Star Power III: Fail to the Void!

[Vinyadan]

I liked yesterday's page. The colours were really cool. As for the plot, well... you know.

[Kwatsu]

I dunno, I could see Mookie doing slasher stuff like this. DD has flip-flopped between juvenile humour to exploding jocks between chapters after all.

I would say this could be unusual for Garth, granted, I've never read through Finder's Keepers so I have no idea how violent it actually is, but it never gave me that impression when I was reading through the early issues.

I have read it, but it was a while ago. Actually, when I first saw them the Countess's legions reminded me of FK's villains, the Umbra: big bendy fellows with long sharp fingers (which they use to slash and stab people).

[T-O-E]

Is there a reason why you're posting this here and not in the LICD thread? Is it because we have the best opinions?

(I'm following that sequence in bemusement mostly because I've got no idea why he's doing that.)

I didn't want to double-post.

[Traab]

At first I thought he was ripping off cracked.com. They did a list of badasses and the land mine disposal guy was on one of their lists. So far the rest I didnt know about.

[Welf]

Again I come back from a week's travel, and again I don't recognize the comic. Tension? Discussions what influences the comic draws from? What insanity is this?

[Mr. McGician]

I'm actually hoping the station isn't blown up, if only because Chiefly Pipesmoker is the closest thing we have to a likeable character.

[slayerx]

Ah jeez...
Just when you think things might just get a bit interesting; actual threat, hero dealing with pain and desperation... Robots happen...

[random11]

did we say dangerous?
We meant dangerous because Danica didn't want to hurt them, now that they are robots, all bets are off.

Good thing she doesn't have a character trait like caring about inanimate objects.

[AgentPaper]

Looks like the countess really is the last of her kind, after extinctifying her entire race because...uh, grr sentinals bad!

Called it!

[MReav]

Link to today's comic.

[Mr. McGician]

Was this supposed to be some sort of shocking twist? Ever since they first appeared I got the impression they might be robots. There was no misdirection to make us think they were sentient. Plus, this "twist" does nothing to further the plot or character development. In fact, it ruins potential development for Danica. Looks like we're back to good old Mookiewriting.

[Mewtarthio]

Oh, look. It's the Super Mode.

Was this supposed to be some sort of shocking twist? Ever since they first appeared I got the impression they might be robots. There was no misdirection to make us think they were sentient.

They can talk without those blocky robot speech bubbles.

Thus, my new headcanon: Danica, in her grief and rage, has suffered a break from reality. She hates the attackers so much that she now refuses to view them as people. What to us would look like a freshly-slain corpse looks to her like nothing more than a broken machine.

[AgentPaper]

Thus, my new headcanon: Danica, in her grief and rage, has suffered a break from reality. She hates the attackers so much that she now refuses to view them as people. What to us would look like a freshly-slain corpse looks to her like nothing more than a broken machine.

For what is man, but a machine?

Oh man, this comic is deep. I'm all like, thinking and stuff.

[Zaq]

Nice comma splice, Garth.

[Kato]

Meh, while there really was no good indication in either direction on whether they are alive or not... This just serves to rob Danica of possible character development. Except, wasn't there a point in the story when she actually felt more attached to machines than to people? So shouldn't that make her more hurt by destroying a cute little machine than an evil alien?
I think I'm thinking too much...

[Morty]

Ah, the tried-and-true method of avoiding moral ambiguity by making enemies robots. Who could have seen that coming?

[Cavelcade]

I don't have a huge problem with this because I had assumed they were robots from the start - maybe this will make Danica just angrier, though. "How dare she use these poor defenceless killbots to do her dirty work! I'm going to write her a strongly worded letter the likes of which she's never read before, and then, I'm going to use it to punch her. Because I'm heroic!"

Edit: Samurai Jack got away with a lot of violence because it was to robots, but often times that was still morally ambiguous (or well, sometimes at least) as the robots clearly had feelings.

[Kwatsu]

Ten bucks says that zap in the last panel was courtesy of Void Archangel, instead of him getting in his zarking escape pod and leaving already.

[random11]

Ah, the tried-and-true method of avoiding moral ambiguity by making enemies robots. Who could have seen that coming?

And it's not even moral ambiguous, the setting make it pure self defense.
I wouldn't have any problem even if blood was spilling in every direction in this scene.

[Bobikus]

Edit: Samurai Jack got away with a lot of violence because it was to robots, but often times that was still morally ambiguous (or well, sometimes at least) as the robots clearly had feelings.

Yeah, but even then in SJ they were usually robots because of censorship issues. X9 was a more developed and sympathetic character in 20 minutes of screen time than anything Mookie's written.

[Cavelcade]

Yeah, but even then in SJ they were usually robots because of censorship issues. X9 was a more developed and sympathetic character in 20 minutes of screen time than anything Mookie's written.

Oh absolutely - I was unclear in my post but I meant to say what you said exactly. That it is possible to do - Mookie just didn't.

[Traab]

So, did pressing that button make the void archangel teleport two escape pods down? I mean, in the previous comic, you can see how she is right next to him. Then todays comic, she is running past one bay, and there is another bay between her and the one he is entering. Also, looks like they are blunt trauma resistant but vulnerable to blades. Guess she should have gone all sword of light from the start. Oh, and danica, did you forget there were three of those things right behind you? Im thinking we might have just seen the robots use a distance weapon since im not seeing bloody claws appear out the front of her torso from where she would have been shish-kebobbed.

[Gez]

Trama often impairs judgement

Mmmh. No. Trama restores willpower, makes you levitate, drains your magical energy and makes you slower, but it doesn't impair judgment.

[Landis963]

Mmmh. No. Trama restores willpower, makes you levitate, drains your magical energy and makes you slower, but it doesn't impair judgment.

I was wondering whether to make that joke or not.

[T-O-E]

Mmmh. No. Trama restores willpower, makes you levitate, drains your magical energy and makes you slower, but it doesn't impair judgment.

It's the word for when a character's trauma is used for drama. Or the skin of a mushroom, which probably does impair judgement.

[Vinyadan]

Ah, the tried-and-true method of avoiding moral ambiguity by making enemies robots. Who could have seen that coming?

http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/0p8/

Anyway, I think we are one step closer to the reveal that the Marquise actually had all of her people killed and she is the only survivor.

It's the word for when a character's trauma is used for drama. Or the skin of a mushroom, which probably does impair judgement.

Trama means plot in Italian. And, given that two Greek words are conjointed to build the Latin one for woof without even noticing, this has to be one of the foulest semantic shifts ever seen.

[Hopeless]

So assuming the villainous leader of the Void Angels just tasered Danica do you think he'll now monologue before being blindsided by those robots giving Danica time enough to recover and escape?

[Mewtarthio]

I was assuming she was screaming in rage, with electric power crackling off her like some kind of battle aura.

[Vinyadan]

I thought it was the robot's fault.

[Lord Raziere]

what I'm amazed at is that Mookie has written so badly that we can't tell if she is reacting to the death of a robot, going dbz battle aura, or getting taser'd by the archangel.

I mean look at that last panel, its so.....visually unconnected to the panels around it. it feels random. like, if you took it out, I think it would actually be better because then all the panels would be a consistent red, and you could put in some actual dialogue about how she is reacting to this like:
"HE WILL PAY FOR MAKING ME SNUFF OUT A LIFE LIKE THAT!"
or
"HE WAS JUST A MACHINE! FOLLOWING HIS PROGRAMMING! HE DIDN'T KNOW ANY BETTER! I KILLED AN INNOCENT!"

y'know, keep her character consistent, and show how such a character who likes machines more than people would think in a way, even if its irrational- but then again, many people say being emotional over any death in a combat situation is irrational so...not much difference...but still, rather have some dialogue there than that random panel that doesn't fit with anything else.