Killing him seems a bit much actually. Throwing him off the roof doesn’t solve the hostage situation. He just needs to stall to get as much time for phase guy and the police to find the hostages and save them. With the trolls track record there’s little chance they would let him go outright, so they near certainly would want to capture him. He was relatively unguarded the first time he was caught. He was unconscious in a hospital. I see no reason why he couldn’t be contained by a normal prison, except plot reasons. If Analog throws him off… Read more »
It would be hilarious if DC comics exist in this universe and he just starts roasting him as a generic brand Joker wanna be. Personally, that’s the only way I see Analog winning is trolling the Troll long enough for the hostages to be saved.
So I understand this is a personal struggle for Analog to test his morals and that ultimately killing the troll would break him, but I don’t think this would destroy the public faith in superheros. We don’t really have a clear picture of what the public expects from superheroes. Maybe the public already hates supers, but the government has largely decided to ignore public opinion for the greater good. Maybe its All-Might era MHA and the public loves supers, but all non-sanctioned heroes are immediately branded villains. I know there are the government sanctioned ones that would likely have to… Read more »
All he had to do is let go (“I was so surprised at being thrown off a second time by an alleged superhero lolz”) and all the above will still happen, less one dead and thus potentially recurring villain.
Analog has two hands. Grab the switch with one, shove him to the net with the other.
However, I think there are no hostages (Phasar seems like he’d have found them with ease) and that switch is actually for releasing the goo container the Troll said was “something special” for Analog.
Yeah, pointing out that a narrative contrivance keeps releasing the Joker doesn’t mean anything.
“Ethan! Authors in a different universe keep letting the Joker out of an asylum in order to write another comic book! This means you should murder the person in front of you!”
Just because there’s an overused genre cliche in some other work doesn’t mean you need to contort your morality around that.
That reasoning has some weight just because every story-teller that wants to reach full potential is going to give prisons and asylums weak security so that a given villain reaches peak millage. What most people get wrong is suggesting that it then becomes the vigilante’s duty to take a life, but what the hell have Gotham police been doing after the 50th Joker spree? At that point, the entire city will look the other way if Gordon improvises a street execution and Batman still gets to keep his hands clean. It sends a message to other super-criminals too: “The crazy… Read more »
Presumably Gordon would be upholding the same standards as Batman, I believe The Killing Joke states that, though no telling what a random guard might do. It’s a fair question to ask why the Joker keeps being considered too insane to face trial and thus locked in an asylum. I know there have been various explanations in the comics but I’m not sure there’s ever been a good look at why the criminals haven’t met any “unfortunate accidents” considering they are mostly human.
Here’s the thing that people forget, though. ARKHAM ASYLUM IS NOT A PRISON. It’s a psychiatric hospital. The reason the villains can escape is because it doesn’t have the security of a prison because, well, it’s NOT a prison.
Police and military kill terrorists all the time. This isn’t very different, just with a superhero foil around what would be a colossal security situation in the real world. Morality, like everything, isn’t black and white.
Not an argument, since how many innocents they both kill pretty often. And you dont kill someone unless you NEED to, to save lives. Not to get revenge.
Ethan can still stop him without killing him. Phazar is there to assist, remember, if things go sideways. The cops are on site as well. If he kills The Troll, they’ll likely only see him the way the troll WANTS them to see him. As another Deathblood.
Figgly
7 months ago
i wonder if Analog can grab that dead-man’s switch from here… he just needs to grab it and keep pressure on it… then he could drop the Troll no problem.
Might need a jab to the gut or shoulder to try and force him to loosen his grip on it though.
If he takes it away he doesn’t need to do anything. The Troll is surrounded by police and has no superpowers (that we know of). Shoving him isn’t necessary. Hell there’s snipers itching to take the shot right now.
Phasar could appear and take it, this would definitely be the opening.
ears
7 months ago
I’m a bit surprised it’s actually the real one
Gonfrask
7 months ago
“Then seems like we are going to have a long relationship”
Esc
7 months ago
It’s so boring to see everyone just cheer “do it!” After the comic spent a whole chapter detailing our hero’s philosophy and ethics. Like severely missing the entire point.
Will you then murder all the copycat Trolls? I’m sure that will do WONDERS for Ethan’s reputation, especially when Captain Prime comes after him and Lilah’s stories depict him as a murderer since…you know…that’s exactly what he’ll become. For that matter, why stop at killing Trolls? Just go full-on Deathblood. I’m sure that Carlie would be VERY proud of her brother for that. Oh yeah, and what about when Lucas and Scott want nothing to do with him? Do we kill them too for WANTING the Troll to live? And what about the XBot when it decides that Ethan is… Read more »
That’s a very boring slippery slope type argument.
Stick to killing people who you know have killed first. Very simple rule to follow.
Do the copycat trolls start also burning down buildings, or driving people to suicide? Fair game. Two of your friends don’t like you anymore? How on earth would you possibly think they should die for that? Do you lack nuance?
You think Deathblood follows that same code? You think the copycat Trolls won’t easily trigger Ethan that same way? Fake Dead Man Switch, mention his sister, remind him how he killed the Troll, and you think it’s perfectly rational that Ethan will say “No, have to wait until there’s a body count.” If he DID, the same people saying “No, he wouldn’t kill THEM!” will say that he knew what they’d do because they’re just like the Troll and he should have killed THEM when he had the chance. And yeah…when Lucas and Scott give him a “What the HELL??”… Read more »
I don’t agree with Deathblood being ok with killing Ethan. That was bad take from him. But I am totally ok with him killing the drug dealers, and I particularly cringed at Ethan’s misplaced heroicness to try to save the very people who JUST TRIED TO MURDER HIM. About that body count… actually now comes a grey area, we all know the trolls are arsonists, and that can easily lead to people dying, even if nobody actually dies, I’d still say the arsonist must be shut down, hard. Now, also I don’t think killing is the only option, or even… Read more »
I take issue with the part of being ok killing the drug dealers. Ethan had them to a point that they were ready to talk, considering giving up. Deathblood coming in and murdering them is nothing short of breaking the Geneva convention. The criminals even had a long time during the talk between Analog and Deathblood to do something while holding weapons, but they didn’t. I do not agree with the drug dealers killing others. They need to be stopped by any means necessary. But just outright killing them is done in no area of the civilised world. If they… Read more »
A failure of the system is a start to improve it, yes. But that improvement takes time, and meanwhile you must deal with the ways it’s failing *right now* The situation of the drug dealers in particular depends on what would have happened if they had surrendered. Would they have been imprisoned? Then sure, that’s a good outcome. But I read the archive, at least one of them had been imprisoned already and then let go. Would they all have been let go? In that case… That “civilized world” is a sham, the social contract has already been broken, and… Read more »
It stops at killing people who haven’t killed anyone else.
There are definitely still grey areas there, like preventing a future murder or the case when someone didn’t pull the trigger themselves but were still the cause of it, but it definitely doesn’t have to degrade into a Deathblood or Kira like “lul I’ll just murder everyone who disagrees with me”
There’s a difference between whether you or I would mind the Troll dying, and whether Ethan should be allowed to kill him. If you construct a morality system that says “It’s ok to kill someone who has killed” then it’s also ok to kill the person who served “justice”, otherwise you’d need a system to enable debate on which kills are justified and which are not. And if you have that, then everyone is entitled to their case being considered, and to simplify the system you’ll probably want to restrict who is “allowed” to even do these justice-approved killings. We… Read more »
I actually have given some thought to this, as you’ve explained it. One way to view this is, let’s say there is a social contract, which can actually be outright “do not kill anyone”, everyone lives by that social contract, nobody kills anyone, everyone wins. If one person kills, that person has just broken the social contract, and are no longer covered by it. At this point, if anyone kills them, they themselves aren’t breaking the contract because the first person has already broken it first. Another way to view it is something like Popper’s paradox; you can’t preach absolute… Read more »
I do like that you’ve put some thought into it, but it seems you’ve kind of missed what I was getting at. Even with your example, what happens if I kill someone and claim that I was allowed to because that person had broken the social contract? How do we know if I was right, how can we prove the guilt of the person I targetted? How can we know whether I’m innocent or not? Any sane system will eventually evolve into having a court, and officers of the legal system who are empowered to do the law’s bidding rather… Read more »
Interesting, I find the oposite actually rather boring: Heroes always going above and beyond to make sure a murderous villain survives (so he can kill and terrorize another day).
I honestly found the first Deadpool movie ending so refreshing when he decides to shoot the bad guy in the end.
It’s just… the Batman vs Punisher argument has been going for ages, do you really think that Tim’s take on it is the be-all, end-all argument that resolves it forever after?
Yeah, i think it’s why these arcs are back to back, it’s almost pointing to Ethan and saying “Alright, you can talk about being rational and not killing for the idea of keeping others safe, but can you actually do so when you’re tempted by it too? At what point does the line become blurry for you?”
I’m very interested to see how this goes after such a long discussion about personal morality!
Lord Foxxy Foxington
7 months ago
You dont have to kill him, but you can paralyse him from the neck down so he’s never a threat to anyone ever again.
With todays technology (and assuming the parallel universe is as, or more, advanced) there’s a lot of trolling you can still do even as a quadriplegic. Voice to text and his legion(?) of followers would still leave him nearly as much of a risk as he is right now.
I would offer a different theory. He’s a troll both in mind as well as form now. He might have troll powers, like regeneration. With how Analog and Dpad got their powers it would be par for the course. He would survive the fall and spring the final part of the trap. Online trolls and the troll himself would have a field day. Analog’s reputation in shambles. Superheroes in general put to question. Even police can be put into question for working together with Analog and failing to protect the hostages or take in the troll normally.
The plan can actually already be enacted. Analog moved him towards the edge violently. There are probably cameras nearby to tape the event and spread it. The troll can just fall off the roof himself and with the magic of editing Analog has thrown him off the roof.
Zanquis
7 months ago
Plot twist, most people don’t know about analog respawn powers, so he managed to flip it around, let the troll push HIM off the edge and then he gets to be trolled about pushing analog over the edge. What is worse for a troll than having their stuff backfire?
No one taking their bait would probably be worse than backfiring, but we’ve already seen what happens when you ignore this troll.
Merida
7 months ago
Kiss him. On the lips. Shock the troll. I cannot decide if grabbimg the trigger or Analog jumping off the building as of he was pushed would be better.
Not such a bad idea … then start pittying him for being such a poor thingy … like he is just a little baby that doesnt understand shit … hurts him way more than throwing him off the roof 🙂
The Aussie Bloke
7 months ago
Spin-fling him onto the roof behind you, Analog. Get him away from the edge so he can’t manipulate events to look like you “threw him again”
I can definitely see that happening. Analog getting control of his emotions, and releasing The Troll. Who will then just step back and free fall into the great beyond. Obviously if this happens the other more powerful sup (whose name I forget) will show up just in time to get a bad view of it and think he witnessed a murder.
I really hope it’s not the case. The whole “innocent person picking up the murder weapon right as the cops enter the room” is painfully played out.
Thomas D
7 months ago
Well, that would be one of the main differences, in my opinion, between a hero and a vigilante.
Letting go and dropping the Troll would be easy, but that’s taking justice into your own hands. And that is not something a hero does.
I personally am surprised at the amount of people going against killing or maiming him. Seeing the flak some people including me have had before for not killing the bad dudes, it seemed many were already convinced to kill the troll with fire and acid asap without further consideration.
Frankly, I think the disagreement in the comments is a sign that Tim’s constructed a VERY good story here, even if it’s proving a little divisive. I think a lot of this comes down to how you internalize the scene. If you compartmentalize it as strictly fiction in which the author has given us objective proof that the troll is irredeemably evil and a threat to the lives of others, then murder is fine within the confines of that thought experiment. But if you are interpreting the scene as a representation of real-life trolls, then the calls for murder start… Read more »
Even if you have a terrorist, you follow the rules. Shoving him off the building doesn’t save the hostages. Once the hostages are secured, shoving him off the building doesn’t save anyone else either.
That is actually a good point! Did they take it from Analog after the incident with the random pedestrian in the fight with the construction suit guy (iirc)? He glued a random civilian to the sidewalk and by accident suggested to immolate the guy to free him.
Bloof
7 months ago
He seems quite triggered! Still, it seems a bit drastic to allow himself to come so close to the thing he was was actively trying to avoid. Maybe it is part of a ruse?
The troll is very joker- like but unfortunately analog is no batman. The troll is very under his skin right now.
Jacob
7 months ago
“This is where the real game begins…”
RIP Mittensquad
FireballDragon
7 months ago
“You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”
Last edited 7 months ago by FireballDragon
Ben
7 months ago
Do now, Analog. Masturbate at him furiously as a distraction!
Richard II Weatherfield
7 months ago
I’m remembering something lucas said in an earlier strip: This life might no give you a choice on what kind of hero you want to be…
austindorf
7 months ago
No one knows Analog power. No one (save the master) know that Ethan is Analogue.
He can fake his death, stunning the troll who doesn’t expect this, leaving d+pad to capture him, and then begin again after some weeks with a new superhero identity.
… Did you read any of the comic where Zeke talks about the Master? Loathing is too mild for how Zeke feels about him. And you think he would somehow team up with the guy that enslaved him, tortured him, and turned him genocidal out of pure hatred for them?
Paul
7 months ago
What if Ethan grabs the dead-man’s switch but the Troll kills him, knowing that he’ll respawn without it and the bomb goes boom? Helluva way to cause him pain…
SteelX
7 months ago
Damn. He is basically Analog’s Joker.
Nightdagger
7 months ago
Ethan is many things.
A murder is not one of them. He’s impulsive, reckless, and fickle, but he’s not going to intentionally kill The Troll. What he MIGHT try to do, though, is take advantage of his own immortality to secure the dead-man’s switch from him, potentially taking a fall that’d only be potentially lethal to one of them in the process…
Nightdagger
7 months ago
Although admittedly what I think is about to happen here is that Ethan’s going to let him go, the Troll is going to jump off the roof and detonate the bomb, and some other superhero is going to see this, assume Analog actually DID kill him, and arrest him on the spot…thus the title of the arc being “Surrender”.
Eldest Gruff
7 months ago
The one thing that really – really – gets a troll isn’t anger, or ignoring them, or anything else.
It’s real empathy. And pity, when applicable. Without malice.
Trolls don’t want that. They wear their own mask. You’re not getting mad at THEM, you’re getting mad at the mask. So they stand behind it and cackle.
But pity them? Look past the mask?
I hope that Ethan does give him a good, heartfelt apology.
… fair point. It’s been a while, so I forgot that he was a terrorist and murderer long before the fall.
My statements above were more applicable to internet trolls – some of which certainly are psychopaths, but most of who are just normal people, using the anonymity of the internet to get a rise out of someone else.
The Troll’s level of insight into other people’s behavior here isn’t consistent with a psychopath.
Sociopath sure, but not a psychopath.
He understands the rules of society and makes a conscious choice to break them.
Robert
7 months ago
Come on, hug him already.
william
7 months ago
he is totally going to just walk away with a meh not worth my time moment which to me will have the troll slip and fall on his own.
Xolodno
7 months ago
Just walk away, I doubt he has hostages to begin with.
Kevin Greenbaum
7 months ago
Time for Phasar to intervene, even if the Troll has it coming this is definitely a “threat to human life” like he was talking about. And we have no idea if he actually has hostages, nobody has found them to confirm, he could be holding a switch as a bluff.
That_Guy
7 months ago
Stop feeding the Troll, cmon. I thought we learned this already
Crestlinger
7 months ago
Arrow to the hand. He Has line of sight. Just….don’t fumble the play.
Or more sneaky. Elevate a certain Pause in the action and out troll the troll.
jjX___
7 months ago
“Hey Phasar. I know you’re listening. Have you secured the hostages yet?”
Frizbee
7 months ago
“Go ahead, release the trigger. I’ll be okay, you and the hostages won’t, but then, you’re going to do whatever you want regardless of my actions or words. I’m not going to play your game, because you’re the troll. You have no power over me.”
Either he goes to release the trigger and the other superhero takes him out (or has already rescued the hostages), OR he doesn’t, and he’s lost anyway.
Last edited 7 months ago by Frizbee
Mousio
7 months ago
Ho boy! For those saying Ethan should just kill him now, that’s not an option. for a few reasons: One, that’s not his way. From what we’ve seen so far, he’s much more of a “stop innocents from getting killed” than “kill the crime at its root” kinda guy. Can’t say for sure he can’t be pushed to it (and troll is probably counting on it), but that’s what he is. Two, they’re dealing with troll. For all we know, everything he does is a misdirection. The remote? It may just be a decoy, with someone else holding a real… Read more »
Member
Saixak
7 months ago
Good money says it’s a fake-out to draw attention away from Phasar or even Captain Prime so they can get to work.
PhobosRising
7 months ago
It’s the Grinch with a meth addiction, like he doesn’t stop at presents. All the the Whos down in Whoville, the tall and the small, woke up in bathtubs of ice barely able to crawl.
Laughing Man
7 months ago
Cut off hand while grabbing his hand holding the switch. Punt him over the edge. Hand over switch to bomb squad. Take dump on Troll’s corpse. Make joke about s***-posting, or “There’s your Anal Log, bitch.”
24
How did it take me so much time to draw the Troll/Joker and Analog/Batman parallel? Amazing!
I read too much comics/animated movies/shows to not see it from the start. Sadly I wasn’t as surprised to this.
R O F F L E
Do it. Don’t let him become Joker-like ”Always gets away”
Killing him seems a bit much actually. Throwing him off the roof doesn’t solve the hostage situation. He just needs to stall to get as much time for phase guy and the police to find the hostages and save them. With the trolls track record there’s little chance they would let him go outright, so they near certainly would want to capture him. He was relatively unguarded the first time he was caught. He was unconscious in a hospital. I see no reason why he couldn’t be contained by a normal prison, except plot reasons. If Analog throws him off… Read more »
He could just grab his hand and cut it off?
It would be hilarious if DC comics exist in this universe and he just starts roasting him as a generic brand Joker wanna be. Personally, that’s the only way I see Analog winning is trolling the Troll long enough for the hostages to be saved.
So I understand this is a personal struggle for Analog to test his morals and that ultimately killing the troll would break him, but I don’t think this would destroy the public faith in superheros. We don’t really have a clear picture of what the public expects from superheroes. Maybe the public already hates supers, but the government has largely decided to ignore public opinion for the greater good. Maybe its All-Might era MHA and the public loves supers, but all non-sanctioned heroes are immediately branded villains. I know there are the government sanctioned ones that would likely have to… Read more »
There are cops down there. Maybe with the whole roof-tossing thing, they had the sense to set up a net below?
Except the Troll is holding a dead-man switch.
All he had to do is let go (“I was so surprised at being thrown off a second time by an alleged superhero lolz”) and all the above will still happen, less one dead and thus potentially recurring villain.
Analog has two hands. Grab the switch with one, shove him to the net with the other.
However, I think there are no hostages (Phasar seems like he’d have found them with ease) and that switch is actually for releasing the goo container the Troll said was “something special” for Analog.
Here’s hoping they have actually competent prisons and not something Arkham-like.
Yeah, pointing out that a narrative contrivance keeps releasing the Joker doesn’t mean anything.
“Ethan! Authors in a different universe keep letting the Joker out of an asylum in order to write another comic book! This means you should murder the person in front of you!”
Just because there’s an overused genre cliche in some other work doesn’t mean you need to contort your morality around that.
That reasoning has some weight just because every story-teller that wants to reach full potential is going to give prisons and asylums weak security so that a given villain reaches peak millage. What most people get wrong is suggesting that it then becomes the vigilante’s duty to take a life, but what the hell have Gotham police been doing after the 50th Joker spree? At that point, the entire city will look the other way if Gordon improvises a street execution and Batman still gets to keep his hands clean. It sends a message to other super-criminals too: “The crazy… Read more »
Presumably Gordon would be upholding the same standards as Batman, I believe The Killing Joke states that, though no telling what a random guard might do. It’s a fair question to ask why the Joker keeps being considered too insane to face trial and thus locked in an asylum. I know there have been various explanations in the comics but I’m not sure there’s ever been a good look at why the criminals haven’t met any “unfortunate accidents” considering they are mostly human.
Here’s the thing that people forget, though. ARKHAM ASYLUM IS NOT A PRISON. It’s a psychiatric hospital. The reason the villains can escape is because it doesn’t have the security of a prison because, well, it’s NOT a prison.
Do we have it confirmed that he actually has hostages? He’s claimed it with the dead mans switch but was it confirmed?
Quick, ask the Troll for a time out so we can check on these things! I’m sure he’ll be accommodating.
What if he throws himself off, grabbing the detonator while at it? “Sacrifice” himself, then change costumes and identities going forward.
cool motive, still murder.
Police and military kill terrorists all the time. This isn’t very different, just with a superhero foil around what would be a colossal security situation in the real world. Morality, like everything, isn’t black and white.
Not an argument, since how many innocents they both kill pretty often. And you dont kill someone unless you NEED to, to save lives. Not to get revenge.
Your Honor, I invoke the rule of Cool
Ethan can still stop him without killing him. Phazar is there to assist, remember, if things go sideways. The cops are on site as well. If he kills The Troll, they’ll likely only see him the way the troll WANTS them to see him. As another Deathblood.
i wonder if Analog can grab that dead-man’s switch from here… he just needs to grab it and keep pressure on it… then he could drop the Troll no problem.
Might need a jab to the gut or shoulder to try and force him to loosen his grip on it though.
If he takes it away he doesn’t need to do anything. The Troll is surrounded by police and has no superpowers (that we know of). Shoving him isn’t necessary. Hell there’s snipers itching to take the shot right now.
Phasar could appear and take it, this would definitely be the opening.
I’m a bit surprised it’s actually the real one
“Then seems like we are going to have a long relationship”
It’s so boring to see everyone just cheer “do it!” After the comic spent a whole chapter detailing our hero’s philosophy and ethics. Like severely missing the entire point.
No, we get it, we just don’t agree.
bloodthirsty vigilante wanabe are a plague tbh.
Will you then murder all the copycat Trolls? I’m sure that will do WONDERS for Ethan’s reputation, especially when Captain Prime comes after him and Lilah’s stories depict him as a murderer since…you know…that’s exactly what he’ll become. For that matter, why stop at killing Trolls? Just go full-on Deathblood. I’m sure that Carlie would be VERY proud of her brother for that. Oh yeah, and what about when Lucas and Scott want nothing to do with him? Do we kill them too for WANTING the Troll to live? And what about the XBot when it decides that Ethan is… Read more »
That’s a very boring slippery slope type argument.
Stick to killing people who you know have killed first. Very simple rule to follow.
Do the copycat trolls start also burning down buildings, or driving people to suicide? Fair game. Two of your friends don’t like you anymore? How on earth would you possibly think they should die for that? Do you lack nuance?
You think Deathblood follows that same code? You think the copycat Trolls won’t easily trigger Ethan that same way? Fake Dead Man Switch, mention his sister, remind him how he killed the Troll, and you think it’s perfectly rational that Ethan will say “No, have to wait until there’s a body count.” If he DID, the same people saying “No, he wouldn’t kill THEM!” will say that he knew what they’d do because they’re just like the Troll and he should have killed THEM when he had the chance. And yeah…when Lucas and Scott give him a “What the HELL??”… Read more »
I don’t agree with Deathblood being ok with killing Ethan. That was bad take from him. But I am totally ok with him killing the drug dealers, and I particularly cringed at Ethan’s misplaced heroicness to try to save the very people who JUST TRIED TO MURDER HIM. About that body count… actually now comes a grey area, we all know the trolls are arsonists, and that can easily lead to people dying, even if nobody actually dies, I’d still say the arsonist must be shut down, hard. Now, also I don’t think killing is the only option, or even… Read more »
I take issue with the part of being ok killing the drug dealers. Ethan had them to a point that they were ready to talk, considering giving up. Deathblood coming in and murdering them is nothing short of breaking the Geneva convention. The criminals even had a long time during the talk between Analog and Deathblood to do something while holding weapons, but they didn’t. I do not agree with the drug dealers killing others. They need to be stopped by any means necessary. But just outright killing them is done in no area of the civilised world. If they… Read more »
A failure of the system is a start to improve it, yes. But that improvement takes time, and meanwhile you must deal with the ways it’s failing *right now* The situation of the drug dealers in particular depends on what would have happened if they had surrendered. Would they have been imprisoned? Then sure, that’s a good outcome. But I read the archive, at least one of them had been imprisoned already and then let go. Would they all have been let go? In that case… That “civilized world” is a sham, the social contract has already been broken, and… Read more »
Deathblood kills criminals. Trying to stop him means you’re an accomplice. Crazy, but logical.
No law works that way on the planet. Deathblood is committing crimes. And a big one! Maybe the biggest one!
Just a single question. Where does it stop?
It stops at killing people who haven’t killed anyone else.
There are definitely still grey areas there, like preventing a future murder or the case when someone didn’t pull the trigger themselves but were still the cause of it, but it definitely doesn’t have to degrade into a Deathblood or Kira like “lul I’ll just murder everyone who disagrees with me”
Copycat Troll recreates the Troll’s first act. But no one’s actually DIED yet. Kill or No Kill?
Capture, send to jail.
If he gets out early and it looks like he’d do it again… Yeah. The system had its chance.
I really think it morally boils down to choosing between one known arsonist and multiple unknown people
There’s a difference between whether you or I would mind the Troll dying, and whether Ethan should be allowed to kill him. If you construct a morality system that says “It’s ok to kill someone who has killed” then it’s also ok to kill the person who served “justice”, otherwise you’d need a system to enable debate on which kills are justified and which are not. And if you have that, then everyone is entitled to their case being considered, and to simplify the system you’ll probably want to restrict who is “allowed” to even do these justice-approved killings. We… Read more »
I actually have given some thought to this, as you’ve explained it. One way to view this is, let’s say there is a social contract, which can actually be outright “do not kill anyone”, everyone lives by that social contract, nobody kills anyone, everyone wins. If one person kills, that person has just broken the social contract, and are no longer covered by it. At this point, if anyone kills them, they themselves aren’t breaking the contract because the first person has already broken it first. Another way to view it is something like Popper’s paradox; you can’t preach absolute… Read more »
I do like that you’ve put some thought into it, but it seems you’ve kind of missed what I was getting at. Even with your example, what happens if I kill someone and claim that I was allowed to because that person had broken the social contract? How do we know if I was right, how can we prove the guilt of the person I targetted? How can we know whether I’m innocent or not? Any sane system will eventually evolve into having a court, and officers of the legal system who are empowered to do the law’s bidding rather… Read more »
You know Dexter wasn’t a hero, right?
very simple rule to follow: do not murder people. Every civilized country abolished death penalty long time ago, there is a reason for that.
Interesting, I find the oposite actually rather boring: Heroes always going above and beyond to make sure a murderous villain survives (so he can kill and terrorize another day).
I honestly found the first Deadpool movie ending so refreshing when he decides to shoot the bad guy in the end.
It’s just… the Batman vs Punisher argument has been going for ages, do you really think that Tim’s take on it is the be-all, end-all argument that resolves it forever after?
Yeah, i think it’s why these arcs are back to back, it’s almost pointing to Ethan and saying “Alright, you can talk about being rational and not killing for the idea of keeping others safe, but can you actually do so when you’re tempted by it too? At what point does the line become blurry for you?”
I’m very interested to see how this goes after such a long discussion about personal morality!
You dont have to kill him, but you can paralyse him from the neck down so he’s never a threat to anyone ever again.
With todays technology (and assuming the parallel universe is as, or more, advanced) there’s a lot of trolling you can still do even as a quadriplegic. Voice to text and his legion(?) of followers would still leave him nearly as much of a risk as he is right now.
oh no someone talking, can’t have that, better to kill them.
Just have to look at certain politicians to show how much damage can be caused by ‘just talking’
To be fair, he probably already has instructions to his ‘fans’ to cause chaos if he’s killed or imprisoned.
“Stephen Hawking is back from the dead and trolling!!!” 🙂
So, I have a new theory. The Troll doesn’t want to live anymore, but can’t bring himself to do the deed himself.
I would offer a different theory. He’s a troll both in mind as well as form now. He might have troll powers, like regeneration. With how Analog and Dpad got their powers it would be par for the course. He would survive the fall and spring the final part of the trap. Online trolls and the troll himself would have a field day. Analog’s reputation in shambles. Superheroes in general put to question. Even police can be put into question for working together with Analog and failing to protect the hostages or take in the troll normally.
I like that theory even better. He knows that the fall won’t kill him.
The plan can actually already be enacted. Analog moved him towards the edge violently. There are probably cameras nearby to tape the event and spread it. The troll can just fall off the roof himself and with the magic of editing Analog has thrown him off the roof.
Plot twist, most people don’t know about analog respawn powers, so he managed to flip it around, let the troll push HIM off the edge and then he gets to be trolled about pushing analog over the edge. What is worse for a troll than having their stuff backfire?
No one taking their bait would probably be worse than backfiring, but we’ve already seen what happens when you ignore this troll.
Kiss him. On the lips. Shock the troll. I cannot decide if grabbimg the trigger or Analog jumping off the building as of he was pushed would be better.
That is how fan fiction/nightmares start
As gross as that is- I like the way you think.
Not such a bad idea … then start pittying him for being such a poor thingy … like he is just a little baby that doesnt understand shit … hurts him way more than throwing him off the roof 🙂
Spin-fling him onto the roof behind you, Analog. Get him away from the edge so he can’t manipulate events to look like you “threw him again”
I can definitely see that happening. Analog getting control of his emotions, and releasing The Troll. Who will then just step back and free fall into the great beyond. Obviously if this happens the other more powerful sup (whose name I forget) will show up just in time to get a bad view of it and think he witnessed a murder.
I really hope it’s not the case. The whole “innocent person picking up the murder weapon right as the cops enter the room” is painfully played out.
Well, that would be one of the main differences, in my opinion, between a hero and a vigilante.
Letting go and dropping the Troll would be easy, but that’s taking justice into your own hands. And that is not something a hero does.
exactly
Heh. Come on. Just fake your demise and create a new persona.
“Just murder him in front of all those police officers and famous superhero.” – This comment section
or “cripple it” which isnt really better
I personally am surprised at the amount of people going against killing or maiming him. Seeing the flak some people including me have had before for not killing the bad dudes, it seemed many were already convinced to kill the troll with fire and acid asap without further consideration.
Frankly, I think the disagreement in the comments is a sign that Tim’s constructed a VERY good story here, even if it’s proving a little divisive. I think a lot of this comes down to how you internalize the scene. If you compartmentalize it as strictly fiction in which the author has given us objective proof that the troll is irredeemably evil and a threat to the lives of others, then murder is fine within the confines of that thought experiment. But if you are interpreting the scene as a representation of real-life trolls, then the calls for murder start… Read more »
The difference is that The Troll stopped long being just another “internet troll” and is now a full blown murdering terrorist.
Even if you have a terrorist, you follow the rules. Shoving him off the building doesn’t save the hostages. Once the hostages are secured, shoving him off the building doesn’t save anyone else either.
Edgy kids ask for murders, grown up know cold blood murder never is the solution.
We don’t know he’d die, it might just hurt alot, nobody but Tim knows if the previous fall gave him powers.
There are like a dozen police snipers who would have domed him already if he didn’t have a dead man’s switch. Unsaddle that high horse.
So… nothing in that batman-esque belt to glue his hand shut on the trigger? Why have a belt at all then? Holding up his tights?
Weeeell… Holding up tights is a fairly important mission, acktchually… 😉
Tights shouldn’t need to be held up. They’re tight.
That is actually a good point! Did they take it from Analog after the incident with the random pedestrian in the fight with the construction suit guy (iirc)? He glued a random civilian to the sidewalk and by accident suggested to immolate the guy to free him.
He seems quite triggered! Still, it seems a bit drastic to allow himself to come so close to the thing he was was actively trying to avoid. Maybe it is part of a ruse?
The troll is very joker- like but unfortunately analog is no batman. The troll is very under his skin right now.
“This is where the real game begins…”
RIP Mittensquad
“You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”
Do now, Analog. Masturbate at him furiously as a distraction!
I’m remembering something lucas said in an earlier strip: This life might no give you a choice on what kind of hero you want to be…
No one knows Analog power. No one (save the master) know that Ethan is Analogue.
He can fake his death, stunning the troll who doesn’t expect this, leaving d+pad to capture him, and then begin again after some weeks with a new superhero identity.
Lilah know, and shouldn’t other superheroes or those that catalog them know?
And what are the ramifications if Zeke were to somehow get involved right now? Would he kill the Troll, or save him for a team-up with the Master?
… Did you read any of the comic where Zeke talks about the Master? Loathing is too mild for how Zeke feels about him. And you think he would somehow team up with the guy that enslaved him, tortured him, and turned him genocidal out of pure hatred for them?
What if Ethan grabs the dead-man’s switch but the Troll kills him, knowing that he’ll respawn without it and the bomb goes boom? Helluva way to cause him pain…
Damn. He is basically Analog’s Joker.
Ethan is many things.
A murder is not one of them. He’s impulsive, reckless, and fickle, but he’s not going to intentionally kill The Troll. What he MIGHT try to do, though, is take advantage of his own immortality to secure the dead-man’s switch from him, potentially taking a fall that’d only be potentially lethal to one of them in the process…
Although admittedly what I think is about to happen here is that Ethan’s going to let him go, the Troll is going to jump off the roof and detonate the bomb, and some other superhero is going to see this, assume Analog actually DID kill him, and arrest him on the spot…thus the title of the arc being “Surrender”.
The one thing that really – really – gets a troll isn’t anger, or ignoring them, or anything else.
It’s real empathy. And pity, when applicable. Without malice.
Trolls don’t want that. They wear their own mask. You’re not getting mad at THEM, you’re getting mad at the mask. So they stand behind it and cackle.
But pity them? Look past the mask?
I hope that Ethan does give him a good, heartfelt apology.
Hard disagree. Psychopaths are by definition incapable of feeling or understanding empathy, and the Troll has clearly proven he is one by this point.
… fair point. It’s been a while, so I forgot that he was a terrorist and murderer long before the fall.
My statements above were more applicable to internet trolls – some of which certainly are psychopaths, but most of who are just normal people, using the anonymity of the internet to get a rise out of someone else.
The Troll’s level of insight into other people’s behavior here isn’t consistent with a psychopath.
Sociopath sure, but not a psychopath.
He understands the rules of society and makes a conscious choice to break them.
Come on, hug him already.
he is totally going to just walk away with a meh not worth my time moment which to me will have the troll slip and fall on his own.
Just walk away, I doubt he has hostages to begin with.
Time for Phasar to intervene, even if the Troll has it coming this is definitely a “threat to human life” like he was talking about. And we have no idea if he actually has hostages, nobody has found them to confirm, he could be holding a switch as a bluff.
Stop feeding the Troll, cmon. I thought we learned this already
Arrow to the hand. He Has line of sight. Just….don’t fumble the play.
Or more sneaky. Elevate a certain Pause in the action and out troll the troll.
“Hey Phasar. I know you’re listening. Have you secured the hostages yet?”
“Go ahead, release the trigger. I’ll be okay, you and the hostages won’t, but then, you’re going to do whatever you want regardless of my actions or words. I’m not going to play your game, because you’re the troll. You have no power over me.”
Either he goes to release the trigger and the other superhero takes him out (or has already rescued the hostages), OR he doesn’t, and he’s lost anyway.
Ho boy! For those saying Ethan should just kill him now, that’s not an option. for a few reasons: One, that’s not his way. From what we’ve seen so far, he’s much more of a “stop innocents from getting killed” than “kill the crime at its root” kinda guy. Can’t say for sure he can’t be pushed to it (and troll is probably counting on it), but that’s what he is. Two, they’re dealing with troll. For all we know, everything he does is a misdirection. The remote? It may just be a decoy, with someone else holding a real… Read more »
Good money says it’s a fake-out to draw attention away from Phasar or even Captain Prime so they can get to work.
It’s the Grinch with a meth addiction, like he doesn’t stop at presents. All the the Whos down in Whoville, the tall and the small, woke up in bathtubs of ice barely able to crawl.
Cut off hand while grabbing his hand holding the switch. Punt him over the edge. Hand over switch to bomb squad. Take dump on Troll’s corpse. Make joke about s***-posting, or “There’s your Anal Log, bitch.”
Careful Tim, DC lawyers has sharp teeths