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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)

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gourdcaptain said:
I have to ask: Why did Nabu make himself a helmet that needs a host to act? No other Lord of X we've seen has this restriction and it seems kinda suboptimal.
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I can't recall a reason being stated.

Now in the comics, the Helmet of Fate is the most powerful magical item on Earth even without Nabu possessing it, which implies he gave up independence for magical firepower.

But since canonically YJ Nabu cared about the magical proficiency of his host, would not seem to be the case in YJ, because "lord of order" plus "most powerful magical artifact on the planet" ought to provide enough mojo that the host's magical talents or lack thereof would be insignificant, unless Nabu was just being a greedy SOB.
 
ThrawnCA said:
to weaken them
As her eyes roll back and remove
As her eyes roll back I remove
as he hands
as he lands
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Thank you, corrected.
gourdcaptain said:
I have to ask: Why did Nabu make himself a helmet that needs a host to act? No other Lord of X we've seen has this restriction and it seems kinda suboptimal.
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We haven't seen any other proper Lords of Order. Jebediah doesn't leave the Rock of Eternity.

Being a helmet means that once he's on someone he doesn't have to worry about protecting a second object or individual.
 
Dr. Bob Doom said:
I think you're confusing YJ with the main DC comics. Prisons on Earth-16 work well. The Justice League on Earth-16 doesn't default to lethal force because the justice system works.
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I can't say that I've sat through all of YJ, due to it basically being the same thing I've seen hundreds of times, but I do know there was at least one major prison break. Not sure if everyone was rounded up though.

So while Prisons might work very well on the Earth-16 of THIS particular work, I have no doubt that in the show they will/would be the same cardboard day spas that they have always been the second a writer wants to use an incarcerated character.
 
I believe the issue here is that Superheroes don't precisely fall in a single, neat category of what they are in comparison with normal society, nor do I think they should or ever will. Each individual approaches superheroics with their own believes and biases, affected by their own circumstances.

For example, at the beginning of Stars, Crossed, part 1, Paul and Grayven use the practically the same phrase to describe two different types of situations: "This is exactly what a superhero should be doing" and "This is exactly the sort of thing a superhero should be doing". One is trying to improve society outside of "face punching", with technology, thaumaturgy and the like, the other is trying to remove a high threat, preventing recurrences of tragedies.
Is one of them wrong? Or, what I believe, are they both right in their own way?

In the case of Hal Jordan, he feels like a Space Cop, tries to behaves like a Space Cop and believes Superheroes are in general "Super Cops", or at least that the Justice League are. That's his opinion and he may have good points, but that's not the be all/end all of superheroics. Batman doesn't just go out to catch the bad guys, he investigates and tries to prevent crime as well and then 'Bruce Waynes' a bit to try to improve society in ways he can, at least from what I know.
 
stsword said:
But since canonically YJ Nabu cared about the magical proficiency of his host, would not seem to be the case in YJ, because "lord of order" plus "most powerful magical artifact on the planet" ought to provide enough mojo that the host's magical talents or lack thereof would be insignificant, unless Nabu was just being a greedy SOB.
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His strong objections to Zatanna joining the Justice League were attributed to Nabu and Giovanni being of like mind, which suggests a level of interconnection between their minds. I suspect that the interconnection plays a key part in Mr. Thinks With A Static Magical Construct being able to learn new magical techniques, and keep pace with developments so that he doesn't become an obsolete weapon in the fight against Chaos.
 
Maxx Crowley said:
So while Prisons might work very well on the Earth-16 of THIS particular work, I have no doubt that in the show they will/would be the same cardboard day spas that they have always been the second a writer wants to use an incarcerated character.
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There was a riot in which one whole prisoner escaped- Riddler.

Thanks to the Light.

Then the Light took over the prison so they could ferry people out of there when they wanted.

If it was already a cardboard prison, that would have been a waste of time.
 
Xelloss said:
Laws are meant to serve the public as a whole. Which is more often that would ideally be in opposition with the public as individuals.
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Laws serve the interests of those that who make the laws. Their interests may or may not coincide with the public interest. Democratic systems do generally try to make the law serve the public interest but they don't always succeed.
 
Maxx Crowley said:
I can't say that I've sat through all of YJ, due to it basically being the same thing I've seen hundreds of times, but I do know there was at least one major prison break. Not sure if everyone was rounded up though.

So while Prisons might work very well on the Earth-16 of THIS particular work, I have no doubt that in the show they will/would be the same cardboard day spas that they have always been the second a writer wants to use an incarcerated character.
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I mean... if you're going to make assumptions about the show, you could at least read the wiki so your assumptions aren't dead wrong. As @stsword said, there is one major prison break in the entire show, and it's part of a conspiracy.

Just one prison break.

There's a reason that the recurring villains are the ones that manage to avoid capture, rather than the ones that get sent away.
 
Dr. Bob Doom said:
I mean... if you're going to make assumptions about the show, you could at least read the wiki so your assumptions aren't dead wrong. As @stsword said, there is one major prison break in the entire show, and it's part of a conspiracy.

Just one prison break.

There's a reason that the recurring villains are the ones that manage to avoid capture, rather than the ones that get sent away.
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One prison break in a show with (currently) two seasons. I mean that's a 50% prison break right there. So I don't feel like applying the usual cardboard day spa prisons of the mainstream timeline/planet is overly incorrect.

Now maybe whatever future season that is supposedly coming will be less bound by comic book rules. But I sorta doubt it. I also won't really care as the character that currently draws me to Earth 16, Orange Lantern, isn't on the show.

Plus, the sheer amount of shit that the Light gets away with drives me around the bend. Especially in regards to Luthor who isn't even hard to find. The old "Well we all know what you did, but we can't prove it or you can just somehow buy your way out of court somehow, so you get away for now. But I'm watching you."

How about no? Hows about chucking his ass into the sun? Before, you know, he gets the entire world killed?

Granted, if you did that in the comics his astral energy space dust would just merge with a malignant entity, transforming him into like UberThortron.
 
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I actually have a new theory on DC universe prisons.

I like to think that rather than endless breakouts, DC universe prisons are simply much more oriented towards reform and not only second chances but fourth, fifth, and sixth chances. They don't believe that long prison sentences serve to deter crime and in fact only serve to make sure that individuals have no capability to successfully rejoin society. Therefore they have very short sentences, frequently less than a year even for what we would consider very serious crimes. Unfortunately this system, which normally works reasonably well at inducing reform, has issues with costumed criminals that have a unique psychological pathology that drives them back to crime again and again (often because they are focused on 'revenge' on a superhero). However society as whole is unwilling to give up their successful reform-focused prison system merely in order to deal with these aberrations.

This actually works reasonably well with comics, where it seems like we see criminals showing up again because they're "out on parole" as often as because they explicitly broke out of prison.
 
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Rampage (part 5)
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    • 10th November
    13:08 GMT -5

    "No, I think I understand."

    I watch Jade as she takes another bite of her sandwich, shaking my head slightly. "You do?"

    She chews for a moment, then swallows. Then she carefully watches my face. "And you actually don't."

    I shake my head again. "If I did, I wouldn't ask."

    "It's about confidence. She needed to know that if she had to fight someone more powerful than her, she could do it."

    "But.. she could. She actually does that several times a year. Everyone knows that."

    "Did you?"

    "I… Yes, I.. honestly assume that of everyone on the League. I didn't ask her because I didn't think the risk-reward made sense." I watch her take another bite, the news program playing in the background saying something about a series of earthquakes in Argentina. "Is that.. something you… Feel..?"

    "Not… Exactly."

    I lean forwards slightly. "Please don't ever pick a fight with a ludicrously out of your league superhero."

    "If your enemies know that you're willing to fight them, it changes how they evaluate whether to attack you or not. They know beating you would cost them more."

    "Oh no." I frown. "Thanagar's doing a John Byng."

    "Or training their soldiers to think like Meiji Restoration era samurai. Who was John Byng?"

    "A British naval officer executed for not 'doing his utmost against the enemy' in the eighteenth century. Voltaire put a joke about it in Candide, ah… 'In this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others'." She.. nods. "The result.. was supposed to be that British officers became more aggressive, always attacking when in doubt."

    "And they ended up controlling the largest empire in history."

    "There was a bit more to it than that, but… It may have helped." I frown. "So that's what it looks like on the ground."

    "What would have happened to her if she didn't challenge you?"

    "Noth-." She raises her eyebrows. "Ah… Assuming that she included it in her report… I don't know. The most recent copy of Thanagar's Articles of War I've got predates the Equalisation Plague, two hundred years and a major social upheaval out of date."

    "A dishonored samurai who didn't commit suicide after being dishonored would be reviled by other warriors and lords. And so would their family."

    "I-." Can I.. say..? "Hawkwoman grew up in a military orphanage, so-."

    "So her sense of identity is entirely tied up in being a loyal soldier and her entire 'family' would think the same way she does."

    And who does that sound like? "Jade." I reach across the table and put my right hand on her left forearm. "If you want me to beat you unconscious as well-?"

    She smiles, a slight hiss of air escaping from her lips. Then she rolls her eyes. "No, I'm-. It's been an adjustment, but the League of Shadows' disciplinary system didn't work like that. Experienced operatives were too valuable. And Ra's didn't want anyone thinking that a code was more important than him."

    "So.. you.. don't feel-?"

    She raises her eyebrows. "Can't you see?"

    "I… Could. I choose not to."

    She nods, turning her left arm slightly so her hand rests on my forearm. "I don't feel the need to.. lose a fight to maintain my identity because I've changed my identity. I chose not to be an assassin. She's still a soldier." I nod. "And I'm not really keen on losing fights or picking fights I can't win."

    "But Hawkwoman was fine with it because anything else looked dishonourable to her." I shake my head. "I'd like to say it's crazy, but it's.. no."

    "No." She pulls back her left arm slightly, so that our hands are clasped. "Challenging you to a fight without some sort of equaliser was crazy. Challenging you at all was just being true to her code."

    She takes another bite of her sandwich, her eyes moving briefly to the people staring at us -me, really- from the other parts of the deli. I've got sound suppression on so they can't hear what we're actually saying, but at this point my visits and relationship with Jade are public knowledge.

    "Thanagarians don't have equalisers to power rings. That was actually a factor in the formation of their policies towards aliens during their expansions; they knew that they couldn't risk pushing the Corps more than a certain degree."

    "How close are they to Earth?"

    "Pretty close in interstellar terms, not close at all in terms of absolute distance. They could send a fleet here, but unless we look like we're becoming an imminent threat it seems unlikely that they will." I shrug. "They don't have any rivals in this direction, but integrating other species into their empire… Well, settling their worlds over their objections, takes time and effort."

    "Do you think the Hawks are sending information home, so-." I'm already nodding, and she narrows her eyes slightly. "You knew that?"

    "It's obvious. But since we're not planning on picking a fight with Thanagar, there's no harm in it." Couldn't even if we wanted to. The one benefit of the Equalisation Plague was that in the aftermath internal disputes became unimportant, whereas Earth doesn't have a unified space program. When we finally get serious about space it probably will end up being a superhero-led effort. "In fact, reassuring them benefits us."

    She takes another bite of her sandwich. I deliberately look past the gawkers -and the manageress who is making it clear that the seats are for patrons- and give the television my attention. Depending on the situation on the ground, an earthquake might-. No, it's moved on to covering a flare up of hostility in Kashmir. With that part of the world being a good deal more stable on Earth 16 than Earth Prime, I can probably leave that to local diplomats.

    "How are your meetings with the Justice League going?"

    "They're manageable. I'm getting a much better idea of where they think I went wrong."

    A small smile. "Do you agree with any of them?"

    "The Flash had a point, and I think… Green Lantern echoed it."

    "Oh?"

    "He's not happy about children being involved. And he's especially not happy about someone with my body count and modus operandi being involved with children."

    "Children who can run at the speed of sound and break someone in half by talking backwards."

    "Impressionable children who might decide to use those abilities in non-superheroic ways if I make a good enough case for it. And it is true that I'm a bit of an awkward fit." I shrug. "How are things in the mob? Any interesting assassination attempts?"

    "One, by Two Face." She grimaces. "Or it might have been, but I get paid to protect the principal, not fight crazy people. I'm actually… Thinking about quitting. A corporate intelligence firm in San Francisco got in touch. They're interested in employing someone with my background."

    "I imagine that's more up your street. And less likely to involve anything illegal. Want me to check them out for you?"

    She looks at me sternly. "I'd like you to check them out as well. They look legitimate to me, but I don't have all of your resources."

    "Not a problem. What are they called?"
     
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    • Mr Zoat said:
    She takes another bite of her sandwich, her eyes moving briefly to the people staring at us -me, really- from the other parts of the deli. I've got sound suppression on so they can't hear what we're actually saying, but at this point my visits and relationship with Jade are public knowledge.
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    Interesting that Jade is fine with being seen with Paul in public. I'd have thought she'd like to keep things on the low until public attention dies down a bit, after the religious crazies stop gunning after Paul for stealing a Fruit.
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    "Impressionable children who might decide to use those abilities in non-superheroic ways if I make a good enough case for it. And it is true that I'm a bit of an awkward fit." I shrug.
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    On the one hand, that's a good point to make in regards to Paul's occasional tendency of extreme action when he sees the need.

    On the other hand, when Paul sees the need to take extreme action, there's almost always very good reasons for doing so.

    I suppose it's something to keep in mind, but not a major concern, especially as the 'children' Green Lantern and the Flash are concerned about are nearing adulthood and should be able to handle more complicated decision-making paradigms, as their jobs will require them to do in the future. I think Flash's argument is colored more than a bit by his opinion on the role (or lack thereof) super-people the Teams age should take.
     
    HanEmpire said:
    Interesting that Jade is fine with being seen with Paul in public. I'd have thought she'd like to keep things on the low until public attention dies down a bit, after the religious crazies stop gunning after Paul for stealing a Fruit.
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    He was basically her probation officer for like 6 months or something as well so them being together in public wouldn't have been that uncommon.
     
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