SFP

Kid Chaos

He might be an asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to go out like this! I mean, if you killed everyone who ever said anything stupid on TV (SEE: all 290 Republican candidates for President), we wouldn’t have anything to watch.

KatherineMW

Moonshadow would actually have legitimate cause to go after Trump.

RobNiner

The fact she’s just going to leave amuses me. No big fight or anything.

Pol Subanajouy

It’s cool. She doesn’t play around, she’s got no time for heroics. Just grab the person you’re there to rescue and leave. There are some rescue tactics that only work when you are (fairly) sure there is nothing the kidnapper can do to you to hurt you. 😉
- fairportfan
  
  It’s what firefighters do, really.
  - Lostman
    
    In another life Alison would been a firefighters or an social worker at best.
    - fairportfan
      
      She IS a firefighter.
    - Lostman
      
      Oh… really!?!?
    - fairportfan
      
      Unless i’m completely crazy and remembering something Not True…
    - Lostman
      
      No really… I knew she was train to become one, but I remember a short comic… you know what never mind…
    - fairportfan
      
      Well, not sure if she’s a trainee or a working firefighter, but here she is in the firehouse, wearing the same gear as the others …
    - Lostman
      
      Ok, I will admit I’m wrong. (Not sarcasm)
    - fairportfan
      
      I took that away in an edit, if you check, almost as soon as i posted it. I apologise for snarking without thinking.
- Kid Chaos
  
  Moonshadow can’t hurt Alison, but Furnace is a different story (as we can plainly see). 🙁
Classtoise

I really hope Tuesdays comic is Alison going “Yes” and flying off.

Then the rest of the panels are just Mary looking completely dumbfounded that she failed to elicit a proud and arrogant moment from Alison.

Lostman

I don’t know why I like Alison actions like; Maybe it’s because I keep forgetting that people are complicated or the fact that when we see Alison flaws most of the time… it’s moments like theses that shin out the most. The things I like: Alison is putting herself in harms way, going against popular a pinon, Sticking to one ethics and morals even when society or your peers don’t want you too. normally I would be against this however this what the old golden age heroes were about along with better themselves (It’s wouldn’t hurt to take a anger management class Alison!). The reason I dislike Moonshadow is the fact that she represents the through things invented: the dark age as you will. Now I’m not going to say this isn’t a story about good versus bad feminist however if I take gender or race out of this, then it become a tale of good person versus bad person; moomshadow isn’t the Villian because she female, it’s because she taken the heroic ideals and corrupted them while Alison struggle to up hold them! I have a feeling that more ‘heroes’ are going to go down Moonshadws path, and that another superpowering event is around the counter, Alison has to become someting more then a superhero; the example for others to follow, A Big Good in a way.

Oren Leifer

It’s interesting that you see it that way. In many ways I see this as Allison doing what she thinks is right, mostly going along with the popular ideals, and while it’s good that she’s rescuing a person, she’s saving them without taking the time to understand what Moonshadow is doing or why. That would be something that goes against her attempt to “retire” and/or think before she acts (“heroically” or otherwise), but she’s still feeling a bit of backlash against Patrick and so probably wants to be doing an act of definitive heroism to get the bad taste out of her mouth.

And what is Moonshadow’s grand plan? She says that it’s a bit of showmanship for his sake. What is it intended to do? Make him afraid to use his powers while she gave him a speech? Or ask an important question?

Also, I’m having trouble understanding your post, specifically where you say that Moonshadow “represents the through things invented”.
- Lostman
  
  Ok… let’s do: Alison is very much a Golden age super hero, think of DCs superman or Marvel captain America and their fellows; They try to do the the right, they struggle keeping to their morals and ethics both with themselves and world around them(Refusing to kill even the worst villians, protecting innocents no matter what.), they are very self sacrificing and will always to do good in the world, plus they are very humble (something Alison needs to learn).
  
  Meanwhile Mary a Dark age Anti-hero, think of Punisher or a Rob Liefeld charater; they kill people without remorse or thought, have very little to no ethics, etc. just think of a Dark age Anti-hero as a Golden age super hero on it’s head.
  
  Now people if you have read people do support Mary in her a killing of rapist as with the guy who Alison had a meeting with earlier, The thing is they just don’t wave flags about it…
  - chaosvii
    
    Mary is clearly not a Rob Liefeld character because she has proportions that exist in a non-zero percentage of the human population. Most notably, she has feet that make sense.
    - Lostman
      
      You know what I’m saying, right?
- Walter
  
  Here’s my guess as to her plan, from the stuff we’ve seen/heard so far.
  
  1. Bombs so he can’t do anything.
  2. Video equipment to record the stuff he says.
  3. Truth serum so he only says true things.
  4. Ask him if he is a rapist, he can’t attack or lie, he says yes.
  5. Kaboom.
  6. Upload video
  7. “If this is what happens to superpowered rapists, what’ll happen to y’all unpowered ones? Stay away from ladies or I murder you.”
- Insanenoodlyguy
  
  Taking the time to… Yeah no. Mary is an invisible light bender which gives her time to make all sorts of plans and kill Furnace effectively whenever she wants if Allison stays. If her goal is to save a life here, there’s really no time to figure out what Mary is up to without risking that.

Pol Subanajouy

Jeez. Is that how far she fallen and how black and white the world looks to her? You either torture/kill/blow up Furnace of you are “throwing your weight behind a fucking rapist?” “You’re either with me or against me?” Yeah, he’s a jerk and he said some stuff about you, but come on. The fact that you think this is going to get you public support or that this is going to damage Al’s reputation shows even further how skewed Mary’s perspective is. (I don’t know, maybe Mary is a master of spin and video editing, but right now it seems weird.)

Secondary consideration: Last we saw Furnace use his flames, he had trouble controlling them and he talked about how he felt like they were getting hotter. I doubt that neither Mary’s kidnap attempt nor Al’s rescue attempt took that into account and that could ~literally~ blow up in everyone’s faces. What if a truly powerful bomb strapped to him would turn out to be superfluous to what happens when Flameo Hotman simply wakes up?

desika

Commenting solely to give you props for the Avatar reference.
shereadstoomuch

It’s been implied before that Mary and Furnace used to date, and it seems likely that during that time he raped her.
- Pol Subanajouy
  
  Whoaaaaaa, they used to date? I totally missed that! That adds a whole new factor!
- KatherineMW
  
  I see a photo of Furnace and his girlfriend in the second panel of comic 129, but the girlfriend doesn’t look anything like Mary. And I don’t think SFP is writing a traditional rape-and-revenge story here.
KatherineMW

Jeez. Is that how far she fallen and how black and white the world looks to her? You either torture/kill/blow up Furnace of you are “throwing your weight behind a fucking rapist?”

From another perspective, her question is one worth thinking about: Why, out of all the problems in the world, is this the one that Allison chooses to go superhero to address? Not to defend a homeless camp that some city is trying to bulldoze. Not to prevent a corporation from dispossessing some First Nations people in Ecuador so it can drill for oil on their land. Not to take down Boko Haram by tying all their guns in knots. But to prevent Moonshadow from killing rapists. (Because Allison was going after her before she knew Moonshadow had kidnapped Furnace.)

To me, the answer is that Allison sees ‘superheroic’ activity as an effective, even necessary, antidote to supervillain violence (see her words to Patrick that she would have thought beyond superheroism a lot earlier if people like Menace weren’t making superheroes necessary), but is only interested in long-term solutions to non-superpowered, everyday violence. Strategic application of Mega-Girl can stop Moonshadow. It can’t provide a long-term answer to any of the other issues I mentioned: as soon as she left, the violence would resume. Allison’s powers are built for fighting individuals, not systems, so that’s how she uses them.
- Classtoise
  
  Because this was a supervillain attacking people.
  
  Some of whom were innocent (legitimately innocent. “Creep at a party” is not a crime, let alone one worthy of death. The dude didn’t rape anyone. He got scared off by Alison).
  
  This is not some “shades of grey” situation. Mary is a serial killer. It’s not suddenly morally grey because her targets are GENERALLY terrible people.
  - KatherineMW
    
    Miles (the creep at the party) did rape people: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/2308/
    
    Yes, Mary is a serial killer. The question I’m trying to get at is: why did Allison go after her and not any other serial killer? Why does Allison go after wrongdoing committed by people with superpowers, and not wrongdoing committed by people without them?
    - Happyroach
      
      I think it’s not so much “people with superpowers” as it is “Mary”. Mary has pretty much gotten up in Allison’s face with her actions. And I consier that reasonable; if someone you know and used to work with is busy killing people around you, would you get involved, or ignore it and do something else?
  - Insanenoodlyguy
    
    I’m interested in finding out if it is as some people said, that Furnace did something to Mary or if she’s generalizing now, assuming those that talk like Furnace surely are rapists. She surely wants him to actually confess to something either way considering the additional work she put into his death.
- Pol Subanajouy
  
  Well I think that addresses a central flaw to Al’s speciality that she is aware of and unhappy about. She knows smashing giant robots is big and dramatic and satisfying and ultimately so incredibly short term that it leaves a sore taste in her mouth. But like you said, Al was going after Mary beforehand. Because she was a former teammate and Al probably thought of her (mistakenly!) as an old friend.
  
  You are right about Al’s interest though. She wants long term solutions and nothing else. To paraphrase Patrick, “She doesn’t want a drop in the bucket. She wants the entire ocean.”
  
  http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-3/page-43-2/

Arthur Frayn

They only just told us that now.

Pol Subanajouy

Yeah, I was in the same boat. Considering this is coming from Mary, who is coming off as unhinged, I actually don’t know what to believe.
- Walter
  
  I refuse to believe that a comic titled “Strong Female Protagonist” will include false rape allegations. I could be wrong.
  - fairportfan
    
    Not from the protagonist, anyway.
  - Insanenoodlyguy
    
    It’s still not confirmed yet. I mean there’s a lot more evidence for it now, but thusfar it’s not clear if Mary is making a personal accusation or making an assumption. I would say either way, Mary believes Furnace is a rapist though, so in that sence it’s not a false allegation.
lizasweetling

there’s a very tiny amount of foreshadowing when you archive. it is as subtle as possible.

Rod

Hmm. Would those pipes happen to have hot steam flowing through them? Hot steam that would blind Mary, and burn her, but leave Furnace (and hopefully Alison) unharmed? Let’s hope!

(We’ll just ignore the potential collateral damage from opening some random valve in the middle of a dam for the moment…)

Arthur Frayn

A hydroelectric dam is unlikely to have hot steam pipes, just high pressure water.
- Walter
  
  Good point, I hadn’t thought of that.
- Kid Chaos
  
  If you want hot steam pipes, you should go to a pressurized water reactor. But I wouldn’t break anything there, if I were you. 🙂
  - lizasweetling
    
    yeah- new and different explosive consequences there.

Rod

I thought she might do that as well, but two possibilities come to mind: (1) she doesn’t want to reveal that she has that power yet (saving it for a critical moment of escape might prevent Mary from getting a lot nastier with her illusions,) and (2) she might be thinking along the lines of some of us who theorized that flying makes her physically more vulnerable.

Shino

Well, she’s been pretty much invulnerable her whole life, getting more and more invulnerable over time, and now she broke arm from acceleration when flying? It’s pretty much given flying and her super strength/endurance are an or/or kinda deal (perhaps this is some form of tactile telekinesis?)

Walter

I’m not sure it was of her. I feel as though if she’d been raped she wouldn’t have done anything else before killing her attacker.

Shino

I actually new that sodium thiopental is a truth serum, I guess I read too many spy novels.

Kid Chaos

Sodium thiopental is generally an ultra-short-acting barbiturate; that is, properly used, it knocks you out very quickly, but it doesn’t last long. It can be used as truth serum, but it’s not considered very reliable. 🙂

Perlite

Mary is the real buttstabber!

fairportfan

Danny Escobedo and Ernesto Miranda were pretty pitiful excuses for human beings, too (Miranda was, in fact, a rapist).

The point, i guess, is that even fucking rapists have rights, too.

We have what is known as Blackstone’s Formulation:

Blackstone’s formulation “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.

Kid Chaos

That’s better than the Cardassian court system, where the sentence is always known in advance…and the verdict is always “guilty”.

Classtoise

Are we really doing more of this “But did you know that this character was TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU WERE LED TO BELIEVE!?”

It’s not surprising or a twist the third time in the same story.

lizasweetling

actually, there’s been foreshadowing + he already publicly stated he’s against what Mary’s been doing. Either one of those might be enough to count fro Mary…

Verdant_Samuel

Mary has a point, actually. Why go after Mary, when there’s so much other stuff to go stop? It’s not just the powers piece, or she’d have taken down Patrick once it became clear he was still engaged in super-villainy.

Insanenoodlyguy

Because Allison has a personal stake in this one. She probably feels at the very least that she started this chain of events, and thus assumes a portion of responsibility for it. Makes it her job, you know.
- Verdant_Samuel
  
  I mean, I like that explanation – but then why not intervene in Patrick when she found out he was still villaining (villainizing?)?
  - chaosvii
    
    I figure that her intervention for Patrick consisted of intimidating him into focusing on the task at hand and asserting that he only gets two years to achieve it whether he succeeds of fails. That he doesn’t get to do any more villainy for kicks anymore because that means he’s just shooting himself in the foot.
    
    By that I mean I assume Alison understands that Patrick is self-admittedly obsessed with the shadowy conspiracy. To the point that if given a deadline that he does not meet, then Patrick will subsequently regret not being given the chance to solve it himself. Hopefully enough to reform, but if not then at least he’s in custody and stopped killing people because it made him feel good to kill a bunch of bigoted pricks in a way that he felt was safe enough to brag about.
  - Insanenoodlyguy
    
    Because her personal feelings for Patrick are a lot more complicated then her feelings for Mary.

lizasweetling

I agree on all counts unrelated to Patrick. She seemed sorry about that (“why couldn’t you just duck?” she mutters as she walks away from the skyscraper. Or something like that as I recall)

Perlite

But she’s easy on the eyes.

Pol Subanajouy

WHY didn’t I catch this before!?

Insanenoodlyguy

Depending on how unhinged Moonshadow is, that might be the plan. This isn’t my current favorite theory but this could work too:
Drug up Furnace, turn on camera, get him to “confess”, kill him, go “see? He was a rapist too!” and upload it to the net!
Public (and powerful, clearly one of her “alpha male” examples) figure proven to be scum all along, death puts fear into others and presumably invigorates those on her side. He’s already said stuff that makes her disinclined to like him, she might figure that’s bad enough to justify his death and the rest serves a greater purpose.
Allison was obviously unexpected but she can work with this. Killing Allison is unlikely but disgracing her? Showing she not only supports a horrible system but that even Mega-Girl can’t stop her? For somebody with something to prove like Moonshadow that’s gotta seem like a bonus.

Insanenoodlyguy

The shrapnel might well kill him. The bullets have a ways to travel through his heat aura. These would explode point blank and presumably before he got all the way to max heat.

Rod

Still… for him to have done that, and to still have the picture, as in “remember those good times?” I don’t see it.

shereadstoomuch

I think it’s more, “remember why you’re doing this.” But I see your point.
- Rod
  
  Right, forgot that it was Mary that had the picture, not Furnace. Still, we know now anyway…

Rod

“Put Allison up against the full force of the United States Military and my money’s on Allison.”

Presuming they had some amount of time to plan, mine would be on the military. She’s strong, she might qualify as a WMD… but she’s not THAT powerful.

Hmm.

…well, at least pre-flight-upgrade, it would have been on the military winning. Now I don’t know who I’d bet on.

Rod

If it’s at all well written, that will happen. At the very least, she has the power to stop Alison long enough to force a dialog. And frankly, I’m also reeeeeally curious as to what will come of that.