SFP

Show Comments
  • Gotham

    So does he also murder his father because of his apathetic complicity (and the fact that he would necessarily need his identity to be known by no-one before his coup for nobody to know who Menace is now?)

    Also gosh Molly I know the mistake’s mine but beware the trappings of two dimensions I totally thought Alison’s hand was decidedly /not/ going for the handle there and now I’m DISAPPOINTED

    • Lu

      XD

      I’m guessing… he will find only his father, and not necessary kill him. Maybe his mother left to become the powerful congress woman that look to search and kill him and all the other bio-dynamics.

    • Tylikcat

      I would not say his father was apathetic. Especially not to Patrick, who was, after all, a telepath.

      http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-7/page-64-4/

      He was awash in mixed feelings and self loathing and generally fucked up, and incapable of anything close to good parenting. His mother might make that look good, but, really, it isn’t. Maybe if the two of them had been on their own they would have worked it out, but kids really don’t need to get the backwash of parents who are absorbed in their own emotional drama.

      (Nice snark there!)

      • Weatherheight

        I have a suspicion there was some fear of Mommy (who has a name, why can’t I remember her name…) and fear of retaliation from her if Dad didn’t toe her line/tow her line, as well.

        • Gotham

          It’s Pearl and ALWAYS WILL BE

      • Gotham

        Apathetic isn’t the right one indeed. Cowardly is a little bit harsh for what I intended to mean, that he was genuinely affected and could have helped a great deal but in the end, apparently did nothing.

    • Weatherheight

      Great, now I can’t unsee it…
      Thanks, that was… perfect… XD

  • Joe in Australia

    Somebody buried the dog, at least.

    • Sterling Ericsson

      That actually says quite a lot in itself.

    • Meghan

      It was probably Patrick.

      • Ray Radlein

        It does look more like a kid’s handwriting than an adult’s.

        • Lotusprime

          Just thinking about that dog makes me sad and furious all over again.

      • Joe in Australia

        If we can rely on the memory Patrick was a little kid at the time. Maybe it was he did bury the dog himself, but I’m hoping there was some person with decency and compassion in his life who would have helped him.

  • Sterling Ericsson

    Ah, so the Green Door was indeed the memory he most wanted to keep sealed.

    Now, the question is…is that because it’s the worst memory? Does he kill his father or do some other horrible things?

    Or is it because it’s actually a good memory, he makes up with his father or something, and such a memory (especially the emotions of it) would completely undermine a lot of his other past trauma (and his avatars), so he buried the knowledge of it happening from his conscious memory?

    • Meghan

      I mean odds are he kills his mother for being awful and his father for doing nothing, right?

      • Tylikcat

        Maybe his mother is finally proud of him?

        • Randolph Carter

          This might be where he learns his mother is in on the Conspiracy.

      • Sterling Ericsson

        That’s certainly the most likely scenario. We’ll have to see how it plays out. Based on how the plot hasn’t exactly gone to plan thus far, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of twist in how the events happen.

      • Nightsbridge

        I imagine it was the one bright spot of his childhood that made his mother’s betrayal most painful in hindsight.

        • M. Alan Thomas II

          Given that the dog’s already dead and he appears to be a full-grown adult in the Menace costume, I’m going to assume that’s not it.

          • I have a sense that sort of thing is pretty much irrelevant to how Patrick’s memories work…

          • M. Alan Thomas II

            Why do you think that? We’ve already seen a series of his memories, and as far as I can recall, every single other memory has been internally consistent with the age of the Patrick appearing in it and has lacked anachronisms (although there’s been little that dated them).

          • Largely because I missed the fact that the coloring of Menace shows that he’s part of the memory and not the Menace personality showing up in the present… oops.

      • M. Alan Thomas II

        Or he shows up planning to, but their lives are terrible now, possibly they live in guilt, and he feels sorry for them (because he shares all of their sorrow?).

        Or he shows up and they’re part of The Conspiracy and they recruit him (plot twist!).

    • Moi

      Nah. It’s porn.

    • Fluffy Dragon

      Or they’re already dead… Possibly/Likely as a result of something Menace did.

      The Optimist inside me hopes that the mother had a change of heart after he disappeared, though…

    • Weatherheight

      I wonder if somehow Patrick killed Skipper (probably accidentally) and he made up and enshrined a narrative that it wasn’t his fault, that it was Mom that did it because Patrick never would have done that.
      Or possibly he confessed and Mom ripped him a new one, so of course everything is her fault.
      People do this.

      • Sterling Ericsson

        There’s so many possibilities right now. I’m really interested to see which of them the creators decide to go with.

      • Graeme Sutton

        Certainly the narrative of his mother’s actions that we’ve seen so far seems spectacularly implausible.

        • Weatherheight

          I guess. I know a person or two – strike that – I once knew a person or two who were that cold to their children and did, in fact, murder a a pet in front of them. On the plus side-ish, that got animal control and child services involved and thus the kids into foster care.

          Kansas can be messed up.

          • Graeme Sutton

            Each individual part of the story might make sense in isolation, but putting them all together as the actions of the same person rings false to me.

  • Aresius

    Beware. We never saw Menace dissolve in component :/

  • Olivier Faure

    … and then Menace gets ambushed by remote-controlled drones because his mother tipped off the government. Whoops!

    Seriously though, I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’m hyped!

  • Dean

    Their expressions in the last panel are because Menace isn’t wearing pants.

    • bryan rasmussen

      hey you guys want to come with me to the sex coliseum? Promise it’s not a trap!

      • trev006

        “IT WAS A TRAP, IDIOT!”

        “… Well played, Menace “

  • Is he about to pull a Sparrowhawk?

    • Weatherheight

      I upvote any reference to Ursula K. Le Guin on general principle (assuming it’s not something I have read and happen to recall).

      • So no Lathe of Heaven references then?

        • Weatherheight

          I have no idea what you’re talking about.
          ::coughs::

    • Graeme Sutton

      Trick his mom into jumping off a cliff? Realize that she has the true name as him? Sorry I’m not getting reference here but it has been over a decade since i read that book.

      • I was thinking more of when he confronts the shadow thing at the end.

  • Weatherheight

    Hmmm…
    Anyone else hearing the Imperial March? Just me?

    • Gotham

      The point was to cover the sound of the helicopter, but then you end up not really resolving the issue of sneaky operations efficiently.

      • Dave M

        “And can you tell me doctor why I still can’t get to sleep
        And why the channel 7 chopper chills me to my feet?
        And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
        God help me. I was only 19”

      • Hiram

        Bah. Everyone knows you have to use Wagner for helicopters.

  • Flesh Forge

    Is it time to stab mommy yet?

  • RobNiner ♫

    Lord Kettlehead.

    • Weatherheight

      Dark Helmet.

      • RobNiner ♫

        “Why am I surrounded by idiots?!”

  • AustinC123

    $20 on ‘Young Pat did something extremely messed up which retroactively makes his mom’s actions more ambiguous/comprehensible’

    • AustinC123

      Menace: ‘Don’t you see, Patrick? You’ve always been a menace. This mask… is your TRUE face etc

    • Denimcurtain

      I’d take that bet. The dog’s dead in this scene and I can’t see the comic justifying that weird neck snap.

      • AustinC123

        Good point, good point.

  • magnetoo

    Pianoman keeps running through my head…

    “He said son can you play me a memory,
    I’m not really sure how it goes….”

    • David Nuttall

      But it’s short and it’s sweet
      And I knew complete
      When I wore a younger man’s clothes.

      Here comes the memory of the clothes of younger man. I like how the dog’s grave is still marked in the backyard.

  • Tel B

    My bet is that he’s going to find his mother and she’s going to admit she was an awful parent, and Patrick decided that the idea that someone might be willing to change was damaging enough to the framework of his mental construct that he had to lock it away

  • Kid Chaos

    I’ve got a bad feeling about this… 💀

    • Weatherheight

      Wrong franchise…

      • My spidey sense is tingling?

      • Kid Chaos

        Those words can be applied to any situation, any franchise, any time. 😎

        • Bob Stewart

          As long as it’s a Spielberg movie.

          • AbacusWizard

            *screams in Wilhelm*

  • Pol Subanajouy

    I kind of hope it has something to do with the dog. I hope it’s about grieving and something totally uncharacteristic to Patrick’s carefully maintained facade.

  • Callinectes

    Inside the house… a duck.

    • Weatherheight

      Oh please, oh please, oh please….

    • Fluffy Dragon

      Gotta be honest, I laughed out loud. A Proper Guffaw!

    • The Duck from issue 6 page 112

      Anatidaephobia’s the middle name and plotting is my game.

  • wsw

    It took me a reread before I noticed it’s a memory Menace instead of the cognitive version. Although memories have been seen to mix into cognitive personas after a certain point, maybe the wrecking of the city can impact this.

    The memory will be traumatic, and there’s a chance there’s a last confrontation with cognitive Menace afterwards. This chain of events leading to all the personas fusing might also be possible.

  • zellgato

    Well.. here is betting this is infact “recent” not an old memory.
    This is the event that sent him tettering off..
    his parents broke him. Either because he couldn’t read them, their fear, the mother being proud of who is now, or because death

  • Kifre

    Full steam ahead for matricide, I guess.

  • Eileen Young

    Ahhh, I love the visual weight in these panels: how the house weighs heavy on his mind, but Allison weighs heavier – the ground curves slightly more under her than anything else, because she has gravity in his mind. I mean, it also works as a visual focus just art-wise, but I love the weight of implication in-story because of it. And how we can tell Menace is a memory rather than a construct because he has the same subtle gradient as the sky and the roof. I both can’t wait to see the memory and am bracing for the inevitable gut punch.

  • Devon Jolly

    Soldiers rarely experience PTSD because of the Atrocities they see. They typically experience PTSD because of the acts they never thought themselves capable of. ~ Jordan Peterson.

    Unless he’s about to bow to his parents and this memory sucks because he’s rejected again.

    • Zac Caslar

      I disagree.

      “Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)[note 1] is a mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, or other threats on a person’s life.[1] Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams
      related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related
      cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in how a person
      thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response.[1][3] ”

      For my purposes the key term is “exposure.” Being triggered by overpasses and roadside garbage and fireworks isn’t beecause of what the soldier did involving those things.

    • I’ve only started hearing of this Jordan Peterson person a couple weeks ago, and every single thing I’ve heard, from people who like him and people who don’t, makes him sound like an idiot…

      • Devon Jolly

        *Shrug* Your opinion.

        I’d suggest researching the things he says though, to see if they’re actually ridiculous, or just contradictory to what you think you know.

  • JohnTomato

    Transition scene.
    Odd perspective on the front stairs.
    “I can’t remember.” “Here I come.” No honest narrator involved yet.

    • That need not indicate dishonesty. Why wouldn’t he recognize Menace’s old helicopter?

      • JohnTomato

        If you’re the person being transported about, here and there, by that helicopter why would you recognize the belly of said beast?

        Perspective.

  • BMPDynamite

    … I think I know what we’re about to see.

    Should I grab popcorn, noisemakers or tissues? I can’t decide.

  • McFrugal

    Imagine you’re his mother: an amoral woman perfectly willing to commit murder to get her way. Your son walks in, highly accomplished supervillain who started from nothing.
    Wouldn’t you be proud of him? I think that’s why he locked away this memory. He confronts his mother, only to finally get her approval, except he doesn’t want it anymore. The idea of her approval sickens him now. That would be the icing on the nope cake.

  • Somehow Alison looks younger to me.

    • Weatherheight

      It’s possible that Patrick’s image of Alison is influencing her manifestation (his head, his rules).

      • Yeah. That was what i was thinking.

        How old was she when they met?

        • Weatherheight

          I think it was just before she gave up the cape, so… 15, or 16, I think?

          It just occurred to me how odd it is that Alison finally corners Patrick and what happens? She doesn’t arrest him, and soon after she gives up the superhero thing. Given Patrick’s boast that he doesn’t need mind control to get people to do what he wants, wouldn’t it be funny if that whole meeting was staged to achieve just those results?

          I have a sick, sick mind. I need help. Professional help.

  • Hiram

    Then it turns out this memory’s blocked out because he cracked his helmet on the door frame, which totally ruined the dramatic catharsis of his revenge.

  • Gotham

    Doesn’t it just reopen an old wound of ours, that some of us supposed some or all of this might be fake and constructed to manipulate Alison, that Patrick’s front yard has a dog tombstone…
    Right where Alison’s dog’s is?

    • AbacusWizard

      Ooh, good parallel!

    • Weatherheight

      I had forgotten that.
      ::mumbles something about too damned many possibilities::

  • Thomas S

    A clear gap in Patrick’s ordered city of barriers, that is his life, is any return to his parents. This looks like the start of that return. If Patrick’s mother was such a hard arse, when Patrick had hardened his soul up enough to return and face his mother’s hard arsedness, its bound to be a wrenchingly difficult thing. I would hope that Alison is welcoming of EmotivePatrick and MenacePatrick in entering and facing this memory, whatever the memory might be.

    But we know that behind the barrier are experiences from his childhood and his the need for love : http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-7/page-67-4/

    I know parents often fail at providing sufficient love, and children look for what is not able to be given – 12 step programs talk about “going to the butcher for a loaf of bread” with parents being unable to give love – Patrick’s parents cannot give the love a telepathic boy is needing (question, is Alison able to give such love?). Patrick cannot go to his mother (who cannot now be mind-read which suggests she is dead or incapacitated). Patrick cauterised that pain with a barrier.

    Alison then faces a dilemma – who meets her needs best? The normal boy Cleven who is there for her as best as he can, or the reformed super-villain who she will know better than any other person (other than Prof Arjun Gurwara) with magestic capabilities and magestic flaws.

  • David Brown

    Menace was born there. He is the persona Patrick needed; he’ll be there to be logical and let them know he is still needed. Just he’s not as unbound now- and that the two personas should become one, less broken than Patrick but less omnicidal as Menace.

  • Natsumeg

    I’m very excited to see how this new Patrick changes as a person

  • Graeme Sutton

    Whatever happens I hope Patrick gets a shave and a haircut after this.