Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

From I've read so far she never actually personifies/names anything again after this moment, but she will point out the fact she does that when talking about herself.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Cat Mattress
Jul 14, 2012

by Cyrano4747

PoptartsNinja posted:

I'm calling Black Hole Bill as Mookie's self insert. When does he get his face turn? :v:

he doesn't; but the human void angel does

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
So from the very first chapter Mookie couldn’t think of anything to throw at his superhero that was more threatening than regular people with guns and spaceships. Between this chapter and the last there has been no elevation of threats.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

I like how the art is a step up and it still looks like if Stjepan Šejić didn't give a poo poo.

SupSuper
Apr 8, 2009

At the Heart of the city is an Alien horror, so vile and so powerful that not even death can claim it.

TheHan posted:

So from the very first chapter Mookie couldn’t think of anything to throw at his superhero that was more threatening than regular people with guns and spaceships. Between this chapter and the last there has been no elevation of threats.
It's Mass Effect.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

SupSuper posted:

It's Mass Effect.

I don't know enough about Mass Effect to know if this is a joke or not. I wouldn't be surprised if it was, but I'd be a little sad.

maltesh
May 20, 2004

Uncle Ben: Still Dead.
I can't help but see the parallels Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hiyoshi) in the origin, but that's probably only because I decided to follow a reading list for Crisis on Infinite Earths back in January.

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3
It's also because Mookie nakedly lifts stuff from mainstream DC cape books from the early to mid 2000s, so it's certainly possible this was a conscious/unconscious influence in star power's design in addition to green lantern.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



I mean let's be frank, the Star Powered Sentinels are just the Green Lantern Corps.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

SardonicTyrant posted:

I mean let's be frank, the Star Powered Sentinels are just the Green Lantern Corps.

Yeah it's just Green Lantern Corps with Captain Marvel's powers. Oh, and like Superman, she needs to absorb light from a star to fuel her power.

Again, there's nothing bad about cribbing from other comic books. But so far there's nothing at all unique or compelling in what I've read. It's just Green Lantern + Mass Effect + Star Trek.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Star Power is the Lensman.

PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jul 31, 2020

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3

SardonicTyrant posted:

I mean let's be frank, the Star Powered Sentinels are just the Green Lantern Corps.

Oh, I know. I was just talking about the design of her costume. I can't remember the exact timing on Star Power's launch, but I think it was around the war of light, DC's big crossover that year so she may well just be based off one of the white lanterns.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Against my better judgement, here we go again...

Chapter 1.3



Black Hole Bill spills the beans about the archons coming because he doesn't want to die too. But something odd here - why not just have the archons kill Star Power AND the station at the same time instead of sending 3 goobers? Well, the explanation is above, and flashing back to the last chapter:



"The girl is a business target. The station is a personal one. The void archangel likes to keep the two separate."

This makes absolutely no sense at all, but is repeated over and over. I'm pretty sure it's a bandaid Mookie slapped on after realizing he'd written himself into a corner in chapter 1 because he needed a force to attack Star Power to reveal her powers, but also needed it to be part of a bigger threat.

Again, it's no worse than many superhero comics, but it really stuck out to me because they KEEP REPEATING IT, and it never makes sense to me. Why not just blow up the station with no warning? The blue lady certainly doesn't give a poo poo about it.

Anyway...



Ugh, they actually call him the "Space Cowboy". It's a minor thing, but it really annoys me.



Purple lady reveals she used to be a void angel. Hey, some actual character building!

Red chief guy (his name actually is "the chief"...) orders the station evacuated. It's too dangerous to fight the archons at the station because...



... They have stealth-tech, that no one else has! A bit hokey, but it's a classic Star Trek plotline. But I find it a little weird that this ONE mercenary army has stealth-tech, and no one else does or knows how to detect it.



... Until Danica figures out how to detect it in the course of 2 pages. Silly, but again, classic Star Trek trope. Jordi and Data would come up with a solution like this all the time out of their asses, I can live with it. Just don't ask yourself why no one else ever thought of that idea before.



GOD drat IT MOOKIE.

What a dumb explanation. I'm not even going to analyze it because it frustrates me so much.

Anyway, Danica convinces purple lady to let her go fight the void archons on her own.



what's wrong with your faaaace



She no-sells this attack, but she apparently was going to be killed by that one shotgun? Hokay...

Anyway she beats both battleships, it's boring and it happens really fast.



Void archangel wants to talk to her now, or he'll blow up his battleship and her home station. It's telegraphed over and over that he doesn't respect his own troops. What a memorable villain!










Chapter 1.4

This chapter intersperses pages with the backstory of blue badlady, which I'll do all at once here:



Basically her mom, the queen, wanted to retreat from the empire that was attacking them into timeless space, which is why blue lady is still alive today. But blue badlady wants to not retreat and let their entire race, including babies, get wiped out because it's shameful or something.



what's wrong with your



faaaaaace



But the sentinels DEFEND the hatchery ships of whatever this race is called! TWIST!

But daughter badlady doesn't like that and kills her mom and all her soldiers because [reasons]. And the star powered sentinels are her ancient enemy that she wants to track down and kill blah blah you get it.



She literally wipes out her entire race and is the only one left because she doesn't want to retreat. Is this a trait of her race? I guess not, because her mother and the soliders are ok with retreating. Although they've apparently been trying over and over again (8 times) to conquer the galaxy, so I question why her mother was the one in charge if she apparently has empathy.



Anyway, back to Danica. This page is supposed to communicate how it's a lifelong dream for her to travel to another star. She'll never forget her mother's inspiring words: "Maybe there will be more options for you when you're older."



Nothing to say here except I can't help imagining how this would look if Mookie tried to draw it.



:shepface:

Can I say how much I hate the "no-iris mask" superhero trope? It's lazy as hell.



Star Power meets with void archangel. He declares he will be the one asking questions.



He immediately answers a question that wasn't even asked.

Anyway, she's forced to join them or he'll blow up her home station. This seems like a hilariously bad plan even for a supervillian.



Case in point, the other good guys have already disarmed the bombs with seemingly little trouble. This guy is even told to "take your time". Can't have stakes, now, can we?



Blue lady is mad! She wanted to KILL Star Power, not ally with her. She sends her troops over to wipe out both the void angels and Star Power.



Void archangel tries to run away, but Star Power decides to "keep her promise" to fight alongside them. Lol, ok, keep that blackmailed promise that I'm pretty sure meant help him take over the galaxy. I bet you wouldn't be so keen to keep it if you were fighting other good guys or something.





Anyway, fight scene fight scene fight scene, the void archangel gets away while detonating his ship to destory the station (which we, the readers, already know is safe), and Danica discovers the troops are all robots (right as she kills one so her conscience is clear).

Stakes? What are those?



"My ancient enemy! Kill her!"

"No, wait, better give her a chance to beat me and escape. I am very smart."



I'll stop here and do the next issue as a single update. In the meantime, between chapters, Mookie and Garth put up some bios of the different alien races. They're full of the standard dumb scifi worldbuilding where every race has one characteristic based on the only example you've seen of that race.



That one guy is a security chief, so it's a RACE of security chiefs!

Also they're militaristic... Warriors for social justice? That's... What? Huh?



These guys are... Friendly! And communist? I guess.



Purple lady is a former criminal, so it's an entire RACE of criminals!



That one guy is arrogant so the whole race is arrogant!



OH gently caress YOU THIS IS JUST THE ASARI

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 24, 2020

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻



UGH.

I used to think that the setting of Endless Space was a bit hokey, but THIS...

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
The idea of a cosmic hero who can travel along a network of starlight is actually super cool. It’s a pretty easy way to jump your main character through the dull void of space into interesting planets where you can tell the fun stories. More unique than just saying “Everyone’s got FTL travel” and you can squeeze some tension out of it by having your protag trapped in a dead solar system that’s too far from the lightrail to use.

But also, I don’t know how you struggle so hard to justify the bad guys sending 3 small ships first. After thinking about it for a few seconds you’d think most writers would go “Oh, these ships are just way faster so they use them for scouting” obviously you wouldn’t be able to justify the three small ships hiring a bounty hunter before the main force arrive but like, why do that in the first place?

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



I actually like the big badlady's species being noodle people. Every time they move and gesture is far more interesting to look at that I expected, because the rest of this comic looks dull.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

I'll give you that it's interesting, but it's also pretty goofy. I admit I'm stretching when making fun of Garth's art - it's fine for the most part, just not the style of comic art I like. And the resolution they lock themselves into doesn't do it any favors.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



The art's not bad, it's that there's no life to it. I don't know how to explain it better.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

It really does look like the kind of art Mookie would like.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
I think the coloring is just super flat. The palette is all very muted and the shading looks like he’s using black with the opacity adjusted, which can kind of dull down the colors. Even in scenes where the light source is a harsh red or blue the palettes on characters don’t change, Garth just puts a color filter over it. Add to that the fact that every scene is set inside of a grey spaceship.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Oh, so the Void Archons have the power to "destroy a small city"? Is that all? Couldn't the same be said about pretty much anything with any sort of pew pew laser given enough time and effort?




Space shockwaves.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

You would think someone who personifies everything would consider killing robots to be killing still.

Calaveron
Aug 7, 2006
:negative:
Singularity bombs, event horizon missiles, Big Bang mortars, supernova sling shots

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
And yet, it all amounts to Pew Pew lasers.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Mors Rattus posted:

You would think someone who personifies everything would consider killing robots to be killing still.

I mean that aspect of her personality literally came up when she didn't want to kill a robot previously, so yeah. And later in the comic we learn that there are AI that actually are considered sentient life, sooooo

But Mookie forgot about that for the moment and she's hasn't named anything for a while.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

PoptartsNinja posted:

Oh, so the Void Archons have the power to "destroy a small city"? Is that all? Couldn't the same be said about pretty much anything with any sort of pew pew laser given enough time and effort?




Space shockwaves.

Any spacefaring species would have nukes so destroying a city isn't all that impressive

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Yeah, that's kinda my point.

"Destroying a small city" isn't impressive, we can do that now and we don't even have fancy FTL space ships. Now, if a single one of those pew pew lasers had the power to destroy a small city? That'd be a different story, but apparently they're weaker than a shotgun.

Cat Mattress
Jul 14, 2012

by Cyrano4747
Event horizon missiles and singularity bombs.

"so, these create black holes and can swallow entire planets?"

"no, but they can destroy a small city with their shockwaves."

They're just nukes with a tryhard branding.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Spoiler: you don't get to see any of them go off. At least not in this arc.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Here we go again... This is the finale of this arc.

Chapter 1.5



Star Power is captured and blue badlady set up a powerpoint presentation of all her kills. How thoughtful!





Sounds like the galactic defense has figured out Danica is Star Power! Oh no! This means... Something.



She never shuts up about "not wanting to get her hands dirty" but also personally killed her mom and all her soldiers and she is holding a sword right now so ok whatever.

She also explains here why she didn't kill Star Power herself, and hired "pathetic" mercenaries. Because... She was refueling? I guess? That seems like a bad plan, especially when she knows how powerful they are.



Oh NO! But that means... Absolutely nothing to me!



Lol this is such one dimensional villain poo poo right here. They showed "mercy and compassion"! What a fuckin' travesty!

Also she's thousands of years old because of time dilation from her method of space travel... But her civilization created the star powered sentinels, who don't suffer from time dilation... Tiny plot hole!



Oops, sorry, wrong image!



Mitch pops out and resurrects all the star powered sentinels! What a twist, that could be interesting, they'll all be new characters and we'll learn all about-



-oh, they were holograms he created as a distraction. That's ok, we didn't need anything interesting to happen.



Galactic defense shows up! Hooray.



Well except for your mom and all your previous soliders



So, get this...



THERE NEVER WERE ANY STAKES TO ANY OF THIS TO BEGIN WITH. HER GALAXY-CONQUERING ARMY CAN'T EVEN TAKE ON 2 BATTLESHIPS. IT'S NO THREAT AT ALL.

I guess it's honestly a bit of a clever subversion, but MAN, this is so totally in line with Mookie's writing - knock down any sense of danger as swiftly as possible.



And then Star Power knocks her out with one punch.



The coloring on this page really makes it look like Danica's tits, butt and vag are just totally exposed.



Star Power gets zapped by anti-sentinel defenses while trying to disable the robots and has apparently lost her power. Oh no!



YOU loving IDIOT WHY DO YOU KEEP LEAVING THEM WITH THEIR WEAPON AND NOT RESTRAINED



Oops! Boy, that was a real bad plan. Well, she's not dead, so I'm sure she'll come back later.



Danica learns the station survived. We knew long ago - again, gotta nip those stakes in the bud!

Also her secret is out. Why was she hiding it, anyway? Flash back to chapter 1.1...



Holy poo poo, galatic defense sounds like evil bastards! There's actually some stakes now!

Let's have a quick preview of the next chapter:



GOD drat IT MOOKIE

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Aug 24, 2020

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


It is really weird to see mookie writing with competently drawn art. Like some sort of uncanny valley effect.

Thanks for taking the bullet for us, RRR.

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa
How much input did Mookie have on the designs of stuff? Because while the actual execution can be a bit hit or miss with the art, I admit I do kind of like the design of the blue badlady's race.
Besides the fact it's kind of good and, off hand isn't an obvious rip-off of something else, the fact that she's also literally completely flat and isn't stacked also suggests to me that the design was more the artist's than Mookie's.

Mx.
Dec 16, 2006

I'm a great fan! When I watch TV I'm always saying "That's political correctness gone mad!"
Why thankyew!


i hope the artist of star powered has gone on to legit comics because he's got the right style for it

Cat Mattress
Jul 14, 2012

by Cyrano4747

quote:

Born in Known Space, raised by the likes of Lazarus Long, Dr. Susan Calvin, and Lt. Miles Vorkosigan, Garth Graham has only ever partially shared the same reality as most of us. Fascinated by what might be and what isn't, rather than weighed down by the drama of what is, he has forged a tenuous bridge made of ink and paper between our world and some strange unknowable scape where improbable dreams are born. Perhaps it has driven him a little mad. Yet such madness has born fine delectable fruit for our eye organs. His previous works include the webcomics Comedity and Finder's Keepers. In his spare time Garth likes to laugh maniacally about the abstract and fictional concept of “spare time” and does his level best to refute entropy.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

How much input did Mookie have on the designs of stuff? Because while the actual execution can be a bit hit or miss with the art, I admit I do kind of like the design of the blue badlady's race.
Besides the fact it's kind of good and, off hand isn't an obvious rip-off of something else, the fact that she's also literally completely flat and isn't stacked also suggests to me that the design was more the artist's than Mookie's.

If you go to the artist's Twitter you'll find that not only does his linework have a lot more life to it but that he is all about big breasted women.

And surely, the very first arc didn't just end with the unceremonious defeat of the biggest threat in this universe?

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

TheHan posted:


And surely, the very first arc didn't just end with the unceremonious defeat of the biggest threat in this universe?

No, it didn't, it ended with the revelation that that threat was never a threat at all.

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa
I like a shaggy dog story and I think that could actually be a really amusing arc for a comic like this... just, you know, not the first threat the hero faces. But down the line having the hero face a villain that has been built up by other characters only to reveal that they just had really good PR and are entirely a paper tiger could be amusing. You'd just have to do after having already established stakes prior in the comic with other villains, having already challenged the hero properly, and also couldn't take too long doing it since otherwise the buildup will feel less subversive and ironic, and more obnoxious and time-wasting - so I'm not even sure that it could work with a webcomic where things already feel slow by nature of the update schedule.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

Rotten Red Rod posted:

No, it didn't, it ended with the revelation that that threat was never a threat at all.


Shameful admission: I still can't bring myself to read the dialogue, it's like visual teflon. I didn't realize he outright said there was no threat, lmao. In way it's an appropriate bookend for the series.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008

TheHan posted:

Shameful admission: I still can't bring myself to read the dialogue, it's like visual teflon. I didn't realize he outright said there was no threat, lmao. In way it's an appropriate bookend for the series.

Basically all her forces were barely a match for the two ships galactic defense or whatever was able to get there in time, so there was 0 chance of her doing anything more than barely surviving that fight and being finished off by the next ship.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Yeah, like I said, I'm ok with it in concept, but Mookie's writing track record makes it funny to me. Also, note that no other villain has been set up at the end of this arc - the only threats are the loss of her powers and her secret being revealed (and as I showed, one of those threats is nullified pages into the next chapter).

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply