2016-06-10
Posted on 2016-06-11 by Aaron

46 thoughts on “2016-06-10”

  1. HEB807

    Then Power and Glory don’t know of anyone else who wants Sara’s item. They were just prepairing for the eventuality that they might.
    I wonder who the first person we saw in the store was and what they wanted. Because the height was wrong for Sara.

    1. Veritas

      Yeah, given the way she was talking outside the support group, odds are pretty good she’s just being paranoid. It’s far from absolute – absence of evidence (of someone else out for the same thing) is not evidence of absence – but narrative convention aside it seems more likely than not.

  2. Owlmirror

    Visual refs: 4th panel — is that staff the Riddler’s?
    5th panel — Mysterio’s helmet.

    1. psyque

      3rd panel is the Rocketeer’s rocket-pack and helmet.

    2. Nate Hoffelder

      correct on both points.

    3. David Nuttall

      Mysterio’s Helmet and robe.

  3. Pneumonica

    Heh, they’re literally power-brokers. That’s simply awesome.

    (If someone else already made that comment, I don’t mean to steal anyone’s thunder. I’ve been away a while and I just got caught up.)

    1. Knug

      I believe P&G are providing bait in order to acquire souls or folks to do their bidding to win what they think they want. In other words, pawns in someone else’s game. So not literal power-brokers, but literal pawn brokers.

      1. Pneumonica

        I’m not sure what definition of “power-broker” you’re working with, but your description doesn’t actually contradict it. The Faustian devil, after all, is a power-broker as well.

        1. Knug

          what I was suggesting, wasn’t that they were selling trinkets to people, but rather they were using trinkets as bait to sell people to a higher power.

  4. Owlmirror

    I have to wonder about that “Whenever you can make it, we’ll be waiting”. Literally “whenever”? Any time of day or night?

    Is there a time field that moves the store to when the customer arrives, I wonder? Or are Powers & Glory literally unsleeping?

    1. DanielLC

      They could just take shifts.

    2. Messenger

      I’m with Owlmirror. They probably don’t need to sleep or can manipulate time (they already can manipulate space). Being “open” in time for a customer seems like a a minor enough superpowered effect. For all we know, it could be a simple alarm ability- whether spell or device- that wakes them up should a customer arrive while they’re resting (if they need rest).

      Besides- we don’t even know the full extent of their abilities and influence. They run a shop filled with magical and sci-fi and whatnot artifacts that give superpowers. They’d have to be fairly powerful themselves one way or another in order to gather the inventory they have.

      1. CountryMage

        As the Doctor, and Yuko Ichihara, can tell you, being outside time, makes it harder to tell whether it’s late or early, as everything tends to happen on time. It tends to make about as much sense as my mass of commas here.

  5. Sessine

    Judging by this conversation, especially in the last panel, there isn’t any ‘manager’. That’s just a convenient excuse for not answering awkward questions. These two are equal partners and decision-makers, not employees.

    1. Owlmirror

      To the contrary, the bizarre manner in which the customer received the store phone number in a novel way unknown to Glory or Powers, makes me think that the “advertising guy” is a convenient fiction, and the manager is an entity with subtle reality manipulation ability. The manager presumably uses those abilities to provide contact information about the store to appropriate potential customers.

      Hm. Still could be the Baba Yaga, Veles, or other at a similarly high level of magic use.

      1. trlkly

        See, I was assuming they used artifacts to do it, or people they’ve “helped” in the past.

        I strongly suspect they aren’t bad guys, BTW. I suspect it’s one of those “lesson” things.

      2. Messenger

        If you can posit a high power super advertising for them like that, then it’s equally possible to posit a resourceful person succeeding in finding and making contact with G&P.

        As such, I find Sessine’s theory quite possible. For simplicity’s sake- whether in-world or from a writing viewpoint- I favor her idea.

      3. Sessine

        Oh, I’m pretty sure the ‘advertising guy’ is also a convenient fiction. But I took it that the two have a convoluted, unpredictable method of getting the word out, one which can manifest in many forms, sometimes surprising even them. Given the variety of strange exotic powers they have just sitting on their shelves, I don’t (as yet) see a need to suppose any third party is involved.

        1. Owlmirror

          Hm. There may be a compromise position: That the store itself is a (quasi-?)sapient entity. That entity is what sends out the “advertising” in a way that draws in customers that have what it wants, or will do what it wants, and which sets the non-monetary prices to be those terms that get it what it wants.

          There’s no face-to-face with the manager because it literally has no face.

          Powers and Glory appear to be equal partners and decision makers, reporting to no-one, but presumably, if the store makes its desires known — perhaps by way of the various artifacts displaying some message, or containing a missive addressed to them, or something like that — they will obey.

        2. Sessine

          I like this idea. Even if it’s not what turns out to be the case, it’s a lot of fun to think about!

        3. Shardis

          I also like the idea of sentient store. Reminds me of the television series, The Librarians.

  6. trlkly

    Anyone else suspect that this arc will end with Ron being powered up again? She refers to this item as giving her “real powers” rather than a “gimmick,” implying she’d actually get powers.

    With all that foreshadowing by Cecil, it has to happen sometime.

    1. Messenger

      If you mean G&P giving Ron powers, I doubt it- it’s possible, but it’s a waste since Ron already has powers. They’re just latent. The story would have to be going elsewhere- have a different point- beyond simply repowering Ron if so.

    2. Faust

      Winged coat, stealth, shrink gun etc the gimmick collector will spend all his pocket money here.

    3. Andorxor

      Or future Cecil is the owner of the shop

      1. Segev

        I love this theory (that Cecil is the future-owner, possibly reaching back in time). I don’t mean “I think it’s the most plausible,” but that I think it’s the most entertaining one I’ve yet seen. I would be pleased if it turned out to be so.

  7. Nightmask

    It’s a town that Destiny hangs out in a lot, many people and events that can and are radically reshaping the world are focused there, so as such a Nexus no surprise it drew them there as well. I wonder who else will end up drawn into the web of things dealing with the store.

  8. Andie

    Wait, what happened in San Diego? I live here, I might need to know.

  9. Messenger

    Wait a minute. There’s no phone ring sound effect (this comic does use sound effects). Neither does Sarah show any sign or notice of hearing it. But there IS a call, Angelica noticed it (panel 1) and answered it.

    1. Simreeve

      Maybe the “phone” [i]is[/i] the manager, communicating telepathically with his staff?

    2. Owlmirror

      I noticed that lack of ring sound effect, but I’m not sure how much to read into it. Aaron has made art mistakes before, and the sound effect might have been on a layer that was turned off.

      If what is shown was deliberate, we can speculate that perhaps Angelica is thinking “And now is when I pick up the phone”, as a sort of destiny-entanglement idea.

      Or maybe the phone is an artifact where the nearest person feels compelled to pick up the receiver before it even rings. If she had resisted the compulsion, it would have rung.

    3. Owlmirror

      I strongly suspect that the phone is not connected to a wall jack, either.

      1. Guesticus

        Maybe there isn’t even a phone there at all

  10. Sean Duggan

    With the names of “Power and Glory”, it struck me recently that these guys might be the opposite of Mr. Gaunt from “Needful Things”, i.e. that they just might be working for the other side; the “price” people are paying for these gifts involves good deeds that will create a positive effect on the world.

  11. Messenger

    Going back to the question of what Angelica Glory and Wilson Powers are- whether human kids or some sort of fair folk- I’m beginning to believe more and more in their “timelessness”. Not only are they (snazzily) dressed in the fashion of bygone eras, but this update is the second time we’ve seen obvious and strong mannerisms that grownups have but not kids: look at Glory’s body language in panels 4 and 5. It’s just like how Glory held her coat by the front opening during G&P’s debut (2016-03-30). There’s something incredibly mature and wizened about these two.

  12. DaveM

    Where did the names for Power & Glory come from? I don’t recall them being mentioned yet. I was sort of liking them being just “Power and Glory” sort of like “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” (but hopefully with a happier ending).

    Also, “someone who knows about us, but hasn’t come by”, does anyone else think the Rev might be keeping an eye on these two?

    1. Messenger

      From the comments of 2016-03-21:

      darnkitten:
      With the confused Confederate/Union Theme and the “Power & Glory” sign, I’m gonna guess they’re a new America-themed superteam setting up their clubhouse/headquarters.
      “For:
      Here is a Land full of
      Power and Glory
      Beauty that words can not recall
      For Her Power shall rest
      On the strength of her Freedoms
      Her Glory shall rest on Us all…”

    2. Segev

      I think the explanation here is simpler: they’re basing that on Sarah’s cage being rattled (as they roughly put it). The best explanation they can induce from the facts as they know them is that somebody knows about the store and has a rough idea of what Sarah wants, and is telling her they’re after it without coming to see Power & Glory (gotta spell it with the ampersand; I almost didn’t and it just looked wrong).

      That Sarah is just so darned paranoid that anybody talking about possibly having latent powers or recovering lost powers makes her think that person knows and is after her specific item didn’t occur to them.

  13. Opus the Poet

    My suspicions are that there is someone out there that needs powers, knows about the shop, but for some reason does not want powers and so is not coming to the shop.

    1. Guesticus

      Someone like… Moon Shadow?

    2. Owlmirror

      Why? Segev, 2016-06-16, 10:23 am, explains it correctly.

      1) Sarah comes into the store upset, wanting to know if anyone else looked at the thing she wanted.
      2) P&G infer that she is upset because someone knows about the store, and the thing she wants, but has not come in yet.

      but we, the readers, know that:

      0) Sarah is upset because of what Ron said in the therapy session about maybe getting powers again, and mistook him as meaning from P&G, rather than him still having latent power.

      Sarah even specifies “a kid” when she asks if someone has looked at her thing. She’s talking about Ron.

      1. Owlmirror

        Or, rather than mistaking Ron, perhaps Sarah thought he was deliberately dishonest about the “voice in the bushes” that told of his latent powers.

  14. Owlmirror

    I just realized something: Neither P nor G mention the possibility of anyone being kept away from the store by any sort of defenses or wards or exclusion fields or whatever (but maybe next page?)

    So either the speculation that the store only excludes those those who don’t already know about it is correct, or P&G don’t know about the exclusion effect either (that is, it has nothing to do with them).

  15. WJS

    It seems odd to me that the idea of someone knowing about them and not coming by is so alien to them, especially since he implies they’ve been operating for a while. They must have been working real hard to only attract the attention of those desperate for power.

  16. WJS

    Also, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but does her line in the first panel suggest that she’s not looking for something to restore her old powers, but rather she wants the FISS powerset? When taken together with her freaking out about the possibility that Ron is after his old powers? Because if she wants to regain shapeshifting, why get bent out of shape over the possibility that he’s looking for something to restore the powers he had?

    Also also, anyone else getting annoyed about the CAPTCHA on these? The task isn’t so annoying as most, but it times out after like ten seconds and the reload button doesn’t work.

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