PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
82 thoughts on “2015-12-01”
maarvarq
OK, Santa is come, but the quantity and nature of the reindeer droppings remain in doubt, i.e. what’s the catch?
Aaron K
The catch is revenue sharing.
Everyone gets a “share.” They’re a corporation model. You “buy in” and although you might be a star player, you’re still part of the team. While part of the team, it’s even splits. If you leave the team, then you can negotiate your own contract. You have a huge advantage being part of the team though…even if you are “benched” you are always drawing a paycheck.
Think of it like always being on reserve, and sometimes on active. They may not always need a “fire guy” but if they do, you look like a rock star for 5 minutes. If we were to equate them with the Avengers, you have your 7~ main members, and the rotating people or “team ups.” The hope is that there is enough work to ALWAYS keep everyone occupied in small groups so that you aren’t worried about whether the main team is together. Basically, like the 5+ X-Men teams.
jhpace1
With revenue-sharing the only catch is you have to make sure no one substitutes it for “welfare”. As in, draw a check, never answer your pager. But for FISS characters, it’s better than being second-rate heroes who have to go to conventions and negotiate their own toy company contracts.
Where the Infinite Vangard is going to change “the system” is now FISS heroes don’t have to find a superhero team that needs a “grunt” to do the literal heavy lifting. They’re contractors that get called for specific missions. The Level Two government contracts help, since it guarantees work, even if it’s just building skyscrapers, bridges, and dams. Or Army bases in war zones.
The advertising for the Infinite Vanguard’s contracting is going to be very, very touchy at first, to get the right “feel” that the FISS heroes want.
trlkly
But there’s also an easy cure for that: someone who tries to do that can have everyone vote to fire them.
Albert
Revenue-sharing doesn’t need to be 100%, of course. A relatively minor commission is enough to act as incentive to personally excel, but not at the overall cost of the team.
Ash0011
So is lv2 better than lv1?
Foradain
Other way around, I think; Level One would be the best, Level Two would be somewhere below the Justice League but well above the Mystery Men. ^_^
Jasae Bushae
In Marvel terms I think the equivalent would be Heroes for Hire
The DC equivalent would probably be Teen Titans
Lord Bounty
No, I think you’re going to low there. Teir 2 should be top name heroes but not THE superteam.
DC would be more JSA, or JLI.
Marvel might be Excaliber, or SHIELD?? ((Marvel doesn’t have many established teams does it?))
Think of it like “the JLA/Avengers are off world!! quick, call [super team]” that’s your Teir 2.
Jasae Bushae
Marvel has alot of superhero teams. The problem is that nearly all of them have spaceships. SHIELD’s hellicarriers can go into space, and Excalibur has a trans dimensional train that allows them to police the multiverse. Heroes for Hire is the highest level team I can think of who don’t have a spaceship. I mean, even Alpha Flight, Power Pack and the Champions have space ships.
Marvel has close to two hundred superhero teams if you count branches government, the X-Men and the Avengers.
As for DC, JLI also has a space ship so they can’t count. Though JSA doesn’t have a spaceship as I can recall, so they are probably a better comparison.
Ablativmeatshld
I think lvl 2’s would be more akin to the Defenders, or Young Justice. Maybe Force Works or Thunderbolts.
luagha
Heroes For Hire has a rinky-dink office and has trouble making the rest (unless Iron Fist helps out with corp money.)
Teen Titans has a T-shaped skyscraper base on a jutting spit of beachfront property.
(Admittedly, it’s probably a jutting spit of beachfront property where the kaiju wash up to shore for convenience, but still beachfront property.)
Jasae Bushae
Depending which version your going for, Heroes for Hire has also had an office the size of a city block with dozens of heroes on its roster.
And Teen Titans worked out of a cave out in the middle of nowhere.
Wanderer
If I’m interpreting it correctly, this would make them a global superteam. Level 1 would make them eligible for off-planet missions.
Potatohead
I think she’s saying level 2 is the best you can get without owning a spaceship.
Petrov Neutrino
Interesting! Unionizing the FISS and redefining “hero” so that non-metas (like The Revenant and Moonshadow) can be considered someday. A great idea, Tyler!
izumi ryu
Actually, Zero did say any meta human. No mention of non-metas.
Owlmirror
While it isn’t stated outright, allowing non-meta humans may be a long term goal being subtly implied by that “redefining” statement. If Zero is the Revenant (rather than someone that the Revenant is backing), he could presumably “out” himself in support of allowing non-meta humans.
LeftWingFox
Yeah, that’s my interpretation as well. FISS first, but a loophole big enough to eventually drive a Batmobile through it.
dana
Yeah, that’s got to be the Revenant.
Unmaker
Yeah, the throwing money around, with use of special influence and contacts, is a big clue.
Z2
OR IS IT?
Showing up with an offer too good to refuse; familiar looking minimalist black armor; promising gobs and gobs of money while remaining humble; and having only one caveat: No Peacocking.
Sounds like something the Headmaster would be behind. ‘Changing what it means to be a superhero’ and getting every super possible under one organisation.
Aaron K
Technically you can peacock, you just don’t get paid any extra for it.
Random Wanderer
Yet this is presumably a plan that Tyler came up with and Revenant approved of, and I don’t see either of them supporting the Headmaster for something like this.
CF_Azaka
The Revenant might. Tyler almost certainly doesn’t know enough about the Headmasters plans to support them, but the Revenent has worked against the Headmaster before, knows everything Tyler has discovered and could certainly know more from investigations he’s been doing behind the scenes. The Headmaster’s goal is fine, it’s his methods that tend to the shady.
Segev
The reason it won’t be the Headmaster is that Tyler wouldn’t KNOW enough to do it.
It being the Revenant makes the most sense; it fits his style, and it fits Tyler’s comment about “If you think I’m cool, this guy will give you all the cool you can handle,” since he’s Tyler’s mentor. (Interestingly, I don’t get the usual “sidekick” vibe from his master/apprentice relationship with the Revenant; Moonshadow isn’t known as the Revanant’s sidekick so much as a junior, semi-independent version of the Revenant.)
Nobody
The only problem is she specifically called him a FISS.
Prairie Son
Assumption Of Facts Not In Evidence. Not just for courtrooms!
Wanderer
Ah-ah-ah! (wags finger) She said she [I]met with[/I] another FISS. She hasn’t once said that Zero is the FISS she met with. 😉
Nobody
“I met another FISS, and we got to talking about it. Tell you what, I’ll let him speak for himself.”
The syntax clearly indicates Zero is the FISS she was talking about. SHE may have been tricked, possibly, but unless you’re willing to stretch the grammar more than any normal 1st grader to make it fit your preconceptions, you must concede that point.
Mike
Not necessarily. What 84 said was in two parts: “Would the Infinite Vanguard be willing to have a leader?” “I met up with another FISS and we got to talking about it… tell you what, I’ll let him speak for himself.”
Now, there is the possibility that the leader she was speaking of (Zero) was not the FISS she talked it over with. In that case, “him” refers back to “leader” and not “another FISS”.
Your thesis is actually better supported by the next-to-last panel, where Zero talks about letting non-FISS become members. He speaks of it as if it’s a future consideration, which wouldn’t quite work if he’s not a FISS himself.
Nobody
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, what if Zero isn’t the Revenant, but a Ridiculously Human Robot that was built to act like the Revenant (BY the Revenant so it has access to his stuff), and given hydraulic strength, metal armored toughness, and I dunno, repulsor jets or something to simulate flight.
Rakaydos
Normal human Revenant
Flight: 0
Invunerabity: 0
Superspeed: 0
Superstrength: 0
Codename Zero.
Lord Bounty
I’m betting Atlas2 with Revenant in his ear.
Boston Lady
To me the most logical is that it’s Revenant’s money & contacts backing Tyer’s plan with someone like (I can’t remember his name now), the old guy from one of the earlier comic books that had to ‘leave’ his family for their safely (the first known Earthling FISS), as the front guy. The build is right.
Lucario
That would be Mister Extraordinary. Tom said he would bring the guy forward through time; I wonder if this is where he got dropped off?
Sewicked
He did say he didn’t _predate_ Mister Extraordinary; that doesn’t mean he can’t be Mister Extraordinary.
Lucy
But Mister Extraordinary is unlikely to be this comfortable in discussing the finer points of modern super team contracts, I would’ve thought?
Ghorroj
It depends on -when- Mister Extraordinary was dropped off, doesn’t it? He could easily have been taken to two (or ten or five) years previous to this scene and then given a chance to catch up on things. Or he could just as easily have been given a script to follow by The Revenant, or simply be wearing an earpiece directly linked to The Revenant. However, I think when Tom mentioned bringing them forward in time he may have been implying that he’d do it when he was a teenager, or at least a few years older than he was then.
More likely, it’s a background character we didn’t notice before, such as one of the security guards from Vegas who has The Revenant’s backing. It’s equally likely that The Crystal Skull might have nominated an F.I.S.S. employee for the role in exchange for a favour from The Revenant. Both of these possibilities, while less flashy than Mister Extraordinary leading them, would both be viable and well within the parameters of Aaron’s callback methods. Neither requires time travel and accounting for plot-hole headaches, since The Crystal Skull and The Revenant are on good terms, and the regular exchange of favours between them has already been implied.
WaytoomanyUIDs
What if it’s one of The Revenant former opponent’s who’s got tired of being a villain? Remember how the Revenant suggested The Crystal Skull’s change of career and helped him get set up in Vegas?
Adahn
It can’t be Mr. Extraordinary for the following reason:
– No one except Tom and Tyler remembers what transpired in the Castle Beyond Space and Time, so Ron wouldn’t remember that Tyler is Moon Shadow, the Revenant wouldn’t remember the advice he gave Tyler and Mr. Extraordinary wouldn’t remember meeting Tyler. Mr. Extraordinary is someone who values his own privacy after being persecuted for most of his life, I don’t think he’d be willing to come out of retirement for someone he never met.
– Without Zodon’s time machine, Tom is the only person capable of bringing Mr. Extraordinary past the year 2000. While Mr. Extraordinary knows Tom as the person dating his daughter, the Tom he knows is much, much older than the present-day Tom. Even if Tom DID bring Mr. Extraordinary to a different time, it would be far into the future (when Tom is an adult).
Nobody
Devil’s advocate on this one, his daughter met Tyler and the others when they did a report on her and her dad, so if she was willing to vouch for him, it may be that Mr. Extraordinary would listen.
Bear
I think that’s the crucial point. Tyler does in fact remember what happened in the castle beyond time and space. Tyler remembers talking to Extraordinary Man. Tyler wanted to do something nice for him. And Julie was talking to Tyler when this brainstorm hit. And Revenant was apprised of it, and has all the connections this guy is pulling, and could easily have given him a crash course in modern superhero contracts and modern culture, as well as being on a bug in his ear. And Tom said that he intended to bring Extraordinary Man forward in time. And now we have some unknown FISS setting up as leader for this league.
So the way I’m connecting the dots, zero equals one. IE, the new leader of the Infinite Vanguard is FISS #1. He said specifically that zero isn’t his FISS number. That’s because they started at 1. He said specifically that he didn’t predate Extraordinary Man. That’s because you can’t predate yourself.
Marie
As much as he talks like Revenant with money, deals, and less exclusive membership than Forak wanted, I really don’t thin this is Revenant. I don’t think he’d take on the full time job (giv’t job at that) of being team. Ialso don’t think it’s Mt Extraordinary either, the attiitude is way too modern/connected. Also, since Mr E left the past tp get away from the govt control and handline, I can’t see him volunteering for it again. Could Naomi have a little brother or son?
Marie
Actually, I think it’s someone already connected to the school, due to the location of the meeting..
Delver
Principle Cranston??
Nightmask
They could just be using the school since Tyler had Julie run his plan past one of the teachers and she suggested the location as a good meeting place.
Deadpool
I’d say thank dude in the black suit is Revenant. He hasn’t shown any evidence of powers yet. he might be funding it as a new leader. If it is a new FISS. Then he’s probably a villain in disquise
Garfield Logan
Wow. Zero actually got the grey and red wet blanket to go along with it.
Nightmask
Give the guy a bit of credit there, he notes that being a super-hero is how he makes his living so since it’s how he pays the bills so wants to make sure that if he commits to being part of the team (since he’ll be fired from his old team) that it’ll pay enough to keep covering his bills and such. Access to a free official name change and an extremely expensive costume also for free is nice but not worth it if he can’t pay the bills. The others are likely freelance or have jobs where committing to a new team wouldn’t harm them financially like it would him.
Dragons'Mom
Slamhawk may have the very rare power of Practicality. It is nearly as hard to find as Common Sense.
Nightmask
If nothing else that’s definitely Revenant’s mode of thinking, and quite sneaky as I haven’t noticed anyone realizing that the effort to focus on capability over marketability is there to help legitimize the NON-powered heroes fighting for good like himself. The plan for Infinite Vanguard looks to be set up to change people to look at the quality of the work and not at the powers themselves, which applies to normals as well as supers. We get a sample of things not just from people like Tyler’s parents but from the one above ground teacher who lamented that her students kept picking supers for her group projects on who inspired them (and was tickled pink when one group actually picked a normal president for a change), both supers and non don’t seem to have the respect they should for the non-powered sorts including apparently those in heroic roles like firefighters or police.
Granite
I still think 0 is Mister Extraordinary.
Owlmirror
Wow, so much of my speculation shot down with one new page. Kaboom!
Note that he says that he can get Level 2 status. I’m guessing that the name registration changes and costuming certificates are gratis, as he said, but further perks are dependent on him getting that leadership role.
I wondered if the Revenant actually has government contacts that he can influence, but I guess Kent Allard — or another persona — does. He was able to drop a presumably large campaign donation just to be able to chat with the President of the US, as we have seen. And he has more than a few government contacts who will give him pretty important critical information as soon as they hear it, which in some cases might be violations of those contacts’ employment contracts.
It seems odd to me that superhero registration changes cost thousands of dollars. Are superheroes simply presumed to be rich? The implication is that it may be easier and cheaper to change their legal names (which, I see from Wikipedia, has wildly different rules in different states and countries), and then simply use that legal name instead of their usual hero name, if they so desire.
Moe Lane
Nah, if the supers were all rich then the government would have come up with a different method of trying to get even a small hold over them.
Nightmask
No, they don’t assume super-heroes are rich they want to cut down on confusion by charging an arm and a leg if they want to officially change their super-hero ID, probably because it’s as much a registered trademark as anything else so being officially recognized as say Atlas locks you in for that for things like marketing and what the government super-hero agencies have you down as on their paperwork. So you don’t have someone changing ID all the time and causing confusion as they try to keep track of him and whether he’s Giant Man, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, or what have you this week.
Bissek
I’m surprised that nobody’s asking Zero to prove that he can make good on all his promises. They have no idea who he is or what resources he has, so they have no way of knowing whether or not he has the financial and political resources to make good all of the very expensive claims he’s just made.
trlkly
Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen later.
TeChameleon
Erm… while it’s indeed true that Zero could potentially be scamming the Infinite Vanguard, under what circumstances is it a good idea to pull a very, very short-term scam (all it would take to expose him would be one or two phonecalls, after all) on people who can shrug off artillery fire, break the sound barrier, juggle tanks, and fly? Particularly without any clear profit to be made from it? I’m going to go with ‘yes, he can provide what he’s offering’, because it would be borderline suicidally stupid for him to put himself in that situation and then tell easily-exposed lies.
Mike
I don’t think Bissek is suggesting Zero might actually be scamming them, just implying that it’s odd they’re taking him “on faith” without even knowing who he is. Personally, I think that 84’s endorsement is all they needed on that score.
Brainstorm
So, is no one else going to mention the superheroine who decided it was a good idea to use a bombshell motif for her costume? Panel 4, far right?
Drone637
Well sure, now that you mention it. I think it’s a great idea, very subtle. I like that it is a highlight on the suit instead of making it a swimsuit to go with a literal bombshell.
Dragons'Mom
But she’s not blonde.
Wanderer
Remember, copyright considerations for your future action figure are a factor in this setting. Sooner or later, it gets hard to come up with good costumes and names. (Not to mention, if she’s great at flight and invulnerability but poor at strength and speed, dropping like a bomb would be an effective tactic against materiel. Not so much personnel, of course, outside certain considerations.)
TeChameleon
Am I the only one that’s going to be a bit sad to see Slamhawk’s costume go? It’s one of my favourites that Aaron has come out with, and the name is kind of neat too. Pity that he’ll probably be 64 now or some such. Overall, it’s great for the FISS heroes in-universe, but for those of us on this side of the fourth wall, it feels like a bit of a loss. Ah well 😛
tobybrobi
slamhawk was his slave name 9_9
Faust
Slam Hawk Sixty Seven or SHSS could be his new version. I don’t think the name change offer has set rules.
They haven’t suggested a uniform or similar so the uniform / costume may be remade the same or with slight upgrades.
trlkly
Yeah. The main theme is the number. I suspect they won’t be taking out any individuality other than that.
Garfield Logan
Did they say anywhere that Slamhawk would be required to change his superhero name to your FISS number? I mean I get that it might be why Zero’s handing out all those name and costume change coupons, but if he wants to keep his superhero name/costume, I don’t think they would require it.
Garfield Logan
*his FISS number, sorry.
Mike