And thus Deathblood proceeded to pick Analog up, hang him on a door (or any other place hard to get off from), and start killing all of the Sun Devils.
This is actually how Albie is going to learn to deal with Analog in the future. He’ll escape, but not before seeing Deathblood incapacitate Ethan and mentally cataloging the strategy.
Personally, I’m going to be really disappointed if Deathblood isn’t able to handily deal with Ethan without a deus ex machina stopping him in some way.
You shouldn’t hang mer on hook Deathblood. My mother hung me on a hook once…
Arcatus
2 years ago
I am just waiting for the sun devils to bring out the gear for their “Deathblood” contingency plan. An operation of the scale shown here must surely have some sort of “What do we do if a superhero shows up” plan
Their plan for dealing with Analog is “grab him and show him our whole operation before we shoot him”, and he was pretty obviously a superhero, even if they didn’t know which one (which makes it even dumber!), so I don’t think we’re dealing with the most prepared criminals in the world here.
It’d be an interesting development if he accidentally got Deathblood killed/seriously injured by distracting him. Then he’d have a villain, a sentient robot and a hero weighing on his conscience all at once, whilst he’s just here respawning out of all his own personal harm. Like turbo survivor’s guilt.
Oooh, then he’d relate more to…. the roommate (name escapes me atm).
Darkhorse
2 years ago
I am still surprised about Deathblood his motives. He’s complaining about the justice system, but chooses to deal with the symptoms. This means he’s emptying the ocean with a thimble. There is always more coming and there is way more crime than he can prevent.
If he really wants to help he should fix the perceived problem. He should go into politics where he can actually make a difference in this system. A real, constructive and sustainable solution.
While I respect your desire to find and remove the root cause, I find myself disagreeing with this approach when it comes to criminal activity. One of the key problems here, I believe, is time. Even if a full solution to this problem is possible (which is debatable), it would take years or even decades to actually implement. I’m going to sound super cliché right now, but I don’t see any other way to articulate this, so here goes: “people are dying right now”. That’s why even half-measures can be justified, as long as they save lives. Ask any doctor… Read more »
I do not disagree with saving lives. Ethan and Lucas do it from a wholly different perspective. Deathblood does it specifically because of the according to him broken justice system. I understand people are dying now, but it isn’t sustainable. What about people dying tomorrow? Or the day after? A year from now? If my water main is leaking I can try to save my computer by soaking up as much water with a mop and wringing it out. But this is unsustainable. You absolutely need to do something with the water main. Preferably sooner than later. He needs to… Read more »
“Well, yes but…” If your water main is leaking, FIRST you remove your new shiny computer away from the leak.. and then, possibly, you go fix that leak. If you are able to. And if there are no more computers in immediate danger.
Really what Darkhorse should be saying is: “There are always many, many, many individual criminals and criminal activities even in just one city, let alone the country or world. Trying to deal with individual criminals or small gangs (these crooks are not very good and thus not really the big targets Deathblood should be looking for) is always going to fail and fail faster over time.” The reasons politics (or world domination) are the only courses of action is that those are the two useful ways to make larger scale changes that could change the overwhelming flood of crime. It… Read more »
“If my water main is leaking I can try to save my computer by soaking up as much water with a mop and wringing it out. But this is unsustainable.” Terrible comparison. If your computer is in danger of water from a leaking water main, you don’t try to mop up the water around the computer. You remove the computer. The same way that instead of slowly trying to mop up crime by getting into politics or whatever nonsense while the crime/water continues damaging everything around you, you remove the crime. Also, y’all keep forgetting that the real bad guys… Read more »
The reason you see people sticking up for groups like the Sun Devils is easy: They aren’t real. In real life, you rarely have a situation quite that cut-and-dry. In real life, a LOT of people are killed or jailed that don’t need to be; some who committed no deeply unethical behavior and many who were altogether innocent. When the bad guys all line up and wear matching uniforms and announce their evil intentions and then start shooting people, we don’t call that crime, we call it an act of war. Naturally, you’re going to see some people gravitate towards… Read more »
And how long has it taken Deathblood to locate this bunch of fairly inept criminals as a target? He’s not very good if it took him any length of time but he says it has been going on for a while. He’s going after the least competent bad guys in the most ineffective way. Politics or world domination (or if you only care about the city, mayor or local dominator) are the only long term ways (unless you have worldwide megascale super powers, but if you had those, you wouldn’t be struggling to catch these criminal gene pool fringe players)… Read more »
Further – why do you assume that Deathblood’s day job isn’t doing exactly what you’re saying he should do? Maybe the whole Deathblood thing is a direct result of him seeing how ineffective it is to change things via politics, and instead wanting a way to actually make some progress.
We can flip that question around: what evidence do you have that it IS his day job? We can only work with what we’re shown so far and if you want to make it credible that that is his day job, please provide the details in the comic that led you to this conclusion. On the side of “it probably isn’t”, there are so many hours in a day and a human needs things like sleep. Deathblood stated that he had extensively tracked a city-wide operation. He’s extremely muscular which suggests a work-out regimen. Unless he has his own version… Read more »
So you’d prefer he gave up a failed gambit in politics (ineffective) to do small actions that are dwarfed by the problem (also ineffective)? That’s like saying ‘Well, you’ve tried one losing strategy, let’s try this other one for variety!’. And if this was a somewhat deep comic as it sometimes is, it would turn out that most of the Sun Devils have sad origin stories, somewhat understandable bad choices that they made that weren’t intentional but put them on the wrong side, or not knowing what they were getting in to and now don’t know how to get out…… Read more »
One last thing: if the Sun Devils do escape while Ethan is pulling this crap, and continue to go on harming innocent people as a result, then Ethan’s got that blood on his hands.
No, he doesn’t. Failing to apprehend someone does not make you guilty of their crimes.
But again, let’s flip that argument right around. Ethan had this handled and would’ve left them in a tidy package for the police, had Deathblood not threatened bloody murder. If the Sun Devils escape, they escape because Deathblood is pulling this crap.
Cops, maybe. Juries, they tend to have to sit through this whole process involving presentation of evidence and such first. Good luck proving criminal intent for Ethan.
Ethan was okay with letting murderbot Zeke with a hate for humanity to go out and about to do whatever he would chose despite the risk a hidden subroutine or something provocatory that Zeke took (right or wrong) as an existential threat could result in other innocents dying. And Ethan was okay with that. In this case, he’d probably be okay too.
Out of curiosity, have you ever played Ace Combat 7 and specifically its “Ten Million Relief Plan” DLC? If you have – you probably already understand what I’m driving at. If not – I heartily recommend that you do (or watch a playthrough, maybe). I think this could you give you a bit more food for thought on this subject. I won’t spoil anything (for you or anyone else reading), I’ll just mention that there is a character there who uses a brand of logic largely similar to the one you have presented here, albeit on a slightly different scale.… Read more »
It’s hard to tell with Deathblood. He neither seems like a psychopath or sociopath – I had expected the criminal-murderer, had we ever seen him, to sound rage-filled and unhinged. Yet, everything he says sounds almost like a religious zealot – except that the cause he cares for isn’t a religion, but a code of law. He is calm, rational, logical. He clearly takes what he’s doing seriously. I’d bet you that anything that he feels he’s doing more to prevent crime by impressing on criminals that there are more consequences to crime than just a few years in the… Read more »
If Deathblood was right about that feeling you ascribed to him, he’d be out of a job. However he seems to have his hands full. Of guns. But also of criminals. The notion that harsh penalties are a great detractor for crime is both tenacious and appealing. It seems so intuitively true, if the consequence is bad enough you would never risk it, right? Yet, looking at trends in crime and punishment, it just doesn’t work this way. Societies with harsher punishments don’t have less crime. In fact, societies that treat their criminals like human beings and let them develop… Read more »
While I mostly agree, there are outliers like Singapore that have extremely low crime rates and draconic punishments. But I feel that also has to do with it being a city state and under pretty tight control and discipline. Is merely a guts feeling, but maybe rather than severity of punishment it is the real (or perceived) risk of getting caught and having the punishments enforced? Or about the specific society? Either way, personally I would not want to trade in that much of my freedom in for the added security provided. SP is a nice place to visit for… Read more »
Understanding criminal causes and behaviour is an academic field on its own. Literally, it’s called “criminology”, and I am not an expert in that field. That said, nothing wrong with a little rambling on the topic ;-). Clearly one can find an example where there are draconian punishments and low crime, but that’s not what we’re looking for. That doesn’t prove the punishments caused that, as you already point out with alternative explanations. Meanwhile every society that has/had harsh punishments and no change in crime, is a counter-example. Something that I think may be a factor is that harsh punishments… Read more »
well, murdering ppl never solved anything. Look at the usa, where cops kills, where death penalty is still a thing (so barbaric) and yet, a murder rate 5times higher than any other western country.
Ahahahahahahah. Nice joke. They kill 1.000ppl /year and I dont mention all the ppl they beat or cripple. Their unions are almost officially fascists too. No, cops dont help people, never did and never will.
“…spend their entire careers helping people.”
If the people are male and white. If you are PoC? Expect indifference at best, murder and/or brutality at worst. If you are a woman? Expect indifference at best, rape and/or brutality at worst.
That’s like putting a screen door on a submarine. Sure, it solves the issue of not having a door, but it doesn’t deal with the fact that water is getting inside.
Your analogy is a bit off as it applies to Deathblood. It should be more like, the doctor thinks , lots of folks have cancer from smoking, I’ll kill them and then there will be less people with lung cancer.
There is a fable about two men stopping at a river. They see a child being rushed away and save it. They pull her put and see other come down. And another. And both men are exhausted, but they take turns until one gets out of the water and keeps walking. The second asks where he is going, and the first replies “going to find whoecer is throwing kids in the river and stop them.” Some kids will die, but the men are only two and exhausted. It is harder for 2 men to fight against the current and pull… Read more »
Given how (in)effective politics has been at solving this particular problem for literal millennia, and considering the overall impossibly complex scope of it, it seems foolishly optimistic to pretend he’d actually be able to make any constructive or sustainable solution there. (Not trying to argue that all politics is definitively useless, just that ‘go into politics and be able to fix this’ seems an unrealistic assumption. Even your own ‘ocean with a thimble’ comparison seems apt for the effectiveness of that.) Furthermore, politics is hardly the biggest problem here. There is a judicial system already, it’s just not effective enough… Read more »
Currently many politics in different countries have been able to reduce recurring criminals in varying degrees. That it is unrealistic in this city/country is an assumption as well. We don’t know. Interestingly Deathblood doesn’t talk about it. It doesn’t seem to be a factor in his reasoning, or for now omitted. If politics is a problem it can add to his frustration and resulting killing spree. But the fact remains that he’s focusing on a symptom and does so with a criminal indifference. He’s about to kill people who Ethan says might willingly stop further violence. Not to mention that… Read more »
I think you’re confusing ‘politics can reduce crime’ (which is somewhat true, to an extent) and ‘politics can stop criminals’ (which is demonstrably untrue, has been untrue for all of history, and presumably will be for all eternity). It’s not much of an assumption that politics can’t prevent or stop criminals, it it’s pretty much an objective truth. The mere presence of this gang of recidivist murderous drug pushers already seems decent proof of that. (And same in our world, with literally every uncaught criminal that’s out there.) I’m not sure why you think Ethan’s claim that they might willingly… Read more »
In theory, sure. In practice, easier said than done. About as simple as achieving world peace, solving world hunger or eradicating poverty. (And even if you could manage it, it’s not as if ‘need’ is the only reason people do turn to crime. Removing it for everyone would help for some, but not all. There’ll always be people who simply want more, for example) I do agree that ‘education and good lives for all’ to stop crime is an excellent thing to strive for, but as an actual solution it’s only ‘magic’ in the sense that it would need an… Read more »
solving world hunger could/should be easy as the US is capable of sustainably producing enough food to feed the world but the gov’t spends assloads of money paying farmers to NOT farm in order to keep crop prices up.
Your objection that “politics can stop criminals” is untrue, also applies to Deathblood. Deathblood cannot prevent people from acting criminally and he cannot reduce the number of criminals to zero. So really, it’s a bit of a meaningless statement. What Deathblood can do, is stop criminals from engaging in repeat criminal behaviour… but of course, politics can and does achieve that as well. It’s politics that decides how society treats its criminals. You’re also making some convenient assumptions about people returning to crime and murder. Neither you nor Deathblood for that matter are in any better a position to speak… Read more »
I dunno… there have been and always will be criminals. The NUMBER of them, though, is dependent on how much they can game from the system, and the consequences thereof. What WOULD happen if the petty thugs were often killed by superhero vigilantes? We don’t actually know, as this has never happened. One would think the criminal bosses might find it harder to recruit, though, if their minions were killed frequently. I’m not condoning such a thing… due process is important. I’m just speculating. I DO think, though, that the (I believe) common police practice of letting “petty” thugs go… Read more »
“He should go into politics where he can actually make a difference in this system. A real, constructive and sustainable solution.” Theoretically, yes. Also, in theory, communism is wonderful, capitalism is fair to everyone, and mainstream religion is a source of nothing but goodness and virtue…….. Now, back to something actually resembling reality. If this story’s world is anything like ours, most of the planet has the same issue regarding politics. It’s so choke-full of corruption, negligence and clogged bureaucracy… Anyone going into politics with honest intentions to make the world a better place will be thoroughly held in check… Read more »
What country are you living in? Is it the only country you’ve ever lived in?
Also, while I can understand your assumption of bias on my part, please note I didn’t mention any specific countries. I just made a generalised mention regarding most of the planet. One supported by all the available data, that is.
Countries with a majority of honest and ethical politicians are an exception, after all.
You have an oddly bleak view of politics. Dare I ask if you live in the USA? While you raise some good points the argument itself is unsound (insofar as you are actually making one, rather than skirting around one… or two). You’re implying that because the job is difficult, the proposed solution ought to not be attempted at all. The second implication you make is that just because something cannot be solved completely, it’s not worth progressing in that direction. This is also a falsehood, it’s like saying that just because you can’t count to infinity, you can’t count… Read more »
Bleak? I assume you mean, bleaker than reality justifies? Because, in that case… Most of the world’s nations struggle with significant amount of political corruption. This is plain to see. All the data supports that. I’m being realistic, plain and simple. What’s bleak about facing reality like it is? Odd? Pessimism on politics is extremely widespread. It’s been so, worlwide, AT LEAST since the Cold War’s heyday. It’s one of the few trends that’s been… Well, trending for so many decades. In fact, you can argue that the general population has been like that with their ruling classes since pretty… Read more »
I’m always interested when people say all the data supports something. I live in the EU, can you share your data about the political corruption in the overall EU area? The thing about democracy is that there’s no such thing as a ruling class. As for people’s pessimism, this waxes and wanes. People will always gripe, obviously, but one shouldn’t forget that people are eminently more loudly when they complain than when they’re satisfied. – Alright, basic argumenting. Let’s say I accept all that you wrote in response. There’s plenty details to refute, but whatever. Like I wrote in my… Read more »
Yep! Exhume All the politicians! A real, constructive, and sustainable situation. One Patrician One vote. Worked well enough just have to have Guilds that police themselves. So much taxpayer money and Everyone’s time no longer wasted and can be put to use without needing 23 studies to confirm people want the comfort of stability.
Swordust
2 years ago
Ethan is just asking the plot to knock him out. He’s got guts standing up to a guy about triple his muscle mass, though. Hell yeah.
Last edited 2 years ago by Swordust
Gonfrask
2 years ago
As a lot of people is thinking right now is time for a “I don’t have to kill” you phrase, bring out a tasser or dart pistol and knocking out Ethan (Blood would, most probably, need to do interrogations some times).
Of course, Deathblood loking over Ethan, seeing the Suns have run away and saying “well…whatever…I will catch them other day” would be credible.
ears
2 years ago
The gang literally just murdered Ethan multiple times. How is that a wrong interpretation of “crimes in progress” to Ethan
The shotgun on his back, yes. The (what I’m assuming) is a FAL in his left, or the M249 in his right, no. You wouldn’t be happy without either but neither are chambered in something big enough to delete a foot.
Followed by about two minutes of bleeding (or 2 seconds of Ethan jamming a knife in his neck) and then Deathblood gets the same puzzle the Sun Devils got.
That’d still be assault, and that’d be a crime against an innocent. Assuming they roughly have the same laws we do, he cannot legally restrain him either.
If Deathblood is as lawful as he appears, and is consistent, he cannot physically engage Ethan in the pursuit of his version of justice.
Dodgy
2 years ago
So, somehow Deadpool Punisher Deathblood finds a loophole that allows him to “kill” Ethan, Zeke sees this and Voila! BIG CGI BATTLE COMING UP! But, like, you know… in a single comic panel (maybe two)?
[Edit] Strike through doesn’t work… making my joke even less funny. Well, crap!
Last edited 2 years ago by Dodgy
Snark
2 years ago
Offtopic – somehow selecting [I’m not a robot] captcha in this web comic’s comments felt strangely … inappropriate.. after all the considerations about Zeke’s self-consciousness and meanings of ‘sentient’ and ‘alive’ and stuff…
Rolando
2 years ago
It’s reasonable to assume Deathblood has dealt with this kind of opposition before, so he must have tools and strategies to disable without resorting to the good old “lead poisoning” technique he’s so fond of.
Zair
2 years ago
Well that’s a pretty badass speech from Ethan.
I’ve been reading since the first year of CAD, Tim, and I really enjoy watching how much your skill as both a writer and artist has grown over the years.
Last edited 2 years ago by Zair
RAY W YOUNG
2 years ago
They attempted to kill Analog multiple times and yet he believes they deserve a trial. He started beating them up but draws the line at forgiving them for shooting him a lot. Analog is the worst for the safety of the town.
Yeah man, got to hate those people who follow the law and respect human rights. Man, they’re the worst for the safety of the town. Clearly a town is MUCH safer with guys who bust through walls wielding multiple guns ready to kill whomever is on the other side.
Yeah, those darn indiscriminate wall breakers are just like that. Like how he immediately shot Ethan just for being there and didn’t spend the next three comics negotiating and demonstrating he know’s exactly who he’s targeting and why.
Actually the only known reason he didn’t shoot Ethan is because he’s wearing an outfit criminals wouldn’t be caught dead in :D. Not that anything changes about the fact that he came there to murder people, based on nothing but the notion that he thinks they’ve done something murder-worthy. It’s amazing how difficult this seems to be for some people to understand: vigilantes murdering people has never made any town safer. Ever. It just shifted the danger to the vigilantes, because people who are willing to deal death without being beholden to anyone or anything but their own subjective set… Read more »
FireballDragon
2 years ago
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
HarvestDude™
2 years ago
Is it just me or you guys also see a Republican / Democrat debate on these last 2 pages…?
No, because both of them believe what they say. None of them is lying, inventing jewish space lasers, mass destruction weapons, conspiracy in the elections. No republicans here, but more 2 democrats, one right winged and the other left winged.
Heldarion
2 years ago
Ethan’s memory apparently got fucked hard between all those respawns, because there were several attempts at murder of him that were all successful.
Marcus
2 years ago
HA…. disabling you for a period will not be hard, nor would it be possible to kill you, therefore no code breaking will happen.. i am sorry for how much this is gonna hurt you though.
Casra
2 years ago
Ethan, no… don’t a be a DC hero. Don’t you know how much blood is on the hands of Batman and others? Stop, just let the man resolve the problem.
Given that you apparently believe that not murdering violent criminals apparently makes you guilty of any future crimes, don’t you know how much blood is on your hands right now?
He’s got just a tiny bit of “DP” in him. I wouldn’t doubt it was an intentional ‘mistake’ just to make a disparaging joke at Ethans expense.
JustJoel
2 years ago
Talk about tired arguments… Killing a dangerous criminal – that Ethan knows just tried to to kill him – doesn’t make you “the same” or “sink to their level”. It isn’t RIGHT, it just doesn’t make you as bad as them.
Talk about tired arguments, because it absolutely does.
Murder is the act of robbing somebody of their life. Barring self-defense, it doesn’t matter why you do it.
Now clearly the comic world has this vigilante act that gives superheroes more leeway to be vigilantes, but in the real world, vigilantism is illegal in all civilized countries for exactly this reason.
Attempting to/Killing Ethan to get to them is what he was talking about, and yes that actually does.
Kazuma Taichi
2 years ago
here’s hoping he doesn’t pull “obstructing justice” or “harboring fugitives” as reasons to turn against Analog
Ceomyr
2 years ago
Analog, he doesn’t have to shoot you. He’s fucking huge, he’s probably going to try and push you aside, strike you, or get around you to shoot them.
Your best bet is if the bad guys ran while you delayed Deathblood. Unfortunately after that Deathblood might treat you as being guilty of aiding and abetting murderers in future encounters…
A panel of Deathblood holding Ethan back with one hand on his head whilst shooting with the other one would be pretty funny actually.
Sweetos
2 years ago
This will end fun
Derfman1963
2 years ago
I could see this being a problem for Deathblood if Ethan was superfast or super strong. But the fact that he could just ignore him and walk right past him is kind of silly. It’s not like they are in a narrow corridor or something like that. He doesn’t even have to commit battery to get past him. Eh, it’s in the script I guess.
Dorander
2 years ago
Irrespective of how this encounter plays out, I’d like to hereby start a petition to formally change Ethan’s superhero name to “Monologue” 😀
Also, kinda props to Deathblood for accepting the correction and using Ethan’s proper name instead of shrugging it off. Rocking the hard lawfulness there.
And by “proper” name I of course mean his old name, after my very succesful petition will engender a permanent rebranding of this character ;-).
I wonder if the “Monologue” wasn’t meant as an intentional slight from Deathblood. And if he really did it on purpose maybe he is more clever than he might seem on first sight.
Ashi
2 years ago
Reminders to everyone saying “They killed Analog, that’s the justification.” – Deathblood doesn’t know that, and he seems to see ANY crime as justification. Did YOU know assault wad a capital crime? Neither did I!
Khan Kaizhu
2 years ago
I wrote this thought experiment back in 2016 … and it believe it’s relevant in today’s discussion, even though it’s about the country’s favorite vigilante/mentally-and-emotionally damaged father figure. Bruce Wayne realizes that what he’s doing as The Batman is ultimately pointless. He hangs up the cape-n-cowl, and uses his vast financial empire to launch a political career, securing the position of Mayor of Gotham City. As mayor, Wayne fires the entire police force on the grounds of corruption and incompetence, easily paying for their broken union contracts out of his own pocket. Afterward, he hires “friends” in the hero community… Read more »
Drakin
2 years ago
Careful Ethan. You are THIS close to being the inciting incident that turns a hero into a villain.
24
Meanwhile, everyone else has escaped out the back and Punisher-like accuses Analog of aiding and abetting them.
Or they’re flanking them.
Monologue.
Relax, talking is a free action.
Ah, Champions….
And thus Deathblood proceeded to pick Analog up, hang him on a door (or any other place hard to get off from), and start killing all of the Sun Devils.
I was thinking a boot to the junk would incapacitate Analog quicker but this idea works as well.
…and a boot to the head.
I was waiting just for thatˆˆ
This is actually how Albie is going to learn to deal with Analog in the future. He’ll escape, but not before seeing Deathblood incapacitate Ethan and mentally cataloging the strategy.
That’d be interesting actually.
Personally, I’m going to be really disappointed if Deathblood isn’t able to handily deal with Ethan without a deus ex machina stopping him in some way.
Zeke does consider himself a God and he is a machine.
You shouldn’t hang mer on hook Deathblood. My mother hung me on a hook once…
I am just waiting for the sun devils to bring out the gear for their “Deathblood” contingency plan. An operation of the scale shown here must surely have some sort of “What do we do if a superhero shows up” plan
Their plan for dealing with Analog is “grab him and show him our whole operation before we shoot him”, and he was pretty obviously a superhero, even if they didn’t know which one (which makes it even dumber!), so I don’t think we’re dealing with the most prepared criminals in the world here.
It’d be an interesting development if he accidentally got Deathblood killed/seriously injured by distracting him. Then he’d have a villain, a sentient robot and a hero weighing on his conscience all at once, whilst he’s just here respawning out of all his own personal harm. Like turbo survivor’s guilt.
Oooh, then he’d relate more to…. the roommate (name escapes me atm).
I am still surprised about Deathblood his motives. He’s complaining about the justice system, but chooses to deal with the symptoms. This means he’s emptying the ocean with a thimble. There is always more coming and there is way more crime than he can prevent.
If he really wants to help he should fix the perceived problem. He should go into politics where he can actually make a difference in this system. A real, constructive and sustainable solution.
While I respect your desire to find and remove the root cause, I find myself disagreeing with this approach when it comes to criminal activity. One of the key problems here, I believe, is time. Even if a full solution to this problem is possible (which is debatable), it would take years or even decades to actually implement. I’m going to sound super cliché right now, but I don’t see any other way to articulate this, so here goes: “people are dying right now”. That’s why even half-measures can be justified, as long as they save lives. Ask any doctor… Read more »
I do not disagree with saving lives. Ethan and Lucas do it from a wholly different perspective. Deathblood does it specifically because of the according to him broken justice system. I understand people are dying now, but it isn’t sustainable. What about people dying tomorrow? Or the day after? A year from now? If my water main is leaking I can try to save my computer by soaking up as much water with a mop and wringing it out. But this is unsustainable. You absolutely need to do something with the water main. Preferably sooner than later. He needs to… Read more »
“Well, yes but…” If your water main is leaking, FIRST you remove your new shiny computer away from the leak.. and then, possibly, you go fix that leak. If you are able to. And if there are no more computers in immediate danger.
The point I believe he is making, is that there’s always another computer in immediate danger.
Really what Darkhorse should be saying is: “There are always many, many, many individual criminals and criminal activities even in just one city, let alone the country or world. Trying to deal with individual criminals or small gangs (these crooks are not very good and thus not really the big targets Deathblood should be looking for) is always going to fail and fail faster over time.” The reasons politics (or world domination) are the only courses of action is that those are the two useful ways to make larger scale changes that could change the overwhelming flood of crime. It… Read more »
You are correct, however deathblood doesn’t strike me as the most intelligent of superheroes, so I wouldn’t call it surprising.
“If my water main is leaking I can try to save my computer by soaking up as much water with a mop and wringing it out. But this is unsustainable.” Terrible comparison. If your computer is in danger of water from a leaking water main, you don’t try to mop up the water around the computer. You remove the computer. The same way that instead of slowly trying to mop up crime by getting into politics or whatever nonsense while the crime/water continues damaging everything around you, you remove the crime. Also, y’all keep forgetting that the real bad guys… Read more »
The reason you see people sticking up for groups like the Sun Devils is easy: They aren’t real. In real life, you rarely have a situation quite that cut-and-dry. In real life, a LOT of people are killed or jailed that don’t need to be; some who committed no deeply unethical behavior and many who were altogether innocent. When the bad guys all line up and wear matching uniforms and announce their evil intentions and then start shooting people, we don’t call that crime, we call it an act of war. Naturally, you’re going to see some people gravitate towards… Read more »
And how long has it taken Deathblood to locate this bunch of fairly inept criminals as a target? He’s not very good if it took him any length of time but he says it has been going on for a while. He’s going after the least competent bad guys in the most ineffective way. Politics or world domination (or if you only care about the city, mayor or local dominator) are the only long term ways (unless you have worldwide megascale super powers, but if you had those, you wouldn’t be struggling to catch these criminal gene pool fringe players)… Read more »
Further – why do you assume that Deathblood’s day job isn’t doing exactly what you’re saying he should do? Maybe the whole Deathblood thing is a direct result of him seeing how ineffective it is to change things via politics, and instead wanting a way to actually make some progress.
We can flip that question around: what evidence do you have that it IS his day job? We can only work with what we’re shown so far and if you want to make it credible that that is his day job, please provide the details in the comic that led you to this conclusion. On the side of “it probably isn’t”, there are so many hours in a day and a human needs things like sleep. Deathblood stated that he had extensively tracked a city-wide operation. He’s extremely muscular which suggests a work-out regimen. Unless he has his own version… Read more »
I bet his day job is “Public Defender”…
So you’d prefer he gave up a failed gambit in politics (ineffective) to do small actions that are dwarfed by the problem (also ineffective)? That’s like saying ‘Well, you’ve tried one losing strategy, let’s try this other one for variety!’. And if this was a somewhat deep comic as it sometimes is, it would turn out that most of the Sun Devils have sad origin stories, somewhat understandable bad choices that they made that weren’t intentional but put them on the wrong side, or not knowing what they were getting in to and now don’t know how to get out…… Read more »
I know if I had the risk of getting shot in the face committing crime I probably wouldn’t commit crime.
One last thing: if the Sun Devils do escape while Ethan is pulling this crap, and continue to go on harming innocent people as a result, then Ethan’s got that blood on his hands.
No, he doesn’t. Failing to apprehend someone does not make you guilty of their crimes.
But again, let’s flip that argument right around. Ethan had this handled and would’ve left them in a tidy package for the police, had Deathblood not threatened bloody murder. If the Sun Devils escape, they escape because Deathblood is pulling this crap.
without the cape, cops and jury would see him as an accomplice. The distraction or get away agent.
Cops, maybe. Juries, they tend to have to sit through this whole process involving presentation of evidence and such first. Good luck proving criminal intent for Ethan.
Ethan was okay with letting murderbot Zeke with a hate for humanity to go out and about to do whatever he would chose despite the risk a hidden subroutine or something provocatory that Zeke took (right or wrong) as an existential threat could result in other innocents dying. And Ethan was okay with that. In this case, he’d probably be okay too.
Out of curiosity, have you ever played Ace Combat 7 and specifically its “Ten Million Relief Plan” DLC? If you have – you probably already understand what I’m driving at. If not – I heartily recommend that you do (or watch a playthrough, maybe). I think this could you give you a bit more food for thought on this subject. I won’t spoil anything (for you or anyone else reading), I’ll just mention that there is a character there who uses a brand of logic largely similar to the one you have presented here, albeit on a slightly different scale.… Read more »
It’s hard to tell with Deathblood. He neither seems like a psychopath or sociopath – I had expected the criminal-murderer, had we ever seen him, to sound rage-filled and unhinged. Yet, everything he says sounds almost like a religious zealot – except that the cause he cares for isn’t a religion, but a code of law. He is calm, rational, logical. He clearly takes what he’s doing seriously. I’d bet you that anything that he feels he’s doing more to prevent crime by impressing on criminals that there are more consequences to crime than just a few years in the… Read more »
If Deathblood was right about that feeling you ascribed to him, he’d be out of a job. However he seems to have his hands full. Of guns. But also of criminals. The notion that harsh penalties are a great detractor for crime is both tenacious and appealing. It seems so intuitively true, if the consequence is bad enough you would never risk it, right? Yet, looking at trends in crime and punishment, it just doesn’t work this way. Societies with harsher punishments don’t have less crime. In fact, societies that treat their criminals like human beings and let them develop… Read more »
While I mostly agree, there are outliers like Singapore that have extremely low crime rates and draconic punishments. But I feel that also has to do with it being a city state and under pretty tight control and discipline. Is merely a guts feeling, but maybe rather than severity of punishment it is the real (or perceived) risk of getting caught and having the punishments enforced? Or about the specific society? Either way, personally I would not want to trade in that much of my freedom in for the added security provided. SP is a nice place to visit for… Read more »
Understanding criminal causes and behaviour is an academic field on its own. Literally, it’s called “criminology”, and I am not an expert in that field. That said, nothing wrong with a little rambling on the topic ;-). Clearly one can find an example where there are draconian punishments and low crime, but that’s not what we’re looking for. That doesn’t prove the punishments caused that, as you already point out with alternative explanations. Meanwhile every society that has/had harsh punishments and no change in crime, is a counter-example. Something that I think may be a factor is that harsh punishments… Read more »
well, murdering ppl never solved anything. Look at the usa, where cops kills, where death penalty is still a thing (so barbaric) and yet, a murder rate 5times higher than any other western country.
Very few cops ever use lethal force. The vast majority spend their entire careers helping people.
Ahahahahahahah. Nice joke. They kill 1.000ppl /year and I dont mention all the ppl they beat or cripple. Their unions are almost officially fascists too. No, cops dont help people, never did and never will.
Do people really think we only have like 1000 cops across this entire nation thats geographically similar in size to all of Europe?
“…spend their entire careers helping people.”
If the people are male and white. If you are PoC? Expect indifference at best, murder and/or brutality at worst. If you are a woman? Expect indifference at best, rape and/or brutality at worst.
That’s like putting a screen door on a submarine. Sure, it solves the issue of not having a door, but it doesn’t deal with the fact that water is getting inside.
Your analogy is a bit off as it applies to Deathblood. It should be more like, the doctor thinks , lots of folks have cancer from smoking, I’ll kill them and then there will be less people with lung cancer.
There is a fable about two men stopping at a river. They see a child being rushed away and save it. They pull her put and see other come down. And another. And both men are exhausted, but they take turns until one gets out of the water and keeps walking. The second asks where he is going, and the first replies “going to find whoecer is throwing kids in the river and stop them.” Some kids will die, but the men are only two and exhausted. It is harder for 2 men to fight against the current and pull… Read more »
Given how (in)effective politics has been at solving this particular problem for literal millennia, and considering the overall impossibly complex scope of it, it seems foolishly optimistic to pretend he’d actually be able to make any constructive or sustainable solution there. (Not trying to argue that all politics is definitively useless, just that ‘go into politics and be able to fix this’ seems an unrealistic assumption. Even your own ‘ocean with a thimble’ comparison seems apt for the effectiveness of that.) Furthermore, politics is hardly the biggest problem here. There is a judicial system already, it’s just not effective enough… Read more »
politic isnt ineffective, politic doesnt WANT to solve this problem.
Currently many politics in different countries have been able to reduce recurring criminals in varying degrees. That it is unrealistic in this city/country is an assumption as well. We don’t know. Interestingly Deathblood doesn’t talk about it. It doesn’t seem to be a factor in his reasoning, or for now omitted. If politics is a problem it can add to his frustration and resulting killing spree. But the fact remains that he’s focusing on a symptom and does so with a criminal indifference. He’s about to kill people who Ethan says might willingly stop further violence. Not to mention that… Read more »
I think you’re confusing ‘politics can reduce crime’ (which is somewhat true, to an extent) and ‘politics can stop criminals’ (which is demonstrably untrue, has been untrue for all of history, and presumably will be for all eternity). It’s not much of an assumption that politics can’t prevent or stop criminals, it it’s pretty much an objective truth. The mere presence of this gang of recidivist murderous drug pushers already seems decent proof of that. (And same in our world, with literally every uncaught criminal that’s out there.) I’m not sure why you think Ethan’s claim that they might willingly… Read more »
If you want less criminals, educate ppl and make them have a good life. You’ll see, it’s magic.
In theory, sure. In practice, easier said than done. About as simple as achieving world peace, solving world hunger or eradicating poverty. (And even if you could manage it, it’s not as if ‘need’ is the only reason people do turn to crime. Removing it for everyone would help for some, but not all. There’ll always be people who simply want more, for example) I do agree that ‘education and good lives for all’ to stop crime is an excellent thing to strive for, but as an actual solution it’s only ‘magic’ in the sense that it would need an… Read more »
solving world hunger could/should be easy as the US is capable of sustainably producing enough food to feed the world but the gov’t spends assloads of money paying farmers to NOT farm in order to keep crop prices up.
source: “not farmer” neighbor
Your objection that “politics can stop criminals” is untrue, also applies to Deathblood. Deathblood cannot prevent people from acting criminally and he cannot reduce the number of criminals to zero. So really, it’s a bit of a meaningless statement. What Deathblood can do, is stop criminals from engaging in repeat criminal behaviour… but of course, politics can and does achieve that as well. It’s politics that decides how society treats its criminals. You’re also making some convenient assumptions about people returning to crime and murder. Neither you nor Deathblood for that matter are in any better a position to speak… Read more »
I dunno… there have been and always will be criminals. The NUMBER of them, though, is dependent on how much they can game from the system, and the consequences thereof. What WOULD happen if the petty thugs were often killed by superhero vigilantes? We don’t actually know, as this has never happened. One would think the criminal bosses might find it harder to recruit, though, if their minions were killed frequently. I’m not condoning such a thing… due process is important. I’m just speculating. I DO think, though, that the (I believe) common police practice of letting “petty” thugs go… Read more »
look at dictatorship where cops have all rights including murder and ask yourself is there is no criminals.
“He should go into politics where he can actually make a difference in this system. A real, constructive and sustainable solution.” Theoretically, yes. Also, in theory, communism is wonderful, capitalism is fair to everyone, and mainstream religion is a source of nothing but goodness and virtue…….. Now, back to something actually resembling reality. If this story’s world is anything like ours, most of the planet has the same issue regarding politics. It’s so choke-full of corruption, negligence and clogged bureaucracy… Anyone going into politics with honest intentions to make the world a better place will be thoroughly held in check… Read more »
God I wouldnt want to live in the same country you do, it seems.
What country are you living in? Is it the only country you’ve ever lived in?
Also, while I can understand your assumption of bias on my part, please note I didn’t mention any specific countries. I just made a generalised mention regarding most of the planet. One supported by all the available data, that is.
Countries with a majority of honest and ethical politicians are an exception, after all.
You have an oddly bleak view of politics. Dare I ask if you live in the USA? While you raise some good points the argument itself is unsound (insofar as you are actually making one, rather than skirting around one… or two). You’re implying that because the job is difficult, the proposed solution ought to not be attempted at all. The second implication you make is that just because something cannot be solved completely, it’s not worth progressing in that direction. This is also a falsehood, it’s like saying that just because you can’t count to infinity, you can’t count… Read more »
Bleak? I assume you mean, bleaker than reality justifies? Because, in that case… Most of the world’s nations struggle with significant amount of political corruption. This is plain to see. All the data supports that. I’m being realistic, plain and simple. What’s bleak about facing reality like it is? Odd? Pessimism on politics is extremely widespread. It’s been so, worlwide, AT LEAST since the Cold War’s heyday. It’s one of the few trends that’s been… Well, trending for so many decades. In fact, you can argue that the general population has been like that with their ruling classes since pretty… Read more »
I’m always interested when people say all the data supports something. I live in the EU, can you share your data about the political corruption in the overall EU area? The thing about democracy is that there’s no such thing as a ruling class. As for people’s pessimism, this waxes and wanes. People will always gripe, obviously, but one shouldn’t forget that people are eminently more loudly when they complain than when they’re satisfied. – Alright, basic argumenting. Let’s say I accept all that you wrote in response. There’s plenty details to refute, but whatever. Like I wrote in my… Read more »
I just imagine telling him this, and he interprets “going into politics” as “kill all the politicians”
Yep! Exhume All the politicians! A real, constructive, and sustainable situation. One Patrician One vote. Worked well enough just have to have Guilds that police themselves. So much taxpayer money and Everyone’s time no longer wasted and can be put to use without needing 23 studies to confirm people want the comfort of stability.
Ethan is just asking the plot to knock him out. He’s got guts standing up to a guy about triple his muscle mass, though. Hell yeah.
As a lot of people is thinking right now is time for a “I don’t have to kill” you phrase, bring out a tasser or dart pistol and knocking out Ethan (Blood would, most probably, need to do interrogations some times).
Of course, Deathblood loking over Ethan, seeing the Suns have run away and saying “well…whatever…I will catch them other day” would be credible.
The gang literally just murdered Ethan multiple times. How is that a wrong interpretation of “crimes in progress” to Ethan
That’s not the part that is being misinterpreted…
He can just knock him down or shoot his foot.
A bullet from one of those rifles would straight up remove a foot I think. 😉
The shotgun on his back, yes. The (what I’m assuming) is a FAL in his left, or the M249 in his right, no. You wouldn’t be happy without either but neither are chambered in something big enough to delete a foot.
Followed by about two minutes of bleeding (or 2 seconds of Ethan jamming a knife in his neck) and then Deathblood gets the same puzzle the Sun Devils got.
That’d still be assault, and that’d be a crime against an innocent. Assuming they roughly have the same laws we do, he cannot legally restrain him either.
If Deathblood is as lawful as he appears, and is consistent, he cannot physically engage Ethan in the pursuit of his version of justice.
So, somehow
Deadpool PunisherDeathblood finds a loophole that allows him to “kill” Ethan, Zeke sees this and Voila! BIG CGI BATTLE COMING UP! But, like, you know… in a single comic panel (maybe two)?[Edit] Strike through doesn’t work… making my joke even less funny. Well, crap!
Offtopic – somehow selecting [I’m not a robot] captcha in this web comic’s comments felt strangely … inappropriate.. after all the considerations about Zeke’s self-consciousness and meanings of ‘sentient’ and ‘alive’ and stuff…
It’s reasonable to assume Deathblood has dealt with this kind of opposition before, so he must have tools and strategies to disable without resorting to the good old “lead poisoning” technique he’s so fond of.
Well that’s a pretty badass speech from Ethan.
I’ve been reading since the first year of CAD, Tim, and I really enjoy watching how much your skill as both a writer and artist has grown over the years.
They attempted to kill Analog multiple times and yet he believes they deserve a trial. He started beating them up but draws the line at forgiving them for shooting him a lot. Analog is the worst for the safety of the town.
Yeah man, got to hate those people who follow the law and respect human rights. Man, they’re the worst for the safety of the town. Clearly a town is MUCH safer with guys who bust through walls wielding multiple guns ready to kill whomever is on the other side.
Yeah, those darn indiscriminate wall breakers are just like that. Like how he immediately shot Ethan just for being there and didn’t spend the next three comics negotiating and demonstrating he know’s exactly who he’s targeting and why.
Actually the only known reason he didn’t shoot Ethan is because he’s wearing an outfit criminals wouldn’t be caught dead in :D. Not that anything changes about the fact that he came there to murder people, based on nothing but the notion that he thinks they’ve done something murder-worthy. It’s amazing how difficult this seems to be for some people to understand: vigilantes murdering people has never made any town safer. Ever. It just shifted the danger to the vigilantes, because people who are willing to deal death without being beholden to anyone or anything but their own subjective set… Read more »
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Is it just me or you guys also see a Republican / Democrat debate on these last 2 pages…?
No, because both of them believe what they say. None of them is lying, inventing jewish space lasers, mass destruction weapons, conspiracy in the elections. No republicans here, but more 2 democrats, one right winged and the other left winged.
Ethan’s memory apparently got fucked hard between all those respawns, because there were several attempts at murder of him that were all successful.
HA…. disabling you for a period will not be hard, nor would it be possible to kill you, therefore no code breaking will happen.. i am sorry for how much this is gonna hurt you though.
Ethan, no… don’t a be a DC hero. Don’t you know how much blood is on the hands of Batman and others? Stop, just let the man resolve the problem.
Given that you apparently believe that not murdering violent criminals apparently makes you guilty of any future crimes, don’t you know how much blood is on your hands right now?
Your logic is twisted. These men “killed” Ethan with little regret and would obviously kill civilians with little care. So yes, kill them.
I can’t really blame him for thinking Ethan’s superhero name was Monologue after all that…
He’s got just a tiny bit of “DP” in him. I wouldn’t doubt it was an intentional ‘mistake’ just to make a disparaging joke at Ethans expense.
Talk about tired arguments… Killing a dangerous criminal – that Ethan knows just tried to to kill him – doesn’t make you “the same” or “sink to their level”. It isn’t RIGHT, it just doesn’t make you as bad as them.
Talk about tired arguments, because it absolutely does.
Murder is the act of robbing somebody of their life. Barring self-defense, it doesn’t matter why you do it.
Now clearly the comic world has this vigilante act that gives superheroes more leeway to be vigilantes, but in the real world, vigilantism is illegal in all civilized countries for exactly this reason.
Attempting to/Killing Ethan to get to them is what he was talking about, and yes that actually does.
here’s hoping he doesn’t pull “obstructing justice” or “harboring fugitives” as reasons to turn against Analog
Analog, he doesn’t have to shoot you. He’s fucking huge, he’s probably going to try and push you aside, strike you, or get around you to shoot them.
Your best bet is if the bad guys ran while you delayed Deathblood. Unfortunately after that Deathblood might treat you as being guilty of aiding and abetting murderers in future encounters…
I’m enjoying the story a lot Tim!
A panel of Deathblood holding Ethan back with one hand on his head whilst shooting with the other one would be pretty funny actually.
This will end fun
I could see this being a problem for Deathblood if Ethan was superfast or super strong. But the fact that he could just ignore him and walk right past him is kind of silly. It’s not like they are in a narrow corridor or something like that. He doesn’t even have to commit battery to get past him. Eh, it’s in the script I guess.
Irrespective of how this encounter plays out, I’d like to hereby start a petition to formally change Ethan’s superhero name to “Monologue” 😀
Also, kinda props to Deathblood for accepting the correction and using Ethan’s proper name instead of shrugging it off. Rocking the hard lawfulness there.
And by “proper” name I of course mean his old name, after my very succesful petition will engender a permanent rebranding of this character ;-).
I wonder if the “Monologue” wasn’t meant as an intentional slight from Deathblood. And if he really did it on purpose maybe he is more clever than he might seem on first sight.
Reminders to everyone saying “They killed Analog, that’s the justification.” – Deathblood doesn’t know that, and he seems to see ANY crime as justification. Did YOU know assault wad a capital crime? Neither did I!
I wrote this thought experiment back in 2016 … and it believe it’s relevant in today’s discussion, even though it’s about the country’s favorite vigilante/mentally-and-emotionally damaged father figure. Bruce Wayne realizes that what he’s doing as The Batman is ultimately pointless. He hangs up the cape-n-cowl, and uses his vast financial empire to launch a political career, securing the position of Mayor of Gotham City. As mayor, Wayne fires the entire police force on the grounds of corruption and incompetence, easily paying for their broken union contracts out of his own pocket. Afterward, he hires “friends” in the hero community… Read more »
Careful Ethan. You are THIS close to being the inciting incident that turns a hero into a villain.