SFP

Kid Chaos

Well, it was worth a shot…

Lostman

“Trying to kool-aid man your way out of active dam is pretty stupid, even for you.” a little hypocritical going from a person who strapped C-4 to a person who for blowing…

Ian Osmond

Well, they have opposite goals. Mary wants to cause damage, or at least doesn’t care if she does. Alison wants to prevent it.
Graeme Sutton

“Just think, if I drown 10,000 people that’s 5000 people who can’t be raped and another 5000 potential rapists.”
- Mechwarrior
  
  It’s actually 10,000 potential victims and 10,000 potential rapists, but Mary probably would see it as divided 50/50 like that.
  - Graeme Sutton
    
    That’s what I was going for yeah. Although I suppose it should technically be 5,100 victims and 4,900 rapists.
Anna

There’s probably a simpler explanation here: Mary is following her through the dam. That’s most likely why Alison closed and barred the door behind her; she’s hoping to trap invisible Mary in one area where she can’t escape without being noticed.

Pol Subanajouy

You suddenly worried, Mary? It’s clear that Mary doesn’t want to get caught in a crumbling dam, but I hope that some of that concern is also for the people that would get caught up in the mess if that happened. I hope.

Similarly, I was hoping Al blockading the door to keep Mary out was equally for Mary’s protection as it was for Furnace. But actually, Al seems to be running off of instinct at the moment.

Also, “kool-aid man your way out of” is a wonderfully descriptive turn of phrase.

Rod

Do you think Al figured out Furnace was there? I suppose it’s possible she deduced it from the articles on Mary’s computer, but I wouldn’t have thought that.

And yes, I agree with the turn of phrase.
- Pol Subanajouy
  
  Actually I don’t know. I think Al saw Furnace make that very stupid public statement about actively going against Mary, so I wouldn’t be that hard to put two and two together.
Floweramon

I don’t know if anyone has suggested this, but maybe the bombs don’t actually work, and they’re just there to keep Furnace and Allison in line for whatever Mary has planned?
- Pol Subanajouy
  
  She certainly seems willing to fight that dirty at the moment. I could see it happening.
Insanenoodlyguy

Concern for people caught up in the mess? I don’t think that’s am emotion we should give to people who strap explosives on other people. I mean, even if her goal is somehow to only kill Furnace, that’s still a pretty big risk unless these explosives are fake.
This sounds more like the supervillian taunt to me.

Liz

I Kool-Aid Man.
You Kool-Aid Man.
He/She/It Kool-Aid Mans.
We Kool-Aid… Men?

Dave

OH YEAH!

This is almost certainly my new favorite bit from this comic 🙂

Rod

Oh please let this happen!

Sage Catharsis

His response should be “But what if I fail and hurt myself I’m scurred”.

Rod

I guess she’s trying to contain Mary’s influence? We don’t know that Mary can’t initiate illusions from a distance, without seeing her target, but it seems worth a shot.

thebombzen

Mary Logic seems a bit like Ecoterrorist logic.

“Yes, I agree with your end goals, but I feel you’re missing the point if you do it by killing people.”

Badtux

Except that the list of people killed by ecoterrorists is pretty close to zero, ELF, for example, has never killed anybody. They’ve caused a lot of property damage but Mary’s gone well beyond that.
- Rod
  
  Well, yeah, they’re not serial killers… but the logic is still quite parallel. Blowing up my lab isn’t going to endear me (or really, many people at all) to your cause.
  - Walter
    
    It might make you think twice about having a lab though. Mary isn’t trying to make dudes into feminists, she’s trying to make them afraid.

Walter

Good points. I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you described it I see it.

Walter

She’d need to be careful not to take his damn head off if she slaps him. She’s wounded, frantic and hates his guts.

Walter

She might have sound-akinesis as well as light, letting her put her voice wherever. Alternatively, it could be coming through a vent or some such as she jogs away. Lastly, she might be willing to die in this process, as long as it exposes something bad about respected heroes such as Forge/Mega-girl.

Anna

I think that there’s a simpler explanation: Mary is following her through the dam. That was the point of Alison closing and barring the door; she doesn’t want Mary slipping away unnoticed. Now they’re trapped in the room together with Furnace (which is a potential problem since he’s pretty much lost control of his powers).
Happyroach

Or she’s put some speakers in useful locations.

Graeme Sutton

How to fight an invisible person 1)always close the door behind you.

Floweramon

I just thought of something. If we’re going with the theory that Mary was raped at some point (either by Furnace or someone else), what if she tried to confide to Allison what happened? But before she could tell her what happened, Allison said something like, “Whatever your problem is, just get over it. You’re a superhero, act like it.”

Mechwarrior

It sounded like it was something that happened after Alison left the team and wasn’t talking with them anymore. So it seems more likely to me that Mary would blame Alison for having been put in the position to be raped. But it’s possible.
Liz

I could maybe see her trying to start the convo and Al cutting her off before she knew what it was about, but I don’t think someone with as strong a sense of right and wrong as Al would ever wave off rape in any scenario.
John

Why does she have to be raped to pursue vigilant justice against rapists? It’s so cliche’d and doesn’t add anything to her character. We already see her recuperating after fighting the mob once Allison left. She’s already a victim of violence, already has been harshly separated from her comfort zone and her “normal” life. It’s traumatic enough to make anyone crack.

Mechwarrior

Anyone else hoping that Furnace wakes up soon so he can actually see Alison saving his life?

EveryZig

I think his chances of survival drop drastically if he wakes up while the bomb is still there.
…Actually, Mary might even use that against Allison in the form of “Kill Furnace before he wakes or the dam will blow up”.
Nightsbridge

Considering what Mary injected him with? I’m kinda worried about what happens then.

Classtoise

Well, it was shown at least once that when Alison left the team, the power of their enemies didn’t drop with the sudden power vacuum. It was people who could kind of fight but otherwise had no major physical power. So even facing just regular every day bankrobbers would be a huge challenge, dealing with regular criminals is a lot more dangerous when you aren’t bulletproof.

Pol Subanajouy

Yeah I got the impression that she was trying to keep Mary either in or out by putting the door back. Obviously it seems like Mary isn’t far away, regardless.

Pol Subanajouy

Yeah, that’s definitely there. This is a resentment that seems to have simmered for a very long time just under the surface, imho. Al strikes me as a well meaning friend who is sadly not always easy to get along with and Mary is (at least with her latest actions) the type to justify her actions to herself after the fact. In the wrong situation, that’s a particularly toxic combination in a relationship of any kind.

Steele

Simple solution here: Kill the lights. That way Mary can’t see, either!

Ryan Thompson

There’s some evidence that Mary already can’t see while she’s invisible (because if her eyes are invisible, then no light is reaching them).
Rod

It’s a possibility, but I don’t know that I’d go with it. With full-blown photokinesis (as she called it), she might be able to work around that without too much trouble. Enhancing what little light their is, shifting her vision to infrared, etc.

S.I. Rosenbaum

I might be the only one but I had some trouble following the action of this page

Markus

The top three panels aren’t as clear as they could be, and the long panel implies some motion but not enough to get that whole “sprinting through a labyrinth of pipes” feel fully articulated. It’s definitely a page that could use more breathing room, but also would get shat on for just being a page of running.

Stephanie Gertsch

In the last two panels, Mary is really making a point of showing how lacking in awareness Allison is due to invincibility. Allison has the privilege to lie around moaning or to break random stuff without thinking of the consequences. Mary, however, can’t let her guard down even for a second or she’s dead. No matter how hurt, scared, or confused she is. It’s like saying, “If the playing field were level, you’d be dead so many times by now.”

There’s also a pleasure in forcing Allison into a volatile situation where she has to think ahead (if not for herself, then for the safety of the other two), as if to say, “This is what the rest of us have to think about ALL THE TIME, even though it’s invisible for you.”

MrSing

I don’t really think Mary can complain when she can actually become invisible and create illusions.
Indeed, if the playing field where level Mary would have been dead so many times too.
- Rod
  
  Yup. I’ll admint, where combat is concerned, merely being invisible (which I believe was originally Mary’s only power, although that hasn’t been explicitly stated yet) is probably the inferior power to invulnerability and super-strength, especially when confronting other superpowered beings.
  
  But *generally* speaking? No way. Among the ranking of most dangerous, most broken superpowers, near-invulnerability and super-strength actually don’t rank that high. Invisibility, on the other hand, is so INCREDIBLY useful that for her to hate on Alison is more a reflection of her own shortcomings. And now that she’s got full-on photokinesis? Alison’s paltry power (before the telekinetic growth) shouldn’t even be on her radar… in Mary’s own mind, she should realize she could effect Menace-level influence if she wanted. And if she can’t see that, again, that’s on her, not Alison.
- Graeme Sutton
  
  It’s almost like the concept of a fair fight is an oxymoron in and of itself, and the introduction of superpowers just emphasizes that fact.
- Stephanie Gertsch
  
  True that 🙂 but I’ll bet Mary wouldn’t see it that way.
Happyroach

In other words, Mary’s thinking like a supervillain.

lizasweetling

still… “even from you.” Ouch.

Happyroach

“Even with all this accumulated knowledge, when will these dummies learn to use a DOOR KNOB?”

fairportfan

“No-one is ever the villain of his own story.”

lizasweetling

except Lelouch Vi Britannia.
- fairportfan
  
  Is he a villain in his own mind?
  - Kid Chaos
    
    A martyr, perhaps; it’s hard to say.

Ryan Thompson

You might even say it was… pretty dam stupid.

Rod

Oh please don’t… not another one. 🙁

Luvian Blue

Sorry 😛

Graeme Sutton

Allison might be in actual danger if Furnace goes off in an enclosed space like that. She’s probably invulnerable to the flames themselves but she presumably still needs to breathe and he could take out most of the oxygen in one go.

Rod

Sorry… lack of tone and all in text communications.

Walter

She’s a Strong Female Antagonist, because the comic is about Alison, but sure, you could write her story. It would basically be Dexter.

GaryFarber

Can Furnace control the fire from the lamp in any kind of refined way? Focus it? Use it as a… cutting tool? Or suddenly flare up blindingly at someone who is sensitive to light?