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24

Surrender, p23

January 22, 2024 by Tim


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John
John
10 months ago

That idea might actually be crazy enough to work! just freeze him and stop his heart. he normally revives right away and if hes cold enough [further] brain damage takes 10+ mins to start right?
im ready to laugh if they try alot of reasonable things and just circle back to using a defib while having him on ice and it works and he revives.

Gilles GV Volluz
Gilles GV Volluz
10 months ago
Reply to  John

Except, if they do that and it works, we got 2 Ethans, the one they revive, and the one that popped up… which would probably be quite an interesting twist ^^

Neon
Neon
10 months ago

When he revives the old body just despawns so that should not happen. It either works and no reviving is done or there is no respawn.

But not knowing the exact rules of his power the conclusion in case he needs a revive is a bit tricky. Can’t really say if he lost his powers in that case or if the trigger is just dead brain rather than no heartbeat.

But the two Ethan result I don’t really see happening with how he respawned before

Jedi
Jedi
10 months ago
Reply to  Neon

Very unlikey, i mean, where would Ethan have disposed of 10.000 dead clones of himself at this point ?

havok
havok
10 months ago
Reply to  Jedi

This got me thinking of The Prestige.

Somewhere out there is a field full of copies of Ethan’s corpses.

Jedi
Jedi
10 months ago
Reply to  havok

Hmm that could lead to some funny consequences … at some point the storage for corpses is full and the dead Ethans rise to cause a zombie apocalypse … i guess thats not how Ethan imagined his role in it 🙂

Paradox
Paradox
10 months ago
Reply to  havok

It was stated in an earlier strip that there being a bunker or lab full of dead Ethans is one of his biggest fears

Last edited 10 months ago by Paradox
The Legacy
The Legacy
10 months ago
Reply to  Neon

Maybe Ethan should reach out to The Spiffing Brit? If there’s a human that can find an exploit in something… j/k ?

Jedi
Jedi
10 months ago
Reply to  The Legacy

Dont think that Ethan is a tea enjoyer 🙂

Gilles GV Volluz
Gilles GV Volluz
10 months ago
Reply to  Neon

Well, he never respawned with a body that was actually only very briefly dead… I still easily can see a timing where it would work, actually. I mean, let’s be realistic here for one sec, this is totally unrealistic anyway, we are in the realms of superpowers here ^^ … If all the good sci-fi books, comics or shows and, more to the point for supes, Marvel, DC and the gang, have taught us anything in the last hundred years, it’s that in that realm, every crazy shit is possible, as long as it makes a good story… We’ll see… Read more »

Nik
Nik
10 months ago

What if that is the Troll’s plan all along, vis a vis “The Prestige”.

Image the Mind-F*** to Ethan (and quite frankly everyone else) of dozens/hundreds/etc. Ethans running around.

Which one is the “real” Ethan?

Last edited 10 months ago by Nik
Darkhorse
Darkhorse
10 months ago
Reply to  John

The thing is that flatlining is dangerous in any case. It is unhealthy on the short term, is too easily unhealthy on the long term and revival is by no means a certainty. Besides that, the power is a bit unclear, but you can loosely put any game rules where you would need to respawn as his power. But in this case it could be like a cutscene, allowing him to get much closer to actually dying before allowing him to respawn. We can see it at work with him drawing blood and living very long, or getting a wound… Read more »

Gonfrask
Gonfrask
10 months ago

Not a bad theory here…when does Ethan power snap? I mean, it is when his heart stops o brain dies lacking oxygen…A flat heartline can be obtained under safety conditions, the brain one not so much…

Darkhorse
Darkhorse
10 months ago
Reply to  Gonfrask

In my opinion it is dependent on circumstances. Specifically when a game would consider him dead. That is why he can respawn before bleeding out when getting a mortal wound, but if he’s trying to ‘donate’ blood it can take a long while before it kicks in. One is as if in combat, the other as if in a cutscene. That means his respawn is circumstantial and not perfect to pinpoint, as different games handle death differently. Even within games it changes based on circumstances.

Tim L
Tim L
10 months ago
Reply to  Darkhorse

Didn’t Ethan test his powers at some point? I wonder if anything he discovered back then will come into play.

Darkhorse
Darkhorse
10 months ago
Reply to  Tim L

They have tested his powers somewhat. Lots of it has only been referenced. Like the reason Ethan had a tracker in his body was because he was afraid of ‘the Prestige’ scenarios where he was a new incarnation and left bodies everywhere, so they wanted to track location. Scott used that for more understanding of Ethan’s powers. But the blood draining was also to see when things of his body would respawn with him, besides Ethan’s wish to use it for a quick buck. So some of it has been used before.

SkullsGrav
SkullsGrav
10 months ago
Reply to  Gonfrask

He’s always respawned well before brain death, my guess its its tied to his heartbeat. That’s much more of a “Media” metric for death and his power is media based. It would take 4-5 minutes for the brain to stop all electrical function after say a piece of glass to the throat, or being cut in half by an arrow. Medically, death is much sloppier then they every show on TV or video games. Shoot a guy in the heart, and they DON’T just fall over dead.

JozMk.II
JozMk.II
10 months ago

Prediction: Something urgent will pull Lucas into discontinuing this “vacation” and acting as D-Pad to intervene, despite knowing how much it will kill Ethan that he can’t join in. Ethan will end up joining in as Analog anyway and trailing D-Pad to the scene of urgency, despite not knowing for certain whether he still has his respawn ability. The urgent matter will likely involve Zeke, or perhaps Lilah; Someone Ethan cares about enough to put his possibly unrespawnable life on the line. Ethan will end up dying protecting Zeke/Lilah, after which he will in fact respawn. But the respawn may… Read more »

Last edited 10 months ago by JozMk.II
Nick
Nick
10 months ago
Reply to  JozMk.II

Either that that or Tim will pull a Dan Harmon moment, and go for something completely different, like in Rick and Morty. Remember the train episode? That was his way of telling the viewers stop expecting stuff, this is all already figured out. Your prediction seems incredibly logical, following storytelling guide, but, as you said, we should wait and see.

Still, I reeeaaally want Zeke to make a comeback, one way or another.

Jack0r
Jack0r
10 months ago
Reply to  JozMk.II

Plot twist: The same thing happens but Ethan doesn’t respawn.

Introducing CAD 3.0!

JozMk.II
JozMk.II
10 months ago
Reply to  Jack0r

Nah, I think the overarching story would need time for both Zeke and Lilah to become established as main characters in their proper relationships with Lucas, Scott, and especially Ethan, first. If my prediction turned out to be true, only the foundation for one of those characters becoming a regular would have begun.

Arcatus
Arcatus
10 months ago

There is this thing with the green goo, and we, the readers know about it. But is that substance known to Ethan or Lucas? Dr Ted? The Autorites?
Ethan and Lucas did get splashed with the stuff, but do they remember that?

GeorgeV
GeorgeV
10 months ago
Reply to  Arcatus

I’d assume they characters do remember, given how it was one of the most significant events of their lives.

It’s less clear if they know exactly what the stuff was and what it did. (Neither do we.)

And even if someone did trace its origin, it wasn’t as simple as just the goo giving them powers. It was goo plus freak lightning randomly channeled through an (inadequately wired?) arcade machine. Not exactly predictable or easily replicable results.

Paula
Paula
10 months ago

Why not Julia?

Mallengar
Mallengar
10 months ago

I hate to admit it but I was thinking of a flatliners for him as well. Just don’t know how he would go about doing that without hiring some black market doctor or revealing his identity

Alex Pendragon
Alex Pendragon
10 months ago

You know, Ethan and Lucas got their powers from the same source. What if they stab Lucas with that compound stuff and see if his powers go away since his are easy to troubleshoot.

SkullsGrav
SkullsGrav
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Pendragon

They only have a few drops.

Frizbee
Frizbee
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Pendragon

As has been stated, they don’t have much left. Also the Troll stated that he had used Ethan’s DNA to create the ‘cure’ for his super powers. Thus, its logical to assume that it’d have no effect on any other super hero, because it was tailored to Ethan’s DNA.

GeorgeV
GeorgeV
10 months ago
Reply to  Alex Pendragon

How useful could that be, assuming you’d have enough stuff for it? There’s basically possible outcomes:

Lucas doesn’t lose his powers – Doesn’t prove anything, as the ‘cure’ could be tailored to Ethan DNA/power specifically. Still stuck on guessing/worrying whether it worked on Ethan.

Lucas loses his powers –
Good news, you now know it worked. Still seems a bit much to cripple Lucas just to get back to the ‘(re) learn to live without powers’ situation you were already in.

21stCenturyPeon
21stCenturyPeon
10 months ago

It has to be Kevin Bacon, because if Flatliners-Kevin can’t revive Ethan, then at least he can still communicate with Stir-Of-Echoes-Kevin.

Jim Sorenson
Jim Sorenson
10 months ago

Flatliners? With Kevin Bacon bringing back the dead, I thought he was talking about RIPD!

Wilku
Wilku
10 months ago

What chances we have for Ethan developing another superpower if it turns out to be the same chemical compound Troll was in it?
Something like he planned to inject Ethan with it in hopes he would eventually die for real, trolling him for a bit for lulz and to induce paranoia in him, but it would eventually result in another gaming-related superpower?

foducool
foducool
10 months ago

“LIFE HAS NO MEANING ANYMORE!!!”
*jumps from roof*
*15 seconds later*
“hey guys, guess what?”

Lucas
Lucas
10 months ago

Or Jason Isaacs from the OA.

Advocate
Advocate
10 months ago

So a way to test Ethan’s power just occurred to me. If you think about it, Ethan actually has two powers technically: the ability to ‘respawn’ or ‘continue’, but that power is useless without the ability to “save.” Rationale: the blood incident. When Ethan was trying to donate blood, he discovered his body ‘loads’ its last healthy state. In order for his respawn power to not despawn the blood, he ‘saved’ somewhere between bloodletting and his next death, so the blood remained. “Save game” “Load game”. When you die, it’s game over and you can choose a save to load… Read more »

drc
drc
10 months ago

He only has to convince the journalist that he is no longer a hero…

El_
El_
10 months ago

The idea isn’t the -worst- Ethan has ever had. But at this point, I feel they may need to call in the bigger powers and get their help. If there’s a ‘cure’ out there, it benefits them to know all about it too.

Bloof
Bloof
10 months ago

I like this idea. It’s probably not very good for you, but I might do it for infinite 1 ups.

Ste
Ste
10 months ago

Tim, in case you aren’t already aware, I can see the content of two “patron only” test posts in the RSS feed.
(Following the link in them correctly goes to a nothing to see here type page)