Either that, or Elijah has been getting progressively angrier until something snapped. Disturbingly, I find that rather likely, judging by how often the news must have been hammering the point for Ethan to start predicting the pattern.
My best guess is that the tagging is by Elijah and then a separate entity (a new villain) uses those tags as a targeting mechanism. Elijah might or might not be aware of the second entity.
This is it. Elijah and the Gamers team up, Elijah realising that “inspiring violence” can come from anywhere, and that stopping violence is more important.
Troll having someone copy Elijah, burning the games I could see him doing but not the killing.
Kasaix
23 days ago
Tim played the long game, it’s a callback to an arc from 2018. Bravo sir.
Daniel
23 days ago
I believe it’s not just Elijah snapping, he wasn’t that violent in the first place. I bet it’s either a copier or Elijah under the influence of a new psych supervillain that inspire aimless rage and fear that make people take desperate measures.
If I could vote (and I surely can’t) his surname name should be Lynch .
Pointing to the link was useful and appreciated. I guess the downvotes are because of the second sentence, as if people didn’t want to bother to go check it by themselves. Personally, I didn’t even notice there was a link, before you mentioned it.
Thanks for the perspective. Plenty of people just want to get their question answered and not have to read a few comics themselves, so I added the second part to allow them to ask for a synopsis if they didn’t want to read up themselves. I’ll keep a mind of the other perspective in the future.
See the “Tagged” series. His brother was killed in a school shooting. He had the face mask and super speed and was painting “Poison Trafficker” on all game stores and gun stores until Ethan somewhat got through to him, stating that a person, not a thing, is ultimately what killed Elijah’s brother, and how he plays games for companionship and nostalgia. I probably wouldn’t tell Elijah how he plays hospital simulator though. Seems too easy and vague that this is Elijah. Although at the time the point was made that (much like the feedback effect… internet commenters take note!) Ethan… Read more »
Elijah was a speedster whose brother was killed in a school shooting. The shooter was using buzz words from Fortnight during his attack, so Elijah blamed violent video games and lax gun laws for the attack and death of his brother. In an act of revenge he began targeting game stores and gun shops, vandalizing them with a spray-painted graffiti tag: “Poison Trafficker.” Ethan and Lucas didn’t capture him, but convinced him that, at the very least, he was taking out his anger on people who had nothing to do with his brother’s death. The arc ended with Elijah switching… Read more »
Speedster that kept tagging every video game store with that design. His little brother was killed in a shooting that a kid did because of Fortnite. Ethan managed to get through to him and he started hanging fliers instead, but he’s fast enough to tag 3 places at once while having a conversation with Ethan and Lucas on a rooftop.
Daniel
23 days ago
Also, everyone here is so scared that Ben is going to become a tragic plot development, but I’m more afraid of Gameboy. Gulliable, little guy is gaming themed, and he stands no chance against a mob or a very determined supervillain. Hopes he’ll be OK
His mom is his Mission Control and he has Analog and D-Pad looking out for him when they can. I think he’ll be okay as long as he stays in his proverbial lane.
Darkhorse
23 days ago
From our perspective it is easy not to want Elijah to be the culprit. Take his perspective and we can see it might be “justified”. He already blames videogames for the death of his 13yo brother and friends. At the end of the last arc he didn’t stop. He just changed tactics to flyering instead of spray painting shops. He was still very much convinced video games are bad. He only got the perspective that video games can be good at times. Now another school shooting has happened and video games are to blame. With the media taking video games… Read more »
Ha, as if geting rid of stores would help. As we see with criminals despite all legal restrictions they still get heir hands on them. Disarming lawfull citicens just arms the lawless. Now these things do wary country by country. But I’d say culture playes biggest role. Because if games were to blame youd thunk sone of the more heavily armed european nations would see the same rise, but at least over here in finland(in top 20 in terns of gun density) where vast majority of guns are registered, a very fucking vast majority if gun crime is done with… Read more »
Closing shops can help though. It is a fallacy that it wouldn’t. The same with digital security. There is no 100% security. Given enough time and resources you can always get through. We place barriers in place to make it more difficult and costly for criminals/state actors to procure break it. The same is true with guns. Reducing the legal selling points is reducing the illegal ones. Reducing the total amount of guns means less can be used by criminals and tracking them will be easier. Initially it might be a useless gesture, but do not forget that the criminal… Read more »
I don’t think it matters that it really won’t help. This is about feeling like you are doing something. And when people are hurting they do not have nice logical thoughts. Then add in that the news media loves to fan the flames with misinformation and it makes everything tougher to untangle.
I think it’s a fallacy that there’s nothing that can be done about gun crime. Take a look at the Port Artur shooting in the 90’s in Australia. This is an English speaking former colony with a long history of gun rights/needs. Following the Port Arthur shooting they banned all semi-automatic guns, but they still allow bolt action rifles and shotguns so hunting and home defense is covered. They bought back the existing guns that didn’t comply. And they haven’t had a mass shooting since.
Unfortunately, logic doesn’t really have to come up in situations like this. The mind is very good at convincing itself of illogical things in order to feel better.
When it’s too painful to believe a problem can’t be fixed, it’s disturbingly easy to believe that doing something extreme will fix it.
People snap. Even in this world, people snap. Take this case: https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/gunman-kills-2-then-himself-at-madden-gaming-contest-in-jacksonville-florida/ One of the details that was left out was that he got knocked out of the tournament early. He went from being the 2017 champ to getting knocked out in the preliminaries. Now, you can argue that he did buy the guns earlier so maybe it was inevitable that something was going to set him off but, in this case, you can make a correlative argument that it was the Madden Tournament that pushed him over the edge. Before I get downvoted to the center of the earth… Read more »
Yes people snap. Whatever. But the school shooter in this comic WAS CHOSEN to say “Fortnite rules! Last one left alive wins!” Like the authorial choice was to make this teenager not just “snap” but actively impose a videogame as some sort of ethical contest and then murder them. What are we supposed to think about that individual since that’s the only information the author gave us? I content it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that it is intended this school shooter was so addled by videogames they lost grip on reality. Because why else make an action… Read more »
Sotnekron
23 days ago
Man, you do realize I have to go back all the way to mid 2018 if I remember correctly, to reread again?
Chris
23 days ago
Calling it now. This isn’t Elijah, but the work of someone who psychotically takes his graffiti seriously, or they use his graffiti as a smokescreen to murder those who have been tagged by it. This could also be the way that Ethan finds out he didn’t lose his powers anyways, when whoever it is murders him, and then he just respawns.
Phaet
22 days ago
What’s with those comments about Elijah? Isn’t she a reporter? I don’t remember any graffiti.
Lilah is the reporter. Elijah is a grieving brother.
Roma
22 days ago
…I am half expecting them to confront Ellijah and him to be like “huh? What do you want? I’ve been keeping it to fliers- WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOMEONE’S BEEN BURNING STORES AND LEAVING MY MARK?!” But like more in character because I suck at writing in character
DerGrimmigeZwerg
22 days ago
Amazing, how correlation and causality work even in fiction.
One strip we get shown the “video games are to blame for mass shootings” rhetoric, next strip we get “a video store was vandalized and the owner murdered” and immediately most people (me included) thought the two were related (Chekov’s Gun principle, I imagine). With the gun shops, unrelated to any video game incident as far as we can tell, it suddenly seems more like correlation than causality.
Let me rephrase, the gun shops were not unrelated to the video game store. But the news talking about video games causing mass shootings might be unrelated to the attacks on video game stores.
wysskers4
22 days ago
oooooh the plot is thickening nicely!
Gonfrask
22 days ago
We have a “Punisher’s followers” thing here?
Silo267
22 days ago
Anyone else read that in “The AIs normal voice”?
Pyre
22 days ago
On the one hand, I want to say “No, Elijah wouldn’t take it that far.” On the other hand, the story arc is called “Desperate Measures”….. ——————– I said this yesterday and I’m sticking by it. It just seems too easy ………….which could be Tim showing us how easy it is to jump to conclusions and thereby forcing us to take another look at how other people can just as easily jump to conclusions with video games being a scapegoat…….. so I’m holding out for Elijah not taking it that far while acknowledging that, maybe, I’m overthinking it/just looking for… Read more »
John
22 days ago
Thanks for linking the old arc, I dont remember any of that.
Hopefully it isnt Elijah but it could be.
Paula
21 days ago
Thanks for the link Tim. I am wondering if Lucas is going to tell Ben. After all, police should know already, they arrested him.
24
Calling it now: it’s not Elijah, but someone copying Elijah’s work.
I can only hope you’re right.
Either that, or Elijah has been getting progressively angrier until something snapped. Disturbingly, I find that rather likely, judging by how often the news must have been hammering the point for Ethan to start predicting the pattern.
You guys did better than us Patreons. We couldn’t even remember who Elijah was, haha. It has been 4 years!
Actually it’s been SIX years.
damn. SEVEN years.
My best guess is that the tagging is by Elijah and then a separate entity (a new villain) uses those tags as a targeting mechanism. Elijah might or might not be aware of the second entity.
This is it. Elijah and the Gamers team up, Elijah realising that “inspiring violence” can come from anywhere, and that stopping violence is more important.
Troll having someone copy Elijah, burning the games I could see him doing but not the killing.
Tim played the long game, it’s a callback to an arc from 2018. Bravo sir.
I believe it’s not just Elijah snapping, he wasn’t that violent in the first place. I bet it’s either a copier or Elijah under the influence of a new psych supervillain that inspire aimless rage and fear that make people take desperate measures.
If I could vote (and I surely can’t) his surname name should be Lynch .
Kudos to the people who predicted Elijah
My memory is terrible. Can someone remind me who Elijah is please?
Check out the link that Tim helpfully put under the comic. If you do not want to take the trouble someone can update you I’m sure.
Not sure why there’s downvotes? Guiding someone to the link to the original story so they can experience it again is bad?
Pointing to the link was useful and appreciated. I guess the downvotes are because of the second sentence, as if people didn’t want to bother to go check it by themselves. Personally, I didn’t even notice there was a link, before you mentioned it.
Thanks for the perspective. Plenty of people just want to get their question answered and not have to read a few comics themselves, so I added the second part to allow them to ask for a synopsis if they didn’t want to read up themselves. I’ll keep a mind of the other perspective in the future.
See the “Tagged” series. His brother was killed in a school shooting. He had the face mask and super speed and was painting “Poison Trafficker” on all game stores and gun stores until Ethan somewhat got through to him, stating that a person, not a thing, is ultimately what killed Elijah’s brother, and how he plays games for companionship and nostalgia. I probably wouldn’t tell Elijah how he plays hospital simulator though. Seems too easy and vague that this is Elijah. Although at the time the point was made that (much like the feedback effect… internet commenters take note!) Ethan… Read more »
*might be “backfire effect” or “backlash effect”
Elijah was a speedster whose brother was killed in a school shooting. The shooter was using buzz words from Fortnight during his attack, so Elijah blamed violent video games and lax gun laws for the attack and death of his brother. In an act of revenge he began targeting game stores and gun shops, vandalizing them with a spray-painted graffiti tag: “Poison Trafficker.” Ethan and Lucas didn’t capture him, but convinced him that, at the very least, he was taking out his anger on people who had nothing to do with his brother’s death. The arc ended with Elijah switching… Read more »
Annoying is better than illegal. I’m guessing its not as simple as “It’s Elijah” given how he seemed somewhat receptive to reason last time.
Speedster that kept tagging every video game store with that design. His little brother was killed in a shooting that a kid did because of Fortnite. Ethan managed to get through to him and he started hanging fliers instead, but he’s fast enough to tag 3 places at once while having a conversation with Ethan and Lucas on a rooftop.
Also, everyone here is so scared that Ben is going to become a tragic plot development, but I’m more afraid of Gameboy. Gulliable, little guy is gaming themed, and he stands no chance against a mob or a very determined supervillain. Hopes he’ll be OK
His mom is his Mission Control and he has Analog and D-Pad looking out for him when they can. I think he’ll be okay as long as he stays in his proverbial lane.
From our perspective it is easy not to want Elijah to be the culprit. Take his perspective and we can see it might be “justified”. He already blames videogames for the death of his 13yo brother and friends. At the end of the last arc he didn’t stop. He just changed tactics to flyering instead of spray painting shops. He was still very much convinced video games are bad. He only got the perspective that video games can be good at times. Now another school shooting has happened and video games are to blame. With the media taking video games… Read more »
Ha, as if geting rid of stores would help. As we see with criminals despite all legal restrictions they still get heir hands on them. Disarming lawfull citicens just arms the lawless. Now these things do wary country by country. But I’d say culture playes biggest role. Because if games were to blame youd thunk sone of the more heavily armed european nations would see the same rise, but at least over here in finland(in top 20 in terns of gun density) where vast majority of guns are registered, a very fucking vast majority if gun crime is done with… Read more »
Closing shops can help though. It is a fallacy that it wouldn’t. The same with digital security. There is no 100% security. Given enough time and resources you can always get through. We place barriers in place to make it more difficult and costly for criminals/state actors to procure break it. The same is true with guns. Reducing the legal selling points is reducing the illegal ones. Reducing the total amount of guns means less can be used by criminals and tracking them will be easier. Initially it might be a useless gesture, but do not forget that the criminal… Read more »
I don’t think it matters that it really won’t help. This is about feeling like you are doing something. And when people are hurting they do not have nice logical thoughts. Then add in that the news media loves to fan the flames with misinformation and it makes everything tougher to untangle.
I think it’s a fallacy that there’s nothing that can be done about gun crime. Take a look at the Port Artur shooting in the 90’s in Australia. This is an English speaking former colony with a long history of gun rights/needs. Following the Port Arthur shooting they banned all semi-automatic guns, but they still allow bolt action rifles and shotguns so hunting and home defense is covered. They bought back the existing guns that didn’t comply. And they haven’t had a mass shooting since.
Logically, you are correct.
Unfortunately, logic doesn’t really have to come up in situations like this. The mind is very good at convincing itself of illogical things in order to feel better.
When it’s too painful to believe a problem can’t be fixed, it’s disturbingly easy to believe that doing something extreme will fix it.
What’s wild is that the person that shot his brother yelled:
“Fortnite rules! Last one left alive wins!”
That’s such a fucking looney toons thing to say. In this weirdo world maybe Elijah’s right?
People snap. Even in this world, people snap. Take this case: https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/gunman-kills-2-then-himself-at-madden-gaming-contest-in-jacksonville-florida/ One of the details that was left out was that he got knocked out of the tournament early. He went from being the 2017 champ to getting knocked out in the preliminaries. Now, you can argue that he did buy the guns earlier so maybe it was inevitable that something was going to set him off but, in this case, you can make a correlative argument that it was the Madden Tournament that pushed him over the edge. Before I get downvoted to the center of the earth… Read more »
Yes people snap. Whatever. But the school shooter in this comic WAS CHOSEN to say “Fortnite rules! Last one left alive wins!” Like the authorial choice was to make this teenager not just “snap” but actively impose a videogame as some sort of ethical contest and then murder them. What are we supposed to think about that individual since that’s the only information the author gave us? I content it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that it is intended this school shooter was so addled by videogames they lost grip on reality. Because why else make an action… Read more »
Man, you do realize I have to go back all the way to mid 2018 if I remember correctly, to reread again?
Calling it now. This isn’t Elijah, but the work of someone who psychotically takes his graffiti seriously, or they use his graffiti as a smokescreen to murder those who have been tagged by it. This could also be the way that Ethan finds out he didn’t lose his powers anyways, when whoever it is murders him, and then he just respawns.
What’s with those comments about Elijah? Isn’t she a reporter? I don’t remember any graffiti.
Check the link Tim posted under the comic. It’ll explain a lot 🙂
For your convenience:
https://cad-comic.com/comic/tagged-p1/
Lilah is the reporter. Elijah is a grieving brother.
…I am half expecting them to confront Ellijah and him to be like “huh? What do you want? I’ve been keeping it to fliers- WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOMEONE’S BEEN BURNING STORES AND LEAVING MY MARK?!” But like more in character because I suck at writing in character
Amazing, how correlation and causality work even in fiction.
One strip we get shown the “video games are to blame for mass shootings” rhetoric, next strip we get “a video store was vandalized and the owner murdered” and immediately most people (me included) thought the two were related (Chekov’s Gun principle, I imagine). With the gun shops, unrelated to any video game incident as far as we can tell, it suddenly seems more like correlation than causality.
He says the tags were on all 3 scenes, so it is related.
Let me rephrase, the gun shops were not unrelated to the video game store. But the news talking about video games causing mass shootings might be unrelated to the attacks on video game stores.
oooooh the plot is thickening nicely!
We have a “Punisher’s followers” thing here?
Anyone else read that in “The AIs normal voice”?
On the one hand, I want to say “No, Elijah wouldn’t take it that far.” On the other hand, the story arc is called “Desperate Measures”….. ——————– I said this yesterday and I’m sticking by it. It just seems too easy ………….which could be Tim showing us how easy it is to jump to conclusions and thereby forcing us to take another look at how other people can just as easily jump to conclusions with video games being a scapegoat…….. so I’m holding out for Elijah not taking it that far while acknowledging that, maybe, I’m overthinking it/just looking for… Read more »
Thanks for linking the old arc, I dont remember any of that.
Hopefully it isnt Elijah but it could be.
Thanks for the link Tim. I am wondering if Lucas is going to tell Ben. After all, police should know already, they arrested him.