Annotated 24-1
Yeah, I had completely forgotten that Phil had been the one to suggest the bear as the “F” in the Fightopian flag, and that he had a backstory in mind for it. That’s a great composition in panel 1, putting the bear and therefore Mama Bear/Brunhilde right in the center of it, making her the only stable point in all the frantic action.
If the unspattered, punctuationless cape wasn’t enough clue that this is a flashback, here’s binocular Sundar in panel 2.
A confession: I don’t really follow Metal Gear. Phil tried to get me into it a couple of times, so I know the bare minimum, but TBH, I’m not much of a gamer in general. When it came to Sundar’s story, I knew that Phil was laying in the Metal Gear influence pretty, um, solidly. But I also felt that my outsider’s perspective would be helpful in making sure this story was still gettable to non-MG fans.
When it came to this sequence, I needn’t have worried. Brunhilde is pretty great no matter where her roots of inspiration lie.
What was Sundar going to say when Brunhilde cut him off? “Wait, Plutus was your kid? I thought you two were humping like rabbits every night. Eh, no offence, Rabbit.”
Heh! This was Phil’s sequence, and I doubt that was his original intent. Coulda been, though. We’re painting Plutus in even broader strokes than Brunhilde, so his time with Brunhilde… and how Sundar interpreted that time… is largely left to your imagination.
I thought it was going for the ‘maiden warrior’ thing…though that would work better if he’d mentioned both, I guess.
You’d be surprised how close this Brunhilde is to The Boss. She was known as the “Mother of special forces”. This maternal nature was a core part of her character design… Apparently Kojima originally took it in a lewder way, but it remains with the badass Boss we ended up with. Not only is she a self-sacrificing mentor to Snake, and inspires child-like devotion from her unit, she had a relationship with one of them (as Brunhilde). And gave birth. Not in-game, though her son appears…
She took a break from leading the Normandy invasion to perform a self-C-section.
“Mama bear” indeed.
I meant “like Brunhilde” – she doesn’t use “Brunhilde” as an alias. As far as I know, anyway XD
huh, im a pretty solid gamer myself and played every major MGS release, but I never noticed the MSG inspiration for Sundar.
Well, maybe the eyepatch, but the “club unit” really didnt resonate with FoxHound for me.
Does the annotation picture say “Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops”? I’ve never heard of that one… Though to be fair, I didn’t keep up with the franchise. Solid was great, and I enjoyed Solid 2 for being a well-done stealth action/espionage game. But the plot going wackier – or out-there or whatever – along with the failure of Raiden to resonate with me at all left me not picking up Solid 3 or anything since. I’ve been meaning to grab the HD collection at some point, but I don’t know that I really have the time any more.
Personally I think, for my own sanity, I’d play Metal Gear like Final Fantasy: Not for the story. Or basically for half of it. At some point “original bad guy” who was the goal to defeat “WAS A PAWN ALL ALONG” and I just drift away halfway through the scrip when they start facing gods with nailbats and shit.
But getting sucked into the endless vortex of trying to make sense of this insane and overlapping continuity is half the fun!
It does, it was mobile and released only on Japan from 2012 to 2013.
The only MGS game I ever played was The Twin Snakes for the Gamecube (apparently a remake/retelling of the original MGS, with some added stuff). I thought the story was stupid (sometimes in a “so bad it’s good” way, but mostly in an irritating way), the gameplay was way less stealthy than I expected, and the difference between the cutscenes and the actual game was a major turnoff (Cutscene: Snake has lightning fast reflexes and performs Matrix-level aerial acrobatics against an equally impressive enemy. Game: Snake walks back and forth to punch a guy who disappears and reappears randomy.
Bottom line: I didn’t feel like playing any or the other games in the series.
If you ever want a more stealthy game, I’d recommend Metal Gear Solid 3. The gameplay is much more stealth-oriented, and the plot is more down-to-earth. Not actually down-to-earth, just much more-so than MGS1. And it’s a prequel, so it’s a lot easier to get into without grounding in the series (Unlike 2 and 4. Dear god especially unlike 4.)
I have never followed any of the MG franchise, and this scene was still a good backstory scene to me even without getting any references. So good job.
I’m a big sucker for the veteran woman warrior, grew up with some powerful women in my life, and they always resonate in a powerful way with me (good and bad sides of them).
I feel so bad for those orcs, they truly look pathetic and in need of help.