Hol’ up, that was actually done in one of the Legends books. Wraith Squadron, I believe? A pilot dressing up as an Ewok with prostethic legs to sell the idea of a ragtag mercenary group.
You magnificent bastard.
The Wraith Squadron Trilogy really was a great piece of Art back then. Loved the humor. For those that dont know, there is a 4th book that plays a few years later with somewhat the same people involved. Its named Mercy Kill and mostly focues on Voort Sabinrin (Piggy, the ‘modified’ Gammorean) – worth reading for sure !
I thought any DNA left by Ethan despawns with his body when he dies and respawns into his new life. I say this because didn’t he try to donate a lot of his blood in the past for money and was experimenting to see if it stayed around when he died/respawned?
I can imagine him leaving dead skin and hair and that not despawning while the pint of blood despawning.
It’s near magic, it can follow any rules.
Gonfrask
10 months ago
When this situations happens (where the evil guy is trying to cheat the system simulating he is just insane, well…he could be) the use of psykers or very advanced technology to see if they are just lying…would be too aggressive? I mean…you have “the rights” to fake your mental state in a trial and lie about the facts so using things that would not allow you to use those tactics, would be against your rights and so be forbidden?
In the UK even if your deemed medically insane and dangerous you get locked into a secure hospital for a open ended amount of time till your deemed mentally sound or not a danger and even then the courts may decide as your no longer mentally insane they can then trial you as a criminal. So really if the UK is anything to go by you either get Declared insane and your locked there for a long time and in some cases life so if you commit murder by insanity you could be locked in a secure hospital for the… Read more »
Insanity defense is a tricky deal. On one hand, you do not go to prison. One the other hand, you can be stuck in a mental institution that is every bit as bad, and in some cases worse, than a prison. And you are not subject to parole, you have to convince a doctor that you are cured. And these doctors are generally not the coddling type. They want to make sure you are cured, not faking it. And that in itself is almost a catch 22. Trying to prove you are sane is demonstrably harder than someone proving you… Read more »
That’s true I have family who work in mental health and you really have to prove that your no longer insane cause no doctor wants to risk there medical career and reputation over a mistake it’s safer to keep a person in the secure facility than to take a risk and will only release if really sure
And when they do work, the result is going to an asylum, but unlike a criminal case, which has a specific endpoint, you don’t get let out of the asylum until the doctor in charge says so, and that could never happen
Some replies about asylums, just to note that the security level is not the same that a jail.
Yes, he will spent years there but as he faked the insanity can fake the recovery (assuming he is so convincing faking that was believable he is crazy).
So he can get an early freedom two ways.
One of my favorite episodes of an old spec-fic podcast was about how mind-reading would probably be considered a violation of the US 5th amendment – being compelled to provide testimony against yourself.
That’s a very interesting topic. IMO, if mind-reading involves no contribution from the subject, I don’t see it as more of an abuse than fingerprinting and photographing a suspect, and that is done routinely. Suppose someone chose to tattoo themselves with all the damning details of their criminal activities, then said tattoo would be photographed during processing and used as proof against them. Would that be a violation of the 5th amendment? Now, hypnosis to induce the suspect to testify would be a clear violation. A more likely issue would be how exactly is said mind-reading extracted and presented in… Read more »
Nightdagger
10 months ago
I fully expect this to be another troll and The Troll doesn’t really know how the green goo is going to affect Ethan, if at all. But at this point, who knows?
Rauri
10 months ago
Hm, interesting situation. Ethan doesn’t leave behind a corpse when he respawns and it takes a certain timeframe for anything to remain behind if the dies. Getting that DNA would be nigh impossible.
Trolling someone with powers like that is pretty top tier for that. Hard to, if not impossible to really test the ability.
He needed to keep the blood aside for a while before respawing, if he died in the blood extraction process, the blood also disappeared. On theory he should not leave traces when died in the moment. But from no mortal wounds (that later Ethan respawn himself to force a better recovery) the blood should stay.
He can still harmlessly leave behind residual parts of himself EG fingerprints. That’s how the Master discovered the secret identities of Analog and D-Pad – Zeke caught and ran off with one of Analog’s controllerangs after the latter threw it partially bare-handed. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure he can harmlessly leave behind other residual parts of himself that cause him no harm, such as hair strands, dandruff, dead skin cells, sweat etc.
You make it sound as if he’d need a corpse to get DNA, but people constantly shed skin and such that could also be used for it. Anywhere Analog has visited is a potential source of at least some DNA. Hypothetically Troll could’ve even swabbed his own hospital room to find some.
I guess, but I don’t really see that being the case. We don’t even know if his power would work like that. We know Ethan did some experiments on the topic, but we have nothing conclusive. We don’t even have his exact results on blood, let alone how it’d work for anything else. (I’d already expect a difference between things like blood etc. that’s been forcibly taken and things like spit, cells etc. that the body itself is already done with.) But even if we assume that every death resets all previous bits , pieces and traces of ‘Ethan’ from… Read more »
Mousio
10 months ago
Welp. That’ll make for quite the awkward conversation tomorrow morning, and every day after.
Gotta hand it to Tim. That was one hell of a trolling.
Absolutely. Because now neither Ethan nor us know whether it was an epic Bluff or he was telling the truth.
Bwauder
10 months ago
I believe him, cats are evil.
LeHack
10 months ago
So now Ethan will have to find out if it’s just a bluff or is he a mere mortal again.
I really can’t wait to see Zeke back in this, as it might lead to some interesting (or ugly) outcomes.
Jedi
10 months ago
Hmmm, after thinking about it a bit there is either a Plothole or the Troll just plainly lies.
There cant be any DNA of Ethan around for longer then he actually respawns again. Reason is that he tried to sell his blood for one of those RTX cards years ago – and figured out that everything of his former life ‘despawns’. Therefore there cant be any ‘too permanent’ remains left of him as he really dies on a regular basis 😉
This, unless of course Tim just made those chapters as ‘Comical relief’ and its not canon.
I wouldn’t rely too hard on real-world-science for discussing comic book shenanigans. Sometimes, you gotta set that aside to get the story told, after all.
Otherwise, we could wonder whether the injection was properly applied to an effective location. Or how they could possibly have tested to make sure the serum worked.
1) It has been established previously that dying is both painful and horrifying for Ethan, and he usually avoids when he can. It is absolutely possible that some of his blood lingered long enough without “despawning.” It may even be that multiple “batches” had to be collected while the Troll’s mysterious chemist ally conducted their research 2) It is *also* possible that the entire “despawning blood” was a long-game foreshadow of how Ethan will overcome this particular challenge. Perhaps some of his blood WAS used to make the serum, but then a subsequent death despawned it, secretly robbing the serum… Read more »
It was inevitable that there had to be a way of destroying superpowers, because otherwise, ruling the world would be super simple. The other is, it was inevitable that his super power had to be removed, immortality is the worst power to give a hero. That stuff gets SUPER boring SUPER fast, if there’s no way to actually beat them permanently.
Not quite immortality, analog could be shoved in a contained furnace chamber, which he technically would survive, but at the cost of rapid-repeat deaths to his mental state til an external factor released him. A broken mind in an immortal shell is just a refrigerated vegetable.
I wonder if Ethan, Lucas and Scott will end up trying to recreate the scenario that got Ethan and Lucas their powers in the first place? Or maybe they’ll keep the remainder of the green goo, analyze it, discover it’s actually a suppressant, and come up with a way to remove it from Ethan to get him his powers back. Wish I could find out now, but I smell a cliffhanger coming on…
Zaldrak
10 months ago
Either the Troll is lying, or this should be a very common Supervillain tactic used against heroes, if it’s really that easy.
Not only that, but this method could be used against the supervillains themselves whenever they are arrested; just inject them with that and boom, they will never be a threat anymore.
This. If such a thing was actually possible then it would be happening all the time and it would be a major war of escalation between people with superpowers and those who didn’t have powers. It’s just a troll, but as has been said it’s a good one because even if you were 99.5% confident it was just a troll would you really want to risk your life on it?
Who’s saying it isn’t? Chances are, every law enforcement agency has entire divisions intent on destroying any rogue supers who fail to follow the rules.
Always possible of course, but if it was happening then you’d think it would be common knowledge at this point and the subject would have come up already. But since it hasn’t, and there aren’t articles of “SuperDude’s Powers Erased!” being slung around in the comic then presumably it is something that HASN’T happened before and isn’t a common occurrence. Hence, its a troll.
Not saying it’s available to the public, but the government would need a way to ensure that “Man who can control anyone he talks to” wouldn’t be able to just phone up congress and conquer the world, right?
That’s not even right. A biochemist, perhaps. Biologists don’t make concoctions.
Namefield
10 months ago
Next task: Find the killbot and contact him.
Paula
10 months ago
Well, Ethan, you should thank the troll. I mean, publicly and loudly. Telling him how glad you are you do not have the anguish and pain to die multiple times, not knowing if any death will take. Being normal, not feeling compelled to be a superhero. And ey, privately, now you can date Lilah.
Robert
10 months ago
Um I thought his blood & all blipped when he reset, so no DNA to get.
No matter how long ago it was, ALL DNA vanishes the moment he respawns. As I recall, that last happened when Lilah punched him in the alley and he had to undo permanent scarring to his face.
CMasta1992
10 months ago
Does the Troll have extra lives? I think we should double check really quick
Darkhorse
10 months ago
Superhero DNA on the black market. I’m sure there is 99% fake DNA on there to make a quick buck. Getting accurate DNA in a lab already goes wrong at times. How can they get an accurate DNA of a superhero just randomly? Let alone tracing what part of the DNA is the superhero part, and then knowing it respawns him? Then finally to only nuke that part? It seems you would need decades of research to get such a result. Not a month after waking up from a coma and having troll buddies. I only accept that in some… Read more »
They both had the same accident, yet got different powers, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to suspect DNA plays a role.
Algonar
10 months ago
Plot twist: that chemist the Troll found on the darknet actually trolled the Troll and made a formula that enhances superpowers. Now whenever Analog dies, 2 new Analogs spawn. How do you handle that? :O
Sounds like a recipe for overpopulation. Eventually you’d have to chuck them into space because there wouldn’t be any room left on Earth.
Reminds me of an attempt at trolling a friend tried in college in Second Life — they created an “LOL” bomb that would display the word LOL in the sky and then spawn another copy after a delay. They set the delay time too short and the resulting cascade created more objects than the client was capable of rendering. They were never 100% sure what happened on the sever.
But one is an extra that will really disappear when he dies.
chozoone
10 months ago
So kinda feel that the troll might have just let them know that even this “cure” is a troll. Cause hasn’t it been said that all of Ethan vanishes everytime he respawns? He tried to do a think with his blood and it all vanished on him. So shouldn’t anything the troll could have used have vanished too?
Troll wouldn’t lie about that. He’s basically saying “So, when I kill you in a few moments? You AREN’T coming back!” Lucas just jumped in in time for that to be a non-issue.
Thing is, I don’t think that’d work. We’ve already seen that his blood also vanishes whenever he respawns. So it’s VERY likely that he was given the ‘antidote’ to someone ELSE’S powers, IF that’s even possible. The blood sample can’t even be confirmed to have been his, both due to his identity not being known and because of the aforementioned fact that his blood blinks out of existence whenever he respawns (Citing the comic where he was trying to extract blood in order to donate enough of it at once to get a game he wanted) that this ‘antidote’ might… Read more »
We don’t know if EVERY trace of him blips, or if it only does so if it was shed as a direct result of his death. The bucket of blood, for instance. We never learned if it blipped next time he died, or if it remained because it had left him long before his next death.
When playing Faeria before they added voices, I imagined “Rapala the Dopefish” as a more child-like version of Dafoe’s Green Goblin. Then they gave him a voice and it’s just a Mark Hammill impersonator quoting Heath Ledger.
Anyway, young Willem Dafoe makes the most sense here as well. He’s a third of Dafoe’s age and has gone through a similar mind-altering chemical trauma which even makes him green.
Let’ see. Outcomes:
Stab him with he needle until it stops being funny. Eyes first, he’ll never see it coming.
Signal the snipers to take the shot.
D-Pad: now with arrow slicing action!
Edit your own video and make the Troll look like an oral rapist.
Well there is a easy…ish way to find out was he trolling Ethan or not. There are ways to stop human heart and technically kill him, if he respawn its all good if not revieve him back
Derfman
10 months ago
So, get a sample of what he was injected with, find someone that wants to be cured and see if it works. If it does, then have Scott figure out how to uncure Ethan.
It doesn’t sound like this was supposedly a general-purpose cure for powers, rather one allegedly tailored to Ethan’s DNA. But I’d wager it’s not a cure at all, just a troll, though Ethan wouldn’t want to put that to the test.
Laughing Man
10 months ago
This is why you always kill the villain when you have the chance, kiddies.
Also, couldn’t they test what was in the syringe?
Matt
10 months ago
Anyone point me to RSS feed for this?
Extreme
10 months ago
Welp, guess the only thing to do is to test it
1217BC
10 months ago
I know it wouldn’t be helpful to the whole “questioning myself and my purpose” arc this sets up, but I’d love to see Ethan just throw himself off the roof and prove the Troll a liar. That, or thank him for releasing him from the existential terror of immortality
bloof
10 months ago
The more he explains the vial, the less believeable it is. I know we are talking about a universe in which our hero got powers from an exploding arcade machine- but that at least is mysterious. That his powers are DNA based? Pretty hard to believe. A chemist taking a DNA sample and deliberately reversing this process? Very hard to believe. Injecting re-engineered dna into a shoulder and assuming the dna of the rest of the body will change? Fairly unsellable.
That this elixer would Glow Green? Unbelievable.
-Jk- Throwing some radium in for fun probably wouldn’t be that hard.
Kevin Greenbaum
10 months ago
I’m trying to think of what he’d mix with Ethans dna to disable his powers. Since Ethan wasn’t born with powers would it be easier or harder to deal with? And how would you even test it yourself to know it would work on him?
sasparillafizz
10 months ago
Eh, it’s fake. Any other Villian it might be credible, but the Troll? Even if he had the ability to take his powers he still wouldn’t do it. The only thing funnier about messing with Ethans head would be messing with his head while knowing it was also just a bluff.
Pulse
10 months ago
que thanking the troll over and over till he loses his damn mind at ethan not being angry or broken
Reso
10 months ago
Holy shit, I don’t know how but I’m only now noticing how messed up the troll’s hair is. Very nice touch, Tim.
Evo
10 months ago
I hope Analog just plays it off to deny the Troll the only thing he’s after. He’s a good themed villain for both of them but I’m honestly not interested in seeing him any more after this arc.
haki0815
10 months ago
Well Analog could jump off the roof right this instance gambling on the fact that whatever was injected hasn’t had time to reach every cell in his body and the rest is enough to respawn..
Excessum
10 months ago
Did he not try to sell his blood before but could not because it disappears? Would he not just take a blood test and se if it still disappears, if not the goo does what the troll told if not it may be a whole other problem.
Urazz
10 months ago
Does Ethan even leave DNA when he dies? I thought any DNA he left behind despawns with his dead body? I.E. in a past comic he attempts to donate a ton of blood but it despawns with his body when he respawns into a new life.
Andrew Wilkin
10 months ago
Cue the 1960s Batman announcer. “Could this be the end for our heroes? Tune in next week! Same Bat Time! Same Bat Channel!”
MiserableOne
10 months ago
Don’t forget that Ethan was funneling blood from himself a few chapters back. I have no idea if that will be referenced but maybe it’s possible he undergoes a blood transfusion and gets his powers back..?
Sweetos
10 months ago
Happy New Years and a Happy Mindfuck to Ethan trying to find out if it actually removed his powers 😀
Daniel
10 months ago
Well, Ethan is not taking it well, is he?
Of course, the Troll is bluffing. If a competent chemist could create an antidote from Ethan’s DNA, he could easily replicate the powers, and if so, someone should have notice people respawning
Kane
10 months ago
This is easy to test if the trolls stuff works just take Ethan to a hospital, stop his heart under medical conditions see if he revives.
Chris H.
10 months ago
My neighbor’s penguin told me to!
Last edited 10 months ago by Chris H.
Cheez
10 months ago
Plot Twist, he never had an antidote or his DNA, its the ultimate troll, making him believe he no longer has powers and needs to be more careful in his daily life not to die, but he still has his powers.
James
10 months ago
Willing to be the injection does absolutely nothing, but Ethan can’t exactly test the hypothesis.
Greevar
10 months ago
He’s called “The Troll” for a reason. No chemist is going to know jack-shit about how to remove super powers. That’s more than just chemistry. That’s biology, chemistry, and a whole new field of science that has never been done before. He didn’t lose his powers. It’s another troll.
Bryan
10 months ago
Isn’t it in one of Ethan’s idea to sell blood, whenever he dies and respawn, all the blood collected from his previous life disappears? Unless the black market already has access to Ethan’s DNA before he became super?
24
Difficulty Mode: Ironman – Unlocked
Nice reminds me of when I played Division 2 on Hardcore mode where if you die your save gets deleted
Yep, that’s pretty much what came to mind when I saw the past two panels. Lol
Fun thing: doesn’t even have to be. Is he purposely going to test it? 😉
Major cliffhanger time.
Turns out the Troll did know about his abilities, and devised the perfect troll to hit Ethan with.
Does the vial actually do anything? Will we ever know? I do think this means Ethan is going to be taking a break from superheroing.
Looks like we’re flashbacking for the next story and it’s going Patreon first a la Starcaster Chronicles.
As I think someone posted below the previous strip, there seems to be some of the contents left in the syringe Troll used.
So they could probably use it to check, what the stuff was, and if it actually did anything.
Major Cliffhanger? Is this the name of another villain?
Might just be an Ewok with protesic legs to fly an X-Wing 🙂
Hol’ up, that was actually done in one of the Legends books. Wraith Squadron, I believe? A pilot dressing up as an Ewok with prostethic legs to sell the idea of a ragtag mercenary group.
You magnificent bastard.
Yub yub, Commander.
The Wraith Squadron Trilogy really was a great piece of Art back then. Loved the humor. For those that dont know, there is a 4th book that plays a few years later with somewhat the same people involved. Its named Mercy Kill and mostly focues on Voort Sabinrin (Piggy, the ‘modified’ Gammorean) – worth reading for sure !
I thought any DNA left by Ethan despawns with his body when he dies and respawns into his new life. I say this because didn’t he try to donate a lot of his blood in the past for money and was experimenting to see if it stayed around when he died/respawned?
I can imagine him leaving dead skin and hair and that not despawning while the pint of blood despawning.
It’s near magic, it can follow any rules.
When this situations happens (where the evil guy is trying to cheat the system simulating he is just insane, well…he could be) the use of psykers or very advanced technology to see if they are just lying…would be too aggressive? I mean…you have “the rights” to fake your mental state in a trial and lie about the facts so using things that would not allow you to use those tactics, would be against your rights and so be forbidden?
Defense via insanity is not usually as viable as the movies make it out to be. I doubt the troll would get anywhere with it after all of his actions.
In the UK even if your deemed medically insane and dangerous you get locked into a secure hospital for a open ended amount of time till your deemed mentally sound or not a danger and even then the courts may decide as your no longer mentally insane they can then trial you as a criminal. So really if the UK is anything to go by you either get Declared insane and your locked there for a long time and in some cases life so if you commit murder by insanity you could be locked in a secure hospital for the… Read more »
Insanity defense is a tricky deal. On one hand, you do not go to prison. One the other hand, you can be stuck in a mental institution that is every bit as bad, and in some cases worse, than a prison. And you are not subject to parole, you have to convince a doctor that you are cured. And these doctors are generally not the coddling type. They want to make sure you are cured, not faking it. And that in itself is almost a catch 22. Trying to prove you are sane is demonstrably harder than someone proving you… Read more »
That’s true I have family who work in mental health and you really have to prove that your no longer insane cause no doctor wants to risk there medical career and reputation over a mistake it’s safer to keep a person in the secure facility than to take a risk and will only release if really sure
IRL, insanity pleas fail a majority of the time
And when they do work, the result is going to an asylum, but unlike a criminal case, which has a specific endpoint, you don’t get let out of the asylum until the doctor in charge says so, and that could never happen
Some replies about asylums, just to note that the security level is not the same that a jail.
Yes, he will spent years there but as he faked the insanity can fake the recovery (assuming he is so convincing faking that was believable he is crazy).
So he can get an early freedom two ways.
One of my favorite episodes of an old spec-fic podcast was about how mind-reading would probably be considered a violation of the US 5th amendment – being compelled to provide testimony against yourself.
That’s a very interesting topic. IMO, if mind-reading involves no contribution from the subject, I don’t see it as more of an abuse than fingerprinting and photographing a suspect, and that is done routinely. Suppose someone chose to tattoo themselves with all the damning details of their criminal activities, then said tattoo would be photographed during processing and used as proof against them. Would that be a violation of the 5th amendment? Now, hypnosis to induce the suspect to testify would be a clear violation. A more likely issue would be how exactly is said mind-reading extracted and presented in… Read more »
I fully expect this to be another troll and The Troll doesn’t really know how the green goo is going to affect Ethan, if at all. But at this point, who knows?
Hm, interesting situation. Ethan doesn’t leave behind a corpse when he respawns and it takes a certain timeframe for anything to remain behind if the dies. Getting that DNA would be nigh impossible.
Trolling someone with powers like that is pretty top tier for that. Hard to, if not impossible to really test the ability.
Didn’t he try and harvest his blood to see if it stays behind when it’s extracted and I cannot remember the outcome to that
He needed to keep the blood aside for a while before respawing, if he died in the blood extraction process, the blood also disappeared. On theory he should not leave traces when died in the moment. But from no mortal wounds (that later Ethan respawn himself to force a better recovery) the blood should stay.
He can still harmlessly leave behind residual parts of himself EG fingerprints. That’s how the Master discovered the secret identities of Analog and D-Pad – Zeke caught and ran off with one of Analog’s controllerangs after the latter threw it partially bare-handed. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure he can harmlessly leave behind other residual parts of himself that cause him no harm, such as hair strands, dandruff, dead skin cells, sweat etc.
You make it sound as if he’d need a corpse to get DNA, but people constantly shed skin and such that could also be used for it. Anywhere Analog has visited is a potential source of at least some DNA. Hypothetically Troll could’ve even swabbed his own hospital room to find some.
I think what they’re saying is Ethan does waaaaaay to often to leave DNA behind anywhere.
Shed skin does get left. But if he does soon after that would dissapear
I guess, but I don’t really see that being the case. We don’t even know if his power would work like that. We know Ethan did some experiments on the topic, but we have nothing conclusive. We don’t even have his exact results on blood, let alone how it’d work for anything else. (I’d already expect a difference between things like blood etc. that’s been forcibly taken and things like spit, cells etc. that the body itself is already done with.) But even if we assume that every death resets all previous bits , pieces and traces of ‘Ethan’ from… Read more »
Welp. That’ll make for quite the awkward conversation tomorrow morning, and every day after.
Gotta hand it to Tim. That was one hell of a trolling.
Absolutely. Because now neither Ethan nor us know whether it was an epic Bluff or he was telling the truth.
I believe him, cats are evil.
So now Ethan will have to find out if it’s just a bluff or is he a mere mortal again.
I really can’t wait to see Zeke back in this, as it might lead to some interesting (or ugly) outcomes.
Hmmm, after thinking about it a bit there is either a Plothole or the Troll just plainly lies.
There cant be any DNA of Ethan around for longer then he actually respawns again. Reason is that he tried to sell his blood for one of those RTX cards years ago – and figured out that everything of his former life ‘despawns’. Therefore there cant be any ‘too permanent’ remains left of him as he really dies on a regular basis 😉
This, unless of course Tim just made those chapters as ‘Comical relief’ and its not canon.
Hair has DNA. You don’t need hair to live.
Plus; does it matter? If it actually works or not is irrelevant. Details like this, all sorts of “what if… ” just contributes to the mindfuck.
Hair follicles have DNA, hair itself is just a protein chain – it was never alive.
Neither is blood, as its practically just water with ‘a few substances’ in it. But i agree its irrelevant as the mindfuck will work on Ethan.
I wouldn’t rely too hard on real-world-science for discussing comic book shenanigans. Sometimes, you gotta set that aside to get the story told, after all.
Otherwise, we could wonder whether the injection was properly applied to an effective location. Or how they could possibly have tested to make sure the serum worked.
1) It has been established previously that dying is both painful and horrifying for Ethan, and he usually avoids when he can. It is absolutely possible that some of his blood lingered long enough without “despawning.” It may even be that multiple “batches” had to be collected while the Troll’s mysterious chemist ally conducted their research 2) It is *also* possible that the entire “despawning blood” was a long-game foreshadow of how Ethan will overcome this particular challenge. Perhaps some of his blood WAS used to make the serum, but then a subsequent death despawned it, secretly robbing the serum… Read more »
It was inevitable that there had to be a way of destroying superpowers, because otherwise, ruling the world would be super simple. The other is, it was inevitable that his super power had to be removed, immortality is the worst power to give a hero. That stuff gets SUPER boring SUPER fast, if there’s no way to actually beat them permanently.
Not quite immortality, analog could be shoved in a contained furnace chamber, which he technically would survive, but at the cost of rapid-repeat deaths to his mental state til an external factor released him. A broken mind in an immortal shell is just a refrigerated vegetable.
Ethan will very soon find out if it was real.
I wonder if Ethan, Lucas and Scott will end up trying to recreate the scenario that got Ethan and Lucas their powers in the first place? Or maybe they’ll keep the remainder of the green goo, analyze it, discover it’s actually a suppressant, and come up with a way to remove it from Ethan to get him his powers back. Wish I could find out now, but I smell a cliffhanger coming on…
Either the Troll is lying, or this should be a very common Supervillain tactic used against heroes, if it’s really that easy.
Not only that, but this method could be used against the supervillains themselves whenever they are arrested; just inject them with that and boom, they will never be a threat anymore.
This. If such a thing was actually possible then it would be happening all the time and it would be a major war of escalation between people with superpowers and those who didn’t have powers. It’s just a troll, but as has been said it’s a good one because even if you were 99.5% confident it was just a troll would you really want to risk your life on it?
Who’s saying it isn’t? Chances are, every law enforcement agency has entire divisions intent on destroying any rogue supers who fail to follow the rules.
Always possible of course, but if it was happening then you’d think it would be common knowledge at this point and the subject would have come up already. But since it hasn’t, and there aren’t articles of “SuperDude’s Powers Erased!” being slung around in the comic then presumably it is something that HASN’T happened before and isn’t a common occurrence. Hence, its a troll.
Not saying it’s available to the public, but the government would need a way to ensure that “Man who can control anyone he talks to” wouldn’t be able to just phone up congress and conquer the world, right?
Given your name, I request a riddle.
A competent Chemist would have told him he needed to take it to a Biologist. I’m gonna say lying 😀
Not lying, Trolling.
I think he meant a Chemist in terms of how to make the green goo cure serum.
And rules lawyering like that gets you nowhere in a fictional universe where the author might not have thought to specify such a distinction.
That’s not even right. A biochemist, perhaps. Biologists don’t make concoctions.
Next task: Find the killbot and contact him.
Well, Ethan, you should thank the troll. I mean, publicly and loudly. Telling him how glad you are you do not have the anguish and pain to die multiple times, not knowing if any death will take. Being normal, not feeling compelled to be a superhero. And ey, privately, now you can date Lilah.
Um I thought his blood & all blipped when he reset, so no DNA to get.
Think about all the times he doesn’t die in a fight and get beat up, spits, some sort of scrape or cut that leaves blood.
No matter how long ago it was, ALL DNA vanishes the moment he respawns. As I recall, that last happened when Lilah punched him in the alley and he had to undo permanent scarring to his face.
Does the Troll have extra lives? I think we should double check really quick
Superhero DNA on the black market. I’m sure there is 99% fake DNA on there to make a quick buck. Getting accurate DNA in a lab already goes wrong at times. How can they get an accurate DNA of a superhero just randomly? Let alone tracing what part of the DNA is the superhero part, and then knowing it respawns him? Then finally to only nuke that part? It seems you would need decades of research to get such a result. Not a month after waking up from a coma and having troll buddies. I only accept that in some… Read more »
Ethan definitely wasn’t born a superhero. Didn’t he and Lucas share the same “science” accident?
DNA shouldn’t come into it at all unless it was a mutagenic virus in that canister centuries ahead of it’s time that empowered them
They both had the same accident, yet got different powers, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to suspect DNA plays a role.
Plot twist: that chemist the Troll found on the darknet actually trolled the Troll and made a formula that enhances superpowers. Now whenever Analog dies, 2 new Analogs spawn. How do you handle that? :O
Sounds like a recipe for overpopulation. Eventually you’d have to chuck them into space because there wouldn’t be any room left on Earth.
Reminds me of an attempt at trolling a friend tried in college in Second Life — they created an “LOL” bomb that would display the word LOL in the sky and then spawn another copy after a delay. They set the delay time too short and the resulting cascade created more objects than the client was capable of rendering. They were never 100% sure what happened on the sever.
But one is an extra that will really disappear when he dies.
So kinda feel that the troll might have just let them know that even this “cure” is a troll. Cause hasn’t it been said that all of Ethan vanishes everytime he respawns? He tried to do a think with his blood and it all vanished on him. So shouldn’t anything the troll could have used have vanished too?
Troll wouldn’t lie about that. He’s basically saying “So, when I kill you in a few moments? You AREN’T coming back!” Lucas just jumped in in time for that to be a non-issue.
I really don’t think you get these characters.
Thing is, I don’t think that’d work. We’ve already seen that his blood also vanishes whenever he respawns. So it’s VERY likely that he was given the ‘antidote’ to someone ELSE’S powers, IF that’s even possible. The blood sample can’t even be confirmed to have been his, both due to his identity not being known and because of the aforementioned fact that his blood blinks out of existence whenever he respawns (Citing the comic where he was trying to extract blood in order to donate enough of it at once to get a game he wanted) that this ‘antidote’ might… Read more »
I expected the vial to turn him green like the troll
We don’t know if EVERY trace of him blips, or if it only does so if it was shed as a direct result of his death. The bucket of blood, for instance. We never learned if it blipped next time he died, or if it remained because it had left him long before his next death.
We absolutely did learn that.
So if the Troll had a voice, would you imagine him sounding like Mark Hamill’s Joker or Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin?
Neither. I’ve been hearing him with an annoying higher pitched voice when he talks. Like Gilbert Gottfried but a little less grating.
When playing Faeria before they added voices, I imagined “Rapala the Dopefish” as a more child-like version of Dafoe’s Green Goblin. Then they gave him a voice and it’s just a Mark Hammill impersonator quoting Heath Ledger.
Anyway, young Willem Dafoe makes the most sense here as well. He’s a third of Dafoe’s age and has gone through a similar mind-altering chemical trauma which even makes him green.
I picture Jeff Albertson AKA The Comic Book GUy
Let’ see. Outcomes:
Stab him with he needle until it stops being funny. Eyes first, he’ll never see it coming.
Signal the snipers to take the shot.
D-Pad: now with arrow slicing action!
Edit your own video and make the Troll look like an oral rapist.
What is wrong with you.
Well there is a easy…ish way to find out was he trolling Ethan or not. There are ways to stop human heart and technically kill him, if he respawn its all good if not revieve him back
So, get a sample of what he was injected with, find someone that wants to be cured and see if it works. If it does, then have Scott figure out how to uncure Ethan.
It doesn’t sound like this was supposedly a general-purpose cure for powers, rather one allegedly tailored to Ethan’s DNA. But I’d wager it’s not a cure at all, just a troll, though Ethan wouldn’t want to put that to the test.
This is why you always kill the villain when you have the chance, kiddies.
Also, couldn’t they test what was in the syringe?
Anyone point me to RSS feed for this?
Welp, guess the only thing to do is to test it
I know it wouldn’t be helpful to the whole “questioning myself and my purpose” arc this sets up, but I’d love to see Ethan just throw himself off the roof and prove the Troll a liar. That, or thank him for releasing him from the existential terror of immortality
The more he explains the vial, the less believeable it is. I know we are talking about a universe in which our hero got powers from an exploding arcade machine- but that at least is mysterious. That his powers are DNA based? Pretty hard to believe. A chemist taking a DNA sample and deliberately reversing this process? Very hard to believe. Injecting re-engineered dna into a shoulder and assuming the dna of the rest of the body will change? Fairly unsellable.
That this elixer would Glow Green? Unbelievable.
-Jk- Throwing some radium in for fun probably wouldn’t be that hard.
I’m trying to think of what he’d mix with Ethans dna to disable his powers. Since Ethan wasn’t born with powers would it be easier or harder to deal with? And how would you even test it yourself to know it would work on him?
Eh, it’s fake. Any other Villian it might be credible, but the Troll? Even if he had the ability to take his powers he still wouldn’t do it. The only thing funnier about messing with Ethans head would be messing with his head while knowing it was also just a bluff.
que thanking the troll over and over till he loses his damn mind at ethan not being angry or broken
Holy shit, I don’t know how but I’m only now noticing how messed up the troll’s hair is. Very nice touch, Tim.
I hope Analog just plays it off to deny the Troll the only thing he’s after. He’s a good themed villain for both of them but I’m honestly not interested in seeing him any more after this arc.
Well Analog could jump off the roof right this instance gambling on the fact that whatever was injected hasn’t had time to reach every cell in his body and the rest is enough to respawn..
Did he not try to sell his blood before but could not because it disappears? Would he not just take a blood test and se if it still disappears, if not the goo does what the troll told if not it may be a whole other problem.
Does Ethan even leave DNA when he dies? I thought any DNA he left behind despawns with his dead body? I.E. in a past comic he attempts to donate a ton of blood but it despawns with his body when he respawns into a new life.
Cue the 1960s Batman announcer. “Could this be the end for our heroes? Tune in next week! Same Bat Time! Same Bat Channel!”
Don’t forget that Ethan was funneling blood from himself a few chapters back. I have no idea if that will be referenced but maybe it’s possible he undergoes a blood transfusion and gets his powers back..?
Happy New Years and a Happy Mindfuck to Ethan trying to find out if it actually removed his powers 😀
Well, Ethan is not taking it well, is he?
Of course, the Troll is bluffing. If a competent chemist could create an antidote from Ethan’s DNA, he could easily replicate the powers, and if so, someone should have notice people respawning
This is easy to test if the trolls stuff works just take Ethan to a hospital, stop his heart under medical conditions see if he revives.
My neighbor’s penguin told me to!
Plot Twist, he never had an antidote or his DNA, its the ultimate troll, making him believe he no longer has powers and needs to be more careful in his daily life not to die, but he still has his powers.
Willing to be the injection does absolutely nothing, but Ethan can’t exactly test the hypothesis.
He’s called “The Troll” for a reason. No chemist is going to know jack-shit about how to remove super powers. That’s more than just chemistry. That’s biology, chemistry, and a whole new field of science that has never been done before. He didn’t lose his powers. It’s another troll.
Isn’t it in one of Ethan’s idea to sell blood, whenever he dies and respawn, all the blood collected from his previous life disappears? Unless the black market already has access to Ethan’s DNA before he became super?