Annotated 35-7
“I didn’t.”
Another “multiple scenes, one border” effect in panel 2. Still interesting-looking, but it works best in small doses and with simple action, I think.
Prill, like Penk before him, shows willingness to fight the same fight as an avatar of Tectonicus, and like Penk, in volunteering himself, he defines the shape of his whole life to come.
Penk probably could’ve used that helmet to mask his face for just a few more minutes. There’s nothing wrong with showing emotional vulnerability at the right time and place, but the trollets (trollings?) need to see the drill sergeant of panel 4, not the figure in panel 3 who’s still overwhelmed by how much authority he wields.
“Penk probably could’ve used that helmet to mask his face for just a few more minutes.”
The helmet that just got derezzed? I’m confused.
Well, yeah… I’m saying that in a hypothetical scenario where he ducked faster and didn’t lose the helmet, it would have been useful for him to have it as a mask in that one moment. Although I guess if we’re wishing for hypothetical scenarios to make his life easier, this whole chapter would’ve gone a lot differently if he’d been carrying his drum at its start.
I think, because of the “I didn’t”, I never really saw that massive-brick-throw maneuver as being taxing for Hammerhead. Like, that was just normal every day stuff for him, throwing massive boulders on top of people. It was another reminder of just how insanely strong the dude is, and cements Penk’s decision to have him lead the evac as the right one.
Also…
Was Hammerhead and the sharkpeople’s arc planned already at this point? Knowing what later happens with Hammerhead, it feels weird that he’d ever agree to flee, or that he’d ever care about a successful evacuation. If people aren’t smart enough to run away from the world ending horror, they’re weak, right? And by his worldview, that means they deserve to get unmade.
Well, we’ll see later that he didn’t actually agree to flee.
Get a good look at his face in panel 2 of the prior page, though: I think John renders him as making an effort.
In his first scene, Hammerhead showed he does know that the weak sometimes need to be protected for the sake of maintaining numbers. Otherwise, life becomes an eating-each-other contest until a tribe commits suicide by competition. Hammerhead seems to have some brotherly feeling for his fellows, but even if he didn’t, he knows that even he is more vulnerable without a tribe.
I don’t think we’d worked out exactly what’d happen to him, but we knew that the most convenient thing would not happen, meaning he and Penk would never come to a real agreement as Penk moved toward peace between races and focused war against the Gastonian government. At this moment in time, their views align enough that Hammerhead can overlook what he regards as Penk’s small follies. He respects Penk’s ability to defend their shared people. Soon, however, this will start to change.
Does anyone else feel reminded of something by the look of the creature in the first panel?
http://cooper.edu/sites/default/files/NoseGlasses_565.jpg
Or, for even more context, and why I find this particularly interesting:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Foyster.ignimgs.com%2Fwordpress%2Fstg.ign.com%2F2014%2F03%2FZak-McKracken-cover.jpg&f=1&nofb=1