The darn thing is that this can confirm an image of fascism.
“Oh you don’t agree so you just kill them?”
You have to make some attempt at peaceful resolution/3rd option.
Stix is right. The Troll can’t be reasoned with, but Alex and Elijah offer an opportunity to turn them against the Troll. Alex hasn’t committed a crime this bad yet. Do they expect to just walk away after? Even Elijah as a serial killer might get a worse sentence if he’s gassing the town. Talking before blasting can create allies with inside knowledge, powers to stop the others and thereby preventing the disaster. Not to mention that it would be standard procedure for any civilised police force. Establish communication, check out the demands, see how far they reach and any… Read more »
He used to be (if you call hate graffiti ‘political activism’), but he’s escalated since then. Last time he was caught he was in the middle of a killing spree against video game store owners.
I couldn’t remember if he burnt down game stores or just tagged them with graffiti, I guess that qualifies as political activism, but this is more spree killer than serial killer in my opinion
It’s matter of definition. Serial Killers like to kill a particular type of victim. Is killing video game store owners a different vibe than targets people who live in yellow houses like the Night Stalker did? YMMV.
Uh, yea it is, killing certain store owners is more like a political hit or something, killing people with houses that are a certain color sounds like something out of a comic book
And besides, if The Troll is legit with his threat, youll need to worry about the possibility of a dead man’s switch – or a system that in the event the troll is killed or incompacitated , the gas bomb activates. In such a situation, youll either need to talk the troll into disabling the dead man’s switch or distract him long enough to get a technician in there unnoticed to disable the dead man’s switch.
And the troll, being the troll, likely would have mentioned he had such a switch regardless if it actually exists in his bomb
The problem with this reasoning is that Alex and Elijah think that the Troll can be reasoned with or has a fair point. All three are criminals who teams up under what they believe are both realistic and compatible ideologies. They TRULY BELIEVE that the Troll is using this to defeat a hero who shouldnt exist in the first place, and wouldnt REALLY send the fumes out. Or if the Troll does, its only because the Heroes didnt bow down and listen. We also dont know how long the Troll will give everyone to have any real debate about the… Read more »
Umm.. no. Killing someone who is demanding that you hurt yourself or they will hurt or kill an entire city… is not any shape or form of fascism. How ridiculous. And they did make an attempt to solve it peacefully, they were refused.
Ethan and Lucas have already tried several times to reach a peaceful resolution. They captured the Troll multiple times, he has escaped from custody in the hospital and escaped from prison.
I would say, if they catch the Troll this time, and the authorities put him in the best most secure prison they have, and he gets out AGAIN and pulls another terrorist plot? It’s definitely time to Deathblood him.
What if they have a dead man switch? Vaporise them, and release the gas. However you spin it, there is some blame on the people pulling the trigger before they understand the full situation.
They do? When was the last time that happened in the real world, beyond a prisoner swap? When terrorists held a lethal weapon up to innocent civilian heads? There’s no moments like these in the comics.
Definitely enough to just block the vent shaft. Destroying the tank would not be very good as it wouldn’t be contained and will leak through any windows or other openings of the building. Well, the exact consequences depend on what’s actually inside the tank in terms of physical properties. For all we know it could be empty or contain harmless stuff as well.
Oh, he could deinitely sever the pipes connecting that thing to the ventilation shaft.
But the trouble with jury-rigged WMD’s is that you never know what they will do when you start breaking bits of them.
Actually, yeah, I never considered that the troll could make Analog and D-Pad get in the vat and also spray omnitropolis, too. Seems like a very troll thing to do.
Unfortunately for everyone, he doesn’t know him well enough to know that. The Troll probably told him everything he wanted to hear, but as we the reader knows The Troll has his own agenda.
Gonfrask
23 days ago
Ok Elijah, the ball is in your roof, I’m leaving. Talk with the Troll about it
Game Boy volunteers to jump in first, citing that he swore to protect others like the protagonist in video games, even if that means sacrificing himself.
Oh geez, I didn’t think of that possibility. Man, Ethan promised his mom she’d keep him safe, too.
James Rye
23 days ago
So as long as they manage to disable the poison bomb or block the exhaust of it somehow, then the Troll’s threat is void and they can go arrest him. Good thing its so obviously large and easy to spot. Shame about Elijah, I wonder when he will understand that a Troll doesn’t care about winning or losing but about “trolling” aka have people dance to their tune and still keep messing with them. Even if he gets Ethan to jump into the pool, he would still release the poison gas just to make Ethan’s sacrifice worthless aka he got… Read more »
Crestlinger
23 days ago
Arrow Decapitate snot rag at throat and limbs; they would never make good on that promise. And Then try to Talk with Elijah.
MJC
23 days ago
Elijah not doing anything to change my opinion of him right now. Maybe he finally wakes up by the end of this arc but at the moment he continues to sound completely irredeemable.
Last edited 23 days ago by MJC
rdh288
23 days ago
I predict Ethan will do it, then rez, resolving the “does he still have powers?” arc.
Maybe Ethan and Lucas discussed prior and the plan is for Ethan to jump in and Lucas to immediately decapitate him so he respawns without the transformation. He doesn’t respawn at exactly the same point (he beat Black Hat/Alex by dying in front of him and then respawning behind him). Risky, but maybe they decided it’s worth the risk?
Phire
23 days ago
One of those arrows could very quickly and easily cut through the lines attached to that vent shaft.
Cords might be a bad idea.
If I was making a dead man switch in Troll’s shoes (and was villing to gas the city), I’d make in a way, than when the power is cut, the gas is released. (like a powered mechanism holding it closed, then when the power is off, gravity/physics does the rest and it opens)
some guy
23 days ago
If that tank is the only one to be released into the city, then this just became super easy. All Lucas has to do is sever those two tubes with an arrow and the plan is foiled.
Maybe with some comedic luck, the chemicals start to flow out of the loose hose straignt down on the Troll.
John
23 days ago
So uh, we’re all in agreement that Elijah is kind of an idiot, right?
And he’s descended down a slippery slope. Killing video game shop owners that he (however erroneously) believes are responsible for a plague of violence / bad things in the city is one thing. He’s doing those murders for the good of the city and it’s inhabitants. He’s wrong, but he has a moral reason for his actions. Killing / mutating the entire city because two video game themed heroes wouldn’t submit to the troll’s Saw V plot device? What possible justification could there be for that? “I killed the whole city to save them from themselves.”? Also, thinking about it,… Read more »
Kenju
23 days ago
Oh, I would just LOVE to see Elijah’s reaction to Game Boy volunteering and walking up to jump in first. If his deal is doing this to protect the kids, then a kid calling his bluff by willingly putting themselves in danger is the perfect way to also call him on his bullshit.
And if he tries to stop Game Boy even better because that puts him in touch distance, which will freeze him on the spot.
toughluck
23 days ago
I wonder who’s the bigger psychopath here. The Troll, or Elijah, who views driving people to suicide not only an acceptable solution, but a preferred one.
He’s the personification of two stereotypes, the extremist who thinks all of society’s ills are down to one single cause combined with the belief that video games cause violence. Elijah would find a way to make it video games fault that there was traffic during rush hour.
What, are you saying it isn’t? Just look at all the times people are playing video games outside of rush hour. If they’d use some of those hours to commute instead, there’d be much less rush hour traffic. But noo, they all insist on driving around the same time. Which they probably also learned from those racing games, where everyone always starts to drive at the same time.
Lrbearclaw
23 days ago
Meh, use an arrow to cut the straps holding the container up and gravity will do the rest.
Jeff
23 days ago
You also can’t negotiate with trolls. Their only goal is to make you suffer.
Del Cox
23 days ago
Waiting for Lucas to just make an arrow cut the lines leading into the ventilation system.
“And what’s Plan C, because even an idiot should’ve seen that coming?”
Plan C: That tank is a fake, and the real tanks are elsewhere. Cutting those lines just triggers the real tanks.
Autesticle
23 days ago
Might be kind of a stupid take but Lucas should just kill the troll with an arrow. This dude is actively threatening to kill thousands of people, he is literally a terrorist, and its’s not like his finger is hovering over the Button That Sprays Toxic Chemicals.
Daniel
23 days ago
Since the ultimatum was known, and as it was really unlikely that any of the three will just give up, and also the heroes are not going to dip themselves as it solves nothing – I can’t see what the heroes hoped that would happen. I sure hope they planned off screen something better than: “Let’s step in and reveal our number and location, do a few pages of negotiation with terrorists, wait for it to blow up as expected then cut to fighting two speedsters at once.”
Pyre
23 days ago
And this is where Thundress hits the railing with enough electricity to electrocute everybody standing on the metal platforms.
Then she turns to the others and says “Eh, y’all were taking too long. Don’t worry. They’re probably not dead.”
Asterus
23 days ago
It is a little funny that they are trying to talk it out with the person with the highest confirmed body count and completely ignoring the person with the lowest (I think Alex hasn’t killed anyone yet?). From Thunderess’ perspective, Elijah’s probably the first one to blast as a speedster and serial killer, and we only believe it might work because Elijah’s had the most screentime so far
Greevar
22 days ago
Elijah is just an idiot with too much power at this point. Nothing about this is going to achieve his goal. If they jump in, it does nothing of substance. If they don’t, the Troll releases the poison. Nothing is gained in either scenario. No violence is reduced by any of this. It’s a pointless spectacle. He’s too stupid to recognize you can’t stop violence by getting rid of video games that “glorify” it. History was far, far more violent before video games. It is far less violent today than it was 40, 100, or 1,000 years ago. People like… Read more »
Last edited 22 days ago by Greevar
Someone
22 days ago
I seriously gotta ask.
How long has Elijah been standing there inhaling these toxic chemicals? Because that’s literally the only explanation for him to go along with this bullshit.
Shona-SoF
21 days ago
I’m looking at all the comments on how people think A&D should handle the situation and why. The problem is that no matter what they do there’s always going to be armchair quarterbacks and people with the clarity of hindsight that will complain and insist _they_ know how the problem could have been solved. They kill the troll and save the city? They’re brutal thugs! What if (X) had happened?? They kill the Troll and the gas is released? They should have tried more peaceful measures! They hold back and the troll releases the gas? They should have just killed… Read more »
24
Don’t negotiate with terrorists. Thunder Lady should just turn this guy into a mist.
The darn thing is that this can confirm an image of fascism.
“Oh you don’t agree so you just kill them?”
You have to make some attempt at peaceful resolution/3rd option.
That’s nice and all, but they are all literally ready to kill and/or maim thousands of people.
I’m sorry but their discussion privileges have already been revoked.
Stix is right. The Troll can’t be reasoned with, but Alex and Elijah offer an opportunity to turn them against the Troll. Alex hasn’t committed a crime this bad yet. Do they expect to just walk away after? Even Elijah as a serial killer might get a worse sentence if he’s gassing the town. Talking before blasting can create allies with inside knowledge, powers to stop the others and thereby preventing the disaster. Not to mention that it would be standard procedure for any civilised police force. Establish communication, check out the demands, see how far they reach and any… Read more »
Is Elijah a serial killer? I thought he was a political arsonist or something
I think you mean activist, not arsonist?
He used to be (if you call hate graffiti ‘political activism’), but he’s escalated since then. Last time he was caught he was in the middle of a killing spree against video game store owners.
I couldn’t remember if he burnt down game stores or just tagged them with graffiti, I guess that qualifies as political activism, but this is more spree killer than serial killer in my opinion
In the last arc with Elijah, he had escalated to killing owners of video game and gun stores. He is a serial killer.
It’s matter of definition. Serial Killers like to kill a particular type of victim. Is killing video game store owners a different vibe than targets people who live in yellow houses like the Night Stalker did? YMMV.
Uh, yea it is, killing certain store owners is more like a political hit or something, killing people with houses that are a certain color sounds like something out of a comic book
that still fits the definition of serial killing, he targets a specific type and no others.
And besides, if The Troll is legit with his threat, youll need to worry about the possibility of a dead man’s switch – or a system that in the event the troll is killed or incompacitated , the gas bomb activates. In such a situation, youll either need to talk the troll into disabling the dead man’s switch or distract him long enough to get a technician in there unnoticed to disable the dead man’s switch.
And the troll, being the troll, likely would have mentioned he had such a switch regardless if it actually exists in his bomb
Or a fast man switch. I mean, Elijah could probably pull triggering it off before anyone manages to stop him.
Unless he hesitates about it. How far is he -really- willing to go…?
The problem with this reasoning is that Alex and Elijah think that the Troll can be reasoned with or has a fair point. All three are criminals who teams up under what they believe are both realistic and compatible ideologies. They TRULY BELIEVE that the Troll is using this to defeat a hero who shouldnt exist in the first place, and wouldnt REALLY send the fumes out. Or if the Troll does, its only because the Heroes didnt bow down and listen. We also dont know how long the Troll will give everyone to have any real debate about the… Read more »
Umm.. no. Killing someone who is demanding that you hurt yourself or they will hurt or kill an entire city… is not any shape or form of fascism. How ridiculous. And they did make an attempt to solve it peacefully, they were refused.
Ethan and Lucas have already tried several times to reach a peaceful resolution. They captured the Troll multiple times, he has escaped from custody in the hospital and escaped from prison.
I would say, if they catch the Troll this time, and the authorities put him in the best most secure prison they have, and he gets out AGAIN and pulls another terrorist plot? It’s definitely time to Deathblood him.
The Batman Paradox
What if they have a dead man switch? Vaporise them, and release the gas. However you spin it, there is some blame on the people pulling the trigger before they understand the full situation.
in the real world ppl negociate with terrorists all day long tho :/
They do? When was the last time that happened in the real world, beyond a prisoner swap? When terrorists held a lethal weapon up to innocent civilian heads? There’s no moments like these in the comics.
Am I the only one who’s brain insists on seeing the substring “undress” when her name gets mentioned?
What’s the range on D-Pad’s arrows? If it’s just one tank, would seem pretty easy to just stop the chemical release by breaking it, right?
Definitely enough to just block the vent shaft. Destroying the tank would not be very good as it wouldn’t be contained and will leak through any windows or other openings of the building. Well, the exact consequences depend on what’s actually inside the tank in terms of physical properties. For all we know it could be empty or contain harmless stuff as well.
BTW, I’m not sure that vent shaft is even an exhaust in the first place. It could be drawing air from outside actually.
Oh, he could deinitely sever the pipes connecting that thing to the ventilation shaft.
But the trouble with jury-rigged WMD’s is that you never know what they will do when you start breaking bits of them.
Weren’t there supposed to be multiple vats throughout the city? Or so he claimed. This on is just there for our heroes to take a bath in.
The situations is so filled with anxiety, that this happy “eeeee” is really welcoming. 😀
Elijah…dumbass…he’s a TROLL! He’s just gonna release it anyway!
Actually, yeah, I never considered that the troll could make Analog and D-Pad get in the vat and also spray omnitropolis, too. Seems like a very troll thing to do.
Unfortunately for everyone, he doesn’t know him well enough to know that. The Troll probably told him everything he wanted to hear, but as we the reader knows The Troll has his own agenda.
Ok Elijah, the ball is in your roof, I’m leaving. Talk with the Troll about it
“Then you’ve just confirmed my bias that video games make people violent by deciding to injure all of these people and not sacrifice yourself.”
Game Boy volunteers to jump in first, citing that he swore to protect others like the protagonist in video games, even if that means sacrificing himself.
Oh geez, I didn’t think of that possibility. Man, Ethan promised his mom she’d keep him safe, too.
So as long as they manage to disable the poison bomb or block the exhaust of it somehow, then the Troll’s threat is void and they can go arrest him. Good thing its so obviously large and easy to spot. Shame about Elijah, I wonder when he will understand that a Troll doesn’t care about winning or losing but about “trolling” aka have people dance to their tune and still keep messing with them. Even if he gets Ethan to jump into the pool, he would still release the poison gas just to make Ethan’s sacrifice worthless aka he got… Read more »
Arrow Decapitate snot rag at throat and limbs; they would never make good on that promise. And Then try to Talk with Elijah.
Elijah not doing anything to change my opinion of him right now. Maybe he finally wakes up by the end of this arc but at the moment he continues to sound completely irredeemable.
I predict Ethan will do it, then rez, resolving the “does he still have powers?” arc.
Maybe Ethan and Lucas discussed prior and the plan is for Ethan to jump in and Lucas to immediately decapitate him so he respawns without the transformation. He doesn’t respawn at exactly the same point (he beat Black Hat/Alex by dying in front of him and then respawning behind him). Risky, but maybe they decided it’s worth the risk?
One of those arrows could very quickly and easily cut through the lines attached to that vent shaft.
Or even the electric cords powering it.
Cords might be a bad idea.
If I was making a dead man switch in Troll’s shoes (and was villing to gas the city), I’d make in a way, than when the power is cut, the gas is released. (like a powered mechanism holding it closed, then when the power is off, gravity/physics does the rest and it opens)
If that tank is the only one to be released into the city, then this just became super easy. All Lucas has to do is sever those two tubes with an arrow and the plan is foiled.
Maybe with some comedic luck, the chemicals start to flow out of the loose hose straignt down on the Troll.
So uh, we’re all in agreement that Elijah is kind of an idiot, right?
I thought killing a bunch of video game store owners was extreme, but teaming up with the troll? Whole new levels of “taking your ideology too far”.
And he’s descended down a slippery slope. Killing video game shop owners that he (however erroneously) believes are responsible for a plague of violence / bad things in the city is one thing. He’s doing those murders for the good of the city and it’s inhabitants. He’s wrong, but he has a moral reason for his actions. Killing / mutating the entire city because two video game themed heroes wouldn’t submit to the troll’s Saw V plot device? What possible justification could there be for that? “I killed the whole city to save them from themselves.”? Also, thinking about it,… Read more »
Oh, I would just LOVE to see Elijah’s reaction to Game Boy volunteering and walking up to jump in first. If his deal is doing this to protect the kids, then a kid calling his bluff by willingly putting themselves in danger is the perfect way to also call him on his bullshit.
And if he tries to stop Game Boy even better because that puts him in touch distance, which will freeze him on the spot.
I wonder who’s the bigger psychopath here. The Troll, or Elijah, who views driving people to suicide not only an acceptable solution, but a preferred one.
He’s the personification of two stereotypes, the extremist who thinks all of society’s ills are down to one single cause combined with the belief that video games cause violence. Elijah would find a way to make it video games fault that there was traffic during rush hour.
What, are you saying it isn’t? Just look at all the times people are playing video games outside of rush hour. If they’d use some of those hours to commute instead, there’d be much less rush hour traffic. But noo, they all insist on driving around the same time. Which they probably also learned from those racing games, where everyone always starts to drive at the same time.
Meh, use an arrow to cut the straps holding the container up and gravity will do the rest.
You also can’t negotiate with trolls. Their only goal is to make you suffer.
Waiting for Lucas to just make an arrow cut the lines leading into the ventilation system.
“And what’s Plan C, because even an idiot should’ve seen that coming?”
Plan C: That tank is a fake, and the real tanks are elsewhere. Cutting those lines just triggers the real tanks.
Might be kind of a stupid take but Lucas should just kill the troll with an arrow. This dude is actively threatening to kill thousands of people, he is literally a terrorist, and its’s not like his finger is hovering over the Button That Sprays Toxic Chemicals.
Since the ultimatum was known, and as it was really unlikely that any of the three will just give up, and also the heroes are not going to dip themselves as it solves nothing – I can’t see what the heroes hoped that would happen. I sure hope they planned off screen something better than: “Let’s step in and reveal our number and location, do a few pages of negotiation with terrorists, wait for it to blow up as expected then cut to fighting two speedsters at once.”
And this is where Thundress hits the railing with enough electricity to electrocute everybody standing on the metal platforms.
Then she turns to the others and says “Eh, y’all were taking too long. Don’t worry. They’re probably not dead.”
It is a little funny that they are trying to talk it out with the person with the highest confirmed body count and completely ignoring the person with the lowest (I think Alex hasn’t killed anyone yet?). From Thunderess’ perspective, Elijah’s probably the first one to blast as a speedster and serial killer, and we only believe it might work because Elijah’s had the most screentime so far
Elijah is just an idiot with too much power at this point. Nothing about this is going to achieve his goal. If they jump in, it does nothing of substance. If they don’t, the Troll releases the poison. Nothing is gained in either scenario. No violence is reduced by any of this. It’s a pointless spectacle. He’s too stupid to recognize you can’t stop violence by getting rid of video games that “glorify” it. History was far, far more violent before video games. It is far less violent today than it was 40, 100, or 1,000 years ago. People like… Read more »
I seriously gotta ask.
How long has Elijah been standing there inhaling these toxic chemicals? Because that’s literally the only explanation for him to go along with this bullshit.
I’m looking at all the comments on how people think A&D should handle the situation and why. The problem is that no matter what they do there’s always going to be armchair quarterbacks and people with the clarity of hindsight that will complain and insist _they_ know how the problem could have been solved. They kill the troll and save the city? They’re brutal thugs! What if (X) had happened?? They kill the Troll and the gas is released? They should have tried more peaceful measures! They hold back and the troll releases the gas? They should have just killed… Read more »