#to be honest!! a lot of what i enjoyed about SBP was how effectively they made me hate this whiney entitled hypocrit

[bitimdrake]

Since you read Infinite Crisis and I like your comic book takes, I've got a question but I'm gonna need to preface it with a lot of context, cause I feel like my opinions on Superboy-Prime really differ from the pack: Anyway, I saw some Superboy-Prime fan art and it got me to start watching lore vids and reading his comic appearances. But I made a weird decision and only ever read the stuff where he *wasn't* an antagonist. (Death Metal, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and his first appearances in I think Action Comics) My reasoning was cause I was getting some weird vibes about the whole concept of his villainization. I mean DC made him a stand-in for their audience's discontent with the infamously bad 90s grimdark era only to then have to later rename the character (into Superman-Prime) because of legal trouble from not paying the original creators of Superman and Superboy, (the young Superman version, not our favorite clone boy.) So it didn't feel like they were coming from the best place when they made him a whiny misogynist nerd. Especially since DC isn't exactly the most woman-respecting company on the block, y'know?

Anyway, I read his original comics & it turns out og Superboy-Prime isn't even a comic reader! His parents are nerds, and his only connection to the Superman comics was that his dad read them. He was also consistently respectful and kind, and he sacrificed himself for a better world. It's made me even more reluctant to read his villain era, especially since I hear his villain era basically starts off with "90s grimdark is good, wanting a better world is bad, and wanting to save Jason Todd is unforgivable." But I also don't want to jump the gun, because I know that a lot of his more egregious mischaracterizations come a bit later on, like when he decides Billy Batson should die. (Even though he's literally one of the few heroes that fits villain SB-P's criteria for good, wholesome fun.) And I also really like the idea of this good, kind, self-sacrificing boy who loses everything and becomes an evil, destructive mess as he struggles to find the good in a morally complex world that can't hold up to the ideals he once held himself to. Cause that sounds tight as fuck and it really makes me wanna read Infinite Crisis!

So I'm wondering, since you read and really liked Infinite Crisis, how did you feel about Superboy-Prime in it? Was it a good use of good-boy-turned-bad? Or did they just make him suddenly evil in a way that felt uncharacteristic; either for the sake of having an editorial punching bag or for making Superman-but-Evil-and-Stronger? I love a relatable villain, but I don't want to go through, "and then Inertia kills a baby," again.

OKAY so the thing is that I have read Infinite Crisis and most of SB-Prime's appearances after that (considering they tend to coincide with things I was reading anyway) BUT I have read basically nothing with him before that. Like I think they've only thing I've read with him pre-villainification is Crisis on Infinite Earths, and I was a little too occupied figuring out what was going on to focus much on any one character.

So I'm not really suited to say how well done the change was, nor to give the perspective of someone emotionally attached to him before that. tbh, I suspect it is sudden and uncharacteristic--he's not so much a sympathetic villain in Infinite Crisis as a detestable one with comprehensible motives. He sucks, but I also get why "make the universe nice like I remember it instead of dark and deadly" is his cause.

What I can say about his villainy in Infinite Crisis is that it works for me. I am definitely suspicious about creators making evil/mockable stand-ins for their fans, but this one didn't bug me? Maybe part of that is that it avoids the aspects I'm so used to hating--turning fans into "basement dwelling no hygiene ugly" caricatures, making fun of them for caring in a "cringey" way, or for caring about fanony things like relationships, or sometimes for [checks note] being women. And it also helps that I personally don't find the '90s to be legendarily bad; there's some stuff that is overly dark, but in large part that decade makes up a lot of my favorite era of dc comics!

So for me, Superboy-Prime's vilification in Infinite Crisis came off as a story about entitlement. Him as the stand-in for people who are so attached to the way they think things "should" be in their favorite work of fiction that they are convinced everyone and everything else is Wrong, and feel entitled to insist it should be changed to their tastes. Represented very literally by him, you know, actually changing the universe, and killing people who disagree with him.

(The fact that his "how it should be" is specifically colored by nostalgia does absolutely still make this an ironic and hypocritical stance, considering how many classic characters DC brought back from the dead to boot out current legacy characters, e.g. Barry for Wally, but I digress.)

HOWEVER I do think there is also a valid and more cynical reading that SBP in Infinite Crisis is not a comment on fan entitlement but on fans caring about the "wrong" things/daring to question DC's decisions.

That's not how I felt while I was in the process of reading it, buried deep in chronology and thinking more about characters than creators. But I think it's a very easy interpretation, depending on the perspective you come into it with.

[blackjack-15]

Secrets and Killing — Thoughts on: Secrets Can Kill/Secrets Can Kill Remastered (SCK/SCK2)

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be. 

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas. 

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: SCK, SCK2, episode 1X14 of The Mentalist.

The Intro:

We’re beginning with Secrets Can Kill/Remastered, not only because it’s first, but also because it’s one of the easier games to analyze. The plot isn’t anything especially complicated, the suspects are caricatures, the locations are pretty barren — and all of this is true in both versions. It’s a short, unsatisfying game, which spawned a short, unsatisfying remake that fixed some things and ruined others.

The Title:

The title itself sounds like the murder occurred because Jake was keeping secrets (not because he was blackmailing people with them) — and it’s also incredibly vague — so as a title, I wouldn’t say it’s incredibly effective. The word “kill” is evocative, to be sure, but I think that’s the strongest part of the title by leagues.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s Aunt Eloise is a school librarian whose school finds a student murdered — so her first instinct is to call her plucky 18-year-old niece to come solve it.

The murdered student, Jake Rogers, has left cryptic messages in the school and the nearby diner, pointing towards not only what caused his murder, but also how to solve the crime and catch his murderer. There’s actually a really chilling clue that Jake tells us “will seal [his] murderer’s fate” — meaning that in the course of leaving these clues, Jake knew he’d be murdered.

Perhaps that’s a justification for the actual mystery being so /easy/ — the game can be beaten in under 45 minutes without too much trouble, sadly enough (obviously discounting the time spent in the original version switching discs).

The identity of the murderer/bad guy(s) is…honestly pathetic in both versions as well, with the biggest difference being screen time rather than complexity or plausibility. The remastered version nerfs the ending where Nancy stands for Truth, Justice, and Guns, and instead employs a rather ridiculous ending that’s meant to test you on your recall from the beginning of the game…but fails, because the beginning of the game was under an hour ago.

The Suspects:

Hal Tanaka (whose name in Japanese I’m guessing is actually Tanaka Haru or something longer but similar, since “l” isn’t a phoneme in Japanese, and no word can end in any consonant other than “n”) is a student at Paseo Del Mar who focuses very hard on getting the best grades he can possibly get —through both honest and dishonest means. 

As a suspect, he’s pretty pathetic; there’s not a single minute where he’s even remotely plausible as Jake’s murderer, and he’s really just there to make sure that there’s “enough” suspects to seem more complex (and to pad out the run time of the game). 

He also never pays for his plagiarism? Like the kid is a senior going into college and he just straight up copies the Big Essay? And it’s not really well written — if you’re gonna cheat, cheat well, Hal. It really bothers me that Nancy’s like “and he got his scholarship! Huzzah!” when the dude is a Stone-Cold Cheater. 

Jake’s blackmailing him because of the aforementioned plagiarism, which…like, blackmailing is Not Right, but am I supposed to feel like Hal is the Victim here because he’s planning on taking a scholarship that he doesn’t deserve with his plagiarized paper away from another kid who does deserve it because they have the smarts and effort to write their own? Is that what this game is telling me to think? Because the game is wrong. 

If Hal has the smarts to do Jake’s homework for the rest of the year, dude has the smarts to write his own essay. He’s a lazy coward, and I’d blackmail him too.

Connie Watson is the official tattletale (sorry, “hall monitor”) of Paseo Del Mar, and spends the game in the “student lounge” (what kind of bougie high school is this?) doing…nothing at all, honestly. I get that it’s the end of the year, Connie, but…go home. There’s no way school is in session, a murder just happened there. 

She parades her Judo trophy-necklace around like she’s not being blackmailed for it and that, in 1998 or 2010, no one would recognize it? I mean we definitely know that Connie’s not getting a scholarship, girl is flat out dumb. She comes off better in the 1998 version where she at least gets to use those Mad Judo Skills, but she’s not an important character in either version, to be quite honest. 

Connie’s being blackmailed because she won a men’s Judo competition…by wearing…a ski mask…yeah, there’s no defense for this, not in ’98 and not in ’10. Anyway, Jake is blackmailing her into going to the dance with him because he saw her taking off her mask (which she definitely should have done in a more secret location if she wanted it to be a secret?) but like…girlfriend is Flaunting her little neck-trophy, so I honestly don’t see what sway he has over her. It’s Very Wrong of him to do so, yes, yes…but he’s got no power here, and Connie’s an idiot if she thinks so. 

She’s an idiot anyway, and once again is never even a consideration for Jake’s killer. What an interesting choice, to have two separate characters as the “dumb muscle” stereotype. And this one’s a girl! #feminism

Daryl Gray is the SBP of Paseo Del Mar, along with basically the manager (from what we see) of Maxine’s Diner, creepy escort, police contact…you name it, Daryl’s your bleach-blond guy. 

He’s also super shifty; in the original game, he’s involved in drug trafficking, and in the remastered version, he’s selling his father’s company’s secrets. He also hits on Nancy a lot, but since Nancy never tells him to knock it off, that’s a Mild offense at best. 

Daryl is being blackmailed in the original game because of the drug trafficking, and in the remastered version because of the whole leaking company secrets thing. Daryl 100% deserves to be blackmailed for that, as both of those things are Very Illegal, and he’s being Very Stupid about them. Yes, I understand that blackmail is illegal as well.

Hulk Sanchez is a character with as much subtlety as his name would imply, and is the star football player for Paseo Del Mar. Injured on the field and yet still looking to play college (and eventually pro) football, Hulk steals steroids and takes them, putting the “muscle” in “dumb muscle”. 

Hulk is, true to his one-note character, being blackmailed for the whole “stealing drugs” thing (which seems to be his only character trait), as Jake wants him to deliver messages for him. Hulk by far got off the easiest, and if I were him and could be busted for both theft and drug use, would be thrilled that I was getting off this easy. Having no sense of perspective, Hulk instead rants to everyone about how Jake Rogers was a “punk” and how it’s a good thing that he’s dead.

Mitch Dillon, the school’s janitor, is the original baddie in the 1998 game, and is Unseen throughout the ENTIRE game, appearing only at the end to wave a gun around and punch Connie before being apprehended. 

In the 1998 game, he’s buying drugs off of Daryl, whereas in the 2010 remake, he’s buying company/government secrets off of Daryl and selling them to Detective Beech. In both cases, Jake tries to blackmail him for his crimes, and he kills him. Both games see him arrested, but neither one actually treats him like a character, and he is, ultimately, a plot device that weakens the games.

Lastly, the remake introduces the character of “Detective Beech” (real name unknown), who also goes by “Uncle Steve” in his guise as Nancy’s police contact. 

He is, of course, nothing of the sort, and has lost his journal with Gray Enterprises’ dirty little secrets that Mitch sold to him, and “hires” Nancy to find it under the guise of searching for Jake’s killer. Cartoonish and so obviously the Bad Guy that you’ll lose your voice yelling at Nancy to stop telling him things, he tries to kill Nancy when she finds out the truth and ends up trapped in Aunt Eloise’s kinky sex cage intruder cage thanks to Nancy telling him (repeatedly) the wrong combination to the safe. Yeah. 

“Detective Beech” in-universe is a TV show mentioned in passing in STFD, VEN, and TOT, which makes the fact that Nancy fell for this disguise even sadder. That’d be like some criminal posing as an officer being like “call me Detective Columbo” and you being like “that sounds Plausible, yes”. Honestly.

It’s interesting that this game sets up a story where most of the suspects are “cheating” in some way or the other — Hal’s plagiarism, Connie’s joining of the competition, Hulk’s steroids, etc. I’m not sure this was purposeful, and I’m even less sure that it really means anything, but it’s interesting to note, regardless.

The Favorites:

There’s not much about this game that I like, to be quite honest. I enjoy Jake (more on him below), and Ned’s cheesiness as a phone contact, and the fact that it’s Mercifully Short. 

Also Hulk is SUCH an enormous douche that it’s almost funny. And Aunt Eloise’s kinky sex cage intruder cage. 

If I have to choose a favorite puzzle, it’s reading all of the signs Jake hid around the school/Maxine’s diner. 

Or the ladle for the sheer stupidity.

The Un-favorites:

Everything else about the game. 

The visuals are “blah” (except Remastered!Daryl, who is the stuff of effing nightmares), the characters are cardboard cutouts with a combined IQ of 7, and Nancy comes off weak and stupid as a result. 

The villain(s) are one-note and boring, and the attempt to improve the game by remastering it made it easier to play (no disc-switching, faster loading, etc.) and had some campy yet cute easter eggs, but on the whole introduced new problems to the plot and took away Nancy Using an Effing Gun. Boo. 

I have no favorite puzzles, as they’re all horrible or horribly easy. Nothing in this game stands out.

Well…maybe one thing stands out, but it’s not to the game’s credit.

The Fix:

The first (and biggest) thing I’d do to fix SCK is to set it in or near River Heights. 

Yeah, there’s a throwaway line about this not being Nancy’s first case, but it doesn’t have to be her first case to make more sense in River Heights. It could happen in an adjacent suburb to River Heights as well, I’m not picky – it just should be local. 

Now, that takes away Nancy being “undercover”, but honestly that’s not a big part of the game to lose, and setting it in a town next to River Heights pretty much solves the question of why would these kids talk to her if they knew who she was (though I don’t think that’s a problem; high schoolers, especially high school senior, are pretty apathetic about other peoples’ reputations and wouldn’t really care if a small-time amateur detective well-known in her own town but not nationally was there to ask them questions).

This fixes a few things, not the least of which being how Nancy is even allowed to be there in the first place. It’s ridiculous, no matter the time period, to think that Aunt Eloise would be notified of a student’s death, turn around to the police and the principal and be like “Hey, I have a niece! She sure has found some missing dogs!” and the authorities being like “Some lost dogs? A niece? Gee whiz! You got her number handy?”. 

It’s a nonsensical way to get Nancy into the game that sticks out because there were sensical ways to ensure she could investigate.

Have Eloise working in a school a town over (and having previously lived in New York, to set up STFD), encounter the murder, think of Nancy, get the River Heights police chief to put in a good word for her with the other town’s police, and you’ve got a logical process of getting Nancy involved. 

Make SCK Nancy’s first big case outside of River Heights (even if it’s just by a handful of miles) working with a different police force/school/etc., and suddenly there’s a justification for starting with this case.

The other big change I’d make is in the whole premise of the game. 

Nancy Drew doesn’t tackle another murder until DED, and honestly it’s a good thing they waited for a good concept and a competent writer, because the one thing that stands out in the game is the premise: a person is murdered, and no one cares.

It’s one thing to have some of the characters not care, or be actively hostile to Jake Rogers while he’s alive, etc. etc. After he’s dead, no one’s shaken; sure, Jake has been blackmailing all of them, but the characters either intensely don’t care, or (in the case of Hulk, for example) are glad he’s dead, and have no qualms about telling you so. 

Outside of your suspect pool, no one cares either; the most the teachers say is a line in an email noting that they’ll have to replace him for bulletin board duties. A student is murdered — a student that these teachers all knew, as he worked administratively for the bulletins at least — and they don’t care. Heck, Nancy doesn’t even care — she’s just there to poke her nose in and say some horrifically cheesy lines.

And honestly? I’m not okay with it.

Jake Rogers wasn’t a people person, and he was a jerk. His dream was to get enough money to go to an island and live a life of solitary luxury. He blackmailed people who broke the law (Connie is the weakest link here, but technically competing in the competition is Fraud because of the monetary prize, even if I don’t condemn her for it) for his own gain, but he was the definition of a temporary problem. 

And an adult saw this kid as a temporary problem and used a permanent solution to fix it.

There’s the great episode in the first season of The Mentalist, 1X14 “Crimson Casanova”, where a woman having an affair in a hotel with a pick-up artist is shot to death. 

At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that this woman, who cheated on and stole from her husband, was not the target at all — that a hotel employee who was in love with the pick-up artist’s ex-girlfriend tried to kill the pick-up artist in revenge for his treatment of the ex-girlfriend. 

The following dialogue takes place between Patrick Jane (the titular Mentalist) and the murderer:

Murderer: “I’m not sorry. He’s dirt. The way he carried on with those other women, rubbing Katie’s nose in it? …I wish I hadkilled him.”

Jane: “But you killed Claire Wolcott instead.”

M: “I never meant to do that…but she shouldn’t have been doing what she was doing, should she? I mean, it’s not like anybody cares. Her husband was going —”

J: “I care! I care about Claire Wolcott! She was a living person!...You took her life!”

When his detective partner tries to calm him down, Jane responds with a simple statement:

J: “I…I just…I think he should be sorry.”

And that’s how I feel about Jake Rogers’ death. 

Sure, he was a blackmailer. He, too, shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing. But he’s also a senior in high school involved in, let’s face it, petty crimes at most. He was a living person.

I don’t expect the murderer to be sorry, like in the above example. But a kid was alive, and now he’s dead, because someone murdered him in cold blood. 

And I think someone should be sorry.

So how would I fix SCK? 

Set it in or near River Heights, flesh out the characters, acknowledge the wrong that all of them do. 

Make the culprit an actual part of the case. 

Have actual puzzles in the game. 

Acknowledge how terrible it is that Jake Rogers was murdered and that no one seems to care.

Have someone on his side, even if it’s only Nancy — Nancy, who shares so many similarities with Jake, who spies on those around her, who gathers evidence of their wrongdoings and, yes, holds it over their heads to get them to tell her what she wants to know. 

Give Nancy sympathy for Jake, wanting justice for Jake, and you’ve won half the battle.