I vaguely remembered what a “monkey’s paw” was (a wish granting magical item), but this made me look it up for more detail. So the original monkey’s paw (from the eponymous short story) exacts *terrible* O_O prices/consequences for making the wishes…
So is there something so far in this story similar to that? The worst I’ve seen is mischief and mess, but nothing particularly nasty. P&G’s trades have been for the most part quite fair. And Lester’s “old life back” with the manacle has instead led to a seeming redemption.
It just grants the wish … in a way that would be possible. We don’t even know what the second wish really did, except for someone knocking at the door.
I turned the dead son from the first wish into a zombie or something similar, because the mother made another badly worded wish. That story is probably the single worst thing to happen to the Wish spell, given how many DMs use it as inspiration for dickery.
As I recall, the son was badly mangled in the accident that killed him and this was in a time when getting buried alive was a realistic fear.
“We were premature in declaring your son dead, but he’ll never be the same again and probably wishes he was dead.” would have been a legitimate outcome for that second wish.
Zombie fiction wasn’t really a thing yet – though that might have been the intention, there’s another interpretation as well. It might have made it so that the dead son actually survived an accident where he was pulled into the gears at the factory and horribly mangled. But everyone thought he was dead, so he wound up buried alive and took a week to dig his way free and get back home.
The idea that he would be putting his son through that kind of agony…
From what little we see of the actual Monkey’s Paw at least part of the problem is how vague or poorly worded the wishes are. For a weaker magic item it might go with the least difficult path for granting the wish (Aladdin’s Lamp in one modern fantasy novel was like that, The Dancing Gods series I think it was), so the first wish for money simply took least difficult route of a fatal accident for their son as they’d then receive the death payout. The second wish as they realize too late only wished him back but said nothing about restoring his body to what it was like before being mangled and also may have restored life to the body but not the soul. The third wish so far as we know worked fine as his remains were wished back to his grave.
I remember a science fiction story where the main character asked the Genie for a copy of the next day’s newspaper. The Genie obtained a copy of the early edition, which had been on the stands at the time the wish was made. I think it became available at 10 PM the prior evening or something like that.
I vaguely remember that story, he forgot about that detail when he should have asked at the least for next week’s paper. I also remember a funny story where a couple that ran an appliance store started finding stock going missing only to find out a genie had been stealing it. Seems he wasn’t so good at magically creating things but better at temporal magic so was traveling into the future and stealing from their store to meet the wishes for things like ‘cool the palace down.’ They complained and the genie paid them in gold and precious jewels but they started worrying about altering history so brought it up to the genie who revealed there was nothing to worry about. Why? Because he was stealing stuff for the king of ATLANTIS.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of Lester and the Manacle. I’d originally pictured the two of them at the next therapy group meeting, but the two of them would probably benefit from going to couples’ therapy as well. Both of them have enough snark that hilarity would ensue.
MANACLE: I can’t believe you brought me here.
COUNSELOR: I have to agree. As you have your power source back, should you really be in a group for depowered individuals?
LESTER: My parole officer said I could keep the Manacle, as long as I kept coming to these meetings.
MANACLE: THE FOOL! No one ALLOWS me to be paired… it is MY decision!
LESTER: I’m beginning to regret it.
Nobody’s talking about Zodon? Why not? With his vaunted and evil intelligence, you think he’d learn by now that things rarely go the way he thinks they will…
Only when he tries to be bad. When he acts heroically, things go swimmingly. The fact that everything’s working just fine right now is a potent sign that all is not right with Power & Glory.
The shop manager might have planned all this. Getting things where they need to be and away from where they shouldn’t be seems to be the intent with this swap shop, hence the weird prices on half the items. This could be another means of redistribution though not a popular one with the staff due to the post action cleanup. Still not sure if they know it’s All planned or if they think they are supposed to win so far.
Looks like Zodon got away for now. At least until he starts to mess with the Chaos Goo. He’s not wrong about those *GUMBALLS*, however.
Though there’s still a chance he will have ‼FUN‼ today, if he runs into the mysterious boss (who set up that multidimensional maze in the first place).
One of the things I like about this comic is that the evil geniuses – Zodon and the Von Foggs in particular – have a very good handle on what should and shouldn’t be messed with, and are very serious about taking appropriate precautions in the latter case.
The best thing that any of the hero groups could do on learning what Zodon has done with the chaos goo is say “good job, here’s funding to _keep_ it contained”. Zodon would love to divert some of those resources to his other nefarious schemes, but won’t, because he’s rightly terrified about what would happen if it got loose.
So, I don’t think there’s any risk of Zodon “messing with the chaos goo”. That seems to be what everyone _else_ is doing.
Yes Zodon is far from perfect but I believe him when he says his desire is to contain it and while he might not be the most trustworthyXqualified party, he’s the most trustworthyXqualified party available.
That’s because Zodon is not a villain. He’s an anti-hero “masquerading” as a villain because he refuses to play the same cape and mask games all the “heroes” play and he’s a jerk.
Vonn Fogg is anti-villain. He’s a villain who does ‘villainy’ only because that’s the family business and I suspect if Aaron liked the character more than Zodon, we’d have been seeing Von Fogg slowly turning more and more hero-by-accident instead of vaguely machiavellian villain that never really does anything evil.
Well, that and the fact that Victor (and the Von Foggs as a whole) are riffs on the Foglios’ Girl Genius, so they’re going to stay fairly close to that. Alexandra even has the same style glasses as Agatha, for Ford’s sake.
They are also riffs on Victor Von Doom, who is great if you talk to the people he rules, he’s just a villian because he keeps going after the Fantastic Four and other countries that annoy him.
Depending on the writer unfortunately. About half the time Doom’s depicted as actually caring about his people and honestly doing his best for them the other half he’s a tyrant without peer that everyone’s terrified of making the slightest mistake in not showing respect and worship of him lest they end up killed on the spot or worse become one of his lab animals.
Of course, there is also the point that if he “contains” it well enough, Ultimate Powers won’t be able to get newly generated “chaos energy” INTO it… what happens then?
victor von fogg was literally destroying universes to feed his energy needs (he did a half-assed job of checking to see if they were populated first, if you think that improves his position). let’s not put him on the list of responsible villains.
Including destroying the inhabited universe he was looking to conquer, since his nigh-omnipotence came at the expense of consuming a lot of that universe while he was at it.
Don’t think I’ve seen anyone bring this up btw but just how did this shop even get the manacle? Presumably it would have been in police storage in some evidence locker, so how was it removed and transferred to the shop so he could find it again?
I brought it up back when it first appeared. Prairie Son made pretty much the same answer then. Maybe we’ll find out for sure, maybe not. I can be patient about that info if we can just get the interval between pages down a bit.
<3 <3 <3
Regret and a second chance means a heel-face-turn into a hero?
I DIG IT!
I vaguely remembered what a “monkey’s paw” was (a wish granting magical item), but this made me look it up for more detail. So the original monkey’s paw (from the eponymous short story) exacts *terrible* O_O prices/consequences for making the wishes…
So is there something so far in this story similar to that? The worst I’ve seen is mischief and mess, but nothing particularly nasty. P&G’s trades have been for the most part quite fair. And Lester’s “old life back” with the manacle has instead led to a seeming redemption.
It just grants the wish … in a way that would be possible. We don’t even know what the second wish really did, except for someone knocking at the door.
I turned the dead son from the first wish into a zombie or something similar, because the mother made another badly worded wish. That story is probably the single worst thing to happen to the Wish spell, given how many DMs use it as inspiration for dickery.
Meh. Literal Genies predate that story by a long shot.
“The Third Wish always undoes the damage done by the first two wishes.”
A trope probably much older than the word “trope.”
As I recall, the son was badly mangled in the accident that killed him and this was in a time when getting buried alive was a realistic fear.
“We were premature in declaring your son dead, but he’ll never be the same again and probably wishes he was dead.” would have been a legitimate outcome for that second wish.
Yes, nowadays we make sure that they’re dead albeit unintentionally.
That’s what those who made wish assumed.
Zombie fiction wasn’t really a thing yet – though that might have been the intention, there’s another interpretation as well. It might have made it so that the dead son actually survived an accident where he was pulled into the gears at the factory and horribly mangled. But everyone thought he was dead, so he wound up buried alive and took a week to dig his way free and get back home.
The idea that he would be putting his son through that kind of agony…
From what little we see of the actual Monkey’s Paw at least part of the problem is how vague or poorly worded the wishes are. For a weaker magic item it might go with the least difficult path for granting the wish (Aladdin’s Lamp in one modern fantasy novel was like that, The Dancing Gods series I think it was), so the first wish for money simply took least difficult route of a fatal accident for their son as they’d then receive the death payout. The second wish as they realize too late only wished him back but said nothing about restoring his body to what it was like before being mangled and also may have restored life to the body but not the soul. The third wish so far as we know worked fine as his remains were wished back to his grave.
But not dead again.
I remember a science fiction story where the main character asked the Genie for a copy of the next day’s newspaper. The Genie obtained a copy of the early edition, which had been on the stands at the time the wish was made. I think it became available at 10 PM the prior evening or something like that.
I vaguely remember that story, he forgot about that detail when he should have asked at the least for next week’s paper. I also remember a funny story where a couple that ran an appliance store started finding stock going missing only to find out a genie had been stealing it. Seems he wasn’t so good at magically creating things but better at temporal magic so was traveling into the future and stealing from their store to meet the wishes for things like ‘cool the palace down.’ They complained and the genie paid them in gold and precious jewels but they started worrying about altering history so brought it up to the genie who revealed there was nothing to worry about. Why? Because he was stealing stuff for the king of ATLANTIS.
Monkeys paw is literally a genie without a personality every wish will screw you over
I’m really enjoying the banter between these two.
almost 3 months since the last update
yay
Stuff happens man, while I hope this isn’t a recurring thing, I’m just happy for the update!
Considering nobody pays for this comic I suspect he’s got some other paying gigs that probably have priority.
Oh a new one. I’m glad. I was getting worried there for a bit. I really like this comic
I’m looking forward to seeing more of Lester and the Manacle. I’d originally pictured the two of them at the next therapy group meeting, but the two of them would probably benefit from going to couples’ therapy as well. Both of them have enough snark that hilarity would ensue.
MANACLE: I can’t believe you brought me here.
COUNSELOR: I have to agree. As you have your power source back, should you really be in a group for depowered individuals?
LESTER: My parole officer said I could keep the Manacle, as long as I kept coming to these meetings.
MANACLE: THE FOOL! No one ALLOWS me to be paired… it is MY decision!
LESTER: I’m beginning to regret it.
This conversation is now my head-canon. ^_^
Thank you. I’m here all week. Tip your waitstaff!
Nobody’s talking about Zodon? Why not? With his vaunted and evil intelligence, you think he’d learn by now that things rarely go the way he thinks they will…
Only when he tries to be bad. When he acts heroically, things go swimmingly. The fact that everything’s working just fine right now is a potent sign that all is not right with Power & Glory.
The shop manager might have planned all this. Getting things where they need to be and away from where they shouldn’t be seems to be the intent with this swap shop, hence the weird prices on half the items. This could be another means of redistribution though not a popular one with the staff due to the post action cleanup. Still not sure if they know it’s All planned or if they think they are supposed to win so far.
Looks like Zodon got away for now. At least until he starts to mess with the Chaos Goo. He’s not wrong about those *GUMBALLS*, however.
Though there’s still a chance he will have ‼FUN‼ today, if he runs into the mysterious boss (who set up that multidimensional maze in the first place).
One of the things I like about this comic is that the evil geniuses – Zodon and the Von Foggs in particular – have a very good handle on what should and shouldn’t be messed with, and are very serious about taking appropriate precautions in the latter case.
The best thing that any of the hero groups could do on learning what Zodon has done with the chaos goo is say “good job, here’s funding to _keep_ it contained”. Zodon would love to divert some of those resources to his other nefarious schemes, but won’t, because he’s rightly terrified about what would happen if it got loose.
So, I don’t think there’s any risk of Zodon “messing with the chaos goo”. That seems to be what everyone _else_ is doing.
Yes Zodon is far from perfect but I believe him when he says his desire is to contain it and while he might not be the most trustworthyXqualified party, he’s the most trustworthyXqualified party available.
That’s because Zodon is not a villain. He’s an anti-hero “masquerading” as a villain because he refuses to play the same cape and mask games all the “heroes” play and he’s a jerk.
Vonn Fogg is anti-villain. He’s a villain who does ‘villainy’ only because that’s the family business and I suspect if Aaron liked the character more than Zodon, we’d have been seeing Von Fogg slowly turning more and more hero-by-accident instead of vaguely machiavellian villain that never really does anything evil.
Well, that and the fact that Victor (and the Von Foggs as a whole) are riffs on the Foglios’ Girl Genius, so they’re going to stay fairly close to that. Alexandra even has the same style glasses as Agatha, for Ford’s sake.
They are also riffs on Victor Von Doom, who is great if you talk to the people he rules, he’s just a villian because he keeps going after the Fantastic Four and other countries that annoy him.
Depending on the writer unfortunately. About half the time Doom’s depicted as actually caring about his people and honestly doing his best for them the other half he’s a tyrant without peer that everyone’s terrified of making the slightest mistake in not showing respect and worship of him lest they end up killed on the spot or worse become one of his lab animals.
Of course, there is also the point that if he “contains” it well enough, Ultimate Powers won’t be able to get newly generated “chaos energy” INTO it… what happens then?
victor von fogg was literally destroying universes to feed his energy needs (he did a half-assed job of checking to see if they were populated first, if you think that improves his position). let’s not put him on the list of responsible villains.
Including destroying the inhabited universe he was looking to conquer, since his nigh-omnipotence came at the expense of consuming a lot of that universe while he was at it.
I’m liking Mr. Sarcastic. I’m liking the Manacle too.
Don’t think I’ve seen anyone bring this up btw but just how did this shop even get the manacle? Presumably it would have been in police storage in some evidence locker, so how was it removed and transferred to the shop so he could find it again?
Presumably Starwand traded it for something else after they got it off of Lester.
Or traded to obtain the “Fires of Olympus” with the price being the Manacle.
Some items are interestingly priced. Money can’t buy everything.
I brought it up back when it first appeared. Prairie Son made pretty much the same answer then. Maybe we’ll find out for sure, maybe not. I can be patient about that info if we can just get the interval between pages down a bit.