Star Power VI: Shooting Stars (VORP VORP VORP)

[Vinyadan]

Yeah, I agree with that, though I did remember sentinel mode. I did completely forget about the kryptonite scintillian metal thing, however.

Still better than yellow. For what I read, Silver Age Justice League stories were dreadful.

[random11]

I think that there was a good thing in the Heavy Metal Showdown, which was bringing back some very important aspects of Danica as a superhero: her heightened power status (Centurion sentinel) and her one and only weakness (Scintillian metal). I honestly had forgotten about them.They would look like the cornerstone of any overpowered silver-age superhero story.

I think it caused more harm than good.

I don't mind the centurion mode, it's now one of her established powers, so it's okay if she uses it to power up (although it wouldn't harm to understand if there is any cost or limitation to the power).

The star metal is another thing (I'm going to call it "star metal" from now on, getting tired of copy paste every time I mention it)

Unlike her powers, there needs to be a reason why some random orc got hold of a weapon that just happens to be the thing that can break her shield.
No explanation was provided, it is tossed as a coincidence like many other things, so was it worth it just as a reminder that the metal exists?
Worse, the threat of the star metal just went DOWN after showing that she can win a fight against a talented fighter with this kind of weapon. And it wasn't a win thanks to a special strategy or some gizmo with a temporary buff to her shield, it was close range combat with the metal that is supposed to be her weakness!
Worse still, it wasn't held by a known character with a personal grudge against her, it was just a random orc she is never going to see again.

[Celestia]

Still better than yellow. For what I read, Silver Age Justice League stories were dreadful.

It sounds stupid, but in context, it makes sense. The Guardians specifically programmed that weakness into the rings so that they could never be used against them, or something like that. The point is, it's not an inherent weakness of the Green Lantern rings.

Now the golden age Green Lantern being weak to wood, on the other hand...

I think it caused more harm than good.

I don't mind the centurion mode, it's now one of her established powers, so it's okay if she uses it to power up (although it wouldn't harm to understand if there is any cost or limitation to the power).

The star metal is another thing (I'm going to call it "star metal" from now on, getting tired of copy paste every time I mention it)

Unlike her powers, there needs to be a reason why some random orc got hold of a weapon that just happens to be the thing that can break her shield.
No explanation was provided, it is tossed as a coincidence like many other things, so was it worth it just as a reminder that the metal exists?
Worse, the threat of the star metal just went DOWN after showing that she can win a fight against a talented fighter with this kind of weapon. And it wasn't a win thanks to a special strategy or some gizmo with a temporary buff to her shield, it was close range combat with the metal that is supposed to be her weakness!
Worse still, it wasn't held by a known character with a personal grudge against her, it was just a random orc she is never going to see again.

Good point. She did just overpower him, didn't she? That does greatly deflate the thing's threat potential. It'd be like Superman beating up Metallo with brute strength despite being bathed in his kryptonite heart the whole fight.

Oh wait. :|

[faustin]

It sounds stupid, but in context, it makes sense. The Guardians specifically programmed that weakness into the rings so that they could never be used against them, or something like that. The point is, it's not an inherent weakness of the Green Lantern rings.

Now the golden age Green Lantern being weak to wood, on the other hand...


Good point. She did just overpower him, didn't she? That does greatly deflate the thing's threat potential. It'd be like Superman beating up Metallo with brute strength despite being bathed in his kryptonite heart the whole fight.

Oh wait. :|

Errr...to be fair star metal has been described as merely able to penetrate Star Power's defenses. Isn't mean to weaken her like Kryptonite to Superman.
By the way, wasn't the Countess' weapon also made of star metal? If it was, why didn't Danica notice anything during the fight?

[Vinyadan]

Errr...to be fair star metal has been described as merely able to penetrate Star Power's defenses. Isn't mean to weaken her like Kryptonite to Superman.
By the way, wasn't the Countess' weapon also made of star metal? If it was, why didn't Danica notice anything during the fight?

As far as I can remember, she found out about it when she reached the power well, so that must have been issue 3. http://www.starpowercomic.com/comic/...ople/?nav=next

[Kato]

I feel like the next three weeks we might just get a repetition of the last comics, with less text and more pictures.

I really wish this would have a proper twist, like the crime families actually being mostly okay and the PI being some paranoid nut job who hates them for personal reasons.

[faustin]

I feel like the next three weeks we might just get a repetition of the last comics, with less text and more pictures.

I really wish this would have a proper twist, like the crime families actually being mostly okay and the PI being some paranoid nut job who hates them for personal reasons.

Moral ambiguity is not the Mookie way.

[Onyavar]

If this were an entirely new web comic, starting with the five infodump pages and an author we'd know nothing about, I'd be curious how this all develops.

I know that I already called b* on some of those factoids, but I'd be willing to accept them at face value until I learned more about the sliding scale of axiositic morals and about this government that is supposed to have brought order to a chaos-torn planet. I'd bet on GalDef officers on the planet being part of the corrupt machine, and several other "dark city" tropes. [corrently reading Worm, and it really fits the same mood.]

Oh, well, I guess we will have a serious mood, impeccable white hats, and sinister dark hats.

[random11]

Errr...to be fair star metal has been described as merely able to penetrate Star Power's defenses. Isn't mean to weaken her like Kryptonite to Superman.

I'm on the fence about the value of the star metal.

On one hand, you are right, it's not Kryptonite since it's only a way to bypass her active and passive defenses.
Not ideal, but still something she can overcome with a bit of strategy (or even without it, as shown in the last story).

On the other hand, the page explaining about the metal made a big deal about it.
It is supposed to be the ONLY metal that can bypass her resistance, and weapons from this metal are specifically created to stop the Star Powered if needed.

On the other other hand, I would take anything they say with a grain of salt.
After all, it was a recorded message from long ago, by a civilization that had no contact with the federation.
It's possible that technology that can bypass the shields just exists and isn't much of a big deal (like how the countess was defeated by the federation)

[faustin]

Is a bit late to ask this question, but is the Zel-Gux structure from that desert planet still important for the last Star Power's functionality?
If it is, shouldn't have the Federation and Galactik defense send experts and soldier there ? To study it, help with repairs and maintenance, find if it's possible to replicate the technology and create more Star Power guardians (and prevent baddies from having the same idea), etc...
Because is not if the comic were going to forget about it, right?

[Traab]

Is a bit late to ask this question, but is the Zel-Gux structure from that desert planet still important for the last Star Power's functionality?
If it is, shouldn't have the Federation and Galactik defense send experts and soldier there ? To study it, help with repairs and maintenace, find if it's possible to replicate the technology and create more Star Power guardians (and prevent baddies from having the same idea), etc...
Because is not if the comic were going to forget about it, right?

Thats a good question really. Maybe there is a whole problem with not being able to access it without danica being there.

[Celestia]

Is a bit late to ask this question, but is the Zel-Gux structure from that desert planet still important for the last Star Power's functionality?
If it is, shouldn't have the Federation and Galactik defense send experts and soldier there ? To study it, help with repairs and maintenance, find if it's possible to replicate the technology and create more Star Power guardians (and prevent baddies from having the same idea), etc...
Because is not if the comic were going to forget about it, right?

I'm putting my money on "forget it," but it's not impossible for it to reappear later down the line.

[PraetorDragoon]

Is a bit late to ask this question, but is the Zel-Gux structure from that desert planet still important for the last Star Power's functionality?
If it is, shouldn't have the Federation and Galactik defense send experts and soldier there ? To study it, help with repairs and maintenance, find if it's possible to replicate the technology and create more Star Power guardians (and prevent baddies from having the same idea), etc...
Because is not if the comic were going to forget about it, right?

Unimportant until its important again. So nothing for the current arc.

[Kato]

Oh come on, Mookie! You are perfectly setting up things the way I asked you to! Please let the PI be a crazy assassin aiming to commit mass murder! Please make the big bad crime families 'not so bad' or at least a little bit morally grey. Do the not-obvious thing!

[faustin]

Oh come on, Mookie! You are perfectly setting up things the way I asked you to! Please let the PI be a crazy assassin aiming to commit mass murder! Please make the big bad crime families 'not so bad' or at least a little bit morally grey. Do the not-obvious thing!

Moral ambiguity in Mookietopia? Never!

[PraetorDragoon]

Oh come on, Mookie! You are perfectly setting up things the way I asked you to! Please let the PI be a crazy assassin aiming to commit mass murder! Please make the big bad crime families 'not so bad' or at least a little bit morally grey. Do the not-obvious thing!

Isn't that why we read this? To watch mookie mangle the good setups into dust?

[Kornaki]

Too? Too?!? Like, he isn't going to stop them before they do whatever they do?

[Celestia]

Mmm, those are some classic syllable salad names right there. Unpronounceable and full of v's, x's, and z's, just the way I like it.

[faustin]

Mmm, those are some classic syllable salad names right there. Unpronounceable and full of v's, x's, and z's, just the way I like it.

It worked for Lovecraft.

[random11]

Oh come on, Mookie! You are perfectly setting up things the way I asked you to! Please let the PI be a crazy assassin aiming to commit mass murder! Please make the big bad crime families 'not so bad' or at least a little bit morally grey. Do the not-obvious thing!

Better not.

Mookie is not good at grey morality.
When he tries, the plot will naturally push itself back to the black and white.
It will be better if the detective works with Danica and whoever else joins her against the cartoonish mobsters.

I'm not saying it will be good, but at least it will be bad in a less predictable way.

Mmm, those are some classic syllable salad names right there. Unpronounceable and full of v's, x's, and z's, just the way I like it.

And THIS is why I prefer names like "Smith".
Doesn't make much sense in the context of aliens, but at least I don't have to copy paste a meaningless string of syllables, or make up a nickname,

[Traab]

At least its not Illililliarna, nothing more fun than trying to parse how many l's and i's are in a name next to each other.

[Celestia]

Better not.

Mookie is not good at grey morality.
When he tries, the plot will naturally push itself back to the black and white.
It will be better if the detective works with Danica and whoever else joins her against the cartoonish mobsters.

I'm not saying it will be good, but at least it will be bad in a less predictable way.



And THIS is why I prefer names like "Smith".
Doesn't make much sense in the context of aliens, but at least I don't have to copy paste a meaningless string of syllables, or make up a nickname,

I mean, there is a happy middle ground. It is possible to make alien names without them being absurd. Gurch. Estevek. Slarbon. Peranino. And many, many more.

[PraetorDragoon]

At least its not Illililliarna, nothing more fun than trying to parse how many l's and i's are in a name next to each other.

Fun fact: For a long while I thought the Iifa Tree from FFIX was the "Lifa Tree, which just had a lowercase "l".

[Traab]

Fun fact: For a long while I thought the Iifa Tree from FFIX was the "Lifa Tree, which just had a lowercase "l".

Could have been a Tifa tree. FINAL FANTASY SEVEN CONNECTION CONFIRMED!!!

[Zaq]

This page’s message: “There are a bunch of extremely well-connected crime families with enough power and enough savvy to control cities, and they’re meeting together. I’m going to shoot them. With my gun.”

[ZeroiaSD]

This page’s message: “There are a bunch of extremely well-connected crime families with enough power and enough savvy to control cities, and they’re meeting together. I’m going to shoot them. With my gun.”

Also paperwork!


Anyway, I'm glad we're back to Garth art and the main plot.

[PraetorDragoon]

This page’s message: “There are a bunch of extremely well-connected crime families with enough power and enough savvy to control cities, and they’re meeting together. I’m going to shoot them. With my gun.”

Maybe he knows he's in a story written by Mookie and knows this is a tactic that works out in those stories?

[Onyavar]

I hope we are not supposed to believe that these crime families are all of similar strength. Like, there are 555 cities out there and each family controls 111 of them.

Realistically, if these are really the last of their kind, one or two of them should be dwarfs in comparison to the biggest one.

[Traab]

I hope we are not supposed to believe that these crime families are all of similar strength. Like, there are 555 cities out there and each family controls 111 of them.

Realistically, if these are really the last of their kind, one or two of them should be dwarfs in comparison to the biggest one.

They just have to be strong enough that its not worth the losses to take the others over. I imagine they are engaged in a long term cold war for territory and power. But they also cant do too much or else they leave themselves vulnerable to the good guys and vigilantes like our new main character. In fact, that may be what this big meeting is about, putting aside their differences, being content with what each group holds, and instead of moving on each other, they are going to try and push for new territory outside their combined areas. Think of it like the axis powers in ww2. They tended to not step on each others toes when it came to conquering various countries. You didnt have italy racing germany to paris. You didnt have japan trying to take over northern africa from italy, and germany didnt involve itself with the various asian nations. Well for the most part, they did team up a bit here and there. But you get the gist of my point I think. These families may be deciding to leave their current pie divided as it is and move on to new territory with an alliance to avoid backstabbery.

[Kato]

I feel like the politics of crime syndicates is something way out of my sphere but if I had to take a stab at it... A smart person might be fine with controlling just one city without a desire to fight with others over something you don't need. Especially if there are plenty of unoccupied cities to go for.
On the other hand, if you are not satisfied and want more, fighting with the people most similar to you is not the best course of action if you can instead work together for mutual gain.

Also, obvious joke was obvious. But at least it was a joke (?)