Cavalry’s here.
Also, in case you missed it last week – New Vote Incentive!
More below!
Bobservations
Kids In Jeopardy
Like any dad, seeing kids in danger makes me cringe. And it’s not just conditioning from years of working in animation, either. True, that was one of the big red flags in the business, but it had caveats. Kids could be in danger if it was accidental, or because of something unwise that they themselves had done. But a direct and deliberate threat of physical harm against kids, even by villains, was generally not permitted. About all we could do was threaten to “imprison them forever” or perhaps “enslave their minds.” Which almost seems worse when you really think about it, but that’s FCC logic for you.
There was a time when I used to chafe under these restrictions, because I was young and snotty and didn’t care about anything.
Then I had kids of my own.
Man, does that change your attitude.
I still haven’t seen Schindler’s List, mainly because I’ve heard it starts right out with a bunch of prisoners — including women and children — getting machine-gunned. Now, I realize this is all based on history and I’m not denying it happened in real life or anything, but I’m a dad. I can’t see that. Scenes like that just enrage me. I want to climb into the screen and stop it from happening and I can’t. That’s just how you get wired, once you become a dad. You get this sudden firmware update that puts you into protective overdrive, and even though both my boys are now fully grown, that instinct never really goes away.
Unfortunately, along with that protective instinct comes real life, and in real life accidents happen. Some of them can be nightmare fodder. I have a friend who was late for work, dashed from the house, jumped in the car, sped backward out of the garage, and came within a heartbeat of running over his own baby girl who had chased him out for a goodbye kiss. The worst didn’t happen, but my friend has never forgotten the terror as he slammed on the brakes at the last second.
As for myself, when Max-The-Artist was a toddler, we had gotten a load of firewood dumped in the driveway. Huge oak logs that I was tossing one-by-one into the garage for stacking while Max scampered around collecting sticks and twigs. I picked up one particularly large log and because it was so heavy, gave it an extra-hard sling. It went a bit too high, smashed against the top of the garage door frame, and rebounded off. It sailed within an inch of Max’s head and crunched into the driveway hard enough to crack the concrete. Max never even noticed, but I almost fainted on the spot. Another second, another inch… I don’t like to think about it. But I still do, sometimes, usually late at night when I wake up in a cold sweat.
I have other stories. All dads do. But that’ll do for now.
In real life, you do the best you can and just hope everything works out okay. Sometimes it doesn’t, because real life is out of your control. In real life, the worst can happen.
But this is a comic. Yes, there’s a kid in jeopardy, and from his own dad, even. But we’re running this show. This is our world.
And in our world – there are heroes.
— Bob out
Love the new vote incentive! Letoa is such a badass.
I love how Letoa, Fynch, and Max are in a 3-way battle to find and kill/incarcerate each other. I love stories like that, where different parties are trying to figure out who the other is. Just like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarte, or L and Kira!
BOOM! Max in in da HIZZO! I bet UD3 broadcasted in LA that there was a situation in New York, and are testing to see if they can lure Countdown out.
Yes, we’re hoping to have some fun with that!
Ooh, fun with Letoa being a badass? Fun with Letoa, Fynch, and Max in a 3-way rivalry? Or fun with UD3 attempting to lure out Countdown?
Let me guess: all of the above? (◔ ◡ ◔)
Bob,
I also feel the same way about seeing children put in bad situations. It’s why I can’t do Naruto or Attack on Titan :-\
And yet you and your kids play with explosives, which would drive most parents not only up the wall but over the roof.
Of course, I may be slightly biased, given some of my previous pyrotechnic escapades/accidental arson attempts.
Then again, one of my cousins saw her kids playing with sparklers last weekend and flipped out. And then she grabbed them by the hot end and now has second degree burns on her palms. Apparently, she hasn’t forgotten what happened to her dollhouse.
You want your kids to be safe, but you don’t want them to be wusses either. It’s a balancing act.
Did she grab it because her mother flipped out or just for the heck of it?
Let’s put it like this: The sparking (heh) incident in our youth involved the lesson that roman candles are not for indoor use, even if you take the screen off of the window you’re shooting from.
What I still want to know is who’s stupid idea was it to give her kids fireworks.
I can see why. Also thank you for answering me.
The man is like a bad penny, I swear. I just hope the kinetic compensator can take the strain.
Damn Bob,
I thought I was immune to all that and hard assed and all that but just reading your Dad-ness made a bunch of miniature, invisible, onion-cutting ninjas appear in my cubicle. Damn you! 😛
I suspected as much, but now we have it confirmed there is no essential range on how far they can push him in that state before he pops back out so not only is he functionally unkillable while he’s on scene he also can be onscene anywhere anytime, in theUnited States, in another country, possibly even on another planet if you could do the math.
I suspect the teleport is limited to the speed of light, so while hitting a city on the other side of the contenent is no big deal, ‘porting to another world would take awhile to do. Then again, I could be wrong, given the four dimensional nature of the gate. Plus, you know, Wormholes. *Waves hands.*
Okay, somehow the situation apparently got the ‘countdown’ team’s attention.
Not that this isn’t bad enough. I just think it’d wouldn’t get the attention in LA from San Diego or San Francisco. LA has situations like this too often to NOT have one occurring while this is happening.
New York just seems stretching credibility too far.
That’s exactly the two thoughts I began building up since one or two pages ago, but I thought that this “somehow” would be explained. Time was/is a critical factor here, the strike team surely wouldn’t have time to discuss matters – but how would they learn about it in the first place? Now I hope this will get explained afterwards…
And indeed:
That, word for word. Or even worse situations anywhere nearer to LA than this place.
Apropos… aiming the strike gate at a point within the flat in question over such a long distance…? I begin to get curious about the tech used (in principle of course 😉 ) to do that.*
*: It reminds me of an old SF story I read once, I remember the title as “Die Friedensmaschine” but it’s not “The Peace Machine” by Bob Shaw and I don’t remember the author. Story in short: Scientists stumble upon the principle of an energy weapon that can fire at any point on earth and ponder how they could could use it to bring peace to the world, once and for all. They finally do it in a way that
– the energy weapon will automatically fire at any rocket that crosses the borders of the USA – from either side.
– it will automatically fire at any copy of itself as soon as it is switched on, either on earth or in space as far as it can reach before getting unprecise.
There were a few more, including good reasons for the USA to maintain the machine. I need to re-read it.
Sounds like a story I’d like.
I believe the story was _The Genesis Machine_ by James P Hogan. Good stuff, IMO.
excellent. Thanks
Hmm, I just read some descriptions about it online and they sound rather unfamiliar. I can’t say for sure, but it seems unlikely. Also, written in 1978, that seems too young. Well, I still have the book, just not here where I am now. I hope I remember next time I get to it.
*Bloosh* hehe.