Genre savvy is on his character sheet. This shop didn’t want to be found by him previously (it’s in the spot you skip past when you walk down that one street), so the thing they wanted was the ball o’ chaos. I suspect the potion is an amnesiac to wipe out the day’s memories. They don’t want him dead, but they want the place hella secret except for the people they bribe to help them collect objects of power.
They honor their agreements, to the letter. They agreed not to harm him. But they’re going ham on nosy kids and not going “hey, more customers!” This is more “no witnesses”. I don’t know if they’re fae, demons, or lawyers… but he’s got no deal with them and they seem to give people what they want in the *WORST* way… so… yeah, extremely fishy. Especially since these shopkeepers don’t have powers, but do use what the shop has, you know? Why didn’t they chug it, unless it’s, yanno… as debilitating as the gift of ultra-introspection.
P&G had no deal with Tyler, but it sounded as though they had a deal with Toby: Toby seemed real sure that Tyler was going to end up with powers after all was said and done.
Exactly this combination doesn’t make much sense, in that between amnesia potion and desire to stay anonymous a better and more obvious solution would be “more of the same”. Just inviting everyone to a little mad tea party would be much less risky than giving several parties who demonstrated ability to infiltrate their maze a reason to immediately exfiltrate and possibly run for reinforcements.
Of course, even this mess has limited opportunities to make much sense in general.
Since they wreck their own shop and so far didn’t really contain, it’s not a meaningful act.
Thus,
A. They finally spazzed out with all these shiny toys around. Or
B. They act under mind control.
B1. A geas from their boss, or…
B2. Imps and cherubs again. In which case, Tyler can both see and hear them, so he knows more of what’s up. They previously started confused brawls like this, too. And are obviously interested in the chaos stuff, making it the most likely variant, what’s with method motive and opportunity.
This leaves little place for funny twists… then again, what if the boss returns and before even asking what’s going on just grabs and devours all pests or something like that (making Tyler quietly freak out).
I think the “they” is the purported “garage sale junk” and tyler is disputing the claim that all that stuff is junk. Presumably he has his own ideas on how to distinguish between the junk and the good stuff.
We are talking about the apprentice of the Revenant, you know. There’s more to training with the Revenant than just learning how to shoot the grappling hook and throw tracers. I’m pretty certain Tyler is becoming the “World’s (2nd) Greatest Detective.”
Or, as Krenn pointed out down the thread, Tyler’s been exposed to so much stuff that should cause super powers, he can probably ID different types of radioactive space ore on sight.
My assumption was that it’s because he figured out that the party cracker didn’t do anything. They just told her she had super-insight, which then made her change herself to have that power.
He did talk to his alternate self that had every power and apparently his point in the universe is to be the Tyler that has no powers but is the most important Tyler of them all. 🙂
They *should*. As tricky as they are, they’re running a business. Despite their powers, any hint of cheating their customers will ruin them and make whatever their goals are harder. Even if they prey on the desperate, it’s to their advantage to be fair and thus have a good reputation, especially in this day and age.
BUT
You can disregard all that I previously said where they gave Tyler a bogus superpower potion.
Well, they didn’t make a deal with him, so he’s not a client.
Beware [quiet shopkeepers appearing in one of the most newsworthy towns on Earth and having no idea of what’s up with this place] bearing gifts?
That’s still bad business practice. Tyler is still a *potential* client, and he didn’t even begin fighting them until a) after they gave him the potion and b) after Wilson tried to blast Cecil or the Flea. They should remain open to the possibility of him making a deal in the future for whatever reason, such as possibly providing them superpowers if not buying such from them.
BUT
Again, meaningless since if the potion is fake then they cheated him from the onset.
Man, I can’t wait to find out what the real deal is. This twist is amazing.
There is that one more part. They assumed the potion did something when they gave it to Tyler. It could still be a “joke” (my guess was it’s just soda) from “Management” in that the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. The potion was a “freebie” from the head office, and P&G don’t know what it does or will do to him. This whole scuffle could be a calculated act of magnificently controlled chaos as so far, this has “fixed” Dynamode. There’s also hints they don’t know what management can do from an earlier phone call. They seemed a little surprised that an invite was in a fortune cookie. Massive “in mysterious ways” vibes off this head office. Tyler knowing the potion is fake might be an instance of “spotting the thread”. Whether that’s a spanner in the works or the cue to come out clapping is still unknown.
I don’t think so. Their contract with Toby is that they’ll give Tyler powers. They have done this. If Tyler refuses the offer, they’ve still made good on their side of the offer.
A shop does not have to refund a purchase if the payment for the purchase was something the “buyer” did not and does not want.
Tyler was not happy with being covered in the chaos goop. He didn’t particularly want to have the chaos goop, he just wanted his parents to not have it.
I feel like, so long as the chaos goop is taken far from here, Tyler probably won’t care much what happens with it. I mean, he’s a hero, so he’ll be devastated if he finds out it was used to hurt people. But at least in the short term, he’s not thinking about that. Also, this store sells a lot of stuff that can be used to hurt people.
That said, that particular chaos goop likely has at least some desire to return to Toby, which could alter the overall calculation
It’s probably something simple, like “My parents have introduced me to enough power-granting artifacts by now that I can tell the difference between reals ones and fake. The fake ones don’t feel dangerous to anyone with a pulse.”
In water? The same as any other acid: soluble salt, gas, more water. Why would it be different?
As powders? Most likely will react very slowly due to absorbed air moisture, and eventually either turn into porous brick or foamy sludge if the reaction accelerates.
Dropping water in mixed powders? Probably foamy sludge, with hissing, seething and spraying. Released water can dissolve more reagents, so the reaction should spread, but bubbles would block the flow and push some water out, slowing it down.
Pinned but with room to move means Cecil can shoot him without things dropping further assuming he isnt adding stabilty to whats over him.
Not a stupid question.
I just waiting for all the stuff they’ve broken to start reacting with itself. They’re going to find parts of this place in alternate timelines once that happens.
A couple of commentators above state that Toby made a deal with P&G. I realize that it’s hard to remember plot points when they’re doled out a page per month or more at time, and sometimes they’re unclear enough until later pages appear, but:
P&G had no deal with Toby. They had a deal with Sarah. The receipt/invoice was ambiguously worded, but as we eventually learn, P&G agreed to give superpowers to Sarah in exchange for her bringing them Tyler Marlocke (which, as it happened, also included the chaos orb, since it was stuck to him at the time).
Toby’s idea for Tyler was for Pistonic to make a suit that would protect Tyler but still empower him using the chaos orb (plot point revealed by Zodon).
It could be argued that if Lester is permanently killed or injured in the store, P&G are failing to give him his old life back (I’d be wary about such a vaguely worded promise, but perhaps Lester had a more explicit deal which he phrased vaguely in talking about it), and are thus not holding up their end of the deal. Would they resurrect Lester just to keep their promise to him? Could be . . .
Um, no. Remember, Toby worked to get Tyler and the orb out of EDL HQ, and enlisted Dynamode’s help to do so. Toby wanted Power and Glory to have the chaos orb.
It was Tyler’s parents who thought giving Tyler the chaos orb was a good idea.
Tyler and Cecil are closer to the oblong objects than in the previous page. They’re trying to lift the stuff off the bookshelf, after last time confirming that they aren’t leaving him there.
Now, this changed when the explody stuff happened.
The “not” is emphasized, though, which means he’s contradicting what he’s replying to. If he were agreeing the legs are pinned the word “budging” is the word to be emphasized. Also I think if they were supposed to be shown trying to lift stuff it would be more explicit than that.
The potion might not be bogus but i currently think Tyler has a sort of immunity to having an oragin story his parents have been trying for a decade to force him to have one
Tyler absolutely has an origin story. “He was born to a high powered superhero couple who expected great things of him. But thanks to his being the Uncannily Incredible Perfectly Ordinary Average Boy, as denoted by the issue #3 cover, those things have not only not come to pass, but none of the things his parents attempted to do to alter that fact have had any lasting effect… except possibly on his psyche.”
It’s super powers, other than those necessary to survive whatever crap the world throws at him, that he has immunity to. It seems it’s mostly his parents that attempted that crap before issue #3, but he’s been doing a good job of surviving everyone else also since then.
Considering how much the super hero world strives to imperil any with super powers, Tyler’s powers seem like a great adaptation. Except, of course, in the eyes of anyone who doesn’t understand them.
You know, cleaning up after one of these events, in a store like that, one would have to expect a few … intense experiences.
‘Cos all those things they’re breaking, releasing, invoking, or losing track of? Every last one of them is the MacGuffin of its own story. And some of them are self-willed and want to get away back to that story, or to the start of a new story. And some of them are cursed, such that some OTHER being out there somewhere wants them to get away and ensnare another new owner. And some of them are the objects of quests by various beings of various powers. And some of them will attract the efforts of local supers in an attempt to contain, steal, or destroy.
And if all that fails, they still have to deal with the SCP foundation sooner or later.
I’m just saying, cleanup is going to be a really serious difficult, even dangerous task. And how did they collect all that stuff in the first place? ‘Cos I really don’t understand how you get them all concentrated in one place. As a rule, these things tend to be solitary.
Going on about Tyler, and his inability to generate powers, made me think. Tyler is the child of the two most super-powered people on this planet… and has no powers. JULIE (“84”) is born of two normal people, and appears to be a VERY high-level FISS (Flight, Indestructable, Speed, Strength). The “Yin/Yang” is intreging.
Dynamode got her deal filled with super introspection and not a new power like she wanted. Lester was promised to be let out of his “prison” at the tower. One issue was solved by Tyler asking Dynamode to think differently, and I’m sure his testimony to his 0arents will either result in Lester going to a deep dark hole (he did help kidnap the kid that looks like their son) or being set free (motives are important and he’s clearly not a bad guy anymore).
P&G have demonstrated that they know what a lot of their junk does but clearly don’t have a clear idea of what they’re giving to others. With “geinie” logic, their promise to give Tyler powers might be filled by revealing to everyone that he is MoonShadow. After all, Moon Shadow is the most powerful kid in their year with even the ability to defeat adults!
Equally likely, Tyler spent a lot of time close and comfortable with the dark matter that night. He could have easily absorbed a power from that, even if it is only able to counter his clone/brother’s powers.
Either way, that potion can’t be what gives Tyler his powers. Or, rather, he’s thinking it will likely do anything but be useful.
HEY! Want to take this moment to wish Aaron, as the creator, and everyone else here, a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), or a Happy Holiday (If your celebrations run toward other festivities.)
How DO you know? And who’s the ‘they’ from the first panel? How do you know the things you do, Tyler?
Genre savvy is on his character sheet. This shop didn’t want to be found by him previously (it’s in the spot you skip past when you walk down that one street), so the thing they wanted was the ball o’ chaos. I suspect the potion is an amnesiac to wipe out the day’s memories. They don’t want him dead, but they want the place hella secret except for the people they bribe to help them collect objects of power.
They honor their agreements, to the letter. They agreed not to harm him. But they’re going ham on nosy kids and not going “hey, more customers!” This is more “no witnesses”. I don’t know if they’re fae, demons, or lawyers… but he’s got no deal with them and they seem to give people what they want in the *WORST* way… so… yeah, extremely fishy. Especially since these shopkeepers don’t have powers, but do use what the shop has, you know? Why didn’t they chug it, unless it’s, yanno… as debilitating as the gift of ultra-introspection.
P&G had no deal with Tyler, but it sounded as though they had a deal with Toby: Toby seemed real sure that Tyler was going to end up with powers after all was said and done.
Exactly this combination doesn’t make much sense, in that between amnesia potion and desire to stay anonymous a better and more obvious solution would be “more of the same”. Just inviting everyone to a little mad tea party would be much less risky than giving several parties who demonstrated ability to infiltrate their maze a reason to immediately exfiltrate and possibly run for reinforcements.
Of course, even this mess has limited opportunities to make much sense in general.
^ Even in general
Since they wreck their own shop and so far didn’t really contain, it’s not a meaningful act.
Thus,
A. They finally spazzed out with all these shiny toys around. Or
B. They act under mind control.
B1. A geas from their boss, or…
B2. Imps and cherubs again. In which case, Tyler can both see and hear them, so he knows more of what’s up. They previously started confused brawls like this, too. And are obviously interested in the chaos stuff, making it the most likely variant, what’s with method motive and opportunity.
This leaves little place for funny twists… then again, what if the boss returns and before even asking what’s going on just grabs and devours all pests or something like that (making Tyler quietly freak out).
Re: B2: Imps and cherubs. Other kids can also see them. Besides Tyler, there’s Ron, Cecil, and the Flea in the shop as well.
kind of like the music shop in “Soul Music”
I think the “they” is the purported “garage sale junk” and tyler is disputing the claim that all that stuff is junk. Presumably he has his own ideas on how to distinguish between the junk and the good stuff.
I’m pretty sure the ‘They’ was supposed to be something about Power and Glory, like “They’re not [trying to kill us].”
Because while P&G have been talking a lot of smack, they haven’t been laying down a whole lot of smack to anything but the store’s interior.
We are talking about the apprentice of the Revenant, you know. There’s more to training with the Revenant than just learning how to shoot the grappling hook and throw tracers. I’m pretty certain Tyler is becoming the “World’s (2nd) Greatest Detective.”
Or, as Krenn pointed out down the thread, Tyler’s been exposed to so much stuff that should cause super powers, he can probably ID different types of radioactive space ore on sight.
Hes definatly the worlds greatest detective too young to ligally drive
My assumption was that it’s because he figured out that the party cracker didn’t do anything. They just told her she had super-insight, which then made her change herself to have that power.
Interesting though, trlkly, but she started doing the introspection before reading the label.
http://ps238.nodwick.com/comic/2019-10-04/
I don’t think so, she started spouting insight facts before she read the slip in the cracker or either of them told her.
Tyler knows what happens to him in the future, and it doesnt involve having superpowers.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the potion is bogus, though. Perhaps he gives it to Lester after they make it out of here.
I don’t think Tyler knows that he spoke to himself from the future.
He did talk to his alternate self that had every power and apparently his point in the universe is to be the Tyler that has no powers but is the most important Tyler of them all. 🙂
Hmm. I wonder, if the intended recipient refuses the exchange, does Power and Glory have to refund the purchase?
They *should*. As tricky as they are, they’re running a business. Despite their powers, any hint of cheating their customers will ruin them and make whatever their goals are harder. Even if they prey on the desperate, it’s to their advantage to be fair and thus have a good reputation, especially in this day and age.
BUT
You can disregard all that I previously said where they gave Tyler a bogus superpower potion.
Well, they didn’t make a deal with him, so he’s not a client.
Beware [quiet shopkeepers appearing in one of the most newsworthy towns on Earth and having no idea of what’s up with this place] bearing gifts?
That’s still bad business practice. Tyler is still a *potential* client, and he didn’t even begin fighting them until a) after they gave him the potion and b) after Wilson tried to blast Cecil or the Flea. They should remain open to the possibility of him making a deal in the future for whatever reason, such as possibly providing them superpowers if not buying such from them.
BUT
Again, meaningless since if the potion is fake then they cheated him from the onset.
Man, I can’t wait to find out what the real deal is. This twist is amazing.
There is that one more part. They assumed the potion did something when they gave it to Tyler. It could still be a “joke” (my guess was it’s just soda) from “Management” in that the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. The potion was a “freebie” from the head office, and P&G don’t know what it does or will do to him. This whole scuffle could be a calculated act of magnificently controlled chaos as so far, this has “fixed” Dynamode. There’s also hints they don’t know what management can do from an earlier phone call. They seemed a little surprised that an invite was in a fortune cookie. Massive “in mysterious ways” vibes off this head office. Tyler knowing the potion is fake might be an instance of “spotting the thread”. Whether that’s a spanner in the works or the cue to come out clapping is still unknown.
I don’t think so. Their contract with Toby is that they’ll give Tyler powers. They have done this. If Tyler refuses the offer, they’ve still made good on their side of the offer.
A shop does not have to refund a purchase if the payment for the purchase was something the “buyer” did not and does not want.
Tyler was not happy with being covered in the chaos goop. He didn’t particularly want to have the chaos goop, he just wanted his parents to not have it.
I feel like, so long as the chaos goop is taken far from here, Tyler probably won’t care much what happens with it. I mean, he’s a hero, so he’ll be devastated if he finds out it was used to hurt people. But at least in the short term, he’s not thinking about that. Also, this store sells a lot of stuff that can be used to hurt people.
That said, that particular chaos goop likely has at least some desire to return to Toby, which could alter the overall calculation
I am loving this twist and how Tyler was astute enough to figure out (and I can’t wait to hear his explanation). 🙂
Man, oh man, I can’t wait to get a dead trees version of this book.
It’s probably something simple, like “My parents have introduced me to enough power-granting artifacts by now that I can tell the difference between reals ones and fake. The fake ones don’t feel dangerous to anyone with a pulse.”
This combination of Acetic Acid, Sodiom Bicarbinate, Dihydrogenmonoxide and Crushed Taraxacum officinale leaves might give your child superpowers.
…And now I’m wondering what happens when you mix aspirin and baking powder, thanks.
(I’m not worried about the greens – though you should always worry with taraxacum officinale if it’s been poisoned before you pick it.)
Acetic acid not acetylsalicylic acid. Thanks for the tip about the leaves though.
In water? The same as any other acid: soluble salt, gas, more water. Why would it be different?
As powders? Most likely will react very slowly due to absorbed air moisture, and eventually either turn into porous brick or foamy sludge if the reaction accelerates.
Dropping water in mixed powders? Probably foamy sludge, with hissing, seething and spraying. Released water can dissolve more reagents, so the reaction should spread, but bubbles would block the flow and push some water out, slowing it down.
https://youtu.be/nvQnQ2OjmRU Baking Soda and Vinegar Science Experiments (Vinegar is diluted acetic acid)
“They’re not-” Is Lester faking about his legs?
Pinned but with room to move means Cecil can shoot him without things dropping further assuming he isnt adding stabilty to whats over him.
Not a stupid question.
I just waiting for all the stuff they’ve broken to start reacting with itself. They’re going to find parts of this place in alternate timelines once that happens.
“They’re” could also just be a reference to Lester’s legs. That’s what they were discussing in the previous post.
A couple of commentators above state that Toby made a deal with P&G. I realize that it’s hard to remember plot points when they’re doled out a page per month or more at time, and sometimes they’re unclear enough until later pages appear, but:
P&G had no deal with Toby. They had a deal with Sarah. The receipt/invoice was ambiguously worded, but as we eventually learn, P&G agreed to give superpowers to Sarah in exchange for her bringing them Tyler Marlocke (which, as it happened, also included the chaos orb, since it was stuck to him at the time).
Toby’s idea for Tyler was for Pistonic to make a suit that would protect Tyler but still empower him using the chaos orb (plot point revealed by Zodon).
It could be argued that if Lester is permanently killed or injured in the store, P&G are failing to give him his old life back (I’d be wary about such a vaguely worded promise, but perhaps Lester had a more explicit deal which he phrased vaguely in talking about it), and are thus not holding up their end of the deal. Would they resurrect Lester just to keep their promise to him? Could be . . .
Um, no. Remember, Toby worked to get Tyler and the orb out of EDL HQ, and enlisted Dynamode’s help to do so. Toby wanted Power and Glory to have the chaos orb.
It was Tyler’s parents who thought giving Tyler the chaos orb was a good idea.
Occam’s razor. “They’re not..” budging.
Tyler and Cecil are closer to the oblong objects than in the previous page. They’re trying to lift the stuff off the bookshelf, after last time confirming that they aren’t leaving him there.
Now, this changed when the explody stuff happened.
The “not” is emphasized, though, which means he’s contradicting what he’s replying to. If he were agreeing the legs are pinned the word “budging” is the word to be emphasized. Also I think if they were supposed to be shown trying to lift stuff it would be more explicit than that.
All the potion does is make the middle of your nose disappear.
The wall inside, the top, too or the tip of the nose
The potion might not be bogus but i currently think Tyler has a sort of immunity to having an oragin story his parents have been trying for a decade to force him to have one
Tyler absolutely has an origin story. “He was born to a high powered superhero couple who expected great things of him. But thanks to his being the Uncannily Incredible Perfectly Ordinary Average Boy, as denoted by the issue #3 cover, those things have not only not come to pass, but none of the things his parents attempted to do to alter that fact have had any lasting effect… except possibly on his psyche.”
It’s super powers, other than those necessary to survive whatever crap the world throws at him, that he has immunity to. It seems it’s mostly his parents that attempted that crap before issue #3, but he’s been doing a good job of surviving everyone else also since then.
Considering how much the super hero world strives to imperil any with super powers, Tyler’s powers seem like a great adaptation. Except, of course, in the eyes of anyone who doesn’t understand them.
You know, cleaning up after one of these events, in a store like that, one would have to expect a few … intense experiences.
‘Cos all those things they’re breaking, releasing, invoking, or losing track of? Every last one of them is the MacGuffin of its own story. And some of them are self-willed and want to get away back to that story, or to the start of a new story. And some of them are cursed, such that some OTHER being out there somewhere wants them to get away and ensnare another new owner. And some of them are the objects of quests by various beings of various powers. And some of them will attract the efforts of local supers in an attempt to contain, steal, or destroy.
And if all that fails, they still have to deal with the SCP foundation sooner or later.
I’m just saying, cleanup is going to be a really serious difficult, even dangerous task. And how did they collect all that stuff in the first place? ‘Cos I really don’t understand how you get them all concentrated in one place. As a rule, these things tend to be solitary.
Going on about Tyler, and his inability to generate powers, made me think. Tyler is the child of the two most super-powered people on this planet… and has no powers. JULIE (“84”) is born of two normal people, and appears to be a VERY high-level FISS (Flight, Indestructable, Speed, Strength). The “Yin/Yang” is intreging.
Dynamode got her deal filled with super introspection and not a new power like she wanted. Lester was promised to be let out of his “prison” at the tower. One issue was solved by Tyler asking Dynamode to think differently, and I’m sure his testimony to his 0arents will either result in Lester going to a deep dark hole (he did help kidnap the kid that looks like their son) or being set free (motives are important and he’s clearly not a bad guy anymore).
P&G have demonstrated that they know what a lot of their junk does but clearly don’t have a clear idea of what they’re giving to others. With “geinie” logic, their promise to give Tyler powers might be filled by revealing to everyone that he is MoonShadow. After all, Moon Shadow is the most powerful kid in their year with even the ability to defeat adults!
Equally likely, Tyler spent a lot of time close and comfortable with the dark matter that night. He could have easily absorbed a power from that, even if it is only able to counter his clone/brother’s powers.
Either way, that potion can’t be what gives Tyler his powers. Or, rather, he’s thinking it will likely do anything but be useful.
HEY! Want to take this moment to wish Aaron, as the creator, and everyone else here, a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), or a Happy Holiday (If your celebrations run toward other festivities.)
And a happy new year! May 2021 be better than 2020. (Granted, that’s a low bar, but still something we’d like, please.)