Today, Chapter Nineteen comes to a close. More than any other chapter, I think this one may be best read in one sitting. You can start it at the beginning right here.
This has been, for me anyway, a vastly different chapter from any we’ve done before. I was going through old SuperFogeys files just the other day and I was struck by how much character and little moments of asides are thrown into each and every strip. There’s action and humor, but the real meat and potatoes of a good SuperFogeys strip is really the character stuff.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this chapter was devoid of character stuff, but it certainly took more of a back seat to exposition than any other we’ve done previously. That was by design, a conscious choice. The decks needed to be cleared in a sense. There were so many balls up in the air and so many questions that it got to a point where it just didn’t make sense anymore for the characters to not just sit down and TALK. So, they did. And you guys found out a lot about how the SuperFogeys universe is constructed and why things are the way they are.
For some of you this was exciting and revelatory. Others chafed as the revelations unfolded. With each new reveal of secret hands behind the scenes, you either got up in arms because you felt like the characters were losing autonomy, or you saw how it settled questions and confirmed suspicions you’d long held. Watching the two sides duke it out in the comments was one of my favorite things this chapter.
In the end, I don’t think there was any kind of consensus. I hope those of that are questioning the current direction of the strip will give things a chance to play out.
Part of what I was trying to accomplish with this chapter was to present two opposing world views by literalizing them within the universe (or multiverse) of the comic. There is Earth-Abaddon and there is Earth-Avalon. The dark and the light. The cynical and the optimistic.
In one, the world is not governed by anything more than the actions of those within it, for good or ill.* In the other, goodness holds ultimate sway and the universe is ordered around it.
The question that I think is worth asking–the one I’m trying to get at in my small, ridiculous way with this chapter and SuperFogeys as a whole–is this: which world do we live in?
Well, which is it?
What do you think?
Monday: A piece of teaser art for what’s to come and a special announcement about the radically different way you’ll be reading SuperFogeys in the future.
*It’s worth pointing our here–because I’ve seen that some misunderstand this–Thrice Evil has NOT as yet implemented the Edict of Chaos. He needs to get to Earth-Abaddon in order to do that and he hasn’t made it over there yet.
How.. Interesting.. Star Maiden.. Obviously evil one… Has her personalities finally merged and balanced each other? Or is this the same one that killed oh so many politicians…
Please be the latter, we need to give her a medal
Well this changes everything as I wonder what made Star Maiden want to switch sides so suddenly ?
I also wonder if it’s due to the alternate Thrice evil’s appearance in that world ?
OK, there’s got to be some story to why she’s changing sides.
The Truth? The entirety of our reality is the backdrop for a story about 6 puppies raised by a cat that happened 27 years ago.
On the bright side, I’m probably lying.
We’ve seen hints that Dark/Star Maiden was wising up and growing tired of arrangement with Zurida, but this was still a suprise. I think Zurida’s apparent eagerness for the arrival of Avalon Thrice to rule by her side was the last straw. The deal was that they ruled together, and even Dr. Rocket seemed more like Zurida’s consort than an equal partner. While she might be unstable , even Pilatius and Bezuel couldn’t control Dark/Star and very carefully manipulate her based off of her psychological weaknesses. Also, while she was a tyrant and did terrible things, Dark Maiden also never came off as just being gratuitously evil as Zurida can. Zurida, as I see it, is all about power interprets the ability to inflict violence and cruelty as symbol of it. Even when she was originally Dark Maiden, Star/Dark always seemed to me to be more motivated by a desire for recognition and acceptance, in a more “if I can’t make someone love me, I’ll make everyone worship me” way that seems to motivate a lot of dictators. Zurida seems to have her own deeply repressed need for emotional attachment funneled into her obsession with finding the most powerful man possible to be her mate and her smothering relationship with Percy. Given the warped set of value by which Zurida judges things, after everything Avalon Thrice has done, he is her ideal man. If her eagerness for him to arrive wasn’t faked, then it’s was her ideal husband obsession causing her to get sloppy by spurning Dr. Rocket and revealing how little regard she had for her “co-ruler” Dark Maiden.
My apologies, I seem to have omitted a couple of words and used improper tenses. Apparently I can’t type and eat soup at the same time as well as I thought I could.