Monday, July 22, 2024

Robotic Doppelgangers are Such a Pain

Hope those poor saps are wearing proper protective equipment! That's a lie, no I don't.

Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General volume 9 revolves around the Organization terrorizing the populace with a powerful robot that looks just like the General. The General takes off on her own to hunt them down and, well you saw the note. Outside of a brief run-in with the rabbit-cop's hotheaded partner, Jin doesn't bother showing the General trying to avoid arrest.

Instead, we get a chapter where the General takes refuge with her three clones and is forced to work at their maid cafe to pay off the food she ate. She is, of course, put in a much skimpier, ridiculous outfit than any of the clones wear, which only serves to humiliate her when she tries to play up her sex appeal to a group of guys addicted to pudding. I think there would have been plenty of comedy from the General trying her hand at customer service without the T&A, so it feels pointless. At least the General does eventually get to show some moves when she faces off with the robot.

The Villain League take their own measures to find and neutralize the robot, though we aren't shown any of the preparations, only the execution (which works, up to a point,) but most of the story is focused on the Hero League's efforts. Which are ineffectual and confounding to their members. The people in charge of the League - entirely unseen - don't have a good plan or assessment of priorities. Braveman and his two junior partners are teamed up with an ice-based character who is extremely effective at decisive action, but useless on a mission that involves running around until they encounter the target. Likewise, the leaders have declared both the robot and the General are to be terminated on sight, even though there's no indication the General's at all connected, and it's a pointless splitting of manpower.

This feels like Jin, once again, getting further in the weeds of the Hero League than I have any interest. I don't think this is going to turn out to be a case of villains infiltrating and seizing control of the League, if only because he did that plot several volumes ago. Rather, I think it's going to be a case the executives making decisions don't actually know anything about superheroics.

Or maybe the mistake was organizing at all. "Frosty-shi" observes that the robot is attacking people that are evil but protected by the law. It feels like the argument is, in the attempt to organize and work with the government, the heroes blunted their own effectiveness. The Hero League would never be given permission to attack a company that treats its workers poorly, or punish a slumlord. The Organization, and their robot, have no such compunctions. Similarly, when the Villain League spring their trap on the robot, the Professor laughs about how the robot kept its travel routes over heavily populated places to discourage any attacks by heroes. But villains don't care about that at all, so they can attack to their heart's content!

My guess is, neither did the original heroes - the rabbit-cop, the pervert turtle, the grandma ninja and a 4th character that appears now. They were "vigilantes", which probably makes them more like Golden Age Superman. See a scumbag, whup their ass. Usa became a cop to keep an eye on the Hero League, while "Oba-sama" tried to keep the League on course (the turtle went into the wilderness, either from cowardice or to avoid sexual harassment lawsuits.) Carcha disappeared and has returned to test whether things have gotten better. Are the heroes up to snuff, or are they only fit to get snuffed? Jin really tries to play Carcha up as terrifying, coloring his eyes black, covering the backgrounds in a gloom that seems to drip from the top of the panels, using thick lines like the character's strength is pulsing off him.

Volume 10, which is supposed to be out sometime soon, looks set up to be a fight between Carcha and the other 3 vigilantes, but Braveman and the General are both there, so I expect they'll get involved somehow.

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