I’m not sure who would be scarier in this kind of situation: Tim Taylor from Home Improvement or Carl Winslow from Family Matters. Speaking of Family Matters, this may end with somebody looking over a pile of wreckage and saying “Did I do that?”
Lester’s been taking “not being an asshole” lessons. He’s up to Negotiating And Collaboration – which is at least lesson 11. So I guess he’s been paying attention in his mandated group counseling sessions.
Remember what he said about getting back the life he lost? I think it has something to do with that. And I think it’s pretty sad.
I love redemption stories and redemption tropes, and I hope that’s what’s coming to Lester, but they usually involve some sort of loss.
An the good old, “you just have to hate the other guy more than me” speech… Also “it’s complicated” makes me wonder what actually happened to the object he had. .. And if he was the one who got rid of it because something has happened… Or something odd.
Tumbler seems to be a fan of shipping so maybe his magical artifact turned into a human or something.
That was my thought too, but there might be more to the story. Like he was a good guy when Metallicus knew him, and he went bad afterwards. Maybe getting his “old life back” is a shot at redemption, and being a good guy again. A grouchy one, sure, but still…
It’s unclear that was the Revenant, at least based on that strip alone. There are metahuman gadgeteers – Pistonic, for instance, and Mantium/Clay. It’s not even a definite that Lester was being literal about the cape (though it’s probably more likely than not in my estimation).
Yeah, up to this point they seemed neutrals, a little arrogant, but a common issue in this ‘verse. But throwing even annoying kids into some pit was overboard. Glad Lester’s recovering.
Yeah, “we throw trash and trespassers in and we never hear from them again.”
That could mean the box dumps them into orbit, at the nearby mosh pit, into a justin bieber concert, or just the local garbage dump. The fact they don’t care and are willing to put living things into it kinda screams “villain” to me.
Also, remember, “you get what you pay for”. They sell powers, and you have to wonder how much they screen the people they’re selling to. Not just that, but where is the fine print? There is always a price tag attached to power, always.
I don’t know…. they might. Just might. Be doing this in this way to scare our boy here into using his superpowers stuff to rescue his friend. This whole thing could be… orchestrated. And they might not realise how off-kilter it’s already become.
How often do superpowered characters get ‘scared straight’ again? No, I’m not convinced Power and Glory are actual kids. But I am sure they are further on the villain sider than Lester. The nano stature shows thet have enough power at hand to deal with anyone, but they’re choosing to throw them into something that sounds like a Bond villain death trap instead of things that would terrify a kid. They’re treating real kids as if they were deaged, which is severe lack of judgement at best.
My question is more, is the boss a villain, or were they getting drunk on the power they have borrowed from the boss’ collection?
True enough. Won’t deny that it could be simple scare tactics. However, the whole “on the house” and long experience with stories discussing the “price of power” along with them selling powers has me thinking there may be some extremely not so nice thing about them.
If they are indeed acting and trying to scare the kids, they’re extremely good at it, perhaps too good. As the saying goes “wear the mask for too long and eventually you ask which is the mask and which is the person.”
You’re missing the point. This is ALL part of Lester “getting his life back”. I originally thought he was looking to get back his life before he got powers, but it’s starting to look more like its his life before he decided to go supervillain…
I think I have heard something similar to that qualification statement in the last panel before, somewhere else. Use that hammer when you go on Forged in Fire.
Doug: Has that billet been in the fire long enough to forge-weld? I think it looks too cold.
Dave: You’re right about that. If he tries to set his forge-welds at this point, it is all going to separate.
Will: Duck bill city?
Ben: Pretty much, or even just individual pieces scattering all over the floor. Lester needs to keep his steel in the fire for at least another 2 minutes.
[ On the floor, that hammer strikes the billet on the anvil. The steel glows brighter with each hit and fuses together into one solid piece. ]
Dave: Wow, I stand corrected. I was sure he would split his billet but it is holding together.
Doug: It looks like it is getting hotter with each hit. The amount of force required to do that is absolutely insane.
[ Later on, judgment at the end of the first round. ]
Will: Lester, please present your blade to the judges.
Dave: Wow. This is one of the most ornate pieces we have ever had presented to us at the end of the first round after only three hours. A symmetrical recurved dagger made with hard edges and a softer middle, with the D-guard already in there; and you have already sharpened your edges. I like that your drifted the pin holes in your tang before you hardened the blade. That puts you so much further ahead. We asked for a blade between 14 and 16 inches, and you gave us that, and so much more. I think I am going to love seeing what you do in the next round.
Ben: You put in so many features in that knife, each of which we would have had to give you extra time, but you got it all done in just 3 hours. Amazing.
[ Testing at the end of round two ]
Ben: This is the dreaded Strength Test. I will take your blades and chop them and stab them into blocks of ice. This is not so much about what your blades do to the ice, but what the ice does to your blades. Lester you’re up first. Are you ready?
Lester: I think so. Let’s get it over with.
[ Ben picks up the knife and walks around to a block of ice a foot square by 4 feet high. He raises the blade up and brings it down hard on top of the ice, point first, shattering the top foot of ice into three large blocks which slide down and drop to the floor. Ben adjusts his grip for a chop and brings it down into the ice, which splits for another foot as little pieces are sent flying everywhere. The big pieces slide off and fall to the floor. Ben tries again, with similar results. ]
Ben: Well, it looks like I ran out of ice sooner than I expected. Your knife performed magnificently and held up beautifully. I can find no damage in the tip or the edges.
Doug: This is the sharpness test. I am going to take your knives and use them to slice these salmon. Lester because you put two edges on your blade, I will testing each edge. Are you ready? Your knife is up first.
Lester: Go for it.
[ Doug does a horizontal chop through the belly of a hanging salmon and then uses a back hand slice to cut just behind the gills. ]
Doug: Your blade is magnificent and easily cut through the fish, almost like they weren’t there. The handle is exceptionally comfortable and indexes on the blade easily. You knife, will cut.
” This is not so much about what your blades do to the ice, but what the ice does to your blades. ” This is pretty much a direct quote from each round two strength test. ^_^
Ice? Ice is easy! They’ve used wooden crates, slammed the blades into the sides of nails…
The idea is to beat the @&)( out of the blade and it’s edge before testing for sharpness. They commonly get chipping, edge fold and blade warping. Occasionally (rarely, really) they get a blade to fail completely (cracking or breaking). I think they had a hilt fail, once, way back…
I was curious about the link between Hephaestus and Cancer and found this-
>Other “sons of Hephaestus” were the Cabeiri on the island of Samothrace, who were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius. The adjective karkinopous (“crab-footed”) signified “lame”, according to Detienne and Vernant.[62] The Cabeiri were also lame.
Cancer, crab, Karkinos. I’ve read a moderate amount of Greek mythology, but don’t recall seeing the connection before. I wonder if there is one or Aaron is making a relatively obscure reference?
I’d say it would have to sound like someone from Home Improvement. At first I was going with Tim or Al, but the more I think about it, it HAS to sound like Wilson (the neighbor).
If you think about it, the symbol on the hammer (hey it’s 69!’) as drawn at that angle looks like the hammer has eyes and is smiling with a unibrow over the eyes.
I still think people are making a poor assumption when they think the Power & Glory employees (did we ever get their names?) are kids simply because they’re short. Child labor laws won’t allow that, you know. My wife of 28 years is 5’2″ (163 cm), which is about the typical height of a 4th grader. I suspect these P&G people are in their late teens or early 20s, possibly older.
And as for Lester, why are we assuming he wants to return to his life as a villain? Now that he’s had some therapy, he may want to go back to before whatever happened that made him a bad guy. Just because he’s acitng out of self-interest doesn’t automatically make him a villain.
I think given what Lester said during the therapy session that he basically wants back that power because now he’s like a blind man that was given sight then had it taken away from him again only on a greater scale. He wants to ‘see’ again after having had a brief time where he was no longer ‘blind.’
Thing is they reference having a boss so while the business may be named after them they either aren’t the owners or there’s a third person with controlling shares in the business who also owns it but didn’t want their name on it.
Doesn’t anyone feel disturbed that Power and Glory here seem to be ok with killing children, instead of contacting the authorities or something? Or even asking Tyler if they are his friends?
Today’s episode is brought to you by Home Depot.
The tv show home improvement just seems relevant here.
I’m not sure who would be scarier in this kind of situation: Tim Taylor from Home Improvement or Carl Winslow from Family Matters. Speaking of Family Matters, this may end with somebody looking over a pile of wreckage and saying “Did I do that?”
This Old Extradimensional Store
The New Powers Workshop.
Do we want to pitch any more new PBS programming? 🙂
Lester’s been taking “not being an asshole” lessons. He’s up to Negotiating And Collaboration – which is at least lesson 11. So I guess he’s been paying attention in his mandated group counseling sessions.
Remember what he said about getting back the life he lost? I think it has something to do with that. And I think it’s pretty sad.
I love redemption stories and redemption tropes, and I hope that’s what’s coming to Lester, but they usually involve some sort of loss.
Yep, he is recovering the life he lost. But he also lost a life when he found his object of power. Maybe that’s the one he is recovering.
I mean, I’d go with “may I” not “can I”, but they know each other so…
As always, I await the next page with Asgardian-baited breath…
An the good old, “you just have to hate the other guy more than me” speech… Also “it’s complicated” makes me wonder what actually happened to the object he had. .. And if he was the one who got rid of it because something has happened… Or something odd.
Tumbler seems to be a fan of shipping so maybe his magical artifact turned into a human or something.
The revenant took it away from him, so he didn’t really put it aside, so it’s complicated
http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2016-08-2016/
That was my thought too, but there might be more to the story. Like he was a good guy when Metallicus knew him, and he went bad afterwards. Maybe getting his “old life back” is a shot at redemption, and being a good guy again. A grouchy one, sure, but still…
It’s unclear that was the Revenant, at least based on that strip alone. There are metahuman gadgeteers – Pistonic, for instance, and Mantium/Clay. It’s not even a definite that Lester was being literal about the cape (though it’s probably more likely than not in my estimation).
Well, that puts them squarely in bad guy territory. Too bad their golem doesn’t have three hands and has left behind the most dangerous threat.
Yeah, up to this point they seemed neutrals, a little arrogant, but a common issue in this ‘verse. But throwing even annoying kids into some pit was overboard. Glad Lester’s recovering.
I agree. That’s an Orb of Annihilation they got there and they’re going to throw people- kids their own age- in?
Yeah, “we throw trash and trespassers in and we never hear from them again.”
That could mean the box dumps them into orbit, at the nearby mosh pit, into a justin bieber concert, or just the local garbage dump. The fact they don’t care and are willing to put living things into it kinda screams “villain” to me.
Also, remember, “you get what you pay for”. They sell powers, and you have to wonder how much they screen the people they’re selling to. Not just that, but where is the fine print? There is always a price tag attached to power, always.
I don’t know…. they might. Just might. Be doing this in this way to scare our boy here into using his superpowers stuff to rescue his friend. This whole thing could be… orchestrated. And they might not realise how off-kilter it’s already become.
Yeah, these guys are hosed.
That is if they are honest while telling that and not just scaring the kids into not doing that again.
How often do superpowered characters get ‘scared straight’ again? No, I’m not convinced Power and Glory are actual kids. But I am sure they are further on the villain sider than Lester. The nano stature shows thet have enough power at hand to deal with anyone, but they’re choosing to throw them into something that sounds like a Bond villain death trap instead of things that would terrify a kid. They’re treating real kids as if they were deaged, which is severe lack of judgement at best.
My question is more, is the boss a villain, or were they getting drunk on the power they have borrowed from the boss’ collection?
True enough. Won’t deny that it could be simple scare tactics. However, the whole “on the house” and long experience with stories discussing the “price of power” along with them selling powers has me thinking there may be some extremely not so nice thing about them.
If they are indeed acting and trying to scare the kids, they’re extremely good at it, perhaps too good. As the saying goes “wear the mask for too long and eventually you ask which is the mask and which is the person.”
You’re missing the point. This is ALL part of Lester “getting his life back”. I originally thought he was looking to get back his life before he got powers, but it’s starting to look more like its his life before he decided to go supervillain…
I think I have heard something similar to that qualification statement in the last panel before, somewhere else. Use that hammer when you go on Forged in Fire.
Doug: Has that billet been in the fire long enough to forge-weld? I think it looks too cold.
Dave: You’re right about that. If he tries to set his forge-welds at this point, it is all going to separate.
Will: Duck bill city?
Ben: Pretty much, or even just individual pieces scattering all over the floor. Lester needs to keep his steel in the fire for at least another 2 minutes.
[ On the floor, that hammer strikes the billet on the anvil. The steel glows brighter with each hit and fuses together into one solid piece. ]
Dave: Wow, I stand corrected. I was sure he would split his billet but it is holding together.
Doug: It looks like it is getting hotter with each hit. The amount of force required to do that is absolutely insane.
[ Later on, judgment at the end of the first round. ]
Will: Lester, please present your blade to the judges.
Dave: Wow. This is one of the most ornate pieces we have ever had presented to us at the end of the first round after only three hours. A symmetrical recurved dagger made with hard edges and a softer middle, with the D-guard already in there; and you have already sharpened your edges. I like that your drifted the pin holes in your tang before you hardened the blade. That puts you so much further ahead. We asked for a blade between 14 and 16 inches, and you gave us that, and so much more. I think I am going to love seeing what you do in the next round.
Ben: You put in so many features in that knife, each of which we would have had to give you extra time, but you got it all done in just 3 hours. Amazing.
[ Testing at the end of round two ]
Ben: This is the dreaded Strength Test. I will take your blades and chop them and stab them into blocks of ice. This is not so much about what your blades do to the ice, but what the ice does to your blades. Lester you’re up first. Are you ready?
Lester: I think so. Let’s get it over with.
[ Ben picks up the knife and walks around to a block of ice a foot square by 4 feet high. He raises the blade up and brings it down hard on top of the ice, point first, shattering the top foot of ice into three large blocks which slide down and drop to the floor. Ben adjusts his grip for a chop and brings it down into the ice, which splits for another foot as little pieces are sent flying everywhere. The big pieces slide off and fall to the floor. Ben tries again, with similar results. ]
Ben: Well, it looks like I ran out of ice sooner than I expected. Your knife performed magnificently and held up beautifully. I can find no damage in the tip or the edges.
Doug: This is the sharpness test. I am going to take your knives and use them to slice these salmon. Lester because you put two edges on your blade, I will testing each edge. Are you ready? Your knife is up first.
Lester: Go for it.
[ Doug does a horizontal chop through the belly of a hanging salmon and then uses a back hand slice to cut just behind the gills. ]
Doug: Your blade is magnificent and easily cut through the fish, almost like they weren’t there. The handle is exceptionally comfortable and indexes on the blade easily. You knife, will cut.
They do the strength test before the sharpness test? That’s gotta be rough.
Well, a sharp edge is useless unless it can hold it…
” This is not so much about what your blades do to the ice, but what the ice does to your blades. ” This is pretty much a direct quote from each round two strength test. ^_^
Well, you can replace whatever the strength test target they’re using for “ice”,but other than that…
Ice? Ice is easy! They’ve used wooden crates, slammed the blades into the sides of nails…
The idea is to beat the @&)( out of the blade and it’s edge before testing for sharpness. They commonly get chipping, edge fold and blade warping. Occasionally (rarely, really) they get a blade to fail completely (cracking or breaking). I think they had a hilt fail, once, way back…
Heres the real question… will it keeel?
The kill test is in round 3 with the sword (or whatever BIG weapon they make at their home forges).
‘Provisional worthiness’.
… Bwahahaha!
Shows promise and may earn full worthiness… potential item to replace his past one. Becomes a hero instead of a villain?
Hammer: “Eh, good enough.”
Was I he only one to notice the sigil for Gemini on the hammer head?
Are you certain that’s not Pices, the Fish?
http://timeemits.com/cec/Zodiac_Calendar_History.htm
The chart you referenced shows the sigil as cancer.
You’re right. My apologies.
That’s Cancer. Gemini is II, and Pisces is )-(
I was curious about the link between Hephaestus and Cancer and found this-
>Other “sons of Hephaestus” were the Cabeiri on the island of Samothrace, who were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius. The adjective karkinopous (“crab-footed”) signified “lame”, according to Detienne and Vernant.[62] The Cabeiri were also lame.
Cancer, crab, Karkinos. I’ve read a moderate amount of Greek mythology, but don’t recall seeing the connection before. I wonder if there is one or Aaron is making a relatively obscure reference?
Golem made of wood holding someone with the ability to control insects. Wonder if termites or other wood destroying insects will save the day…..
Nanites are a little bug like…
Now that’s what I call negotiating!
I like the font the hammer speaks in. How does it sound though?
I’d say it would have to sound like someone from Home Improvement. At first I was going with Tim or Al, but the more I think about it, it HAS to sound like Wilson (the neighbor).
Naw… Definitely Al, Can’t you picture the Hammer going “I don’t think so, Tim” to it’s wielder when he was about to do something stupid? 🙂
like Zeus in the Gods of Olympus video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfSwEaeOsJE
I’m imagining Zordon from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
We still don’t know Lester’s game, but he doesn’t seem to be working with Power and Glory on this one.
Stop. Hammertime.
If you think about it, the symbol on the hammer (hey it’s 69!’) as drawn at that angle looks like the hammer has eyes and is smiling with a unibrow over the eyes.
Most talking things seem to get portrayed as with eyes though logic should suggest they have a mouth. Weird. 😄
I still think people are making a poor assumption when they think the Power & Glory employees (did we ever get their names?) are kids simply because they’re short. Child labor laws won’t allow that, you know. My wife of 28 years is 5’2″ (163 cm), which is about the typical height of a 4th grader. I suspect these P&G people are in their late teens or early 20s, possibly older.
And as for Lester, why are we assuming he wants to return to his life as a villain? Now that he’s had some therapy, he may want to go back to before whatever happened that made him a bad guy. Just because he’s acitng out of self-interest doesn’t automatically make him a villain.
I think given what Lester said during the therapy session that he basically wants back that power because now he’s like a blind man that was given sight then had it taken away from him again only on a greater scale. He wants to ‘see’ again after having had a brief time where he was no longer ‘blind.’
Their names are Wilson Power and Angela Glory. They apparently named the shop after themselves, which generally means they own it.
Thing is they reference having a boss so while the business may be named after them they either aren’t the owners or there’s a third person with controlling shares in the business who also owns it but didn’t want their name on it.
Doesn’t anyone feel disturbed that Power and Glory here seem to be ok with killing children, instead of contacting the authorities or something? Or even asking Tyler if they are his friends?
Actually, a lot of people are. Just go up and down the comments to see that.
Is it ok to kill adults, and which age makes the difference?
Each of these kids can easily overpower all of us together and current us laws do allow to defend against any one of us by killing that person.
In Germany, you’d face criminal charges unless you defended your life.
I just had a satori on the proposed animated film of this story.
I’d already decided on Robert Downey Junior on the voice of the Revenant.
How about Chris Hemsworth for the voice of the hammer?