Dr McNinja III: You Rad Bro?

[Giggling Ghast]

The vault led DOWNWARDS.

A downwards vault? Cumberland is madness.

[Flickerdart]

You know, I've been thinking.

Yes, Radical's plan to make the city cooler also kind of maybe kills a whole bunch of people. So he's still a bad guy. But Doc isn't exactly the nicest person himself. He tranquilized Judy, drugged Gordito before, killed guards just to take their uniforms, and is generally cavalier about his actions. Plus, he flipped off a baby. He's protecting Cumberland, but he's not really that much nicer than Radical is.

[Nerd-o-rama]

That's been kind of the point since the first real arc. Dr. McNinja has a strong moral compass, but he just plain doesn't know where to draw the line. Being raised as an assassin and then trained to Do No Harm is allegedly where this disconnect comes from, as the doctor and ninja aspects of his personality are frequently shown as being a fundamental internal conflict.

Doc's a fundamentally decent person and the protagonist, but he is far as hell from perfect. Likewise, Radical is running off crazyland morality and kind of a manchild, but he's got a goal that he fundamentally and truly believes will be a net improvement for the world.

[Scowling Dragon]

A downwards vault? Cumberland is madness.

Well I don't know how real vaults work. A Vault thats underground mainly seems convenient for space reasons.

[Luzahn]

Of course, I'm not sure if we should condemn McNinja for the guard murder at the beginning; it seems out of character, and I'm willing to ascribe it to early weirdness.

We only see that sort of extremely cavalier behavior with lives later, when he's being manipulated by Sparklelord. The character doesn't draw the line well, but I'm willing to say it's still drawn a lot further up than Radical's.

[Anteros]

Could just be the typical mercenary mindset. If you take a job guarding somewhere, you have to accept the dangers of the job. Given the way he was raised it's a mindset that would make sense for him.

I do agree that the guard murder seems out of character from what we know of him now though.

[Scowling Dragon]

I attribute it to early wobbly characterization.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Other arcs have emphasized the conflict between Doctor and Ninja, though, even if the moral quandaries have been less severe and black-humor-y. I see a major inner conflict in Doc between wanting to be an awesome vigilante, being trained to be an amoral troubleshooter/assassin, and desiring to legitimately help people.

Either that or his main flaw is an inability to think things through before he acts, which now that I think about it is way more supported by the comic.

[Anteros]

Well I don't know how real vaults work. A Vault thats underground mainly seems convenient for space reasons.

Every vault I've ever seen you could walk into. Think about what a pain it would be to transport goods up and down a ladder every time you wanted to move something. Plus, it looks like there are lock boxes down there...what if you had a handicap person that wanted to access their lock box? It just doesn't work.

That said...it could be just a normal sideways vault and they grabbed a convenient ladder when everything started moving around. It does look like the door is in the floor for the first scene...but I guess it could be bad art?

Or the more likely conclusion is that I'm overthinking things and it's a downwards vault because Cumberland is crazy / Hastings didn't think about it.

[Giggling Ghast]

Yeah, I've never seen a bank vault that went downwards. That seems hideously impractical.

That seems more like a bomb shelter than a vault.

[Suicide Junkie]

The houses are mashed together everywhich way to form the robot.
Doc was walking on the side of a fence for a while there.
http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/26p10/

[slayerx]

The houses are mashed together everywhich way to form the robot.
Doc was walking on the side of a fence for a while there.
http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/26p10/

I was thinking the same, except i was thrown off by the fact that they have a ladder set up in there; and not a collapsible one at that

[Tebryn]

It's also not built into anything. You can see it on page 11. It's being propped up against the...top hatch. Not built into it. It's also not the same color as the ceiling.

[Scowling Dragon]

I was thinking the same, except i was thrown off by the fact that they have a ladder set up in there; and not a collapsible one at that

Even if it is part of the wall, we can just say it was caused by Radicals shapeshift effect.

[Fjolnir]

there are some vaults that have the rolling library style ladders within them, if they took that off its rail and propped it against the entrance to the vault, wouldn't that take care of this quandary?

[Giggling Ghast]

I've decided it's best not to think about it at all. It's distracting me from all the ghost-punching awesomeness.

[Flickerdart]

Or as the case may be, ghost-punching wipeouts.

[Porthos]

New comic up:

It's distracting me from all the ghost-punching awesomeness.

Spoiler

Show

So to is mentioning what the Ghostbusters theme song sounds suspiciously like.

[Giggling Ghast]

I ain't afraid of no WAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[TheEmerged]

Okay, wild theory time.

Cast your mind back to the first story. Read through that with a bit of hindsight.

Spoiler

Show

Is the whole thing with Doc having cloned himself and having attended dozens of colleges for dozens of degrees an attempt to "no-prize" / explain away that page?

Or did this work out exactly... as... planned?

[Giggling Ghast]

Doc's definitely not taking this thing apart building by building.

[Flickerdart]

I guess Code Red is for healing Radical MP, and regular Dew is for stamina?

[sihnfahl]

I guess Code Red is for healing Radical MP, and regular Dew is for stamina?

And Mountain Dew Voltage is for health.

Wait, isn't that the wrong way around? Code Red should be for health, and Voltage for mana.

[Dienekes]

Ron Wizard needs Dew badly. Sorry that was funny in my head.

[ericgrau]

Other arcs have emphasized the conflict between Doctor and Ninja, though, even if the moral quandaries have been less severe and black-humor-y. I see a major inner conflict in Doc between wanting to be an awesome vigilante, being trained to be an amoral troubleshooter/assassin, and desiring to legitimately help people.

Either that or his main flaw is an inability to think things through before he acts, which now that I think about it is way more supported by the comic.

And he only killed one guard that time! That's better than before!

He did seem happy to kill less even in the first issue, and yet not disturbed by death enough to avoid killing one. I chalk it up to silliness. Though maybe some day we'll get a flash back where he does just flip out and kill everybody, with stabbing replacing casual greetings when he's on a mission. Sort of a dark past coming back to haunt you trope.

[Radar]

And he only killed one guard that time! That's better than before!

He did seem happy to kill less even in the first issue, and yet not disturbed by death enough to avoid killing one. I chalk it up to silliness. Though maybe some day we'll get a flash back where he does just flip out and kill everybody, with stabbing replacing casual greetings when he's on a mission. Sort of a dark past coming back to haunt you trope.

What about the ninja drug case? He totaly killed all those teenage ninjas.

And yes, he doesn't like to think things through - remember how he assulted random warehouse workers istead of doing proper forensic work?

[sihnfahl]

And yes, he doesn't like to think things through - remember how he assulted random warehouse workers istead of doing proper forensic work?

Which is possibly in line with certain Black Batman behavior.

Need information? Just shake down the local riffraff!

[Fri]

the "ha ha, nope" line cracked me more than it should be.

Anyway, I'm actually kinda disappointed with this storyline. Not because it's worst than the other storylines, far from it.

It's just that we're finally having a climax on the Doc/King Rad conflict. A conflict that's been so hyped up, built up, so mysterious, spanning multiple timelines and dimensions and hundreds of years, that no matter how it's handled, I think it will disappoint me. Something like, when in a horror movie, you spent the whole movie being stalked by this mysterious unseen monster. When the monster finally appears on screen, no matter how good the rubber suit/cgi is, it will never be as scary as the monster in your mind when it's still unseen.

Of course, Hastings might still surprise me!

[sihnfahl]

Of course, Hastings might still surprise me!

So King Radical is really Cloverfield?

[Fjolnir]

Hmm, give up on your dreams level of pay hrm, madame president certainly seems to know what dan mcninja likes.