Now I can’t help but think of what superhero parole would be like, and what kind of limitations a reformed criminal might operate under.
“Yes, Your Honor, I did tear that bridge off its foundations and threw it into the river, but I was diverting a wall of water from flooding a bus full of school children. Well, yes I suppose breaking the dam could be seen as problematic, but I have a good excuse for that too…”
Just think of the superpowered parole OFFICERS. And the super BOUNTY HUNTERS they’d have to call in when somebody skips the jurisdiction or breaks their side of the terms.
Nothing too unusual about metahuman bounty hunters. Bounty hunters count legally as a form of private detective- they just focus on tracking down criminals, ex-convicts, parolees, etc. Marvel’s Heroes for Hire (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight), for example, would count.
It makes sense that some of the less affluent superheroes would do work like that to make a living. Anyway, the lines of work between superhero (particularly detective superheroes) and ordinary bounty hunter intersect, so nothing unique or out-of-the-ordinary here.
Parole officers? We have metahumans ditching the costume and working for the PS238-verse’s US Department of Metahuman Affairs, like Miss Ryley (08042010, 01072013). I’m sure there are parole officer positions specifically for convicted and paroled supervillains filled out by other metahumans.
We know from President/Principle Cranston that supers are required to take off the cape before they join the military. It’s not a jump to extrapolate that to the various federal policing branches of our government. While the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are all interesting to speculate about, the US Marshall services are in charge of hunting down bail jumpers and escapees.
Additionally, we know various super groups are funded, some by the government. Giving them bounties as assignments is reasonable.
Also we have the bonus Halloween comic where the Emerald Gauntlets took the Von Foggs trick-or-treating.
There’s also Las Vegas, which, in this setting, specializes as a vacation spot for metahumans. The requisite super powered police and private security personnel there wear normal uniforms/suits instead of masks and capes.
I have to say I’m actually surprised that Lester is in fact also in contact with Power & Glory trying to gain some kind of super-powers to replace what he had taken from him. He also sounds like he’s also got some kind of replacement power on loan that’s let him predict where people will be at certain times. I wonder how it’ll all work out.
Lester might not have powers at all, but rather have an oddly specific prediction that was handed/told to him:
At ${TIME} on ${DATE}, Tyler and the Chaos Orb will both be in the bushes on the corner of ${X} and ${Y}, ${Z} meters ${DIRECTION} from the stop sign on the corner. You and Sarah will be there as well.
So Lester scoped out the place beforehand, and has just been waiting for the time to match up to the prediction, except his watch broke. No powers, just an Oracle or Timelord-equivalent that he trusts.
When it’s a month or so between pages, and so many chaotic things are happening at the same time, you miss and/or forget stuff.
A few pages back [2018-12-25], Toby says: “My Magic 8-Ball Powers (said that someone who could help, and Tyler, would be outside)”, and that those powers are “kind of wonky”.
So it looks like Quantum Powers had a specific precognition, trusted it while recognizing its limitations, passed that precognition on to Lester (and Sarah/Dynamode, and Tyler/Moonshadow, here), and that’s why Lester is here now.
Or perhaps he learned from the manacle of nyrathos. Like dr strange in avengers infinity war, he knew he would be temporarily defeated, but he’s been setting this whole thing up all along. It’s not plausible that he just stumbled through the one-way wall and wound up by chance where he wanted to be all along, so he’s not being honest here. Also him thinking the powered-up sarah is the real her rather than merely her alternate super identity doesn’t speak well for his reformation into somebody who’s gotten past an obsession with super powers.
You obviously need to reread things. He knows what the woman’s mission is and states that it’s HIS mission as well, it’s clearly NOT part of the chaparone’s duties he’s saddled with.
There is a strong inference there, but he didnt say that he works for Power and Glory. Technically hes saying he doing exactly what every other superhero in the building is doing. Looking for Tyler and the Orb.
I think this is the first specific confirmation that wossname is definitely Sarah. And it’s interesting that Lester knows this, and has no inhibition against revealing that he knows. Hm.
Well he clearly needs or feels he needs her help to complete the task so reveals that he knows all about her task in order to ensure her cooperation in working together with him, since she’s important to him paying his bill and getting super-powers again.
Of course, it’s technically Moonshadow who is in the bushes with the Chaos Orb. Will Lester be able to figure it out, or will he just grumble about how his prediction was off, and once again, the totally obvious eludes everyone looking at Moonshadow?
Maybe the Chaos Orb let’s Moonshadow’s gear phase out of reality- that way he gets an upgrade but no powers of his own, and sets up these two finding Tyler and him being unable to fight back for a while until he figures it out.
Another possibility that occurred to me is that the Chaos sticks to Tyler’s costume like it stuck to the boomerang, so he quickly strips it off. When Lester and Sarah find him in his civilian clothing next to the Chaos-infused costume, they’ll say something like, “Well, looks like Moonshadow got away. And, by an odd coincidence, here’s Tyler, obviously not a superhero. Oh, well.” And then they don’t think about it too hard.
When we see Sarah at P&G, learn she is looking for a super power, already has a deal with P&G for a power much like the person in the beginning of the comic, and that P&G do not know who is ‘ruffling Sarah’s feathers’ implying that there is no one else after the same item. This also implies Sarah and the person from the beginning of the issue (Dynamode) are the same person. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-06-10/
First confirmation that the red-head meta is Dynamode, and that Sarah and she are the same person, they have the same metahuman vibe. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2018-04-25/
Is it possible Dynamode is aware but can’t control switching with Sarah who genuinely thinks she is a depowered Dynamode and isn’t aware of switching with Dynamode. Dynamode is manipulating Sarah hence the idea someone else is after it.
Dynamode has a Ladyhawk (the film) type situation but Sarah is going through Fight Club.
It seems possible that Sarah/Dynamode is experiencing a time-based transformation; based on the time she suddenly “had to go to the bathroom,” she’s an adult starting at, say, 6pm? Small-Sarah can’t be unaware of the effect, since she came prepared with large civvies and the Dynamode costume in her soon-to-be hidden bag. Likewise, Big-Sarah can’t be unaware, since she remembers Lester.
There are far too many odd ‘it just happened’s in Lester’s story to make it believable. I suspect that some of those ‘coincidences’, especially the one about breaking his tracking watch, were deliberate. After all, if he didn’t break his tracker, how was he going to deliver Tyler and/or the chaos blob discretely?
In addition to being given the information about where and when to find Tyler and the chaos blob, he may also have been told where and when to lean against the wall to escape his chaperone duties temporarily. Whether that information included the “how” of his getting out, or the fact that his watch would get broken – no idea.
New theory: Sarah isn’t mind-controlled into a base form; she’s mind-controlled into getting a power from P&G, and part of the mind control is believing it’s because she’s lost her powers (even with the patently obvious evidence that she hasn’t).
Now I can’t help but think of what superhero parole would be like, and what kind of limitations a reformed criminal might operate under.
“Yes, Your Honor, I did tear that bridge off its foundations and threw it into the river, but I was diverting a wall of water from flooding a bus full of school children. Well, yes I suppose breaking the dam could be seen as problematic, but I have a good excuse for that too…”
Just think of the superpowered parole OFFICERS. And the super BOUNTY HUNTERS they’d have to call in when somebody skips the jurisdiction or breaks their side of the terms.
Nothing too unusual about metahuman bounty hunters. Bounty hunters count legally as a form of private detective- they just focus on tracking down criminals, ex-convicts, parolees, etc. Marvel’s Heroes for Hire (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight), for example, would count.
It makes sense that some of the less affluent superheroes would do work like that to make a living. Anyway, the lines of work between superhero (particularly detective superheroes) and ordinary bounty hunter intersect, so nothing unique or out-of-the-ordinary here.
Parole officers? We have metahumans ditching the costume and working for the PS238-verse’s US Department of Metahuman Affairs, like Miss Ryley (08042010, 01072013). I’m sure there are parole officer positions specifically for convicted and paroled supervillains filled out by other metahumans.
We know from President/Principle Cranston that supers are required to take off the cape before they join the military. It’s not a jump to extrapolate that to the various federal policing branches of our government. While the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are all interesting to speculate about, the US Marshall services are in charge of hunting down bail jumpers and escapees.
Additionally, we know various super groups are funded, some by the government. Giving them bounties as assignments is reasonable.
Also we have the bonus Halloween comic where the Emerald Gauntlets took the Von Foggs trick-or-treating.
There’s also Las Vegas, which, in this setting, specializes as a vacation spot for metahumans. The requisite super powered police and private security personnel there wear normal uniforms/suits instead of masks and capes.
Possibility for the moaning and groaning #1: Tyler.
Possibility for the moaning and groaning #2: Charles Brigham. Chaos–you’re soaking in it!
I got Charles’ last name wrong, of course.
I prefer to see it as embracing the chaos inherent in the system
“Come and see the chaos, inherent in the system!” Help, help, I’m being repressed.
I have to say I’m actually surprised that Lester is in fact also in contact with Power & Glory trying to gain some kind of super-powers to replace what he had taken from him. He also sounds like he’s also got some kind of replacement power on loan that’s let him predict where people will be at certain times. I wonder how it’ll all work out.
Lester might not have powers at all, but rather have an oddly specific prediction that was handed/told to him:
At ${TIME} on ${DATE}, Tyler and the Chaos Orb will both be in the bushes on the corner of ${X} and ${Y}, ${Z} meters ${DIRECTION} from the stop sign on the corner. You and Sarah will be there as well.So Lester scoped out the place beforehand, and has just been waiting for the time to match up to the prediction, except his watch broke. No powers, just an Oracle or Timelord-equivalent that he trusts.
When it’s a month or so between pages, and so many chaotic things are happening at the same time, you miss and/or forget stuff.
A few pages back [2018-12-25], Toby says: “My Magic 8-Ball Powers (said that someone who could help, and Tyler, would be outside)”, and that those powers are “kind of wonky”.
So it looks like Quantum Powers had a specific precognition, trusted it while recognizing its limitations, passed that precognition on to Lester (and Sarah/Dynamode, and Tyler/Moonshadow, here), and that’s why Lester is here now.
I guess.
Or perhaps he learned from the manacle of nyrathos. Like dr strange in avengers infinity war, he knew he would be temporarily defeated, but he’s been setting this whole thing up all along. It’s not plausible that he just stumbled through the one-way wall and wound up by chance where he wanted to be all along, so he’s not being honest here. Also him thinking the powered-up sarah is the real her rather than merely her alternate super identity doesn’t speak well for his reformation into somebody who’s gotten past an obsession with super powers.
Another strong chance is that he’s just smarter than Sarah and observant. I hear Revenant is always recruiting…
He said nothing about Power & Glory. Or anything that he couldn’t claim was only about his chaperone job.
You obviously need to reread things. He knows what the woman’s mission is and states that it’s HIS mission as well, it’s clearly NOT part of the chaparone’s duties he’s saddled with.
There is a strong inference there, but he didnt say that he works for Power and Glory. Technically hes saying he doing exactly what every other superhero in the building is doing. Looking for Tyler and the Orb.
I think this is the first specific confirmation that wossname is definitely Sarah. And it’s interesting that Lester knows this, and has no inhibition against revealing that he knows. Hm.
Well he clearly needs or feels he needs her help to complete the task so reveals that he knows all about her task in order to ensure her cooperation in working together with him, since she’s important to him paying his bill and getting super-powers again.
Of course, it’s technically Moonshadow who is in the bushes with the Chaos Orb. Will Lester be able to figure it out, or will he just grumble about how his prediction was off, and once again, the totally obvious eludes everyone looking at Moonshadow?
Maybe the Chaos Orb let’s Moonshadow’s gear phase out of reality- that way he gets an upgrade but no powers of his own, and sets up these two finding Tyler and him being unable to fight back for a while until he figures it out.
Another possibility that occurred to me is that the Chaos sticks to Tyler’s costume like it stuck to the boomerang, so he quickly strips it off. When Lester and Sarah find him in his civilian clothing next to the Chaos-infused costume, they’ll say something like, “Well, looks like Moonshadow got away. And, by an odd coincidence, here’s Tyler, obviously not a superhero. Oh, well.” And then they don’t think about it too hard.
I like the way you think, now never do it again.
Or the chaos infused suit is standing there as though Moonshadow is standing next to Tyler.
Oh lordy, tyler is about to come out of the bushes looking like Brundlefly.
Funny, out-of-the-blue idea: it’s not Tyler who got hit by the Chaos Orb, but another member of the ex-metahuman therapy group.
(Incredibly unlikely, though.)
The only person to turn up to the next group meeting is the person running it. And Tyler.
“Soooo, everyone got powers then. Did they?”
Sarah is acting as if she’s been telepathically programmed. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/05182011/
Similar to when she ‘went to the bathroom.’ http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-11-07/
A review:
When we see someone I would bet is Dynamode trying to buy a power at P&G. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-04-04/
When we first meet Sarah and learn of Dynamode. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-04-13/
When we see Sarah at P&G, learn she is looking for a super power, already has a deal with P&G for a power much like the person in the beginning of the comic, and that P&G do not know who is ‘ruffling Sarah’s feathers’ implying that there is no one else after the same item. This also implies Sarah and the person from the beginning of the issue (Dynamode) are the same person.
http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-06-10/
This has nothing to do with the review, I just love that Julie has a teddy bear. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2017-01-18/
Cecil getting a familiar vibe from Dynamode http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2017-01-30/
Dynamode confronts Tyler and Cecil, attempts to plant a tracker bracelet on Tyler. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2017-04-15/
Dynamode planting evidence in Tyler’s room. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2017-12-15/
The boys find Sarah’s clothes and the ticket from P&G. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2018-02-24/
First confirmation that the red-head meta is Dynamode, and that Sarah and she are the same person, they have the same metahuman vibe. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2018-04-25/
Cecil switched the bracelets. http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2018-05-06/
Is it possible Dynamode is aware but can’t control switching with Sarah who genuinely thinks she is a depowered Dynamode and isn’t aware of switching with Dynamode. Dynamode is manipulating Sarah hence the idea someone else is after it.
Dynamode has a Ladyhawk (the film) type situation but Sarah is going through Fight Club.
It seems possible that Sarah/Dynamode is experiencing a time-based transformation; based on the time she suddenly “had to go to the bathroom,” she’s an adult starting at, say, 6pm? Small-Sarah can’t be unaware of the effect, since she came prepared with large civvies and the Dynamode costume in her soon-to-be hidden bag. Likewise, Big-Sarah can’t be unaware, since she remembers Lester.
There are far too many odd ‘it just happened’s in Lester’s story to make it believable. I suspect that some of those ‘coincidences’, especially the one about breaking his tracking watch, were deliberate. After all, if he didn’t break his tracker, how was he going to deliver Tyler and/or the chaos blob discretely?
In addition to being given the information about where and when to find Tyler and the chaos blob, he may also have been told where and when to lean against the wall to escape his chaperone duties temporarily. Whether that information included the “how” of his getting out, or the fact that his watch would get broken – no idea.
New theory: Sarah isn’t mind-controlled into a base form; she’s mind-controlled into getting a power from P&G, and part of the mind control is believing it’s because she’s lost her powers (even with the patently obvious evidence that she hasn’t).
The waiting drives me crazy. This is one of the best comics of all time.
Agreed.
“The suspense is unbearable… I hope it lasts!” – Willy Wonka
Hard to believe this particular “day” has been going on for over 2 years
Still pretty tame. Freefall had a ‘day’ that lasted 395 strips.
I admit, the delays make me shiver with antici …
.
.
.
pation!