#jon begins so detached from humanity as a human but the further

[peachcitt]

me: listening to tma again will just make me sad and frustrated especially in s2 because jon makes every bad decision possible

s2 jon: (spies on his coworkers’ houses)

me: fucking freak. tell me more

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives Season 4 Binge-a-thon (Contains spoilers through the finale)

I’m back!  Life and work have been crazy, but I really wanted to binge the half-season since I last listened in order to get in on the season finale.  It’s been quite the experience.  The last time I binged TMA was season 1, since I started listening at the beginning of season 2.  I had really wondered which way was better listening: twenty minutes every week, having things play out gradually, or in one huge go.

I have to say, things flow really well as one run-through binge.  I couldn’t say I hands-down prefer doing it this way, but that the structure really holds up as a binge.  Plus, the evolving storyline begins to run at a less gradual pace.  The build-up of tension is strong, and I really ended up enjoying my binge.  

I think part of the danger of listening to each week is that you get lost in the minutia.  It lets you pick over everything, which can be great, but it can also be frustrating.  The character choices are that much more maddening when you have to wait a week to see how things turn out (and one character in particular in this latter half of season 4 I found particularly frustrating, so I think that listening week by week to that would have been a challenge).  

I figured I’d go through some thoughts on the episodes, starting with where I left off at ‘Decrypted’ and going from there.  I’ll be talking about episodes in little chunks as I go, with random comments in each section:

Decrypted, Infectious Doubts, Threshold

It’s interesting how much the Lonely was infecting the whole Institute at this stage in the story, although during these episodes it seemed like everyone hadn’t quite noticed it.  Or they’d gotten so used to it during Jon’s coma that they stopped noticing how bad things were getting.  

Listening now, it seems like Basira got hit the hardest, and that combines with the fact that she also seems to notice it the least.  While in season 3 she was the level-headed one, here she’s trying to take that level-headedness too far.  She wants all the answers so she can make the best decisions, but she refuses to wait for answers, and she refuses to acknowledge that those answers might be complicated.

The Lonely may also be the explanation for her detachment.  As in the plot as she is, she’s desperate to not engage emotionally with any of it.  Even Daisy seems to be held at arms-length, and Jon is labeled a monster without any unpacking of that term or what it would mean.  She also seems to refuse to address how close Jon and Daisy’s behaviors have been, at their worst, and that Jon is in the throes of his hunger, while Daisy was starved of hers forcibly.  She chooses to remain calm and chooses to work to overcome the Hunt, but her initial detox program was very much not of her own choosing.  She has simply chosen to stick to it, to embrace the good thing that came out of her imprisonment in the Buried.  Jon is struggling because he’s not being forcibly weaned, and no amount of Basira calling him a monster is going to prompt him to stop.  

I think that Basira, at this point, is perhaps the most blinkered of the characters.  She’s so focused on results that she refuses to do any sort of self-inventory.  She’s so convinced of her own rationality that she misses the places where she’s irrational: Jon has always been a semi-threat to her, so she can much more easily slide into thinking of him as a monster.  Daisy, on the other hand, was her partner; someone she trusted and cared about.  It’s much harder to look at someone you love and call them a monster.  She can see the shades of gray in Daisy, but it’s easier to ignore them in Jon.

As much as I think Basira likes to think of herself as the rational one, I think Melanie and Daisy fit that better at this point.  Both have passed through their own marking by one of the powers, and both have had their own time as monsters.  And that gives them both an outsider’s perspective on the situation, and an insider’s perspective.  And both had to be forcibly wrenched away from their respective powers.  As much as Melanie resents being torn away against her will, without any say in how it happened, she now has the perspective to look at Jon’s monstrousness as both something very not good, but something complicated.  Her own feelings toward Jon are complicated.  He helped her, but he took away her free will to do it.  He’s a monster, but so was she.  

Daisy is even further along that path of understanding, having been given a LOT of time to think in the Buried about herself and her choices.  She understands far more than Melanie, and far far more than Basira how the lines between monster and personal choice blur until there is no hard line between them.  She has to own all her choices, because she may have been deep in the hunt, but being chosen by a power often happens because you love it as much as you fear it.  With perspective, she knows that her choices were awful.  That she was awful.  But in that moment, she chose the Hunt every time.

She wants to help Jon and Martin, but also knows that people need to want her help before it can really be given.  I think that’s why she left as soon as Martin told her to go.  If he wanted to reject her help, she couldn’t stop him.

Melanie is also embracing perspective, choosing to go to therapy.  Choosing to make herself better.  If she’s doing that, her demand that Jon also do better carries more weight.  He’s not yet wrenched free, but he like Daisy still has choices to make.  They’re just a lot harder when he’s inside looking out.

Jon, of course, is deep into his own monsterhood, his guilt, and his isolation.  The guilt is keeping him at least a little grounded, but the isolation is definitely not helping him not become a monster.  People overcoming addiction have to make the choice themselves, yes, but they also need support.  They need people to hold them accountable, but also know what they’ve been through so genuinely useful advice can be given.  Confronting Jon was necessary to prevent him descending further, but I feel like Daisy’s understanding and Melanie’s therapy probably helped more than Basira’s “You’re a monster; don’t eat people” statement.  

Martin wasn’t in any of these episodes, but he continues to reach out in ways that keep him at as much of an emotional arm’s length as Basira, simply without any of the confrontation.  He gave the tape to Daisy and the others after he found out about Jon feeding on people, but didn’t confront him himself.  He’s avoiding all contact with people, making it ‘easier’.  He may have a plan, but he’s also deeply infected by the Lonely.  Like Basira, I wonder if he has much perspective on himself.  They both think they’re playing things smart, but they both seem to be missing glaring parts of the world closing in around them.

Weaver, Extended Surveillance, Concrete Jungle

Jon’s addiction is tied into desire, and also into terror, and also it’s as much a choice as it is for people addicted to drugs to take their next hit.  They do know it’s not good for them, but they make the choice, because it feels good, because they love it as much as they hate it.  And that analogy, in spite of never being directly brought up in these  episodes, continues to be driven home by the statements he reads.  A relationship with an addiction is complicated, and is often used as a substitute for something else initially.  How much of Jon’s embracing of the Eye was originally driven by his terror of the Web, deep seated and still child-like?  I think he fears Annabel Caine more than any other avatar, because she strikes at his worst fear: to be manipulated, to be pushed back to his childhood helplessness, to be lured and consumed against his will.  Isn’t it better, from his perspective, to be consumed by his will, by a power he knows and in many ways loves?

One thing I’ve noticed is that the people who are servants of powers embrace those powers as much as they fear them.  It’s not a new revelation to say that Jude Perry loves the Desolation, or that Jane Prentiss both loved and feared the Corruption.  But seeing that in Jon is harder, because he has something that they seemed to lack: moral qualms about what he’s doing.  He can acknowledge that the Beholding is as bad as any of the others, but how much of that is an intellectual acknowledgement?  How much of him revels in the Knowing in a way in the same way Jane reveled in the song of the hive?

But of course, in his isolation, he’s struggling to hold onto those intellectual moral qualms, when the hunger is so strong.  He can recognize the justifications for harm in other monsters, and even in himself, but his recognition isn’t the visceral pull that the hunger is.  And with a very rickety support system, it feels almost inevitable that he’ll tip over and feed again.  His one saving grace right now seems to be that his skill at analysis is just as powerful when turned against himself as it is when it’s turned outside.  He knows he’s slipping.  He knows that he no longer cares as much about investigation, about the victims of statements, as he does getting his next story, his next hit.  And no amount of admonishment is going to stop that craving.  

The other thing that seems to keep him anchored is Martin, but that’s an anchor growing more and more distant, closer to his intellectual understanding and further away from the deep-seated emotional attachment that might be enough to overcome the hunger.  Jon is continually concerned about Martin, wondering how he is to anyone who will listen.  I think of Gertrude being Agnes’ anchor, both holding one another to the world.  That was done to them, but I have to wonder if Martin and Jon have started anchoring one another simply through affinity.  Martin is trying to cut off all ties, but he keeps looking out for Jon.  He can’t help but try to keep Jon good and as human as possible.

The conversation between Georgie and Martin was interesting.  Georgie has chosen to help Melanie because Melanie isn’t as deep in it as Jon, and because Melanie is actively seeking therapy and help.  Georgie seems firmly in the camp that she’s willing to help, but will only help those actively helping themselves.  And I get that.  She is an outsider reaching in.  And she needs to protect herself as well; she’s right that tying oneself to Jon is probably going to get one killed.  She’s not obliged to die for him, or for anyone.  And from her perspective, he isn’t even reaching for the ropes being thrown to him.  

Contrast that with Martin’s perspective, which is that Jon needs help, and that waiting until he helps himself could be disastrous.  This is also right, but the problem is that if Jon is drowning, Martin isn’t really getting in the water any more than Georgie is.  He’s avoiding Jon, but is offended that Georgie is doing the same.  I can only hope she held up a mirror to his own decisions.  He’s choosing to protect himself every bit as much as he’s ‘falling on the grenade’ in order to try and stop the Extinction.  And trying to protect Jon from afar is as much a defense of himself as what Georgie is doing.  Both are reasonable.  Jon is self-destructing.  But Martin was also right that he needs help.  And for someone to help Jon, they almost certainly have to wade into all the danger that being around him entail.  Georgie’s decision not to be that person is frankly the healthier decision.  No one owes anyone drowning with them.  But that’s a decision each person has to make: how much are they willing to help?  How much of a life-line do they throw?  Georgie has helped, but also protects herself and respects Melanie for doing the same.  Daisy is helping a decent amount because she’s been there, and with a few bad days she could end up right back where Jon is.  It’s why people with addictions are often the ones to help others with addiction.  You sort of have to understand it from the inside.

Martin doesn’t know he understands it from the inside, because he doesn’t realize how much he’s falling to the Lonely.  Disappearing whenever personal confrontation occurs isn’t healthy.  He was an open wound of caring and emotion before, so it’s understandable that he’s swinging the pendulum to be less vulnerable, but he’s swung it too hard, and he’s drifting away.  And as much as he wants to help Jon, he’s not.  If he really wants to be Jon’s anchor, he has to be willing to open up all his emotional wounds again.  And he has to make that hard decision knowing how much it could cost him.  Or he has to let go entirely.  He’s in limbo, Jon anchoring him, but the tie between them is frayed.

‘Cul-de-Sac’ offered up a way to take hold of that tie and make it strong again.  The Lonely very nearly claimed the narrator as a victim, but in the moment he was almost totally lost to it, a call from his husband and the words “I love you” brought him back.  It gave him a way out, and as much as he believes he has to trust Martin’s decisions regarding his work with the Lonely, he also knows that the Lonely is seductive, that it has you do its work for it, that Martin is plagued with self-doubt and self-esteem issues, and that the Lonely is feeding on that.  Jon is trying to trust, but Jon also needs to reach out and help, just as much as Martin needs to do the same, if they both choose to take that route.

Basira has also apparently not made any real choice regarding whether or not she’ll help Jon.  She continues to be around Jon, but isn’t helping.  She’s very intelligent, but increasingly … black-and-white, which makes her blinkered.  And Elias was right: it also is making her predictable.  It’s like she’s trying to be more like Daisy as Daisy becomes more like Basira used to be.  But her taking a harsh tone with Jon and telling him ‘just don’t do it’ is likely to go exactly as well as everyone who’s ever told a drug addict to just stop.  Stopping is usually the hardest thing an addict ever has to do, and increasingly, Basira seems to want things to just happen.  If Daisy has learned patience, Basira has lost hers.  And that means that she also seems like she’s lost perspective.

And then there’s Melanie.  I really like that Melanie is sort of taking the middle-road of Georgie’s approach and Daisy’s.  She’s stuck there, and she’s still interacting with Jon.  Hell, her reactions to him pulling facts out of the ether are more like frustrated rolling of eyes than genuine anger at this point.  But she’s also unapologetic that helping the Eye—whether it be passively or actively—is wrong.  For her own good, she’s opting out.  She knows she could get sick.  She knows she could die.  But she is making a choice.  And like Georgie, I can respect that choice.  

Elias continues to be an evil delight.  Seriously, what a fantastic villain.  He gloats, he’s gleeful, but also urbane and intelligent.  The little moments of vulnerability sometimes feel like manipulation, so it’s hard to tell exactly how much he could be damaged.  He, of all people, seems to have taken Annabel’s advice to heart.  He is always either under- or overestimated.  And that just makes him fun.

Big Picture, A Gravedigger’s Envy, Love Bombing

Simoooon!!!  My favorite wacky wizard is just as much a delight as I had expected.  He’s a ton of fun.  He’s old and he’s full of joy, and he’s horrible.  He’s my favorite.  I also managed to predict that he was centuries old!  So pleased to find that out.  

It’s interesting to find out that so much of the rituals are bound up in the feeling and the fear.  All the ways the powers manifest or work are based on those feelings.  So rituals are made up because they ‘feel’ right, and it seems like they all fail because none of them genuinely generate the fear necessary to bring one power into ascendance over the others.  It seems that the balance is not only something most are dedicated to, but that it’s harder to upset on a global scale than people thought.  Robert Smirke, for example, seemed to think that the world was balanced on a knife’s edge, one second away from falling to a power.  And every fear took a cue from him and generated a ton of rituals.  But none of them have worked.  Because the truth definitely seems to be that none of them know what they’re doing.  They’re groping around for greater meaning, when it’s all really based on feelings and impressions.  That may make Simon one of the most effective avatars, as well as one of the most sanguine with the way the world works.  He’s not trying too hard to make the Vast win because he’s realized how difficult and potentially pointless that might be.

The end of ‘Big Picture’ has another confrontation between Basira and someone, this time Martin.  She’s taking the same tack with him as she did with Jon: telling him she doesn’t trust him, that he’s an idiot for working with Peter, etc.  Again, acting as Daisy might once have done, and again, I don’t see that she accomplished much.  She let Martin know that Jon’s heard of the Extinction, that he trusts Martin, and that’s about it.  Beyond that, they’re much in the same position.  Whatever her goals are in this situation, they’re either escaping me, or she has no real goals aside from being angry at everyone around her for not being as useful to her as she wants them to be.

Helen, on the other hand, is as helpful and delightful as Simon, while being just as dangerous and malicious.  She’s becoming more and more the Distortion, less an less Helen as she lets go of her guilt and embraces the feeding and the hunger.  She’s Jon’s ally, but is also unpredictable and is clearly playing her own game, learning the maze under the Archives, but refusing to let him in on what lies at its heart.  Their discussion about Jane Prentiss, about choice, throws more light on Jon’s choices.  

And the thing that sets him apart from the other monsters: his guilt, his burning humanity.  And his connection to others.  She looks at this as temporary.  Not the feelings, which may well persist, but the effect those feelings have had on his actions.  And I think that’s the hard truth that Basira has failed to impart as an outsider: Helen, as an insider to being a monster, gets that there is no hard line between the one-you-were and the one-you-are.  She gets that being a monster is as subjective as the powers or the rituals are.  It’s about feeling.  And Jon clings to his feelings and his connections.  And because of this he’s been finding excuses for his behavior.  But he still chooses it.  He knows that he shouldn’t want the drugs, but he keeps giving in to the temptation before the guilt spiral starts over again.  They all choose, and their choices may be guided by having no good alternatives, but the choice has always been his.  Of course he gets to keep what makes him fundamentally Jon, because Jon is the perfect Archivist.  He didn’t need personality traits grafted onto him.  They came ready made for the Eye.  How long had it waited for someone just like him?

But the thing about choice is that it’s yours.  Accepting that he makes the choices and that they are his alone means that he can control them.  He can take whatever control he can muster, even in the face of danger and death.  He can make the choice Melanie did, or a different choice.  He can choose to act, knowing that his actions are owned only by himself.  There’s power in that, every bit as much as there is responsibility.

And Daisy is the perfect example of that.  She doesn’t want to go back to the Hunt.  She’d die first, but she also will let that Hunt slip back in just a bit to protect Jon from Trevor and Julia.  Hearing her and Jon work through her impulses to listen to the blood, to find her way back to calm with his help, was one of the first indications that he really does get that choice.  And I find myself hoping that if he can help Daisy, he can learn to make those same choices, and that she’ll be there to guide him back when he needs it.

Bloody Mary, Cost of Living, Reflection

Jon going looking for knowledge the Eye didn’t want him to know was encouraging, and the revelation of Eric Delano’s page was a hell of a thing.  First, of course, there was James Wright (watching everyone through pictures and any eye available) before there was Elias, and Elias ‘changed’ a lot.  Another point for the Elias-is-Jonah theory, perhaps.

There was also the confrontation of Gertrude with a former assistant, how emotionally distant she was from him and the others, and how hungry she was for knowledge.  She wants explanations, not stories though.  More practical and less lyrical than Jon.  And less emotional.  Jon feels thing deeply and desperately.  It might be his salvation, as I’ve mentioned, but also it makes him just as human as her, despite his more outward monstrousness.

Eric was definitely in an abusive relationship with Mary, but after the betrayal and what Gertrude put him through, she seemed preferable.  And that’s thing, isn’t it?  Betrayal and under-handedness hurt worse than straightforward evil in the TMA world.  And so Eric accepted Mary and blinded himself to get out of the Institute, and wasn’t even too hurt that Mary turned right around and killed him for his sacrifice.  He found the way out because he had someone he loved: his son.  Much as tearing the bullet out of Melanie broke her free of the Slaughter, Eric tearing his eyes out let him free of the Beholding.

Could Jon help but entertain that fantasy?  Running away, tearing out the part of himself that is a monster once and for all?  No more hunger, no more temptation.  

But Martin’s right.  He can’t do it.  Because Jon is still choosing the Beholding, he still loves to Know.  He’s turning away from freedom actively.  And for Jon, running away with Martin was just this perfect potential ideal, but would never become reality without some really fundamental commitment that both of them lack right now.  As much as Jon is sunk in his love for what he knows, Martin is sunk in denial about how much he might actually mean to Jon.  He can reject Jon’s proposal easily, because he can’t believe Jon would ever really give up power just for a chance to run away with Martin.  

Martin is sunk deep, and Jon, who could reach him if he tried, isn’t trying.  Just as he isn’t tearing his eyes out.  He’ll be passive, and he’ll look at Martin like an ideal, but the real issue is that neither of them is reaching out to one another as a PERSON.  As more than the ideal that they’ve both seen one another as.  Being an anchor is all well and good, but eventually you need to dig in and get to know one another to have a true reason to stay human.  And they’re both lacking that right now.

Martin is drifting hard.  Realizing that he might only think he misses Jon’s voice, that he cares about Jon, that even his love is getting lost to the Lonely is very hard to hear.  Because Martin threw himself into all this to save Jon, and he’s not even horrified that he’s losing the original motivation for giving himself to the Lonely.  He seems to be going through the motions, letting everything happen, taking the easiest and least ‘noisy’ way out.  And that’s the draw of the Lonely right there, isn’t it?  There’s no real pain to lose yourself, because by the time you’re lost, you just don’t care.  Martin is being eaten by apathy, and that’s the hardest thing to shake.  He just doesn’t care enough to do it.

I really appreciate Jon finally confronting Basira about her hypocrisy.  The fact that she’s willing to give Daisy over to the Hunt to keep her alive, but is demanding that Jon starve himself to death if he has to is the height of hypocrisy.  It’s also deeply disrespectful of Daisy’s very difficult choice.  I appreciate that Jon stood up for Daisy’s stand, and I hope that it causes Basira to reflect about how she’s gone about her approach to Jon and Daisy.  

Because honestly, they’re both questioning their natures.  Daisy understands better, but Jon is actively exploring his nature, and the nature of monstrousness.  ‘Cost of Living’ is the perfect example of the entitled nature of a monster’s survival.  Each time she was confronted with their death, she found someone to exchange a life with.  And what was at first a one-off quickly became a continuous vampirism, one ‘unworthy’ life after another.  At each step she blamed the victim, explained her actions by the good she was doing.  Jon feels the same pull, but also a revulsion for her self-justification.  

And some people would rather do anything other than serve that sort of monstrousness.  Melanie gouged her own eyes out, leaving the Archives as definitively as possible.  I’ll miss the hell out of her character, but I am so glad that she found a way out.  I’m glad that, of all of them, she was the one who seized Eric’s solution.  Jon would never do it.  Basira won’t do it.  Martin won’t.  But Melanie still could.  She tried so hard to leave for so long that it’s fantastic she gets to go on her own terms.  And I’m so glad Jon respected her decision; that she left as bravely and calmly as possible for leaving by ambulance.  

Rotten Core, Panopticon

So Martin or someone else left his final tape to Jon.  Peter might have left it, Annabel could have done, so many others could have.  But the simple question is, what will Jon do with the information that Martin is walking off to oblivion?

Dekker’s final statement was something I wasn’t expecting.  It makes sense with the Extinction storyline gearing up, but it’s still strange to hear the end of this remarkable and remarkably eventful life.  And to go out in such a horrific way is tragic.  He searched for the Extinction so long, only to get taken down by the Corruption.  Just accidentally stumbled on John Amhurst, and though it’s good to know that Dekker properly contained Amhurst, it leaves his work unfinished.  But then, I think the work of people like Dekker or Gertrude always have unfinished business when they’re finally killed.  

Jon is not nearly so sanguine with death.  Hearing that the Extinction may be slow or strange or not real at all, he can’t not follow Martin down into the tunnels.  He tried to get a second opinion from Melanie, who is with Georgie—in all senses of the word—but she’s out.  He tried to go to Helen, who is not interested in helping because it entertains her more if he finds out what’s in the tunnels on his own.  She may think he’d just go home and give into his hunger, but the one thing that anchors him is in those tunnels.  So Jon is definitely going in.

At least he waited for Daisy and Basira, as much as it must have killed him not to go charging in.  And he’s lucky he did.  Peter Lukas set the Not-Them loose again, and Trevor and Julia are also back to finish Jon off.  And of course, Elias has also made a jail break to be there for the final show of whatever it was that Peter planned.

And it directly affects him, of course, because we finally got that confirmation: Elias Bouchard and Jonah Magnus are one in the same.  Jonah left his body behind in the Panopticon that lies at the heart of the labyrinth, permanently jacked into the All-Seeing Eye.  That was the Watcher’s Crown, attempted first as himself, and again in other bodies.  Peter wants to overthrow Elias, to replace him with a willing puppet in Martin.  The temptation of having that sort of power must have been undeniable.  

But it all still hinged on Martin choosing to serve the Lonely, to give himself freely to the Panipticon and to Peter’s power.  And Martin has been playing this game well.  Telling Peter what he wants to hear, all to see what his end-game was.  Listening to Peter and Elias duke it out verbally over him, Martin clearly knew that this was never about the Extinction.  This was just a stupid bet about whether or not Peter could steal Martin away.

So Martin refuses.  As much as he wanted to kill Jonah, he refused the game (but in so doing handed the victory to Jonah).   

The reason he knew that Peter wasn’t being straight with him about the Extinction was more than a little heart-breaking, but very in keeping with why he couldn’t believe Jon would really run away with him: Martin cannot believe that he’s important enough to be made a priority, let alone to be made a hero.  And so, even though Elias won the round, Peter had one more game to play: he threw Martin into the Lonely, and both he and Elias waited for Jon to arrive.  Because consuming the Archivist would certainly wrench the ultimate victory from Elias’ hands.  

But Elias is far too calm, and far too pleased with this turn for it not to be just as much set up in his favor as Peter’s.  He might have verbally warned Jon against going into the Lonely, but he was all too eager to show him the way.  This is just more of his game, and I’ll be interested to see how it plays out.

The Last

Which leads us to the penultimate episode of the season, Jon plunging into the Lonely after Martin.  The end-game of whatever bet or game Peter and Elias have been playing with one another turns out to have hinged on first Martin giving into the Lonely, and then Jon following him down.  Elias’ biggest pawn is on the line, and Peter has put himself on the line, letting something like the Archivist into his world.  

At first, Peter clearly has the home advantage over Jon.  He confronts Jon with the fact that he and Martin have been chasing the ideal of one another for so long, but they don’t really know one another.  But Jon is pissed, and Jon is hungry, and when faced with dying for Martin, he didn’t even hesitate.   Peter doesn’t understand love, or any connection.  And so he can’t understand how deeply tied Jon and Martin are to one another.  Hell, I don’t know if they quite understand it, except that they’d walk through hell to find one another.

So instead of giving in, Jon fakes his own drift into the Lonely to draw Peter in close, and then goes after him hardHearing Peter’s story was interesting, but not particularly sympathetic.  He was created to be a Lukas, certainly, but he also relished it and wallowed in the upper-class life he was given.  He wallowed in his loneliness, and hated everyone around him.  Sure, his family messed him up, but he embraced it while other siblings didn’t.  

So hearing that Gertrude took down his ritual with a call to a newspaper?  Amazing.  Wonderful.  Perhaps my favorite takedown of hers ever.  I laughed out loud at Peter Lukas drowning in community outreach.

And hearing Jon tear him apart?  Also amazing.  Potentially terrible, because once you open that door, it’s hard to close it, and Jon’s “Stubborn fool” is as close to truly being lost to the monster as we’ve heard Jon on tape.  But if Jon had to feed, tearing Peter apart wasn’t a bad way to do it.  But of course, that means Jon doesn’t get an answer as to how Elias gets him.  

But Jon does get Martin.  And that reunion?  The “I see you”?  So beautiful.  They’ve built to that moment for so long that the quiet conversation, walking out of the Lonely hand-in-hand and so gentle, was utter perfection.

Which is why having this be the second-to-last episode of the season is so ominous.

The Eye Opens

Here we come to the end, and we begin with domesticity and a continuation of the gentle quietness started last episode.  It seems, from the date of the statement, that Martin and Jon did get at least some time together before this episode to settle in and be together, and it shows.  There’s a comfort and a familiarity between them I’ve never heard.  Whatever time they’ve spent getting to know one another, they clearly fit together exactly as well as they’d hoped.

They may be on the run, uncertain if Trevor or Julia or the Not-Them are still alive, but it has an almost honeymoon feel to it.  They’re in contact with Basira, but seem distant from all that, here in their coccoon in the woods with its crackling fire and poetic cows.

And it’s really lovely.  Hearing them together, quiet and gentle and happy, was wrenching if only because it came so early in the episode.  And then it hits.  Jonah, smuggled in as a disguised statement, slipping in and taking over Jon’s body and forcing him to read against his will.  You can hear Jon struggling not to read at first, perhaps knowing what was coming, but Jonah’s will was too strong.  He’s too good at control to let Jon slip his noose here at the end.

And the end, as it turns out, is the end of the world.  It’s discarding the Watcher’s Crown as a botched job, and instead embracing a new ritual: the Magnus Archives.  The transformation of Jonathan Sims not into the Archivist, but into the Archive.  

And Jonah will become king of the ashes of a ruined world.

Jonah, Rayner, Lukas, and likely Fairchild all came together to become not only the first to realize that the world was almost guaranteed to end, but to figure out how to handle it.  Only Smirke kept to his guns and refused to embrace the end.  He tried to use balance to prevent it, to keep it from ever tipping over, but one by one the others embraced one power and decided that if the world was going to end, then it should end to their benefit.

Jonah tried the Watcher’s Crown, sitting in the Panopticon, but failed except to become a mind freed of his body.  He built the Institute to help himself with the race, trying the Watcher’s Crown again and again, each new body dying and giving rise to another.

And then he realized that the Watcher’s Crown was a flawed ritual from the off.  All the rituals were flawed.  All the rituals were doomed to failure, because every ritual only involved a single fear.  And so there wasn’t enough fear to keep it going.  Every one, even the ones not stopped, failed under its own weight.  

The true ritual was the Archive itself.  Turning a person into an Archive, and through him, with every other power burned into him, tearing open reality.  Because the true ritual HAD to have all the fears involved, because all fears are one fear, each blending into each, each reliant on another.  And so all powers had to come through at the same time, with the Eye watching over all.  

And Jon has been marked by every single fear, chosen by Magnus after he survived Mr. Spider.  Stabbed by Michael, burned by Jude, thrown into freefall by Mike Crewe, cut by the Slaughter when he tried to save Melanie, went into the Buried bodily to rescue Daisy … more and more and more until he went into the Lonely to save Martin and took the final step.  He consumed stories, consumed lives.  He embraced his own power in destroying Peter.  He chose to be the Archive at every turn, built himself as a record, wove a tapestry of every fear to create something greater than each alone.  

And so Magnus used his Archive.  He used Jon’s body and his power, and then left Jonathan Sims, both tied to and gutted by the world he created, behind as the world cracked open.  We finish the season with Jon and Martin, clutched together in their cabin, Jon knowing that the whole world has been consumed by the powers and by his own embrace of the Archive.  

“Look at the sky, Martin.  Look at the sky!  It’s looking back.”  

The Future

And so we head toward the final season of ‘The Magnus Archives’.  Daisy and Basira may both be alive, or Basira isn’t sharing the fact that she’s already killed Daisy as she promised.  Melanie and Georgie got out, but there’s not a lot of getting out of an apocalyptic world.

And the world is apocalyptic.  Jonah intends to sit the throne of this world, but I’ll be interested to hear if things go to his plan, of if the powers are so much larger than him that he is swept aside as every other living being will be.  This seems like the sort of plan born of hubris, from a man so desperate not to die that he’ll burn the whole world to survive it.  And I just don’t see fully manifested fears giving much of a shit about Jonah Magnus.

And that leaves Jon and Martin.  Jon is having a well-deserved breakdown over his part in this, but I don’t think he’ll get to do so for long.  If the Archive was needed to rip the world open, it may be the only way to repair it.  Whether that requires Jon to die, or Jon to lose every bit of Archivist in himself to do it, or something else entirely remains to be seen.  But he at least has Martin this time, and I genuinely hope that whatever path they walk in the final season, they walk it together.  That they fall together or rise together.  One or the other being alone at the end would be the worst possible outcome for them at this point.  They anchored one another in the Lonely, and they might well be the thing that pulls one another through to saving the world.  Going down together might be a sort of bittersweet happy ending for an Archive and the man that keeps him human.   What will the world be like now that all the powers are here?  Would people like Simon and the other avatar glory in this new world, or does a complete manifestation of all the powers make moot all the appeal of their gods?  I’m interested to find out who might be interested in a return to a normal world, and who love their new reality.  

40 more episodes until the end.  It’s been a hell of a binge, and honestly?  I’m very interested to see how thing play out come April.

[statementends]

@badthingshappenbingo​

@auralqueer​ requested You Can Scream All You Want for Jon or Martin

Characters: Jonathan Sims

Pairings: Gen, Canon typical levels of Jon/Martin way in the background

Warnings: The Lonely. Mention of canonical character deaths. 

Summary: Peter strands Jon in the fog. Jon has to make a choice. 

AO3: Link

-

“You can scream all you like, Jon. Not even Elias will hear you.” Peter grinned. He gave a cheery wave as the world around him went white with salty mist. He barely caught Martin’s cry before the Institute disappeared.

The fog rolled all around him cold and clinging. He was on the beach, more of a little island really, the waves drawing up to his feet soaking him. All around him an endless rolling sea, barely visible behind the fog.

“LUKAS!!” He shouted, enraged. “I’m going to find my way out of here! I won’t let you do this. Lukas!!!!!”

The fog pressed against him, seeping into him.

No Basira, or Daisy, or Melanie.

No Martin.

Alone with himself with no one for company. Just a tape recorder laying beside his feet being licked by salty spray.

Icy rain fell in sheets.

“LUKAS!” He yelled again. The fog seemed to swallow the volume of it.

He was shaking with cold and anger… and fear.

He had never been afraid of being alone. Not that he had never felt an ache of loneliness, but he had never really… enjoyed people. He had only come to appreciate them after…

He thought of Tim and Sasha. Of Basira and Melanie’s distance. Martin being… gone. The warmth that came from Daisy reaching out.

He had lost some of them. Loved them when it was too late to make a difference, but this time he wouldn’t fail. He would protect who he had left.

He felt tears stream down his cheeks. He wasn’t losing anyone again. Not again.

He started screaming out into the fog willing there to be a response, but with each passing moment he felt further and further removed from them. The trust and friendship that they had been building a dim flickering candle against the fog.

He needed an anchor to pull himself out, but this wasn’t like the coffin.

He had Daisy in the coffin.

And although he had been crushed, and scared, and desperate... that had comforted him.

This place held no comfort of human life. He was alone.

The fog pulled out the warmth of that memory, and only left him with the dirt. He tried to think of Basira and could only recall her mistrust and muted anger. Could only grasp Melanie’s rage. Helen’s desperation and the being that call itself Michael’s strange look of twisted betrayal. Daisy’s anger. He could only remember with clarity the feeling of knowing Sasha James was dead and Tim Stoker was dead, and Martin was gone, and that was his fault. That they may have made choices, but being by his side had caused them to suffer.

He didn’t deserve their warmth.

He was alone. Left with himself.

The Archivist categorized all of it. The empty beach, the cold weather, the weight of knowing no one would come for him, no one would want him, and that he didn’t deserve anyone.

He wondered if this place could really hold him. Closed his eyes. He continued to scream, but maybe it wasn’t out loud anymore. Maybe it was inside. Jonathan Sims screaming as the Archivist opened his Eyes and looked out over the endless empty ocean, Knowing there was no one.

A shiver ran up his spine.

The Archivist's...his own detachment made things all the worse. Separated him further from humanity. A monster floating in the endless sea of knowledge, letting the human drown.

Maybe that was better.

His throat was sore from screaming now. No one was coming. The Archivist could survive this. Jonathan Sims… probably not.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let go of the dimming candle he had left.

His… friends…

Right now he could only remember the points of how lonely they had made him feel. The Archivist dissected these feelings. Elias had once said that I would drop them when they weren’t needed anymore. Part of me… feels that. That clinging will only make me weak at this point. The power of loneliness is need. If I don’t need them… then this place has no power.

He laughed, realizing that he was narrating to the tape recorder. Never truly alone. Although distant, he could still feel the Eye’s endless stare.  

“If I want to save them… then I have to give in, don’t I? The more I cling the more power Lukas has over me. I have to let them go if I have any chance of getting back.”

He took a few panicked breaths.

He tried to think of Georgie, but could only picture her as she left his hospital room, disappointed in him again. The Admiral, affectionate but not his. His Grandmother who resented the circumstances of raising him.

“I don’t forgive you, but thank you for this.”

“I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.”

“I see you!”

“Please stop finding me.”

“GET OFF ME!!”

“You died.”

“If this really is a second chance, please try to take it. But I don’t think that it is.”

“Yeah. And I’m not gonna let it happen again.”

His throat was raw, screaming old wounds into the empty sea. He wouldn’t be calm. It would not be the Archivist that would exorcise them from him.

He was angry. So angry. 

He felt the ax in his hands as it struck clean through the web table. The taste of smoke the night Leitner died. Heard the click of the detonator in Tim’s hand. The smell or rot in Melanie’s leg. Felt the crush of the dirt with no pull to draw him back home. Remembered the old paranoia directed at all the wrong people. Remembered opening the trapdoor to Jane Prentiss.

And he stopped.

Jon gasped for breath. Rubbed his eyes with his soaking sleeve.

All his plans were terrible.

All his instincts were wrong.

It was them. They had saved him. Every time. It was them.

He let himself fall to his knees, the sand cushioning his hard drop. Shakily he reached over and grabbed the tape recorder.

“Statement of Jonathan Sims,” He rasp, throat sore. “The Archivist. Concerning his own humanity. Recorded on the day the world is supposed to end. Statement begins: 

Peter Lukas thinks that I am trapped here. He thinks that with me out of the way there will be no one to stop him… no one to save Martin. Peter Lukas thinks that I am alone.” He chuckles at this. “The Eye won’t let me be alone of course. I’m always being watched. Vigilo, audio, opperior. Watching. Listening. Waiting. It’s rather sinister with all I know about the organization now, but there is wisdom in the Magnus Institute’s crest. This time, I will heed it. Peter Lukas thinks that I am alone. And here, I might believe him. I feel… forsaken, and the Beholding gives me no comfort, although it never has. The Eye will not save me. It watches, listens, waits. I will do the same. I… trust them. I… I love them. I can’t escape this place. Not by myself--”

The fog started to pull away. The sand became solid under his knees.

He watched for Basira’s shining light through the fog. Listened for Melanie’s call to him. He waited for Daisy’s firm grip on his shoulder.

Hope. Hope had always been the anchor. He reached out for Martin’s hand.

“But they’ll save me.” Jon finished kneeling on the floor of the Magnus Institute. He gripped Martin’s hand.

“Jon!” Tears slipped down Martin’s cheeks. 

Jon grinned viciously at Peter Lukas’ shocked face.

He shakily stood, Martin helping him to his feet.

“Now, Jon.” Peter took a step back. “You need to understand. I’m trying to save us. Hear me out.”

Jon closed his eyes basking in the warmth, then opened them. Then another eye. Then another.

And he was Jonathan Sims. And he was going to protect his friends.  

“You can scream all you want, Peter.”

[ncfan-1]

ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S4 EP123, ‘Web Development’

We have further insight into the way the Archival staff is just completely falling apart, my suspicion that the other Powers were taking shots at the Institute (specifically, the Archival staff) is confirmed, and we have the third statement in a row to provide us with a parallel to Jon. I begin to suspect some sort of external influence on the kinds of statements he’s getting his hands on.

- We open with Jon grumbling to himself about his office has been rearranged while he’s away, only to hear Melanie out breaking stuff in the hallway.

- That Melanie responds so poorly to Jon, his return, and just… him in general, doesn’t really shock me. She’s just so badly destabilized, and the idea that Tim and Daisy both died* while Jon gets off incredibly, implausibly lightly by comparison, suffering apparently no ill effects from having been in a coma for six months, would upset someone who wasn’t already halfway down the slippery slope into Slaughterville. Just… what are consequences? Something that matters very much to Melanie King, and rather less so to Jonathan Sims.

And Jon is just thinking very shallowly about Melanie’s situation when he thought that getting Elias out of the picture would make everything be hunky-dory with her, because Elias is a big symptom of Melanie’s problem, but far from being the root cause. If Melanie is falling apart, I think that is happening in large part due to the fact that she is still bound to the Institute. She’s still trapped. She can’t leave. She’s a prisoner in a supernatural box, and in the absence of Elias, I’m honestly not surprised that she’d zero in on Jon as being to blame for everything, especially everything that’s going on with her.

Because if you think about it, Melanie wouldn’t be in this situation if not for Jon. She would never have crossed paths with the Magnus Institute in any meaningful way if Georgie hadn’t pointed her towards Jon. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame him for the breakdown of Melanie King’s life, because she would have become a laughingstock in the paranormal YouTuber/podcaster community with or without him, and would likely have had to find a different line of work anyways. But I don’t need to be halfway to Slaughterville to see where she’s gotten the idea that Jon is to blame for everything. Jon is a symbol; that part of what being an avatar is. He’s a symbol for the Archive, a symbol for the Beholding, and a symbol for the forces at work that have destroyed Melanie’s life.

And the worst thing is, it sounds like Melanie, even if she wanted to, wouldn’t have had the luxury of trying to pull herself back from the influence of the Slaughter. Because as I mentioned up above, the other Powers have been taking potshots at the Eye, and the Archival staff have needed someone a halfway-to-Slaughterville skillset just to stay safe. So we have Melanie, having to sacrifice bits and pieces of her sanity just to stay alive, just to keep Basira and Martin safe, and as I’ll talk about more in just a little while, I wouldn’t be shocked if she thinks Jon has had it entirely too easy by comparison.

*I still say I’ll believe Daisy’s dead when I see a body. I honestly think that by the time she killed whichever half of Breekon & Hope she killed, she had become like Jon: too inhuman to die. And when the explosion happened, I think that she, like Jon, made a choice, and walked away from it changed.

- That said, I also think Melanie is justified in her distrust. As I have emphasized before, it is not natural to walk away from a six-month coma as cleanly as Jon did. “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.” He just waltzes back into the Archive, apparently completely fine after having been in a coma for six months, that just screams supernatural bullshit. As Georgie said, we can think that this is a miraculous second chance for Jon all we like, but it is probably not anything so positive.

- I no longer think Basira’s behavior is just a matter of her not being sure she can trust Jon. She’s so detached, so impersonal. She defends Melanie to Jon, but even when she’s talking about how she was attacked and almost killed by the Flesh, it’s like it was happening to another person, and she was just an observer. In any other series, I’d say that’s down to trauma, but here? That’s got the fingerprints of the Beholding all over it.

But I think another part of it may be that Basira is just done with Jon? Because let’s talk about what I just mentioned: the Archival staff were attacked by the Flesh. Like, some of my favorite episodes are the ones with the Flesh, because they’re so entertainingly weird, but the Flesh is probably the worst Power you could ever be attacked by, because unless you’re being attacked by cannibals, it’s just going to be something so bizarre, so alien, that you just have no frame of reference for what you’re dealing with. You can’t discern pattern or motive, and that makes it very difficult to find a way to effectively deal with it, unless you have a Hunter with you, or someone in the process of succumbing to the Slaughter. (Since the Hunt and the Slaughter seem to derive from the same source, is a human agent of the Slaughter able to kill monsters like Hunters can? I’d be interested to know. I’d also be interested to know whether or not it’s true that only Hunters can kill monsters.)

Though this was the worst incident, Basira (to me) implies that it wasn’t the only one. I think it would have taken more than one attack to convince Melanie, of all people, that she needs to stay in the Institute most of the time for her own protection. And meanwhile, we get no indication that Jon was ever in any danger from agents of other Powers for the entire six months he was in the hospital. He was comatose on a hospital bed for six months, and doesn’t seem to have been in danger from any of the other Powers even once. If I was Melanie, or Basira, or Martin, for that matter, I would probably have a hard time looking at Jon and not thinking about how much better he seems to have had it. And now he’s come back, only dubiously human? I’d be ready to be done with him, too. I mean, I love Jonathan Sims the Disaster Man, but if I was occupying the same universe as him, at this point I’d have serious reservations about whether or not I’d still want to be associated with him.

- I’m at the point where I think I can construct a timeline of events regarding the teaser. I think the teaser took place right after the attack by the Flesh two months prior to this episode. Martin’s been made an offer by Peter Lukas: work for me more closely, and I’ll guarantee you and your coworkers a certain level of protection. He’s thinking it over at Jon’s bedside, Peter calls, and Martin accepts the offer. Martin, like Melanie, makes a choice (though probably more consciously than Melanie’s choice, since it is to me at best unclear as to how much Melanie understands about what’s happening to her) to work outside the system of the Eye to protect his coworkers. And if it doesn’t bite both of them in the ass, I will be amazed.

- Peter Lukas being an absentee boss does not surprise me. Peter Lukas disappearing staff does not surprise me. Whoosh makes me snicker.

- Can we just stop with the assumption that all laughter is a response to finding a situation humorous? Seriously, I think laughter as an involuntary response to culturally-inappropriate stimuli is a widely-known enough thing that we can stop snapping at people to stop laughing and take something seriously if they suddenly burst into laughter at the wrong time. If you snap at someone that “it isn’t funny,” you just look ignorant. Just. Saying.

- Here’s something from my notes: “Tape recorders really do just pop up out of nowhere; I begin to understand why we meet so few human agents of the Beholding.” Like, seriously. It fits pretty well with the Beholding, which is cruel, voyeuristic, and honestly kind of ineffectual, to just spawn tape recorders instead of putting too much effort into growing a large body of human/monstrous ambulatory agents. It’s almost funny, it’s so pathetic.

- Basira’s “play dead” is another reason I think she may just be done with Jon.

- I won’t go into quite as much detail about the statement. It is pretty distinctive for a few reasons. One is that the statement subject (but not the giver, since the subject is too passive a guy to even take the step of talking to the Institute), Gregory Cox, provides another parallel for Jon. This time, we see a parallel for Jon in the form of a man who got sucked into supernatural shenanigans unawares and was after that point unwilling to really think about what that meant, and what he was involved in. Even when confronted with someone in the process of turning into a spider and begging him for help, he seriously tries to play it off as the person having had “an unfortunate condition.” That’s Jon’s S1 “willful ignorance that flies in the face of all logic” to a tee. And Jon, as best as I can tell, hasn’t really thought much about what it means that he’s involved with the Beholding, that he’s responsible for hurting people in the name of the Beholding. He’s quite like Cox, in that respect.

- So anyways, Cox is an incredibly passive man who is hired by a woman who, from her description (very thin, has clearly suffered grievous head trauma at some point in her life) and her association with the Web, is almost certainly Annabelle Cane, to make a website. A very basic, very simple website with weird coding that includes strings of people’s names, and a very long, impossible to memorize url name that changes every few weeks. A website called ‘Chelicerae.’

@agnesmontague and @flo-nelja have clarified both the spelling of ‘chelicerae’ and what they are. They’re the mouth parts of a spider. They’re the jaws of a spider. So when you enter this website, you are entering the jaws of the spider.

You tell a story to the “story-spinner”, about the worst event of your life. And if your story satisfies the story-spinner, you will be rewarded with the death of someone you have singled out. We don’t know what happens if your story doesn’t satisfy. It probably isn’t anything good.

Every few weeks, Cox was asked to code strange things into the website. Strings of meaningless words, bits and pieces of poetry, and a different name, every time. With everything taken in context, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that he was literally coding someone’s horrific death into the website.

Eventually, it gets out that Cox has some involvement in this lethal urban legend, and he starts to get emails begging him to make it stop, demanding to know what’s happening to them, pleading for forgiveness and mercy. The “Bring them back” especially stuck with me. Cox has become the instrument of so many people’s suffering, and he refuses to face it, refuses to face up to what it means that he’s become involved with something very weird, and very dangerous. Like I said, he’s very like Jon, in this way.

- Cox has since vanished, almost a year after the statement was given. As this statement took place before Gertrude died, and would have been fairly current and potentially urgent, I do wonder at her not doing anything about it—especially since the presence of a story-spinner potentially suggests an overlap with the Beholding. I guess it may be like Jon thinks, and Gertrude never knew it had been given.

- The real kicker of this statement, though, is the supplementary document attached to it: a list of the names of the people Cox added into the website’s code. Several of them are the names of statement-givers, including Carlos Vittery. Yeah, suddenly what happened to him doesn’t seem nearly as random as it used to.

- Jon is finally facing up to the fact that he was always a bit of a shitty boss. Whether or not he actually learns something from it is anyone’s guess.

- My verdict: unless whatever Peter Lukas and Martin are working on is literally a plan to stop the Watcher’s Crown, these people do not have a chance in hell of stopping the Watcher’s Crown. They literally cannot pull themselves together fast enough. The Watcher’s Crown will go through, and we’ll see what the world is like when one of the Powers has come through the interstice—and dragged hangers-on with it. Then, the Archival staff, if they’re still in any state to do so, will go about trying to mitigate or reverse the effects. Should be fun.

[wazafam]

Cyborg's role in Zack Snyder's Justice League could carry a strong Doctor Manhattan influence. The Snyder Cut is now just weeks away from landing on HBO Max, and with two trailers out for the world to see, the true essence of what the film is finally coming to mainstream attention. Far from being a typical director's cut a la the Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Justice League Snyder Cut is almost completely distinct movie.

Few things demonstrate that more clearly than the much greater role Ray Fisher's Cyborg will have in the movie. After his brief cameo in Batman v Superman, Victor Stone was intended to take on a very central role in the story of Justice League, only for the film's last-minute reshaping ahead of its theatrical release to radically trim his role down. Now that Cyborg will be seen as he was meant to be in the Snyder Cut, something starting to stand out is the similarity between his story and that of Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen.

Related: Justice League: The Snyder Cut's Biggest Improvement Will Be Cyborg, Not Superman

Both of them being men whose bodies and entire lives were dramatically altered by laboratory experiments, the arc that Victor appears to go through in the Snyder Cut also looks like it carries a significant influence from Jon Osterman's in Watchmen, the two of them adapting to their news powers, gradually growing detachment from humanity, and eventually rediscovering it. With Snyder directing both movies, it's not surprising that he and writer Chris Terrio might recognize some commonality between Victor and Jon, and endeavored to take Cyborg on a similar story of loss and discovery. Here's how Cyborg's story in the Snyder Cut might have been influenced by Doctor Manhattan's in Watchmen.

One reason that Snyder might feel compelled to present Cyborg in a similar manner to Doctor Manhattan is that the latter is Snyder's favorite superhero. He revealed as much during the Snyder Cut panel for DC FanDome, citing Manhattan's powers functioning at a quantum level, and "time, space, reality, all those things are at his fingertips". While this is about as perfect a description of Manhattan as one could make, it also highlights Snyder's broader perspective on superheroes in his DCEU films.

Man of Steel set up its world as one of gods co-existing alongside humans, with Batman v Superman presenting the inverse perspective on Bruce Wayne's end as one of mankind's uneasy response to such an unexpected presence. A logical extension of both films is for the Snyder Cut to take this a step further in showing humans gaining the kind of power that was revealed to the world so suddenly. This is where Cyborg's role in the movie starts to come into play.

Though every character in Justice League was reshaped by the film's revamping in some way, with a sizeable number of characters even being taken out entirely, Cyborg was by far the most shortchanged hero. With his origin briefly shown in Batman v Superman through Lex Luthor's metahuman files, the theatrical cut of Justice League didn't position Victor Stone as much beyond the League's tech saavy member, and really only gave a very general overview of his backstory and the breadth of his powers. This stands at odds with Snyder's emphasis on Cyborg, and Fisher himself, as "the heart of my movie", and this goes a lot deeper than Victor simply being the member of the League that audiences were meant to most heavily rally behind.

Justice League was meant to be a complete origin story for Victor Stone as Cyborg, depicting him gradually adapting to his powers, accepting the new body he finds himself in, and being instrumental in stopping the unity by directly interfacing with the three Mother Boxes (and also being tempted with a Faustian bargain from Darkseid when he does). All of this will be seen as it was originally intended when the Snyder Cut is released, and it's also where Victor's similarity to Doctor Manhattan starts to become more clear.

Related: Justice League Snyder Cut Has A Watchmen Callback

Victor Stone's origin as Cyborg has a mirror in that of Jon Osterman's in Watchmen. Both Victor and Osterman gained their abilities through accidents that fundamentally transformed their bodies into something unrecognizable. On top of that, Cyborg is set to have a 15-minute scene with almost no dialogue showing his backstory, which sounds reminiscent of Snyder's origin scene for Doctor Manhattan.

More than that, both of them also perceive the world through very different eyes as a result, while their respective accidents leave each distant from the people around them. Osterman's accident arguably certainly gives him a more extreme transformation, as he grows increasingly indifferent to the world and the humans occupying it, eventually coming to see the very concept of life itself as "a highly overrated phenomenon", though his dormant humanity is eventually re-awakened by Silk Spectre II.

With the information on hand about the Snyder Cut, Cyborg's arc looks remarkably similar, being one of Victor's transformation leaving him both overwhelmed by his new powers, and disconnected from humanity, with Victor managing to regain it through his relationship with the Justice League, and his friendship with Ezra Miller's Barry Allen. In addition to the essence of their stories reflecting each other, Victor also shares another, major trait with Doctor Manhattan.

Manhattan's quantum abilities more or less allow him to freely move through and even manipulate elements of reality itself. In addition to perceiving space and time down to atomic levels, Manhattan's powers also enable him to destroy, disassemble, and reassemble even the smallest components of physical matter. Victor's powers don't operate in the same material way as Manhattan's, but they're of a surprising similar caliber.

As a result of his transformation, Victor now possesses an unrivaled capacity to control and interface with technology, an ability parallel to Manhattan's power of matter manipulation. More importantly, the Mother Box has bestowed Victor with an almost infinite knowledge of the universe, giving him cerebral abilities of a comparable level to those of Doctor Manhattan. It also turns out Cyborg functioning at such an immense power level that comparisons to Doctor Manhattan could be entirely reasonable was also only the beginning of what Snyder had planned for him.

Related: Zack Snyder's Watchmen Montage Explains Why There's No Batman In That Universe

The comparison between Cyborg and Doctor Manhattan looks even stronger when the full scope of Snyder's plans for Victor Stone are brought into the conversation. Fisher has stated that Cyborg would likely have become "one of, if not, the most powerful metahuman in the entire canon" had Snyder's intended story plan been fulfilled. Snyder himself would later add on to this during his livestream commentary for Batman v Superman, describing him as being close to "impossible to kill" after being transformed by the Mother Box, and having "incredible other-worldly technology". That's certainly not far off from the virtual immortality Doctor Manhattan is bestowed after the accident that transformed Osterman.

As the heart of his version of Justice League, Snyder clearly wanted to take Victor's story even further as part of his planned five-movie arc. Not only would Victor adapt to his new body and powers and reconnect with humanity once more, it can now be said that the the story would have taken Victor's abilities to astronomical levels in the unfolding battle with Darkseid and Apokolips. It's also fair to say Victor's power level, aside from making him a key player in defeating Darkseid, would have made him a kindred spirit to Doctor Manhattan, as well.

Cyborg might have been the most cut down of Justice League's core team when the movie hit theaters, but the clock is now rapidly ticking down on the time when audiences will finally get to see his arc as the movie's heart showcased the way it was meant to be. When Zack Snyder's Justice League finally lands on March 18th, comparisons to the theatrical cut are inevitable. What many might not have seen coming is how closely Cyborg's story could end up running parallels to Doctor Manhattan's.

Next: Superman's Black Suit Hype Reveals Justice League 2017's Wasted Opportunity

Justice League Theory: The Snyder Cut's Cyborg is Influenced by Doctor Manhattan from https://ift.tt/2Ol8HYR

[alexanderessex3dstoryart]

Character Design - Silhouette Designs

Since I’m not the most amazing drawer and tend to spend way too much time on the smallest of things, Jon suggested I should look into creating my character designs/sketches in Photoshop through the use of silhouette design. Instead of drawing the character fully out, all that I would be doing is adding props to an already existing mesh and creating character ideas and ketches this way. Having mention before I wasn’t the best at drawing, i was very willing to try this method out and give it a go to see if the process stuck with me.

Firstly, I had to find some pre-made meshes for me to draw and place images on top of.  From casually browsing on the internet, I found this really great turnaround online of the same mesh that’s in an ‘A-pose’. I found this to be just what I was looking for as I could cover all aspects of deign with this mesh at different angles. In addition to finding the perfect mesh for the silhouette ‘drawing’, I also made a library of different objects that I could use to build my character up from scratch weather that be using one object as the basis of a design or used as an extra detail. The images i’ve chosen are influenced from the mood boards I’ve previously made in the past for the character design project.

Mesh Turnaround

Images that i placed on top of the pre-existing mesh

Once my image library had been completed and the meshes ready, i then started to combine the props and human mesh together to create my weird and wacky character designs. To achieve a true silhouette image for some of these designs, I applied a black and white filter to them which I decreased the saturation creating a fully model which was very hand for me if i wanted a deign added on very quickly to the mdoel.

But enough of how i got myself ready to do the designs of the characters, the actual drawing and placement of these props was actually really fun to do as it was a very simple but really effective process if i wanted to get ideas out as quick as possible. Looking at the first shilloute sheet I made, it focused on the character Hyde due to him being the character I would love to model for hand in. Using the shilloute technique, his deer skull was an essential piece to his design being made up from natural debris and junk from my story as this posed as the menacing piece of his design. This si why he has items and materials like bottles, signage and general junk scattered across forming a beast like no other.

Through this process I noticed I wanted the skull to be a lot more hidden and cramped into the design of the character giving off the vibe this is a humongous character approaching you. in a lot of these designs I made on the first sheet, I had what each character was comprised of shape wise and how they were used to create a unique-looking character. Taking influence from Doomfist’s gauntlet form ‘Overwatch’ for one of my Hyde designs was a really good idea as it expressed who I might want to model a particular element for the character (like the fist and wires) as well as giving a vague representation of what it should look like. Knowing this fact, I began to be a lot looser in my design process because of it. 

To further expand on my Hyde character’s design, I looked up paper scraps online to see a section of them clustered together. I thought because my Hyde character is very janky and uneven in appearance, these ripped up pieces of paper could emulate how the character will look if it was metal plates attached to him instead. Whilst the process was very tedious to do, I was really happy with the entire process as it really did capture what kind of character Hyde would look like if I was to sketch his silhouette out. Details like Jekyll’s arm being still show reminded me a lot of the Charger's character design (Left for Dead - Game) which is what influenced me to retain some of the Jekyll’s character into the design of him. In addition to the paper scrap method it influenced me to have his big mechanical arm separate fro, his body with only wiring connecting it. Although whilst I really liked this idea, I had to make sure it was a conventional design too as my Jekyll character as to fit inside him sorta snug and not detaching his limbs in the process. All these ideas felt like I needed to expand this particular character design. 

Charger Character (Left for Dead - Game)

One slight issue I had when making any of the designs as soon as I got into the groove with it all, Photoshop kept on crashing on me or at least be really slow in placing my props onto the mesh meaning the process turned from really enjoyable to really tedious and tiring to make as across all three silhouette sheets I made, it took me quite the couple of days to make due to how badly my laptop runs Photoshop. Never the less, I still had to keep pushing on as the shilloute drawing is slowly starting to grow on me. 

First experimentation sheet on the Hyde character

Ripped up pieces of paper to assemble the rough character designing of the Hyde character

Working from the paper based shilloute, I used the pre-made meshes that I found at the beginning and made 5 versions of them each specifically the front, side profile and the 3/4 angle meshes.  This was to allow me to have a wide range of different ideas covering different angles of the character as they weren’t made to be consistent to all form one design all together.  Because I found placing objects on top of the models to be really slow and tiresome for my computer, I thought I would create sketches using very loose sketches on my graphics tablet.

Starting off with the front facing first row of experimental sketches, one common theme I had here was to establish what the final design was going to be. Whilst this may seem really early tor try and find, it was because I could dedicate the rest of the angles to much more experimental sketches playing around the from and accessories that the Hyde character is attached too. One design aspect that you could probably already see in the sketches in the first row is with the feet as one foot is larger than the other. The way I’ve been able to communicate this I really like as it express the incompleteness that the chracter has in the world as one of my sub-themes for the story is that my Hyde character wants to be apart of human society but can’t due to his looks and always scary the city folk away.

Going back to the character design process, I like how I’ve played around with the different sizes of the leg shapes specifically with the fourth model as I love how beedy the left leg looks in comparison tot he right one which you can definitely also see in the first design I did for the Hyde character. Another aspect of the design I really like was the right arm itself as I already knew that the left arm was going to be Jekyll's own arm. So for contrast, I wanted his arm to be this huge ginormous figure that overshadows the tiny arm to emphaise the deadlier side of him. 

With the second and third row of designs as previously mentioned before, these were a lot more experimental sketches to play around with poses or aesthetics that I want to add onto the already final design. I think the only takeaways from the second and third row of designs were the use of signage as I want a combination of pipes and signage to cover the back of the character as he patrols around the world fully expressing the mess he becomes off of Jekyll’s hatred in my story.

Second Shilloute Drawing Sheet

In addition to looking at Hyde, I thought I would look at using the same silhouette process in my Jekyll character working from my turnaround that I made before Christmas. Thinking about how I wanted to exapnd the character, it was mainly looking at how I could make the back look better as that was my only gripe with the turnaround for my Jekyll character due to not being too impressed with it. Through the sketches I made here, I really liked the idea for having either a portable spotlight that can emerge from the back of his back that can be used like a surgeon's light in a operation but for a mechanic. The other idea was to have a leathery school backpack to keep all his tools and spotlights in depending on the work he has to do. I think personally, I’m leaning more into the backpack design as it’s the most simplest and the easiest on the eyes for the turnaround if I was to end up modelling the character fully.  

Third Shilloute Drawing sheet - Jekyll Character 

Overall despite the process of shillouting these experimental character designs took far longer than expected as Photoshop really couldn't handle the process at all. I think it went rather successfully in terms of developing my ideas and coming up with new ones so quickly. I think if ti wasn’t for my computer acting up the way it has been since the start of January, I would proabley keep working in silhouette deign especially for the final sheets as they would look a lot nicer and prettier to understand.

[racingtoaredlight]

Opening Bell: March 31, 2017

Former South Korea President Park Geun-hye, whose impeachment was upheld by the nation’s Constitutional Court, was formally arrested after a warrant was issued by Seoul’s Central District Court on Thursday. Park, whose father was dictator of South Korea from 1961 until he was assassinated in 1979, is involved in a wide-ranging bribery scandal in which she allegedly used her office and a close friend to arrange quid-pro-quo favors for major corporations, including Samsung, whose Chairman and CEO is also currently being detained. South Korea has experienced several political scandals since its transition to democracy in 1987, but this is shaping up to be its greatest yet.

Recent satellite images indicate that North Korea may be preparing for a new atomic weapons test in the nation’s rugged northeast. North Korea has a history of making such elaborate preparations in the past without conducting a test—“putting on a show for the satellites”—in order to raise tensions to some other end. But the month of April is also one of great significance in North Korea. The national parliament is due to meet April 11 and April 15 is the birthday of regime founder Kim Il Sung. If North Korea does undertake another atomic weapons test, it will be the sixth. Along with several recent successful missile tests this year, this would ratchet up tensions further on the peninsula.

A cabinet committee of the Israeli government has approved construction of the first new West Bank settlements in 20 years. The move is expected to be approved by the wider cabinet in order to make up for a settlement which was demolished earlier this year after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that stood on land owned by Palestinian farmers. The Supreme Court decision regarding the settlement of Amona, and its subsequent demolition, led to the eviction of 40 families and a widespread public outcry for a new settlement in compensation. This decision of the Israeli government also contravenes a request by President Donald Trump in February that Israel consider holding off on settlement expansion for the foreseeable future.

 Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of Central Command, hinted during Senate committee testimony, that he may request “a few thousand” more troops on the ground, citing a current deficit in the amount needed to carry out the U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan. The 8,400 American soldiers in Afghanistan continue to train Afghan National Army units and carry out counter-terrorism operations. While the increase in troop levels was a highly-contentious issue during the Obama administration, especially in its first year, it seems like a troop increase in Afghanistan now, in the first two months of the Trump administration, now hardly rates in the public consciousness. Indeed, recent movements of U.S. Army Rangers and Marines into parts of northern Syria was widely reported by the foreign policy press, but hardly made it onto larger national headlines.

The U.S. Senate voted 97-2 this week to ratify the treaty approving the membership of Balkan nation Montenegro into NATO. Montenegro’s membership, which had been held up for weeks by the objection of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), is also vociferously opposed by Russia, which sees it as further western encroachment upon its borders. Other critics, such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) questioned the utility of admitting a nation with a population the size of Vermont. Pro-Russian political parties in Montenegro have pledged to force a referendum on NATO membership, saying the presence of western troops in the nation would amount to a “brutal occupation.”

Pivoting to domestic U.S. politics, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina signed into law a compromise bill negotiated between Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature, which repeals the controversial H.B. 2, or “bathroom bill.” The bill is a compromise because it also includes a provision which puts a moratorium on any city government in the state from passing an affirmative LGBT rights bill until after the 2020 elections. While this bill had detractors on both sides of the aisle—including the legislature’s two openly gay members—but compromises often do. Moreover, this bill promises to accede to NCAA threats to repeal H.B. 2 or it will move future NCAA Tournament games outside of the state. There is also a hope that several international corporations which had cancelled planned expansions in the state, will revisit those plans.

In Washington, President Trump seemed to attack the House Freedom Caucus in a series of tweets days after the HFC was instrumental in the defeat of the American Healthcare Act last week. The defeat, which the White House has tried to distance itself from by pinning on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), may have dented the inertia of Trump’s first hundred days in office. Repeal of the ACA was seen as a slam dunk after election night, but fears over constituents losing coverage after repeal with no replacement plan in place forced many House members to support the AHCA, which attempted to change the ACA without repealing it. This lack of repeal, however, repulsed the arch-conservative HFC, many of whose members seek the end of all government mandated healthcare on principle, regardless of the effects. The House is next set to begin consideration of a tax reform bill. If it passes, it would be the first reform of the tax code since the second Reagan administration. Repeal and replace of the ACA was seen as easy by comparison. So what Trump expects to gain from needling the most conservative members of Congress is hard to imagine at this point.

U.S. Federal District Judge Derrick Watson extended his temporary stay of the Trump administration’s second travel ban to a permanent one on Wednesday. Yesterday, the Trump administration announced an appeal to the 9th Circuit. The Trump administration has also appealed a ruling in a Maryland Federal District Court to the 4th Circuit. There is speculation that the 4th Circuit could rule in favor of the administration—the District Court’s ruling in Maryland, while the 9th Circuit is seen as likely to rule against the administration. Such a circuit split often ends up before the Supreme Court.

During a rare, open hearing this week, it was revealed that Hilary Clinton was not the only target of cyber-attacks before or during the 2016 campaign. One expert testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) were also targeted. One form of the attacks includes building fake news outlets that appear to be legitimate American or western news sources, and then using those by the dozens to peddle conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated news claims in the hopes that well-known, if not totally legitimate American news sources would pick them up and report on them as well. Other means include an attempt to breach politicians’ office networks in order to gain information. Rubio’s office later seemed to confirm that his office had detected at least two attempts to breach its security, but offered no further comment. This news came on the heels of a joint press conference between Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) and Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) in which their apparent cooperation and intent to get to the bottom of Russian connections to the Trump campaign and the 2016 election.

Shortly before the inauguration in January, the existence of an intelligence dossier on Donald Trump, complied after investigations and interview by a former British intelligence officer name Christopher Steele, came to be known. The dossier includes many salacious claims about Trump, all of which have been denied by Trump and completely dismissed by other sources, including the Kremlin. Careful investigation since then has revealed that some parts of the dossier may not be fiction at all. And here the Washington Post examines one of the dossier’s key sources, named “Source D” in the dossier.

The Trump White House has seen its first shakeup, though that might be a bit strong. Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh, an ally of Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, was detached from the West Wing and sent to lead America First Policies, an outside political organization which is supporting Trump, but which did not take an active role in pushing back on Republican lawmakers who voted against the AHCA.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is seeking a last-minute deal among Democrats to prevent the invocation of the so-called “nuclear option.” Two Democrats—Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Manchin—have pledged to vote for Gorsuch, but 30 have pledged to filibuster his nomination. A filibuster would likely lead to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to invoke the right of Executive Branch judicial nominees to change Senate rules so that only a bare majority, 51 votes, will approve Supreme Court nominees. McCain ally Lindsey Graham (R-SC) noted that future nominations needing only 51 votes to gain confirmation will lead to more ideologically extreme nominees in the future, and this is a position which has some merit. It is given added bolstering when you consider that Graham voted for both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Down in Georgia, the special election to replace former Representative and now Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price in his congressional seat is heating up. The Georgia 6th District is not overly Republican, and Price’s continual victories had much to do with his retail politics and personal popularity in the district. However, a divided Republican field has given room for a Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, to potentially win without a runoff. The dynamics of the district suggest that Ossoff will not garner enough votes to avoid a runoff against a single Republican nominee, and that during that runoff the Republican will prevail, but special elections are, if you forgive the usage, “special.” In this political climate anything can happen, but, and this is important, it will not necessarily be indicative of a wide-ranging rebuttal or confirmation of the Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress to this point.

The Conservative Party of Canada has adopted a decidedly hardline view on asylum seekers leaving the United States for Canada, going so far as to call for the deployment of soldiers on the border in order to arrest and detain individuals as they illegally cross the border. Considering that the number of asylum seekers in Canada each year is quite low, especially in relation to the number international refugees the nation takes in, this seems like an overreaction. The extent to which this is associated with the rise of anti-immigration view in the United States, I leave for others to decide.

In Indonesia, a palm oil harvester went missing last weekend. This week, a search party found near his last location a 23 foot long reticulated python—the longest snake in the world—with a hugely distended belly, and killed it. After they captured and killed the python, video seems to show villagers cutting open its belly and pulling out the corpse of the missing harvester. Not recommended if you have a fear of snakes.

The Atlantic on what the new parameters of the ideological spectrum are with a Republican in the White House who is not a doctrinaire, nor a conservative, Republican. Money quotation: ‘But then, when he went to Iowa to campaign for Rand Paul in the 2016 GOP primary, “I saw that the same people that had voted for Ron Paul weren't voting for Rand Paul, they were voting for Donald Trump … in Kentucky, the people who were my voters ended up voting for Donald Trump in the primary. And so I was in a funk because how could these people let us down? How could they go from being libertarian ideologues to voting for Donald Trump? And then I realized what it was: They weren't voting for the libertarian in the race, they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race when they voted for me and Rand and Ron. So Trump just won, you know, that category, but dumped the ideological baggage.”’

In July 1997, Hong Kong was handed over by Britain to China. As part of its transfer, the British government extricated a promise from Beijing that Hong Kong’s democratic form of government would be maintained. In the two decades since the handover Hong Kong’s institutions have been pervasively undermined by Beijing and Hong Kong’s pro-democracy elements, but Beijing has nevertheless managed to have its own nominees elected as Chief Executive of the city. Brookings analyzes why this is an ongoing issue.

Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia has a thoughtful analysis on how certain legislative failures, or achievements of the Trump administration may affect the 2018 midterm election. Midterms are always about enthusiasm, of the party in power or the minority, and are often a rebuke of the party who controls the White House. This is not a notional analysis of current political narratives, but a numbers-based analysis of districts and voter participation. An excellent read.

Finally, the New York Times has a photo essay on one of the greatest war photographers that no one has ever heard of, French-woman Catherine Leroy. Leroy captured some of the most important images of the Vietnam War, in part because she was permanently embedded with the units she followed; she had no money  of her own and survived precisely because she was embedded with units that received food regularly. She was also a master parachutist and was able to accompany airborne troops on their incursions. When I read this story, I was reminded of an episode of Radiolab—which, if you don’t listen to, you absolutely should—which profiled the choice that current day photographer Lynsey Addario had when she photographed the death of an American soldier in Afghanistan several years ago. If you click on nothing else above, I recommend these two links, wholeheartedly.

Welcome to the weekend.

[mattmasdeu]

The Strangest Tales from Batman's Case Files (Batman 218)

What I Remember:

This book is an oldie, published in 1970 and a reprint of even older stories as the cover shows. The compilation features five stories: “Batman and Robin’s Greatest Mystery,” “The Hand From Nowhere,” “The Man Who Couldn’t Be Tried Twice,” “The Body In The Bat-cave” & “The League Against Batman” and even a newspaper story. I enjoyed this book a lot as a kid because it was less serious Batman and the stories were easier to understand.

 Vital Stats:

Batman #219* all creators taken from the DC wikia since creators were not credited

“Batman and Robin’s Greatest Mystery”

Writer: Edmond Hamilton

Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff

Inker: Stan Kaye

Editors: E. Nelson Birdwell & Jack Schiff

 “The Hand From Nowhere”

Writer: Bill Finger

Penciler: Sheldon Moldoff

Inker: Charles Paris

Letterer: Stan Starkman

Editor: Jack Schiff

 “The Man Who Couldn’t Be Tried Twice”

Writer: Bill Finger

Penciler: Bob Kane

Inker: Ray Burnley

Letterer: Ira Schnapp

Editor: Whitney Ellsworth

 “The Body In The Batcave”

Writer: Bill Finger

Penciler: Sheldon Moldoff

Inker: Charles Paris

Letterer: Stan Starkman

Editor: Whitney Ellsworth

 “The League Against Batman”

Writer: David Vern Reed

Penciler: Dick Sprang

Inker: Charles Paris

Editor: Whitney Ellsworth

 Executive Editor: Carmine Infantino

Cover Artist: Gaspar Saldano

Publisher: DC Comics

Publication Date: Feb 1970

Cover Price: 25¢

Re-Collection Price: $5.00 with a detached cover at Royal Collectables

 What Happens:

 “Batman and Robin’s Greatest Mystery”

The Dynamic Duo are blasted by a ray that leaves them with amnesia and unable to remember their secret identities! No one can help them unravel the mystery! They are forced to review some old cases from the news in order to crack their toughest case!

 “The Hand From Nowhere”

Two aliens riding a giant hand, rob the Gotham Zinc Works. Batman and Robin try to stop them but the aliens vanish in a cloud of smoke "returning to their dimension." They strike multiple times stealing zinc, copper and platinum. On their third heist, Batman suspects something is amiss and suspects that the aliens are actually human!

Batman follows a truck near the dock to a warehouse where he discovers not only are the aliens human but they’re working for Lex Luthor!

As Luthor attempts to escape he’s carried off to police headquarters by his own giant mechanical hand commandeered by Batman

 “The Man Who Couldn’t be Tried Twice”

Batman is called as a witness in a murder trial of a circus performer. Batman testifies that the victim asked for protection because he was worried that he might be killed.

That night on the grounds, Batman testified that he and Robin tracked the defendant and watched him fire a rifle at a fair game and then lose him in the crowd until he’s picked up for murder. Batman’s crack detective skills get the man of but he confesses immediately after the verdict is read!

Batman becomes a laughing stock, no one trusts his detective skills and he’s so distraught over his failure he stops eating.

The dynamic duo head back to the crime scene and discover a clown sneaking out of the murder scene with a painting that the victim painted on the night he died. Batman notices that the signature is -Q, Batman deduces that the Q, stands for David Dial, the owner of the circus because Q is the only letter not on a phone dial. He paid off the original defendant to take the fall knowing that Batman would get him off and they wouldn’t investigate further after the confession.

 “The Body in the Bat-Cave”

The body of Alec Wyre, electronics genius and criminal, is discovered in the Batcave. Batman and Robin begin investigating by going through his book of clients.

They question a gangster, Alec Purdy who claims to know Batman’s secret identity. Batman calls him on his bluff and he reveals that he doesn’t know his identity but that Wyre had a plan to figure it out.

That night, they return they pick up a high frequency transmitter coming from the cave. They discover that Wyre had placed a transmitter on a bat and followed it back to the batcave but his flashlight blew and he smashed his head, killing him. His identity is safe.

 *Bonus Newspaper Strip Story*

This is a complete story from the old Batman syndicated newspaper strip laid out into an eight-page story.

An inmate on death row, scheduled to die that night, offers to give up the name of his accomplice but will only confess to Batman. Once Batman enters his cell, he claims he’s innocent and needs Batman’s help to prove it.

He claims he discovered the body after being run over by the real murderer of a rare book dealer. The convict claims that a man named Steele was an associate of the owner and had some stock losses and could have done it. Batman and Robin learn that Steele too was framed by a counterfeiter named Hawkins and Bower, the convict himself.

 “The League Against Batman”

The Wrecker is vandalizing everything with the image of Batman and Robin throughout Gotham City! He goes on TV and says that Batman sent three of his brothers to the chair, and threatens anyone who glorifies Batman in any way.

Batman and Robin follow a lead to a local sculptor's studio which is under attack! Wrecker and his men lock them in his sculptor’s furnace.

After Batman escapes, a local man, named Farrow, is kidnapped along with his associates after a round of golf. They are released but Farrow is supposedly killed in front of his brother. Batman discovers that Farrow had actually faked his death so that his brother could collect the insurance, when he discovers that the Wrecker is wearing a golfing glove under his suit.

 Continued After Ad:

 Worth Re-Collecting?

You used to get a lot for a quarter, five comic stories and one strip! You just don’t get that kind of value like that anymore.

My favorite story was “The Hand From Nowhere.” It was 50s Batman at its most ridiculous and it’s typical pre-Crisis Luthor. He goes out of his way to come up with an overly elaborate scheme , involving fake aliens and a giant hand to steal something that could could have been stolen in a more traditional fashion and cost a lot less to implement the plan.

Every story is a convoluted mystery where one party set up an overly elaborate plan, only to be undone by a minor detail. The worst was the -Q on the painting in “The Man Who Couldn’t Be Tried Twice.” Batman connects the -Q with Dial because there’s no Q on a phone?! I guess that’s why he’s the world’s greatest detective.

The owner also hatches a plan to frame an associate knowing that Batman would get him off, then have him confess. That’s an awful amount of planning for everything to work. Also, how can a man, Batman, whose identity is unknown testify in court. How is he a credible witness?

There’s also the problem of the body in the Bat-cave? Sure, he wasn’t murdered and Batman and Robin's identity is safe but how do you get the body out of the Bat-cave? Did Batman and Robin ever report the death? There’s a lot of unanswered questions.

It’s fun to take a glimpse in the older Batman stories because they’re so much different that the stories of the last 40 years. But it’s very obvious that these stories are made for kids and don’t hold up reading it as an adult.

 Next Issue:

We take a look at my favorite Green Lantern Series of all time with Jon Stewart on the makeshift world Mosaic. It’s Green Lantern Mosaic #10 See you next week!

Back Cover: