Annotated 49-39
FB: A loose visual representation of how certain game developers handle criticism.
Here’s a note to Flo that I attached to the previous page, the one in which the gun’s floating in front of Carol’s face: “I wrestle somewhat with whether Carol should shoot the tank open, shoot HR in the head, or just wrestle her way the rest of the way up the cords and deactivate it. …There are issues of Carol’s character and the forensic aftermath to consider. But one thing I do feel certain of is that it should be her choice—no one else’s and not fate’s—so here’s fate putting the choice directly before her.”
Not much to parse in this one. Strategically, it’s getting a little repetitive…here’s HR using lots of little bodies again, right after assuming one big one…but the fact that the little bodies are essentially just him shows the continuing decline of his imagination. (And the icky vomiting action is enough of a shift that it looks like our imagination is still kicking.)
HR got some of his philosophy from Plato but he may have been better served by learning from the ancient greek storytellers instead of the philosophers. He would have known, then, that gods are jealous of and fundamentally inferior to heroes. That having doesn’t compare to attaining nor worship to love. That there’s more pleasure and life affirmation in rebelling and escaping from control than in exercising it.
HR here has claimed the godly power of the creator, yet he has experienced none of the little and big victories of his “creations”. He has not partaken in friendship, and love, and joy, and sorrow. He has only watched from afar and plotted alone and he will never get or experience those things. Although he has come to power, he has not really improved or actualized himself. The heights of growth that mere mortals like these heroes have achieved are inconceivable to him. Worse, the adoration and acknowledgement he expected to receive at the end of it all was nowhere to be find. All he truly gained was loneliness and jealousy and hatred for those who have what he will never get.
Well put.
I really liked this moment in the original run (and still do), the pacing between the panels makes it a really funny beat in between all the existential horror.
Eh. He hates them. Why by creative or use any imagination? That much scans. They are an impediment to his great Vistion. The Vision deserves imagination (though, shallowing dipping into the Platonic philosophy, imagination would specify accidentals, why bother now?), not the impediment.
At least he’s honest about it. Some gods claim to love every one of their creations, and then make minor rule transgressions punishable by an eternity of torture.
Some of those faces made me think of Walter White, and it made me chuckle.
His face in the second panel, though, looks more like JJ, and I think it fits the occasion.
Also, he must be getting petty desperate now. More and more new horrors, but he still can’t kill the Five. Definitely not as powerful as he claims.