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Rotten Red Rod posted:
This is the excuse they use in Saturday morning cartoons cause you can’t kill with a Y7 rating. I just can’t wrap my head around how someone can create such a complete mess of a story. Just a series of tropes strung up via dialogue.
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Aug 17, 2020 16:09
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Come down to Mookies! Where the guards aren't incompetent, unless they're villains!
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Aug 17, 2020 16:24
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Ok, now that the chapter is over, we get one final epilogue page, and this is why I’ve been beating the drum about the “mystery” of the clones. I present it with no commentary. I hope you find it as funny as I did.   I mean, sure, we didn't find it... in that but I wasn't loving looking there  Rotten Red Rod posted:Eh they're all brainwashed, so they probably do that to normalize their mask use so they always do it in public and conceal the secret (lol). I still have no idea why Dr Cloneshimself cares about other people's dna here. Rotten Red Rod posted:Wait til you find out the reason Robotnik ordered the load of human cargo, it's pretty lol. It's the dumbest reason I could think of, so....
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Aug 17, 2020 16:48
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Zereth posted:...hahahaha Every time I see it I can't help but imagine Mookie making that, quivering in anticipation that his fans will be pouring over every bit of it for the secret information that unravels the big mystery, and then being sorely disappointed because the Star Power audience is like several dozen very undiscerning Deegan fans And then he couldn't let it go, so he makes the reveal to pat himself on the back about how clever he is, and it's just so sad Zereth posted:Hm... wait, are they raw material for the cloning process? No that would actually be a pretty good reason, supervillain-wise. It's way dumber than that. god drat it don't make me want to do another early update, i have my real job to do Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Aug 17, 2020 |
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Aug 17, 2020 17:14
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Wait til you find out the reason Robotnik ordered the load of human cargo, it's pretty lol. I mean it was obviously clones the whole time, but once they mentioned that he was buying smuggled humans from Burke's old boss (Burke is not a first name) I thought it might be possible that he was brainwashing/plastic surgerying them into looking like young, handsome versions of himself perhaps because cloning wasn't 100% online yet, or if it was it wasn't magical sci-fi cloning that let you print out a 30something body, but would produce a genetically identical baby who'd have to age in real time, so would be useless for making a choir quickly. It would also explain why it is possible for a clone to fail its audition, since the various host bodies might have differing abilities to sing physically/mentally, and why Hymn would treat them as disposable. So of course none of that poo poo is the answer. I'm going to guess that he had the human cargo smuggled in to serve as an audience to his first concert to see how good it was, and then he pushed a button on his conductor's baton and the bottom fell out of all the chairs in the mezzanine and dumped the cargo into a pit of alligators to prove how evil he is.
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Aug 17, 2020 19:07
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I fully encourage anyone who hasn't read ahead to keep predicting why he needed to buy human cargo because I can almost guarantee all of them will be wrong and more interesting than what it actually turns out to be.
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Aug 17, 2020 19:13
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Wait wait I think I figured it out. You mentioned that he turns into the Anti-Ozymandias, so I bet he bought all those people to make them make him the cloning technology, then when they finished he killed them to keep his secret safe. Deep down I know I’m wrong cause every time I try to guess what’ll happen next I give Mookie more credit as a writer than he’s earned.
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Aug 17, 2020 19:18
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Shoot. If that's not it, is he just using them as slave labor to maintain the gardens covering the asteroid instead of hiring landscapers? I can't wait for the disappointing answer.
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Aug 17, 2020 19:18
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TheHan posted:Wait wait I think I figured it out. You mentioned that he turns into the Anti-Ozymandias, so I bet he bought all those people to make them make him the cloning technology, then when they finished he killed them to keep his secret safe. Well by anti-Ozymandias I'm referencing the scene where he reveals his master plan after he's already succeeded. Robotnik here reveals his master plan after he's already failed (the Chief had figured out he bought human cargo and galactic forces are on the way to arrest him, in addition to the 3-4 other ways he's going to fail in the next issue).
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Aug 17, 2020 20:00
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Please include what EOC stands for when you do your review, RRR.
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Aug 17, 2020 20:17
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Well by anti-Ozymandias I'm referencing the scene where he reveals his master plan after he's already succeeded. Robotnik here reveals his master plan after he's already failed (the Chief had figured out he bought human cargo and galactic forces are on the way to arrest him, in addition to the 3-4 other ways he's going to fail in the next issue). drat, was pretty sure I tapped into the Mookie Force there. In a weird way I'm excited to see him explain this nonsense? There's no way to predict what'll happen next because events in Mookie Stories occur independent of each other, and even a character's personality will completely flip like they're actors in a play. If you were just reading his comics to read and didn't care about the logic it's probably pretty exciting.
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Aug 17, 2020 20:54
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Rotten Red Rod posted:No that would actually be a pretty good reason, supervillain-wise. It's way dumber than that.
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Aug 17, 2020 21:13
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I fully encourage anyone who hasn't read ahead to keep predicting why he needed to buy human cargo because I can almost guarantee all of them will be wrong and more interesting than what it actually turns out to be. He wants a captive audience for his recitals?
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Aug 17, 2020 21:40
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Zereth posted:No, I mean it'd be real dumb because, like... why not just buy a bunch of pig carcasses or something. Cheaper and much more legal source of raw materials to feed into your human-making 3d printers than actual live humans. Yeah, but it'd be much more evil to need humans for it, and you could probably think up some sci-fi reason for it, like you need like parts to make like parts, etc. But no, it's not that. I can't stand the suspense anymore, I'm gonna work on the next issue right now.
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Aug 17, 2020 22:18
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The Little Death posted:Please include what EOC stands for when you do your review, RRR. Eye of Cthulhu?
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Aug 17, 2020 22:24
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Chapter 5.5 Last guest cover! This one looks a little awkward, but it still has miles more personality than the normal art.  As predicted, Brightman is mad. Come on, I’m still bugged by this. A night of good sex convinced him she’d be cool with this kind of thing? There’s nothing in his character that suggests he’d make this kind of logical leap before.  Ok, here we get the explanation of why cloning is such a bad thing. Basically, there’s a few types of cloning in this universe: cloning organs, which is legal, making a clone of yourself that is essentially born and starts as a newborn (ala Dolly the Sheep), which is legal, and “flash cloning”, which is illegal (and is what Hymn is doing). Flash cloning is the classic scifi cloning that results in a fully formed person, but they are a blank slate and need to be educated, and have a very short lifespan. Here, it’s explained further in this statement from the EOC.  Which, yes, is the Eugenics Oversight Commission. YEP. It’s not, like, the commission on clone rights, or the genetic research board, or whatever, Mookie went right for the word “Eugenics”. Apparently cloning organs for transplants is a form of eugenics – who knew!  Ahh, here’s a nice throwback to Blue Lady! Hymn’s statement is immediately proven false by the next panel.  Oh my god. NOW you figure it out? There’s no other context here, they just SUDDENLY came to this conclusion. I mean, it’s possible there was supposed to be a panel where the rogue singer explains it to them, but it doesn’t seem that way from the dialogue, and Mookie never misses a chance to pad out the comic by restating information.  Now that the Danica clone is formed, Danica and the Star Power are ok again.  Whoopsie!  Double whoopsie!  Danica busts through the ground to rescue Dr. Brightman. Oh, yeah, she’s a real great tool when she’s a crazed uncontrollable killer, sure dude.  This is all Muscle Lizard and Octomom do this issue. Very, very awkwardly state what is happening, what has happened, what they need to do, and how important it is to do it. All in the time it should take them to, you know, do it. And here we get a look at what the drug did to Burke’s speech. A whole page is wasted on this poo poo when they could just jump into the action, we don’t need all this preamble from them.  You thought you were safe from puns during a fight scene??! YOU THOUGHT WRONG  The evil star power kills quite a few clones – there’s way more innocent death here than anywhere else in the comic. Which is pretty funny if you think about the point of this whole thing being that the clones are human and have rights too, but Mookie is more than happy to use them as fodder to show the villains’ power.  He executes his assistant for loving up, which is the first smart thing he’s done in a while.  Burke is just suddenly there and saves the day! Sure, why not.  This panel REALLY annoys me. They would have had to start each of their statement in the previous panel, they would have to both be talking at the same time, and by the number of them that have climbed down, both Star Powers and the doctors probably would have been watching them do it for like half a minute. And it’s SO easily fixed! Just have them shouting “Burke, NO!” offpanel, and then have the first of them just starting to jump down the hole.  And then THIS sequence is Garth’s fault. Wouldn’t the group of people have to be RIGHT NEXT TO the evil Star Power in the first panel? Sorry, this kind of thing really annoys me.  The rogue clone finally corners Hymn with a gun. WHICH IS WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE INSTEAD OF FORCING BURKE TO HELP HIM. But Hymn recites a code phrase that shuts down the clone.  And then Mookie spends an entire page explaining that Hymn used a code phrase to shut down the clone. (To be fair, it’s possible this was a bonus page that didn’t slow down the story, but it still really annoys me as it’s just unnecessary.)  And then it doesn’t actually work. Because god forbid anything Hymn does actually work out and make him a competent villain.  And in this one panel Dr. Brightman does more to stop Dr. Hymn than Danica has done the entire chapter. She’s the true hero of this arc, as far as I’m concerned.  Even in the face of a horrible monster that feels only pain, Danica still stands by her ideals that everyone deserves a chance at redemption.  lol nevermind  Question: since this is a clone of Danica/Star Power, does that mean she’s had the powers we see here all along?  And then, finally, Danica goes against her morals and chooses to end a life. I wonder what Old Tom will say about this?  Hmmm, I see, I see. Thanks for that input, Old Tom! Ok, here we go, here’s the reveal of why Dr. Hymn bought a shipment of people. Drumroll please…  It was to make his assistant. That’s it. He didn’t need the DNA for his singers (as they are all purely him) but he needed the DNA of a person that is better at organizing things than he is. Told you it was dumb! And now let’s find out why he wanted to clone Danica…  Because… He thought he could use the Star Power… To make music? It punches things. All she does is punch. Why would you think that?  Why the gently caress is HE here? He’s a psychologist.  This is pretty much the only reflection we get from Danica on ending a life.  Oh look, it’s Mookie’s favorite storytelling trope. (It kind of works here so I’ll let it slide.)  And then Danica makes up for her actions to Burke with a pizza. Get ready for pizza to not only be a thing with them in the next chapter! In fact it's literally the ONLY thing! Anyway, that’s the chapter. Summing up my thoughts… I think it’s actually one of the BETTER arcs of this comic. The basic idea is an interesting one, and a mystery like this is a fun superhero setting. But the main problem is how drawn out it is. The ENTIRE FIRST ISSUE of the arc is just spent establishing that 1. His music is good, and 2. He is evil, and 3. The crew is invited to his estate. You could have established that in ONE page. Maybe TWO. Maybe they’re already on the way to his estate in a shuttle, and Brightman is talking about he’s her favorite artist, and how great it is that he wanted to meet Danica, etc. Burke isn’t there, drop the human cargo thing, and have the crew actually have to work out the mysteries themselves as they notice things are off. It could be a fun little compact story, maybe a 2-parter. But no, it took an entire year, because Mookie has to establish details and then re-establish and then re-establish and then restate things and then tell us them then show us them then tell us again, etc. etc. etc. UGH. There’s just no economy of story telling. Anyway, next time, get ready for… 
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Aug 17, 2020 23:22
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So, uh First, why are Danica’s powers genetic, she’s a space cyborg plugged into a space machine Second, why do they have a xenomorph option Third, why is the result of a blank slate with her powers a violent lunatic Fourth, are we ever going to address why Danica was mindlinked with her clone somehow
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Aug 17, 2020 23:48
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Mors Rattus posted:So, uh 1. Dunno, it's space magic. I'm actually ok with that. 2. Dunno lol 3. Dunno lol. This page attempts to explain it: But it doesn't explain why this doesn't happen to the other clones. 4. Space magic again. I actually am the most ok with this, it could be explained as the Star Power being bisected and ripped out of her. But there there's apparently no implications for a being with half the Star Power being killed...? Does Danica get the power back? What happens to that body and the left over Star Power? We don't find out.
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Aug 17, 2020 23:56
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You know, you guys are starting to convince me that this Mookie person isn't a very good writer.
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Aug 18, 2020 00:20
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See, this could have been that classic superhero thing - “huh my powers are actually terrifying huh” and given that they were explicitly made by weird blue noodle people imperialists, maybe the original star power requires their genetics/space heredity thing to activate? Maybe Danica is no longer entirely human, and has a whole suite of biomonster powers she’s never used because she didn’t know she could do the weird extension arms? This could even be fused with why the clone was ‘evil’ and psychic - the blue noodle people are psychic and their shock trooper design had raw bloodlust in it, so a blank version goes Xenomorph. All of which would ultimately lead to the idea that the imperialism of the Bad Noodle Aliens is present and tempting to Danica, that she is always tempted to just use her power to make other people behave properly. Then this becomes a metaphor for how she, a Federation citizen, needs to take both care and moral clarity when intervening elsewhere in the universe to avoid becoming an imperialist monster... something we’ve already seen her start to lean towards. Ultimately, this could work pretty well if the noodle people were an actual threat, if the comic had a concept of imperialism at all, if Star Power’s Star Powers mattered, and if the character were written compellingly or, really, at all as a character.
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Aug 18, 2020 00:29
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Well hey, I was wrong. Danica solved the problem herself and the military just showed up to make the arrests, instead of coming in and solving the problem for everyone. There's even the suggestion at lasting trauma! Which I'm sure will never get brought up again except for like half a line of dialogue. This was almost not bad, but the non-existent pacing and wasting a villain by ensuring they are totally defeated immediately just deflates it so much. These chapters did a good job at tying Hymn to the cast emotionally, that's not a character you should throw away!
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Aug 18, 2020 00:47
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Technically, yeah, Danica did stop Hymn before the military got there, but they were coming anyway. Even if Hymn's plan went off without a hitch, and the clone didn't go crazy, he was still going to be arrested soon. Also while Danica didn't end things, she literally did nothing helpful until the bad clone appeared. Hell, NONE of the crew did. The only person making any progress was the good clone, the rest of them just fell into the solution at the very last minute.
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Aug 18, 2020 00:52
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Also... what is the point of Dr. Hymn? “Even in a decent society, one without formal hierarchies of power and oppression, individuals can accumulate personal influence and be abusive fucks” is what I’d think this character means for this story, but the society doesn’t actually not have hierarchies of abuse and power and his particular mode of oppression isn’t even a little reflective of anything but wild supervillainy. It’s just totally pointless. In theory the Federation is the utopia and the societies beyond are the place the Star Power is needed, but the Federation contains Dr. Hymn and he’s wildly successful, so this story instantly disproved the claim that the Federation is somehow inherently perfectly good and on top of things, and could never fall into cruelty or empire. There is human trafficking in this society! It is not without the potential for evil!
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Aug 18, 2020 01:14
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Nah, the federation isn't a utopia, and has plenty of inequality and corruption, we learn that in the next chapter.
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Aug 18, 2020 01:17
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Nah, the federation isn't a utopia, and has plenty of inequality and corruption, we learn that in the next chapter. Oh, that’s a surprise, given the whole “our society is fundamentally good and we can never become an empire” schtick from the psych officer facing the noodle lady. That very much came off as saying ‘our society is great and the Star Power is totally not needed inside the Federation’ since that was, y’know, the explicit take-away of Danica et al.
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Aug 18, 2020 01:22
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Yeah it's a surprise because Mookie straight up changed his mind, lol And he wanted to tell a noir gangster story. Edit: Actually, what's coming up next is Mookie's issue, which I just read for the first time, and HO LEEE poo poo, it is PRIME Mookie. It's real, real bad. Oh man. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 01:27
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See, if the point from the start had been to slowly reveal that actually the Federation isn't perfect and that they're on the brink of becoming an empire, that would be pretty solid! It wouldn't work as a cape comic with totally distinct issues because no way people reading issue by issue remember blue noodle lady, but if it were better structured I could see 'space opera superhero realizes own society is deeply imperfect, and aspires to be their own ideals within and without' coming out as a decent story? But also I think all that's happening is I'm seeing the flaws in Mookie's ideology in real time and saying 'if this were being done on purpose, and to a purpose, that could be pretty cool' which isn't exactly shocking.
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Aug 18, 2020 01:54
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I honestly thought you were joshing me and I actually managed to guess the reason Hymn was trafficking humans, cause what else could it have been? Even a catastrophically lovely writer would be smart to rip off one of the most famous superhero comics while also making it worse. The explanation doesn't even gel with what we learned about cloning in THIS chapter, Hymn taught her everything she knows! Or were organizational skills in her DNA? And while it isn't his worst story, I think this is some of his worst character writing. Hymn especially is all over the place. He's smug as hell right to the end but not once does dude have a handle on the situation. Every decision he made led directly to his downfall! The main characters could've gone straight home and it wouldn't have changed how the arc ended. The secondary characters just sit in the background and drool until it's time for them to shamble to the final battle, if there was nothing for them to do this arc why did Mookie go out of his way to have Hymn invite 6 COPS to his mansion full of crimes? Ok one more minor thing here that bugged me... You're just gonna stuff Clone Danica's corpse in a glass box like some silly putty? Are clones considered biowaste or people? Mookie keeps writing these scenes where people who have spent generations among aliens of all different shapes and sizes react with fear and disgust the second an alien deviates from the human mold. It doesn't even look like it was a matter of convenience, Clone Danica had more bones and muscles when she died! It's not like she melted.
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Aug 18, 2020 02:03
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It kinda felt like this was a Dr. Brightman arc, she seemed kinda more important and related to the story than Danica did. And that's not bad, a story arc about one of the side characters is generally a good thing, but naturally the entire thing was muddled and... poorly developed.
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Aug 18, 2020 02:08
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Mors Rattus posted:So, uh also that's a real stupid reason to dip your toes in human trafficing
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Aug 18, 2020 02:09
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I really thought the reason Doctor Noise was buying human cargo was so he'd have a permanent audience and I'm unhappy my idea is less stupid than reality.
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Aug 18, 2020 02:55
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Nah, the federation isn't a utopia, and has plenty of inequality and corruption, we learn that in the next chapter. But it’s too nice to require the Star Power still, I’m sure.
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Aug 18, 2020 03:45
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It's a real shame you can't just get DNA from people using methods that don't involve, you know, human trafficking.
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Aug 18, 2020 06:45
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It is sort of incredibly on point for Mookie to write a story where basic organizational skills are a rare inborn genetic trait though.
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Aug 18, 2020 06:53
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Zore posted:It is sort of incredibly on point for Mookie to write a story where basic organizational skills are a rare inborn genetic trait though. And they could only be found in a woman, naturally. I wouldn't normally bring this up but his mommy issues keep cropping up in each relationship he portrays in the comics.
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Aug 18, 2020 07:16
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Joe Slowboat posted:Ultimately, this could work pretty well if the noodle people were an actual threat, if the comic had a concept of imperialism at all, if Star Power’s Star Powers mattered, and if the character were written compellingly or, really, at all as a character. YF-23 posted:This was almost not bad, but the non-existent pacing and wasting a villain by ensuring they are totally defeated immediately just deflates it so much. These chapters did a good job at tying Hymn to the cast emotionally, that's not a character you should throw away! It's common for role-playing gamers, especially young ones who're more into the "game" aspect than the "role-playing" part, to want their characters to be so awesome that they succeed instantly and definitely. Notably any sort of recurring villain being allowed to recur is seen as a personal defeat. Imagine Ash and Misty going on a quest to murder Jessie and James. Mookie got his start in webcomics by drawing the adventures of his player character he was so enamored with that the rest of the group kicked him out. So it was quite heavy in that power fantasy dynamic of having the perfect hero who's never wrong and who wins decisively. Mookie did hit Dominic Deegan with a few setbacks, so he had to have known those were important for a story, that the hero has to struggle to make the victory more rewarding, but he never really accepted that. And with Star Power, it's the same thing. Black Hole Bill escapes once but his second defeat sticks. Empress Noodle-Nor or whatever her name was is defeated and then reappears in the story only to emphasize that she's no longer a threat. (I mean really what was the story point of these scenes with the psych ops guy? They were there just to introduce this character and establish the MilFed is Good, Actually. Noodle-Nor is then forgotten about. She killed her own race to replace them with robots, she could have been a tech genius who'd hack the prison starship from her jail cell because "ha, your pathetic primitive technology is no match to my noodly appendages" or something like that and start to take over the milfed in a technological coup...) And likewise with Hymn. He's defeated, game over (for him).
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Aug 18, 2020 08:10
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Here's the Star Power Holiday Special - it's really short and wordless, so I'm just dumping it without commentary. I highly recommend reading it as Mookie's depictions of the Star Power cast are VERY funny.       Coming up next is The Heavy Metal Showdown! I'm excited, I think it's possibly one of the worst things he's ever done. It's unquestionably the worst Star Power issue. 
Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 13:38
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I think it's possibly one of the worst things he's ever done good lord that's ominous
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Aug 18, 2020 14:10
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Nimmel and Snowsong had a baby. Also yes lol. Going to look up the heavy metal showdown is what convinced me this thread needed to look at Star Power. It is the prototypical Mookie story.
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Aug 18, 2020 14:19
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So something that's been bugging me a bit but I wasn't able to put my finger on it before now; referring to all this stuff, from classical composers to Lynyrd Skynyrd as "ancient Earth music". Like obviously this story is set in the far future but... where's the future music? Obviously you have Hymn's stuff because he's the villain of the Also did mookie never notice that Danica still has pupils when she's in star power form? Those empty eyes are horrible.
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Aug 18, 2020 14:25
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