goddamit, I’m sorry, but I REALLY hate this type of character trope. It’s not an argument when Hero’s are saving the place from Villain’s. Which this universe has a clear abundance of.
It’s such a brain dead way of thinking I just wanna smack every moron on this “Hero’s are bad because bad stuff happen’s”. It’s just a false way of raising tension without offering any argument to the alternative.
well atleast now we know why this relationship clearly won’t work. Knew it would happen, was hoping it would be handled better.
Geez, can I at least get a chance to tell the story before you deem it a failure? XD Yes, it’s a flawed opinion. People have those. People form opinions based on emotion or limited facts all the time. The natural assumption in a situation like this is that yes, the superheroes are the bulwark, holding back the destruction and chaos that villains would rain down in their absence, and therefore the presence of heroes is a net good. I believe that would often be the case. A lot of people in Omnitropolis believe that to be the case. The… Read more »
I know people like this. There are people in our world without comic book style powers and people STILL think this way with things. I can’t even count the amount of people with the “roll of and play dead” mentality.
“If cops didn’t chase people, there wouldn’t be any injuries from those pursuits!” …yeah, never mind the people who were breaking the law…so let’s just stop punishing people. It’s the same mentality.
I agree with you here, Tim. It’s NOT a huge leap to believe someone in this type of universe would have the mentality Emily does.
Thing about cops chasing someone, there’s a lot of ways to do it. They tend to escalate as much as possible, which… why? What’s the rush if there’s no lives currently in danger? Why not follow calmly? Use radio, coordinate with other cops, and choose where and when to act? If someone’s driving drunk, sure, curb stomp the car with a battlemech. But if it’s a warrant for unpaid parking tickets? That’s not worth collateral damage. Collateral damage is a perfectly good reason to not do a thing. If the cops are doing more harm than the crooks, the cops… Read more »
The thing is, any time someone runs from a cop, that someone is endangering lives. It doesn’t matter if they’re fleeing a traffic stop for a burnt out tail light. They’re running and speeding to get away, which is reckless driving and a major hazard to other drivers and pedestrians. Not many people flee the cops at the speed limit. At best, if the cops don’t pursue aggressively, the fleeing car eventually slows down. Or they might pull into a school and take hostages. As a cop, you don’t know anything other than this someone has reason to flee the… Read more »
Thank you and DaMavster for proving my point. “Criminals bad, but police worse for wanting to get them into custody because something else bad might happen.”
Police do need to be held accountable, trust me, I know that better than most, but you’re using a slippery slope argument, which inevitably ends in “So just give and not bother”.
This is why it’s not a huge leap to believe Emily in this comic’s universe thinsk the way she does.
I don’t even think its an unreasonable opinion. People have a fit if their child is exposed to rap music, how do you think they would react to the nursery window blowing in twice a year? And then to find out you can’t even go to the authorities about it because the people doing it are above the law. Look at the scene we just saw. The super swerved into the building causing thousand of dollars of damage and dropping what appears to be a 50 pound chunk of facade to sidewalk below. He had room to swerve the other… Read more »
If you just look at the whole plot behind “The Incredibles” it is basically a dialog about weather it is better to have super heroes or not. While the conclusion they come to is that it is better to have them, it is hard not to agree with some of the points made against them. The web comic Grrl Power actually covers some of the drawbacks of having super powered law enforcement, including training on how to avoid property damage. (Also how it is better to damage the streets which the city has to pay for instead of privately owned… Read more »
Tim, I’ve been a huge fan for years now. Became a even bigger fan with your “gaming father” series. 😀 Just wanted to give my 2 cents that your intent indicated in your last sentence was clear. It was abundantly clear that your point with this strip wasn’t to make the superheroes = nuisance argument but to set the stage for the events when a uniquely comical and equally sensitive superhero finds out he’s dates someone who holds that opinion. Sort of like the JRPG situation except on steroids. Especially considering he’s just recently overcame his guilt. You have not… Read more »
Tim, does this mean there are people who think there should be no “Superheroes”, especially no Vigilantes like D-Pad and Analog, but “Superpolice Officers” who are basically Police Officers with Superpowers but due them being Police the whole legal situation is totally different than with Superheroes?
Honestly, her opinion is exactly what I would expect from someone that has experienced what she says she has in this strip, but never seen/been affected worse by a villain. It’s entirely plausible that with as many heroes as are running around, none of the villains have managed to escalate to the level of threatening the entire city/world, and have been stopped before causing mass damage/disruption.
Yup, what made Civil War interesting was that they didn’t try the Winter Soldier, or get him a lawyer. Until that moment I was totally on Iron Mans side, after that, nope.
What a simplistic approach. I bet she’d go protesting against city hall too, all angry because the city isn’t oufitting its police well enough to deal with people who can run at the speed of light or lift a 40t truck with their left pinky.
Lots of fallacies in her reasoning, but I suppose Ethan has never been good with reasoning and debate 🙂
She’s not “protesting” anything. She’s not triggered, here, she’s just casually explaining why she thinks the whole super-powered people thing is a nuisance, inbetween looking for a slice of pizza.
For her, its a non-controversial statement. It’s only a big deal to Ethan, for obvious reasons.
Don’t stress about it Tim, people think all opinions are right or wrong now. Rather than opinions.
She has values different than others. And that’s OK.
@Tim It’s easy to dislike a thing when the status quo remains. Not a single risk. Without the hero’s, the super villains would go about their way, and her opinion on ‘it’s why we have the police’ is flawed since the police would never be able to handle that. Instead of replacing windows or being displeased about her mothers leg, she’d have to deal with villainous mooks and dictatorship; it’s where unchecked super villainy leads. Also, instead of heroes vs villains, you’d have villains challenging eachother. That’s why I said “I bet she would go protesting”; a hypothetical situation based… Read more »
Lily
5 years ago
People can say she is making a bad argument but I think we all seen far worse arguments made by people when it comes to things like politics. At least it is a coherent argument.
Eshmael
5 years ago
Did you ever recognise, that the police just cost us a lot of money? And there are crimes anyway…
Fair point. It’s the classic Batman argument; that super villains escalate to that level BECAUSE Superheroes exist.
Though Omnitropolis seems to at least govern / control their heroes. You have vigilantes like DPad and Analog, and then there are the Captains. Probably more controlled mayhem.
Anyways, it’s not like Ethan and Lucas haven’t caused the odd pothole or two…
Imagine going to work and then sitting in your car driving into this road and seeing this giant hole being all “goddamn heroes…I am going to be late to work again.” xD
Tim actually did a comic with that premise ^-^
“I’m going to be late dear, police commandeered the car again. Yes, the groceries too. Don’t get me started…”
Or something to that effect, I can’t find the link.
I can see how it can be a bad argument on her part, but i feel like we haven’t heard here whole side of the story yet. Also given her personal experience with her mom getting injured from a superhero fighting a villain, i can uinderstand her anger over it. If her mom was to have been killed would she have a better argument against it?
Also i would love to see her become a villain in the future and really she doesnt like heroes because they are always thwarting her.
“Who knew evil girls had the prettiest face?” – Lucid Dreams (Forget Me) by Juice WRLD
Eldest Gruff
5 years ago
Also – I just realized that this is also a much more personal issue for Ethan, other than the fact that he’s also a superhero.
He and Lucas got into being superheroes specifically because there weren’t any superheroes around when his sister died, and that if there were, she might be alive today. So he’s coming to this from the opposite spectrum.
Though, to play Devil’s Advocate – have Ethan and Lucas really saved any lives? That is, saved any lives that weren’t first put into danger by Supers or because of Supers to begin with?
Hm, what do we have until now in case of villans. The regular small criminals like housebreakers and robbers. “The red ring of death” with Zeke, who mostly cause property damage on electronical devices. The guy with the gamingglove who was mostly a robber That “Troll” who really tried to kill people and we don’t know, how this story will continue. And Elijah, who is mostly causing property damage the “Poison Trafficker spaying. So the only case of saving lifes was in the case of the “Troll” who got injured himself, but its the question if Analog and D-Pad where… Read more »
“have Ethan and Lucas really saved any lives? That is, saved any lives that weren’t first put into danger by Supers or because of Supers to begin with?”
A&D are mostly small scale, but the Troll and the Red Ring both have and would continue to cause destruction of property on a massive scale and life. Red Ring not so much until after the events of the first issue, but the Troll would have probably slaughtered dozens more before he died of more natural causes or even before he was caught.
Black Hat and Elijah were both largely non-violent criminals (if you even consider Elijah a criminal), so they didn’t save any lives there.
James Rye
5 years ago
Damn! Imagine having a child getting crushed under debris from a fight between a hero and a super-villain. Or having your wife cook in the kitchen near a window, superhero flies by, shatters window and the glasses end up in one of your wife’s eyes, blinding her. Or imagine your insurance being thrice as high as your cousin living in a superhero-free city. Man, this is good foundation for “anti-superhero” politics though given that the “Vigilante law” exists I guess this means society is in large superhero-positive and friendly. Ethan took this a bit better than I expected him to,… Read more »
Or maybe its just that superheroes tend to be in metropolitan cities, and no one in that universe knows that a city with superheroes vs a city without superheros only has like a 25% higher rent and cost of living and such. The rest is just because you are living in the city.
Not the point trying to be made, but its interesting.
Sebastian
5 years ago
I see here argumet faulty:
Normal police fights normal criminals.
Super heroes are fighting super-criminals / villains.
The super villains and super heroes are two side of the coin ‘super powers’. Normal police wouldn’t have chance.
You have to remove the whole coin.
This is actually a pretty common “supers” trope, all the way around to the on-the-nose implementation in Watchmen (literally, “who watches the watchmen”). It’s even something that we see have a major shaping hand in the DC and Marvel universes. Who provides overwatch on the supers. There will inevitably be some form of a Superhero/Vigilante Registration Act that requires the masks to at least register themselves (sometimes fully unmask and go public) and operate under an established structure (often as an arm of the local or federal police). Rarely do such stories start out with “get rid of the supers”… Read more »
It has been explored in a lot of sources and I agree that it can make interesting stories. I don’t expect it to be explored deeply here, more of using it as a friction point for the plot. You get interesting takes like by having an official structure you also have official training to avoid / reduce collateral damage just like the cops do. Or there are social safety nets to account for the increased property damage / health insurance costs. Or how building codes would be changed to take into account the supers. It would all depend on when… Read more »
inverted4life
5 years ago
Yes. Super villains would show up, and the police would… Get themselves killed because they’re regular people with handguns, and then the super villains would go unchecked and way more people would die compared to your mom having her leg broken. Great argument. ?
But is Ethan any better then a regular police men? Sure he can respawn but otherwise he is pretty average. Compare this to people who do this every day. Who had intensive training and expensive equipment. Any policemen should be just as good or even better then Ethan.
Not when it comes to villains like Obliteron or the Red Ring of Death, or even Lex Luthor, who the police can’t touch because of his political connections and money.
Police generally try to avoid being in fights at all. Not that that’s a bad thing, but in terms of actual combat experience a police officer will usually be pretty compared to someone who can go into a fight and actually die and still learn from the experience.
Keith
5 years ago
I remember reading an indie comic (can’t remember the name) about a year ago that semi-addressed the collateral damage issue. They had superheroes and each superhero had a sidekick; hardly any noticeable collateral damage. The problem was the superheroes hogged the spotlight and treated the sidekicks like trash (one example, one hero was rich, while his sidekick was about to be evicted because he couldn’t get a job due to superhero commitments and the superhero wouldn’t provide money to pay the rent or house him in his mansion). Once all sidekicks got fed up with the situation and went on… Read more »
I have not heard of that comic until you mentioned it. Will have a look into it.
Found the name of the comic. It was called “Side-kicked”.
Martin
5 years ago
Yawn, ANOTHER storyline on Ethan et al? The whole Wintereenmas storyline wasn’t that exciting/funny, and now this? I’m still waiting for some Starcaster action – one way/format or another…
Just do you, Tim, Don’t worry much about the individual “I don’t like this, do that other thing” posters. I mean, I like the Ethan et al reboot and I tune out and ignore the Starcaster stuff, but I wouldn’t tell you to stop doing it.
I don’t think her first guess would be. “You’re a super hero” it’d be you or someone close to you was saved by a super hero.
Vedrit
5 years ago
Ya know what I think would be neat? For someone like her – who holds such an opinion – to find that Ethan – who she likes – has superpowers, and his reasons for being a vigilante.
The whole “I’m not doing it just because I can or to stop the bad guy” perspective would probably have a significant impact on her own view of it all. Plus make the previous arc of him overcoming his own doubts feel that much more impactful on Ethan as a character.
But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
DoctorRicker
5 years ago
Tim, regardless of what folks say, it’s your story and we’re all willingly along for the ride. Keep on keeping on how you see fit sir! Personally, I’m loving the refreshed universe and laugh at the luck Ethan keeps having! 🙂
Those all seem like legitimate complaints to have about Superheroes and Supervillains.
I mean, it isn’t as if Superheroes tend to be proactive enough to keep Captain SkullFucker from breaking out of jail and continuing his rampage of kitten stealing and bank robbing.
Chad
5 years ago
C’mon Ethan, don’t be such a D-Pad. ;P
halosty
5 years ago
At least she has reasons to back up her opinion, and while she doesn’t seem to like superheroes at least she doesn’t seem to be on the ‘all superheroes are criminals who should be locked up’ train.
She also doesn’t (knowingly) have any connection to superheroes so she doesn’t have any way to empathize with them.
ConcernedCitizen
5 years ago
Random, but anyone else wishing the comic strips were “higher res” for those of us with “high res monitors” (even on my 1920×1080 15″ laptop monitor it’s pretty small)… comic gets pretty hard to read without zooming (and distorting)
Hrm, that’s a new one. I DO scale down the comics quite a bit in size for the website. I’d definitely be curious to hear whether people think they’re too low res.
I use an X34 (1440p,) and in my use case I typically don’t see a problem. Now, when scaling the page up to fill the screen top-bottom (110%) I find it just ok in my normal seated viewing position. If I lean forward or go one or two more clicks larger it definitely starts getting a little rough on the edges. I’m thinking if your bandwidth bill has room for a bigger image, most of us would find it a good thing. As for your storyline, all you need is a multiverse you brought here so you (two or three… Read more »
One of those things that I haven’t noticed… but now that I notice it I can’t unnotice.
Damn you.
Seriously, though; I personally don’t think the resolution is too low res on an average day to day strip, but some occasional scenes could be nice to have in high-res.
I think this makes sense. I know everyone is “But if my true identity was revealed, then my family/friends would be targeted! If you cared about them so much, why risk getting killed? Or faxcing villains who should be bloody smart enough to go right for the mask? It’s not really sensible. Heroes who use that excuse to avoid being kept tabs on are more like petulant brats who don’t bneliebe in the law they are upholding, in my opinion. Spidey might be fun to read, but he sometimes comes off as the menace that Jameson paints him as, when… Read more »
Stoneward
5 years ago
Wow, quite the turn of events. I certainly applaud you Tim for being able to take all of the feedback from the community in stride considering we don’t have a full site picture yet!
While I hope that things turn out differently I definitely hope that Ethan finds a good piece of pizza.
Lincoln
5 years ago
Talking of the whole “Do Supers just make it worse for the common folk” reminds me of Garth Ennis’ graphic novel series ” The Boys”… But with less people-getting-put-into-a-wall…
Sorry, Lincoln. I literally just read your post on The Boys, having only just posted one of my own as if it were an original thought (which it apparently wasn’t). Just thought I’d drop you a quick message to apologise for attempting to steal your thunder or whatever – it was entirely unintentional.
ValentinesAshes
5 years ago
I’ve never commented on any of these comics before, but I thought I’d just throw it out there that if you want to see a really, really dark view of superheroes, then have a read of The Boys comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. In fact, you don’t need a reason, just plain have a read of it, as it’s a fantastically written story.
Charles Scaringello
5 years ago
It has been a while, and I won’t get to re-read the ‘back issues’ until at least this weekend to see if this is conclusively ruled out, but … Green eyes, green shirt, a job that nets her back door/room access to most every business in town, knowledge of local micro and macro shipping patterns and schedules … Is she secretly the mastermind behind the Zeke robots? Perhaps this universe’s incarnation of Wife-of-Zeke (the actually-kill-all-humans one made out of an XBox 360)?
By that token, I suppose we’ve never seen her and Captain Prime in the same place & time.
Ven
5 years ago
Soooo…the heroes should have just let the villains KILL her mother and DESTROY her apartment then? Because the police have TOTALLY got this under control.
Keith
5 years ago
I like the part where everyone in the comments section got all crazy entrenched in real life debate over superheroes and cops and completely forgot to enjoy the comic that helps them not be bored at work for that 45 seconds. Why so serious? :-S
t209
5 years ago
So apparently Damage Control, or agency responsible for compensation and repairs for damages in Superhero Fight, doesn’t exist?
Assuming if the CEO didn’t paid the villains, and maybe heroes, to destroy building to jack up premiums. Like the time when Nitro was given power juice that destroyed large chunk of Stamford and a playground.
24
geez Ethan, can you *be* any more obvious?
goddamit, I’m sorry, but I REALLY hate this type of character trope. It’s not an argument when Hero’s are saving the place from Villain’s. Which this universe has a clear abundance of.
It’s such a brain dead way of thinking I just wanna smack every moron on this “Hero’s are bad because bad stuff happen’s”. It’s just a false way of raising tension without offering any argument to the alternative.
well atleast now we know why this relationship clearly won’t work. Knew it would happen, was hoping it would be handled better.
Geez, can I at least get a chance to tell the story before you deem it a failure? XD Yes, it’s a flawed opinion. People have those. People form opinions based on emotion or limited facts all the time. The natural assumption in a situation like this is that yes, the superheroes are the bulwark, holding back the destruction and chaos that villains would rain down in their absence, and therefore the presence of heroes is a net good. I believe that would often be the case. A lot of people in Omnitropolis believe that to be the case. The… Read more »
I know people like this. There are people in our world without comic book style powers and people STILL think this way with things. I can’t even count the amount of people with the “roll of and play dead” mentality.
“If cops didn’t chase people, there wouldn’t be any injuries from those pursuits!” …yeah, never mind the people who were breaking the law…so let’s just stop punishing people. It’s the same mentality.
I agree with you here, Tim. It’s NOT a huge leap to believe someone in this type of universe would have the mentality Emily does.
Thing about cops chasing someone, there’s a lot of ways to do it. They tend to escalate as much as possible, which… why? What’s the rush if there’s no lives currently in danger? Why not follow calmly? Use radio, coordinate with other cops, and choose where and when to act? If someone’s driving drunk, sure, curb stomp the car with a battlemech. But if it’s a warrant for unpaid parking tickets? That’s not worth collateral damage. Collateral damage is a perfectly good reason to not do a thing. If the cops are doing more harm than the crooks, the cops… Read more »
The thing is, any time someone runs from a cop, that someone is endangering lives. It doesn’t matter if they’re fleeing a traffic stop for a burnt out tail light. They’re running and speeding to get away, which is reckless driving and a major hazard to other drivers and pedestrians. Not many people flee the cops at the speed limit. At best, if the cops don’t pursue aggressively, the fleeing car eventually slows down. Or they might pull into a school and take hostages. As a cop, you don’t know anything other than this someone has reason to flee the… Read more »
Thank you and DaMavster for proving my point. “Criminals bad, but police worse for wanting to get them into custody because something else bad might happen.”
Police do need to be held accountable, trust me, I know that better than most, but you’re using a slippery slope argument, which inevitably ends in “So just give and not bother”.
This is why it’s not a huge leap to believe Emily in this comic’s universe thinsk the way she does.
I don’t even think its an unreasonable opinion. People have a fit if their child is exposed to rap music, how do you think they would react to the nursery window blowing in twice a year? And then to find out you can’t even go to the authorities about it because the people doing it are above the law. Look at the scene we just saw. The super swerved into the building causing thousand of dollars of damage and dropping what appears to be a 50 pound chunk of facade to sidewalk below. He had room to swerve the other… Read more »
If you just look at the whole plot behind “The Incredibles” it is basically a dialog about weather it is better to have super heroes or not. While the conclusion they come to is that it is better to have them, it is hard not to agree with some of the points made against them. The web comic Grrl Power actually covers some of the drawbacks of having super powered law enforcement, including training on how to avoid property damage. (Also how it is better to damage the streets which the city has to pay for instead of privately owned… Read more »
Tim, I’ve been a huge fan for years now. Became a even bigger fan with your “gaming father” series. 😀 Just wanted to give my 2 cents that your intent indicated in your last sentence was clear. It was abundantly clear that your point with this strip wasn’t to make the superheroes = nuisance argument but to set the stage for the events when a uniquely comical and equally sensitive superhero finds out he’s dates someone who holds that opinion. Sort of like the JRPG situation except on steroids. Especially considering he’s just recently overcame his guilt. You have not… Read more »
Heck, it feels more real BECAUSE forming opinions on emotion and limited knowledge is quite common these days.
Always has been. It really pissed me off back when I was in Grade School and I watched the adults around me doing exactly this.
Tim, does this mean there are people who think there should be no “Superheroes”, especially no Vigilantes like D-Pad and Analog, but “Superpolice Officers” who are basically Police Officers with Superpowers but due them being Police the whole legal situation is totally different than with Superheroes?
Heck, we’ve already seen this sort of thinking with the Wiggler/Elijah, blaming video games for the death of his brother.
Honestly, her opinion is exactly what I would expect from someone that has experienced what she says she has in this strip, but never seen/been affected worse by a villain. It’s entirely plausible that with as many heroes as are running around, none of the villains have managed to escalate to the level of threatening the entire city/world, and have been stopped before causing mass damage/disruption.
I mean, this was also the entire premise of Civil War, so if it’s a “dumb” trope, at least Tim is in good company.
Yup, what made Civil War interesting was that they didn’t try the Winter Soldier, or get him a lawyer. Until that moment I was totally on Iron Mans side, after that, nope.
Guns R bad, mmmm-kay?
It might be a “brain dead way of thinking” (as you put it), but it is absolutely a realistic reflection of fairly common opinions.
You’re forgetting one thing…
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-04-18/
This isn’t a newsflash.
What a simplistic approach. I bet she’d go protesting against city hall too, all angry because the city isn’t oufitting its police well enough to deal with people who can run at the speed of light or lift a 40t truck with their left pinky.
Lots of fallacies in her reasoning, but I suppose Ethan has never been good with reasoning and debate 🙂
She’s not “protesting” anything. She’s not triggered, here, she’s just casually explaining why she thinks the whole super-powered people thing is a nuisance, inbetween looking for a slice of pizza.
For her, its a non-controversial statement. It’s only a big deal to Ethan, for obvious reasons.
Don’t stress about it Tim, people think all opinions are right or wrong now. Rather than opinions.
She has values different than others. And that’s OK.
Your opinion about opinions is WRONG.
/sarcasm
@Tim It’s easy to dislike a thing when the status quo remains. Not a single risk. Without the hero’s, the super villains would go about their way, and her opinion on ‘it’s why we have the police’ is flawed since the police would never be able to handle that. Instead of replacing windows or being displeased about her mothers leg, she’d have to deal with villainous mooks and dictatorship; it’s where unchecked super villainy leads. Also, instead of heroes vs villains, you’d have villains challenging eachother. That’s why I said “I bet she would go protesting”; a hypothetical situation based… Read more »
People can say she is making a bad argument but I think we all seen far worse arguments made by people when it comes to things like politics. At least it is a coherent argument.
Did you ever recognise, that the police just cost us a lot of money? And there are crimes anyway…
tim, you meant reckless fly-bys?
Dunno what you’re talking about.
good, good ^^
Fair point. It’s the classic Batman argument; that super villains escalate to that level BECAUSE Superheroes exist.
Though Omnitropolis seems to at least govern / control their heroes. You have vigilantes like DPad and Analog, and then there are the Captains. Probably more controlled mayhem.
Anyways, it’s not like Ethan and Lucas haven’t caused the odd pothole or two…
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-02-21/
Imagine going to work and then sitting in your car driving into this road and seeing this giant hole being all “goddamn heroes…I am going to be late to work again.” xD
Tim actually did a comic with that premise ^-^
“I’m going to be late dear, police commandeered the car again. Yes, the groceries too. Don’t get me started…”
Or something to that effect, I can’t find the link.
Can’t remember that comic. Was it from a game?
Yeah, it’s a Crackdown reference. https://www.engadget.com/2007/02/25/ctrl-alt-del-crackdown-comics/ Can see it there if you like.
I can see how it can be a bad argument on her part, but i feel like we haven’t heard here whole side of the story yet. Also given her personal experience with her mom getting injured from a superhero fighting a villain, i can uinderstand her anger over it. If her mom was to have been killed would she have a better argument against it?
Also i would love to see her become a villain in the future and really she doesnt like heroes because they are always thwarting her.
“Who knew evil girls had the prettiest face?” – Lucid Dreams (Forget Me) by Juice WRLD
Also – I just realized that this is also a much more personal issue for Ethan, other than the fact that he’s also a superhero.
He and Lucas got into being superheroes specifically because there weren’t any superheroes around when his sister died, and that if there were, she might be alive today. So he’s coming to this from the opposite spectrum.
Though, to play Devil’s Advocate – have Ethan and Lucas really saved any lives? That is, saved any lives that weren’t first put into danger by Supers or because of Supers to begin with?
Hm, what do we have until now in case of villans. The regular small criminals like housebreakers and robbers. “The red ring of death” with Zeke, who mostly cause property damage on electronical devices. The guy with the gamingglove who was mostly a robber That “Troll” who really tried to kill people and we don’t know, how this story will continue. And Elijah, who is mostly causing property damage the “Poison Trafficker spaying. So the only case of saving lifes was in the case of the “Troll” who got injured himself, but its the question if Analog and D-Pad where… Read more »
“have Ethan and Lucas really saved any lives? That is, saved any lives that weren’t first put into danger by Supers or because of Supers to begin with?”
Yes. Very first issue, the Red Ring were going to kill a woman for her not letting them destroy her tablet.
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-01-10/
A&D are mostly small scale, but the Troll and the Red Ring both have and would continue to cause destruction of property on a massive scale and life. Red Ring not so much until after the events of the first issue, but the Troll would have probably slaughtered dozens more before he died of more natural causes or even before he was caught.
Black Hat and Elijah were both largely non-violent criminals (if you even consider Elijah a criminal), so they didn’t save any lives there.
Damn! Imagine having a child getting crushed under debris from a fight between a hero and a super-villain. Or having your wife cook in the kitchen near a window, superhero flies by, shatters window and the glasses end up in one of your wife’s eyes, blinding her. Or imagine your insurance being thrice as high as your cousin living in a superhero-free city. Man, this is good foundation for “anti-superhero” politics though given that the “Vigilante law” exists I guess this means society is in large superhero-positive and friendly. Ethan took this a bit better than I expected him to,… Read more »
Or maybe its just that superheroes tend to be in metropolitan cities, and no one in that universe knows that a city with superheroes vs a city without superheros only has like a 25% higher rent and cost of living and such. The rest is just because you are living in the city.
Not the point trying to be made, but its interesting.
I see here argumet faulty:
Normal police fights normal criminals.
Super heroes are fighting super-criminals / villains.
The super villains and super heroes are two side of the coin ‘super powers’. Normal police wouldn’t have chance.
You have to remove the whole coin.
This is actually a pretty common “supers” trope, all the way around to the on-the-nose implementation in Watchmen (literally, “who watches the watchmen”). It’s even something that we see have a major shaping hand in the DC and Marvel universes. Who provides overwatch on the supers. There will inevitably be some form of a Superhero/Vigilante Registration Act that requires the masks to at least register themselves (sometimes fully unmask and go public) and operate under an established structure (often as an arm of the local or federal police). Rarely do such stories start out with “get rid of the supers”… Read more »
It has been explored in a lot of sources and I agree that it can make interesting stories. I don’t expect it to be explored deeply here, more of using it as a friction point for the plot. You get interesting takes like by having an official structure you also have official training to avoid / reduce collateral damage just like the cops do. Or there are social safety nets to account for the increased property damage / health insurance costs. Or how building codes would be changed to take into account the supers. It would all depend on when… Read more »
Yes. Super villains would show up, and the police would… Get themselves killed because they’re regular people with handguns, and then the super villains would go unchecked and way more people would die compared to your mom having her leg broken. Great argument. ?
But is Ethan any better then a regular police men? Sure he can respawn but otherwise he is pretty average. Compare this to people who do this every day. Who had intensive training and expensive equipment. Any policemen should be just as good or even better then Ethan.
Not when it comes to villains like Obliteron or the Red Ring of Death, or even Lex Luthor, who the police can’t touch because of his political connections and money.
Police generally try to avoid being in fights at all. Not that that’s a bad thing, but in terms of actual combat experience a police officer will usually be pretty compared to someone who can go into a fight and actually die and still learn from the experience.
I remember reading an indie comic (can’t remember the name) about a year ago that semi-addressed the collateral damage issue. They had superheroes and each superhero had a sidekick; hardly any noticeable collateral damage. The problem was the superheroes hogged the spotlight and treated the sidekicks like trash (one example, one hero was rich, while his sidekick was about to be evicted because he couldn’t get a job due to superhero commitments and the superhero wouldn’t provide money to pay the rent or house him in his mansion). Once all sidekicks got fed up with the situation and went on… Read more »
Was it Hero By Night?
I have not heard of that comic until you mentioned it. Will have a look into it.
Found the name of the comic. It was called “Side-kicked”.
Yawn, ANOTHER storyline on Ethan et al? The whole Wintereenmas storyline wasn’t that exciting/funny, and now this? I’m still waiting for some Starcaster action – one way/format or another…
I appreciate that you enjoy The Starcaster Chronicles, and we will start issue #7 soon.
Just do you, Tim, Don’t worry much about the individual “I don’t like this, do that other thing” posters. I mean, I like the Ethan et al reboot and I tune out and ignore the Starcaster stuff, but I wouldn’t tell you to stop doing it.
I’m definetely looking forward to that!! I’ll give Ethan & co another chance while waiting 😉
Don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here eating popcorn waiting for the show to start
Not to be that Gal, but..
..Wreckless is spelled incorrectly, Tim. 😛
Third panel.
*Reckless
Like that you are taking a non standard approach to this story Tim!
Methinks Emily will only need to roll a 2 on a sense motive or insight because Ethan obviously just rolled a nat 1 on keeping his composure.
I don’t think her first guess would be. “You’re a super hero” it’d be you or someone close to you was saved by a super hero.
Ya know what I think would be neat? For someone like her – who holds such an opinion – to find that Ethan – who she likes – has superpowers, and his reasons for being a vigilante.
The whole “I’m not doing it just because I can or to stop the bad guy” perspective would probably have a significant impact on her own view of it all. Plus make the previous arc of him overcoming his own doubts feel that much more impactful on Ethan as a character.
But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
Tim, regardless of what folks say, it’s your story and we’re all willingly along for the ride. Keep on keeping on how you see fit sir! Personally, I’m loving the refreshed universe and laugh at the luck Ethan keeps having! 🙂
Still relevant:
https://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-193-wont-somebody-think-of-the-exploding-children/
https://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-202-predictable-but-only-if-you-know-what-anvils-powers-are/
I do love that series.
Those all seem like legitimate complaints to have about Superheroes and Supervillains.
I mean, it isn’t as if Superheroes tend to be proactive enough to keep Captain SkullFucker from breaking out of jail and continuing his rampage of kitten stealing and bank robbing.
C’mon Ethan, don’t be such a D-Pad. ;P
At least she has reasons to back up her opinion, and while she doesn’t seem to like superheroes at least she doesn’t seem to be on the ‘all superheroes are criminals who should be locked up’ train.
She also doesn’t (knowingly) have any connection to superheroes so she doesn’t have any way to empathize with them.
Random, but anyone else wishing the comic strips were “higher res” for those of us with “high res monitors” (even on my 1920×1080 15″ laptop monitor it’s pretty small)… comic gets pretty hard to read without zooming (and distorting)
Hrm, that’s a new one. I DO scale down the comics quite a bit in size for the website. I’d definitely be curious to hear whether people think they’re too low res.
I use an X34 (1440p,) and in my use case I typically don’t see a problem. Now, when scaling the page up to fill the screen top-bottom (110%) I find it just ok in my normal seated viewing position. If I lean forward or go one or two more clicks larger it definitely starts getting a little rough on the edges. I’m thinking if your bandwidth bill has room for a bigger image, most of us would find it a good thing. As for your storyline, all you need is a multiverse you brought here so you (two or three… Read more »
I increase the browser scale to 220% just for this site because it’s so small. Can’t even read the text at default
One of those things that I haven’t noticed… but now that I notice it I can’t unnotice.
Damn you.
Seriously, though; I personally don’t think the resolution is too low res on an average day to day strip, but some occasional scenes could be nice to have in high-res.
Like this one
https://cad-comic.com/comic/the-starcaster-chronicles-06-21/
or
https://cad-comic.com/comic/analog-and-d-pad-05-21/
I think this makes sense. I know everyone is “But if my true identity was revealed, then my family/friends would be targeted! If you cared about them so much, why risk getting killed? Or faxcing villains who should be bloody smart enough to go right for the mask? It’s not really sensible. Heroes who use that excuse to avoid being kept tabs on are more like petulant brats who don’t bneliebe in the law they are upholding, in my opinion. Spidey might be fun to read, but he sometimes comes off as the menace that Jameson paints him as, when… Read more »
Wow, quite the turn of events. I certainly applaud you Tim for being able to take all of the feedback from the community in stride considering we don’t have a full site picture yet!
While I hope that things turn out differently I definitely hope that Ethan finds a good piece of pizza.
Talking of the whole “Do Supers just make it worse for the common folk” reminds me of Garth Ennis’ graphic novel series ” The Boys”… But with less people-getting-put-into-a-wall…
Sorry, Lincoln. I literally just read your post on The Boys, having only just posted one of my own as if it were an original thought (which it apparently wasn’t). Just thought I’d drop you a quick message to apologise for attempting to steal your thunder or whatever – it was entirely unintentional.
I’ve never commented on any of these comics before, but I thought I’d just throw it out there that if you want to see a really, really dark view of superheroes, then have a read of The Boys comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. In fact, you don’t need a reason, just plain have a read of it, as it’s a fantastically written story.
It has been a while, and I won’t get to re-read the ‘back issues’ until at least this weekend to see if this is conclusively ruled out, but … Green eyes, green shirt, a job that nets her back door/room access to most every business in town, knowledge of local micro and macro shipping patterns and schedules … Is she secretly the mastermind behind the Zeke robots? Perhaps this universe’s incarnation of Wife-of-Zeke (the actually-kill-all-humans one made out of an XBox 360)?
By that token, I suppose we’ve never seen her and Captain Prime in the same place & time.
Soooo…the heroes should have just let the villains KILL her mother and DESTROY her apartment then? Because the police have TOTALLY got this under control.
I like the part where everyone in the comments section got all crazy entrenched in real life debate over superheroes and cops and completely forgot to enjoy the comic that helps them not be bored at work for that 45 seconds. Why so serious? :-S
So apparently Damage Control, or agency responsible for compensation and repairs for damages in Superhero Fight, doesn’t exist?
Assuming if the CEO didn’t paid the villains, and maybe heroes, to destroy building to jack up premiums. Like the time when Nitro was given power juice that destroyed large chunk of Stamford and a playground.