#I think people assume that comic!Jason had been planning the final confrontation from the very beginning

[cologona]

Now that I think about it, it’s pretty funny how the fandom has been convinced that dancing around his identity would’ve been the less needlessly dramatic option for Jason. Even though practically speaking, even if Jason had never done the final confrontation with Joker, there was never a reason for him to hide who he was from Bruce. (So he didn’t!) It’s like the batfam is so full of pathological liars that our standards as the audience has been skewed to question why someone would tell the truth when they could lie.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Can we STOP reducing UTRH to “theater kid drama”??????

Like did you even read the damn comic bffr

He was a deeply traumatized TEENAGER who found out his death didn’t change anything.

It wasn’t “drama” it was TRAUMA

[mobius-prime]

253. Sonic the Hedgehog #184

Chaos Angel

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

As Enerjak and Super Sonic take off to begin their epic duel for the fate of the world, their clash causes an explosive beam of light to shine so brightly it's seen as far away as Albion (which, if you'll recall, is located somewhere around the area of modern-day England, whereas we're currently closer to New York), which Nicole barely raises the New Mobotropolis shield in time to deflect. Super Sonic snaps Enerjak's staff, and when Enerjak blasts him with a wave of deadly energy in response, he casually reminds him that in his Super form, he's totally invulnerable, making this essentially a stalemate battle between two living gods. Below, Julie-Su is shocked that Sonic survived the blast, but Locke is grumpy and hopeless, saying again that Sonic should have let him kill Enerjak with the Brotherhood's weapon while they had the chance.

It's amazing how clueless and callous Locke is here. I mean, I expected nothing more from him, really, especially given that he has yet to reach the point of redemption that he did in the M25YL timeline on his deathbed, but still, he doesn't even seem to show a single ounce of remorse that this is what his son has become. As the battle rages on, the Destructix watch from somewhere else on the island, and decide they definitely don't want to get caught up in it (which, really, I can't blame them).

Scourge reveals his supercharged warp ring, with enough energy to warp them to another zone entirely, and when Fiona expresses some doubt about leaving Mobius he merely reminds her that the ongoing battle is a battle for the fate of the world, and it's better for them to take their chances elsewhere. She decides to tag along for some "fun," which is after all the reason she left Sonic for Scourge, while Super Sonic continues to try to beat some sense into Enerjak above. He manages to get a yell of "crunch time" from him, giving him hope that his plan to bring Knuckles back is working, but it's not fast enough, making him worry. Julie-Su and Archimedes teleport to the Master Emerald's shrine, which has mysteriously been transported from the Chaos Chamber to become a small island floating in its own right at the edge of Angel Island (it's literally not explained at all how this happened, but I'm assuming it's Ian's creative license to once again make the world of the comics conform to that of the games a little more). They confront Finitevus, who merely states that even if he wanted to stop this, he couldn't by now, as the hex he put on the Master Emerald totally enslaved Knuckles' mind when he tried to tap into its power. He's uncertain about why the hex didn't affect Sonic when he transformed, but is mostly unconcerned, as his plans are proceeding regardless.

Finitevus, I don't think you understand one bit what actual heroes are like. Julie-Su and Archimedes immediately start arguing over which one of them will die in order to bring Knuckles back, with a baffled Finitevus looking on. Locke then rounds the corner, having arrived unseen, and announces that he, in fact, will sacrifice himself, finally regretting what he has brought on Knuckles with his actions in trying to protect him from the devastated future he foresaw. Finitevus, enraged, leaps forward to attack the three of them in an attempt to stop them, but Archimedes grabs onto him and poofs him away, leaving Julie-Su and Locke momentarily alone. Locke sadly looks down at Julie-Su, and explains that for all their extreme methods, in the end the Brotherhood really did love every single member, and only ever wanted the best for Knuckles. Julie-Su begins to cry as Locke takes his place atop the emerald, and begins reciting Tikal's prayer one last time.

Okay, I'm just gonna say it. As much as I genuinely liked Locke's deathbed scene in M25YL, I think this is a much better version of his death, narratively. It's also ten times more heartbreaking. The last time Knuckles ever spoke to his father, Locke hit him with a thinly-veiled threat to his family's safety, and Knuckles punched the screen and screamed at him in response. And now, without a chance to ever apologize or say goodbye, Locke is gone, having sacrificed his life to save his son. I have never doubted for a moment that Locke truly does love Knuckles and has always done everything with the best of intentions, which is precisely why I always felt he would make a better villain than a hero. The Sonic series, as much as I love it, is sorely lacking in three-dimensional villains, with most being either like Eggman - wanting to conquer the world - or Finitevus - wanting to watch it burn. Locke, as I've gone over before, would have been a fantastic antagonist. I think it very true that the best villains are the ones we can relate to in some way. Loving your child and wanting the best for them is very relatable to many people, and permanently messing up your child because of trying to do the best for them is a very real fear for the majority of parents. And Locke realizing this at the end of his life and then giving up said life for the sole purpose of undoing everything he helped to cause is the logical narrative conclusion of this character arc. Because of this, I think Ian ultimately writes Locke much better than did Kenders, despite Locke being based on Kenders' father (which is why I kind of feel bad even saying this, but eh, I've already made the argument that he should have been a villain, I don't think I can make it much worse from here). And as sad as this is, it just gets worse as Knuckles regains his right mind and returns to the ground, asking Julie-Su where his father is. Julie-Su merely starts sobbing and babbling incoherently about how she couldn't stop him, and just as horrible understanding begins to dawn on Knuckles, Finitevus returns through a warp ring, incensed that Locke stopped his plans after all. He yells that with his luck, Knuckles will even remember his time as Enerjak, to which Knuckles furiously replies that he remembers -

An exit fitting for one such as Finitevus. Julie-Su tentatively says that they should head back down to New Mobotropolis to let everyone know that the day's been saved, but Knuckles curtly cuts him off, refusing and claiming that as the last living Guardian of Angel Island, he's never leaving this island again, and he'll guard the Master Emerald alone for the rest of his life. And thus, we've finally come full circle. Knuckles started out as the lone Guardian of the island with no one else to help him, and now he's become such once again. Come on though, man, for real - your father sacrificed himself so you could have your own life free of the destiny he's forced on you, don't immediately try to isolate yourself!

Anything

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Stingray Grafik Wurks

Well, there's still one loose end we have yet to tie up - namely, the fate of the Dark Legion. While those who were happy to be free of their cybernetic trappings were transported to Albion, those who regret losing them have remained with Lien-Da, who now seeks the help of a mysterious figure to get her people's way of life back. Her speech is actually quite fascinating, because for basically the first time we actually get to see what a lifelong member of the Legion thinks of their own history, without immediately being made out to be a cackling evildoer. Turns out… their position is kind of reasonable.

I mean, I did just go over why Locke, and thus by extension the Brotherhood, are not really good people. I don't think they're evil - misguided, more like - but it's clear that in the end, extremism was the name of the game on both sides of the technology debate, and if anything both sides have only gotten more extreme over the past several hundred years. Ultimately, while the Dark Legion has absolutely employed some really messed up methods in their pursuit of their goals, their actual ideology is not unreasonable at all. In the end, they really were just a group of people who didn't want to tacitly accept being thrown back to the stone age by their government, and rebelled when said government - a literal theocracy, if you'll recall - created an entire goddamn task force operating outside of the normal legal system to try to drag them all into a world without technology regardless. I mean, literally, think about it right now - if your government, after a bad incident with one scientist going nuts and trying to seize power, in response decided to ban all technology and mandate that everyone had to regress back to a medieval lifestyle, how many of you reading this, right now, would just accept it and give everything up? And how many more of you would say "No way in hell is this okay" and join a revolution? Use technology in secret, rebel, fight for your right to live life as a modern human being with modern comforts? The Legion was twisted over time into a force that fought for all the wrong reasons, looking for power instead of freedom, but in the end, they were more wronged than anyone else in this whole debate, and absolutely had a right to be angry over the way they were mistreated.

Lien-Da, treacherous nature aside, clearly does believe in her people's way of life, and so she crafts a deal with her mysterious contact - if he makes her the Grandmaster of the Legion, a title which she feels she deserves after watching her late brother and the decrepit Dimitri take the reins before her, she'll join his cause and have her soldiers act as his new ground forces since his were destroyed by Enerjak. Gee, I wonder who this mysterious figure could be? Ah, what the hell am I acting all coy for, it's Eggman, naturally, and he's more than happy to accept this deal. However, to Lien-Da's incredulous disappointment, the position of Grandmaster has already been filled - by none other than Dimitri! Yeah, Eggman's given him some upgrades, turning his dreadlocks into bizarre tentacle-like appendages sticking out from his head bubble. Aw, yeah, Eggman, no need to give him a proper body or anything like that, just give him hair tentacles, it'll be fiiine!

[tinnefoil]

Who are the Worldkillers (in the comics)

Since the Worldkillers came up a bunch of times, I thought I would make a post about them so people know what is meant by them. 

Let me preface first: 

DCCW and the comic book inspirations

I don’t think that the comics are huge predictors of what will happen on the DCCW shows. While it is clear that the writers take inspiration from the comics (Flashpoint, speedforce storm), they don’t necessarily follow the comic storylines with much detail. Like a lot of the time it seems like maybe they read a 2 sentence summary (Flashpoint is about the universe having changed due to timetravel, that’s a bad thing) and they then do their own interpretation based on that. 

There also seem to be cases where it almost seems like they WANT to be different from the comics rather than stick to them too closely. Like they might read “they are part of a gang of characters”, but they might actually want to design the characters and powers themselves. 

Let’s take Mon-El as an example. If you at the beginning of season 2 had received only the information that the guy in the pod from the cliffhanger is gonna be Mon-El here is what you might have been able to infer from that. 

- He’s probably a good guy

- They might do the story with him being allergic to lead and having to leave earth in a tragic manner

- He is played by an attractive guy the right age for Kara, so there might be romance

But the *bulk* of his story (he is a prince, his parents come after him, his mother attacks earth) is not something you could have gotten from knowing about the comics because this was completely made up for the show. You also couldn’t have predicted his personality/character, since that was also changed completely from comics to show (comic Mon-El appears to be a mostly generic nice guy, he comes to earth as an inquisitive teenager on his own accord and starts doing heroic deeds with young!Clark almost immediately, his hero arc in the comics is mostly about taking on responsibility and dealing with earth being new to him, him having been stuck in the phantom zone for so long and the fact that he is still slowly dying). So knowing about Mon-El’s hero story in the comics wouldn’t really have helped you at all in predicting his arc and interactions on the show. 

So if we assume that the writers of the tv show mostly react “cliffnotes” version of comic stories, we don’t know what cliffnotes they were reading. It might be: 

- Reign is powerful character who was created as a weapon of mass destruction/worldkiller by Kryptonian scientists

or

- Reign is a powerful character who is on a quest to find out her true origins

or 

- Reign is part of a group of badguys called the worldkillers and she might also be related to Doomsday. Doomsday is the guy who killed Superman. 

What we KNOW about tv show Reign so far

The writers describe her like this. 

"Greg [Berlanti] and I have wanted to work with Odette for years," executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said Wednesday in a statement. "We are beyond excited to have her join our cast in the scary, powerful and heartbreaking role of Reign."  

(emphasis mine) http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/supergirl-season-3-odette-annable-cast-as-reign-1009049

She will be a series regular 

Annable joins a cast that includes Melissa Benoist as Supergirl, Mehcad Brooks, Chyler Leigh, Jeremy Jordan, David Harewood, Chris Wood and recently promoted season-three series regular Katie McGrath. For Annable, the series regular role comes after the cancellation of Jason Katims' CBS medical drama Pure Genius, on which she starred.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/supergirl-season-3-odette-annable-cast-as-reign-1009049

She won’t look like she does on the comics

Odette‘s on-screen costume will reportedly differ from the comic book character’s.

http://www.justjared.com/2017/05/31/odette-annable-will-play-supergirl-villain-reign-in-season-three/

Odette’s statement refers to her as a bad girl

STOKED to join @TheCWSupergirl & @DCComics to play the Bad Girl in town. Thank you @GBerlanti & @AJKreisberg for this! Let's make it Reign!

http://www.justjared.com/2017/05/31/odette-annable-will-play-supergirl-villain-reign-in-season-three/

A lot of the summaries mention her being a worldkiller and even that there are several worldkillers. It seems likely that this is part of the CW press release, but I didn’t quote it because it wasn’t attributed directly to one of TPTB. Still for completion’s sake, this is what they describe her as: 

Reign is one of several Worldkillers — bloodthirsty, powerful monsters that were created by Zor-El. Like Supergirl, Reign boasts superhuman strength and speed as well as the ability to fly. 

If this is what they base their interpretation on, that means it would connect back to Zor-El and that presumably we would see or at least hear of more worldkillers.

Now, finally, without further ado: 

The Worldkillers

There are presumably 5 worldkillers: 

- Reign

- Deimax (grey cat like creature)

-  Perrilus (green lizard like lady, stretchy, poisonous barbs)

-  Flower of Heaven (white etherial type creature in the back, flies, shoots energy beams, she grabs Kara’s head and says “Feed me”, so maybe she does energy absorption)

Furthermore there’s Worldkiller-1 (Symbiote who possesses bodies), apparently an early failed experiment of Zor-El (apparently not part of Reign’s gang). It is not clear whether he is the 5th. Many people think that Doomsday might be the fifth because his origin is similar (experimented on as a baby, turned into the ultimate weapon)

It seems the non Doomsday worldkillers were experimented on by Zor-El as an experiment. Maybe the worldkillers are based off Doomsday DNA? According to Zor-El they have higher resistances than (at the very least non-yellow sun) Kryptonians and he wanted to study their powers to see whether they could be transfered to Kryptonians but was unsuccessful. 

Notice that this is already a departure from how the show portrays Reign. In the books the Worldkillers are already fully grown when Krypton explodes. While on the show Reign is sent away from Krypton by a mysterious cult-like looking people as a baby the day Krypton explodes. 

Anyway, the main story with Reign goes like this: 

Zor-El put a powerful forcefield around Argo city, his home city so now it’s floating around in space (dead). Kara goes to space (with a sunstone in hand and through a portal) to visit Argo city. [note: in this interpretation of Kara her being sent away from Krypton is A LOT less harmonious. Zor-El experimented on Kara to make sure she would survive the journey, he drugged her and put her into the pod and didn’t tell his wife about his plan. She found out last second and shot him in anger over his actions but she was too late to stop the pod]

Anyway, seeing the recording of her father being shot at Kara attacks Reign when she shows up. Reign was in Argo city to study her origins and initially doesn’t want to fight Kara and instead offers to work together (”I thought that together we could conquer that pathetic planet [earth] and find the answers we both seek”). She wants Kara to tell her about worldkillers. Kara says worldkillers are dangerous weapons that were outlawed centuries ago. Reign describes herself at thus. 

Born to fight. Born to slaughter. Born to conquer. The desire burn in me like a million suns. But I do not know why. I awoke from an age old slumber, knowing nothing but my name, my purpose, and a clue that my answers could be found on Krypton. 

She and Kara fight and Kara gets beaten badly and left on Argo as it is breaking apart. 

Reign goes to earth. She grabs the first policeman she finds and orders him to get the best fighters of earth together, Reign will fight them. She then beats up some police cars and tanks. Kara comes in and attack her again. Once more Reign offers her to join up. She once more describes the Worldkillers. 

A worldkiller. Engineered by Kryptonians, but not one of them. And I knew my purpose: to follow an irresistable urge to conquer. 

She also tells Kara that she has been spying on her and on Superman. She also puts a forcefield around the city so no other superheroes can come and help Kara against Reign. 

She then shows Kara the other worldkillers who survived and explains. 

My companions and I awoke fully formed in a deserted laboratory. [...] the lab was Kryptonian but not on Krypton. [...] Their goal: to collect embryos from  various species throughout the cosmos. Study them. Test them ... change them. . 

They all want to find out their original birth planets. 

The worldkillers start attacking Kara. Reign once more praises Kara for lasting this long. She brags: 

Only a worldkiller can defeat another worldkiller. Why continue a fight you cannot win. 

This gives Kara an idea. She grabs the poison barb arms of Perrilus and plunges them into the chest of Deimax. At this point Reign orders them to stop fighting and withdraw. 

Worldkillers! Cease! Perrilus, take Deimax back to the ship! See to her wounds before the poison takes her! You win the day, Kryptonian, I cannot afford to lose a single one of my companions.  

She claims that they will be back and be even stronger when they return (”We are still evolving, you see, still growing from the tiny embryos the Kryptonians harvested. We have only begun to realize our potential”). 

She tells Kara that there are 5 chambers, so there is one more Worldkiller who escaped long before they awoke. 

Anyway, here is Kara reflecting back on their encounter. 

If you are interested in reading the story, you can buy the two trades that feature her on amazon or online. 

Supergirl Vol. 1: Last Daughter of Krypton (The New 52) (main confrontation)

Supergirl Vol. 5: Red Daughter of Krypton (The New 52) (Worldkiller-1 and references to the earlier confrontation)

How the Worldkillers could be used

It is definitely interesting to me that the Worldkillers are mentioned so explicitly in all the news articles on Odette’s casting. This again makes it likely to me that that was part of the press release and hence what TPTB want us to know. Even though on the show we only saw one creature, assumed to be Reign, being shot into space. 

1.) Reign could have used the years so far to find her fellow world killers, to explain what she has been doing the entire time. The appeal of her showing up with a team could be that Supergirl fights more than one creature at a time and they have a greater variety of powers. It also could allow the villain characters to have an internal rapport with each other. As shown in the comic story, Reign was protective of her companions and cared about what happened to them. 

2.) Reign and Supergirl could team up to find the worldkillers, making more use of Reign being a series regular. Her story to Kara could be “I just want to find my friends”. 

3.) They could use the whole “only a worldkiller can kill a worldkiller”. Let’s say Reign attacks Kara, kicks her ass. Kara hears the “only a worldkiller can kill a worldkiller” line and has to go on a quest to find other worldkillers (first trying to find info on the experiments, then info on their current location, then find them, probably have to fight them. They could then die or escape forcing Kara to find yet another one). 

The downside of 2 and 3 would be that something like this would presumably lead Kara off world which is harder to do and takes her away from the regular cast. The downside of 1 would be that they would probably have to redesign them to be a lot more humanoid if they are gonna be semi-regular characters. 

The additional downside of 3 vis a vis 2  would be that even though it puts Kara in a very proactive situation, but imo the holes in this approach would be that it would probably be confusing in regards to the urgency if Reign is a huge threat and Kara goes on basically a treasure hunt. It would also take Kara away from earth and much of the supporting cast. They have the “go anywhere” portal, but while they could maybe justify her taking along Alex or J’onn (or Mon-El when he’s back) to other planets, there’s a lot of characters for whom travels like that make a lot less sense. Plus, lots of locations that can’t easily be reused.

It’s definitely gonna be interesting if we gonna see casting calls go out for people who could be the wordkillers. 

Personal Opinion

I’m surprised that they picked Reign as a villain. As you can see, her story in the comics isn’t really very fleshed out. She faces Supergirl once, withdraws after one of her companions shows up, drops some hints and from what I can tell isn’t seen again. 

On top of that, the series she was introduced in (Supergirl New 52) was replaced/rebooted by Supergirl Rebirth. We don’t even know if Reign is part of Rebirth’s universe. 

There also doesn’t seem a lot of special things about her to really work that well as a season long villain. But maybe her appeal to the writers is that she is fairly undefined in the comics and they can make up a character and backstory, much like they did with Mon-El. 

Another thing that struck me is that they referred to hear as heartbreaking. I’m definitely curious how they will approach this. Whether they will have her struggle against her nature and programming. Or portray her as evil by circumstances/shitty parenting? Will they focus on her quest for her origins? The comic book version doesn’t really give me a very heartbreaking vibe even with the “experimented on” backstory. 

The other question is, did Reign arrive on earth like she was supposed to? If no, where was the the entire time, if yes, what has she been doing the entire time? Was she picked up and raised by people on earth? 

To me her being shown as a baby is the biggest change from the comic book where she awoke “fully formed”.