Annotated 4-17
As this page was being published, Phil and Erica and I were in Chicago for the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, offering up the special “Volume 0.5” ashcan edition. Anticipating the show, we’d ordered the copies to be produced by a local printer, but we didn’t anticipate its relatively short hours and had to scramble to get them to the table on time.
My other big memory of the show is sitting in our hotel room and sweating over my finances, debating Phil and Erica over whether or not to make the “BECOME A HUGE DOUCHE” thing a T-shirt design (I lost).
Incidentally, there’s been a persistent theory that Taro orchestrated his own kidnapping, which even Phil considered retconning in at one point. To my mind, though, that doesn’t really track. Von Carnaj knew where to find nobles’ children (whom he presumably saw as more capable than commoners’) because he bribed Sundar to tell him. If Taro had somehow learned von Carnaj was in the market for a boy king and contacted him directly, then von Carnaj wouldn’t have needed Sundar. If Taro had asked Sundar to find some pirates to “kidnap” him, you can bet the serumed Sundar would’ve mentioned that, which would put Byron and Gravedust on their guard against Taro.
I think it’s more likely that Taro saw through this pretty obvious trap but was confident he could outwit the pirates once aboard. And hey, he wasn’t wrong.
You’ve got to give Von Carnaj credit. As crazy as is he is, he was instrumental in creating the first known flying ship. And he managed to successfully fend off an elf who was fast enough to deflect bullets and who just slaughtered a whole nest of pirates single-handily.
Just realized Von Carnaj mirrors Best in a few was; Over dramatic stage presence, huge ego, self centered and believes in a self fulfilling destiny. It would make sense he would also be able to somewhat match Best in combat. Too bad Carnaj never accounted for magic bullets/arrows.
Not just deflect bullets…deflect them back at the head of the shooter. This is ‘bullets and bracelets’ level shit, and he’s not even immortal with centuries of practice.
(Or I could be misreading those panels…)
I don’t think so. I think you nailed it.
Given that the shooter’s forehead while sighting (from Best’s perspective) is pretty much the same bearing as the muzzle of the gun, and given the apparent angle of divergence of the ricochet path from our point of view, and given that there is a lot of empty space (free of the gun muzzle) in the left of the panel, dictating a minimum distance between the shooter and the point of ricochet, I’m not exactly following where our point of view can possibly exist.
It’s a comic, so the physics doesn’t have to be accurate. Just suggestive or symbolic. And in this case the third panel seems to suggest the shooter has recently a acquired a new hole in his head.
It’s possible that it’s meant to represent Best swiping his head with an axe. But I believe Erica would of drawn the scene to be a touch more gory if that was the case.
Considering how the comic ends, this whole sequence is nicely ironic. Also, it exemplifies a recurring theme; you can try to beat the Crazy, but it’s much more effective to let the Crazy beat itself.
You know, until just now, rereading this page and your comment, I actually felt the whole wrap-up scene at the end with the Evil Lich Training scene was a little out of place. “Divine intervention” in the form of H.R. has taken its toll on my perception of the plot, and I had chosen to dismiss just how coincidental Taro’s role in the plot had been all along.
Maybe his upbringing predisposed him to villainy, but this chance encounter was the catalyst that pushed him over the edge – making that training scene I mentioned more of an endcap to this subplot and giving it a little more gravity as a wrap-up scene.
I was thinking more of the way Best sails away in an airship, but yes, Taro’s presence and actions here both foreshadows and probably hastens the development of his contempt for other beings. After all, if Legendary Heroes can be so callous, why not little kids?
I don’t think Sundar would have mentioned Taro wanting to be kidnapped. That takes him from relatively-innocently selling information on where certain people habitually spend their time (which is suspicious, but not necessarily wrong) to orchestrating a kidnapping (which likely would have gotten him a much more serious beating from Byron at the very least.)
Huh. And here I thought Taro orchestrating all this was canon. A very persistent theory, that.
I would suggest that Carnaj took noble children because it would make him harder to fight from a societal point of view. Since the nobles foot the bill for, or directly own, the military they would be loathe to attack a ship which held their own progeny. Can’t say the same for their opinions of the commoners. It could also conceivably play into a Taro-plot; take the noble children to weaken the (other) noble families.
I also can’t help but think One Piece in regards to the “boy pirate king” shtick, though I would appreciate hearing if it’s a reference to something else or a simple coincidence.
All the gore is certainly enough like One Piece to make me suspicious!