SFP

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  • Perlite

    And collision in 3…2…1

    • Oakreef

      Either there’s a timejump between the second last and last panels or they’re very far away from each other. It’s daytime for him and nighttime for her. Either way they’re separated by either time or space by a significant degree and aren’t really likely to run into each other.

      • Perlite

        I was kidding.

  • KatherineMW

    Fire, yellow outfit…I think that’s Furnace. Well, they’re likely to have an altercation. Hopefully we won’t get ten pages or so of Furnace outlining his personal philosophy, as he’s already made it sufficiently clear.

    • ZBass

      If it’s a strongly waning moon at it’s zenith (since that view was looking upwards), then that suggets it’s about 3am where Alison is [1]. If she’s West coast and Furnace is on the East coast, then it’s possible that it’s not long after sunrise. The fact that the sun is shown pretty high (without a horizon) means either
      1. He’s in a different country
      2. We’ve jumped a few hours ahead
      3. I’m reading waaaay too much in to this relative depiction of the sun and moon

      [1] http://www.theswordbearer.org/p009_moon.html

  • Kid Chaos

    Furnace??? Oh, boy; this could be awesome if Alison just knocks him on his ass real quick and moves on. Of course, we all know how The Author likes to mess around, so…

    • KatherineMW

      The comic is about at least trying to find better ways than violence, so I shouldn’t be wanting that.

      But if someone can be disbarred from being a superhero. this guy should be, from all we’ve seen and heard of him (allegedly killing immigrants, threatening to kill peaceful protestors, threatening to kill rape victims who speak out). And put on trial, if there’s sufficient evidence in the case of killing immigrants.

      • Kid Chaos

        Hey, wait a minute! [John Madden shout-out!

        • Lostman

          Ok Alison, you have one job: take him down!

      • Rens

        He’s also apparently infamous for holding the national record on collateral damage, according to Alison’s firehouse commander.

        • Ian Osmond

          Which is pretty impressive, since Alison’s collateral damage score includes entire city blocks, probably hundreds of lives.

          (The difference, of course, is that the firehouse commander believes that Alison’s collateral damage was the least possible given the circumstances, and that Furnace’s is because he’s careless and irresponsible. So I bet that her commander was talking about collateral damage due to sheer personality failure, for which Furnace is the hands-down worldwide winner.)

          • KatherineMW

            Wait, where are we getting “probably hundreds of lives” from? Thus far we know of one civilian she inadvertently killed (her prof’s boyfriend, seen in Chapter 2), and she’s mentioned during her conversation with Cleaver that she’s killed people (“super-accuracy is not part of my anomaly”), but I don’t see any basis to conclude from that that she’s killed hundreds of people.

          • Ian Osmond

            I probably am overstating the case. But she’s a child soldier who is personally a weapon of mass destruction… maybe it’s only dozens. Maybe even only a handful. And maybe everybody … except her professor … blames the villains she was fighting.

            But, yeah “Hundreds” is probably a massive exaggeration on my part.

  • Rens

    And we go from heartwarming aww to “oh shit, Furnace is about to either do something profoundly jackassedly stupid, or get himself killed by Moonshadow. Or perhaps both.”

    • fairportfan

      Preferably both.

      This guy is the type of character you create early in the story specifically to provide a corpse later.

  • Abel Undercity

    Urgh, from stage right, enter a jackass, blazing…

    • Markus

      I’d be really happy if they actually gave him some complexity instead of just being an unending prick.

      • D. Schwartz

        Oh they will but like in real life perspective shapes opinion so we need one before having it reshaped.

      • We think he’s a prick.
        Further character development will reveal the fact that, deep down, he’s an asshole.

    • Mr BreaksIt

      “Thank you, fuck you, a villain has arrived?”

  • ∫Clémens×ds

    So that’s interesting. Unless there’s an ellipsis there, with Alison in New York in the dead of night, Furnace is at least 15,000 to 20,000km away. So we can forget about them meeting anytime soon.

    • Liz

      Or, time has passed and morning has come between those last two panels.

    • Sabriel

      I think we might be going back in time to right after Furnace blasted off from his interview, but I still agree with you that they’re not going to meet.

      Alison is flying away from New York. Furnace has no reason to suspect that she can fly, and he has no reason to suspect that she would leave New York.

      I suppose he could have been following her ever since she left her dorm, but he’s not very subtle, so I doubt that. I’d need a good explanation for why he didn’t confront her immediately, or maybe come crashing through the window during her fight with Patrick.

  • Michael Corley

    This does not bode well

  • Greg E Downing

    Everyone thinks that the two of them are going to fight. But experience tells us no. Because everytime we’ve cut away from Alison, it’s Mary Kim making a kill. Which means she’s going to kill Furnace. Or try to.

    • Ian Osmond

      Yay!

    • Insanenoodlyguy

      Plus, Furnace backed away from a chance to have a fight with her before. Granted, there were considerations (starting a fight with a protestor, powers or no), but I got the impression he didn’t think he’d like the fights outcome. And now she can FLY. This would be a poor time to go at her.

      Besides, after his wonderful declaration, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is when Mary starts branching out.

  • Jorge A. Molina Torres

    Uh, oh. It’s that guy that hates her.

  • Abe

    Considering how little Furnace notices others around with, I can kind of imagine (and would enjoy) him just sort of flying straight into Alison and receiving a serious injury in response.

    • Mystery girl

      He runs into her and is all “Hey! Watch where you’re going bozo!” …”Wait, what the h**l are you doing up here?! The sky is my turf!”

  • Simeon

    I don’t remember, could Furnace fly previously?

    • Donald Simmons

      Yes. right back at the very start of the comic, when Allison confronts him at the student demonstration (after being pushed into it by her roommate) we see him blast off into the air.

    • Thomas Fogh

      Yeah, he flew away from that demonstration he was introduced in.

  • Pol Subanajouy

    Sometimes your family saying I love you can soften the blow of a really crappy day.

  • Mechwarrior

    I had no idea Furnace was colorblind (which is the only reason I could see someone voluntarily wearing that outfit in public).

    • Ian Osmond

      You familiar with Daredevil’s original costume, before he went to the dark red one, right?

      Let’s just say that he HAD to change it, since it totally gave away the fact that he was blind.

      • Mechwarrior

        I’ll see your Daredevil Original Costume and raise you the Whizzer.

      • fairportfan

        Actually, Daredevil knew what colours his outfit was – he could sense them with his fingertips.

        No, i am not being smart-ass.

        He really could.

    • Darkoneko Hellsing

      That gotta be true for a lot of superheroes.

    • Tony Thompson
      • Mechwarrior

        “This
        character currently has no history or origin written.”

        Doesn’t count if he isn’t actually used for anything.

  • chaosvii

    Calling Dr. Rosenblum is a good move, the more competent emotional support the better. I wonder if they’ll discuss how Alison feels about the destructive things she’s done. And perhaps even that being messed with to the extent that she was merely makes her actions more sympathetic, not more acceptable.

    • Ian Osmond

      It’s also almost certainly her legal and civic duty. There are laws regulating biodynamics, and I’m certain that she’s legally required to keep her government minders informed about any changes in her biodynamism. I mean, we don’t think about Dr Rosenblum as a government minder, because she actually DOES care about Alison, and actually IS a good person, so it doesn’t feel like her involvement is Big Scary Government Intrusion Into The Personal Life Of A Citizen — but honestly, it kind of is.

      The government keeps tabs on Alison, and Alison cooperates with that. There are all sorts of good arguments you can make on all sides of that topic, and, heck, Marvel recently made an attempt to grapple with it in CIVIL WAR, but they didn’t do that great a job of it. I mean, I could argue both Cap’s and Tony’s positions better than they could, and could probably have come up with a compromise solution that addressed most of everybody’s concerns.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something Mulligan and Ostertag get into, though.

    • Sabriel

      Is Rosenblum really emotional support? She’s manipulative, she reports to the government, and she might be working with Moonshadow.

      I think she does care about Alison, but she also has a job to do, and Alison shouldn’t trust her.

  • well they both seem to be moving elliptically, but I knew what you meant.

  • Sabriel

    Alison did threaten those guys outside the hospital, but I think Katherine is talking about the protest way back where we first meet furnace.

    • KatherineMW

      Yes, I meant the incident in Chapter 1.

  • Mechwarrior

    Probably a loss of control, either by having a tendency to spontaneously ignite when trying not to or having difficulty shutting the powers off. Larger, hotter flames are another possibility.

  • Kid Chaos

    So Furnace can go supersonic, maybe as high as Mach 3? We still don’t know his limits, or Alison’s, for that matter. Are we about to find out? Inquiring minds want to know!

  • Donald Simmons

    There was an issue of the old Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers, not Kamala Khan) when she tries to use a cellphone at Mach 2 with predictable results. In her defense she really needed to ask Captain America for advise at that particular moment.

  • Jack Lostthenames Warren

    maybe he’s not flying! maybe he’s really on fire! like, launched-from-a-cannon-hurdling-toward-his-doom on fire.

    wishful thinking!

    • I’m pretty sure that he’s immune to fire. I think the worst power is the ability to create something that harms you. (I was going to say fire, but creating peanut butter would probably be just as bad for some people)

  • I thought ellipsis was a type of punctuation…

  • You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few hospitals.

  • KatherineMW

    Heat is the most disordered and least useful form of energy.

    If someone’s cold, Furnace can start a fire to keep them warm in the immediate term, but the energy he creates can’t change form (e.g., into electricity) or be stored in any way, because heat energy is too disorganized for that.

    If he can control fire he hasn’t created, he’d be useful as a firefighter, but other than that his ability doesn’t have a lot of practical applicability.

    • Mechwarrior

      Steam engine.

  • Can you imagine his pyromancy becoming telekinetic? That would be a heavy level-up (and terrible for everyone). He could just look at a thing and will it to combust.

  • Syncline

    I think Patrick’s research worked. I think he has “heard” the future from someone’s mind there, and he knew Allison would develop flight, but he thinks she needed it sooner – maybe to save some lives. Furnace is a borderline psychopath about to snap; he’s clearly close to slipping his leash and going vigilante just like Moonshadow, and both of them are going to be hard to catch given their power sets. Allison might be the only person who could stop Furnace (assuming she can fly to keep up with him…).
    I have no reason to assume any of this is the case.,, except that Patrick seems far too smart to pick casual fights with someone who can tie him into a pretzel, no matter how personally confused he may be, this is the sort of twisty thinking he has already shown to date, and above and beyond all of that something about the artwork seems to be setting up a major battle, as NCD noticed.

  • Mechwarrior

    And you have enough oxygen (or other oxidizing agent).

  • D. Schwartz

    True but in fiction the author is our intermediary.

  • MrSing

    Alison could do the same with a dynamo. It’s unfair to judge them for chosing not to be mindless powercells.
    Also, Feral’s donating scheme was incredibly unethical. No empathic human that wasn’t being blinded by the fear of their own, or loved ones, immenent dead would accept an organ that was ripped out of a conscious donor that was being tortured for the rest of their life.
    A paradise can be build on the backs of slaves and martyrs, but what kind of person would want to live in it?

    • Mechwarrior

      Quite a few, most likely. It’s easy to rationalize something if it benefits you and you can’t directly see the negative side effects. Now, if people receiving the organs actually had to watch Feral being continually vivisected? Far fewer would be willing.

    • Inbetweenaction

      She would actually have more trouble with that. she has super strength, not super speed.

      Sure, you could use a massive gearbox to transfer the power down to speed, requiring a massive investment and solving some structural problems (making small size gear that could take the load, for one) but all you would need to do with furnace is put him into a furnace through a service hatch, and let him blast away. a power plant that operates on 8 hour basis isn’t the most effective, but it could still provide a decent boost. Provided that he is immune to his own power, of course.

      He would even get a decent pay, just pay him a 1-2% of what the foul cost would have been. And this just gives Allison more reason to confirm, her power are actually fairly useless, since even Furnace can contribute more to society than her power lets her do…

  • Arthur Frayn

    No, it’s rather easy to leave out certain details that would bring on undesirable complications. People do it all the time, in real life and in fiction.

  • Tony Thompson

    Nah.
    He knows if he gets too close to the sun, he’ll lose his powers and fall back to Earth.

  • Kid Chaos

    Those are just earrings…of a sort.

  • Kid Chaos

    Maybe Furnace’s flames create a protective aura of some sort. SEE: “Cannonball” (“New Mutants”/”X-Men”).

  • Mr BreaksIt

    Oh. This asshole again.

  • Inbetweenaction

    Hotter flames, essentially. or loss of control

  • mutecebu

    I just binge-read the comic. Man, this was a good place to get caught up!

    I’m really glad she got over Menace. Here’s still hoping for redemption from him, but they shouldn’t be in a relationship as they are now.

    Also, her flying was an awesome moment. It really helped make the chapter cathartic, despire the fact it was arcing to be a major downer. Also, granting heroes new powers just as they hit a milestone in development as a person seems great writing practice in general.

    I wonder though – might she be able to do more than fly? The furniture in the room was shaking. Telekinesis, or simply “waves of power” coming off her?

  • fairportfan
  • MrSing

    Feral is in constant agonising pain. The only reason she decided to donate organs was that she decided that she was so utterly worthless that it would be okay to let herself be tortured to for the rest of her life as long as it helped other people. By accepting her organs you would be affirming that she, a human being, was only worth the value of the organs in her body and nothing more. That she was indeed worthless as a person and that you agree that it is okay to torture her as long as it has benefit to others.
    It is the ultimate way to deny a person’s worth to agree with them that they are only usefull as an utility when they are feeling as down and useless as Feral was probably feeling.
    It’s quite frankly disgusting that any doctor would ever agree to preform that procedure on her when they swore an oath to do no harm.
    The only reason it seems okay is because her sacrifice is helping other people who are extremely desperate. But that does not make it okay.
    Sorry for being so verbose, but it struck a cord with me to see someone who feels so useless that she believes the best thing she can do is to sacrifice herself.