Okay, this went south so hard, this scene is happening south of Tierra del Fuego.
I know, I know. This battle was supposed to be disastrous enough to be AEGIS’ downfall. Disastrous enough to force the Fans! 2099 to make a perilous travel to the past to alter it’s course in the first place. I get that, but come on. Despite being extra-prepared for this battle, the guys are still going to meet their dooms?
And this isn’t even over. Yellow saved Animal from capture, and Blue last act was either saving Wheaties… or sending him after Rikk. Yeah, that’s right. Last strip and this one seem to suggest that the xenochiclets are acting against their friends reluctantly, maybe even ignoring the gravity of their actions, but they’re screwing their supposed allies so throughly it’s hard not to suspect that they know exactly what they’re doing, sad puppy eyes notwithstanding.
Also, killing Rummy’s kid in front of her? The same way Kana died? What’s next? Making Rumy the middle part of a Human Centipede?
I thought Rumy just died. It took careful re-reading and paying attention to details to notice – hey, why is her sword different? Oh and the earring… oh wait, it’s her son.
Damn that kid looked like a girl.
Rest in Pieces.
Sorry. My bad. This is far too intense. Entering incoherency.
Oh! It just occurred to me. The xenos were asked to teleport people out before they got hurt! So they’re interfering in the fight because there is still a language barrier. And they try their best to save… everyone. Oh, Hand is different? Different how? Aren’t we supposed to protect people? Isn’t that what you told us to do?
It’s possible that the Xenos didn’t betray anyone, but got confused as to what Rumy wanted. She’s not as calm and rational as usual. As such Banana ported Rikk out thinking that’s what she wanted, then Joseph being the hothead overreacted and killed Blueberry and in doing so inadvertently betrayed them all. Seems likely Banana isn’t going to be of help any further which leaves Bellhop the lone teleporter.
Brasca: not really, the first teleport was to get RIKK away, not to prevent Animal getting hurt by Rumy. Animal only got teleported away second. And there was the sidelong glance shot of Bellhop in the middle. If this is all just a language barrier with the chiclets and Bellhop has nothing to do with it, it’s lousy storytelling.
Also, for the second time in a row, AEGIS has pulled a “scry and die” on the cuckoos which really seems to have had minimal effect on killing or incapacitating any of them, even before the Chiclets made their play, despite being able to basically line up anything they wanted on opponents they had perfectly visibility of, and with the advantage of numbers. Why is Bellhop even still conscious when Rumy makes her move? As a SWAT team, AEGIS are coming off as pretty much total incompetents.
Perhaps Bellhop had a vial of Animal Blood, the way Link has bottled fairies? If I was about to have a grand battle, I’d give at least one of those to every teammate.
By the way, AEGIS has Dr. McNinja on their team, so why isn’t this battle done by now?
@Aydr: yeah… they dont know a thing about the Hand. Maybe they should investigate first and shoot later. Too late now.
Teleporters are the most powerful opponents you can face. They bend space at will. If Einstein is right, it takes enormous quantities of energy to do that. And Bellhop is a peculiar kind of teleporter. He can stay in between places with his doors open and move the frame. The perfect weapon. He can stand in Hawaii and cut your throat in Detroit without leaving traces behind. The perfect alibi.
I would talk to this people.
But Aegis insist in the “guns blazing” tactic.
this won’t end well.
But we knew that.
Lets see what happens next.
What ever happened to Rumy’s soul-son by the xenochiclets? Could Bellhop be somehow connected to that being, in the future?
It’s the affinity for the xenochiclets, ability to teleport, the bald head, and the odd eyes that make me ask. Maybe Bellhop can control or talk to them better than Rumy because he’s partially their blood…and the betrayal is Rumy being betrayed by her FIRST son.
I could be way off here… but am i right in thinking that the Cuckoos have the appearance of standard grey alien stereotypes until they “choose” a form and power of some kind? This assumption is based only on the Hyperman storyline where Hyperman is “summoned” to Earth via the die of power and then assumes Lance Clarkson’s form. Presuming the die was just a conduit for the events to happen, rather than the direct cause of those transformations, then I would assume that’s how this particular alien race operates? And why we can have so many wildy different variations on appearance and abilities?
@Arky On second thought it might not be about language confusion, but just the fog of war so I’m still not quite convinced it’s betrayal. Perhaps Banana wanted to separate the combatants thinking this was the most peaceful resolution because it wasn’t entirely convinced by Bellhop that the people it works for aren’t good. Blueberry, however, might’ve been following orders all along (he did teleport Rumy and Rikk and if it was going to defy them could’ve refused), but Joseph attacks the first Xeno he sees which probably affirms every negative thing Bellhop is whispering to Banana.
Holy crap, what @Commie said makes total sense. They’re not betraying the team on purpose, they’re just obeying orders. Orders which were very unfortunately worded.
It could be a language barrier but the Xenos look way too remorseful and sad for that. I see the language barrier thing as more of a thinly veiled excuse. Also, remember, when Bellhop first shouted at the Xenos the symbol-speech was that of dozens of other Xenos. This could only have meant one of two things – either “help me or I’ll kill your friends and family” or “help me because I’m one of/just like you.”
This just occurred to me: maybe Joseph isn’t really dead? I wonder, because although this isn’t a Garth Ennis comic, I’d expect that if a character’s body were physically bisected, there’d be at least some blood, if not viscera, spilling out. And in the first panel, we do indeed see Animal’s blood all over. So maybe Bellhop hasn’t killed Joseph, but caused half of him to be in one location (where Bellhop’s just come from) and half in another (the current battle spot).
*Wouldn’t* that kill you, over the course of a couple of seconds? I think the lack of gore is partly to keep the comic ‘sanitary’ for picky audiences and partly to signify the cleanness of the cut.
I kind of hope he’s not dead – post-apocalypse raised Joseph was too cool a character to die this early, even if a different version will still feature in comics to come – but I do imagine he just got cut in half. There’s magic healing blood and a dozen resourceful heroes around, so who knows.
I wish I could look up that arc in the archives to see if Bellhop’s eye color is the same as Rumi’s kid’s color, but sadly all the archive links are broken…
alicemacher – Check out when Kana got cut in half in the archives. No blood or gore there either. It’s most likely an artistic choice or else out of respect for the squeamish.
Valdrax – It is. They are both orange. But worth noting – there were many Xeno/human babies born as a result of that first Xeno storyline and all of them were orange.
@Valdrax http://www.faans.com/books1-6/index.php?p=326
Both Rumy’s kid AND the father are on that page.
I’m a bit colorblind so someone please look and compare for me? I’d greatly appreciate it.
It’s possible that Bellhop’s portals radiate a lot of heat along the edges when they first open due to the amount of energy required to make one. If so the heat would be enough to cauterize the slice much like a light sabre does when it chops off a limb.
It would not kill you in the course of a couple seconds.
Depending on how clean the cut is, you could live for minutes. If there was a large object blocking via pressure the massive and sudden blood loss, even hours.
Heard a story about a guy who got cut like that by an excavator shovel. He had time to say “Well, shit, I’m dead now.”
@Stevarious:
Thanks for the link. (Where did you find it?)
The colors of orange are very, very close if not the same. I’d have to pull the images into an editor and sample the colors to be sure, but I’d call it match.
Wha
Oh shit
Did that just happen?
Well, that’s a…novel way to kill someone.
Well, huh… Cut that little tantrum right off.
I feel like bellhop IS a chiclet. He is avenging them and everything.
Also, was that Dr. McNinja in panel 3?
Wow, offed without Rumy even knowing who just died in front of her.
Okay, this went south so hard, this scene is happening south of Tierra del Fuego.
I know, I know. This battle was supposed to be disastrous enough to be AEGIS’ downfall. Disastrous enough to force the Fans! 2099 to make a perilous travel to the past to alter it’s course in the first place. I get that, but come on. Despite being extra-prepared for this battle, the guys are still going to meet their dooms?
And this isn’t even over. Yellow saved Animal from capture, and Blue last act was either saving Wheaties… or sending him after Rikk. Yeah, that’s right. Last strip and this one seem to suggest that the xenochiclets are acting against their friends reluctantly, maybe even ignoring the gravity of their actions, but they’re screwing their supposed allies so throughly it’s hard not to suspect that they know exactly what they’re doing, sad puppy eyes notwithstanding.
Also, killing Rummy’s kid in front of her? The same way Kana died? What’s next? Making Rumy the middle part of a Human Centipede?
Maybe Bellhop is one of the kids from when the xenochiclets visited earth. We don’t know a whole lot about what happened to them, do we?
That’s my thought. Maybe to make this whole thing EVEN WORSE, he’s her first son.
Also, killing Rummy’s kid in front of her? The same way Kana died? What’s next? Making Rumy the middle part of a Human Centipede?
Am… Am I allowed to give Gold Stars over here?
Am… Am I allowed to give Gold Stars over here?
It might only be an honorary thing, but I’d be glad to get it if it had been me.
And oddly, when I saw panel four, pretty much the first thing that came to my mind was that bowl of petunias that thought, “Oh no, not again.”
I thought Rumy just died. It took careful re-reading and paying attention to details to notice – hey, why is her sword different? Oh and the earring… oh wait, it’s her son.
Damn that kid looked like a girl.
Rest in Pieces.
Sorry. My bad. This is far too intense. Entering incoherency.
And it’s all down a steep slope to hell from here, folks.
Oh! It just occurred to me. The xenos were asked to teleport people out before they got hurt! So they’re interfering in the fight because there is still a language barrier. And they try their best to save… everyone. Oh, Hand is different? Different how? Aren’t we supposed to protect people? Isn’t that what you told us to do?
It’s possible that the Xenos didn’t betray anyone, but got confused as to what Rumy wanted. She’s not as calm and rational as usual. As such Banana ported Rikk out thinking that’s what she wanted, then Joseph being the hothead overreacted and killed Blueberry and in doing so inadvertently betrayed them all. Seems likely Banana isn’t going to be of help any further which leaves Bellhop the lone teleporter.
Brasca: not really, the first teleport was to get RIKK away, not to prevent Animal getting hurt by Rumy. Animal only got teleported away second. And there was the sidelong glance shot of Bellhop in the middle. If this is all just a language barrier with the chiclets and Bellhop has nothing to do with it, it’s lousy storytelling.
Also, for the second time in a row, AEGIS has pulled a “scry and die” on the cuckoos which really seems to have had minimal effect on killing or incapacitating any of them, even before the Chiclets made their play, despite being able to basically line up anything they wanted on opponents they had perfectly visibility of, and with the advantage of numbers. Why is Bellhop even still conscious when Rumy makes her move? As a SWAT team, AEGIS are coming off as pretty much total incompetents.
did you know Bellhop could recover after being nearly bisected? I sure didn’t. Why do we think they knew?
Perhaps Bellhop had a vial of Animal Blood, the way Link has bottled fairies? If I was about to have a grand battle, I’d give at least one of those to every teammate.
By the way, AEGIS has Dr. McNinja on their team, so why isn’t this battle done by now?
…that can’t end well
@Aydr: yeah… they dont know a thing about the Hand. Maybe they should investigate first and shoot later. Too late now.
Teleporters are the most powerful opponents you can face. They bend space at will. If Einstein is right, it takes enormous quantities of energy to do that. And Bellhop is a peculiar kind of teleporter. He can stay in between places with his doors open and move the frame. The perfect weapon. He can stand in Hawaii and cut your throat in Detroit without leaving traces behind. The perfect alibi.
I would talk to this people.
But Aegis insist in the “guns blazing” tactic.
this won’t end well.
But we knew that.
Lets see what happens next.
…..oy. I didn’t realize you could do that.
This may be a really odd question…
What ever happened to Rumy’s soul-son by the xenochiclets? Could Bellhop be somehow connected to that being, in the future?
It’s the affinity for the xenochiclets, ability to teleport, the bald head, and the odd eyes that make me ask. Maybe Bellhop can control or talk to them better than Rumy because he’s partially their blood…and the betrayal is Rumy being betrayed by her FIRST son.
I could be way off here… but am i right in thinking that the Cuckoos have the appearance of standard grey alien stereotypes until they “choose” a form and power of some kind? This assumption is based only on the Hyperman storyline where Hyperman is “summoned” to Earth via the die of power and then assumes Lance Clarkson’s form. Presuming the die was just a conduit for the events to happen, rather than the direct cause of those transformations, then I would assume that’s how this particular alien race operates? And why we can have so many wildy different variations on appearance and abilities?
Oh… Oh man… Oh jeez… This is really bad and getting worse by the second. And still 4 pages to go!
Soooo…. What are the odds, I wonder, that Bellhop broke Feddyg out of prison? And the Bellhop that got hacked up two pages ago was a manifestation?
@Arky On second thought it might not be about language confusion, but just the fog of war so I’m still not quite convinced it’s betrayal. Perhaps Banana wanted to separate the combatants thinking this was the most peaceful resolution because it wasn’t entirely convinced by Bellhop that the people it works for aren’t good. Blueberry, however, might’ve been following orders all along (he did teleport Rumy and Rikk and if it was going to defy them could’ve refused), but Joseph attacks the first Xeno he sees which probably affirms every negative thing Bellhop is whispering to Banana.
Holy crap, what @Commie said makes total sense. They’re not betraying the team on purpose, they’re just obeying orders. Orders which were very unfortunately worded.
I like Commiekeebler’s thought.
Also: Bellhop has colored eyes. Always has, ever since his first on-panel appearance back in Facing the Future.
Color is important in this comic.
Bellhop is totally Soulson. Somehow.
Goddammit.
It could be a language barrier but the Xenos look way too remorseful and sad for that. I see the language barrier thing as more of a thinly veiled excuse. Also, remember, when Bellhop first shouted at the Xenos the symbol-speech was that of dozens of other Xenos. This could only have meant one of two things – either “help me or I’ll kill your friends and family” or “help me because I’m one of/just like you.”
This just occurred to me: maybe Joseph isn’t really dead? I wonder, because although this isn’t a Garth Ennis comic, I’d expect that if a character’s body were physically bisected, there’d be at least some blood, if not viscera, spilling out. And in the first panel, we do indeed see Animal’s blood all over. So maybe Bellhop hasn’t killed Joseph, but caused half of him to be in one location (where Bellhop’s just come from) and half in another (the current battle spot).
*Wouldn’t* that kill you, over the course of a couple of seconds? I think the lack of gore is partly to keep the comic ‘sanitary’ for picky audiences and partly to signify the cleanness of the cut.
I kind of hope he’s not dead – post-apocalypse raised Joseph was too cool a character to die this early, even if a different version will still feature in comics to come – but I do imagine he just got cut in half. There’s magic healing blood and a dozen resourceful heroes around, so who knows.
@Raza You are correct in your first paragraph. No comment on the second paragraph.
I wish I could look up that arc in the archives to see if Bellhop’s eye color is the same as Rumi’s kid’s color, but sadly all the archive links are broken…
alicemacher – Check out when Kana got cut in half in the archives. No blood or gore there either. It’s most likely an artistic choice or else out of respect for the squeamish.
Valdrax – It is. They are both orange. But worth noting – there were many Xeno/human babies born as a result of that first Xeno storyline and all of them were orange.
@Valdrax http://www.faans.com/books1-6/index.php?p=326
Both Rumy’s kid AND the father are on that page.
I’m a bit colorblind so someone please look and compare for me? I’d greatly appreciate it.
re: human centipede
Reality is way, way too dark for this comic.
It’s possible that Bellhop’s portals radiate a lot of heat along the edges when they first open due to the amount of energy required to make one. If so the heat would be enough to cauterize the slice much like a light sabre does when it chops off a limb.
It would not kill you in the course of a couple seconds.
Depending on how clean the cut is, you could live for minutes. If there was a large object blocking via pressure the massive and sudden blood loss, even hours.
Heard a story about a guy who got cut like that by an excavator shovel. He had time to say “Well, shit, I’m dead now.”
I hope Bellhop isn’t related to Rumy’s child. I still want him to be a lost member of the California Raisins.
Yeah, true, that was an exaggeration even assuming the blood loss from an ordinary, non-heat-sealing slice.
And Bellhop’s eyecolor is pretty close to Rumi’s xenochicklet kid’s, but I don’t otherwise see the resemblance.
@Stevarious:
Thanks for the link. (Where did you find it?)
The colors of orange are very, very close if not the same. I’d have to pull the images into an editor and sample the colors to be sure, but I’d call it match.
Well, that would make Di’s response to the quote make more sense;
Only she’d be stopping her master from killing
her own
kid.