2015-09-14
Posted on 2015-09-16 by Aaron

155 thoughts on “2015-09-14”

  1. Prairie Son

    Metaphysiological Therapists. Say that 10 times fast.

    1. nate

      that that that that that that that that that that

    2. Me-me

      Too many syllables, I run out of breath before I get to 10.

    3. CotFI2

      New career objective unlocked!

    4. Ie Yamof Ool

      O.K. ‘That10times’. was that fast enough???

    5. Josh

      “Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink”
      It’s a fun comic.

    6. Jackspades

      “that ten times fast.”

      there are you happy now

    7. Adaon

      Actually, that’s not so hard.. then again, it depends on the setting for “fast”. Plus, in my language, we have this sentence and try fast-speaking it as kids:

      “Fischer Fritz fischt frische Fische, frische Fische fischt Fischer’s Fritz.”

  2. Stephen Smoogen

    Foreshadowing of new villians (if this was a Silver Age comic)

    I WAS THE GREATEST LEADER OF THE MYSTICS UNTIL YOU CAME ALONG!!!!

    1. Van

      Nice try Conjuror, but you were fairly low level compared to the rest of the mages on the planet.

      1. ThatGuy

        A true super hero moment. 84 just made her own enemies by being the good guy. Two heroes who were respected (when lying) now cast out from glory. Now we just need a few angry lines and then… we have new villains or at least a new evil gym teacher.

        1. Van

          The DSA may have a few words to say about them and their future. Most of which will involve prison sentences for child endangerment, assaulting a minor super, and other things.

        2. Shadur

          In Neuronet’s case, definitely, but Conjuror didn’t do anything criminal — being a blowhard with an oversized ego isn’t a crime.

        3. Miryafa

          Mmm, I hope not. In addition to what Shadur said about Conjuror, I don’t think Neuronet ought to be held up to much criticism either (aside from being a bit too aggressive). Armchair quarterbacking a battle is a popular past time, but a bad practice in real life, and I dislike when people – especially lawyers – do it. And any of the other adult heroes could have just been trying to protect 84 by keeping her out of the encounters – albeit in their own pushy A-type superhero way.

        4. trlkly

          No. Just no. By that logic, war crimes are okay. It is our job to “armchair quarterback” in this way. It’s what the legal system is.

          Do you not get what Neurodancer did? It was the next step up from rape. This is supervillain stuff here. He took over their minds and forced them to act against their will.

          Conjurer is a bit more debatable, since we don’t actually know what his horrible secret is. We guess it’s that he’s in it for himself, but we don’t know that for sure.

          But Neuronet is essentially evil. If he were a supervillain, he’d be the kind that you’d be okay with killing.

  3. Marie

    I’m glad to see they’re appreciated by some of their peers. Unfortunately when super hero groups become competitive jobs and toys, this kind of publicity fall out seems likely. There should be some medium between poor Spidey and publicity hound groups here… I like this treatment of issues of heroing as jobs.

  4. Joe

    This comic is starting to feel like a much, much kinder and gentler version of “The Boys”.

    I absolutely do NOT mean this in a snarky way because I adore PS238.

    1. mccoma

      Thinking about it, you are pretty right on. There is a middle ground in showing how superheroes would actually work with actual human thoughts and the Garth Ennis “everyone is a m*****f***** and nothing good is actually good” vision. PS238 has always been about the humanity of it all and I guess that why its my favorite.

      1. Marie

        I was rereading one of the Wild Card collections, and the stories were all such grim downers. No one likes their lives, it’s so grim and gritty that national news with iffy numbers is more cheerful. The world of PS238 had stupid and nasty and well meaning idiots, but it’s not futile.

    2. evileeyore

      “Starting to”?

      It’s always been. Ps238 and Invincible are “deconstructions” of the super hero myth. However unlike The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen*, The Boys, Worm*, The Authority, and a bunch of others I’m forgetting, both Ps238 and Invincible are also “reconstructions” of the hero myth. They don’t just ‘tear down” or show the flaws in the standard super-hero stories, they rebuild them to show how they could (re)work under “other sensibilities”.

      * Worm and Watchmen are also //good/ deconstructions, The Authority is ‘okay’, The Boys is puerile and juvenile, and The Dark Knight Returns completely forgets who Batman and Superman are. The Chris Nolen Dark Knight moves are generally “good” reconstructions of the Batman, through a dark/gritty/mundane lens.

      The Deadpool movies also work† this way, they’re very much a “how would supers actually work in a ‘real’ world”, and they make it work.

      † In that being R rated, they can show the fallout that would occur if supers were active around normal humans, but also fit the theme and structure of Marvel hero comics.

  5. Dragons'Mom

    I am laughing so hard my daughter thought I was choking.

    I love this!

  6. Pander

    I’m happy that Neuronet was thrown off of his team, but I feel what he did was borderline supervillainy so I wouldnt be surprised if he did a face heel turn to being a supervillain. Conjuror was poorly shown in the egg too, but he didnt do anything outright evil like Neuronet did. Conjuror was just a pompous blowhard.

    1. Tom Gwynn

      I agree. Conjurer was a bit arrogant, but then, most high-caliber mages are. Without him I highly doubt they would have beaten Rastov the Great, and he was useful in identifying hazards, figuring out how Koschei’s forgetfulness spell worked and also just in keeping track of how much time they had left. He didn’t pass the final test, but neither did the others. He did okay.

    2. Messenger

      Let’s put it this way:

      Had our heroes failed, setting aside not getting the title of Earth’s Champion to regularly face off against Veles, Veles would have continued harassing New York City in the manner only a *god of mischief* can. This has already included turning a guy into a Godzilla-type monster to rampage through it. Someone could easily have gotten hurt, and Veles isn’t likely to care.

      Thus, Conjuror had good reason to succeed, if just to protect NYC’s citizens from Veles. And to that, he would have needed to tell the truth about himself: that he was a glory hound.

      He didn’t. He lied (which, BTW, is not a good thing to do in itself). He still chose to project the image that he was a selfless do-gooder, not in it for the title, but to protect people.

      And he chose that facade despite the fact that he knew the Mist Gatekeeper had the power to supernaturally evaluate the correctness of answers given to him, as he did with Firedrake who sincerely believed and accepted that he was the fraud.

      So, in short, Conjuror chose his heroic, fame-giving image over the welfare of NYC. And he got booted for it.

      I’ll admit that Conjuror just coming clean about being a glory hound would have hurt his image as well, but at least he would have passed that trial and gone on to the room with 84, thus giving our heroes a greater chance at succeeding (yes, 84 did succeed, but it was close). Ultimately, Conjuror was doomed either way- but one choice and its results would have been better for himself and for the folks of NYC.

      Lastly, let’s not forget how Conjuror reacted to being called out. He wasn’t exactly graceful and honest about it as well (2014-04-20).

      Conjuror wasn’t merely arrogant or condescending- he was willing to lie for it, or even choose it over the good of a city full of people. Sure, it neither was as horrible as Neuronet’s actions nor like any kind of direct unequivocal villainy, but he definitely wasn’t being super*heroic*.

      1. Pander

        Oh, Conjuror is definitely not ‘heroic’ but he just wasnt evil by any stretch of the imagination. He’s just arrogant and pompous, and like MANY people, does not like to admit when he’s called out on stuff. Like when he’s called out on how he does his heroic stuff for recognition, not for altruistic reasons. That’s fine though, that he doesnt do it ‘altruisticly’ (is that even a word? 🙂 ). A lot of heroes are not altruistic. Iron Man isnt exactly ‘altruistic’ – he’s a glory hound too. Nor is Hawkeye, Booster Gold, Wolverine, or a bunch of other heroes in comics. That being said, not wanting to fess up when the fate of the world was at stake? That was definitely NOT heroic. Firedrake was willing to fess up, which does make him more heroic about it – but apparently Firedrake had long since accepted his role and doesnt lie about it to begin with.

        But I still don’t see Conjuror as evil – just a jerkface who needs to learn some humility. Neuronet on the other hand? Yeah …. awful awful awful person who is lucky if 84 and Phlogiston did not press charges or whatever happens to telepaths who mentally assault others in their world 🙂 They probably won’t press charges – seems like those two are the forgiving heroic type and would feel Neuronet has already had a penalty in getting booted from his team and having the world know what type of person he really is.

        1. Messenger

          Just to be clear, I’m not pushing for Conjuror to be *in prison* as if he were full criminal or villain- but he does deserve the negative publicity he earned and its accompanying boot off his team after being a team leader.

        2. Spoony Viking

          Hold on. Hawkeye certainly loves the fame and the glory, but at the end of the day, he does the right thing just because it’s the right thing, not because it will necessarily bring him any benefit. And Iron Man in the comics has never really been as egocentric and self-serving as his portrayal in the movies. Booster, admittedly, started out as very self-serving, but he improved greatly in that regard throughout his career in the Justice League.

        3. Messenger

          On that note, regarding movie Tony Stark, for a given narcissist, he’s sure driven by a need to atone for the use of his company’s products against fellow Americans and innocent people. That’s still a step above simply being in it for your own fame and fortune.

        4. Messenger

          Revision: Come to think of it, several steps above.

        5. Tsotate

          I doubt they could press charges even if they wanted to. They weren’t actually in New York at the time, after all. Extradimensional spaces have weird jurisdictional issues.

        6. Van

          You would be surprised on how well they could actually make a lot of charges stick, since the Extradimensional space was on American soil and in New York at the time.

        7. Gillsing

          I thought USA took the liberty to charge people for committing any crime outside of its jurisdiction as if the crime was perpetrated within its jurisdiction? As in, if you do something that’s illegal in USA, you’d better not go there, because you can be charged even if whatever do did was legal in the country you did it in.

        8. Doughbelly

          Not in the general sense, no, because it violates generally accepted principles of territoriality and jurisdiction. In certain circumstances and for specific acts related to commerce or in the case of being under the employment of the US government, yes.

        9. Van

          Tell that to the guy who shot that lion. He is in a lot of legal hot water.

        10. Pneumonica

          To clarify on Gillsing’s question – there are specific crimes that involve going to foreign soil and committing a crime. However, the crime is leaving the country in order to commit a crime (such as going to a foreign country for “child sex tourism”). Thus, the actual crime committed was in the United States (admittedly, the very moment they left the United States).

          In this case, in terms of criminal charges, there are none. They did not intentionally go anywhere, thus upon departure from US jurisdiction were guilty of no crimes (that we know of). However, air-lady and lady-of-the-eights both have great claims in civil court for “mental battery” (harmful or offensive mental contact), gross negligence, and a host of other claims, and those CAN be tried in the United States.

    3. Nightmask

      Except what Neuronet did wasn’t borderline villainy, there are other heroes in mainstream comics that have done things similar to or worse than him (seriously, Rogue drains the powers AND minds of anyone she touches into herself, totally invading their minds and memories in ways Neuronet didn’t even remotely come close to) and do remember his entire team is made up of mentalists like him, clearly what he did was NORMAL to his group (he was their leader, obviously from how readily he used his powers in the Egg he had to be using them in that fashion with his team as well and without complaint from them), so if you’re going to spin him as a super-villain you should be spinning his entire team as a super-villain team-up because the only reason they ended his connections with them was because he had made public what they all did and they took the politicians way out of quickly getting rid of him and pretending it wsn’t anything they do.

      1. Griff

        To paraphrase John Oliver: controlling someone’s body with psychic powers is like boxing. If both parties didn’t agree to it beforehand, then one of them is committing a crime.

        1. Nightmask

          Except it wasn’t a crime, Neuronet’s hardly the only hero who’s been showing doing what he did (it was Karma’s only power and the only use for her years before she was trained up into a more formidable combatant who didn’t have to use her mind control powers all the time). Now if he’d done something to them like when Puppet Master was mind controlling various super-heroines and using them as sex slaves you’d have justification to say he was committing a crime but he wasn’t, at worst he’s more in the range of someone who shoved another hero into the way of a threat which cost them some temporary discomfort and it bit him on the backside as well so he didn’t get off scott free.

        2. Hyperstrike

          Except that he took control of NON-CONSENTING people, whose powers he only THOUGHT he understood, and sent them INTO BATTLE.

          That’s the equivalent of a WW1 trencher chucking a buddy out of the trench and into No-Man’s Land for the machine gunners to pick off.

        3. Alexis

          I disagree with your reference to Karma’s powers about one thing: she used it on ennemies or direct threats (see below). He used his on allies! The only worst step would have been to use it on bystanders.

          It’s true that Karma’s power is quite questionnable, especially when used on cops that are only doing their job while trying to sort out what happened around the mutants or things like that, but she never used it on allies to force them to act in a specific way nor on passers-by for convenience’s sake.

          The same goes for Rogue. First, she started as a villain, and that is when she got her permanent powers from Ms Marvel. Then, she only used her absorbing power against ennemies, either to incapacitate them, get more power to defeat another one, or obtain some knowledge. The only times she used it (voluntarily) on allies, they were willing to do so… or unconscious and she had to do it to save them.

          Again, not the same context as a mage that sends his allies on the path of danger as if they were mere objects.

        4. Kirala

          I agree, but I think that (more like boxing without consent, and less like the thing John Oliver’s comparing to), this is a bad thing a hero can do without necessarily switching to the villain hat. He genuinely may have thought he was helping save the world, and he’s accustomed to his teammates’ long-term consent. He needs to be benched till he learns consent, but I’m not at all sure he’s incapable of learning. His response to being confronted about his behavior in the egg – that’s the crucial thing: does he humble himself and learn how he was wrong, or does he double down? One is the hero gaining wisdom from a fall, and the other is the villain route. (But I see him as a pragmatist, and it’s always hard to tell whether a pragmatist is more concerned with being practical or being better than impractical people – no idea where he’d fall.)

      2. Varkas

        Except that in the case of Rogue(at least until relatively recently in the comics), she had no control over her touch doing that and did everything in her power to avoid contact with those not prepared for the consequences, unless they had already proven a threat to the health and safety of others.

        Neuronet on the other hand, chose to forcibly control two non-consenting metahumans and in the process(and without showing any real remorse) sacrificed the life of one of them, as we didn’t know the deaths weren’t real until after the fight. Conjurer was at least only guilty of being an arrogant arse, deluded by his own power and skill into thinking his opinions were correct(something many metas are guilty of as shown by Tyler’s parents and driven home by the talk Revenant had with him about that very subject at the end of the Rainmaker arc).

        Nueronet is a villain, or at the very least an anti-hero

        1. Nightmask

          No, Neuronet’s not a villain nor is he an anti-hero. That one action of his does NOT make him a either, it makes him a flawed human being, a hero who made a mistake in judgment that cost him dearly. How he deals with things from this point on determines whether he learns from it and remains a hero or begins sliding into less positive behaviors and more towards actual anti-hero or Punisher-style villainy.

      3. trlkly

        No, it’s not borderline villainy. It’s straight up villainy. The fact that there are other mainstream heroes who do the same thing just shows how shitty the people are who use them that way without them being treated the way they should be.

        There is the implied idea of mind controlling someone to do something they would probably be okay with doing, but you don’t have time to ask them–ala Xavier. There’s the idea of using mind control to stop someone from doing something wrong. But you cannot use mind control to force people to risk their lives against their will.

        It’s no different from those who use children as meat shields.

      4. evileeyore

        Nightmask, are you sure you don’t just have a mindcontrol fetish?

    4. TBeholder

      Conjuror may be full of himself, but he also demonstrated competence, after having the right direction shown to him.
      Neuronet didn’t, even if they did almost accidentally achieve something in process – and exactly because he let himself believe he’s a tactical genius. Coordinating attacks was probably a part of his SOP, but since he failed, this only makes his problem look worse.

  7. memnarch

    Well, not quite unexpected, but still nice to know that the two least pleasant people that went in didn’t get anything nice from it.

    Sidenote, I had just been missing the comic and wondering when the next update would come, and then it did! 🙂

    1. Agaric

      Next time do please start wondering sooner 🙂

  8. Doughbelly

    So how many volumes before they come back as villains? I give it 3-5 years. XD

    1. Stephen R. Bierce

      I think there’s another option: Praetorian Academy needs faculty.
      Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.

      1. Dorje Sylas

        I really, deeply, hate that saying. Considering that in order to actually teach anything you actually have to DO teaching, and either be well trained for it or have a talent for it.

        Very often those who “can do” in their respective fields can’t teach, and more often hurt their students education.

        In this fictional case Conjurer is an absolute ego bag and would be pure toxin in a classroom. Neuronet likely even more so.

        1. Doughbelly

          Same!

          Some of the best doers are the best teachers, some are not. OTOH, never met a good teacher who wasn’t a good doer.

          It’s a shame that this saying has any traction in the Anglophone world and contributes to the low status/low pay circle of teachers, especially in the US.

        2. richard

          I’ve often found teaching something helps me understand it better
          you have to explain it and understand it from someone else’s point of view to be able to teach them it

        3. bificommander

          Oh no, I think Neuronet would have excellent results as a teacher.

          “I will now insert the knowledge of multiplication directly into your brains” *Bzzzt* “You now know how to do multiplications. The test is next week. Don’t bother studying, I’ll mind control you all for the test so I can be sure you do it right.”

        4. trlkly

          What sign do we have that he can do this? Sure, he has mind control and telepathy, but have we seen any sign of implanting knowledge? Heck, can he even “I know kung fu” himself?

        5. Anub

          Well the standards keep dropping for teachers for the sake of diversity.

        6. rmsgrey

          Diversity? I thought the standards for teachers kept dropping because of the need to keep up with burnout rates caused by ever increasing government meddling… Or is that just in the UK?

        7. Mechwarrior

          No, the standards keep dropping because of decades worth of declining funding that has left schools understaffed and unable to attract as many top tier people anymore.

        8. Doughbelly

          Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

        9. Mike

          Not sure how your first statement applies unless the person is trying to teach teaching. And your second statement supports the saying you said you hate, so I’m even more confused as to what point you’re trying to make.

          To me, the saying makes perfect sense if “do” and “can’t” refer to “performing naturally at an elite level”. To be good at teaching others to do something, you need to be aware of the steps involved in doing it, the common ways to screw it up and how to avoid those or compensate for them. Elite performers tend to do a lot of things subconsciously, so they can’t teach them very well since they can’t really explain what they do. Marginal performers usually had to work and study hard to do as well as they did, so they’re more consciously aware of all the steps and caveats and are better able to teach others. Which is probably why elite NFL players seldom make good coaches, while elite coaches were usually marginal-to-OK players.

          If you can’t “do” at all, though, you probably can’t teach it either. Although I did manage to successfully tutor someone through graduate-level organic chemistry in college, despite having no understanding of the subject and not even being able to figure out what her questions meant. I just kept asking clarifying questions (in an attempt to get some clue what she was talking about) until she saw the answer on her own.

        10. Nobody

          Socratic Method works, huh?

        11. JDunk1971

          If I’m not mistaken, that saying came from the Dutch Protestants who first settled what is today New York. The Dutch Protestants originated the ideas of ‘If you don’t work, you don’t eat’ and ‘If you don’t work as hard as you can, all day every day save the Sabbath, then you are slacking off.’ Those who can, under the Dutch work ethic, should concentrate on what they do best. Those who can’t are those who are unable to work, teach. Those who can’t do either just get out of the way.

        12. John Lederer

          My preferred: “Those who can, teach; Those who can’t, make laws about teaching.”

          Sums up the current situation in the U.S. quite nicely.

      2. sFDS

        And those who can’t teach, teach Gym.

      3. TBeholder

        PA is not a public school either.
        So maybe only later, when there will be something useless, and Ms. Casper from DMA will be assigned there as “having experience”. =)))

  9. Baron Bruce

    I’m a bit puzzled as to why newscasters (like the one in the first panel) are interviewing random superheroes… or indeed, anyone other than the newly proclaimed Champion of Earth.

    1. Prairie Son

      Reporters are pretty well conditioned to never speak with children except for a fluff piece, and even then only with at least one parent/guardian present.

      Plus, Julie isn’t trying to work the media, and everyone else is. Another class needed at PS238?

      1. Hyperstrike

        Yeah. The damndest things tend to fall out of kids’ mouths.

        Like…the truth.

      2. Colin

        “Dealing With Media For Child Heroes”

        1. Flight – the #1 booster seat for interviews
        2. Intelligence – no guarantee that you will be noticed
        3. Superstrength and reporters – the difference between good and bad attention

    2. Mutant for Hire

      Most likely they’re asking a bunch of other supers for their reactions to recent events. Like the way reporters ask random people on the street for their opinion. And 84 is right now nowhere near the reporters, so they can’t reach her.

      1. Vinom

        Perhaps they’re aiming at local supers. This is a national news event of course, but the reaction of the supers their views know best is important.

    3. Dogii

      I would hope they are just being respectful to the fact that three heroes having a touching reunion. Especially when those three heroes played pivotal rules in such dramatic events. But then I guess I hold a little too much faith in decency I guess…

    4. TBeholder

      One happened to be in the right place, but he chews on his shiny new boot right now.

  10. Oddjobsman

    Maybe because 84 is a minor and would require parental or legal representation?

  11. Someguy

    You would think that a Flame user would have at least learnt Urban/Wildfire fighting techniques and develop Pyrotechnic magicians’ skills for psychological warfare to herd criminals like cattle.

    1. Karasu

      You think maybe it might be Phlogiston who ends up doing the training for him?

      1. Romidant

        I’ve got money on them ending up as a duo, and developing a strategy like the two headed dragon in How to Train Your Dragon. Phlogiston lays down a gas trail in the area, Firedrake lights the gas, and either provides a nice light trail or a nice explosion.

      2. Hyperstrike

        Do we smell romance in the air?

        And maybe a future PS238’er? Gaslight? (And hopefully NOT the “blue flame” variety!)

  12. Messenger

    Neuronet and Conjuror getting their comeuppance aside, I’m just still happy hat 84 has new friends. 🙂

    BUT!!!

    What’s going to happen to her once she gets back to PS238? 🙁 The other superkids were already envious and hostile to her at the start of this story arc. I can’t imagine things getting better.

    1. Knug

      Those that liked her already, won’t like her more. These people are friends. Those that disliked her, some will like her more – these people are sycophants and some will dislike her more, these are enemies. Those that didn’t know her, may grow to like her or may grow to dislike her.

      Of the three groups above the only group to be worried about are the sycophants because of their fickle nature. The villains are dangerous, but as they are already known to be dangerous, so you are on your guard against them.

    2. Mitch

      She’s now ‘officially’ Earth’s Champion. She ‘founded’ a super-group, and she’s training Atlas’ stand-in.

      If the purpose of PS238 is to train future super-heroes, I’d say she’s eligible for gradation now.

      Of course, she’ still a kid. So…. I’m thinking she’ll become a Teaching Assistant, or whatever you call it in college when a student is far enough advanced to help other students so the Teacher can slack off.

    3. mccoma

      Zodon might or might not be happy with her given her comment on him http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2014-11-26/

      1. MattStriker

        I doubt it. The only thing he might take issue with is the possible insinuation of incompetence (he’s out to conquer the universe, not destroy it…)

  13. KillerFish

    Is it just me, or is there a bit of chemistry going on between Firedrake and Phlogiston?

    1. Mike

      I’m glad I swallowed before I read that, or my keyboard would be covered in Pepsi. I salute your punniness.

    2. Dragons'Mom

      I was thinking along those lines myself.

      1. KillerFish

        Punning aside, I’m not usually one for shipping, but I support PhloDra.

        1. Faust

          If genetics are power relevant then what possibly resulting powers could there kids have?

    3. Mechwarrior

      You think the sparks are going to fly?

      1. KillerFish

        Well, things definitely seem to be heating up between them, so we shall just have to see how it develops …

  14. CF_Azaka

    If the FISS Infinite Vanguard was all about 84 before, how are they going to react now? Sure, 84 has done some cool things in the past, but they weren’t televised (?illusion illustrated?, ?psychically projected?) to the population of NY before. My money is they’ll be proud of her and themselves, and that 84 might get a few more apprentices. They liked 84 before it was cool.

    I also wonder when the government will get their heads out of their … hats and realize that 84 should just be the next Atlas rather then training his PR replacement.

    1. Mike

      Not likely. Remember Miss Riley’s comments back in the 06/21/2013 panel – “But the people in charge like Forak, since he’s basically a fish out of water on our planet. Our government is his only means of support, so my colleagues at the DMA think he’ll be easier to push around.” Having 84 as Atlas would be a disaster according to those standards. Picking her only makes sense if you’re being rational and care about effective super-heroism.

    2. Nobody

      She doesn’t NEED to be the next Atlas in title, She just needs to be the next Atlas in Spirit.

    3. TBeholder

      At least Forak CANNOT become any more of a fanboy that he already is. :]

  15. mltsandwich

    http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2014-12-26/

    If you forgot what Phlo said about her team leader.

  16. Rock

    This is a wonderful, wonderful series of events… with Phlogiston’s firing as a small downside, which is turned to an upside by her immediate acceptance into the Elementalists. So I guess my only regret is that we didn’t see Neuronet hauled off to jail and didn’t get to watch Conjuror having an epic meltdown when he was kicked out of his team. 😀

    Interesting note: ‘phlogiston’ was supposed to be an element that allowed for things to burn, and Firedrake burns things down. Are these two going to be close partners? Maybe even something more? Only time will tell.

  17. Puidwen

    I think expecting Phlogiston’s going to end up as a teacher at ps238.

  18. tremor3258

    I always favor appropriate comeuppances. I’m liking this warp-up.

  19. Mutant for Hire

    So the question is, how is Phlogiston’s team going to be doing without her making ‘suggestions’ to Meson. They might just end up begging for her back later.

    1. Hyperstrike

      Please come back! He’s killing us!

    2. Nightmask

      Poorly I imagine, unless someone else can step up and fill in for her. They really weren’t any better at long-term thinking than Neuronet’s or Conjurer’s teams were.

  20. Nightmask

    I think people are kind of missing some points with regards to Neuronet and Conjuror, vis a vis their respective (former) teams and what it says about them. Neuronet’s team was centered around mental powers and invading the minds of their targets and forcibly controlling them and even rewriting their memories, if you’re going to vilify him do remember that they aren’t any better and in spite of being a team mate who surely had saved their lives many times and did it well enough to be their team leader they turned on him because they cared more about public opinion than stand by a team mate or weather the bad publicity. Similarly Conjurer’s team would be in the same boat, he was their leader and must have saved their lives many times only for them to abandon him because of his damage to his image, they again were far less concerned about having a competent leader who’d saved their lives on the team than about what the public thought about them. Phlogiston’s team isn’t much better either.

    So we’ve got THREE teams of heroes who care far too much about public opinion than their team mates who’ve had their backs and saved their lives on many occasions (it’s a given when you’re on a super-hero team after all, if any of them had been a load they’d have been terminated before now). Whatever you might think about Neuronet and Conjurer from what little you’ve seen in this arc they have put their lives on the line for their team mates and managed to earn the position of leader who had no problems with how they are until it got televised. They got a raw deal from people they had seen as team mates to watch their backs only to get betrayed in the end. Even Phlogiston got a raw deal from her team but was fortunate enough that FireDrake’s team was willing to take her in after seeing her competence and willingness to place her own ego below the good of others.

    1. Drake

      Now, with Neuronet, I can see how their team might react badly legitimately. “Allowing someone to take control of your body after you’ve discussed it with them and both sides are okay with it for the sake of team efficiency” is a very different grab bag than “override control of someone’s body without permission and over their shouted vocal protests because You Know Better(tm) and getting one of them “killed” in the process”. Some of his teammates might well have gone “Neuro what the loving FUCK” at that, and gotten worried that he might not have taken even MORE liberties with their brains when he was in there, since clearly consent is not a thing to him. So you could imagine a reasoning where the kicking out is more like Wolverine being kicked out of the avengers after being proven willing to try and kill a teammate than for purely political reasons.

      Conjurer, on the other hand, was just kind of a dick, but he was a consistent dick. Everyone knew he was a dick, and he didn’t spring anything unusual on anyone, just his usual dickishness. There was no “wait what the hell” moment that might have kneejerked his team into kicking him. Getting rid of him is clearly a political move.

    2. Knug

      I think this is part of Aaron’s storytelling, that superheroes are still people. All the failings of our species are still there in superheroes, they just have ways of expressing it large. Blowhards, egomaniacs, liars, thieves, sanctimonious twits, losers, idiots – they’re all there. When they get meta powers, this doesn’t remove their failings.

      Aaron has made metahumans normal – they’re part of this society. What he is showing, primarily through the metachildren, is that metahumans are still human. Teams of jerks are just a bunch of jerks working together. They could be plumbers, carpet cleaners, lawyers, or stock brokers. People of similar mindset tend to attract each other, so its no wonder that metahumans of questionable outlook want to work together.

      I think where I’m going with this, is that “super hero” is NOT equal to “Metahuman”. Just because you have a meta power, does not mean you are hero. Revenant, who is hated by most metahumans, is a hero. We’ve met several characters who are true heroes in this comic, not all have meta powers. There is a something that heroes have, and even in an age of meta abilities, its still a rare quality.

      1. Nightmask

        Oh I quite agree, they’re certainly quite human in behavior and not flawless by any means (just look at Guardian Angel, she’s got quite the attitude), I’m just taking issue with the people who’re demonizing Neuronet and Conjurer and acting as if the entire sum of their existence only happened in what we’ve seen which is simply not so. They didn’t get to be leaders of their respective hero teams without their teammates at a minimum condoning the kinds of behavior they’re being criticized for if not actively embracing it while out of the public eye.

        Any relatively long-term super-hero comic reader should also recognize what Neuronet did isn’t some kind of awful villainous mindrape, heck if you want to call that mindrape I’d hate to imagine what kind of depraved monster Hal Jordan qualifies as, considering he regularly used his super-powers to mind-wipe people of information he didn’t want them having (even used it to read a woman’s mind because he couldn’t accept she wasn’t his type and had to probe her mind to reassure himself that he was still God’s gift to women and it was the woman who was in the wrong for rejecting him). Pre-Crisis Superman ALSO spent quite a bit of time mind-wiping people (he once erased an entire day’s worth of memories from Lana Lang with an amnesia bacteria because just seconds before she’d found his costume tucked into one of his college books rather than find another way), which made Identity Crisis pretty ridiculous that somehow he was ‘too moral’ and that ‘rogue members’ of the JLA were mind-wiping villains when it was considered a normal thing for heroes to do (heck Doc Savage had a center where he did brain surgery on unwilling criminals to force them to be good people early on).

      2. Marie

        Excellent! Heroism metapowers. That’s where many superhero movies and stories fall short. The hated mutant theme is not the only way society will adapt. Powers are not just what happens ‘on camera,’ and many excellent storylines deal ONLY with the big stage like an opera. How will things adapt at levels below the Avengers and Superman? Kiddie heroes seems a simple idea, done much more shallowly in Sky High, but rich when a world instead of a stage.

    3. Nobody

      Phlogston knew her team cared more about public opinion than competent leadership anyway, that’s how they got stuck with Meson as the leader in the first place, remember? And she DID manage to air it all on international TV, even if she didn’t mean to. So to them it may also look a betrayal of the team personally rather than the more general dickishness of the other two.

      We don’t know enough about the other teams to know whether this kind of “you bring bad press on us, we drop you” thing is in their respective groups.

      1. Nightmask

        Oh I quite well remember Phlogiston noting how she wasn’t the obvious leader due to putting the person the public most liked in that role rather than the one best suited for the job and her tactfully as possible noting how she’d help ‘guide’ him into more reasonable paths of action (which is going to end up biting their team on the backside big time without her guidance particularly if none of the others have what it takes to fill her shoes). There are however things we can infer about Neuronet’s and Conjurer’s former teammates based on both the little we saw of them and that they had approved them as their respective leaders, such as their actions in the Egg being their normal behavior, behavior that their teams had zero problems with until it was made so glaringly public. The fact that they like Phlogiston’s team removed them as their leaders based on that public exposure shows they’re far more concerned with public opinion than supporting their teammates such as after an embarrassing incident in the public eye. For a comparison, it would be like the Justice League in the animated series getting rid of Superman after he destroyed Lex Luthor’s gift of that new housing set-up fighting with Captain Marvel (which frankly would be something he probably deserved considering the millions if not billions in property damage) yet was kept on on spite of making not just himself but his team look bad, because his teammates did have his back like he’s had theirs in the past. Public relations wasn’t as important as standing by someone who’d nearly died multiple times over defending them and the earth. Yet one publicly embarrassing event that doesn’t even remotely rise to that level and two heroes find themselves forced into solo action or finding new teams by their supposed teammates.

        1. AlmondMagnum

          Yes, and their teams sold them out precisely because they’re normal. More than the powers or the life saving, they got their jobs because they could make their teams popular. And they lost them when they became unable to deliver. It’s the same principle as live by the sword, die by the sword.

          (Though I don’t see why Neuronet should be given a pass for his bout of supervillainy, even if, yes, unpunished superdickery abounds in other comics. I also consider it possible it was his first opportunity to use his powers in circumstances that don’t give him a shred of justification outside his ego.)

        2. Mechwarrior

          It could be that it was just the first time he got caught.

        3. Nightmask

          Well as I’ve repeatedly pointed out AlmondMagnum Neuronet didn’t have a bout of supervillainy, he had a bout of ‘I’m used to linking up with my teammates and guiding them to create a highly efficient group that’s greater than the sum of its parts’. He was thoughtless (no pun intended) and simply did as he was used to doing and it cost him and Phlogiston as a result.

          Meanwhile MechWarrior what you should be saying is ‘first time he did thing so publicly’, because there’s no way he’s been part of a super-team of mentalists and getting away with secretly forcing people into coordinated combat and his team not noticing or being a part of it. What he did was clearly normal for them this is just the first time it was so obviously public and combined with his various comments that also worked against him publicly his team sold him out so they could still get people to buy their action figures and video games since they care more about that than being as effective a team battling evil with Neuronet than without.

        4. AlmondMagnum

          It doesn’t matter that “it’s normal for him”. It’s still supervillainish.

          Here’s it’s complicated by the fact that there are circumstances in which mind control’s justified, and thus not supervillainish. Doing it to his consenting team members? Go for it. Doing it to supervillains to keep them from killing people? Sure. Doing it to innocents because they’re too scared to act and are the only ones in a position to save the day? A gray area.

          But here, what was the justification? 84 and Phlogiston were already on the job. What was his added value, especially considering he knew nothing about Phlo’s powers? None. It’s only in his deluded mind that his involvement was not only beneficial but necessary.

        5. Nightmask

          Sorry but no, what Neuronet did wasn’t villainous and yes it does matter that it was normal for him and his group because what he did was a conditioned response to the situation. He saw the situation and responded to it with a standard play from his hero playbook, or do you want to just keep spinning it as him being a villain because you didn’t like his attitude so simply won’t actually look at things in the entirety and instead reduce things to a strawman so he can be easily written off as behaving like a villain? Because he wasn’t behaving like a super-villain he was behaving like a super-hero who made a mistake by using a standard play from his super-team and forgetting in the heat of the moment and eagerness to prove himself that he didn’t have the permission to do what he did and continued that mistake forging ahead when they protested. It qualifies as a bit of super-dickery and NOT super-villainy. Tyler’s parents are way more qualified as super-villainous than Neuronet from what we’ve seen of him compared to them, or do you think forgetting your son exists after repeatedly putting him into dangerous situations to ‘make him a hero as he’s destined to be’ qualifies as heroic behavior? Because to me it comes off pretty villainous.

        6. Nobody

          Presumably enhanced teamwork, and if he knew more than them, he could use their power more efficiently against the problem.

          Alternatly if he was mind-linking the whole team, they could spread their knowledge to all of them at the speed of their thoughts, rather than having to vocalize it.

          But, then again, Talking Is a Free Action.

        7. AlmondMagnum

          1. I said his action, then, was supervillainish. Whether it’s enough to make him a full blown supervillain is another matter.
          2. That Tyler’s parents are criminally bad parents in no way excuses Neuronet. The issues aren’t even related. (Though at least they’re in the same universe, unlike Golden Age Superman…)
          3. Again, that he considers mind controlling others normal isn’t an excuse. Almost every supervillain ever considers their actions normal. It’s barely an extenuating circumstance for a heat-of-the-moment action, but he doubled down over the protests of the principals. That’s villainish.

        8. Nightmask

          You’ve an extremely low bar for what constitutes villainous behavior AlmondMagnum.

        9. evileeyore

          No means no Nightmask.

          He violated their minds and used them without their consent and continued despite their protests.

        10. Nightmask

          No, violating there minds would mean he went poking around inside of them learning things he shouldn’t, altering things on a whim, or otherwise actual mindrape. Usurping physical control over their bodies isn’t a violation of their minds, at worst it’s simply being tacky and gives them good reason to distrust him in the future and be on guard against it. It’s not evil, and definitely not in the ‘special kind of evil’ territory. If you’re going to be demonizing Neuronet over that I do hope you’ve also been insisting how evil Tyler’s parents are and how much the teachers and Principal Cranston have been furthering evil letting them get away with what they have (it’s called Child Abandonment just to start). There are way worse people around in the comic, heck Cranston alone for using his telepathic powers to read minds to become president should be getting vilified by you yet I can’t remember any posts speaking ill of him and most posts about Tyler’s parents defending their bad behavior.

        11. Spoony Viking

          “Usurping physical control over their bodies isn’t a violation of their minds, at worst it’s simply being tacky[…]”

          …Wow. I have no words to describe just how much I disagree with that. You seem to be forgetting the pesky little issue of “consent” – as in, neither 84 nor Phlogiston consented to being puppeteered by Neuronet.

        12. Nightmask

          Still doesn’t make it a villainous act Spoony, just makes it a thoughtless (no pun intended) one. There’s a range of values to acts, they aren’t simply heroic or villainous. Neuronet’s act wasn’t villainous (certainly not heroic either), it was a hasty and thoughtless act because he was too eager to prove his worth and show off what he could do but not villainous. Unlike say the supposed heroic parents of Tyler, who intentionally put their non-powered into dangerous situations from the total refusal to accept he had no powers and what they were doing could easily kill him. So if you’re going to call something a villainous act and you choose to insist that Tyler’s parents acts weren’t villainous and make excuses for them the excuses you use to explain away their far more dangerous actions more then apply to Neuronet too, who’s actions were based on the belief that as a FISS that 84 was safe and Phlogiston’s powers would make her safe as well unlike Tyler’s parents who KNEW he had no powers but insisted on risking his life anyway because they refused to accept that fact and that they were going to get him killed.

        13. Spoony Viking

          First of all, you’re attributing to me arguments I haven’t made. If you want to actually have a discussion in good faith, don’t do that.
          Secondly, no, it wasn’t a “thoughtless” act. There are degrees to both heroism and villainy, indeed, but under no code of ethics* would the willful invasion of a person’s mind and forciful manipulation of their bodies fall under “neutral” (especially considering that, if they hadn’t been inside a magical egg, those acts would have had fatal consequences for Phlogiston).

          * Except possibly an utilitarian point of view, but even then, only if there hadn’t been any other more effective course of action available AND it had been successful, which it wasn’t.

        14. Nobody

          Also it wasn’t just body-control or telekensis to pick them up and move them against their will, he was in their heads. He heard their thoughts and protests against it, and kept going. He explicitly described it as “yammering” and told them to stop struggling.

          http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2015-01-19/

    4. trlkly

      You’re genuinely scaring me. You seem to be chronically unable to understand the concept of consent. No, child neglect is not somehow worse. No, what Cranston did was not worse. Yes, the Golden Age includes some really disturbing crap being treated as normal, when it’s not. Superman was very often a horrible person.

      He could have initially controlled them without thinking. But when they resisted and he asked them to stop, and the both clearly said no, he no longer has that excuse. What’s more, you talk about comics all the time, yet you neglect that such a scene is always, ALWAYS used to indicate that the hero is becoming villainous.

      And you don’t seem to realize that mind control is a real life thing. No, I don’t mean that we have effective mind control now, but we are working on it, which means that people have already considered the ethical implications. There’s a reason we call it mindrape–it’s not just to elicit the evil of rape. The mental trauma of rape is pretty much the same thing here.

      Yes, mind reading is problematic, too, but at least it doesn’t necessarily harm the person it is used on.

      Hell, the only reason I think Phlo and 84 are alright is that there was instant karma over it. Plus, maybe Phlo, as a superhero, has faced a villain like that, and Julie is maybe too young for the full implications to hit. Or her mind is a lot stronger for FISS reasons.

      1. Nightmask

        I’ve no problems understanding what consent is, and what’s scary is that you think child abuse is somehow LESS dangerous or that what Cranston did was less evil. The parents that put their NON-powered child in dangerous, life-threatening situations you actually think weren’t all that wrong or the guy that violated the minds of others repeatedly to delve into their private thoughts in order to manipulate them to his own advantage to become president of the United States wasn’t actually mind-raping people (what, you think his poking in their minds reading their thoughts WITHOUT CONSENT wasn’t so bad?). Seriously, you’re making excuses to defend characters you favor by downplaying the wrongness or outright evil of their actions (the normal response to parents who act with such disregard to their child’s health as to deliberately put them at risk of injury or death is to take the child away and send them to prison not go ‘well they’re pretty nice people we should cut them some slack since their kid isn’t dead yet from it’) while playing up the actions of another to make them out to be harsher than they actually are.

        Plus no we do not have mind control in RL, the closest we’ve ever come has been a result of exploiting psychological weaknesses in people and manipulating them through various forms of torture. While there has been some discussion about the ethical nature of it we don’t even remotely have the kind of effort spent on that outside of science-fiction fans and writers in general because currently that’s the only place actual Mind Control exists, in fiction.

        Meanwhile yes you’re calling it mind rape to invoke the ‘rape is a special kind of evil’ emotional response by calling what he did mind rape when that is NOT what he did. Cranston is the one guilty of Mind Rape of anyone we see in the comic because he invaded easily hundreds of people’s minds solely for the purpose of taking their private thoughts and using them to manipulate the actions of others. That’s way more mind rape than anything we’ve seen Neuronet do and trying to say it isn’t is just making more excuses to protect a sympathetic character rather than acknowledge the full measure of his actions just as keeping calling what Neuronet did Mind Rape (again, NOT mind rape) to invoke those emotional overtones and demonize him because he’s not a sympathetic character simply because he wasn’t nice to 84 and talked down about FISS. If he’d been all peaches and cream sympathetic THEN did his mental coordination stunt you wouldn’t be calling what he did mind rape you’d be downplaying it just like you downplay what Cranston did regularly invading the private minds of others without consent to manipulate them to his own gain. At least Neuronet did what he did thinking it would help them better deal with a threat and not just for his own gain.

  21. Izumi Ryu

    I’m still curious if 84 gets a boost at all. The Infinite Vanguard are just a group of FISS heroes rallying around 84’s image and heroics rather than a true super team. On the other hand, I could see the various adult super teams fighting over her future, trying to get her to join them when she’s older, or even trying to set her up with one of their junior teams if there’s a Teen Titans/Young Avengers knockoff around.

    1. Hyperstrike

      Hey, when you’re Earth’s Champion, the mountain comes to Mohammed.

    2. Nightmask

      What about 84’s team makes them not a true super-hero team? Looks like a super-hero team to me. You’ve a gathering of supers united under a single identity with a well-revered leader and promptly set out to deal with a threat when it was made known to them and unlike the whiny supers already there quickly helped reduce the threat until it’s instigator appeared and their leader dealt with the remainder of things.

      1. Alexis

        Strangely, I can’t reply to the intented post (which is the one you posted on 2015-09-24, 9:19 am).

        I definitely agree that Tyler’s parents are wrong, and criminally so. Their stubborness is terrifying and they indeed put their child in the face of danger with no regard to his safety. What happened with Tybalt is the icing on their delusional cake.

        But you can’t say that what Neuromind did was not evil (unless you were playing devil’s advocate to prove your point about Tyler’s parents, of course). You are yourself talking about “Usurping physical control over their bodies”… which is frighteningly close to what rape entails.

        There can be attenuating circumstances to mind control, even though, by its own definition, it is a very morally-challenged power. The most common is use on an ennemy to protect oneself or other people, but you could also consider it appropriate when it allowed you to force someone to act in ways it would not consider (or have time for) in order to put them away from danger (let’s say, someone crossing the street while speaking on the phone and not realising there is a car about to hit him).

        But here, he used his powers on two people that were protesting his taking control of their bodies (“Stop fighting and let me drive”: http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2015-01-19/) and, while it could be argued that he expected 84 to be fine (but it was only an educated guess, which is quite harsh when you don’t let people have a say in what happens to them), he acknowledged the risk encurred by Phlogiston and proceeded nevertheless (http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2015-01-21/). Dictators are using the same arguments that he is: they know better, just obey their orders. And since he does not give them a choice when putting them in danger, it is similar to a religious fanatic considering that everyone can be sacrificed for the cause. This man must NOT be considered a hero, not unless he is in probation and under the supervision of another superhuman.

        1. Nightmask

          I say Neuronet’s actions weren’t evil Alexis because they weren’t, yes they can certainly lead to evil choices and actions but what he did wasn’t in and of itself an evil act, which is why I refer to it as a thoughtless act. He resorted to something he’s used to doing with his team out of reflex and instead of respecting their wishes he muscled on as people too eager to prove themselves right often do resulting in him and Phlogiston being disqualified. Which is why his actions were thoughtless not evil, if he’d done it with actual evil intent or obvious evil motivations (like send 84 and Phlogiston in with the intent of getting them eliminated weeding out the competition) I’d certainly join in in crucifying him but that’s not what happened. Now if a later issue included Neuronet and it was revealed that actually was his intent I’d certainly admit I was wrong but so far that’s not the case. Unlike with Tyler’s parents, we know from everything we’ve seen of them that however great they may be at saving lives and stopping super-villains they’re still awful people hiding behind a facade who clearly only had a child to have a super-powered legacy.

        2. Alexis

          You definitely despise Tyler’s parents… 😉
          (I can’t blame you, I don’t like them either, even if not as much as you)

          As for your argument about Neuronet, I’m sorry, but the argument that he resorted to what he does with his team is specious in my opinion. His teammates, according to your theory (which, by the way, is just that: you suppose that his team works this way), allow him to control them so his higher intellect can let him direct the team to its peak efficiency. Great. But 84 and Phlogiston both protested as soon as he started controlling them. His teammates must never protest. So he should immediately have aborted his action. There was no apology in his exchanges with Phlogiston, just pride and condescension for her opinion.

          Besides, you’re saying that he did not expect anything bad happening, except he acknowledged to Phlogiston she was at risk and still maintained his control besides her protesting against it. So he willingly put someone else into danger against her own will for the sake of expediency. This is evil because it is coercion.

          This is why I consider he had to be punished. At best, as I said, he should be on probation under another hero’s supervision, which means that he has to be demoted from his position as team leader.

          And his teammates could even be honest in their expelling him (contrary to the Conjuror, who was booted out for publicity reasons as valid as Phlogiston’s). They could be genuinely horrified by the idea he is ready to take control of their (or an innocent’s) minds even when they disagree, even if, usually, they let him do it. Suddenly, they are facing someone who has proven that he does not care about others’ safety or consent when he thinks he knows better. I’m sorry but, in their position, my trust in him would be severely reduced.

          And yes, I maintain: the simple fact that he had the idea to do that and actually did it is very wrong. The act itself was evil and a hero with such a power should have thought about what was morally acceptable from the start of his career. Since now, as a veteran, he can still let a knee-jerk reaction incite him to force his will upon an ally proves, to me, there is a streak of corruption in his soul (I was tired with both evil and mind 😉 ). A rookie may have made this mistake honestly, never having realised that what he did was wrong, but he is far from being a rookie and, thus, should not fail on such a dramatic issue.

          (as for the president, I’m not sure enough about the circumstances to argue – as far as my memory goes, he does not control his mind-reading ability and does not use it to control people, “just” to know enough to manipulate them through more normal means, and his inability to control it is the attenuating factor, especially combined with more concern about other people’s safety than Neuronet showed)

        3. Nightmask

          I don’t despise Tyler’s parents (I don’t despise any fictional characters) but yes they are unlikable, I have more issue with the people who downplay their behavior as parents when at least Neuronet had two super-powered companions he was sending into danger unlike Tyler’s parents who knew he had no powers but put him in danger anyway due to their delusions of godhood that he’d simply come out of any dangerous situations with super-powers instead of as a corpse. It’s quite simple, if one is going to deride Neuronet for endangering his teammates (which mind you he had little reason to think they were at much risk given their power-sets) then one should just as much deride Tyler’s parents for sending their powerless child into dangerous situations without even remotely acknowledging it could kill him.

          The same goes with the Principal, Cranston was invading the minds of other people, stealing their private thoughts (surely that is mind rape if anything is) and using them to his advantage. Just ask yourself this, during an average day around people just how many thoughts do you have that you’d never want anyone else to know? Those fleeting moments of thought, maybe they’re racist, maybe they’re sexual, maybe they’re just a criticism of someone you don’t want to speak because it would only make things worse not better. Would you want a telepath reading your mind and taking those thoughts from you to use against you as he desired? Because Cranston had total control over his powers in the backstory until he was forced to wear the neural inhibitor headband and had that spell placed on it, it wasn’t until the headband was removed after the Alien invasion damaged it that the spell triggered and he lost control over his powers and started broadcasting his thoughts uncontrollably into others (which is why when meeting with that liaison he had a tape recorder out to show that he wasn’t speaking anything inappropriate it was his thoughts being uncontrollably broadcast). Then Toby removed that spell with his reality-manipulating powers at the consequence of taking Cranston’s chance of redemption away.

          Those are what I’ve taken exception with, the demonizing of Neuronet over one mistake (and remember when his team showed up they promptly started trying to mind-tamper with Veles and threatened to wipe memories from him, which would qualify his entire team for being villains then since they were all there supporting it) while dismissing the long pattern of physical and mental abuse Tyler’s parents put him through and Cranston’s long-running use of his telepathic powers to invade people’s minds, read their private thoughts, and use them to his advantage. They all had a pattern of misconduct that SHOULD have people wanting them strung up, because that misconduct is something they’ve engaged in for years, choosing like Cranston did to violate the private thoughts of easily hundreds if not thousands of people to his own gain because he thought he was doing good, so why then is Cranston’s repeated past history of abuse treated as okay while Neuronet’s ONE instance of choosing poorly treated as full-blown villainy? Because he wasn’t nice to 84 so that made it acceptable, he didn’t have the readers’ sympathies like Cranston who we went years knowing and seeing him suffer from the consequences of his actions before finding out he’d been abusing his telepathic powers for years in order to rise up the ranks in politics until becoming president. You’ll notice meanwhile that Neuronet is NOT shown mind-reading anyone who was sent into the egg with him, he left their thoughts private and only made mental contact when he usurped physical control over them. Which yes was WRONG but it wasn’t SUPER-VILLAIN wrong, because if that was Super-villain wrong then everyone should be calling Cranston a super-villain and treating him as such.

        4. Alexis

          I agree with a good number of your arguments (well, for Cranston, I need to reread the story to see if I agree or not), but I still disagree about your conclusion about Neuronet. As I said, mind-controlling powers are morally questionable as a whole, but when used on a threat, their morality gets clearer. So, his team’s actions on Veles are acceptable: they were trying to control an enemy who had threatened a whole megalopolis.

          Besides, read about what I consider should happen to Neuronet. Again, I don’t remember the details of Cranston’s story, but the kind of power-dampening device he got stuck with is exactly on par with what I say should happen to Neuronet (probation period under the supervision of a superhero – and thus being demoted from his current position).

          And I repeat: Neuronet’s actions are made worse by three factors (I remembered a third one):
          1/ He does not show to be the least bit bothered by what he does.
          2/ He is enough of a veteran that he became team leader, which means he should have thought about what is acceptable and what is not.
          3/ One of his victims (for they are victims) is a child! He starts their journey by using her age to mock her, but he then uses her as he would an adult? Really?!

          I won’t speak about Cranston here (except to remind you that, unless I’m mistaken, he WAS condemned for his use of his powers [at least to be forced to wear the device and so lose his powers], so, at least, he is shown as a former criminal – and his first apparition dealt with the fact that Vashti did not trust him yet), but I can speak for Neuronet and say that when someone is acting this way, he is acting in a very bad way, and his lack of remorse, for me, make it go into evil territory. So he deserved to be kicked out of his team. Now, are his teammates hypocritical? Maybe. Then again, they may have never resorted to such a use of their powers on allies or innocent bystanders and so be genuinely outraged by his behavior. In any case, were I a representative from the authorities, I would definitely want to start an enquiry about his behaviour (and probably his teammates).

      2. Dave III

        “What about 84’s team makes them not a true super-hero team?”

        It strikes me as being more of a worker’s union than a Super-Hero Team in the traditional sense. Not that they can’t be both, but it’s more about why a team IS than who are its members.

        1. Nightmask

          By that argument Dave the X-men aren’t a traditional super-hero team either, since they weren’t motivated to be heroes to protect the public they were a public relations team whose mission was to fight evil mutants and perform public acts of good in order to gain favor in the eyes of the public towards mutants. Which means 84’s team is at least as much a super-hero team as the X-men, only they’ve united to fight evil and earn respect and fair wages for all their kind by showing their worth.

        2. Dave III

          You’re phrasing it a bit more harshly than I intended, but yeah, you’re about right. Altruism don’t pay the rent, basically. It’s a rare superhero/ine who doesn’t have a day job. I’m not trying to put them in the same class as Conjurer– his ‘other reason’ for doing good basically boils down to self-aggrandizement, to promote *himself* into a better position. 84’s team (which she didn’t even know about until this morning, remember, and has had precious little input on– I’m not sure that technically makes it ‘her’ team in any capacity that actually matters) wants to improve the situation for the FISSes and so doing make things better for everyone. Like the X-Men, it’s not about “Oh, look how awesome we are” it’s about “Hey, we’re a part of the team, treat us like it”.

          My use of the word “Traditional” was deliberate: times change, people change, and situations change, but perception can sometimes be annoyingly static. I’m not saying they’re a superhero team, I’m saying they’re breaking the mold and being Something More.

        3. Nightmask

          Didn’t intend for it to come off harshly, simply to note that there are other hero teams with similar motivations around without people questioning their status as an actual super-hero team. If you (generic you) don’t question the X-men’s status as a super-hero team then you’ve no real reason to question said status for 84’s team. There is no single right way for one to form or any list of ‘can only have these motivations’ to define a super-hero team. 84’s team formed to show that the humble, dependable FISS is the backbone of the super-hero community and deserve to be treated as just as important and valuable as the heroes with flashier and less common powers.

  22. Brainstorm

    So, the Elementalists, + Philogiston… Would that make her the elemental equivalent of “Aether”? I’ve always been a little unclear on the alchemical elements…

    1. Nightmask

      Perhaps, given her theme just coincidentally can be stretched to fit into a second themed-team’s theme it would seem likely it was planned that way so that even as three of the four heroes that failed got evicted from their teams the sympathetic one would quickly be shown falling in with another team that will accept her (since nothing she said was bad and as she notes none of it was meant to be public so she wasn’t trying to make the team look bad). Certainly if they had had an idea they were being watched by the world Phlogiston at least wouldn’t have mentioned what she did, although the other two probably would have still lost out (since Conjurer would have still lied by omission at the crucial point as he’d have had even more incentive not to speak the full truth knowing the world was watching and both would have been condescending towards 84 for being a FISS and a pre-teen super). Conjurer and Neuronet were spouting some pretty elitist attitudes that the public don’t realize the super-‘heroes’ protecting them commonly have after all and don’t want the public knowing about so unsurprising their image-conscious teams sold them out to pretend it was an exception rather than normal. Heck just look at Tyler’s parents, they’re practically in the ‘A God Am I’ territory with their attitudes, to the point when they get an obviously super-powered clone of their son they literally forget their actual son exists. Frankly with ‘heroes’ like them around it’s no wonder the the ‘good senator’ had his issues with Cranston and built his Praetorian Academy, doesn’t take much to go from thinking you’re above to wanting to rule everyone ‘for their own good’.

      1. Spoony Viking

        I wonder if Tyler’s parents forgetting his name might be a part of the price he and Toby have to pay because of the latter’s quantum powers.

        1. Nightmask

          No, the only price paid by Toby’s powers was giving up the best friend he could ever have (meaning he’d have taken even Cecil’s friendship away from Tyler, albeit unintentionally) on his part and Cranston losing his chance at redemption. Tyler’s parents forgetting his name is all on them and totally consistent with the personalities they’ve demonstrated. They refused to accept he was non-powered, actually wanted him in dangerous situations because they were absolutely certain he’d gain powers instead of ending up dead, and immediately treated the clone like their son even after finding out he wasn’t their biological son.

          However good they might be as super-heroes saving lives and stopping super-villains they’re awful parents and it’s always been made clear in the comic that they are. Remember Cranston ended up calling in Revenant to train Tyler after the teachers and he were discussing things regarding Tyler and how it was clear his parents were going to keep putting him in dangerous situations until it killed him and apparently were too worried about the publicity to bring it up to CPS or felt they’d never be able to convince the CPS system that two renowned super-heroes were criminally negligent towards their own child (which isn’t much different than the child with a therapist for a parent and the parent does great in their job but awful raising their own child).

        2. Spoony Viking

          You’re forgetting Toby said Tyler would also have to pay some price. (Also, “take”? Friend’s aren’t property! Cecil chose not to, but he could easily have been friends with both.) I brought up this possibility because while Tyler’s parents were never good ones, actually forgetting his name seems to have gone from “willful denial” to “brain damage”.

        3. Nightmask

          Toby never said Tyler would have to pay any price, the only people paying a price were Toby and Cranston. Toby gave up the best friend he could ever have and Cranston gave up redemption, and yes ‘take’, just because friends aren’t property doesn’t mean someone can’t take a friend from you. Cecil’s ‘choice’ was clearly dictated by Toby’s powers as they manipulate reality including choices, so events conspired to prevent Cranston from making the choices that would give him redemption and Cecil was prevented from choosing Toby as his best friend.

          Meanwhile Tyler’s parents actions are NOT a result of Toby’s powers, they’ve ALWAYS been shown as neglectful as all get out way before Toby was even created or gained his powers. They shipped him off to the school dorm’s because they hoped ‘Contagious Powers’ was an active trope and insisted he be treated like he had powers in situations that would quickly get him killed. Why? Because they only cared about him as a thing carrying on their super-powered legacy and didn’t for a moment think about how they could get him killed. The moment they got a super-powered version of him they had their dream realized which was all they cared about so quickly forgot about the non-powered child they actually produced. Just the super-hero version of RL parents who favor one child over another to the point they practically forget the unfavored child exists.

          Seriously, people need to stop making excuses for Tyler’s parents, they aren’t being manipulated by anyone into forgetting about him they’ve forgotten about him because they’re bad parents and did it all on their own once they got the super-powered child they wanted in Toby. Frankly I’m amazed there are people who think his parents are sympathetic, especially if said people decry RL child abuse because intentionally risking your child’s life is generally major child abuse in RL and shouldn’t be treated as acceptable by Tyler’s parents or downplayed from how serious it actually is.

    2. Mechwarrior

      Actually, I think it would make her plasma.

    3. Mike

      The Elementalists, given their presentation back on 10/17/2014, looked like air, fire, earth and lightning, the last of which doesn’t seem to fit well into either the classical or alchemical elements (maybe the alchemical element mercury, but that’s a stretch). Aether was the fifth of the classical elements (proposed by Aristotle), who saw it as an unchangeable heavenly substance that must make up the stars. Phlogiston might be closer to the alchemical element sulphur, which represented/embodied combustibility. I doubt the team is quite that specific, though – being, as Firedrake put it, “kind of element-y” is probably all it takes.

  23. Hans Rancke

    I’m pleased that this story seems to be just about finished. Don’t get me wrong, Julie is a delightful protagonist and the story was a good one, but I miss all the other protagonists. Up until now PS238 has had an ensemble cast, not just a single hero (not even Tyler, who comes closest). And I prefer it that way. I suppose Mr. Williams refrained from interleaving a B story because Julie’s story was already so long, but why not split it over two or three issues?

    Be that as it may, I’m looking forward to seeing what all the others are up to.

  24. Russell White

    Don’t forget, know Baba Yaga, and probably Rastov are now free from the egg as well now

    1. Nightmask

      Hopefully Rastov is, he certainly deserves it after being tricked as he was. He’s been in there centuries while thinking only days had passed at best.

      1. Shadur

        Unlike Baba Yaga, it doesn’t seem like Rastov is an “actual” person in Russian mythology, so he’s pretty much just your run-of-the-mill would-be evil sorcerer king that found out the hard way what Koschei the Deathless does to challengers who come in second place.

        But at least it should be a while before he feels up to doing anything given how much time he’s lost.

        As for Baba Yaga… She’s likely already told her house to find some nice secluded forest far away from annoying mortals, and if the DSA is at all wise they’ll mark the area as “Seriously, dude, don’t go there” and write off anyone who ignores the warning as a suicide…

  25. Town Crier

    Oh no! Our super heroes have human frailties! How did this happen?

    1. Nightmask

      Thankfully so far at least Aaron’s been writing believable humans with a normal range of issues, unlike what we see in the main comic companies Marvel and DC where it’s a Crapsack world and such non-stop angst and abuse that no one would remain a hero suffering through what they go through.

    2. Dave III

      That makes them better, IMNSHO. I’d far rather read about Phlogiston and/or Firedrake trying to be taken seriously than some flawless always-wins character with less depth than the page they’re printed on.

  26. Town Crier

    Adult super heroes that speak intelligently, openly and honestly should also be recruited to speak with the kids at PS238. Kids respect that, and they definitely need it.

    1. Dave III

      If you mean Firedrake, I’m not 100% convinced he’s not out of college, himself. (Therefore technically still IN school.) Phlo would make an awesome teacher or work-study manager.

  27. Dave III

    Has anyone noticed 84 isn’t pulling her hair out of her face as often? Reading through the archives it was a rare page she wasn’t brushing them back, I think this experience has left her a lot more confident in herself, though she herself might not be aware of it yet.

  28. Camolot the Creator

    … Oh.
    She’s quite definitely an element of some description: Plasma IS the fourth state of matter.

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