Greek mythology. He’s the guy who raided Hell to get his wife back, and then screwed up at the last second. Sounds like a lot of supervillain plans, yes?
Furthermore, in some tellings of the story of Persophone she was being openly defiant and went along with the whole thing.
Remember, Hades nemed his giant three headed hellhound ‘Spot’ (Cerberus means “spotted one”), so that should grant a bit more insight on his personality than most modern representations do.
Orpheus screwed up by looking back at the last second, much like Lot’s wife after Sodom & Gomorrah got nuked by angels. He was worried Hades had played him for a fool when he couldn’t hear Eurydice walking silently behind him up to the material world.
Has no one noticed that Zodon DOESN’T appear to be in any custody? Apparently, he used Tyler’s hair to create “vectors” which the sensors noticed as multiple “Tyler’s” running around.
While the walls we see behind Zodon are green, “Tyler” was detected on Level Three. Lester was supposed to return the detected “Tyler” to the Green Zone.
I suspect “Green Zone” does not refer to a wall color but is just traffic-light code; “Green” for “go” meaning it’s OK to go there. Level Three would be one of the “Red” zones for “stop – don’t go there” (or at least “Yellow” for “caution – almost red”).
I would normally question the common sense and intelligence of any group that let Zodon into their super-lair with any idea of his past actions (including turning the lander on the moon into a high energy laser cannon capable of hitting a target on the surface of the earth over quarter of a million miles away) but this IS a group that has Tyler’s parents apparently in charge or close to it and we know how lacking in either they are.
It’s extremely unlikely for the EDL not to have been informed that the Moon Lander turned moon-based mega-laser was modified into such by Zodon because they’d have certainly asked about it since it wasn’t that far from their own base. Tyler’s parents might be horrible as parents but we haven’t been given reason to think them terrible at being super-heroes as well yet they seem to have failed basic background checks that should have had Zodon either rejected completely or at least assigned a continuous chaperone just in case. The fact that they did let Zodon in though and didn’t provide for eyes-on-monitoring leaves their abilities as super-heroes in question as well.
The transition between panel 1 and panel 2 makes it look that way, but I think it’s just supposed to be a shift in perspective/location which looks confusing. The three of them entered the elevator (which has transparent walls) and have gone down a level (and just missed seeing Zodon); Sarah is still on the level above.
I think I was wrong about them having gone down a level – the elevator doors are not transparent, and they haven’t closed yet in panel 2. So they’re on the same level. But I still think it’s just a confusing location/perspective shift. Sarah may have gone in the opposite direction (or down a different corridor) from Zodon. I’m not sure where Zodon came from, but I guess he didn’t pass in front of the elevator?
Yeah, Zodon isn’t that great at dissembling. Maintaining a disguise which involves apologising and not ranting about his intelligence (Sarah has had a bit of a rant at times, but not about that) doesn’t seem like something he could keep up that long.
The perspective and the fact that it’s pretty clear between panel 2 and panel 3 that the elevator doors are open with Zodon floating away and Tyler and the others in the elevator, then they’re closed and Tyler and the others are gone (probably still in the elevator), makes me think “Sarah” was, in fact, Zodon…but then I go back and re-read Sarah’s interaction with Tyler and Ron and…that’s Sarah. Zodon wouldn’t a) know about Power & Glory, nor b) be so obsessed with them and with getting superpowers.
So now I’m not sure what is being shown with Zodon floating away from the elevator as the doors close on Tyler and the others, but Sarah’s not in sight despite having just left them. Did the elevator doors open? Did they wander back to the elevator after having just gotten off of it, leaving Sarah behind, and Zodon just happened to be there?
I was kind of unclear in my previous comments. Let me try again . . .
Yes, panels 2 and 3 appear to be sequential, and are in the hallway facing the elevator. The 3rd panel is further down from the 2nd panel, and Zodon is in both of them.
But panel 1 does not take place facing the elevator. Go back three pages (or maybe one more for context): Tyler and Ron are in Tyler’s room, with the bunk beds to one side of the door. Sarah comes in the door and talks to them, then Lester stands in the door to confront Sarah. The three of them appear to leave the room, and stand somewhere where there’s something that looks like a multi-pane window or lattice behind them. That’s when Sarah remembers the time, and the need to be elsewhere, and where she leaves from in panel 1 above.
In panel 2 above, Tyler, Ron, and Lester are in the elevator. That’s what I meant about a location/perspective shift: The elevator and hallway we are looking down towards the elevator is not the location where they were in panel 1. There’s more of a continuity between the panels on the previous page and panel 1, which then shifts or cuts to panel 2. If the backgrounds in panel 1 and the panels on the previous page were more distinctive, it might make more sense that a shift had taken place.
Also, as noted, there is the psychological factor to take into account. Zodon never changes his speech patterns, even when using his hologram. He is always arrogant and contemptuous towards anyone he happens to be speaking to. There’s also the point that we’ve been shown that his ability to change his hologram is oddly limited — in Las Vegas, he was only able to stretch the head in a very strange way, or add a fake-looking moustache, not make himself look like an actual adult.
So for Sarah to be Zodon, it would mean that Zodon would have made an unforseen jump in his ability to change his hologram, and an absolutely unprecedented ability to speak and act with completely different mannerisms.
And I think that’s far less likely and far more inconsistent with previous characterization than Aaron having just made an unfortunate choice in how he depicted Sarah leaving, shifting the location of where his characters were, and showing Zodon passing.
Yeah, I agree. The conversation with Sara just doesn’t reflect Zodon being her in disguise. At all. So despite what this comic page might seem to suggest, it’s most likely that Zodon was NOT impersonating her.
Zodon should be grateful that this AI is insistent on interpreting his every rejection in a positive light. Evidence of his genuine childish age overwhelming his intellect.
I forgot how funny the space station /Zodon dialog was. Zodon got a ridiculously useful and powerful minion who idolizes him… and he still undervalues it and threatens it. There’s a trope there, but I don’t remember the name.
Probably ‘Bullying the monster’, when someone knowingly threatens or harasses someone/thing that can easily end them yet behave like it’s an inconsequential non-threat.
If you go by TV Tropes.org, it’s “bullying a dragon.”
Though “mugging the monster” is one of my favorite tropes to see, because I do enjoy a good karmic curb-stomp battle.
The difference is that Bullying a Dragon has the bullies know full well that Scott Summers could take off his glasses and eye-laser them into oblivion if they made him too mad, but are dumb enough to not only pick on him, but STEAL THOSE GLASSES. They’re literally relying on him being too decent a person to use his ability to utterly stomp them to protect them from him while bullying him.
Mugging the Monster, the muggers think they’re the ones in charge, and that their victim is helpless. They have no idea this old man with white hair and a faintly German accent that they’re trying to rob in a back alley is about to use every bit of metal on their persons to lift them into the air and wrap the fire escapes around their torsos, and that they’ll be LUCKY if he doesn’t shove said fire escapes THROUGH their torsos.
Yes, I should have checked something felt off when I was thinking that. Conflating the two titles wasn’t too hard to do really given the similarities.
I do like Mugging the Monster as well, bad guys getting their just deserts picking on the wrong stranger in town is always nice (one of the main things that happens in the life-action Hulk show, always someone feeling the need to harass Banner to make themselves feel tough). Meanwhile Bullying The Dragon is clearly a subset of Too Dumb To Live when you know they could kill you but you stupidly keep doing it anyway.
Yeah, and it’s not like tvtropes.org has a monopoly on the definitions. It was clear what you meant. I’m just pedantic, and it gave me an excuse to talk about “Mugging the Monster.”
I kind-of wonder if Zodon sees it as bullying a dragon, though. I mean, he doubtless knows Floyd is enormously powerful. But I get the impression, at least combined with what we’ve seen of Zodon’s “I’m evil, [periwinkle] it!” excuse-making for actions which, to his 6-year-old-or-younger perceptions (despite his great intellect), are actually rather benevolent, that he’s trying to disguise how uncomfortable he is with having created a sentient life form and almost fears the responsibilities that go with it.
If it called him “master,” he probably WOULD accept it more. But the connotations of “father,” especially combined with how he must perceive parents given how miserable he made his own (to his own mind)… he’s probably SCARED. More afraid of Floyd seeing him as a father-figure than he is of Floyd turning out to be his enemy.
Yeah, mugging the monster. You see a tall black woman with white hair pushing a bald white guy in a wheelchair. You think she looks like she might be in shape, but you do not realize that while she is very dangerous, he is a lot more powerful.
Zodon really should tell FLOYD to call him something else. I’m sure he’d like “Master,” for instance.
“Henchman-246-Zombie” gave me flashbacks to the Nodwick zombies, and Floyd’s inclusion makes me think of the Podwick People.
“Orpheus” feels like something I really should remember as well, but for whatever reason it eludes me.
Greek mythology. He’s the guy who raided Hell to get his wife back, and then screwed up at the last second. Sounds like a lot of supervillain plans, yes?
No, Orpheus didn’t screw up, his wife screwed up by eating pomegranate seeds
Eurydice (one of those who entered Hades-the-place after dying) is not the same as Persephone (actually abducted by Hades-the-god)
/the more you know
Furthermore, in some tellings of the story of Persophone she was being openly defiant and went along with the whole thing.
Remember, Hades nemed his giant three headed hellhound ‘Spot’ (Cerberus means “spotted one”), so that should grant a bit more insight on his personality than most modern representations do.
Orpheus screwed up by looking back at the last second, much like Lot’s wife after Sodom & Gomorrah got nuked by angels. He was worried Hades had played him for a fool when he couldn’t hear Eurydice walking silently behind him up to the material world.
See Lackey, Flint, & Freer’s [I]This Rough Magic[/I] for the way a clever hero handles this. ^_^
You’re probably thinking of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, the guys who did “The Gamers” and other RPG-themed movies/videos.
Could be a nod to another old series of Aaron’s called, “Floyd”.
^^; Zodon and Floyd both still have a loooonnnng, long way to go.
Has no one noticed that Zodon DOESN’T appear to be in any custody? Apparently, he used Tyler’s hair to create “vectors” which the sensors noticed as multiple “Tyler’s” running around.
Just one, down at the Green Zone. If his calculations are correct — and they usually are — that should give him all the time he needs.
Look at the colored stripe on the wall behind him, that IS the green zone.
While the walls we see behind Zodon are green, “Tyler” was detected on Level Three. Lester was supposed to return the detected “Tyler” to the Green Zone.
I suspect “Green Zone” does not refer to a wall color but is just traffic-light code; “Green” for “go” meaning it’s OK to go there. Level Three would be one of the “Red” zones for “stop – don’t go there” (or at least “Yellow” for “caution – almost red”).
I would normally question the common sense and intelligence of any group that let Zodon into their super-lair with any idea of his past actions (including turning the lander on the moon into a high energy laser cannon capable of hitting a target on the surface of the earth over quarter of a million miles away) but this IS a group that has Tyler’s parents apparently in charge or close to it and we know how lacking in either they are.
But how could they know it was him that did the moonlander-thing? We know because we just happened to see him tell Cranston.
Or are you assuming that Cranston would tell the EDL?
It’s extremely unlikely for the EDL not to have been informed that the Moon Lander turned moon-based mega-laser was modified into such by Zodon because they’d have certainly asked about it since it wasn’t that far from their own base. Tyler’s parents might be horrible as parents but we haven’t been given reason to think them terrible at being super-heroes as well yet they seem to have failed basic background checks that should have had Zodon either rejected completely or at least assigned a continuous chaperone just in case. The fact that they did let Zodon in though and didn’t provide for eyes-on-monitoring leaves their abilities as super-heroes in question as well.
Yeah… in this case the question has pretty much already been answered.
Confused here… Is the Girl Zodon in disguise?
The transition between panel 1 and panel 2 makes it look that way, but I think it’s just supposed to be a shift in perspective/location which looks confusing. The three of them entered the elevator (which has transparent walls) and have gone down a level (and just missed seeing Zodon); Sarah is still on the level above.
I think.
I think I was wrong about them having gone down a level – the elevator doors are not transparent, and they haven’t closed yet in panel 2. So they’re on the same level. But I still think it’s just a confusing location/perspective shift. Sarah may have gone in the opposite direction (or down a different corridor) from Zodon. I’m not sure where Zodon came from, but I guess he didn’t pass in front of the elevator?
Yeah, Zodon isn’t that great at dissembling. Maintaining a disguise which involves apologising and not ranting about his intelligence (Sarah has had a bit of a rant at times, but not about that) doesn’t seem like something he could keep up that long.
The perspective and the fact that it’s pretty clear between panel 2 and panel 3 that the elevator doors are open with Zodon floating away and Tyler and the others in the elevator, then they’re closed and Tyler and the others are gone (probably still in the elevator), makes me think “Sarah” was, in fact, Zodon…but then I go back and re-read Sarah’s interaction with Tyler and Ron and…that’s Sarah. Zodon wouldn’t a) know about Power & Glory, nor b) be so obsessed with them and with getting superpowers.
So now I’m not sure what is being shown with Zodon floating away from the elevator as the doors close on Tyler and the others, but Sarah’s not in sight despite having just left them. Did the elevator doors open? Did they wander back to the elevator after having just gotten off of it, leaving Sarah behind, and Zodon just happened to be there?
I was kind of unclear in my previous comments. Let me try again . . .
Yes, panels 2 and 3 appear to be sequential, and are in the hallway facing the elevator. The 3rd panel is further down from the 2nd panel, and Zodon is in both of them.
But panel 1 does not take place facing the elevator. Go back three pages (or maybe one more for context): Tyler and Ron are in Tyler’s room, with the bunk beds to one side of the door. Sarah comes in the door and talks to them, then Lester stands in the door to confront Sarah. The three of them appear to leave the room, and stand somewhere where there’s something that looks like a multi-pane window or lattice behind them. That’s when Sarah remembers the time, and the need to be elsewhere, and where she leaves from in panel 1 above.
In panel 2 above, Tyler, Ron, and Lester are in the elevator. That’s what I meant about a location/perspective shift: The elevator and hallway we are looking down towards the elevator is not the location where they were in panel 1. There’s more of a continuity between the panels on the previous page and panel 1, which then shifts or cuts to panel 2. If the backgrounds in panel 1 and the panels on the previous page were more distinctive, it might make more sense that a shift had taken place.
Also, as noted, there is the psychological factor to take into account. Zodon never changes his speech patterns, even when using his hologram. He is always arrogant and contemptuous towards anyone he happens to be speaking to. There’s also the point that we’ve been shown that his ability to change his hologram is oddly limited — in Las Vegas, he was only able to stretch the head in a very strange way, or add a fake-looking moustache, not make himself look like an actual adult.
So for Sarah to be Zodon, it would mean that Zodon would have made an unforseen jump in his ability to change his hologram, and an absolutely unprecedented ability to speak and act with completely different mannerisms.
And I think that’s far less likely and far more inconsistent with previous characterization than Aaron having just made an unfortunate choice in how he depicted Sarah leaving, shifting the location of where his characters were, and showing Zodon passing.
Yeah, I agree. The conversation with Sara just doesn’t reflect Zodon being her in disguise. At all. So despite what this comic page might seem to suggest, it’s most likely that Zodon was NOT impersonating her.
Floyd gets a make-over! I’m thinking…PINK!
Zodon should be grateful that this AI is insistent on interpreting his every rejection in a positive light. Evidence of his genuine childish age overwhelming his intellect.
I forgot how funny the space station /Zodon dialog was. Zodon got a ridiculously useful and powerful minion who idolizes him… and he still undervalues it and threatens it. There’s a trope there, but I don’t remember the name.
Probably ‘Bullying the monster’, when someone knowingly threatens or harasses someone/thing that can easily end them yet behave like it’s an inconsequential non-threat.
If you go by TV Tropes.org, it’s “bullying a dragon.”
Though “mugging the monster” is one of my favorite tropes to see, because I do enjoy a good karmic curb-stomp battle.
The difference is that Bullying a Dragon has the bullies know full well that Scott Summers could take off his glasses and eye-laser them into oblivion if they made him too mad, but are dumb enough to not only pick on him, but STEAL THOSE GLASSES. They’re literally relying on him being too decent a person to use his ability to utterly stomp them to protect them from him while bullying him.
Mugging the Monster, the muggers think they’re the ones in charge, and that their victim is helpless. They have no idea this old man with white hair and a faintly German accent that they’re trying to rob in a back alley is about to use every bit of metal on their persons to lift them into the air and wrap the fire escapes around their torsos, and that they’ll be LUCKY if he doesn’t shove said fire escapes THROUGH their torsos.
Yes, I should have checked something felt off when I was thinking that. Conflating the two titles wasn’t too hard to do really given the similarities.
I do like Mugging the Monster as well, bad guys getting their just deserts picking on the wrong stranger in town is always nice (one of the main things that happens in the life-action Hulk show, always someone feeling the need to harass Banner to make themselves feel tough). Meanwhile Bullying The Dragon is clearly a subset of Too Dumb To Live when you know they could kill you but you stupidly keep doing it anyway.
Yeah, and it’s not like tvtropes.org has a monopoly on the definitions. It was clear what you meant. I’m just pedantic, and it gave me an excuse to talk about “Mugging the Monster.”
I kind-of wonder if Zodon sees it as bullying a dragon, though. I mean, he doubtless knows Floyd is enormously powerful. But I get the impression, at least combined with what we’ve seen of Zodon’s “I’m evil, [periwinkle] it!” excuse-making for actions which, to his 6-year-old-or-younger perceptions (despite his great intellect), are actually rather benevolent, that he’s trying to disguise how uncomfortable he is with having created a sentient life form and almost fears the responsibilities that go with it.
If it called him “master,” he probably WOULD accept it more. But the connotations of “father,” especially combined with how he must perceive parents given how miserable he made his own (to his own mind)… he’s probably SCARED. More afraid of Floyd seeing him as a father-figure than he is of Floyd turning out to be his enemy.
Yeah, mugging the monster. You see a tall black woman with white hair pushing a bald white guy in a wheelchair. You think she looks like she might be in shape, but you do not realize that while she is very dangerous, he is a lot more powerful.