boys who raped her; potentially worse depending on how you view rape vs murder. quote:Seriously? We live in a world where a sports team can rape a girl and almost get off because the community didn't want to ruin their collegiate prospects. We don't need to reinforce horrible, harmful ideas like false rape accusations. They're already prevalent enough as it is. And I'm fairly certain the statistics only shake out to 50/50 if you include prison rape, which is horrible, but is a whole other kettle of fish from what we're talking about. As for the Steubenville trial, what happened there looks like a direct inspiration for this stories scenario and what happened there wasn't any more right than Kaylee's situation. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 04:26
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Opposing Farce posted:Works cited: Works Cited: 1. Real life 2. Real Life 3. Real Life 4. Real Life 5. Real Life Not cited here: Real Life Look I get it, I'm clearly not the most popular girl at prom here saying some of the things that I am. But please don't pretend that this topic as so one dimensional that there cannot be other factors at play. Even if it's a statistical minority False rape accusation do happen and if anything, their frequency of being reported in increasing meaning that something else is going on with this whole phenomenon. Edit: Are we seriously going to start with the MRA comparisons? idonotlikepeas posted:The highest estimates I've seen of false rape accusations are around 10%. Most are more in the 5-6% range, with lows around 2%. Given the social stigma that generally attaches to rape victims in most areas (including most parts of the U.S.), it's not too surprising that the rates are pretty low. You have to have some serious motivation to claim that you were raped, and the most likely motivation is that you actually were. quote:Obviously we shouldn't be judging people in the real world guilty without a trial. But the fear of not being believed is one of the main reasons that a lot of rapes go unreported. We're not in a situation where the men are always judged guilty before the fact; on the contrary, in most cases heavy suspicion is almost always levelled at the woman reporting the assault. If anything, we need to spend more time as a culture encouraging women to report with the idea that they WILL be believed, although their stories will also be checked. Elysiume posted:Five incidents isn't a significant data point. Nobody is saying that false rape accusations don't happen. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 05:09
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idonotlikepeas posted:OK. I think we can all agree on that. People are going to be lovely to each other, and we shouldn't support that as a culture no matter who they are or what type of shittiness it was. But you're basically arguing with nobody here; nobody has said "all accusations of rape are always 100% true". When people are saying that Miles is a rapey rapehead, he's not standing in for every male in the world; in fact, the whole last couple of pages have been about how good or relatively good people enable the actions of the minority of bad people through inaction. quote:Where this started was you complaining that SFP was doing another "man tries to rape woman" storyline when you'd like something more ambiguous or even the reverse. The point many of us have been trying to make is that this is like complaining about them doing a school shooting storyline instead of a school bombing storyline. School bombings do happen, and are absolutely terrible when they do! But school shootings are a lot more common, so it's more likely a story that wants to reach a point about school violence is going to be about a shooting unless the people telling the story want to make a particular point about bombing. quote:Now, if that story isn't to your taste, well, that's fine. But there's nothing objectively wrong with it. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 06:08
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It depends on how they want to connect Kaylee's story with Allison's. I had had a thought that there wouldn't be any actual interaction between Allison and the invisible assassin and that it would be a third party who actually deals with her. Maybe Paladin will be responsible for the tech needed to detect and detain the criminal?
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Jun 19, 2014 06:42
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Cat Mattress posted:Did anyone say he was innocent? The sordid details are thankfully not part of the story, but at best he was complicit. He was remorseful (which makes him less horrible than his friends) but that shows he had a reason to be remorseful. It can go a lot of ways. If this event is as similar to the Steubenville rape case as it appears on the surface there would have been some video or pictures taken of the act. He could have been an active participant just as much as he could have been the cameraman which wouldn't make him any less party to, or guilty of violating Kaylee.
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Jun 19, 2014 13:23
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idonotlikepeas posted:I think we can accept that "absolutely certain" was a bit of hyperbole. Come on, let's practice some of that approaching-each-other-with-kindness stuff the comic is about. I would guess that radiation would still work on her given that all we know about her anomaly is that it makes her body more durable. A nuke might be a bit excessive though even for Alison. Despite all her strength and defense she's just one person. Gas based attacks should still work against her. Maybe not stuff that works on skin or eye contact depending on how that would interact with her body; but there are a number of aerosol-based tranquilizers and hallucinogens that interact with the lungs and could render her unconscious or incapacitated long enough for law enforcement to properly restrain her. That's assuming a non-lethal approach to stopping Alison.
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Jul 2, 2014 17:32
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Patrick Spens posted:I can't remember, why are we assuming that Alison needs to breath/is vulnerable to tear gas? Both Cleaver and Alison are Tier-one Resilient, but towards the end of their fight she was able to knock him out by choking him with a chain so I think it's reasonable to assume that she still needs to breathe just like anyone else. Like I commented, tear gas may not work because of her unique biochemistry, but I doubt her lungs have the same immunity. There was also the recent bit with Daphne's friends where Alison states that she does not drink. The only reason I would assume that she does so is because alcohol can still affect her just like any other person and she doesn't want to risk losing control of her strength in casual settings. Or that could be an extension of her own stigma regarding her powers so I can't say much more.
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Jul 2, 2014 17:52
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I do think this chapter is starting to lay things on too thickly. Did the authors need to imply that the judge beats his wife for us to not like him? Why not just have him be an old judge that wants an nice and easy career before he retires; so he rushes a high profile case through the process and lets the wrong people go unpunished? Someone mentioned this last page but the majority of the bad guys in SFP weren't evil in the black & white sense. Antagonists like Patrick when he was Menace, and Cleaver were people shown to be the results of the system working against them and them being given powers that permanently affected their outlook on life. Heck, it was a major plot point to compare Cleaver and Alison's development because their roles could easily have been reversed if Alison was the one to get knife hands and gray skin. If the author is trying to make a similar comparison between Alison and the IVS's methods of handling situations it has yet to be made explicit. And the one scene where Alison was going to be presented with the flaws with her thought process she literally jumps out a window to go handle someone else's drama. This may be the type of chapter that will be better after it's over because right now things are just a little too scattered and ham-fisted for me to like it as much as previous chapters.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:47
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Carrasco posted:So this page mentions that Moonshadow is both incredibly stealthy and has apparently been off the radar for a while. What're the odds she turns out to be the vigilante? More than likely. I think the Guardian's overall are falling apart because their world has moved on. All the major super-villains have been detained or are missing so there isn't really a need for a Hall of Justice staffed by a team of superheroes. Allison (possibly unintentionally) caught on to this when she was questioned by that reporter asking if she was going to begin working with the military in the event of other supers being used in the field. And while Pint Size has been portrayed as one of the only Guardians who still believes in saving the world that doesn't mean that the others don't want to bring justice or retribution to the world in their own way. If Moonshadow has grown disillusioned by how little things change when she works within the system, It's possible that she has gone full vigilante. She has means (depending on her ability) and access to enough information to learn where each of her targets will be (between a super hacker and government contacts).
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Jul 16, 2014 14:22
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idonotlikepeas posted:That would leave me a bit confused as to why the IVS said she was not a "who", though. And we've seen Moonshadow talk before and she didn't have the weird font. Could be an effect of talking with the powers on, though, I suppose. I also have a theory on how IVS's ability works. IVS has a form of specialized telepathy. This allows her to mentally convince people around her that she is not there and is likely the reason why her voice also looks distorted because you don't see the source of the noise. It could also explain why Brad, a biodynamic with heightened senses, has difficulty detecting her since she can trick his "radar" into thinking she is not there at all. However, since she is still physically present in the world people under the influence of her suggestion perceive a warp in space at the location she is at. Being a form of mental suggestion this is probably why IVS is still able to carry weapons with her since she just convinces you that they aren't there. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 14:57
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Captain Bravo posted:The drunk girl is one of the people taking a picture of Alison. You're right, though, he's not explicitly drawn into the scene, so maybe he somehow missed the biggest event of the party? It could be that he was just off-screen for Alison's intro. I'd expect a New York apartment roof to be larger than what is shown in this page so I think the more likely answer is what Fried Chicken suggested.
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Jul 18, 2014 21:02
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Cryophage posted:To be fair, he did decline to help her when Cleaver attacked her school. He might follow her on Twitter, but dear friends they ain't. What could Brad actually do against Cleaver though? If his ability is only relates to detection he would be absolutely useless in that confrontation. At best he could have helped clear the area.
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Jul 20, 2014 01:24
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Cryophage posted:He fought Menace and Co. with the team for years. Either enhanced detection and good looks alone are enough to warrant being brought to a giant robot fight, or Brad is packing some additional facet to his ability that we haven't seen yet. I don't think he fought in the same capacity as Alison though with some of the heavy hitting villains. In the first chapter we see him handling a non-robotic henchmen. I don't doubt that he was useful in a giant robot fight, just probably not for his ability to lift them with his bare hands.
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Jul 20, 2014 18:11
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Still sticking to the theory that her ability is telepathic based. But her knife is interesting. It doesn't look like any kind of metal and it's a single continuous material.
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Jul 30, 2014 02:51
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Captain Oblivious posted:Haha oh man. If the superpowers = privilege undercurrent wasn't perceptible before, it definitely should be now! Honestly, It didn't click for me until Alison was talking to Daphne's roommates and I thought about how little she has to fear in social situations since she can bench press cars. Although her talk with Cleaver should have been a strong clue towards that theme.
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Aug 13, 2014 05:07
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I think Hector is talking more about how Alison's idea of "hanging up the cape/cowl" has led to acts of heroism that, while incredibly noble, are borderline terrifying in their implication. Have a bunch of kids go off to fight giant robots and gun wielding criminals is "ok" to him, or at least the better option to most alternatives. Having someone relegate themselves to a living organ farm for the rest of the foreseeable future with no way to suppress the pain outside of the feeling of a job well done is probably insane to him. The obvious problem here is that his ideal only works if you have a supervillain to fight against and a team that can bounce back just like heroes in comics do. But what are the guardians doing now that armed police officers couldn't do? And because Hector insists on keeping the Guardians active despite losing their most important member he's subjected all of the remaining members to the changing political and social landscape without protection. Between the fact that your average criminal could kill anyone of them with a stray bullet, and the government is trying to take what is essentially a public peacekeeping force and convert them into something they aren't, its no wonder things are falling apart. There is also the parallel between Alison and Hector because both of them have wound up influencing someone into taking their ideals to a higher extreme than even they would be willing to take them. Alison want's to "save the world" through helping as many people as possible without the need to rely on her destructive powers, and ideally she would want to be the one to do this herself. Feral reflects this by literally sacrificing her body repeatedly in order to provide life for as many people as she can produce organs. Feral managed to take an ability that was previously used to just tank damage, and instead is saving more lives that possibly even Alison has/will. And despite her grieving over her destructiveness; why hasn't Alison signed up with any relief organizations that specialize in construction where she could use her super strength to haul heavy materials or even just learning how to build instead of break? Hector on the other hand wants to "save the world" through acts of vigilantism based on a comic book sense of justice. Mary has been forced to realize that not everybody who goes to court get's justice and that there are people out there who suffer because the system turned against them, just like it turned against her. So she has changed herself into someone who isn't a good guy anymore, just a slasher who can turn invisible. And instead of delivering true justice all she does is deliver vengeance and death. Why hasn't Hector grown like Brad and turned his efforts to helping other supers adjust to a world that just want's them to fit in? Or better yet, why not use his shrinking powers to help technology progress further like Paladin has? In the end both of these characters are idealists that can afford to sit back and soapbox. Alison is practically invulnerable so she doesn't have to fear about a lot of things that most normal people would. And Hector can afford to keep living his superhero dream because at the end of the day the guy who can shrink is still going to be useful in a fight and he still has a couple of white whales left to hunt down.
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Aug 19, 2014 17:51
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Tenebrais posted:Alison wants to change the world for the better, not devote her life to a stop-gap measure. Part of her objection to Viral was that, no matter how many lives she saves, she's not actually solving anything. Tollymain posted:Because she believes she can probably do more good in a capacity beyond serving as glorified heavy machinery? What is philanthropy but a bunch of people constantly using stop-gap measures to improve the short-term outlook of people's lives? Even though Feral can't save every single person on the planet she is currently doing more with her powers to help people than Alison is (at great personal cost though). Likewise, Brad isn't going to be able to help every single Cleaver or non-human looking biodynamic on the planet, but by making the decision to start a support network for people like him he's doing more than Alison is. The same is true for Paladin who turned her intellect towards furthering the field of robotics and educating the next generation of scientists. Heck even Patrick is trying to use his powers to suppress his former criminal network and find out who targeted the world changing biodynamics. Both Allison and Hector's idea of "save the world" are too overreaching and impractical to actually work and the more they try and force their ideal , the less they actually accomplish in the long run. And instead of trying to find new applications for their powers they stick to either hating their perceived limitations, or doing the same old thing instead of changing. Alison doesn't have to have the answer for how to save the world, she just has to start trying to do more than solve the question inside her head.
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Aug 20, 2014 01:19
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Atmus posted:Also, taking the moral high-ground by not accepting back pay is OBVIOUSLY much better than taking the money and donating it to any charities. You know, like cancer research or something.
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Aug 27, 2014 21:19
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Maybe she's getting overconfident and is "playing" with her food? Like how a cat might swat around a bird it's crippled and captured.
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Sep 13, 2014 04:51
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ChairMaster posted:Jesus fuckin christ, some of you people really can't read at all. She means the four boys she killed. Not the entirety of all boys ever. This is so friggin obvious, the opposite makes no sense at all. ^This is my take on moonshadow's statements as well. If she had a bone to pick with all men; than all of those mercs would be dead and covered in paint and confetti. All she is doing is dehumanizing her victims by using their crime as a justification for her actions against them. Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Sep 17, 2014 |
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Sep 17, 2014 16:44
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Opposing Farce posted:She's doing that, yes; "It's rapists, not boys." What people are getting hung up on is the sentence immediately after that one: "It's tricky, but there is, technically, a difference," or in other words Honestly, since she uses that last phrase at the end of both statements it could be applied to either/or both, I can't pick up on the intended context.  Hopefully tomorrow one of the mercs picks up on that phrasing and caller her out on it.
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Sep 18, 2014 13:31
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This is why you always get the money upfront.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:34
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It's Party Time!!  Interesting to note that she goes for the guy with the broken ribs first. Probably because he doesn't panic and starts trying to get a plan of action going.
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Sep 23, 2014 13:33
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Captain Oblivious posted:Pretty sure that statement is at least 50 percent black humor. At this point how can anyone tell the difference? Why did she hire these guys in particular if only one of their members has killed any civilians? Why not just raid whatever equivalent this comic world has to Black Water (or whatever they are called now) and start knifing people there? Why should we take these events as anything more than a hero who has completely walked off the moral event horizon and adopted a train of logic that is self contradictory and, for lack of a better phrase, bat-poo poo insane? She didn't even bother to pay these guys upfront so they technically worked, and died, for free.
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Sep 26, 2014 17:51
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Captain Oblivious posted:What I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure she's partly mocking the fact that "I do it for free" is why she was a hero in the first place
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Sep 27, 2014 03:42
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JuniperCake posted:This is the problem I have with it too. Though I don't get the impression she is supposed to be going mad or losing her mind. Rather, it comes across to me as the writer just being unsure on how they want to write the character. They don't know if they want a serious silent vigilante avenger or an over the top super villain who cracks jokes and tries to make things sporting for the fun of it. A big flaming stink posted:she explained why she killed them a few pages ago. they all did terrible things on their tours and so they deserve to be killed in her eyes. i'm not saying she's not a pretty lovely person but the only way she could be described as crazy is that she thinks killing people Is Not That Big Of A Deal. Were there not any Jurors for the rape trial that she could have gone after? Or reporters who put out articles favoring the rapists over the victim? I really hope that there is some explanation for why she decided to go all Predator in the barn shed because right now it looks like the author is trying really hard to make her seem intimidating when that was already accomplished back at the gas station.
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Sep 28, 2014 03:36
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idonotlikepeas posted:So, no, it wasn't badly handled; this is all necessary stuff. And yeah, it was pretty obvious right from the beginning that those guys were super dead. First we have Moonshadow's dialogue itself. Whether it's a product of poor word bubble arrangement or bad writing I'm still not sure if Moonshadow thinks that Boys are rapists, or if she is trying to distinguish between execution of murder. I keep re-reading that page and it seems like the former is true based off of the sentence structure. The whole "I do it for free" line is just nonsensical. Technically they are both contract killers since The Guardians are a publically recognized, and government funded organization so that line is just for the sake of being edgy. Making one of the mercenaries a murderer of civilians is the same lazy writing that was used for the judge who was a spousal abuser. We were already going to be against the guy once he, and his unit, were revealed to be rapists. Was that information supposed to be a smokescreen to get us thinking that Moonshadow had changed MO? I did like the Girl and the Starfish story because it explains why Moonshadow is only going after individuals and not trying to take down every offender out there. She's probably restricting her targets to high profile rape cases where the victim didn't get justice and that works fine. It also might hint that she approached Private Bernal which is why she wasn't available for comment. Her carving slurs onto the one mercenaries back is also appropriate because it shows that she's gone off the deep end. Also,  jesus christ on that last page. I feel bad for Ken getting his debut like that.
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Oct 6, 2014 01:24
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idonotlikepeas posted:Actually, the more grammatical option you're referring to is "not all boys are rapists, although sometimes it seems like they are". Given the particular killings she's been doing, this way of thinking wouldn't seem out of place for her. I don't believe that the authors intend for us to believe that she's correct here. quote:She's not functionally a member of the Guardians anymore. And they aren't paying her to do this anyway. So, yeah, she's killing these dudes pro bono. quote:I mentioned this upthread, but keeping her murder victims consistently bad people actually adds to the ambiguity. We're supposed to feel somewhat uneasy in disliking Moonshadow, because the parallel she's drawing between the more recent murders and what she did as a superhero working for the Guardians is not completely without merit. I think they weren't revealed as rapists immediately because we weren't supposed to be handed the information that they were about to die right away. It was easy enough to infer it, but that's different from the authors giving us a big sign that says "THESE MEN ARE RAPISTS AND THEREFORE WILL HAVE THEIR THROATS CUT IN A FEW MINUTES". But yeah, I think once we get the war crimes revealed to us, that is supposed to make us think that maybe she's killing them for a different reason. Once it's revealed that she isn't, it strengthens the idea that there's something specifically about rapists that gets to her. I don't know how making every person she kills unlikable before it's revealed that they are, or aided in raping someone, adds ambiguity. I remember when the first murder happened and I kept pushing the idea that the one reluctant kid wasn't involved with Kaylee's rape. If all he was guilty of was having terrible choice in friends, a concept we would see played out on the rooftop party, than there would be room for questioning Moonshadow's actions. This page makes me feel bad for the boys, but the kid in the #10 shirt specifically. Because regardless of what crime they committed, or who they committed it against; nobody deserves to die like that. Crying and powerless while some invisible slasher quietly slits their throat. And the killing is drat near poetic because rape is an action that dis-empowers the victim, and the same happens to them. The next page solidifies my impression that nobody wins with Moonshadow's solution. Kaylee is in tears and can't even watch the broadcast while the mother comforts her and the father stare on angrily. Killing those kids won't change the past and Kaylee has a new scar to carry on to the future. The judge and these mercenaries leave no room for any ambiguity because each situation paints the victims of Moonshadow's wrath as getting "what they deserve". If say, the judge had to acquit the boys because of police failing to log key evidence properly. Than there would be room for questioning Moonshadow's actions because the judge would have been doing his job within the letter of the law. Heck, you could even have him deliberately throwing out key evidence because he's corrupt or just 2 days from retirement and he wants a quick trial. Instead he gets his throat slashed before he is presumably going to lose his temper and possibly hit his wife again. No reason to feel bad here. We're told that the captain of the mercenary unit killed foreign civilians right before he, and his unit, get killed. Again, no reason to start sympathizing with any of them except maybe Decker, and that's because he's injured already. If every victim is guilty by default and have multiple crimes lumped against them, we can only question Moonshadow's actions because of how cold and calculated they are, and how they take vigilante justice to a terrible extreme. But the writing leaves no room to doubt whether or not Moonshadow is at least somewhat justified in singling each victim out.
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Oct 6, 2014 07:31
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It's pretty terrifying that despite there being a fair number of biodynamic superheroes running around, one villain could hole up in Boston for six months.
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Oct 7, 2014 12:56
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Bussamove posted:If you can control an entire city, yeah that's pretty terrifying. Hard to send in the big guns if the target can hide behind walls of brain-slaved innocent bystanders. quote:Also I choose to believe that Dr. Zero's superpower is the ability to break mind control via headlocks. Nothing can convince me otherwise. He woke up one morning, saw the news, and said "my time has come".
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Oct 7, 2014 15:49
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idonotlikepeas posted:Reviewing the page, I think that there are basically three potential interpretations of what she said that make sense: quote:Say, rather, it moves the ambiguity to a different place. If she's killing innocent people, it removes the ambiguity from her actions because they become wholly bad. quote:what makes Mr. Gaines able to say he supports the slasher in the most recent comic.
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Oct 7, 2014 16:46
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idonotlikepeas posted:Sure. And that's a reasonable opinion to have. And the question the comic is asking you is: whose authority and judgment was she using before? The government was clearly sponsoring the Guardians, but was she consulting with them, or with a jury, before killing people? Is that different, and if so, how? I'm not saying you need to answer those questions for me right here in the forum, that's just what it's trying to get you to wonder about. Maybe you think there's some other difference. The comic has done a lot to show that the time for costumed heroics has past and by trying to keep his dream alive, Hector has unwittingly pushed her along the path she is on now. We also know that Moonshadow felt pressured to try and fill the void that Alison left on the team which caused her to become a more hardened individual. So my question is why did she stay? We know that something finally broke when the government wanted to have the Guardians aid the DEA. Maybe going after non-violent criminals was something that MS considered beneath her. I think that MS truly believes in the cause of helping people, but something changed to cause her to think that what she is doing now is ok. Before, all she had to do was help apprehend a criminal and leave the judgement to other people. Now she is taking that role upon herself. I'm waiting for that reveal because it will help put the rest of the puzzle together. quote:Or maybe you think what she was doing as a superhero was bad too. quote:If Moonshadow were just killing innocent people at random now, it takes all that away, because you can say "well, it's different because she didn't used to randomly kill innocent people". The story doesn't want to give us that option.
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Oct 7, 2014 18:02
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Patrick Spens posted:Reading back through the chapter I realized we don't actually know what happened in the trial, its perfectly possible they were found guilty and given a suspended sentence, or a minor amount of jail time, but they could also have been found not guilty.
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Oct 8, 2014 04:05
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See, it's crap like this that makes me reconsider whether or not the three laws are even worth a darn. What if a robot actually thinks that arms are like coats and decided to be really polite with someone who doesn't have super strength?
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Oct 14, 2014 16:20
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Patrick Spens posted:Like I said, I wasn't offering a generalized defense of all vigilantism everywhere. I was talking about situations where the State was unwilling or unable to punish serious crimes, which to put it mildly has not been the case with the United States and black people. The problem with that is that a lot of crimes may fall under that description. Recently in America there has been a greater focus on police killing civilians following the events at Ferguson. While not using Ferguson as a direct example, there are situations across the U.S. where police officers kill civilians unlawfully and are not prosecuted, or receive very lenient sentences relative to the crime they committed. Would you think that, going by your criteria for acceptable use of vigilantism which may include retributive murder, that killing a police officer would be justified? What defines a unique crime, and how can acts of vigilantism be limited only to situations where the guilt of the suspect is absolute, but the judicial system fails to deliver a guilty verdict? A big flaming stink posted:Sure it's wrong, but i don't think that's a particularly interesting or insightful position to take (also calling something wrong doesn't actually convey any information at all beyond 'I don't like that') Brought To You By fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 16, 2014 04:33
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MikeJF posted:Speaking of which, what's the deal with those little floating white cone thingies? Sensor array or something maybe. Maybe those cones allow it to survey the entire site.
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Oct 17, 2014 03:08
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