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leliel_12[Trigger Warning: Lotsa gore, mention of substance abuse, discussion of suicide, all the bad mental health portrayals. It’s going to be quite the series. Also, description of spider monsters in the spitefic.]
[Image heavy by necessity - apologies for the blur on some, trying out new techniques to avoid base-64 coding.]
[Link to fork on Das_Sporking.]
Sumire: [Stares at the title of this sporking, then raises a hand]
Leliel: Steelworking terminology, they’re a type of smithy worker that purifies iron into something less brittle on an industrial scale. Which is, due to this series’ mastery of faux symbolism, is relevant. Don’t worry, they’ll explain what a puddler is, though as we move on, the more and more ridiculous the metaphor will be.
Mark: Uh…yeah, I can kinda sorta maybe almost kinda maybe see it…but “purifies iron to make it strong” already gets my hackles up, because…uh, Viltrumite logic, hello?
Malcolm: If this referred to how the villains saw themselves, I would not mind. But somehow, I suspect this is akin to how the more odious members of my Family convince themselves that they can pig out on the souls of random people who they haven’t seen committing major or violent crimes.
Wanderer: Your expectations are suitably low, because the problems are gonna start with the cover.
((https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_(Collected))
Malcolm: …Pardon? It looks good to me. Honestly, put this in oils, remove the titles, and it looks like the kind of thing I’d expect to see on the walls of an elder Hungry. Admittedly, that is likely in the distant future where superheroes now have the cache of classic mythology and the cultured vampires no longer need to feel the need to hide the fact they enjoy common culture - celebrity lorekeeper Mother Margaret remembers when most Ascetics would rather carve out their own memories than be caught catching a performance of Shakespeare, for instance.
Sumire: …okay, how does one become a celebrity keeper of secrets?
Leliel: If the people you are known by are also secret people, and you are as much renowned for how secure your vaults are as the scope of your knowledge. But I will admit that whatever the problems of this comic, the art is beautiful. We have many problems, but the painterly, loving drawings certainly aren’t. Clay Mann is at his best here, even if there’s a bit where he clearly had bad instruction in a later issue, and that’s the result of poor mandates - again, announced as less issues than we got. We’ll explain when we get there.
Wanderer: No, the issue here is…a lot of the characters here? Are not in this comic.
Malcolm: …oh. Objection withdrawn, please proceed.
Mark: …And one question presented, how do you get pictures of people who aren’t there.
Leliel: Given what I know of this book’s development, laziness leading to poor Mann being ordered to make a perfectly drawn shit sandwich. With all credit to Linkara, who pointed them out: On the left side, Big Barda, Mr. Miracle, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl are blessedly not present in this comic, and Starfire is in the background of one shot but never interacts. But there’s also one we can directly contrast. See, Batgirl is wearing this costume on the cover…
In the comic proper, she is using this one:
Sumire: …My own Phantom Thief outfit leaves my hair uncovered and it does a better job hiding my face than those…domino cat ears. And I’m mostly in a literal different plane of existence where people are not literally memorizing my face to put into a database.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Sumire_Yoshizawa)
Wanderer: Yeah, this costume was literally revised to Cutesy Doxx Danger after the first issue came out, to illustrate what a mess the Crisis comic that was tying together multiple storylines was. Part of me thinks the Sirs Not-Appearing-In-This-Series were going to show up, then retcons hit. Either way, we literally haven’t even begun, and we’ve got one point per internal error of the narrative of the comic, as in comics, the cover is supposed to tell you a lot about what the interior is going to be about - especially when it’s a cover for the collected trade, which this is as well as the cover for the first issue. This is gonna be a trip, folks.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 6
Mark: Ah, shit. [Rubs eyes in growing headache of dread] Though, what’s with the gold-masked white cloak guys? The main bad guy’s minions, I guess? They look, uh, pretty culty. The kind of thing you’d expect to be happily cranking up the psychological thrills in this psychological thriller tale.
Wanderer: You’d think so. You’d think more so with this alternate cover:
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_1)
Mark: [Look of worsening headache] …There’s a huge “but” here.
Leliel: But, not only don’t they not really appear…they’re not even characters in their own right. Or even agents of a character. We will explain what they are when they come up, but trust us, this is why the Arkham comparisons are stark. You will not guess what they are, but given how threatening they are, both the cover and this “menacing overlooker of the Trinity” shot get this:
BAT GUANO CLUES: 2
Though, there is one alternate that shows shit that actually happens in the comic, and is a convenient intro to our two actual leads for this:
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_1)
Malcolm: …Somehow I am not filled with confidence.
Wanderer: Believe it or not, we don’t have a problem with this, because here, Little Miss Stabby - or rather, Dr. Stabby, she is a licensed psychiatrist - has a perfectly good reason, given her current read of the situation, to be stabby. It’ll get less good later on as evidence mounts something weird’s going on, but again, that’s an issue with the story, not her.
Leliel: The woman attempting to do a flying perforation of some polyester is Harley Quinn, aka Dr. Harleen Quinzel, sometime sidekick-slash-mistress of the Joker, archenemy of Batman. While most of you probably know who she is, the rundown is that Dr. Quinzel was a fresh-out-of-school psychiatrist who was desperate to prove herself to the staff of Arkham Asylum, especially because it’s heavily implied she had to trade sexual favors for good grades and was always somewhat unstable due to a bad childhood combined with a genius IQ plus natural neuroses. Depending on the continuity, she either only cared about the Arkham internship as part of getting a celebrity shrink job or as part of a sincere desire to be respected as a medical professional after her humiliating and traumatic experiences in college, but either way, it was Arkham’s own incompetence and underestimation of the Joker that led them to accept her idea and assign her as his therapist. It…didn’t go well.
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0519699/?ref_=mv_close)
Sumire: …he wrapped her around his little finger, didn’t he? Took every little insecurity she had and convinced her he understood. Like Dr. Maruki, except at least Dr. Maruki intended to help me and thought he was just choosing the simplest and most reliable way. From “mistress”, I suspect real malice was involved.
Wanderer: Yep. Basically pushed her over the edge into full codependency and his partner-in-crime, as well as a more-or-less willing target of his abuse. Because let’s face it, the Joker is not actually that complex with his motives at his core once one gets past his shifting moods and whatever insanity supplies his ideas, he’s a textbook malignant narcissist and he gets off on people loyal to him degrading themselves and never leaving no matter how badly he treats them. Harley especially.
Leliel: But in current comic continuity especially, Harley’s finally breaking free of him - a lot of it’s based around her appeal to the audience, sure, but as part of that audience, I like it, especially because…well, it actually shows a Batman villain taking the reason he doesn’t kill to heart. Two Batman villains in fact, because it’s been gradually revealed Harley’s bisexual - and her main girlfriend is Poison Ivy, botanist-turned-misanthropic-ecoterrorist-with-a-sense-of-honor. Ivy always hated women less than men, even in her early days as a character (which actually was really sexist, because early Ivy was Scary Feminism Coming To Kill You Dear Young Man, Spooookyyyyy!...and then the writers found heads removed from asses and realized that just made her a fairly tragic character given why she hated men and loved plants). So Gail Simone (if I remember my comics history right) made it so they were heavily implied to be seeing each other behind Mr. J’s back as Harley was trying desperately to save what was left of her sanity, and as gay relationships became more accepted, eventually Harley broke free of Joker’s influence and became openly Ivy’s girlfriend, while more of a (fairly violent) antiheroine, hence shedding her old classic jumpsuit for clownish punk makeup. She’s still not a good person, but the main influence driving her to be worse is someone she’s realized made her a bad one now.
Mark: …so she realized what went wrong in her life, and she resolved that even if she couldn’t make it right, she could at least make it stop going even worse. I get you, I like her too!
Wanderer: And then there’s moments where DC does fart fetish comics with her in the belief it’s humorous and it’s what her fans want, but we don’t talk about the negative intelligence of DC writers who think they understand why Harley has appeal beyond being legally obligated to admit that thing exists before someone does in the comments.
Malcolm: Excuse me what the fuck-
Leliel: Moving on, the pincushion to be is Booster Gold, The Greatest Hero History Will Never Know, and Most Glorious And Noble Fuckup. That’s normally praise, mind - Booster, real name Michael Jon Carter, is a former professional athlete from the “good” version of the 25th century who was busted for betting on his own games and then throwing minor ones…because apparently even in the good future, privatized healthcare is still a scourge and his mom needed specialized help (thankfully it’s explicit it’s not supposed to be perfect or immutable). However, he was able to land a job as a security guard for a museum of superheroes - and with it, found access to some power armor and a Time Sphere, along with a highly intelligent fellow security robot, Skeets. From there, he realized that if he became a superhero a few centuries in the past and got some sponsorships out of it, he could invest in a bank and reap massive dividends in his time, or at least bring it forward.
Sumire: Wait. So this man traveled back in time…to become a media celebrity and get paid for it? …Isn’t there some grandfather paradox stuff to be worried about while he’s off playing hero for some quick yen?
Wanderers: For one, Time Spheres are weird, for two, the thing about Booster Gold is that his series knows fully well how selfish and short-sighted his core motive is. Booster Gold might be the most unlucky hero in DC that isn’t explicitly a tragedy, and pretty much the entire Justice League quickly picked up on how much of a sellout he can be, plus not actually being a historian who knew what the fuck he was doing. He quickly realized just how much of an asshole he was being and started being more genuine hero than grandstanding self-promoting social media influencer, though the fact he has a financial motive for a lot of his work, plus the fact he is very much a comedy duo with Skeets and to an extent fellow armor-wearer Blue Beetle means he still gets humiliated a lot.
Leliel: Unfortunately, and this is very much a Tom King issue - when King writes him, he has about as much respect for causality as Pokey Minch does from Mother 3. You know, the immortal child-turned-dictator who literally scouted out a portion of time to serve as a “toybox” for and then started abducting dozens of people across history to serve as his brainwashed army to take apart the animals of the island he found himself in and put them back together in cool ways. We’ll explain later, but in a story that is referenced in this, Booster basically created an even worse dystopian version of Gotham City as a wedding present.
Mark: …Truly, a man every Viltrumite would be proud to call brother. Every homeworld Viltumite.
Sumire: [Thinks on it, then winces] No point here, it didn’t happen in this story, but…it is worth remembering going forward…but the actual comic opens with this:
Mark: And right here I already have an issue. Why is she mentioning the state? Most of the dialogue’s fine, and given how Booster’s family is in the 25th Century, there’s no point in hiding his identity off the clock for their safety either, so it’s not like he needs to wear his eyegear when he’s buying a coffee. But why is it important that we mention it’s in Nebraska?
Wanderer: I think this is a first, and really good, look at what is a core issue in this series - how very much everyone is slaved to the story, as opposed to the characters acting organically. Since everyone needs to know the setting, we’re told what state we’re in…in spite of the fact we can tell we’re in a Midwestern diner in a small town just from the decor and name, and we could have a sign saying WELCOME TO GORDON, NEBRASKA on a street somewhere, or a GPS. But the editors were impatient, so apparently, Shirley feels the need to remind Booster this is not Gordon, Ontario.
Malcolm: But in any case, the elder gentleman notices a pissed-off Harley coming in, and even though he’s corrected by someone, presumably Booster, that she’s a villain - given the summary, I won’t scorn him yet, they both blame each other for something horrible, so naturally he believes she’s relapsed - he recognizes the scowl on her face, as does Shirley, who calmly asks if there’s going to be a fight. Which, given the sheer destructive power superheroes in DC often wield, is making me doubt if Gordon “doesn’t get too many superheroes”, and she doesn’t have a bunker.
Leliel: Given what Gordon has, that would be clever foreshadowing, so naturally I think it’s just the writers forgetting the context. But I do like this next panel:
Rather than cocksure or confident, Booster is just…resigned. Tired. And more to the point…accepting. He knows there’s going to be a fight…but at the same time, he doesn’t blame Harley for it. We’ll get into this later, but Booster is a lot less sure of his memories than Harley is - he also has a lot less direct grief happening to him right now, and knows that because of that, Harley has less motive to do what he saw her do. So he thinks there is something really weird going on…and if he knows what Harley thinks she saw, and Harley is right, well, Booster deserves to die. Simple as that.
Mark: …what happened…?
Wanderer: Oooh, you’re about to see. But first, the title, a nice shot of a cornfield with a streak later revealed to be Superman flying across:
We then get…the start of something rather infamous:
Sumire: …I think it’s a very good thing Dr. Maruki isn't here, otherwise he’d punch the screen.
Leliel: And pointlessly. Because fun fact about Harley - she is the queen of suppressing pain behind exaggerated immaturity:
Even more fun fact: the way the Joker initially built a rapport with her was claiming his obsession with clowns and circus thematics came from an abusive father, which Batman himself later pointed out to her is one of his standard manipulator lines, and her nickname for him is “Puddin’.”
Sumire: …oh. She’s not talking about ‘people, plural’, is she…?
Leliel: Nope! And we’re pretty sure this is what Tom King intended these particular pages to be - effectively “scenes from therapy” in Sanctuary. And this really does get into the heart of who Harley is as a person and character - she acts like a manic, well, harlequin and punk rocker anarchist, but deep down she’s a highly perceptive and intelligent woman who’s carrying a lot of pain and guilt, and is fully aware she can’t even begin to take back the mass death she’s caused - all for a man she’s fully aware only ever viewed her as a combination art piece, maid, and target practice. Since she can’t begin to redeem herself, she doesn’t really try either, and so remains in her over-caffeinated villainous persona, just - y’know, not killing people who don’t deserve it, and also trying to be a decent person otherwise, despite the fact that people like Amanda Waller want her talents to be turned to the most ruthless possible ends.
Wanderer: And if most of these were like this - well, it’d be a much different comic series. Hell, if the entire miniseries was just these and focusing on a few heroes having more intensive breakdowns between them, it’d probably be really good. As it is though…well, we’ll get to it, but most of them are the worst kind of filler. This one isn’t, but it is a sudden interruption, and is incredibly good foreshadowing for when they turn up later, because on the next page, we’re suddenly back to the diner, where Harley’s ordering while the other patrons leave, clearly only wanting to get at Booster (and makes a pretty funny crack that she has a horrible secret now: “I hate pudding.”)
Malcolm: …honestly, given the person associated with that food, it’s amazing she didn’t develop a phobia altogether. But then we get this and…
[Cricket noises]
Sumire: America smells like baked goods and whipped cream? I mean, your country has some notorious tourism spots, but I think it would be expensive to put up air filters everywhere…
Mark: I…oh. Oh! This was out around 2018-2019 wasn’t it? The Denny’s Guy ad.
Sumire: Oh! …Who is Denny, why do they own a person, and what does that have to do with baked goods smelling like countries?
Wanderer: Okay, joke’s over - basically there was a notorious ad where a guy who ate at a homey Midwest-themed restaurant chain called Denny’s here said their food was like “America.” The fact we had to spend a good portion of the spork explaining it shows how long it stayed in the cultural memory, and there were two pages dedicated to this gag and just…two people eating while giving each other the stinkeye. So, yeah, two points for two pages of this.
MEANWHILE…: 2
And then without warning:
Malcolm: That…is a disconcertingly large amount of corvids. What’s in its mouth?
Mark: [Stares at Blue Jay’s mask, then looks back at what the crow was eating, then gags] Jesus. And…he’s dead. Eaten whole by a bird.
Leliel: Yep. Implication is he died while shrunk, so a lot of this, and his tendency to panic when he wakes up smothered in bedsheets, is just setup for “ooh, the horror!” Yeah, no, pointless grimdark filler is still pointless filler.
MEANWHILE…: 3
And then, just as we were about to learn the stakes, we cut back to the diner, where Harley drops the act and picks up her pie knife to murder Booster.
Malcolm: Sooo, I’m going to take a wild guess and assume someone she knew died in whatever drew the corvids, and she blames Booster. Just a hunch.
Leliel: Yep, and that’s why I’m not scoring this, or Booster’s attempts to deescalate. Booster’s not even being dickish right now, and, well, Harley has an excuse and a more possible narrative of what the fuck went down, plus plenty of more reasons to be irrational. Because after a shot of the Trinity arriving at what we’ll soon learn to be Sanctuary, we see the inciting incident of this series…
The mass murder of dozens of heroes who were there at the time, strewn across the grounds. I’ll stop dancing around the issue too - while she wasn’t officially permitted to use the facility yet, Poison Ivy was let in as a guest of Harley’s (who also wasn’t supposed to be here but she felt she needed a place to crash and vent), and she was one of the victims. Both Harley and Booster, the only survivors, are sure they saw the other one murdering Wally West, and thus, are the other’s prime suspect apart from themselves.
Mark: …oh. I…huh. Well, in that case, the fact Harley isn’t actively attempting to destroy the town to get at Booster and is letting civvies evacuate before she goes crazy murder clown mode is showing a lot of progress. You go girl. Also, uh, please stop stabbing long enough so we can figure out what the fuck please?
Wanderer: Yep, and this is why we’re not scoring a lot of Booster and Harley’s initial loathing. Because let’s face it - Harley is a much more violent person and just lost her rock, and has good reason to believe Booster, the guy who everyone knows is a 25th century fuckup after some cash in the contemporary era and screwed up time in living memory, is responsible for her death and a bunch of other peoples’. She’s in full John Wick mode with her old Joker Sidekick giggles. Meanwhile, Booster has the same perspective - but knows for a fact that if Harley is reacting like this, it wasn’t of her free will or even in her memory, even beyond the whole “assumes she’d bring her own girlfriend there to kill her along with a bunch of other people” thing (and to be fair, we’re assuming he figured out Ivy was there, the continuity’s a bit muddled - correct us if need be). The motive doesn’t make sense, and to be frank, as we’ll see, Booster doesn’t trust his own mind anymore. So he’s fully aware that either Harley did so in a fugue state she isn’t aware of, or there’s a deeper story.
And this is the end of our praise for the setup of this story, which is as generous as possible. Because see that guy with the baseball hat, Hot Spot-slash-Isiah Crockett? Well, we’re going to reprint his full confession…
Leliel: Yeah, uh, leaving aside Hot Spot’s luck - this is his second charter on Charon’s Affordable Stygian Scenic Riverside Tours, as a former Teen Titan DC seems to have a seek-and-destroy order on him by certain editors - this is not his catchphrase. In fact, as you might have guessed from his outfit, he’s a pretty serious guy overall - his actual costume is the extent of his tomfoolery. This entire thing was invented by King, likely because he was ordered to use Hot Spot as someone who died and he had to think of something to make “B-Lister I Literally Don’t Write For And Don’t Know The First Thing About” be a meaningful end?
Malcolm: [sputters] How does that work?!
Malcolm: [Flat expression] …They invented a catchphrase…so the hero’s hero would forget it in the heat of the moment and feel bad about it. And, it should be noted, the dead man is black, while Superman is white.
Wanderer: Kryptonian in ethnicity rather than having ancestry from the melanin-lacking regions of our planet, and made by two Jewish writers, but yes, very white by skin color, and Hot Spot is very much not only African American, but his second hero name of Joto was Swahili to remember his heritage.
Malcolm: …as much as I would wish to score more for this, I cannot blame Superman, in-universe, for the bad look - it is traumatic enough to forget that kind of detail in the heat of the moment. I can inflict several other points, though.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 11 (Yep, five - inventing a catchphrase just for pathos is…a take.)
MEANWHILE…: 8 (And dedicating nine panels to it.)
Mark: Anyway, two pages of the continuing Booster/Harley fight, where he finally snaps and tries to subdue her by taking her to the Halls of Justice - HQ, I assume - and then back to Sanctuary.
Sumire: And there’s the spooky mask again…for something you say doesn’t matter. We already saw someone explicitly wearing that cult outfit among the bodies…
Leliel: Wait for it. It’s explicit next issue, but trust us, we’ll reveal more when we explicitly reveal what Sanctuary is. Or why the Greeter is a specific thing…
Wanderer: And the descent into Wally West’s special hell begins…it’s too bad we really need a moment for another interview from someone we know is dead!
Malcolm: And now, if you’re reachable in any capacity, you’re a phantasm. So, three things. Superhero non-embodied ghost addict, the most sad ripoff of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though I suppose if you became one of the actual Dead life would not change beyond suddenly being able to hop bodies and not worrying about age or illness much anymore.
Leliel: Before Mark asks, the Dead are different from phantasms in that while they’re ghosts, they’re true Accursed - the results of the Oracle of Delphi cursing a bunch of necromancers who tortured her for the secret of immortality with exactly what they asked for, and the power behind it caused it to spread down family lines and across to people who died nearby in thematic ways to the original founders.
Mark: …lemme guess. They no longer age, but only because they’re literally ghosts for whom they don’t have flesh that ages, and so can’t feel physical senses the same way anymore - so they become sense junkies in a new body in a desperate attempt to remain sane. Which, uh…sounds like an issue actual ghostly superheroes might have, but this sounds like our own filler.
Wanderer: Two things. One, Roy Harper - Arsenal - is kind of the poster boy for addiction in the DC Universe these days…because of things that happened in kind of the spiritual prequel to Heroes in Crisis, Cry for Justice. Which is regarded as quite possibly the edgiest story in all of DC that isn’t actively meant as a horror story or tragedy, as well as featuring one of the worst Villain Sues ever made, Prometheus - basically memetic “uber-Batman”, forgetting that the primary weakness of Prometheus is that, essentially, he cheats, he doesn’t have the same omnidisciplinary skills Batman does without downloading them to his gadgets. During that time, Arsenal’s daughter died, and Arsenal got pushed off the edge into a spiral of depression and drug addiction…and even after Arsenal was more or less completely retconned and never had kids in the New 52, he was still an addict. This does not make him a bad character, but it does mean you need to be careful in your portrayal of his struggles…like for example…
…actually knowing what he’s addicted to. Because, here’s the thing…painkillers and heroin, what he’s describing here? That’s pre-New 52 Roy. New 52 Roy’s demon, according to my research, is alcohol, which he’s been struggling with since he was 10, as opposed to a side effect of self-medication.
[Long pause]
Mark: Okay, yeah, the Dead are better portrayed on the basis we actually remember what kind of contact high they’re chasing. That’s kind of important when dealing with a craving. And also, I feel like this kind of thing would raise alarm bells from a cape perspective - because it’s easy for Roy’s identity to get out to wherever he'd be buying pills or heroin from. Doctor-patient confidentiality or not, at that point it becomes a sincere threat to his life and friends, and you need to ask who to ensure he remains anonymous to them, too.
Leliel: Sanctuary has an answer for that! …You’ll want to nuke the damn place when you discover what it is, but it’s an answer. Until then, points!
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 12
MEANWHILE…: 9
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 1 (It’s an extremely good question, too.)
Sumire: Another cut back to Harley, who stabs Booster mid-flight in spite of the fact she knows they’ll both fall - again, she’s grieving badly and she thinks the other is a mass murderer, no score for being a jerk when it’s just being overeager to martyr yourself - and then within Sanctuary…
Oh! That’s where the title of the spork comes from! …wait, weren’t they saying that about the people being dead? Aren’t these robots?
Wanderer: Yes to both. These are probably the Greeter androids of Sanctuary - specifically, the Sanctuary AI, which was also destroyed in the mass death, hence the other part of the mystery of who destroyed the program. Especially because…well, it’s a machine, and presumably the circuits are intact. How was its mind and memory destroyed by whatever killed everything else?
Leliel: But before that - this is the last moment you will see the Trinity’s brains. Because now, everyone is about to go Idiot Mode from the moment Wonder Woman explains what a puddler is.
Wanderer: Yeah, uh, fun fact we didn’t mention: Puddling, as a technique, came into existence around the 1780s, when swords, specifically, were on the way out. In fact, the process of puddling was mostly used for peacetime applications; the Eiffel Tower was mostly built by iron purified via puddling. Diana is pretty smart, but to be honest, she would probably not be the person who knows this - or cares, as she’d be more familiar with true blacksmithing techniques, and probably find the comparison of superheroes to what are essentially just the people who do the scutwork of civilian life over their corpses to be extra insulting. She may be the Spirit of Love, but she’s still an Amazon, and that’d just come off as cruel mockery of their bravery and skill when the killer did something underhanded to get them at their weakest.
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 1 (Missing the obvious “these people just exist to make life easier for the weak” symbolism.)
BAT GUANO CLUES: 1 (And trust us, while it means something, it’s not anything anyone would think of…and probably not from someone who is likely to know what a puddler is, either, and the metaphor isn’t likely to occur to them - certainly not good for leading them to the killer.)
Sumire: …given the names of certain counts, I don’t think anyone in this comic counts. Including Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective.
Leliel: Not wrong. Example!
Mark: …Yes, because it’s not like there could have been a security leak or someone found a convenient vulnerable place and someone snuck in. It’s not like that isn’t something that literally led to my existence, Dad.
Malcolm: I mean…you outright said Harley and Ivy were not supposed to be in, yes? That indicates security has a flaw, if Harley was even able to find out, much less that Ivy was allowed in after her. Going by the outline of the narrative, she’s clearly not at fault, and the fact Ivy is one of the victims should write her off due to motive until further notice, but the very fact she is there suggests a failure in security. Unless somehow, Sanctuary is expected to have perfect security, which given how even my world with its somewhat moderately low ceiling of powers does not rely on magic for technology given how curses are, above all else, unpredictable, is ridiculous.
Wanderer and Leliel: [Serious expressions]
Malcolm: …Please tell me you two are simply spectacular at poker. Zelda’s been begging me for a proper night and it’s been hell and a half getting enough people who won’t be completely steamrolled by her.
Wanderer: Zelda will have to wait. It’s just that stupid. And yes, Ivy and Harvey are old mainstays of Batman’s rogue’s gallery - even if he thinks they’re sincere, he’d keep an eye on them, and in fact, he’d probably be especially closely monitoring them if he trusts them, because he knows fully well the world isn’t likely to forgive them, and old partners want to settle old scores - including, oh yeah, Harley’s old boss, his archenemy. He’d know they were let into Sanctuary. He probably signed off on them being let into Sanctuary - or at least he would if…we’ll get to that. But again, he probably would know they’re there, and would be okay with it if they’re allowed to be there.
Mark: [Pinching nose] Right. I see equine tracks in the dust, it’s entirely reasonable to think of zebras of heroes going crazy, not horses of security issues. Especially in a place where I’ve seen actual horses in the area.
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 2
Mark: And you immediately assume it’s that instead of, I dunno, mind control of someone who’s had compromised willpower? This universe has that, right?!
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 1 (Yep, they do. Batman knows a couple, and Ivy was one.)
Mark: Thank you. Seriously, this is bringing in the entire universe, so I’d expect Batman to start by, I dunno, figuring out how everyone died, to start with. But I can already tell…the World’s Greatest Detective isn’t even determining the preliminary cause of death. Great forensics work, dude! Ten points, two categories, because by definition something you aren’t looking at will lead nowhere!
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 12
BAT GUANO CLUES: 11
Sumire: With that, we have official confirmation of why Booster and Harley are after each other…
Leliel: …and this is where my praise for the initial fight starts to waver, because now that they know that the other saw them as the killer, both should realize something has gone very weird. They can still snipe at each other, but they should be untrusting partners…but no, Harley continues on Stab City throughout while Booster continues to try to arrest her.
Sumire: …In other words, deliberately and continuing to go for the false assumption because it gives them something to do apart from fall into agony? Trust me…it only makes it hurt more when that support is gone. And it makes you feel guilty for reaching for it.
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 2
Wanderer: And then…we get Booster’s interview, and the core of why we have a count specifically for Sanctuary and its AI. Let’s let him take it away!
[Dead silence.]
Malcolm: Zoom. Enhance that last panel.
Malcolm: …Your Hon-ahem. Esteemed hosts. The plaintiffs would like to ask the court record if any of these three people are trained psychiatrists, or otherwise authorized to practice therapeutic care.
Leliel: Request granted - let the record show that no, they would not. In order, Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, is the chief executive officer and primary stockholder of Wayne Enterprises, LLC, and often serves as a consultant in human resources. He has several doctorate level degrees, but while many of them are in psychology, most are geared towards forensics and criminal law. Superman, aka Clark Kent, former name Kal-El, is a reporter, graduate with honors in journalism from Metropolis University albeit through a correspondence course, and has no background in psychology at all, and Wonder Woman, aka Diana of Themyscira, alias Diana Prince, did not have formal education as the United States defines it, but as heir to the royal family in the state of Themyscira was trained deeply in political science, war, civic architecture, and statecraft, and her Lasso of Truth prevents anyone it’s touching from consciously lying, but again, no formal training in psychotherapy or related fields.
Malcolm: I see. And this AI is programmed based on a composite of all three of them, specifically “Willpower”, “Compassion”, and “Honor.” Of these, only one directly relates to psychotherapy, with the only relevant factor in “Honor” being doctor-patient confidentiality and obeying HIPAA, and “Willpower” mostly being only a factor in patience. Neither would lead themselves to competence as a doctor.
Sumire: [Very dark expression] No. No they would not.
Malcolm: Moreover, as people in a very lethal profession that attracts a great deal of enemies - can I ask what the security features of Sanctuary are? Actually, let the record show I am revising that inquiry - beyond physical security, what are the barriers to identities being leaked to those who would do its clients and patrons harm?
Wanderer: I’m glad you asked! Because, those masks? Those creepy-as-hell, golden, impassive, identity-obliterating, cult-in-white robes masks?
Yeah, those are the standard patient wear for guarding identity. The dead person we saw with one on was just a victim.
Malcolm: [Jaw drops]
Mark: …what.
Wanderer: We’re not kidding. This picture. This right here is why we decided to spork this series. To hide identity by wearing something you’d expect to see being worn by the minions of JRPG bosses themed after corrupt churches and legal systems…and have it be “nah, all cool fam, that’s just a dude in for his meds, he’s all right. Say hi.”
Leliel: We’re not kidding. The mask looks actually substantially more creepy than an actual Western RPG villain I could name, Tunon the Adjudicator from the criminally underrated Tyranny. At least Tunon’s outfit shows he has a personality under his literal stoneface, and it’s not detailed enough to hit the Uncanny Valley:
(https://tyranny.fandom.com/wiki/Tunon_the_Adjudicator)
Malcolm: …I think I dated one of his relatives once. Very honest man, but treated the schedule as scripture. Also kind of an Experience looking behind the mask, we both agreed it wasn’t working after the third dinner.
Mark: But even besides that…with that crap on, how are you supposed to begin to heal!? “Oh, don’t worry, our magical completely clueless computer’s totally gonna help, just please put on this stuffy robe and nightmare-inducing mask on for your own good first” - dude, the moment I saw that, I’d be rocketing back to Guardians of the Globe HQ, Mom, and Cecil to gibber about the Hero Cult in Nebraska, and I am not ashamed to admit I’d probably be sobbing in terror. Shit’s creepy, man!
Sumire: And…well, what’s security beyond that?
Wanderer: As far as we can tell? Absolutely bupkis. Another thing revealed about Sanctuary in Issue 2 is that as soon as a patient leaves, all video and files about their visit is erased to ensure privacy, and there aren’t even guards beyond the Greeter droids and pretending to be a farmhouse in the rural Midwest.
[More dead silence]
Malcolm: …The plaintiffs would like to confirm that this facility - this artificially intelligent mental health facility built from alien technology - erases its own records, and thus mind, of its own interactions with its patients, ensuring it doesn’t even have object permanence in regards to them.
Leliel: Let the record show that’s exactly how it sounds to anyone who studies computers at all, yes.
[In the depths of stupidity, silence lies dead, but dreaming.]
Malcolm: The plaintiffs require a five minute recess in order to burn something.
(https://i.makeagif.com/media/10-03-2015/QhTgFS.gif)
Mark: Let the record show that vehicle was an LA privately owned autotaxi with no human driver or intelligence updating its internal GPS, just stealing jobs from actual cabbies, so I did not intervene. It was an act of defense of another’s career prospects and removal of litter.
Sumire: I just…they…um…I…what?! Where do I even begin?! Dr. Maruki took the worst shortcut possible, but at least he kept up visits! That’s how therapy works! I…100 points. I can’t believe this. This is stupid. This is beyond stupid.
Malcolm: More like “the AI is clearly possessed by something predatory”, but yes, it is also stupidity that let it get this bad.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 101
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 112 (WHO THE FUCK DESIGNED THIS SECURITY SYSTEM, LET ALONE THE AI.)
Leliel: Also, one other thing…
I think this is a tacit admittance that what Booster did in The Gift was a fuckup…but even now, the narrative, and King, does not seem to get the magnitude of fuckup, as it did more than just screw up Batman’s personal life a bit to save his parents. Because see…Booster knew that making it so Bruce never became Batman, while leaving a lot of Gotham’s villains intact, would screw up Gotham. He thought that showing Bruce that was a good gift to make him “appreciate his life” more.
How’d it go? Well…
In three words: Joker Zombie Apocalypse. And this, apparently, was not considered worth focusing on, instead being all about how that version of Bruce Wayne is an immature manchild who, despite realizing that not only is his version of Gotham even worse than canon, but so’s the planet in general, he’s still trying to kill Booster Gold to keep his parents alive because screw the world!
Wanderer: But, what made us decide Booster, written by King, is basically Pokey Minch when he started treating time travel like a toy? Well…the attitude. As noted, it was a wedding present for Batman and Catwoman, and is probably part of why the marriage fell through (wonder why), and this is his reaction to a Joker-afflicted (I…think) Hal Jordan overcoming the Green Lantern Ring’s self-harm prohibition through willpower to shoot himself in the head, spraying him with gore:
Mark: …we sure he wasn’t Jokerized, too?
Sumire: He literally made the world worse as a wedding gift. In this, I don’t think anyone would have noticed.
Leliel: Leaving aside my issues with misunderstanding how The Joker’s Last Laugh and the Jokerizing toxin works - it literally is not something born uniquely from the Joker, it’s just a neurotoxin that reduces impulse control, especially around violence, while causing physical symptoms that look like the Joker, a decent person hit with it would just act like a mean, scary-looking drunk - this strikes me as King realizing that he went too far. Booster wasn’t taking anything seriously, even from the assumption he’d be able to put everything back easily and masking fear behind humor, coming off as Deadpool more than anything. Not a good thing, and it made him come off as…well, a little evil. Maybe a lot evil, even as he admitted it was a bad thing (albeit evasively, when Skeets called it out). And now, here, he’s begging for comfort…without acknowledging, at least, it was a shitty thing to do to Batman. Much less the rest of the planet.
Malcolm: …No points for something not in this miniseries. That’s the only reason why not. But that really outlines how…myopic this whole system is.
Wanderer: True dat. Join us next time, as the…”investigation” gets started, and the most inexplicable dentures are found!
[Image heavy by necessity - apologies for the blur on some, trying out new techniques to avoid base-64 coding.]
[Link to fork on Das_Sporking.]
Sumire: [Stares at the title of this sporking, then raises a hand]
Leliel: Steelworking terminology, they’re a type of smithy worker that purifies iron into something less brittle on an industrial scale. Which is, due to this series’ mastery of faux symbolism, is relevant. Don’t worry, they’ll explain what a puddler is, though as we move on, the more and more ridiculous the metaphor will be.
Mark: Uh…yeah, I can kinda sorta maybe almost kinda maybe see it…but “purifies iron to make it strong” already gets my hackles up, because…uh, Viltrumite logic, hello?
Malcolm: If this referred to how the villains saw themselves, I would not mind. But somehow, I suspect this is akin to how the more odious members of my Family convince themselves that they can pig out on the souls of random people who they haven’t seen committing major or violent crimes.
Wanderer: Your expectations are suitably low, because the problems are gonna start with the cover.
((https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_(Collected))
Malcolm: …Pardon? It looks good to me. Honestly, put this in oils, remove the titles, and it looks like the kind of thing I’d expect to see on the walls of an elder Hungry. Admittedly, that is likely in the distant future where superheroes now have the cache of classic mythology and the cultured vampires no longer need to feel the need to hide the fact they enjoy common culture - celebrity lorekeeper Mother Margaret remembers when most Ascetics would rather carve out their own memories than be caught catching a performance of Shakespeare, for instance.
Sumire: …okay, how does one become a celebrity keeper of secrets?
Leliel: If the people you are known by are also secret people, and you are as much renowned for how secure your vaults are as the scope of your knowledge. But I will admit that whatever the problems of this comic, the art is beautiful. We have many problems, but the painterly, loving drawings certainly aren’t. Clay Mann is at his best here, even if there’s a bit where he clearly had bad instruction in a later issue, and that’s the result of poor mandates - again, announced as less issues than we got. We’ll explain when we get there.
Wanderer: No, the issue here is…a lot of the characters here? Are not in this comic.
Malcolm: …oh. Objection withdrawn, please proceed.
Mark: …And one question presented, how do you get pictures of people who aren’t there.
Leliel: Given what I know of this book’s development, laziness leading to poor Mann being ordered to make a perfectly drawn shit sandwich. With all credit to Linkara, who pointed them out: On the left side, Big Barda, Mr. Miracle, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl are blessedly not present in this comic, and Starfire is in the background of one shot but never interacts. But there’s also one we can directly contrast. See, Batgirl is wearing this costume on the cover…
In the comic proper, she is using this one:
Sumire: …My own Phantom Thief outfit leaves my hair uncovered and it does a better job hiding my face than those…domino cat ears. And I’m mostly in a literal different plane of existence where people are not literally memorizing my face to put into a database.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Sumire_Yoshizawa)
Wanderer: Yeah, this costume was literally revised to Cutesy Doxx Danger after the first issue came out, to illustrate what a mess the Crisis comic that was tying together multiple storylines was. Part of me thinks the Sirs Not-Appearing-In-This-Series were going to show up, then retcons hit. Either way, we literally haven’t even begun, and we’ve got one point per internal error of the narrative of the comic, as in comics, the cover is supposed to tell you a lot about what the interior is going to be about - especially when it’s a cover for the collected trade, which this is as well as the cover for the first issue. This is gonna be a trip, folks.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 6
Mark: Ah, shit. [Rubs eyes in growing headache of dread] Though, what’s with the gold-masked white cloak guys? The main bad guy’s minions, I guess? They look, uh, pretty culty. The kind of thing you’d expect to be happily cranking up the psychological thrills in this psychological thriller tale.
Wanderer: You’d think so. You’d think more so with this alternate cover:
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_1)
Mark: [Look of worsening headache] …There’s a huge “but” here.
Leliel: But, not only don’t they not really appear…they’re not even characters in their own right. Or even agents of a character. We will explain what they are when they come up, but trust us, this is why the Arkham comparisons are stark. You will not guess what they are, but given how threatening they are, both the cover and this “menacing overlooker of the Trinity” shot get this:
BAT GUANO CLUES: 2
Though, there is one alternate that shows shit that actually happens in the comic, and is a convenient intro to our two actual leads for this:
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_1)
Malcolm: …Somehow I am not filled with confidence.
Wanderer: Believe it or not, we don’t have a problem with this, because here, Little Miss Stabby - or rather, Dr. Stabby, she is a licensed psychiatrist - has a perfectly good reason, given her current read of the situation, to be stabby. It’ll get less good later on as evidence mounts something weird’s going on, but again, that’s an issue with the story, not her.
Leliel: The woman attempting to do a flying perforation of some polyester is Harley Quinn, aka Dr. Harleen Quinzel, sometime sidekick-slash-mistress of the Joker, archenemy of Batman. While most of you probably know who she is, the rundown is that Dr. Quinzel was a fresh-out-of-school psychiatrist who was desperate to prove herself to the staff of Arkham Asylum, especially because it’s heavily implied she had to trade sexual favors for good grades and was always somewhat unstable due to a bad childhood combined with a genius IQ plus natural neuroses. Depending on the continuity, she either only cared about the Arkham internship as part of getting a celebrity shrink job or as part of a sincere desire to be respected as a medical professional after her humiliating and traumatic experiences in college, but either way, it was Arkham’s own incompetence and underestimation of the Joker that led them to accept her idea and assign her as his therapist. It…didn’t go well.
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0519699/?ref_=mv_close)
Sumire: …he wrapped her around his little finger, didn’t he? Took every little insecurity she had and convinced her he understood. Like Dr. Maruki, except at least Dr. Maruki intended to help me and thought he was just choosing the simplest and most reliable way. From “mistress”, I suspect real malice was involved.
Wanderer: Yep. Basically pushed her over the edge into full codependency and his partner-in-crime, as well as a more-or-less willing target of his abuse. Because let’s face it, the Joker is not actually that complex with his motives at his core once one gets past his shifting moods and whatever insanity supplies his ideas, he’s a textbook malignant narcissist and he gets off on people loyal to him degrading themselves and never leaving no matter how badly he treats them. Harley especially.
Leliel: But in current comic continuity especially, Harley’s finally breaking free of him - a lot of it’s based around her appeal to the audience, sure, but as part of that audience, I like it, especially because…well, it actually shows a Batman villain taking the reason he doesn’t kill to heart. Two Batman villains in fact, because it’s been gradually revealed Harley’s bisexual - and her main girlfriend is Poison Ivy, botanist-turned-misanthropic-ecoterrorist-with-a-sense-of-honor. Ivy always hated women less than men, even in her early days as a character (which actually was really sexist, because early Ivy was Scary Feminism Coming To Kill You Dear Young Man, Spooookyyyyy!...and then the writers found heads removed from asses and realized that just made her a fairly tragic character given why she hated men and loved plants). So Gail Simone (if I remember my comics history right) made it so they were heavily implied to be seeing each other behind Mr. J’s back as Harley was trying desperately to save what was left of her sanity, and as gay relationships became more accepted, eventually Harley broke free of Joker’s influence and became openly Ivy’s girlfriend, while more of a (fairly violent) antiheroine, hence shedding her old classic jumpsuit for clownish punk makeup. She’s still not a good person, but the main influence driving her to be worse is someone she’s realized made her a bad one now.
Mark: …so she realized what went wrong in her life, and she resolved that even if she couldn’t make it right, she could at least make it stop going even worse. I get you, I like her too!
Wanderer: And then there’s moments where DC does fart fetish comics with her in the belief it’s humorous and it’s what her fans want, but we don’t talk about the negative intelligence of DC writers who think they understand why Harley has appeal beyond being legally obligated to admit that thing exists before someone does in the comments.
Malcolm: Excuse me what the fuck-
Leliel: Moving on, the pincushion to be is Booster Gold, The Greatest Hero History Will Never Know, and Most Glorious And Noble Fuckup. That’s normally praise, mind - Booster, real name Michael Jon Carter, is a former professional athlete from the “good” version of the 25th century who was busted for betting on his own games and then throwing minor ones…because apparently even in the good future, privatized healthcare is still a scourge and his mom needed specialized help (thankfully it’s explicit it’s not supposed to be perfect or immutable). However, he was able to land a job as a security guard for a museum of superheroes - and with it, found access to some power armor and a Time Sphere, along with a highly intelligent fellow security robot, Skeets. From there, he realized that if he became a superhero a few centuries in the past and got some sponsorships out of it, he could invest in a bank and reap massive dividends in his time, or at least bring it forward.
Sumire: Wait. So this man traveled back in time…to become a media celebrity and get paid for it? …Isn’t there some grandfather paradox stuff to be worried about while he’s off playing hero for some quick yen?
Wanderers: For one, Time Spheres are weird, for two, the thing about Booster Gold is that his series knows fully well how selfish and short-sighted his core motive is. Booster Gold might be the most unlucky hero in DC that isn’t explicitly a tragedy, and pretty much the entire Justice League quickly picked up on how much of a sellout he can be, plus not actually being a historian who knew what the fuck he was doing. He quickly realized just how much of an asshole he was being and started being more genuine hero than grandstanding self-promoting social media influencer, though the fact he has a financial motive for a lot of his work, plus the fact he is very much a comedy duo with Skeets and to an extent fellow armor-wearer Blue Beetle means he still gets humiliated a lot.
Leliel: Unfortunately, and this is very much a Tom King issue - when King writes him, he has about as much respect for causality as Pokey Minch does from Mother 3. You know, the immortal child-turned-dictator who literally scouted out a portion of time to serve as a “toybox” for and then started abducting dozens of people across history to serve as his brainwashed army to take apart the animals of the island he found himself in and put them back together in cool ways. We’ll explain later, but in a story that is referenced in this, Booster basically created an even worse dystopian version of Gotham City as a wedding present.
Mark: …Truly, a man every Viltrumite would be proud to call brother. Every homeworld Viltumite.
Sumire: [Thinks on it, then winces] No point here, it didn’t happen in this story, but…it is worth remembering going forward…but the actual comic opens with this:
Mark: And right here I already have an issue. Why is she mentioning the state? Most of the dialogue’s fine, and given how Booster’s family is in the 25th Century, there’s no point in hiding his identity off the clock for their safety either, so it’s not like he needs to wear his eyegear when he’s buying a coffee. But why is it important that we mention it’s in Nebraska?
Wanderer: I think this is a first, and really good, look at what is a core issue in this series - how very much everyone is slaved to the story, as opposed to the characters acting organically. Since everyone needs to know the setting, we’re told what state we’re in…in spite of the fact we can tell we’re in a Midwestern diner in a small town just from the decor and name, and we could have a sign saying WELCOME TO GORDON, NEBRASKA on a street somewhere, or a GPS. But the editors were impatient, so apparently, Shirley feels the need to remind Booster this is not Gordon, Ontario.
Malcolm: But in any case, the elder gentleman notices a pissed-off Harley coming in, and even though he’s corrected by someone, presumably Booster, that she’s a villain - given the summary, I won’t scorn him yet, they both blame each other for something horrible, so naturally he believes she’s relapsed - he recognizes the scowl on her face, as does Shirley, who calmly asks if there’s going to be a fight. Which, given the sheer destructive power superheroes in DC often wield, is making me doubt if Gordon “doesn’t get too many superheroes”, and she doesn’t have a bunker.
Leliel: Given what Gordon has, that would be clever foreshadowing, so naturally I think it’s just the writers forgetting the context. But I do like this next panel:
Rather than cocksure or confident, Booster is just…resigned. Tired. And more to the point…accepting. He knows there’s going to be a fight…but at the same time, he doesn’t blame Harley for it. We’ll get into this later, but Booster is a lot less sure of his memories than Harley is - he also has a lot less direct grief happening to him right now, and knows that because of that, Harley has less motive to do what he saw her do. So he thinks there is something really weird going on…and if he knows what Harley thinks she saw, and Harley is right, well, Booster deserves to die. Simple as that.
Mark: …what happened…?
Wanderer: Oooh, you’re about to see. But first, the title, a nice shot of a cornfield with a streak later revealed to be Superman flying across:
We then get…the start of something rather infamous:
Sumire: …I think it’s a very good thing Dr. Maruki isn't here, otherwise he’d punch the screen.
Leliel: And pointlessly. Because fun fact about Harley - she is the queen of suppressing pain behind exaggerated immaturity:
Even more fun fact: the way the Joker initially built a rapport with her was claiming his obsession with clowns and circus thematics came from an abusive father, which Batman himself later pointed out to her is one of his standard manipulator lines, and her nickname for him is “Puddin’.”
Sumire: …oh. She’s not talking about ‘people, plural’, is she…?
Leliel: Nope! And we’re pretty sure this is what Tom King intended these particular pages to be - effectively “scenes from therapy” in Sanctuary. And this really does get into the heart of who Harley is as a person and character - she acts like a manic, well, harlequin and punk rocker anarchist, but deep down she’s a highly perceptive and intelligent woman who’s carrying a lot of pain and guilt, and is fully aware she can’t even begin to take back the mass death she’s caused - all for a man she’s fully aware only ever viewed her as a combination art piece, maid, and target practice. Since she can’t begin to redeem herself, she doesn’t really try either, and so remains in her over-caffeinated villainous persona, just - y’know, not killing people who don’t deserve it, and also trying to be a decent person otherwise, despite the fact that people like Amanda Waller want her talents to be turned to the most ruthless possible ends.
Wanderer: And if most of these were like this - well, it’d be a much different comic series. Hell, if the entire miniseries was just these and focusing on a few heroes having more intensive breakdowns between them, it’d probably be really good. As it is though…well, we’ll get to it, but most of them are the worst kind of filler. This one isn’t, but it is a sudden interruption, and is incredibly good foreshadowing for when they turn up later, because on the next page, we’re suddenly back to the diner, where Harley’s ordering while the other patrons leave, clearly only wanting to get at Booster (and makes a pretty funny crack that she has a horrible secret now: “I hate pudding.”)
Malcolm: …honestly, given the person associated with that food, it’s amazing she didn’t develop a phobia altogether. But then we get this and…
[Cricket noises]
Sumire: America smells like baked goods and whipped cream? I mean, your country has some notorious tourism spots, but I think it would be expensive to put up air filters everywhere…
Mark: I…oh. Oh! This was out around 2018-2019 wasn’t it? The Denny’s Guy ad.
Sumire: Oh! …Who is Denny, why do they own a person, and what does that have to do with baked goods smelling like countries?
Wanderer: Okay, joke’s over - basically there was a notorious ad where a guy who ate at a homey Midwest-themed restaurant chain called Denny’s here said their food was like “America.” The fact we had to spend a good portion of the spork explaining it shows how long it stayed in the cultural memory, and there were two pages dedicated to this gag and just…two people eating while giving each other the stinkeye. So, yeah, two points for two pages of this.
MEANWHILE…: 2
And then without warning:
Malcolm: That…is a disconcertingly large amount of corvids. What’s in its mouth?
Mark: [Stares at Blue Jay’s mask, then looks back at what the crow was eating, then gags] Jesus. And…he’s dead. Eaten whole by a bird.
Leliel: Yep. Implication is he died while shrunk, so a lot of this, and his tendency to panic when he wakes up smothered in bedsheets, is just setup for “ooh, the horror!” Yeah, no, pointless grimdark filler is still pointless filler.
MEANWHILE…: 3
And then, just as we were about to learn the stakes, we cut back to the diner, where Harley drops the act and picks up her pie knife to murder Booster.
Malcolm: Sooo, I’m going to take a wild guess and assume someone she knew died in whatever drew the corvids, and she blames Booster. Just a hunch.
Leliel: Yep, and that’s why I’m not scoring this, or Booster’s attempts to deescalate. Booster’s not even being dickish right now, and, well, Harley has an excuse and a more possible narrative of what the fuck went down, plus plenty of more reasons to be irrational. Because after a shot of the Trinity arriving at what we’ll soon learn to be Sanctuary, we see the inciting incident of this series…
The mass murder of dozens of heroes who were there at the time, strewn across the grounds. I’ll stop dancing around the issue too - while she wasn’t officially permitted to use the facility yet, Poison Ivy was let in as a guest of Harley’s (who also wasn’t supposed to be here but she felt she needed a place to crash and vent), and she was one of the victims. Both Harley and Booster, the only survivors, are sure they saw the other one murdering Wally West, and thus, are the other’s prime suspect apart from themselves.
Mark: …oh. I…huh. Well, in that case, the fact Harley isn’t actively attempting to destroy the town to get at Booster and is letting civvies evacuate before she goes crazy murder clown mode is showing a lot of progress. You go girl. Also, uh, please stop stabbing long enough so we can figure out what the fuck please?
Wanderer: Yep, and this is why we’re not scoring a lot of Booster and Harley’s initial loathing. Because let’s face it - Harley is a much more violent person and just lost her rock, and has good reason to believe Booster, the guy who everyone knows is a 25th century fuckup after some cash in the contemporary era and screwed up time in living memory, is responsible for her death and a bunch of other peoples’. She’s in full John Wick mode with her old Joker Sidekick giggles. Meanwhile, Booster has the same perspective - but knows for a fact that if Harley is reacting like this, it wasn’t of her free will or even in her memory, even beyond the whole “assumes she’d bring her own girlfriend there to kill her along with a bunch of other people” thing (and to be fair, we’re assuming he figured out Ivy was there, the continuity’s a bit muddled - correct us if need be). The motive doesn’t make sense, and to be frank, as we’ll see, Booster doesn’t trust his own mind anymore. So he’s fully aware that either Harley did so in a fugue state she isn’t aware of, or there’s a deeper story.
And this is the end of our praise for the setup of this story, which is as generous as possible. Because see that guy with the baseball hat, Hot Spot-slash-Isiah Crockett? Well, we’re going to reprint his full confession…
Leliel: Yeah, uh, leaving aside Hot Spot’s luck - this is his second charter on Charon’s Affordable Stygian Scenic Riverside Tours, as a former Teen Titan DC seems to have a seek-and-destroy order on him by certain editors - this is not his catchphrase. In fact, as you might have guessed from his outfit, he’s a pretty serious guy overall - his actual costume is the extent of his tomfoolery. This entire thing was invented by King, likely because he was ordered to use Hot Spot as someone who died and he had to think of something to make “B-Lister I Literally Don’t Write For And Don’t Know The First Thing About” be a meaningful end?
Malcolm: [sputters] How does that work?!
Malcolm: [Flat expression] …They invented a catchphrase…so the hero’s hero would forget it in the heat of the moment and feel bad about it. And, it should be noted, the dead man is black, while Superman is white.
Wanderer: Kryptonian in ethnicity rather than having ancestry from the melanin-lacking regions of our planet, and made by two Jewish writers, but yes, very white by skin color, and Hot Spot is very much not only African American, but his second hero name of Joto was Swahili to remember his heritage.
Malcolm: …as much as I would wish to score more for this, I cannot blame Superman, in-universe, for the bad look - it is traumatic enough to forget that kind of detail in the heat of the moment. I can inflict several other points, though.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 11 (Yep, five - inventing a catchphrase just for pathos is…a take.)
MEANWHILE…: 8 (And dedicating nine panels to it.)
Mark: Anyway, two pages of the continuing Booster/Harley fight, where he finally snaps and tries to subdue her by taking her to the Halls of Justice - HQ, I assume - and then back to Sanctuary.
Sumire: And there’s the spooky mask again…for something you say doesn’t matter. We already saw someone explicitly wearing that cult outfit among the bodies…
Leliel: Wait for it. It’s explicit next issue, but trust us, we’ll reveal more when we explicitly reveal what Sanctuary is. Or why the Greeter is a specific thing…
Wanderer: And the descent into Wally West’s special hell begins…it’s too bad we really need a moment for another interview from someone we know is dead!
Malcolm: And now, if you’re reachable in any capacity, you’re a phantasm. So, three things. Superhero non-embodied ghost addict, the most sad ripoff of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though I suppose if you became one of the actual Dead life would not change beyond suddenly being able to hop bodies and not worrying about age or illness much anymore.
Leliel: Before Mark asks, the Dead are different from phantasms in that while they’re ghosts, they’re true Accursed - the results of the Oracle of Delphi cursing a bunch of necromancers who tortured her for the secret of immortality with exactly what they asked for, and the power behind it caused it to spread down family lines and across to people who died nearby in thematic ways to the original founders.
Mark: …lemme guess. They no longer age, but only because they’re literally ghosts for whom they don’t have flesh that ages, and so can’t feel physical senses the same way anymore - so they become sense junkies in a new body in a desperate attempt to remain sane. Which, uh…sounds like an issue actual ghostly superheroes might have, but this sounds like our own filler.
Wanderer: Two things. One, Roy Harper - Arsenal - is kind of the poster boy for addiction in the DC Universe these days…because of things that happened in kind of the spiritual prequel to Heroes in Crisis, Cry for Justice. Which is regarded as quite possibly the edgiest story in all of DC that isn’t actively meant as a horror story or tragedy, as well as featuring one of the worst Villain Sues ever made, Prometheus - basically memetic “uber-Batman”, forgetting that the primary weakness of Prometheus is that, essentially, he cheats, he doesn’t have the same omnidisciplinary skills Batman does without downloading them to his gadgets. During that time, Arsenal’s daughter died, and Arsenal got pushed off the edge into a spiral of depression and drug addiction…and even after Arsenal was more or less completely retconned and never had kids in the New 52, he was still an addict. This does not make him a bad character, but it does mean you need to be careful in your portrayal of his struggles…like for example…
…actually knowing what he’s addicted to. Because, here’s the thing…painkillers and heroin, what he’s describing here? That’s pre-New 52 Roy. New 52 Roy’s demon, according to my research, is alcohol, which he’s been struggling with since he was 10, as opposed to a side effect of self-medication.
[Long pause]
Mark: Okay, yeah, the Dead are better portrayed on the basis we actually remember what kind of contact high they’re chasing. That’s kind of important when dealing with a craving. And also, I feel like this kind of thing would raise alarm bells from a cape perspective - because it’s easy for Roy’s identity to get out to wherever he'd be buying pills or heroin from. Doctor-patient confidentiality or not, at that point it becomes a sincere threat to his life and friends, and you need to ask who to ensure he remains anonymous to them, too.
Leliel: Sanctuary has an answer for that! …You’ll want to nuke the damn place when you discover what it is, but it’s an answer. Until then, points!
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 12
MEANWHILE…: 9
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 1 (It’s an extremely good question, too.)
Sumire: Another cut back to Harley, who stabs Booster mid-flight in spite of the fact she knows they’ll both fall - again, she’s grieving badly and she thinks the other is a mass murderer, no score for being a jerk when it’s just being overeager to martyr yourself - and then within Sanctuary…
Oh! That’s where the title of the spork comes from! …wait, weren’t they saying that about the people being dead? Aren’t these robots?
Wanderer: Yes to both. These are probably the Greeter androids of Sanctuary - specifically, the Sanctuary AI, which was also destroyed in the mass death, hence the other part of the mystery of who destroyed the program. Especially because…well, it’s a machine, and presumably the circuits are intact. How was its mind and memory destroyed by whatever killed everything else?
Leliel: But before that - this is the last moment you will see the Trinity’s brains. Because now, everyone is about to go Idiot Mode from the moment Wonder Woman explains what a puddler is.
Wanderer: Yeah, uh, fun fact we didn’t mention: Puddling, as a technique, came into existence around the 1780s, when swords, specifically, were on the way out. In fact, the process of puddling was mostly used for peacetime applications; the Eiffel Tower was mostly built by iron purified via puddling. Diana is pretty smart, but to be honest, she would probably not be the person who knows this - or cares, as she’d be more familiar with true blacksmithing techniques, and probably find the comparison of superheroes to what are essentially just the people who do the scutwork of civilian life over their corpses to be extra insulting. She may be the Spirit of Love, but she’s still an Amazon, and that’d just come off as cruel mockery of their bravery and skill when the killer did something underhanded to get them at their weakest.
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 1 (Missing the obvious “these people just exist to make life easier for the weak” symbolism.)
BAT GUANO CLUES: 1 (And trust us, while it means something, it’s not anything anyone would think of…and probably not from someone who is likely to know what a puddler is, either, and the metaphor isn’t likely to occur to them - certainly not good for leading them to the killer.)
Sumire: …given the names of certain counts, I don’t think anyone in this comic counts. Including Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective.
Leliel: Not wrong. Example!
Mark: …Yes, because it’s not like there could have been a security leak or someone found a convenient vulnerable place and someone snuck in. It’s not like that isn’t something that literally led to my existence, Dad.
Malcolm: I mean…you outright said Harley and Ivy were not supposed to be in, yes? That indicates security has a flaw, if Harley was even able to find out, much less that Ivy was allowed in after her. Going by the outline of the narrative, she’s clearly not at fault, and the fact Ivy is one of the victims should write her off due to motive until further notice, but the very fact she is there suggests a failure in security. Unless somehow, Sanctuary is expected to have perfect security, which given how even my world with its somewhat moderately low ceiling of powers does not rely on magic for technology given how curses are, above all else, unpredictable, is ridiculous.
Wanderer and Leliel: [Serious expressions]
Malcolm: …Please tell me you two are simply spectacular at poker. Zelda’s been begging me for a proper night and it’s been hell and a half getting enough people who won’t be completely steamrolled by her.
Wanderer: Zelda will have to wait. It’s just that stupid. And yes, Ivy and Harvey are old mainstays of Batman’s rogue’s gallery - even if he thinks they’re sincere, he’d keep an eye on them, and in fact, he’d probably be especially closely monitoring them if he trusts them, because he knows fully well the world isn’t likely to forgive them, and old partners want to settle old scores - including, oh yeah, Harley’s old boss, his archenemy. He’d know they were let into Sanctuary. He probably signed off on them being let into Sanctuary - or at least he would if…we’ll get to that. But again, he probably would know they’re there, and would be okay with it if they’re allowed to be there.
Mark: [Pinching nose] Right. I see equine tracks in the dust, it’s entirely reasonable to think of zebras of heroes going crazy, not horses of security issues. Especially in a place where I’ve seen actual horses in the area.
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 2
Mark: And you immediately assume it’s that instead of, I dunno, mind control of someone who’s had compromised willpower? This universe has that, right?!
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 1 (Yep, they do. Batman knows a couple, and Ivy was one.)
Mark: Thank you. Seriously, this is bringing in the entire universe, so I’d expect Batman to start by, I dunno, figuring out how everyone died, to start with. But I can already tell…the World’s Greatest Detective isn’t even determining the preliminary cause of death. Great forensics work, dude! Ten points, two categories, because by definition something you aren’t looking at will lead nowhere!
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 12
BAT GUANO CLUES: 11
Sumire: With that, we have official confirmation of why Booster and Harley are after each other…
Leliel: …and this is where my praise for the initial fight starts to waver, because now that they know that the other saw them as the killer, both should realize something has gone very weird. They can still snipe at each other, but they should be untrusting partners…but no, Harley continues on Stab City throughout while Booster continues to try to arrest her.
Sumire: …In other words, deliberately and continuing to go for the false assumption because it gives them something to do apart from fall into agony? Trust me…it only makes it hurt more when that support is gone. And it makes you feel guilty for reaching for it.
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 2
Wanderer: And then…we get Booster’s interview, and the core of why we have a count specifically for Sanctuary and its AI. Let’s let him take it away!
[Dead silence.]
Malcolm: Zoom. Enhance that last panel.
Malcolm: …Your Hon-ahem. Esteemed hosts. The plaintiffs would like to ask the court record if any of these three people are trained psychiatrists, or otherwise authorized to practice therapeutic care.
Leliel: Request granted - let the record show that no, they would not. In order, Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, is the chief executive officer and primary stockholder of Wayne Enterprises, LLC, and often serves as a consultant in human resources. He has several doctorate level degrees, but while many of them are in psychology, most are geared towards forensics and criminal law. Superman, aka Clark Kent, former name Kal-El, is a reporter, graduate with honors in journalism from Metropolis University albeit through a correspondence course, and has no background in psychology at all, and Wonder Woman, aka Diana of Themyscira, alias Diana Prince, did not have formal education as the United States defines it, but as heir to the royal family in the state of Themyscira was trained deeply in political science, war, civic architecture, and statecraft, and her Lasso of Truth prevents anyone it’s touching from consciously lying, but again, no formal training in psychotherapy or related fields.
Malcolm: I see. And this AI is programmed based on a composite of all three of them, specifically “Willpower”, “Compassion”, and “Honor.” Of these, only one directly relates to psychotherapy, with the only relevant factor in “Honor” being doctor-patient confidentiality and obeying HIPAA, and “Willpower” mostly being only a factor in patience. Neither would lead themselves to competence as a doctor.
Sumire: [Very dark expression] No. No they would not.
Malcolm: Moreover, as people in a very lethal profession that attracts a great deal of enemies - can I ask what the security features of Sanctuary are? Actually, let the record show I am revising that inquiry - beyond physical security, what are the barriers to identities being leaked to those who would do its clients and patrons harm?
Wanderer: I’m glad you asked! Because, those masks? Those creepy-as-hell, golden, impassive, identity-obliterating, cult-in-white robes masks?
Yeah, those are the standard patient wear for guarding identity. The dead person we saw with one on was just a victim.
Malcolm: [Jaw drops]
Mark: …what.
Wanderer: We’re not kidding. This picture. This right here is why we decided to spork this series. To hide identity by wearing something you’d expect to see being worn by the minions of JRPG bosses themed after corrupt churches and legal systems…and have it be “nah, all cool fam, that’s just a dude in for his meds, he’s all right. Say hi.”
Leliel: We’re not kidding. The mask looks actually substantially more creepy than an actual Western RPG villain I could name, Tunon the Adjudicator from the criminally underrated Tyranny. At least Tunon’s outfit shows he has a personality under his literal stoneface, and it’s not detailed enough to hit the Uncanny Valley:
(https://tyranny.fandom.com/wiki/Tunon_the_Adjudicator)
Malcolm: …I think I dated one of his relatives once. Very honest man, but treated the schedule as scripture. Also kind of an Experience looking behind the mask, we both agreed it wasn’t working after the third dinner.
Mark: But even besides that…with that crap on, how are you supposed to begin to heal!? “Oh, don’t worry, our magical completely clueless computer’s totally gonna help, just please put on this stuffy robe and nightmare-inducing mask on for your own good first” - dude, the moment I saw that, I’d be rocketing back to Guardians of the Globe HQ, Mom, and Cecil to gibber about the Hero Cult in Nebraska, and I am not ashamed to admit I’d probably be sobbing in terror. Shit’s creepy, man!
Sumire: And…well, what’s security beyond that?
Wanderer: As far as we can tell? Absolutely bupkis. Another thing revealed about Sanctuary in Issue 2 is that as soon as a patient leaves, all video and files about their visit is erased to ensure privacy, and there aren’t even guards beyond the Greeter droids and pretending to be a farmhouse in the rural Midwest.
[More dead silence]
Malcolm: …The plaintiffs would like to confirm that this facility - this artificially intelligent mental health facility built from alien technology - erases its own records, and thus mind, of its own interactions with its patients, ensuring it doesn’t even have object permanence in regards to them.
Leliel: Let the record show that’s exactly how it sounds to anyone who studies computers at all, yes.
[In the depths of stupidity, silence lies dead, but dreaming.]
Malcolm: The plaintiffs require a five minute recess in order to burn something.
(https://i.makeagif.com/media/10-03-2015/QhTgFS.gif)
Mark: Let the record show that vehicle was an LA privately owned autotaxi with no human driver or intelligence updating its internal GPS, just stealing jobs from actual cabbies, so I did not intervene. It was an act of defense of another’s career prospects and removal of litter.
Sumire: I just…they…um…I…what?! Where do I even begin?! Dr. Maruki took the worst shortcut possible, but at least he kept up visits! That’s how therapy works! I…100 points. I can’t believe this. This is stupid. This is beyond stupid.
Malcolm: More like “the AI is clearly possessed by something predatory”, but yes, it is also stupidity that let it get this bad.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 101
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 112 (WHO THE FUCK DESIGNED THIS SECURITY SYSTEM, LET ALONE THE AI.)
Leliel: Also, one other thing…
I think this is a tacit admittance that what Booster did in The Gift was a fuckup…but even now, the narrative, and King, does not seem to get the magnitude of fuckup, as it did more than just screw up Batman’s personal life a bit to save his parents. Because see…Booster knew that making it so Bruce never became Batman, while leaving a lot of Gotham’s villains intact, would screw up Gotham. He thought that showing Bruce that was a good gift to make him “appreciate his life” more.
How’d it go? Well…
In three words: Joker Zombie Apocalypse. And this, apparently, was not considered worth focusing on, instead being all about how that version of Bruce Wayne is an immature manchild who, despite realizing that not only is his version of Gotham even worse than canon, but so’s the planet in general, he’s still trying to kill Booster Gold to keep his parents alive because screw the world!
Wanderer: But, what made us decide Booster, written by King, is basically Pokey Minch when he started treating time travel like a toy? Well…the attitude. As noted, it was a wedding present for Batman and Catwoman, and is probably part of why the marriage fell through (wonder why), and this is his reaction to a Joker-afflicted (I…think) Hal Jordan overcoming the Green Lantern Ring’s self-harm prohibition through willpower to shoot himself in the head, spraying him with gore:
Mark: …we sure he wasn’t Jokerized, too?
Sumire: He literally made the world worse as a wedding gift. In this, I don’t think anyone would have noticed.
Leliel: Leaving aside my issues with misunderstanding how The Joker’s Last Laugh and the Jokerizing toxin works - it literally is not something born uniquely from the Joker, it’s just a neurotoxin that reduces impulse control, especially around violence, while causing physical symptoms that look like the Joker, a decent person hit with it would just act like a mean, scary-looking drunk - this strikes me as King realizing that he went too far. Booster wasn’t taking anything seriously, even from the assumption he’d be able to put everything back easily and masking fear behind humor, coming off as Deadpool more than anything. Not a good thing, and it made him come off as…well, a little evil. Maybe a lot evil, even as he admitted it was a bad thing (albeit evasively, when Skeets called it out). And now, here, he’s begging for comfort…without acknowledging, at least, it was a shitty thing to do to Batman. Much less the rest of the planet.
Malcolm: …No points for something not in this miniseries. That’s the only reason why not. But that really outlines how…myopic this whole system is.
Wanderer: True dat. Join us next time, as the…”investigation” gets started, and the most inexplicable dentures are found!
Spitefic: Violated Shrine, And Her Divine Shadow
“Huh.” Transformed and ready, looking through a very incongruous pair of binoculars given her outfit, Stella (she rarely used her old alias if she could help it - “Thorn” or “Druid” was fine for anonymity) frowned. “That’s a mite odd. I mean, there’s always some traces, but…more like muddy boots came through here…”
Maruki coughed, politely. “I hate to ask, but can I hear this thought process in full? You know, before the Shadows try to eat me?”
Stella paused, and snorted. “You don’t realize how terrible a pun ya just made. But that’s the rub ‘bout the All-Consuming Dark…it’s everywhere. That’s why bad magic’s quicker, easier, more seductive, as the movie puts it. It feeds on irrational fear and the evils born of ‘em, no matter what universe ye be in, and it’s quietly cheerleadin’ everything that causes terror or is born from terror. I imagine it really hates that Batman fella for stealing its schtick and making terror a force to combat the bad with less death. He ain’t even an irrational fear - don’t break laws in Gotham, don’t get a man in a cape punching your gob in.” She fiddled with a knob. “But with the proper Scrying, one of the Radiant - present company included - can tell ya if the local bad magic is something that is actually born of Pure Darkness or just somethin’ it’s chums with. And…well, I can see traces, but…it’s like it was just passing through to get somewhere else. Though…”
She looked at the dilapidated, burned-out husk, surrounded by warped and dead cornfields. “Kinda don’t see why it didn’t stay. Seems like a vacation home…”
“Yeah. Creepy.” Maruki pulled on the Sanctuary mask and cowl. “Though, uh…not as creepy as this, ironically.”
“Your sacrifice, and poor decision making in rock-paper-scissors, is appreciated,” Stella said, starting to thread what appeared to be a spiderweb made of blood veins between her fingers. “Meanwhile…I’m going to keep watch. I got one of Malcolm’s friends on speed-dial, shall we say…planar fabric doesn’t matter. So you have two backups, even without your Persona able to manifest out here.”
The psychiatrist nodded, gulping as he started to make way to the disguised hospital-
“Hey!”, a stentorian voice called out. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
Maruki winced behind his mask as he turned to face the two Sanctuary figures who appeared out of nowhere, with big prominent “SECURITY” vests on them. “I’m sorry! I just - I’m a new patient, aaaannnnd…”
Maruki trailed off, blinking.
For one, he knew from the briefing (and temporary sparring session with Stella - it was immensely therapeutic after that nonsense) that Sanctuary did not have security, or at least not so blatant security. Kind of defeated the purpose of a secret hospital.
For another, the white cloaks were…off. Yes, very creepy, but generally they looked like something that, if you were a member of the cult that had them as a uniform, were crisp, clean, and striking. These looked as decayed as Sanctuary, completely in contrast to their vests…and if Sanctuary was abandoned, why were they even there.
Second, were those masks…smirking?
Maruki, immediately realizing something was wrong, pulled out his baton, careful not to give the two warning that he had someone else watching them and ready to ambush the ambushers.
The two paused, as the security vests vanished.
“Well,” one said, suddenly very predatory and purring. “Little geek’s willpower’s stronger than his eyesight.”
“Seems he needs a lesson in who makes the rules,” the other one said. “And how they’re made.”
And then they shifted.
The smirk on the masks turned to manic, Joker-esque grins as the cloaks tore open to reveal spiderlike limbs covered in pale, humanoid flesh, each one tipped with a different, oozing medical instrument. The flesh of the monsters was also pale, translucent enough to reveal dark veins that seemed to pulse with blue blood and what looked disturbingly like teeth, except for the center of the torso. There, at the center of the mass of limbs, lay the enlarged head of a bat on both of the creatures, the lower jaw covered by a strange mix of burlap and gas mask, and eyes replaced with computer text scrolling green code. Both hissed, releasing a white mist into the air that smelled of adrenaline, medical soap, and misery-
And then a spider’s web made of shadow wrapped around the neck of one of the monsters and yanked it flat on its ass, as a different monster with arachnid limbs pounced on it, both screeching and clawing as pale, cybernetic legs tangled with tenebral ones that ended in delicate hands. Its compatriot was just as startled as Maruki, which gave time for a bright burst of light to suddenly explode from its torso, green shoots creeping from a hole that bled an unclean looking shadow.
Soon, the source herself dropped in, striking at the monsters with the practiced, ruthless efficiency of a warrior who neither expected quarter from her enemies, nor gave it, and the shrieking, animalistic noises mixed with all too human profanity and slurs that sounded like every parody of a police officer ever made by anyone who had ever dealt with an even mildly unfriendly giver of parking tickets made it clear why. But Stella had set up the battle too well - soon the one she was fighting was lying dead on the ground, cracking apart and dissolving like the very matter in its body was relieved to have been liberated from its existence, and her summoned friend holding up the other in a vice so she could easily run it through with her staff, and soon the advanced, eager decay began to affect it as well.
“Fucking Insidious,” Stella said between pants. “Not the worst Darkspawn the moment you realize they ain’t actually human or in charge, but some of the biggest assholes, aye. Thanks for the help on short notice, Zelda.”
“Sounds like some of the venators my bosses had to sue into removing heads from their own,” a surprisingly dainty and feminine voice came from the shadowy monster. “Also, hey Stella. Why is it that I’m never called for poker night? Or even a fighting game tournament? It’s always some kind of Darkspawn or other monster, or you want me to build some traps.”
Now that Maruki got a good look at her…it was clear whatever the great shadow arachnid was not born of the same darkness as…well, the Darkspawn. She looked…natural. For supernature, yes, but the eldritch build wasn’t anything more strange than what Azathoth, Maruki’s own Persona, was before he evolved into Adam Kadmon. Zelda looked like a Shadow in more than just a being made of it - she looked like something that was born and lived, as opposed to twisted into being as an act of spite for the world. In fact, on some level Maruki could imagine a few might find her quite pretty in a sense - she looked like a woman in a shadowy robe with distinctly human eyes along with the six smaller spider ones, chitin covering her visible humanoid body like a form-fitting suit of armor, and long hair that seemed to be made of her shadowy webbing, and the four limbs she had used to subdue the other Insidious rising from her back. She was also, contrary to the stereotype of the mysterious, tempting jorogumo, clearly an athletic type - the hair was tied into a neat ponytail, an actual security guard’s baseball cap was perched on her head, and the chitin did nothing to hide her muscle underneath.
He cleared his throat, extending his hand. “Takuto Maruki. Thanks for saving me, Zelda…?”
“Fernandez”, she said, thankfully shaking with her humanoid arm. “Deputy Head of Monitor Security for the Graveyard Shift, Chief of Physical Security for Evidence and Documentation, and Liminality Response Team Consultant for Smith, Michaels, and Morrison. I’m basically the girl they call in when someone thinks they can short-circuit a case with their fists or equivalent, or space has gone wonky in a trial. Also, before you ask - I’m an Eight Hands Primal, one bound to a darkness elemental, which makes most of us werespiders.”
“To be honest, not really that surprising, given the…well…” He nodded at the arms. “Though…” He turned to Stella.
“Yeah, Darkspawn are basically semi-living avatars of the ACD - they’re bits of Light that the Dark congregated around like a pearl in its plane, the Dark World - yes, we know, we ran out of creativity for somewhere nobody sane goes willingly - and then given existence. Which they inherently hate, only continuing to be so they can inflict a particular kind of terror and the suffering related to it on the world - the moment one actually has dreams beyond bein’ a huge prick for the sake of bein’ a prick, even learnin’ to eat for the sake of it, that’s the moment it ceases bein’ a Darkspawn, and these Insidious weren’t it, you saw them try to beat you the moment they saw you weren’t buying their illusions. They’re made from the fear of abusive authority figures and bureaucracy crushing you, but also the fear that bullies have that looking weak means their victims are plotting against them, so they slip into what look like positions of security and basically take All Cops Are Bastards as a challenge. The more vicious their host organization is, the longer they can keep up the gag, hence the name.”
“So, they are the nasty kind of venator - ahem, monster hunters - made honest, gotcha,” Zelda said, kicking the dissolving mask of one. “But…this place looks abandoned. Why did they think this would be a good place to nest, if they’re cuckoo guards? Wouldn’t they need people to abuse, instead of some hollow dungeon waiting for raiders?”
Maruki’s eyebrows shot up.
Dungeon.
Like Palaces.
Like superimposed spaces.
“...Um, Ms. Fernandez? You said you can check if space has ‘gone wonky’. Can you check here?”
Zelda frowned, before spinning a web in her hands - and her eyes widened as it trembled. “...This place. It’s not the real one. It’s a liminality, like…some other place has covered it up. Like a Shattered Space but…not just that building, it’s like there’s spillage from something much, much bigger.”
Stella stared, then checked through her binoculars again, this time letting them glow green. “...I’m a fucking idiot,” she mumbled. “I was looking at Sanctuary. This isn’t Sanctuary - it’s a Bleed! A place where the Dark World’s overlaid part of itself! We’re staring into the fanfic of Sanctuary made by the Dark, and it was taking advantage of me targeting ‘Sanctuary’ to hide this wasn’t it!”
“Uh!” Maruki looked up. “Then are we in-”
“Not unless we go further,” Stella reassured him. “Bleeds are just that - Bleeds. Paper cuts in the barriers between the rest of existence and the deepest Dark. Not fun, and things go through both sides, but reality heals fast. No, it’s that something made the cut, and generally, that has to be a dark sorcerer or some real bad magic and confluences or-” She paused. “Oh. Of course. Of. Fecking. Course. It’d make that, wouldn’t it…”
Both Zelda and Maruki felt a sinking pit in their stomachs.
“There’s…another kind of creation the Dark likes. If you get so scared of something irrational that you become sure it’s an immutable law of the world, and there’s enough ACD nearby…it agrees. And then it makes a world just for you, where that’s true. A pocket between the Dark World and everyone else’s, where the person who called it is a god with only one commandment to their creations: ‘take my worst fear, and torture me with it.’ And the suffering and its metaphysical position makes it a wrecking ball between sane reality and the Dark World, besides the Nightmares themselves having a kind of life.”
Maruki blinked. “This is sounding…disturbingly familiar.”
“At least your Palaces are made from something people want. We call ours Nightscapes, and as for those, we need to explain more, especially when we find other heroes, but as a quick summary…well, who here has played Silent Hill 2?”
Maruki coughed, politely. “I hate to ask, but can I hear this thought process in full? You know, before the Shadows try to eat me?”
Stella paused, and snorted. “You don’t realize how terrible a pun ya just made. But that’s the rub ‘bout the All-Consuming Dark…it’s everywhere. That’s why bad magic’s quicker, easier, more seductive, as the movie puts it. It feeds on irrational fear and the evils born of ‘em, no matter what universe ye be in, and it’s quietly cheerleadin’ everything that causes terror or is born from terror. I imagine it really hates that Batman fella for stealing its schtick and making terror a force to combat the bad with less death. He ain’t even an irrational fear - don’t break laws in Gotham, don’t get a man in a cape punching your gob in.” She fiddled with a knob. “But with the proper Scrying, one of the Radiant - present company included - can tell ya if the local bad magic is something that is actually born of Pure Darkness or just somethin’ it’s chums with. And…well, I can see traces, but…it’s like it was just passing through to get somewhere else. Though…”
She looked at the dilapidated, burned-out husk, surrounded by warped and dead cornfields. “Kinda don’t see why it didn’t stay. Seems like a vacation home…”
“Yeah. Creepy.” Maruki pulled on the Sanctuary mask and cowl. “Though, uh…not as creepy as this, ironically.”
“Your sacrifice, and poor decision making in rock-paper-scissors, is appreciated,” Stella said, starting to thread what appeared to be a spiderweb made of blood veins between her fingers. “Meanwhile…I’m going to keep watch. I got one of Malcolm’s friends on speed-dial, shall we say…planar fabric doesn’t matter. So you have two backups, even without your Persona able to manifest out here.”
The psychiatrist nodded, gulping as he started to make way to the disguised hospital-
“Hey!”, a stentorian voice called out. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
Maruki winced behind his mask as he turned to face the two Sanctuary figures who appeared out of nowhere, with big prominent “SECURITY” vests on them. “I’m sorry! I just - I’m a new patient, aaaannnnd…”
Maruki trailed off, blinking.
For one, he knew from the briefing (and temporary sparring session with Stella - it was immensely therapeutic after that nonsense) that Sanctuary did not have security, or at least not so blatant security. Kind of defeated the purpose of a secret hospital.
For another, the white cloaks were…off. Yes, very creepy, but generally they looked like something that, if you were a member of the cult that had them as a uniform, were crisp, clean, and striking. These looked as decayed as Sanctuary, completely in contrast to their vests…and if Sanctuary was abandoned, why were they even there.
Second, were those masks…smirking?
Maruki, immediately realizing something was wrong, pulled out his baton, careful not to give the two warning that he had someone else watching them and ready to ambush the ambushers.
The two paused, as the security vests vanished.
“Well,” one said, suddenly very predatory and purring. “Little geek’s willpower’s stronger than his eyesight.”
“Seems he needs a lesson in who makes the rules,” the other one said. “And how they’re made.”
And then they shifted.
The smirk on the masks turned to manic, Joker-esque grins as the cloaks tore open to reveal spiderlike limbs covered in pale, humanoid flesh, each one tipped with a different, oozing medical instrument. The flesh of the monsters was also pale, translucent enough to reveal dark veins that seemed to pulse with blue blood and what looked disturbingly like teeth, except for the center of the torso. There, at the center of the mass of limbs, lay the enlarged head of a bat on both of the creatures, the lower jaw covered by a strange mix of burlap and gas mask, and eyes replaced with computer text scrolling green code. Both hissed, releasing a white mist into the air that smelled of adrenaline, medical soap, and misery-
And then a spider’s web made of shadow wrapped around the neck of one of the monsters and yanked it flat on its ass, as a different monster with arachnid limbs pounced on it, both screeching and clawing as pale, cybernetic legs tangled with tenebral ones that ended in delicate hands. Its compatriot was just as startled as Maruki, which gave time for a bright burst of light to suddenly explode from its torso, green shoots creeping from a hole that bled an unclean looking shadow.
Soon, the source herself dropped in, striking at the monsters with the practiced, ruthless efficiency of a warrior who neither expected quarter from her enemies, nor gave it, and the shrieking, animalistic noises mixed with all too human profanity and slurs that sounded like every parody of a police officer ever made by anyone who had ever dealt with an even mildly unfriendly giver of parking tickets made it clear why. But Stella had set up the battle too well - soon the one she was fighting was lying dead on the ground, cracking apart and dissolving like the very matter in its body was relieved to have been liberated from its existence, and her summoned friend holding up the other in a vice so she could easily run it through with her staff, and soon the advanced, eager decay began to affect it as well.
“Fucking Insidious,” Stella said between pants. “Not the worst Darkspawn the moment you realize they ain’t actually human or in charge, but some of the biggest assholes, aye. Thanks for the help on short notice, Zelda.”
“Sounds like some of the venators my bosses had to sue into removing heads from their own,” a surprisingly dainty and feminine voice came from the shadowy monster. “Also, hey Stella. Why is it that I’m never called for poker night? Or even a fighting game tournament? It’s always some kind of Darkspawn or other monster, or you want me to build some traps.”
Now that Maruki got a good look at her…it was clear whatever the great shadow arachnid was not born of the same darkness as…well, the Darkspawn. She looked…natural. For supernature, yes, but the eldritch build wasn’t anything more strange than what Azathoth, Maruki’s own Persona, was before he evolved into Adam Kadmon. Zelda looked like a Shadow in more than just a being made of it - she looked like something that was born and lived, as opposed to twisted into being as an act of spite for the world. In fact, on some level Maruki could imagine a few might find her quite pretty in a sense - she looked like a woman in a shadowy robe with distinctly human eyes along with the six smaller spider ones, chitin covering her visible humanoid body like a form-fitting suit of armor, and long hair that seemed to be made of her shadowy webbing, and the four limbs she had used to subdue the other Insidious rising from her back. She was also, contrary to the stereotype of the mysterious, tempting jorogumo, clearly an athletic type - the hair was tied into a neat ponytail, an actual security guard’s baseball cap was perched on her head, and the chitin did nothing to hide her muscle underneath.
He cleared his throat, extending his hand. “Takuto Maruki. Thanks for saving me, Zelda…?”
“Fernandez”, she said, thankfully shaking with her humanoid arm. “Deputy Head of Monitor Security for the Graveyard Shift, Chief of Physical Security for Evidence and Documentation, and Liminality Response Team Consultant for Smith, Michaels, and Morrison. I’m basically the girl they call in when someone thinks they can short-circuit a case with their fists or equivalent, or space has gone wonky in a trial. Also, before you ask - I’m an Eight Hands Primal, one bound to a darkness elemental, which makes most of us werespiders.”
“To be honest, not really that surprising, given the…well…” He nodded at the arms. “Though…” He turned to Stella.
“Yeah, Darkspawn are basically semi-living avatars of the ACD - they’re bits of Light that the Dark congregated around like a pearl in its plane, the Dark World - yes, we know, we ran out of creativity for somewhere nobody sane goes willingly - and then given existence. Which they inherently hate, only continuing to be so they can inflict a particular kind of terror and the suffering related to it on the world - the moment one actually has dreams beyond bein’ a huge prick for the sake of bein’ a prick, even learnin’ to eat for the sake of it, that’s the moment it ceases bein’ a Darkspawn, and these Insidious weren’t it, you saw them try to beat you the moment they saw you weren’t buying their illusions. They’re made from the fear of abusive authority figures and bureaucracy crushing you, but also the fear that bullies have that looking weak means their victims are plotting against them, so they slip into what look like positions of security and basically take All Cops Are Bastards as a challenge. The more vicious their host organization is, the longer they can keep up the gag, hence the name.”
“So, they are the nasty kind of venator - ahem, monster hunters - made honest, gotcha,” Zelda said, kicking the dissolving mask of one. “But…this place looks abandoned. Why did they think this would be a good place to nest, if they’re cuckoo guards? Wouldn’t they need people to abuse, instead of some hollow dungeon waiting for raiders?”
Maruki’s eyebrows shot up.
Dungeon.
Like Palaces.
Like superimposed spaces.
“...Um, Ms. Fernandez? You said you can check if space has ‘gone wonky’. Can you check here?”
Zelda frowned, before spinning a web in her hands - and her eyes widened as it trembled. “...This place. It’s not the real one. It’s a liminality, like…some other place has covered it up. Like a Shattered Space but…not just that building, it’s like there’s spillage from something much, much bigger.”
Stella stared, then checked through her binoculars again, this time letting them glow green. “...I’m a fucking idiot,” she mumbled. “I was looking at Sanctuary. This isn’t Sanctuary - it’s a Bleed! A place where the Dark World’s overlaid part of itself! We’re staring into the fanfic of Sanctuary made by the Dark, and it was taking advantage of me targeting ‘Sanctuary’ to hide this wasn’t it!”
“Uh!” Maruki looked up. “Then are we in-”
“Not unless we go further,” Stella reassured him. “Bleeds are just that - Bleeds. Paper cuts in the barriers between the rest of existence and the deepest Dark. Not fun, and things go through both sides, but reality heals fast. No, it’s that something made the cut, and generally, that has to be a dark sorcerer or some real bad magic and confluences or-” She paused. “Oh. Of course. Of. Fecking. Course. It’d make that, wouldn’t it…”
Both Zelda and Maruki felt a sinking pit in their stomachs.
“There’s…another kind of creation the Dark likes. If you get so scared of something irrational that you become sure it’s an immutable law of the world, and there’s enough ACD nearby…it agrees. And then it makes a world just for you, where that’s true. A pocket between the Dark World and everyone else’s, where the person who called it is a god with only one commandment to their creations: ‘take my worst fear, and torture me with it.’ And the suffering and its metaphysical position makes it a wrecking ball between sane reality and the Dark World, besides the Nightmares themselves having a kind of life.”
Maruki blinked. “This is sounding…disturbingly familiar.”
“At least your Palaces are made from something people want. We call ours Nightscapes, and as for those, we need to explain more, especially when we find other heroes, but as a quick summary…well, who here has played Silent Hill 2?”
no subject
Date: 2025-10-10 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-10 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-14 01:56 am (UTC)Clay Mann
HamsterZerg: Is it just me, or does this guy sound like a Team Fortress 2 character?
what’s with the gold-masked white cloak guys? The main bad guy’s minions, I guess? They look, uh, pretty culty. The kind of thing you’d expect to be happily cranking up the psychological thrills in this psychological thriller tale.
Badaft Biker Celebi: You ain't ready for this.
Odio-B.: When did you get here?!
Badaft Biker Celebi: Six-point-three minutes ago, three years from now, last Tuesday.
Kirby: That's a deep cut reference.
…There’s a huge “but” here.
HamsterZerg: Then it ain't mine, I have a small butt.
it was Arkham’s own incompetence and underestimation of the Joker that led them to accept her idea and assign her as his therapist. It…didn’t go well.
Amadeus Arkham: I'm real bad at Mario.
Pit: ...Uhh, buddy, you're playing as Sephiroth.
Amadeus Arkham: Because I'm real bad at Mario!
let’s face it, the Joker is not actually that complex with his motives at his core once one gets past his shifting moods and whatever insanity supplies his ideas, he’s a textbook malignant narcissist and he gets off on people loyal to him degrading themselves and never leaving no matter how badly he treats them.
Odio-R.: *on the phone* Paging Dr. Young, I repeat, paging Dr. Young, we figured out Jo-
HamsterZerg: Remember the events of Arkham Asylum?
Odio-R.: Oh. *switches phones* Paging Prince Ash, I repeat, paging Prince Ash, can you get me Dr. Penelope Young?
early Ivy was Scary Feminism Coming To Kill You Dear Young Man, Spooookyyyyy!...and then the writers found heads removed from asses and realized that just made her a fairly tragic character given why she hated men and loved plants
HamsterZerg: Speaking as a man who's allergic to plants, I've actually still got nothing to say to that.
Wanderer: And then there’s moments where DC does fart fetish comics with her in the belief it’s humorous and it’s what her fans want
HamsterZerg: Why'd they give her the yellow shell? They should have given her the blue shell instead!
Time Spheres are weird
Odio-B.: If the grey goo ate the pyramids 3,000 years ago, why did they only disappear just now?
Odio-R.: *shrugs* Time travel's complicated.
Since everyone needs to know the setting, we’re told what state we’re in…in spite of the fact we can tell we’re in a Midwestern diner in a small town just from the decor and name, and we could have a sign saying WELCOME TO GORDON, NEBRASKA on a street somewhere, or a GPS. But the editors were impatient, so apparently, Shirley feels the need to remind Booster this is not Gordon, Ontario.
HamsterZerg: I once met a guy who looked like Commissioner Gordon.
Kirby: Huh, strangely topical.
(brief silence, followed by Kirby and both Odio losing their minds over what HamsterZerg just revealed)
Leliel: Yeah, uh, leaving aside Hot Spot’s luck - this is his second charter on Charon’s Affordable Stygian Scenic Riverside Tours, as a former Teen Titan DC seems to have a seek-and-destroy order on him by certain editors - this is not his catchphrase.
HamsterZerg: Uh, go back to that title shot. You see what Part 1 is called? Yyyeeeaaahhh.
She may be the Spirit of Love, but she’s still an Amazon, and that’d just come off as cruel mockery of their bravery and skill when the killer did something underhanded to get them at their weakest.
Odio-B.: Now I'm reminded of the time HamsterZerg told me about witnessing a couple of episodes of an anime where failure at life is punishable by death. I'm cold and heartless, but not even I would stoop as low as the forces that be in that world!
HamsterZerg: It was an anime where people had numbers on them that went up or down based on some arbitrary thing they did depending on who they were, and one of the characters was a restaurant owner whose number was on her chest and another character I assume was some sort of youkai because his real number was on his sword and the ridiculously ugly face he was first presented as having was apparently just a mask...
Odio-B.: If anyone can tell us the name of this show, help us remember it!
HamsterZerg: Yeah! So we can find someone to rip it a new one!
those masks? Those creepy-as-hell, golden, impassive, identity-obliterating, cult-in-white robes masks?
Badaft Biker Celebi: Here it comes...!
Yeah, those are the standard patient wear for guarding identity. The dead person we saw with one on was just a victim.
(Kirby does the "Oh, Crap!" face from the Milky Way Wishes tutorial)
(Odio-B. makes strained trying-to-say-something-but-can't-think-of-what noises)
(Odio-R. raises a hand partway up before stopping due to lack of confidence)
(HamsterZerg's face itches)
Badaft Biker Celebi: Told you you weren't ready.
To hide identity by wearing something you’d expect to see being worn by the minions of JRPG bosses themed after corrupt churches and legal systems…and have it be “nah, all cool fam, that’s just a dude in for his meds, he’s all right. Say hi.”
HamsterZerg: I am a thirty-year-old minor with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder and I do not need this!
[In the depths of stupidity, silence lies dead, but dreaming.]
Kirby: Oh hi Lovecraft.
HamsterZerg: And the Arkham references just get even more apt...
Mark: Let the record show that vehicle was an LA privately owned autotaxi with no human driver or intelligence updating its internal GPS, just stealing jobs from actual cabbies, so I did not intervene. It was an act of defense of another’s career prospects and removal of litter.
Odio-R.: Bonus points if it was a Tesla.
HamsterZerg: And Chapter 4 music for Sanctuary? Nice touch. Was that intentional?
Kirby: By the way, have any of you guys seen Ben? As in, the one who didn't give in to hate?
HamsterZerg: Haven't seen him in a while, no. Why?
Kirby: Last I saw him, he was hanging out with Reimu, and I mean a Reimu who also didn't give in to hate, and then they just got... jumped by some weird thing that looked like Morpho Knight, but... wrong, somehow.
HamsterZerg: Huh, someone must be using them as a proxy to judge someone... or something...
And now apropos of nothing, some more Pokédex entries:
Spider
Arachnid Pokémon
Bug/Poison
These critters have a number of ways of hunting prey, from spinning strong webs, to ambush, to active pursuit. They are worshipped in some cultures.
Tarantula
Night Terror Pokémon
Bug/Beast
A docile creature, it has barbed hair on its underside that it can let loose to stick into predators and cause itching, allowing an easy getaway. Its venom is barely harmful to humans.
Scorpion
Night Terror Pokémon
Bug/Dragon
All of these creatures pack venom, but very few have potent enough venom to kill a human. They eat massive amounts in one sitting and have low metabolism, but can only consume liquids.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-14 05:07 am (UTC)Weird coincidence, yep.
Heh, good point. Dr. Young was, well, an idiot.
Indeed...
I'll tell you if I hear about it.
Indeed. Sheesh.
No, but good pun point.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-16 11:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-20 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-22 03:50 am (UTC)The constant rush to get things out and inevitable communication issues usually end up making the mysteries either not make sense, come out of nowhere, or rely on the audience not remembering what happened previously.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-22 04:10 am (UTC)