Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XLVI: A Tark of the Klones, Electric Boogaloo

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm finally playing Mass Effect 1 right now. That's all the preview I need for Star Power, especially looking at what few costume designs we have right now.

Also kind of amusing if he takes inspiration for "space superheroes" from biotics (telekinetics). Your three biotic squadmates in the first game are:

1) Token boring male love interest
2) Token boring female love interest/blue space babe/exposition lady
3) A goddamn dinosaur in a space suit

As far as I can tell your biotic companions in ME2 are even worse, fanservice-wise...

[Traab]

Yeah, the treatment of celesto is really just baffling. Ok fine, he chose some really stupid and deadly to the innocent methods, but is that any worse than oracle hunter? The brat slaughtered many seers and near gutted dominic! Do they brain her and lock her up in a demi plane? Haha, no. She gets treatment and locked in jail. Celesto is trying to do SOMETHING to stop the king, and his reward is to get brained and locked in a box. Because lord knows, celesto hasnt been locked up before and would never have developed issues about that sort of thing. And there is NOTHING smarter than locking a magically powerful, borderline insane seer in solitary confinement with no help offered in any way. I dont see how being shoved into what is presumably a sensory deprivation chamber after being beaten unconscious and suffering from madness you only barely can keep in check could have possibly backfired on them.

Honestly, miranda and mookie should consider themselves lucky that all he did was escape. And the worst part is, I get the sinking feeling that celesto is STILL going to do his best to save the world, all for the approval of sadistic and twisted bad guys pretending to be heroes. Its like a bad case of beaten spouse syndrome. They keep hurting and rejecting him and he keeps crawling back to try and earn their love and respect.

[Johnny Blade]

The Deegans never supported magic methadone therapy.

A few weeks back Garth mentioned in a tweet that he's finished the layout of Issue 1, so I'm assuming that something is happening. But since that's all I know, I've got no idea what Garth means by "layout" and "issue1"; my assumption is the roughest pencil draft of an entire comic issue (which means there's a script out there), but it could be a rough draft of a mock front cover. If it's a whole comic draft it's curious Mookie hasn't mentioned it in his newsposts.

Yeah, I guess Mookie would have wanted to show off more if there was more.
Still, just reading about such things as layout and numbered issues implies an amount of structure that I wouldn't usually associate with something Mookie's involved in.

Is anyone here an expert in space science, or maybe science in general? When we begin discussing Star Power, it would be fun to have someone who could point out any research failures that come up.

There was that one time when I got like, a C- in physics. I'm sure it'll do for this.

Space Luna

This seriously at least doubled my interest in Star Power. Which I guess proves your point about us only wanting more bad stuff from Mookie.

I'm curious as to how the art will compare. While Garth can colour and knows how to use a ruler, his art has this weird stiffness to it that I find sterile. Honestly when Mookie brings out his A game, I think he can draw a cartoon that feels more alive than Finders Keepers. (That said, Mookie hasn't been putting in that kind of effort for years. Compare "Oracle Hunter" to his current stuff.)

I thought that Garth's art started to feel a lot more alive in later arcs when I looked at some random pages of his comic.
Also, Oracle Hunter was the arc in which everyone having the same face was used as a Friday cliffhanger, so I don't feel you picked the best arc to back your argument here.

I wonder how Bort and possibly his lady friend are going to save Celestro.

There definitely aren't any characters better suited to help someone with violent psychosis, that's for sure.

[TheLaughingMan]

Can someone do a recap of Deegan since like, August? Not that I'd dare try and put someone back through that nonsense, just, y'know, if you remember.

[Trazoi]

Can someone do a recap of Deegan since like, August? Not that I'd dare try and put someone back through that nonsense, just, y'know, if you remember.

So from the point where Nimmel returned from his fantastic journey with the Cloak of Ara? Okay, but this is from memory so no links.

Dominic wears the Cloak of Ara and gets hit with the mother of all infodumps telling him all about King DJs history. Most of it is stuff you probably can figure out from knowing DJ is a bad guy in Dominic Deegan. Prime new info is that the Beast is actually DJs own eyes, to which DJ ended up swearing fealty to due to being a dumbass. Really it was a hilarious mess.

Out of it all Dom learns that DJs plan is to harness the Heart of Magic in the Sanctum of the Magi. To get there he needs Celesto to find a magic door in the Elemecca to get there, the Lost Treasure of Luana which is the key to said door, and now Rilian all of a sudden to rot the non-Callanian parts of the world to a gummy paste for the Beast to chow down on. He has everything he needs except Celesto.

Then all of a sudden DJ decided to move the Sanctum of the Magi to hover over his own castle in Callan, which caused everyone who died at Aberthast Cathedral to be raised as zombies. Jacob, Jayden, Snowsong and Milov all had a big action sequence and then got swarmed in a huge DD cliffhanger.

Dominic got disheartened by King DJs innovative new strategy of actually doing something, and now forced to do something himself boldly decided to surrender. He marched out of his house and was instantly vaporised teleported by a big ol' laser beam.

And now Celesto is loose.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Can someone do a recap of Deegan since like, August? Not that I'd dare try and put someone back through that nonsense, just, y'know, if you remember.

Curse you and your exploitation of my Archive Trawling Obsession

Let's see...

Spoiler

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On August 1st Nimmel, after being reminded that he was a Seasonal Mage he used The Tempest to retrieve Ara's Cloak of Ara and was promptly struck by lightning. For some reason, this sent him back to Dominion.

Then, for the next four week (plus one week of Star Power Filler), Dominic had a vast expository flashback of DJ Callan's Evil Plan which was as follows:

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(1) Discover that the Heart of Magic ("HoM") was key to Callan's success. When he mentioned this to the Rules of Callan, they decided it wasn't important.

(2) Deciding he needed greater magical firepower he want to the Council of Archmagi and asked for their help securing Callanian Dominance. Obviously they didn't care, but they also gave him great advice that he was learning too fast somehow and should take a break.

(3) For reasons that aren't really clear, he went to the Elemecca and dumped his now-magic eyeballs into it and left them alone long enough to grow a kickin' chinstrap beard. Instead of doing whatever the hell he thought they were going to do, they gained sentience and created a dimension.

(4) After hearing that Snuggly (i.e. DJ's magic eyeballs) couldn't help him secure the HoM and just wanted to devour the world, DJ naturally agreed to help him and went back to secure the two things he'd need to find the HoM -- the Royal Archives and the Archmage's Sanctum.

(4A) DJ used his (never before seen) incredible Enchantment Powers and convinced the Archmagi to induct him as a new Archmage. Sanctum Get.

(4B) DJ would have to try something different to secure the Royal Archives because he "respected humans too much to deceive them like that." Except for the King and Queen who he enchanted to murder each other in a fashion that totally would not raise any questions. And then again with Miranda to make sure she wouldn't use her full power for some reason. But he totally respects humans guys. Honest.

(5) Using these two resources he learns that the HoM is going to pass to the filthy Orcs and so engineers the Orc War to destroy Maltak. This is why Warlord Mustache was sent as a "diplomat" BTW

(6) With Maltak in ruin in the aftermath of the Orc War (wait, wasn't it only ruined after the War in Hell? WTF?) the HoM could be chained to Callan for years of magical prosperity. Also, Snuggly demanded that DJ declare him his Lord in exchange for "strength" in handling the HoM. For some reason, DJ thinks this is a good idea and does so.

(7) For reasons DJ decides to "hijack" banishment spells to feed Snuggly (y'know, like Miranda's) which seems odd since Miranda acts like only Archmagi can cast those but whatever. Oh, and ruling a kingdom is super-hard so he decided to appoint Miranda as his successor in the Archmagi Council -- which is a good idea since she personally fought against Callanian troops in the Orc War.

(8) Despite all the extra free time, DJ did absolutely nothing to stop the Storm of Souls and apparently didn't notice any of crises Dominic had to solve until the War in Hell was over. After Maltak was reborn he finally got off his duff and decided to work on actually getting control of the HoM again and maybe figuring out who was messing up his plans. No, I'm joking, he just sat around until Lynn's Brook exploded and Snuggly killed one of DJ's brainwashed Archmagi for no good reason.

(9) DJ then sent his Archmagi on suicide missions for no good reason and gathered up (never before mentioned) things he decided would be useful in controlling the HoM

- Rillian, the First Necromancer
- Celesto, the Chaos Seer
- The Lost Treasure of Luana (tm)

(10) DJ now needs to use the Lost Treasure as a literal key to capture the HoM (???) after Celesto finds it. Rillian is just along to "rot the world" so that Snuggly can digest it easier. DJ here presumably is excluding the Callanian parts.

After that trainwreck, Dominic has a vision of the HoM which had previously blinded DJ Callan and driven him mad. After a sensible monologue, Dominic decides to look at it anyways. He was totally fine.

OK, now things get weird.

Luna knows exactly what a thousand souls being pulled apart sounds like and it is a Necromantic Nexus -- which Luna had thought might be why DJ killed all those Luanians but didn't actually tell anyone except for Jacob and Milov. And Snowsong I guess? So go her.

Jacob is all like "Death is Not Zombies" but it turns out that these special zombies can wield White Magic which makes zombies stronger somehow? Anyhow these super Zombies are way too strong and appear to kill everyone. Dominic, being the hero that he is, promptly surrenders to DJ without even being asked since destroying the whole world is less bad than more of his friends dying. And then Dominic was lazor-ported, just like in Mass Effect 3.

In the meantime Miranda and (for some reason) Donovan are hanging out in -- I kid you not -- her Secret Back-up Demiplane trying to keep the no-longer concussed Celesto imprisoned. Unfortunately Miranda locked away her extra magic in some trinkets so Celesto escapes and is free as a bird.

* * *

On a brighter note, it looks like Dominic might have been corrupted by the HoM and is really going along with DJ's plan but I think we all know this is actually some crazy ruse he's not going to tell anyone about.

TL;DR -- Mookie got Nimmel back to Dominion and then spent over a month trying to explain how DJ Callan got where he was and what he was doing next. It didn't make a lick of sense and raised more questions than it answered. After that, super-zombies appeared to kill a bunch of Second and Third Caste characters and Dominic surrendered (unasked!) to DJ so that DJ could enact his genocidal plan.

Oh, and Celesto is a bird.

[Rhapsh]

Sneaky Gate
Future Link

Man, Celesto is so abused in this comic. The corrupted battlecasters got treatment, and they didn't even have names. But no one ever helps poor Celesto. It's not like it's hard to use white magic to figure out he's got a Beast infection.

I hate the Deegans.

[guttering flame]

Sneaky Gate
Future Link

Man, Celesto is so abused in this comic. The corrupted battlecasters got treatment, and they didn't even have names. But no one ever helps poor Celesto. It's not like it's hard to use white magic to figure out he's got a Beast infection.

I hate the Deegans.

Well it looks like he's in the clear. He's just vomited up the Beast infection (the Beast mind, I think?) and soon a Hungry-Eye-With-Many-Littel-Feet is going to come around and gobble it up.

Come to think of it we already had this story when Domi had that anti-seer piss-puke infection.

[Cavelcade]

Today Mookie takes the time to remind us that Celesto has been places before and sometimes has been known to do things like sitting cross-legged and thus it is proven that he really is just evil and deserved his time in the box.

Also, I find it hilarious that the Wild Edge is recognisable as being the only place that has a background which isn't plain white. The one place that should be formless, isn't.

[Humbug]

I didn't know it was the wild edge until someone mentioned it. I assumed it was Snuggly's realm because of the flying eyeballs in the background. That is how lazy Mookie's backgrounds are. Everywhere looks the same.

[elros]

Can someone do a recap of Deegan since like, August? Not that I'd dare try and put someone back through that nonsense, just, y'know, if you remember.

Reading the summaries made me realize how bizarre the current story is. Somehow Mookie has combined weird, original ideas with TV tropes. I wouldn't call his work "memorable," but it is distinctive.
It just hit me that Mookie is famous for talking about "Memorable Villains and Heroes," and not "good villains, heroes, and stories." In a lot of ways, Mookie is like Ed Wood. His work stands out, but for the wrong reasons.

[Cavelcade]

Instead of posting summaries of Visions of DJs, someone should put all the I Love Dominque comics together, they were great.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Instead of posting summaries of Visions of DJs, someone should put all the I Love Dominque comics together, they were great.

What we need is another panel-slay in the vein of Averagejoe's Summary (on the first post but reproduced 'cause it's awesome)

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Sadly, I think the Golden Age of Slays is past us now. Where are the Slayers of yesteryear?

[Johnny Blade]

I didn't know it was the wild edge until someone mentioned it. I assumed it was Snuggly's realm because of the flying eyeballs in the background. That is how lazy Mookie's backgrounds are. Everywhere looks the same.

Now that's just ridiculous. There are several obvious differences between the Wild Edge and the Snuggly Edge.
Allow me to show you:

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EDIT: And yes, the floating tentacle guys really did appear in Snuggletopia.

[AgentofOdd]

Sneaky Gate
Future Link

And once again, the day is saved through vomiting.

[Welf]

And once again, the day is saved through vomiting.

Huh, so Mookie stole his ideas from Koma Comix, who coincidentally ended its run the year before he started?*

[random11]

Celesto is meditating again.

It appears that we were right, passively sitting is the right way to redeem yourself as a character in DD.
Well, that and puking.

[Wraith]

Actually, I'm quite pleased with today's comic - something has happened!

Celesto, previously locked away by the Deegans, has escaped his incarceration!
AND he's vomited out his Snugg-thulhu "infection", which took the Battlecasters numberous Luanian Priests to do!
AND he's done it all without going on an insane rampage in order to return to his meditation regime after another trip into the Realm of Madness - Hell, his sanity is far, far more contained than anyone else who has encountered Snuggly so far so it actually appears that his 'plan' is working!

Compared to Dominic sitting around for a couple of weeks and letting stuff fall into his lap? Celesto has achieved all 3 of the things that he set out to do in as many days.

Once more, I suggest that this comic would be much, much better if Celesto were the main protagonist.

[Kizor]

Plus vomiting up a great mass of tentacles and slime is a really unsettling image. This was an effective moment of body horror.

[Humbug]

Now that's just ridiculous. There are several obvious differences between the Wild Edge and the Snuggly Edge.
Allow me to show you:

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EDIT: And yes, the floating tentacle guys really did appear in Snuggletopia.

You are awesome.

[Trazoi]

Celesto is meditating again.

And yet it still comes across as being more proactive than Dominic.

[AgentofOdd]

Huh, so Mookie stole his ideas from Koma Comix, who coincidentally ended its run the year before he started?*

Huh, that was strange.

I was thinking of the time where female Bort saved someone's life by vomiting on her wound.

[Trazoi]

Sneaky
Future

Jacob ruined forever Y/N?

[masterjoda99]

I might be able to answer that if I had any real clue what was even happening. It's like, first panel, someone's getting nommed by...Sigma from Megaman X? And then Jacob gets his stupidhero armor (why is it made out of muscle tissue?), and then everyone disintegrates while glaring at him and now he's all alone or something? Coherence, Mookie! This comic is in dire need of it!

[Trazoi]

I might be able to answer that if I had any real clue what was even happening.

Does that matter? Three words:

Necromantic
Armoured
Jockstrap

[Oracle_Hunter]

Sneaky
Future

Jacob ruined forever Y/N?

Did Mookie actually simplify his artwork again or is it just me?

Looking at this page I feel like there's even less detail everywhere -- the expressions are starker, the figures are vaguer, and the background figures are even sketchier.

[Mewtarthio]

So, who killed the zombies? King DJ? If so, then why couldn't Miranda have done it (they didn't even ask before Dominic surrendered)? Maybe you could argue that DJ was powering the zombies to begin with, so he could just pull the plug... but the zombies were only active as a side effect of Rillian's magic. What, did he shut off Rillian because he has Dominic now? Dominic's a replacement for Celesto, not Rillian: Rillian's role is to make the world all soft and chewy, and also to summon the Sanctum, neither of which have anything to do with the search for Celesto.

Maybe Celesto somehow killed the all because CHAOS.

[Trazoi]

Did Mookie actually simplify his artwork again or is it just me?

Looking at this page I feel like there's even less detail everywhere -- the expressions are starker, the figures are vaguer, and the background figures are even sketchier.

The only filled blacks are on Jacob. Everything else is line art.

It's been a while since we've done on of these and you got me curious, so here's a comparison of DD's art throughout its run sampling strips from September 27th (or closest day):
(warning long image, lots of scrolling!)

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Edit: 2011 really dipped, didn't it?

[Humbug]

Oh man, Luna's butt-hair.

[Cen]

Newspost makes it even more hillarious. As usual.

Jacob's undead flesh armor suit is composed of the zombies that swarmed him and Jayden, and even though she was beside him at the time, Jacob did not absorb her skin into his armor. The only reason we don't see her in today's comic is an artistic choice. I wanted today to focus on Jacob and his (albeit mysteriously interrupted) necromantic comeback. That, and I felt leaving Jayden's fate still uncertain adds a bit of drama.

heh, 'artistic choice'