Loosen that Belt

Question that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago: When a waiter or waitress asks if you saved room for dessert, have you ever saved room?

For me, the answer is no. At a restaurant, I'm loading up on the main course. If I really want dessert, I've probably got something cheaper at home. Alex said the same, but said his fiance always saves room for dessert. I asked a few co-workers during a lull in a "team-building exercise", and two of the five indicated they did. Although they also said they had to check the responses of the other people at the table before saying so aloud.

Still, that leaves three for which the answer was apparently no. And overall, I've got 5 "No" and 3 "Yes." So I put it to you, delightful readers, do you save room for dessert?

Trading Up, Trading Down

With Deadpool having another fight with Crossbones in last week's issue of Deadpool, I got thinking about villains who switched arch-foes.

Kingpin is one of the big ones, at least on the Marvel side. Starts out causing headaches for Spider-Man, eventually becomes Daredevil's #1 enemy. Fisk got switched to a less-prominent character, but gets to be the Big Bad. The one everybody expects to make an appearance eventually.

(Spidey seems to "loan" a lot of his Rogue's Gallery out, like Sandman and Hydro-Man each being part of the Frightful Four at different times, or Electro tangling with Daredevil. But I think those guys really remain "Spider-Man villains.")

I think you could add the Sphinx as a similar case, shifting from the Fantastic Four to Nova (and to a lesser extent, the New Warriors). Except Richard Rider is so many more steps down the ladder from the Fantastic Four than Daredevil is from Spider-Man, it was a downgrade. Nova doesn't have his own title often enough or long enough for the Sphinx to get regular play.

Alternatively you've got Sabretooth. First appeared in Iron Fist, but is now tied heavily to Wolverine. In that case, Sabretooth actually upgraded not only from just another enemy to the Evil Opposite Villain, but ended up tied to a much higher-profile guy.

Count Nefaria was an X-Men foe at one point, but even allowing that Thunderbird died trying to stop him, Nefaria's far and away better known as an Avengers' enemy. If not on the scale of Kang or Ultron, at least he has a couple of prominent stories. (The extreme power upgrade, making him more of a direct threat, helped a lot.)

Crossbones' situation seems most similar to Sphinx, sadly. He was never Captain America's #1 foe. Not even the #1 guy to fight, really, not with Batroc's seniority and fun attitude. But being The Big Bad's Top Goon carries a certain level of respectability. Hell, he whupped Daredevil's ass once (admittedly around the point in Nocenti's run where Murdock had a nervous breakdown and forgot he was Daredevil.) If he's getting tied to Deadpool as Another Killer Who Doesn't Like Deadpool, that is not an upgrade. Deadpool's got plenty of those guys, and every writer is eager to add more.

No Tithes in the Church of Doom

So, if Zodiac can shield himself from vampires by wearing a gold chain with his name as a symbol of his faith, should we assume Dr. Doom is likewise impervious to vampires?

Yes, I know, "How would a vampire bite him through the armor?" I mean besides that, smart guy.

Who has more faith in themselves than Victor von Doom? Even massive egoists like Tony Stark and Reed Richards occasionally doubt themselves. They just don't, unfortunately, ever actually listen to those doubts.

But DOOM is beyond doubts. Even what appears failures to lesser minds are, in fact, only another step in Doom's inevitable path to absolute victory. For the good of the universe. I imagine for a vampire, entering Doom's castle is like walking into a church. Everything burns.

So the question really is, what would do wear as a symbol of his faith in himself? Zodiac had a gold chain with his name on it, but that's so gauche, so petty bourgeois. Doom isn't going to wear something like that.

A little Doom doll, I mean collectible figurine? Nah.

A big medallion? A little too '70s.

A picture of his unscarred face in one of those lockets people usually reserve for their great loves? Now we're getting somewhere.

A Curtain Wall

I've not made any particular secret of my dislike for Vegeta. As entertaining as it sometimes is to watch him run his fat yap and then get his ass kicked, the guy is perpetually making things worse by being an idiot, yet has a legion of devoted fans who insist Vegeta's fuck-ups are every other character's fault.

So I think a fair amount about Vegeta's first trip to Earth, when he was ultimately beaten to a pulp and trying to crawl to his spaceship. Krillin had Yajirobe's sword and was ready to run Vegeta through with it, and then. . .he let Goku talk him out of it. Viewed positively, he put his faith in his best friend to handle things if this turned out to be a bad decision. Negatively, he just hot potatoed responsibility to someone else.

(It's more likely Krillin is just not comfortable with killing in cold blood. He wouldn't use the shutdown remote on Android 18 to give himself the chance to destroy her, either. Although she was experimented on against her will by Dr. Gero and hadn't actually killed anyone. As opposed to Vegeta, who committed genocide for Frieza, and was fully ready to kill Gohan - a five-year-old - when he came to Earth, with no compunctions whatsoever.)

I was thinking of an AU where Krillin decides it's too risky, that it wasn't just Goku's call, because all their other friends fought to protect the Earth (and several died). And it isn't as though Goku's unbeatable. He already died once, and he didn't actually win his fight against Vegeta, it was a team effort. So, what if Krillin just went ahead and killed Vegeta?

Someone responded that without Vegeta, everyone else would die during the Cell or Majin Buu sagas, which doesn't seem right at all.

Remove Vegeta from the Buu Saga, it never even gets off the ground. The whole reason things go sideways (besides Supreme Kai being awful at his job) is Vegeta decides to work for Babidi to get a power boost, because he can't wait any longer to fight Goku. Take him out of the equation, Goku and Gohan can handle all Babidi's guys by themselves. Dabura's the only mildly dangerous one, and he couldn't finish a very rusty Gohan. Goku would dust his ass in three minutes.

Cell Saga? OK, no Vegeta means no half-Saiyan kid with Bulma. So what? Bulma built the time machine, she can just use it herself. Goku is apparently the one who originally beat Frieza when he came to Earth, so that's handled. Bulma passes on the warning and the medicine to treat the heart disease that kills Goku. Maybe does a better job describing the androids, or maybe not.

If the illness puts Goku out of commission for a while, Piccolo seemed able to handle Dr. Gero, so between him and the others, they can at least destroy Android 19 and keep Goku from dying. I don't know if everybody gets their asses kicked by 17 & 18 without Vegeta around to instigate, but it's possible if Android 16 vocally insists he must kill Goku. Don't see any reason they'd be any more direct in getting it done than they were in the timeline with Vegeta, though. So Goku has time to recover, he and Gohan train in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and then it's really just a matter of how thin you want to cut the margins.

Goku went to save Piccolo and Tien from Halfway-Perfect Cell while Vegeta and Trunks were in the room. But those two used the entire year (24 hours in the outside world), while Goku and Gohan only used 11 months (22 hours) and emerged even stronger.

Best outcome, they emerge early enough Goku can still save Piccolo and Tien, then kill Halfway-Perfect Cell with no trouble. Worse outcome, Goku's too late to save either of them, but still kills Cell before he finds 18. Worst outcome, Goku gets there before Cell even absorbs 17, beats him easily, but 16's programming, recognizing he can't win outright, forces him to kamikaze. He blows up himself, Goku, 17, 18, Piccolo, and maybe Tien if he's gotten close enough. Whichever outcome, Cell's not going to be able to trick Goku into sparing him by promising a better fight if Goku just lets him find and absorb however many artificial humans he needs.

(Feigning remorse and promising to be better might work, but I think Cell's got too much Frieza and Vegeta for that. They both throw tantrums when they find themselves losing, rather than beg. When Cell couldn't beat Gohan, he tried to blow up the whole world. Same as Vegeta, same as Frieza on Namek.)

The one place where Vegeta might actually be useful is the Namek/Frieza Saga. Eventually. He kills a lot of Frieza's guys (but also a village of innocent Namekians), prompting Frieza to activate the Ginyu Force. Which leads to the whole thing with Goku getting his body swiped by Ginyu and beat to hell. The healing from that gave him enough of a boost to at least hold up against Frieza for a while, for the Spirit Bomb/Super Saiyan stretch.

Minus him, the Namekians still wreck all Frieza's scouters, which lets Krillin, Gohan and Bulma stay hidden. Krillin and Gohan still rescue Dende and escape Dodoria (who basically gave up looking for them and flew off, then was killed by Vegeta), get a Dragon Ball from Guru, get their potential unlocked. All without a lot of fighting.

Does Frieza get annoyed enough to call in the Ginyu Force if it's simply a matter of there being pests he can't locate? Does Goku arrive first, try to distract Frieza so his friends can swipe the other Dragon Balls and make their wishes? Or does everyone get wiped out because Frieza decides to stop fucking around? In canon, Vegeta's also a moderately useful punching bag to keep Frieza occupied, so the odds are steeper if he's unavailable and Goku's not as strong. Even there, Vegeta or one of the others might have been able to kill Frieza sooner, if Vegeta hadn't goaded him to really transform, which put Frieza beyond any of their strength levels.

So at best, Vegeta sometimes cleans up messes he made. Sort of.

Spin the Romance Roulette

With Hellcat's engagement to Iron Man apparently in the dustbin where it belongs, and Tigra deciding to date Moon Knight, it's time for the game called, "Romantic Apocalypse"! As in, which character's taste in guys is worse?

Let's break it down:

Patsy Walker married her high school sweetheart, Buzz, who later went to work for the Brand Corporation. They drifted apart, he got the Squadron Supreme to attack the Avengers, let himself be experimented on by Roxxon, and started picking fights with all sorts of heroes, including Patsy.

Then she married Damion Hellstrom, which went fine, until it didn't. By him driving her mad until she killed herself (although Cantwell's version of Damion is trying to re-frame that to absolve himself and man, that better not stick.) He tricked Hawkeye into bringing her out of Hell, as part of some scheme to overthrow Mephisto, and has periodically fucked with her life since then.

Most recently, she got engaged to conceited asshole, interdimensional warden, and weapons designer Tony Stark. I don't know what ended things between them, other than it seemed to involve Hellstrom, but whatever the cause, bullet dodged. Then there's the dead guy in her current mini-series, who she'd been dating for a month. He'll probably turn out to be a dream demon or something.

Tigra's husband was a cop who formed a vigilante group of other cops called the Brethren of the Blue Fist. He was later killed by his "brethren" for not being willing to go further with their illegal actions. 

Steve Englehart had her ping-ponging between Hank Pym and Wonder Man for a while, when she wasn't just generally written as reacting positively to anything with a dick*. Hank was in the midst of trying to convince himself he didn't want to be a superhero any longer, and despondent enough that Tigra telling him she wanted to focus on herself and just be friends seemed to be the last straw on his deciding to commit suicide. Meanwhile, Wonder Man beats an Ultron by himself and becomes the most arrogant person on a team that had Tony Stark and Clint Barton. At least the ego trip seemed to keep things from going beyond playful flirting there.

Tigra did end up with Pym for a while in the late 2000s-early 2010s. I'm not counting the Skrull who impersonated Pym, because as far as she was concerned, he was Hank Pym. Which, given Hank's erratic history and questionable decision-making, is still not great. Plus, you know, the whole domestic abuse thing with the Wasp.

Speaking of, "erratic history and questionable decision-making", now she's going to try dating Marc Spector. (Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm assuming the relationship is solely between she and Marc, and doesn't involve Steven or Jake.) Marc tends to react to all stressful situations with violence. Often extreme violence. And he's apparently self-loathing and deeply envious of the other two fellows in the system for being more likeable and balanced than he is. He doesn't get to see his own daughter except when she's kidnapped by vengeful werewolves, because Marlene thinks he's that dangerous to be around. Which is more self-loathing fuel for the extreme violence fire.

So, on the one side, loser super-villain for hire, the manipulative son of a devil, and a guy who describes himself as a "futurist" and expects people not to laugh. On the other, bent cop, scientist with inferiority complex that feeds into mental breakdowns, and mercenary/priest with wild swings in mood and reversions to extreme violence.

It feels like Patsy picks the worse guys in terms of their capacity for harming others (although Pym creating Ultron makes it close), but Greer picks the worse guys in terms of the red flags they're throwing up as potential romantic partners. I mean, Pym and Spector are poster boys for people who need to focus on finding some sort of equilibrium within themselves, before trying to create one with another person.

Still, though, Tony Stark. That's pretty poor judgment. I mean, Pym and Spector have both, at different times, tried to address their issues. It never sticks, because of the cyclical nature of the storytelling, but the effort is there. Stark just seems to get more arrogant, but somehow it's not gonna backfire.

I gotta go with Patsy.

* I read a quote from Englehart discussing his giving Greer's old "Cat" costume to Patsy and he dismissed The Cat series as "pandering" and "not very well done". So of course when he wrote a book with Tigra, he had the cat lady perpetually horny for the first 15 issues of his run. Which certainly seems like pandering, albeit to a different audience.

All Answers Are Wrong Answers

A couple of weeks ago, I was hanging out with Alex during one of his gigs and we got to discussing Ace Ventura. I think one of us used the, "Do NOT go in there," line. Alex was surprised that they hadn't done a remake of that yet. 

We briefly started to discuss who could even match early-90s Jim Carrey for manic energy, but then got distracted talking about his being in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, which I admitted to watching on Alex' Amazon Prime account, which segued into discussing Vivarium, so the topic got lost.

While we were driving to another gig of his on Saturday, I brought it up again, and asked Alex who he thought they would cast as the pet detective in a remake. His immediate response: Kevin Hart. Which made me clutch my chest and groan, because yeah. Hart has a lot of loud, shrieky energy, although it's less insane, and more comically terrified.

Due to all the flippin' Taco Bell commercials, I said as long as it wasn't Pete Davidson, which led Alex to say it would definitely be that guy. Admittedly I'm going strictly off said Taco Bell commercials, which in now way encourage me to investigate Davidson further, but he seems like the exact opposite of Jim Carrey. Negative energy. "So doped up he's barely conscious," energy.

The conversation digressed into a more general one on the reasons for Pete Davidson's existence, so I present it to you: If (when) they remake Ace Ventura, who are they going to cast as the title character?

Knowing Ahead of Time You Aren't Welcome Saves Trouble

The mutant nation of Krakoa has a "no precognitives" rule. I know this concerns primarily resurrections, such as how Destiny hasn't been brought back, to Mystique's annoyance. Although that might be more out of spite on Moira's part, honestly. But it would also seem to extend to Blindfold, who as far as I know didn't once take part in killing Moira and burning all her shit.

Not sure how Mystique and Destiny didn't expect that to come back to bite them on the ass, but Mystique's always doing dumb shit, then being shocked when it backfires. "I used this teenage girl as a weapon in my terrorist activities and deeply traumatized her, and now she wants nothing to do with me?! Has the world gone topsy-turvy?"

Does the rule (which I'm assuming isn't openly stated, because that would raise questions the people in charge don't want to answer) extend to living mutant precogs who want to immigrate to Krakoa? Some mutant in Mozambique, or Alabama, decides Krakoa sounds pretty bitchin', and they want to move there. 

Would they be turned away at the gates? Would they be quietly killed (in a tragic accident, of course), and then have to wait their turn behind all the millions and millions of other mutants that are still waiting to be brought back because the Five have to resurrect Quentin Quire's dumb ass every five minutes?

Either of those seems as though it would raise too many questions, within Krakoa and especially outside it. We know that most of the major world powers (and several off-world) are watching Krakoa closely. If mutants who all have the same ability are being told they aren't welcome, or all seem to be turning up mysteriously dead, somebody's going to notice.

I suppose that a precog would be able to tell ahead of time what their fate will be if they try moving to Krakoa. If they're going to end up turned away or dead, they probably wouldn't bother. Which solves the problem rather neatly. Or, they wouldn't bother because they see far enough ahead to know Krakoa's going to come tumbling down, and it's safer to be someplace else when it does.

Throwing the Baby Out

After reading Way of X #3, I had this thought. Mutants don't always have babies that are mutants, if I remember right. Usually they do, but I know at the time when Mystique and Sabretooth had a son (hell if I know if Graydon Creed is still in canon), he wasn't a mutant. Unless that got retconned somewhere along the way. Making the virulent mutant-hater be a mutant himself seems like the ripoff Twilight Zone twist a lot of comic writers would do entirely seriously.

Point being, it's possible some of those kids in the nursery Stacy and Lost and other people look after aren't mutants. Since all their care is being handled by volunteers, there's no guarantee any of the scientist types are doing anything to test that.

Which leads me to wonder what happens if some of the babies aren't mutants. Humans are allowed on Krakoa, with permission. Like Northstar's boyfriend (husband?) Kyle. I guess Deadpool, if he hadn't been such an ass the time he showed up. It was hilarious to me, but he was still being an ass. Umm. . . I mean, there's probably some other people, right? Wolverine has some old non-mutant buddies that might come hang out and drink beer. Oh, maybe the Power kids could come visit Kitty!

(I'd suggest Wonder Man could come hang out with the Beast, but a) I'm not sure if Simon's alive. I think Rogue may have absorbed him at some point, and b) Hank's a creepy, creepy fucker now. Nobody wants to hang out with that asshole.)

That said, the key phrase is "with permission." Or maybe "by invitation," is a better way of putting it. Whichever. But these babies were apparently just dumped off here and there. Clearly their biological parents don't want them around. There are obviously people willing to take care of them, but is that specific to particular babies, or just babies in general? Is Lost going to care if someone sends a couple of the infants off to a farm somewhere up north, if there are always more new ones?

So what happens then? Do they make arrangements with Social Services in another country that is friendly to Krakoa to take the children? Do they just dump them, toss them through the portal with a cheery, "Your problem now, sapiens!" That seems cruel, but I really wouldn't put it past the Quiet Council, which has been content to ignore this entire situation. Even Stacy is using the "sapiens" nonsense, which is consistent to her character going back to her earliest appearances in Joe Casey's Uncanny X-Men run, but not necessarily a great sign.

Plus, you can just imagine the anti-mutant bigots freaking out about "covert mutants" or "plague babies", or something equally nuts. The life expectancy for those kids is not going to be great outside Krakoa's borders. Maybe Krakoa could find them homes quietly, but it seems like that sort of thing always comes out eventually. Usually at the most inconvenient time. Funny how that works out!

They could just let the kids stay. Krakoa has so many resources they can probably handle it. Given the general attitude of most of the people on Krakoa towards non-mutants these days, I can't imagine that would be a fun upbringing, the sapien among mutants who can't stop telling everyone how much better they are than sapiens. Or they'll be used as guinea pigs by Mr. Sinister or Hank McCoy. Sounds like fun.

How Many Toppings on Your Team Pizza?

When it comes to superhero teams, do you have an ideal number of characters? Is the number irrelevant, so long as the creative team can make it work (which I would define as giving all the characters a chance to do something useful, and preferably have some sort of character driven subplot)?

Or does it depend on which team we're talking about? Like, the Legion of Super-heroes is one matter, the Fantastic Four or the Justice League are another?

I know I don't like the "massive army" approach that Jonathan Hickman took with the Avengers. Where there's like 30 characters on the team. Maybe it's possible to do that and have them all get a regular chance to shine and get some character development - I have to assume Legion writers have managed it - but Hickman didn't seem capable of it. And it just doesn't feel like a "team" to me at that point. I know American football teams have more players than that, but they aren't all on the field at once, you know?

Abnett and Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy got around that - I think they had over a dozen characters in the cast a couple of times - by constantly splitting them up into different threads, or shuffling a couple characters out at a time. Maybe Adam Warlock and Gamora are off doing one thing, Drax and Phyla-Vel are somewhere else, Star-Lord's in his own shit, and Rocket's leading a small team of Mantis, Bug, Groot, and Major Victory. They only brought the whole group together twice, and one of those was to fight Adam Warlock when he turned into the Magus.

Generally though, I like having a distinct, consistent roster. I feel like 7 is considered the classic number, I'm guessing dating back to the Silver Age Justice League (plus all the stuff about 7 being a lucky number, or a number of power. Although 6 is considered a "Perfect" number if I remember right, based on its divisors adding up to it). 

That's a little much for the Fantastic Four, whose suggested team size is right in the name. Although I didn't mind when Gail Simone had more than six people on the Secret Six. But a) they were kind of villains, not supposed to play by the rules, and b) they didn't seem terribly "secret" either, so it was false advertising all around. Simone also used the same tactic as Abnett and Lanning, splitting the roster up frequently. Like having most of the team chase after Catman when he went on a revenge kick, but Jeanette and Bane form a different team that actually does paying jobs. 

Most of my favorite Avengers' rosters are smaller - the Kooky Quartet, the original 5-person West Coast Avengers roster, the core 5-man group Bendis had in New Avengers. I know Bendis' work fails my "let every character be useful and give them some subplots" criteria, but that's on his shit pacing. I still think Captain America/Iron Man/Spider-Woman/Luke Cage/Spider-Man was an interesting team with some varied skill sets and personalities that would have played off each other well.

But my favorite X-Men rosters run slightly larger. The group from prior to the Mutant Massacre is 6 to 8, depending on if Rachel Summers and/or Magneto are there. The Australian era is 8 (9 if you count Maddie Pryor), although I really like the brief stretch just before Storm and Colossus return where Logan's trying to lead Rogue/Psylocke/Havok/Dazzler/Longshot. The Joe Casey Uncanny X-Men roster's only about six. Same with the New Warriors. I really dig that initial six-person team, but I also like once they add Silhouette, Rage, and Darkhawk. Even if they were all on the team for just one story in the Nicieza/Bagley run, that's still 9 team members.

Which is a little weird when you figure the Avengers are the ones that are supposed to fight world-endangering threats. Not that the other teams don't occasionally, but the X-Men and New Warriors have other niches that don't necessarily involve that level of problem, while that's theoretically all the Avengers do. You'd figure bigger, more powerful roster for bigger, more powerful threats. I guess I like putting them at a disadvantage. Root for the underdog. None of my favorite Defenders' rosters have more than 2 of the Big Four (usually Hulk and/or Dr. Strange), either. I actually really do like that Nighthawk/Hulk/Hellcat/Valyrie/Moon Knight group from "Who Remembers Scorpio?"

But to the extent I care about the Justice League, my favorite rosters for them are probably at least 7 characters, if not more. They definitely do nothing but fight world-endangering threats.

So I don't know what conclusions to draw from all that. Keep the roster in single digits. Reduce the number in inverse proportion to the level of threat they typically encounter?

When They All Agree He's a Moron

There's this relatively early Family Guy episode - hang on, don't leave already, I'm just setting the stage - where Peter concludes he's a genius and takes a test to prove it. He finds instead that he is, Forrest Gump, basically. The hidden menu item for this is apparently, no one holds him responsible for anything he does. If he runs into the street causing a car to swerve and it's driver to be badly injured, well, he just doesn't know any better. I think this wildly overstates people's forgiving nature.

I've seen other characters in stories where it seems like all the other characters have come to a similar conclusion about them. Where there's just no point in being frustrated when they do inexplicable things. Michelangelo with the Ninja Turtles is one, but my go-to is probably Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Even when he was summoning a demon that made people sing and dance until they spontaneously combusted, ultimately killing a half-dozen people, at a point (Season 6) when he couldn't claim ignorance of the dangers inherit to fucking around with magic, no one ever called him on it. He never faced any consequences for his actions. It was as though Buffy, Willow and the rest all just sort of threw up their hands and said, "It's Xander, what do you expect?"

This can, as you might have guessed, annoy the hell out of me. Whether I'm just not a fan of that particular blessed character, or I'm a fan of another character who isn't getting the benefit of this generosity, it grates on the nerves. Especially when there's no reason for it given. I'm left to assume it's either lazy writing (the writers didn't want to deal with Xander being responsible for six deaths in their fun musical episode, so just sweep that under the rug), or they expect me to tacitly agree this is OK.

At the moment, I'm trying to decide if it's worse when the story does it, or when the fans of the character do it. Tony Stark is probably a good example of a character with fans just dying to excuse his every fuck-up, but my go-to for that phenomenon has to be Vegeta fans. When Vegeta not only decides to let Cell so they can become more powerful and give him a better fight, but then actively helps Cell by attacking other people who tried to kill it. 

His legion of defenders will insist it's everyone else's fault Cell achieved his perfect form, but not Vegeta's. Krillin should have killed Android 18, who hadn't killed anyone yet and was a victim of Dr. Gero, so Cell couldn't absorb her. Or she should have self-destructed. Goku shouldn't have agreed to let Vegeta train in the Time Chamber first (even though Vegeta insisted and there wasn't time for them to waste arguing about that). Trunks should have just killed Cell himself (except when he tried, Vegeta prevented it). 

And the reason they should have done all these things is because they should have known Vegeta is a fucking idiot who would mess everything up by actively helping the bad guy, to the extent of attacking his own son.

They don't frame it that way, of course. It's that the other characters should have known his "pride" or "Saiyan love of battle" would push him to do it. It comes down to the same thing. According to them, Vegeta is too stupid to be held responsible for his actions.

I'm really not sure which is more annoying. It happening in-story is harder to deal with, because that's the actual text, such as it is. Even if I come up with an alternative take, it's still a reaction to the original, which affirms its existence. The fans are ultimately irrelevant, but they can be all over the place, or extremely obnoxious about pushing their opinions into my face. I can avoid a particular episode or issue of a show or comic I don't like, and maybe that lets me avoid its impact, but avoiding obnoxious fans can be kind of tricky if I actually want to interact with, you know, other fans of that thing.

Grow Up and Set Aside Ninja-ish Things

There's an entire channel on Pluto TV devoted to just Ninja Turtle cartoons. Which is right up there with the channel for just American Gladiators on the good ideas list. Especially if you just want something playing in the background*. 

Anyway, so ninja turtles. There's been several cartoons and I don't know how many different comics over the years. And I was thinking, have any of the turtles ever decided to just, stop doing the ninja thing? 

Most of the origins I remember say Splinter (whether he was a rat that became humanlike after exposure to mutagen, or a human who became ratlike after exposure to mutagen) found the four little turtles, and raised them and trained them in martial arts. 

(I assume there is some Discourse out there about how Splinter is the real villain because he raised these four turtles from babies and turned them into soldiers and assassins, and Shredder is actually the good guy who takes in troubled people and gives them a clan to belong to. Because this world is a hellscape, and other people are the greatest source of suffering on it.)

Next thing you know, they're fighting ninjas, guys with a disturbing amount of metal accessories, squishy brain aliens in exo-suits, giant talking alligators, all kinds of shit. Time travel, space travel, fearful and violent humans.

At some point, one of them had to say "Enough," right? I'd assume either Donatello or Michelangelo, if only because they're the two usually depicted as having the most other interests outside martial arts. Donnie could probably cheerfully go into engineering or computer programming, and Mikey would pursue an X Games career or become a professional gamer. Raphael and Leonardo strike me as enjoying fighting too much, and being too devoted, respectively, to ever abandon it.

I don't know of it ever happening, though. I vaguely remember Mikey being captured by the government and experimented on in the '90s Archie Comics series (which is the only one I really bought), and he might have been blind for a while because of that, but I'm not sure he stopped entirely. I mean, if you figure the Turtles were originally playing off Miller's Daredevil run, they can't very well let being blind stop them.

But I figure there have certainly been deaths, brainwashings, severe injuries that may have taken one of them off the board for a time. But in terms of simply looking at the life they're living, seeing it's not the life they want, and doing something about it? Not that I know of.

I don't know if they all just love it too much, or if they feel too much loyalty. That walking away would feel like turning their back on their brothers and their father/teacher.

* Although that's been less necessary the last week since the neighbors downstairs and their extraordinarily loud kid moved out. It is 200% quieter in this building now just from that kid not slamming their door 70 times a day, no exaggeration.

Ships Them to the Manor in Cases Marked "Champagne"

How many tires does the Batmobile go through in a year?

My mom watches NASCAR, and so I've ended up watching a few races with her. Those guys go through multiple sets of tires in one race, and they aren't pulling hairpin turns, or jumps, or driving up the sides of buildings. They also don't have to dodge penguins with rockets on their backs or oil slicks from cars with clown faces on them, either. To say nothing of how much garbage is probably on Gotham's roads, or the harsh winters.

I'm sure Batsy gets extra-durable tires made of some polymer that's partially Kryptonian in design, but still. He's driving really fast, in close confines, on roads of questionable quality, every night. You know Alfred isn't letting him leave the cave with a set of bald tires on there.

Granted, he's not involved in high-speed chases every night. At least, not in the car. Sometimes he's on foot, or in a boat, or something. And some nights he's busy with Justice League crap on the moon. But you know one of the Robins is borrowing the car on that night, which means even more wear and tear. It all has to add up.

Pick One to Flush

There was this poll I saw on Twitter last week, about if you had to pick one actor to delete from history out of Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, and Tom Cruise, which would it be.

My gut, immediate reaction was Cruise. Because I'm going to base the decision off the movies for each actor I've actually seen, and that's a pretty small list for him. (If I haven't bothered to watch the movie the whole way through, or can't remember doing so, then it's no skin off my nose if erasing the actor erases the movie, right?) The roles he takes just aren't ones I'm terribly interested in.

But I figured I ought to at least check the math, just to be sure. So, with that said, going off IMdb:

Cruise: 43 actor credits in movies, not counting things he's confirmed for that haven't come out yet. Of those, I've watched (or can remember watching) 6 in their entirety. The Mummy (thanks Alex), Tropic Thunder, War of the Worlds, Mission: Impossible II (thanks Alex), Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men. I'm sure I've seen pieces of Rain Man and Top Gun, but can't be sure I ever bothered to sit through them the whole way.

Of the 6, Tropic Thunder is the only one I'd say I really love, to the extent where I can watch it most any time. It isn't a "Tom Cruise movie", but he's definitely a piece of it I enjoy.

Crowe: 46 actor credits in movies that actually came out, 10 that I've watched entirely. Crowe has a bit of an unfair advantage, as he tends to star in more movies my dad would enjoy, so I end up seeing them that way. The Mummy (thanks again, Alex), The Nice Guys, The Water Diviner (thanks Dad), The Man with the Iron Fists (took a minute to remember Crowe was in this), Robin Hood (thanks Dad), 3:10 to Yuma, Master and Commander (thanks Dad), L.A. Confidential, Virtuosity, The Quick and the Dead.

Of the 10, I can watch any of the last three whenever (Alex and I watched Virtuosity a lot back in the day, but I was fully on board with that), and maybe The Water Diviner. So 3 or 4. Crowe is probably essential to my enjoyment of all of those except maybe Quick and the Dead. I like him in that, but again, he's not holding the film entirely on his shoulders. Point being, Crowe is the safest of the four, not what I would have expected. But he makes more movies in the general range I like, and I ignore the rest.

Pitt: 58 actor credits in movies (lots of video shorts and TV series credits for Pitt), 8 I've watched entirely. Deadpool 2, Fury, MegaMind, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Snatch, Fight Club, Se7en, 12 Monkeys.

Look, I never claimed I made good decisions about which movies to watch, only that other people I know make worse decisions.

I really like Deadpool 2, but you can't give Pitt credit for that. I remember Pitt's character in Snatch, but the plot tends to blur with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I'm watching Guy Ritchie movies for Jason Statham and the banter, anyway. He definitely gets credit on Se7en, and I remember liking 12 Monkeys, but it's been awhile since I watched it. Not one I normally hunt down to rewatch.

Bale: 48 actor credits in movies, of which I've seen 6, I think? Dark Knight, 3:10 to Yuma, Batman Begins, Equilibrium, Shaft, and either Treasure Island (thanks Rhodez) or Terminator Salvation. I've definitely seen one of those last two all the way through.

I can't remember anything from Sam Jackson's Shaft movie other than that bit where he announces his resignation from the cops by throwing his shield at the judge. I like, but don't love Nolan's Batman movies, have never bothered to do more than catches pieces of the third one, and Bale's "scary Batman voice" is more ridiculous than anything else. Which really just leaves Equilibrium, which I like, but not on par with Tropic Thunder.

Which I guess means we're throwing Christian Bale down the old memory hole. Did not expect that outcome.

Death and the Legal System

I'm trying this new layout they're instituting for Blogger for this post. It's going to take some getting used to.

I saw this post on Tumblr a couple weeks ago about Lord Death Man, a villain from the Batman manga, who among other tricks, would enter a trancelike state resembling death whenever he was captured to escape being sent to jail.

This doesn't seem like it would work, since he'd show up again committing crimes later, demonstrating he hadn't, in fact, died. There's the possibility he's going for double jeopardy, but is he allowing them finish trying him for the crime first? Does it count if he never served any of his sentence, since he immediately faked his death? What good would it do if he's going out and committing new crimes? Even if he's captured robbing a bank, the fact he faked his death the last time they captured him robbing a bank shouldn't help. This is a new incidence of the same crime.

Obviously, they just needed to cremate him when he faked his death, thus nipping the whole thing in the bud.

This train of thought led, as most do, to the X-Men, and their current situation. In what is definitely not creepy at all, the X-Men have a bunch of cloning vats set up on their posh new island home. If any of them die, they just cook themselves up a new one. It seems like the new one has all the old one's memories, up to the moment of death. Not sure how that works, but I guess it avoids the issue of not remembering potentially crucial information about a threat because you didn't do a backup on your brain recently.

But the thing that interested me was whether or not a clone could be tried for the crimes of its predecessor. It's kind of a moot point for the X-Men, since they seem determined to handle all matters of criminal justice regarding their citizens themselves, even if the crime didn't take place on Krakoa. Setting that aside, if the version of the person who did whatever illegal act is dead, is the duplicate of them that pops up within a few days legally responsible? Could you try them, even though that particular body had nothing to do with the act in question?

I feel as though the Marvel Universe legal system says "No." Magneto stood trial for his actions once, and I believe the court ruled that, because Magneto had, in a story in Defenders, been aged back to an infant and then grown back up, the man on trial was in essence, a new person, and therefore not responsible for the actions of Magneto prior to the de-aging incident.

(I think that's how it went. I'm going off vague memories of Captain America not being happy with the verdict in X-Men vs. the Avengers. The '80s version, not the early 2010s version.) 

And yet, the Magneto who grew up from being abruptly de-aged sure seemed pissed about a lot of the same things as his predecessor, even though those things technically didn't happen to him. Which makes me think the memories came back as he aged. That being the case, it would seem like a clone of a dead person couldn't be held responsible for the deceased's crimes, because the clone didn't exist until after the crimes took place. They could also be considered a new person, even though they're identical to the accused.

Not That Warner Bros. Will Notice Either Way

One of the temporary big hullabaloos in the comic world in the last couple months was DC announcing they weren't going to use Diamond as the distributor for their comics any longer. They'd turned to other avenues when Diamond shut down in the spring due to COVID, and apparently liked their new circumstances so much, they'd just stick with them.

From my end of things, it's not a big difference. Makes it a little harder to find the solicitations, and to see what comics DC has coming out in a given week, but that's about it. And no more new DC comics than I buy in a year these days, they're on track for 10 this year, which would be better than either of the last two years, that's a minor inconvenience.

But when I was in one of the comic stores the next town over last month, the owner mentioned that they were about to stop stocking new DC single issues. They can still stock trade paperbacks, because they get those through different channels, but individual issues of Batman or Amethyst, no.

The new distributor has different discount rates, and when the store ran the numbers, they were only going to break even for their DC sales on the best weeks, and lose money the rest of the time. Granting I only took one economics class - which was over 15 years ago, and I recall essentially nothing from it - trying to sell stuff that ultimately loses you money is not a sound business practice. So the decision to walk away from a particular publisher makes sense. Especially since DC really comes in third behind Marvel and Image for that store, and they tend to focus more towards "indie" stuff anyway.

Their other reason was that the new distributor is a comic store as well. In essence, they'd be buying their product from a competitor. The owner didn't really like the idea of simply handing over sales data to a competitor. I don't know if they would have bit the bullet on that if DC comics were a bigger piece of the financial pie for them or not, but under the circumstances, I suppose it acted as one more thing.

I wonder if that store is going to be an exception, or if there are going to be more. If there are other stores, is it enough that it makes a difference, saleswise? On the latter point, probably not. The people who would have bought DC comics from that store will probably go to a different store, or get them from somewhere online. There's another comic store in that town that is going to continue to stock DC single issues. So the sales may not change much, instead being concentrated into fewer stores. Having your product available in fewer places seems like the wrong move, but the horse has probably already fled the barn, broken its leg in the middle of a freeway, and been run over by an 18-wheeler on that one.

On the stores, I assume most are operating too close to the margins, or are too dependent on superhero comic sales, to say bye to DC entirely, but maybe not. I can think of a few stores I've been in that seemed oriented more towards tpbs/GNs or independent publishers that might be able to do the same. That doesn't mean they necessarily will if they don't have to.

Scams for Everyone!

I meant to post this last Wednesday, but things came up. Anyway, I haven't done one of these hypothetical teams in over a year, so what the hell. Got to post something. This go-round is focus on sneaky characters that like to pull cons. So figure they're going to pull some sort of heist or scheme to bamboozle and rip-off some rich scumbag.

The Leader: Stan Pines, aka Mr. Mystery (Gravity Falls) - Stan spent years traveling from state-to-state, selling cheap, fraudulent products to gullible saps, who then ran him out of town once they realized the products were garbage. He eventually wound up running a "Mystery Shack", house of oddities and cheap junk in a weird town to pay the bills while he spent 30 years figuring out how fix a busted transdimensional portal his twin brother created, then subsequently fell through. Which means he taught himself whatever science, math, and engineering skills you'd need to accomplish something like that.

Stan is your typical guy who hides his softer feelings under the gruff asshole veneer. The guy who may do something nice for another person, but acts as though he's doing it just to shut them up. He's pretty good at improvising on the fly, and he understands people well enough to get them to shell out money to look at a trout he superglued to a rabbit.  He will encourage the youngest member of the team's interest in scamming people, while also trying to protect them if things go wrong. Probably won't be necessary, but he'll do it.

He knows about the supernatural and the weird, even if he pretends not to, so the odder members of this group won't phase him too much. He's also committed a wide array of actual crimes, from stealing nuclear waste, to smuggling pugs across national borders, to tax fraud. Lots of tax fraud.

The Rogue: Darien Fawkes, aka the Invisible Man (The Invisible Man) - Darien was a cat burglar even before he got a biosynthetic gland in his brain that lets him turn invisible. Even once he had the gland, he didn't stop criminal activities entirely. Gotta scratch that itch, even if there's not much challenge to it. And he was totally on board with the Official's plan to rob Arnaud's casino by having Darien invisibly rig the games for the rest of the Agency.

Of course, Darien then proceeded to go and straight up rob the vault to scratch that itch - and flip Arnaud the bird - then wouldn't give the money to the Official when he demanded it, even if it meant Darien went into Quicksilver Madness. Which happened, because Darien wouldn't back down, either. So Darien is: sneaky, willful, stubborn, and doesn't always think things through.

Fortunately, I don't think Stan is going to dissuade Darien from stealing to his heart's content, as long as it isn't from Stan. Actually, Stan's biggest objection might be if Darien tries to help him win at a casino. Stan might take that as slander against his skills. This would probably have to take place after the end of the series, when Darien doesn't have to worry about Quicksilver Madness, since there's no one on this group that's going to be able to fix that for him. Unless he's moonlighting with this bunch while still working for the Agency, but he's not careful enough to pull that off without Hobbes or the Official figuring it out.

The Muscle: Toph Beifong, aka the Blind Bandit, aka the Runaway (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - The greatest earthbender in the entire world. Can bend metal with a little more effort. Blind since birth, mostly doesn't let it bother her, will make jokes about it when the opportunity presents itself. Ran a series of scams taking advantage of people pitying or underestimating her because she's blind. Sees by sensing vibrations through the ground. Which does leave her a little vulnerable if she's not on solid ground. Extremely stubborn and headstrong. On the other hand, her ability means Darien is never going to be invisible to her, which will be a lot of fun for her, and extremely humiliating for him. She can also use the ability like a lie detector, which ought to be fun for annoying at least a couple of the other people on the team.

When Toph gets it in her head to do something, or not do something, almost no one has any chance of changing her mind. Like Stan, kind of a gruff asshole. The kind of person who shows affection by punching you in the shoulder. it took her a while to get the hang of being a team player with Team Avatar. Which means it's either going to be a struggle in the early stages with this group as well, or she's learned from her experiences and will embrace teamwork more readily. The rest of the team is adults (more or less), and she hasn't always had the best of luck with adults. Once she demonstrates she can take care of herself, it should be fine. At some point, Stan will ask her to create and animate some stone statues he can market as "terrible rock people" for another attraction. It'll work great until Toph makes them start attacking and fake eating people.

For all that she can be sneaky when she feels like it, Toph usually likes to settle things more directly and loudly. Pick a fight, hit people with rocks, that kind of thing. She and the next member of the team ought to get along like a house on fire.

The Lady of Mystery: Fiona Glenanne, aka More Aliases Than I Care to List (Burn Notice) - Granted, Fi frequently didn't have patience for Michael's elaborate schemes to hoodwink people, preferring the direct approach of just shooting or blowing them up. That doesn't mean she wasn't any good at playing a role to get something from them. Play on their libido, play on their stupidity, their sympathy. Get them to underestimate her, or just scare the crap out of them.

But, if you can frame it as making bad people miserable by taking the things they cherish most - money - she can probably get into the spirit of it. Especially if she's allowed to incorporate explosions. Between Darien and Stan, I'm not sure which of the two is going to be better able to recognize how dangerous she is. Stan fancies himself a bit of a ladykiller, and while Darien definitely thinks he's charming, I think he's worked with enough dangerous ladies he's not going to make the mistake of underestimating her.

Like I said, though, she and Toph should get along great. Probably hit the limits of their patience for the sneaky stuff or playing nice about the same time. Then it'll be time to break stuff, since no one is going to be able to rein in the two of them at once. Although Fiona might try to rein herself in a little bit with a pre-teen involved. Maybe.

The Guy with a Boat: Jimmy James, aka Macho Business Donkey Wrestler (Newsradio) - Technically, I only know the Mr. James has a news helicopter that he uses to fly back to his mansion for lunch, but he's loaded, I'm sure he has a yacht somewhere.

He's a successful businessman, so probably not unaccustomed to questionable practices. He also kept D.B. Cooper's duffel bag full of money after the guy parachuted into his camp, and kept that secret, plus the secret of who Cooper actually was, for decades until he was hauled into court. There's also the fact that he was apparently unfazed by a guy parachuting into his camp and asking to borrow his truck in exchange for a duffel bag full of money.

Totally willing to make wagers with other wealthy men, which is the sort of thing that encourages underhanded tactics. And he's not above being sneaky himself, like when he got his radio station back from Johnny by picking Johnny as the one employee he got to take with him. Anytime you can get your opponent to say, "Well played," you know you made a slick move. Or so I've been taught by popular culture. I'm not sure I've ever gotten someone to tell me that. Perhaps one day.

I'd expect he might want to take the reins, since he might be the richest person on the team - depending on whether Toph has access to her family's fortune. And Jimmy can be intimidating at times, but he's also savvy enough to know when that's a lost cause. So he might be smart enough to realize trying to order around this bunch is a terrible idea. That lets him stay in the background, make his own plans, and he can offer some insights when he thinks it would be helpful. That can be a fun job, to be the one who helps finalize plans, rather than having to come up with them from scratch or make decisions. So much less stressful.

Addition by Saiyan Subtraction

As someone who doesn't care for Vegeta (or his fanbase) at all, I spend more time than I should thinking about how things could have gone in DragonBall Z if Krillin had ignored Goku's request at the end of the big fight on Earth, and run Vegeta through with Yajirobe's sword, as opposed to letting the guy leave the planet. Obviously it's an irrelevant thought exercise, unless I decide to write a fanfic about it some day, but it seemed worth exploring.

I mean, Vegeta seems to exist mostly to do stupid shit out of ego that makes all situations worse. Basically Batman during that stretch where, every time you turned around, someone stole his secret "kill the Justice League" plans or his secret "spy on all the other heroes" satellite. Like that time Vegeta decided to actively help Cell absorb Android 18 to achieve his "perfect" form, because Cell's current form just wasn't strong enough to be interesting. Then Perfect Cell beat Vegeta into the ground with contemptuous ease. Which, while satisfying to watch, doesn't change the fact he made things worse for everyone else by being a moron.

OK, so one of the arguments against him being killed I've seen before is the Earthlings - Bulma, Krillin, Gohan - wouldn't have survived on Namek if they didn't have Vegeta to eventually team up with. Yeah, I don't think that holds up.

Yes, the situation escalates the longer everyone is running around Namek trying to get Dragon Balls, but no small amount of that escalation is due to Vegeta. Vegeta shows up on Namek and starts laying waste to Frieza' strongest guys. His (for that point in the series) dramatic increases in power worry Frieza enough he calls in the Ginyu Force. Once they get there, even Vegeta is completely overwhelmed by just one of them. He saves Gohan and Krillin from Guldo, true, but again, he's the reason Guldo's there in the first place. Most of their battle with Frieza is Vegeta bragging about how this time for sure he's become a Super Saiyan, then Frieza upping his power yet again and Vegeta basically crapping himself at how outmatched he is.

(There's at least three occasions in that fight Vegeta gets cocky and each time, Frieza makes him eat his words almost immediately. Again, satisfying to watch, but it's dampened slightly because characters who aren't complete assholes are also going to suffer for it.)

Once they arrived, Gohan and Krillin tried to maintain low profiles. Keep their power levels as low as possible, stay off everyone's radar. That doesn't last terribly long. Frieza is vaguely aware of them - in the sense he knows someone else landed on the planet - even before Gohan jumps in and saves the last Namekian kid in a village Frieza and his guys were slaughtering.

But their powers are so relatively low they're barely a nuisance. Frieza could have killed both of them with zero effort when Krillin blindsided Dodoria. Just eye-beamed both of them through their backs, but he couldn't be bothered. Just threatened Dodoria for being made to look like a chump. Zarbon could have done it, too, and didn't. Nobody in Frieza's army really looks out for each other. Which comes from Frieza himself, since he never takes any steps to help his subordinates, so they don't help each other, either.

I had thought that one point in Vegeta's favor was him finding Dodoria unwittingly saves them, but no. Dodoria couldn't sense them (because one of the Namekians destroyed his scouter), fired one attack at the ocean after Krillin temporarily blinded him, and assumed he got them. Then he flew off, met Vegeta, and died. Worst case with no Vegeta, Dodoria flies back and reports he killed them, eventually is proven wrong. And then is probably killed by Frieza. But since all Frieza's scouters were destroyed, the only way they're going to know that's the case is by physically seeing Krillin or Gohan. Those two can sense power levels without technological help, so they can avoid Frieza' schmucks all day long.

Frieza was finding Dragon Balls by using scouters to find Namekians. Now that's out of the question, while the good guys have a handy dandy device that senses Dragon Balls they can use. Plus, they saved the kid, Dende, which earns them some good credit with the Elder of Namek. Gets him on their side. They get one ball from him, which as long as they have it, Frieza can't make any wishes.

(In reality, he can't make a wish anyway because he doesn't know he has to make the wish in Namekian. The last "fuck you" from Namek to him, since he doesn't have to be killing them to get these balls. He's strong enough to immobilize them, but chooses to let his men kill them, just because.)

The Elder also boosts Krillin's power, and later Gohan's (and eventually Dende's, and he's a healer). Not enough to fight Frieza, or even to challenge the Ginyu Force if they showed up. But working together, Krillin and Gohan could definitely take Dodoria, who's a complete moron, and probably Zarbon (especially if they could get him before he transformed). The odds of either of those two finding them is slim, because again, Krillin and Gohan can sense their location, but Zarbon and Dodoria can't do the same. When Zarbon did catch up to Krillin, he was really following Vegeta, who he spotted after Vegeta sensed Krillin and started following him. Again, Frieza won't have any way of knowing they got that strong, short of seeing them fight. Because that's not their plan.

Their plan is to get at least one ball, then wait for Goku to show up and they'll make their play to swipe the others, wish their friends back to life. Goku's not near strong enough to fight Frieza, which is admittedly bad since he'll certainly want to fight Frieza. But there's the possibility that, if they head for Frieza's ship where has his all the ones he collected, the three of them can keep Frieza distracted long enough for Dende to make the wishes.

There's always the possibility that even if Dodoria and Zarbon don't get killed, Frieza gets impatient and calls the Ginyu Force anyway. But they didn't seem to arrive that long before Goku as it was, and if things aren't going bad as quickly, because Vegeta's not causing problems, they might be called late enough to not get there until after Goku. Granted, then you have to hope Goku doesn't fuck around and just plants Ginyu so he can't body swap, but if Goku knows they have to go through these guys to even have a shot at getting the chance to swipe Frieza's Dragon Balls, he might just do that. Just lay waste to those five dumbasses and get on with his day.

Because that's really the main positive thing Vegeta accomplishes on Namek. When Ginyu swipes Goku's body, he can't use it properly, and Vegeta beats the hell out of it. Which pushes Ginyu to try and steal Vegeta's body, giving Goku the chance to jump in the way and get his body back. Then Goku gets to heal up from that, and gets the resulting power boost from that weird Saiyan "whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" thing. But if you have Dende around during the Frieza fight, there's a chance he can heal Goku up from an ass-kicking there to give you basically the same result. Dende did that for Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta during the actual, in-canon fight, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Who Invited the Jerk?

One of the things I hunted down in back issues last year was the Marvel Knights Fantastic Four series (unhelpfully titled "4") Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa wrote in the mid-2000s. It's not going to dislodge the Simonson or McDuffie runs as my personal favorites, but it's mostly solid.

There's one issue in there focused on Sue's birthday, where Reed appears to have forgotten, so she goes out on the town with some lady friends, most of whom make sense. She-Hulk, Alicia Masters, Sharon Ventura (the second Ms. Marvel, later the She-Thing). All old friends and acquaintances.

Emma Frost is also there.

Who in the fuck would think inviting Emma Frost along on your birthday romp is a good idea? She's arrogant, condescending, manipulative and rude. It'd be like inviting Namor or Quicksilver, with the added minus Emma is a telepath with no apparent regard for the sanctity of other people's minds. There's at least two times in that one issue she plucks a thought from Sue's mind and says it out loud to the others in an apparent attempt to embarrass/put her on the spot, and basically dismisses the ethical concerns of what she did with "your mind was practically shouting it, Sue."

Do the X-Men even like her? Respect her, sure. She's been on their side long enough, proven herself enough for that. But I don't know how many of them would consider her a friend, compared to how many would say the same about Nightcrawler or Rogue, for example.

Maybe some of her former students? I know Firestar doesn't care for her, due to the manipulative stuff, but I don't know about the rest of the Hellions (however many are still alive), or the Gen X kids. Again, I think there'd be respect, they might consider her a good mentor or sounding board for their questions (although even that seems doubtful. I could see her doing a lot of damage to a kid with self-esteem issues.) Beyond that, I don't know.

Probably Falls Under the Category "Unacceptable Risk"

Something that used to come up for Nightcrawler was the danger of his teleporting blindly. The fear being that, if he did, he could materialize within a wall, rock, tree, something. And that the physical disruption of that would most likely kill him. Which makes sense. You reappear and there's part of a boulder sharing space with your lungs, that's probably not good.

Of course, it raises the question of how Kurt knows that's an issue. Short of trying it and finding out, I don't know how he could. He could certainly suspect it's a risk, but unless he's encountered someone with teleportation powers, and seen or heard that it happened to them, there's no reason to think it would. I know on occasions, when fighting machines, he'll try teleporting something like an engine block into their bodies.

But, again, what gave him the idea that would work?

After all, when Kurt teleports into open space, it isn't as though there are no atoms or molecules already there. It's air, so it isn't solid, but it's still matter. So wouldn't Kurt's body merge with whatever air molecules are in that space when he appears? It could appear in his bloodstream, and last I checked, getting air directly into your bloodstream is kind of dangerous.

So maybe when he appears, the doorway, gateway, whatever you want to call the process he uses for teleportation, has enough force behind it to shove the air aside. But OK, that's air, and Kurt's worried about solid matter, not gases. It does make me wonder what would happen if he teleported into a body of water. The pool at the Mansion, or the ocean because he had to get off a submarine fast. Would he materialize and merge with the water, or would it be shoved aside by his arrival?

The answer might be to see if there's an X-Man sitting around that can keep coming back from the dead, and ask if they'll be willing to act as guinea pig. One of Madrox' clones, perhaps. Otherwise, it may just be one of those things you take on faith, because testing it is too risky. Like not flying a plane directly into the side of a mountain to see if it can punch through to the other side.

The Intuitive Atomic Robot

When I was reading Robots and Empire last month, it raised a question in my mind. Daneel repeatedly refers to the fact that as a robot, he lacks the intuition that Elijah Baley has, and therefore can't make the leap to a conclusion without more evidence.

So then I wondered: Does Atomic Robo have intuition?

I suppose you could raise the question about any fictional artificial lifeform character, but Robo was the one that raised the question with me.

I was going to say Deadly Art of Science is a strong point against him, since he couldn't piece together how all the various thefts by gangsters and one large robot (with a fondness for derby hats) fit. On the other hand, he was able to figure out the thieves were escaping using an abandoned pneumatic tube system because the locations they robbed matched a map he remembered from Mr. Tesla's office. And he did grasp that the various robberies, including the crystal skull, were connected.

He pulled together a theory on how Dr. Dinosaur is not actually a time-traveling dinosaur, and actually the result of an illegal genetic experiment, just based on talking with him and his opinion that time travel is either impossible or at least extremely unlikely. Of course, that's hampered somewhat by the fact Dr. Dinosaur did successfully, if unintentionally, throw Robo backwards in time, so he might be wrong.

But that's good! Part of intuition is making leaps that aren't always correct, right?

But when Edison came back as a ghost, Robo couldn't figure out who it was until the ghost mentioned Theodore (his son), the day of the big battle, and the Odic Force. At that point, you can't really call it intuition. I'm not even sure how to rate his battle with the Shadow from Beyond Time, considering he was able to collaborate with three of himself from different points in his life, who could tell his youngest self what he needed to learn how to do. That said, his future selves didn't have time to tell him much other than to study transdimensional math and that he would need to invent some fields of science himself. The rest was up to him to piece together, and he got better at it, up to a point.

One issue is, Robo seems extremely firm about what is and isn't scientifically possible for a guy who has seen the amount of weird crap he has. You'd think he'd be more open to exotic answers, but I guess if he doesn't see a way to test or confirm them, they aren't much good.

Maybe that highlights the difficulty here. Robo isn't your typical private detective, he's a scientist who also sometimes solves problems with punching (and shooting, and jumping). He's not solving murders where he has to figure out where the murder weapon went, he's dealing with threats that sometimes involve aspects of science he either isn't aware of or doesn't understand. If you don't know what the rules are, it can be difficult to make that leap, because you don't know what can be ruled out, or what is reasonable.

Even Elijah Baley, for all Daneel praises his intellect, struggles during the cases in The Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn because there are things about Solaria and Aurora, about Spacers and their culture in general, that he doesn't understand. And those gaps, the things that are so accepted on those worlds no one even thinks to mention them to Baley, help trip him up. Once he learns about them, it helps him to understand the psychology of the people he's dealing with, and the intuition can kick in.

For Robo, when people were either mysteriously turning into machines, or turned out to be machines all along, he recognized a sound they emitted before falling apart as something connected to ALAN, and went to Hashima. Of course, it turned out the robots were Helsingard's creations, because ALAN had unknowingly hacked into them, but the initial leap was good.

So is that intuition, or just experience? Is there a difference? You gain experience by doing things, and if you gain intuition through experience, then. . .