Everybody Steals Weird Stuff In Jersey

I noticed the Shocker was carrying a bag full of pipes as he walked down the streets of Jersey City. Not pipes like you smoke with, pipes for plumbing.

Which is an odd thing to steal. Herman can't be so hard up for cash he's reduced to stealing copper out of abandoned houses, can he? Maybe he was starting small, to test the waters. Figure out whether this was actually a good idea or not.

Or, on the last page of the issue, there's a wrench in the bag as well, so maybe he's working on some larger plan. I'm not sure what that would be. To construct a large scale version of his vibration gauntlets? He's going to tie-in to the water supply, and unless Jersey City pays his ransom of 150 million dollars, he will randomly vibrate the hell out of all their water. Imagine, some child in the park, wanting to splash in a fountain and suddenly the water is carrying enough energy to cut through them like a buzzsaw.

No, that would be kind of dark for the Shocker. Maybe just put enough energy in it to make it really sting when it strikes your skin. Like getting smacked with a wet towel really sharply. Yeah, that's the ticket! And they'd never know when it might happen. Everyone would be afraid to use their water. No one would bathe! Imagine the smell! Well, this is Jersey we're talking about, might not notice a difference.

He was originally a safecracker, the gauntlets were supposed to make it easier. Maybe he can focus it through the pipes to increase his effective range, or increase the intensity? Maybe running the vibration through the pipes will create a frequency strong enough to recreate Klaw, Master of Sound, who has probably been dispersed to the four winds by the Black Panther sometime recently. I don't know why Shocker would team-up with Klaw, unless someone's paying him to do this, but what the heck. Second and third-string villains gotta stick together, right?