2019-11-06
Posted on 2019-11-06 by Aaron

70 thoughts on “2019-11-06”

  1. Nodrog

    Will Tyler drink or not drink? and even if he does open the bottle, will Tyler’s power of EXTREME ORDINARINESS protect him from the effect or not? Place your bets!

    Long shot bet: Management will turn out to be the Revenant.

    1. Stephen Bierce

      I think Revenant’s phone call with Tyler back several pages ago rules that theory out.

      1. Some Ed

        A few pages ago? You mean 21 pages ago (aka last year)?

        Remember who this guy’s an expy of. I don’t think you can rule out something just because he chooses to play really close to the chest.

        That having been said, my bet’s on it boosting Tyler’s already seriously impressive no powers rather than giving him any sort of obvious power. As such, we won’t notice a difference. (That said, I’m putting $0 down on this one, because that’s just how I roll.)

    2. David Nuttall

      Is that the bottle Alice drank from as documented by Lewis Carrol?

      1. Ed Rhodes

        Does it have a sign on it that reads; “Drink me”?

    3. TxGator

      Hmmmm…. On the hand Tyler has always been so practical. And drinking random potions handed to you by people who you don’t know (and just had you kidnapped), is not the brightest of ideas.

      On the other hand, he has been feeling invisible to his mom & dad ever since Toby popped into existence. And he may be too young to understand you can’t drink your problems away (is this a subtle allegory to alcohol?)

      I do seem to recall Toby wanted Tyler to have powers. So I wonder how that factors into what’s going on?

      1. Faust

        He also knows of the many failed attempts to give him powers and may feel indifferent believing this will also fail. If that’s true he might gift it to another.

        1. TemperaryObsessor

          Tyler dealt with many failed attempts at giving him superpowers, which either backfired and hurt him or they couldn’t rule the possibility of him being hurt out until he went to the doctor, and he already knows that these guys are at least a little shady. I’m guessing he would reject it. Honestly at this point its possible if someone tried to convince kids that carrots give them supervision he might avoid carrots.

    4. Ed Rhodes

      I’m gonna say; “no.” The Revenant is a expy of Batman, Batman without angst. I think, putting him in change of a metahuman clearing house like “Power and Glory” would be way out of character for him. I think Tyler’s going to turn it down, and I think this is going to serve and yet ANOTHER wedge between him and his brother, Toby!

    5. LaughingDemon

      It could be like that. And some hunch about the FISS/Argonian superpower I had is that it actively suppresses other powers.
      Like how Ron didn’t develop his “shortcuts” until his FISS powers had been zapped by Argonite. Tyler has a power that doesn’t seem to do anything, but suppresses any other attempts.

      My other theory is that he’s Fate’s plaything. And that Very Bad Things can happen (and technically have happened, according to Toby) if Fate is forced. (Tyler and everyone without powers got enhanced powers and everybody with powers lost theirs).
      It leads to a darker hypothesis that he’s a near “Dragon”-level existence heavily entwined with Fate. I hope he’s an “anti-dragon”, if only so I can put aside thoughts that Use Sword On Monster won’t involve an extremely sad mercy kill. (Was Once a Man/Powered by a Forsaken Child/Mercy Kill tropes).

  2. codebracker

    Super introspection sounds like a D&D curse

    1. Thisfox

      I think it will die down and become useful over time.

      1. Owlmirror

        What I expected on this page — and I still think might show up on the next — is “Oh, wait, I can change my shape! I never needed new powers; I just need to overcome Pswarp’s block on my control of those powers! Oh! I think I can do that now!”

        And so on and so forth.

      2. Ie Yamof Ool

        Less die down, more force her to change in order to live with herself until it’s no longer an issue.

  3. Stephen Bierce

    And Tyler gets yet another “Answer YES Or NO” choice. Will his friends show up in time to help him?

    1. Faust

      The castle beyond time and space had interesting mirrors. That may influence his choice.

      1. Robert Carnegie

        Yeah, alternate universe where he did have super power…

        The Revenant has tools, not powers. I don’t see him being at all involved in getting powers for Tyler if he doesn’t want any himself.

        And we saw Future Tyler in the Revenant role (or Nightwing). Powers possible, but basically tool-oriented.

        I think Tyler may accept the bottle but keep it unused, like Data in Star Trek with the emotion chip. And in the end its power could go to someone else.

  4. TB

    “The Head Office said you deserve this…”

    Um…wait a minute…

    1. Rock

      Yeah. All sorts of possible implications.

    2. Faust

      Special offers for preferred clients?
      I smell time shenanigans indirectly involved. They want future business from him possibly. There was some mention possibly vaguely of them assisting the planned course of destiny or something like that. I still like the concept of order and chaos being involved though feel this isn’t connected directly to known characters.

  5. Sabreur

    I think her superpower is broken, there’s no such thing as too much bacon. 😉

    On a more serious note, I don’t like how they’re pressuring Tyler here. They seem genuinely enthusiastic, but this is a big decision! He should take some time to think it over.

    1. Prairie Son

      My arteries disagree with you.

    2. Opus the Poet

      There’s no such thing as too much bacon gastronomically, but nutritionally is another kettle of fish entirely (which BTW is another thing that bacon makes better).

      1. Mike S.

        Depends on your gastronomy. My wife would wind up spending a quarter of the day in the bathroom if she ate as much bacon as I put on one salad.

        1. *cough*

          Given salad is raw, I doubt bacon in a salad would sit well in your stomach.
          They say canines should either eat all cooked meat or all raw, not a mix of both.
          If you regularly eat only raw meat then it could be fine. >>>>

  6. Veritas

    “Get my old life back”… says the ex-supervillain.

    Makes me wonder if the “old life” in question will turn out to be pre-powers, though…

    1. evileeyore

      My bet is his old life involves a family that he lost when went “too far” as a supervillain.

      1. John

        My bet is that he’s tempted, but he’s canny enough to at least consider that he might be better off without it. I wonder if he will intentionally fail to do the second part, having seen enough now to be skeptical of any promises.

    2. LaughingDemon

      It might be. He still has to get Tyler back home. Broken watch/tracker, opportunity to flee, came back with the missing kid. Somebody might pull a string or two. I’d say the Powers if they cared about their other son (yes, our humble protagonist), then again, it might be made as a grand gesture since this is in public and all.

    3. Xero

      Could mean his life before he had powers and became a villian

  7. Wanderer

    My money is on the kid who got Tyler to make “The Decision” being the head office.
    And the supervillain may be counting on not getting his powers. The powers could have cost him something he can’t get back as long as he has them.

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Tom Davison? That makes a strange bit of sense. He seems to get a sense of satisfaction making Tyler’s destiny fulfill itself.

      1. David Nuttall

        It could also help explain how those two knew where to find Tyler when even Tyler did not know he would be there.

        1. Stephen Bierce

          I’m also reminded of the Doctor Who story “Enlightenment” and what happened to Turlough at the end.

          I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it. 🙂

  8. Messenger

    I’m usually for sticking to established concepts in a character- such as Tyler being the “Uncannily Incredible Perfectly Ordinary Average Boy”- but I’m oddly okay now with the possibility of Tyler getting actual powers. I simply have faith that, regardless of the outcome, the story is going to be good.

    1. Prairie Son

      Given that every other attempt to empower him has bounced off hard, I somehow doubt this time will be the one that works.

      1. Mechwarrior

        Yeah, at this point, Tyler getting powers would be like Batman embracing guns.

        1. Opus the Poet

          So you never read that arc when Bats went full on Punisher?

        2. Messenger

          The Grim Knight? But isn’t that Batman a villain?
          …
          Which brings me back to the time Tyler was at The Castle Beyond Time and Space and met a very super-powered version of himself who by being a spoiled brat was INDEED a villain? O_O

        3. Messenger

          Opus, I gotta say, your comment- in the context of Tyler’s adventures so far- is remarkably appropriate.

  9. Mike S.

    Eventually, once Dynamode adjusts to her new “powers”, I wonder if that self-introspection will show her that her old powerset is still there and still accessible, but that she was tricked by the mental compulsion into believing it wasn’t?

    1. Owlmirror

      Damn, didn’t scroll down far enough.

      1. Mike S.

        Great minds think alike 🙂

  10. TxGator

    Tyler: “Didn’t you just give her ‘super introspection’ as a power ten seconds ago?”
    Glory: “Errrr….. Yes?”
    Tyler: “Pass.”

    1. Rens

      I dunno, she might not be /happy/ with the revelations she’s getting from them, but so far they do sound like useful information that will help her a great deal in the long run.

  11. Miryafa

    At this point, I’m pretty sure one of the ground truths of this comic is “Tyler will never have powers.” Whether or not he chooses to take the freebie.

  12. Anvildude

    Could pull a Bink.

    He gets powers. It looks like he doesn’t have any. The power is to not be affected by powers. But because people knowing about his power would make it so they could figure out how to use powers to do things that bypass that limit (like levitating a building and dropping it on him or whatnot), it keeps itself hidden by appearing to be extraordinary luck or skill.

  13. LookieLouE1707

    This is getting to be a little bit afterschool special-ish “don’t do drugs” – “hey, kid, c’m’on, try the superpower stuff, all the other kids are doing it, I’ll even give you a free sample”. So I think tyler resists peer pressure and decides not to drink, and his resolve is immediately tested when lester comes back with the manacle of nyrathos – because going to the bathroom has to be a checkhov’s gun. Very godfather.

    Do we yet have an explanation for why sarah would be changing back and forth from kid to adult? Doesn’t sound like the product of a mental block.

    1. LookieLouE1707

      Hmmm … Sarah says “there’s only one, and it’s mine”, but apparently that’s not true, there is in fact enough superpower stuff for sarah and tyler to each get one. Artificial scarcity.

      1. LookieLouE1707

        Hmmm … “There are other items you could buy, maybe even for plain old money, but they’re not what you wanted or they don’t fit right.”

        “No, I need real powers, not a gimmick.”

        I really feel like sarah is getting ripped off here – clearly this is not what she wanted. And the tone of the prior conversation was that she had something specific picked out in mind that she was being offered, not that she would be surprised with something and then settle for it as being better than nothing.

  14. Rock

    Umm. Don’t you need to regularly purchase things at a store at some point to become a “preferred customer”? Isn’t that how it works? 0_0
    Wanderer already suggested Tom Davison might be involved somehow, and now I’m starting to think Tyler might be coming back to Power & Glory at some point in the future… or the past.

    1. LookieLouE1707

      Sounds like one of those pre-approved credit card offers with the low introductory rates for preferred clients (that turns out to have exorbitant interest after the introductory offer expires).

    2. SuddenReal

      Thing is, you can take “preferred customer” in two ways. One way is a regular customer that is preferred by the staff, the other is a person the staff would prefer as a customer. And if Tyler would get powers, there could be a power struggle between Tyler and Toby for the affection of their parents, meaning Tyler could come back for more powers.

  15. CCC

    I begin to think that the real reason why Tyler doesn’t have to pay for his superpowers is probably that *Toby already made the payment*.

    1. Messenger

      THIS.
      I’d forgotten that Toby made a deal with Sarah to get Tyler to P&G, and that Moon Shadow overheard it.
      Maybe P&G is calling Tyler a “preferred customer” to hide the deal Toby had made. Maybe Toby stipulated that they keep his involvement secret as part of the trade.

    2. Drgnhawk

      Tyler just “gave” P&G a whole canister of reeeeally powerful chaos goop. I think they’re probably set to come out ahead on the deal, even if they’re actually in this for the business. Honestly, though, the whole invited customers only, weird trades, management invisible thing just screams “this isn’t a business” to me. Someone is using their own super power(s) to get super powers and/or magic items into the hands of the Right People (according to them and/or their powers). Profit is entirely secondary.

  16. KillerFish

    Might be slightly out there, but what if he gets the power to have the powers people believe he already has. Functionally useless for Tyler, as people will still believe he has no powers, but for *Moonshadow*?

    1. Autoskip

      “Moonshadow” already seems to be one of the most powerful supers out there, and he doesn’t actually have any powers.

      I’m almost afraid to think what he might be like if he actually was as powerful as everyone thought he was…

      …Bonus points if it’s an ongoing effect – “Moonshadow’s even more powerful than ever! He must have gained ‘X’ power!”
      Moonshadow – *Gains ‘X’ power*

    2. Ash0011

      I’m suddenly reminded of Mr. Black from Make a Wish (one of the few actually amazing Harry Potter Fanfics)

    3. Messenger

      They won’t be functionally useless for Moon Shadow given all the awesome stuff Tyler’s classmates have said of him. Put together all the powers they believe he has (after his rescue of the Rainmaker Kids, the Charles Brigman case, the alien invasion, his “resurrection”, the soccer match, the rescue of the missing Ms. Imperia, etc., etc.) and Moon Shadow would be Superman-tier (or greater!) if he had them all. Emerald Gauntlet Jr. won’t even consider the possibility of him being any less!

    4. Messenger

      They won’t be functionally useless for Moon Shadow given all the awesome stuff Tyler’s classmates have said of him. Put together all the powers they believe he has (after his rescue of the Rainmaker Kids, the Charles Brigman case, the alien invasion, his “resurrection”, the soccer match, the rescue of the missing Ms. Imperia, etc., etc.) and Moon Shadow would be Superman-tier (or greater!) if he had them all. Emerald Gauntlet Jr. won’t even consider the possibility of him being any less!

  17. Magnus

    What is that thing on Tyler’s hip in panel 1? Is that a sword? Can he keep it? It’s not visible in the third panel.

  18. Simreeve

    Call me overly cynical, if you want, but I can’t help wondering whether Lester will try helping himself to any items while he’s out of the shopkeepers’ sight and they’re busy with Tyler… and maybe even made that excuse to leave their presence SO THAT he could look around for anything “useful”…
    This is a ‘villain’ that we’re talking about, after all.

  19. Nightmask

    I’m surprised no one’s suggested that Tyler’s response is to give the potion to our ex-supervillain after he escorts Tyler home, which is how he gets his old life back and why he has to escort him home, as Tyler doesn’t drink it now (that or the circumstances causes the powers to transfer to him after finishing up the escort mission).

    1. Marie

      Yes, I would find him getting powers now to be a letdown. He’s proven in-world that he can be a great hero without them, and its like some not-good-enough vibe for any minority- totally wrong. Wonder if Mom and Dad are ‘preferred?’

  20. Ed Rhodes

    On another note that nobody’s brought up; NOW we know who was on the phone and had the invitation from a fortune cookie!

  21. dana

    WHOA, I was just reading an earlier page where Toby says to Tyler, “I can’t promise anything, but by this time tomorrow, I think you’ll have a real room of your own and all the security clearance you could want.”

    http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2017-02-20/

    But Power and Glory said, “The head office says you deserve a freebie.” So is it a freebie or did Toby arrange/pay for it?

    Was Toby the mysterious caller on this page?

    http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-06-10/

    1. dana

      Ah, Lester says he found his invite to Power and Glory in a fortune cookie. I guess he was the mysterious caller.

  22. Flushmaster

    Ron’s right. I’m pretty sure they don’t have a Plumbing Navigation License and I’d hate to have to give them a ticket. Bad things can happen in those pies if you’re not properly trained and equipped, even if you don’t run into the he more exotic fauna.

  23. Owlmirror

    Hm. I just noticed on this re-read . . . a few pages back, Lester swore he wouldn’t claim anything for bringing in Tyler — because his task was to bring Tyler in, and get him home again.

    I also note that the orb wasn’t his specific goal, though, as I’d previously guessed. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t P&G’s bonus goal.

    I do have to wonder, now that he’s seen exactly how P&G granted Dynamode her new power, if he still has faith that P&G can deliver in a way that’s not a Monkey’s Paw.

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