SFP

Tsapki

Well, that would be her calling card. Gunning down that family may have put them on radar, but the rape sank in the knife.

Also, little uncomfortable about a guy showing this sort of thing casually with a smile while discussing college courses.

Markus

Kenneth sure is right! Mutilated corpses are downright kooky!

motorfirebox

It’s a real gee willickers, that’s for sure!

Mr. After Dark

Bonkers AND bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s.

EgilGB

How do they know that this was the work of a super-powered individual if everything in the barn has been burned and no obvious signs of superpowers are left?

Leslie K.

Same general MO as the last murders, which were definitely superpowered. Slashed throats, people with a history of violence towards women
flame821

The media loves jumping to conclusions. Very few of them practice journalism, most of them are more concerned with market shares. AND if it is a politically leaning new site, spreading fear of ‘the unknown’ and ‘the other’ is always useful as a way to keep citizens scared and compliant.

Lysiuj

It’s kind of scary how close Allison might be to doing the exact same things… especially scary for her…

Trev

World’s most inappropriate time to smile.

Anondod

I hope Ken only lent you his name and likeness, because someone who smilingly uses the words “bonkers” and “bananas” when discussing gruesome rape and murder stories, not to mention showing footage of such to a student, does not seem like a healthy person.

Keith

This (the guy in the strip , not your comment) is what privilege looks like.
- strongfemaleprotagonist
  
  Ken IRL is super cool, just wanted to get that out there as people dissect the motivations of the character bearing his likeness!
  - Keith
    
    Precisely why I said “the guy in the strip” 🙂 Going to edit for more clarity

spriteless

How long has super powered violence been a spectacle that Ken doesn’t expect that to freak Allison out? Or should I not consider him normal because he is a kid fresh from college that decided after graduating the thing he needed was to spend more time at the institution?

Axel_Celosar

Ok… How exactly are we supposed to see Moonshadow as bad or disagree with her actions if all the story does is show her victims are nothing but complete monsters?

impishacid

What do you meant by that? There are people who do those sort of things. They’re hardly your bog-standard cartoonish supervillains. Sure, we haven’t seen the usual fare of trying to pretend they’re good people, but given how realistic the portrayals are, I really fucking appreciate that we haven’t seen a Steubenville-like account of people trying to talk about how ~kind and ~sweet they are (to people they aren’t raping). Get enough of that irl.

And that’s… pretty much all we’ve seen of them. Except we *did* actually see abuser-judge trying to pull his sweet consoling act, albeit (happily) briefly. And the younger rapists being annoying teens. And this arc has been very short so far anyway, not too terribly much time for development.

Besides, if you look through the comments you’ll see plenty of people who do disagree with Moonshadow’s actions, based on her being, you know, a serial killer. And having tortured at least one ‘person’ to death, though everyone else we’ve seen her kill got a much quicker end than they deserved.

Ironically, I think you want this to go in a morally *simpler* direction than it actually is; to have Moonshadow be more *unarguably* ‘wrong’ or ‘too far’ (again, some people obviously do think that already, i am all for her though) so our hero can teach her a lesson blah blah blah. Also, especially, so that you won’t have to (evidently) reluctantly support her any more and can go happily back to assuming she’s in the wrong.

I’m hoping that’s not the way it’ll go, though. After all, Alison’s the one who’s unsure of herself. Based on that excellent starfish story, I think MS’s convictions are ironclad by now.

(Which also brings up a nice dilemma: if she’s going to keep doing this as long as she’s alive, since she’s clearly decided she has nothing to lose now – and per medium format, assuming that imprisonment couldn’t be more than a temporary inconvenience – then a ‘hero’ stopping her would have to kill her for her actions. And if that’s justified, then unarguably what she’s doing is justified as well.)

Axel_Celosar

You know…this is just making it harder to disagree with what Moonshadow is doing.

TheGonzoMD .

Why did he just happen to have the news on just when they were showing that? Why is showing Alison it like it’s the funniest thing in the world? Is he trying to indoctrinate her into a cult?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzwhYYPXoTc

Stephanie Gertsch

I think he’s showing her a youtube video? So he searched for that particular one, probably.

Timothy Craig

Told y’all they raped someone. “Oh but killing is still bad enough!”, pfffffffft.

Markus

I really hate that sentiment though. It feels like society treats people who are sexually assaulted like they’ve worse than died.
- noper
  
  There are legit reasons for killing people. There are not legit reasons for raping them.
- ampg
  
  I think it’s more that there’s so often very little justice for those who are sexually assaulted. If these guys had killed their fellow Marine, there would have been charges brought against them. Instead, she was involuntarily discharged and they suffered no consequences.
- Timothy Craig
  
  Heh.
- Stephanie Gertsch
  
  One thing I’ve noticed is that most or all of the assault victims mentioned in this volume have survived. They’re suffering, but they have a chance to go live their lives. That there’s any attention to the victim’s future makes this scenario so weird for a comic. The victim’s usually just a plot device. (Which they are here, but we’re supposed to remember they’re people too.)

Shino

Ease with which media assumed it must’ve been Invisible Slasher despite no evidence toward any use of superpowers makes me wonder – how likely it is that Moonshadow will get her own copycats? What if bunch of other former superheroes looking for a meaningful example will look up to her?

Even more – she seems not to have much in the way of ‘followers’ now, but what will happen after Moonshadow’s inevitable caputre, outing and arrest for these crimes? Guardians seem like a pretty influential superhero team, and got even more attention since Allison officialy claimed superheros are outdated? Will we suddenly look at new wave of Punisher-style vigilantes?

People are looking for answers for Allison’s question about what can work better than being a superhero – and her teammate just provided one.

flame821

I think you’d see the same thing you see here in the comments. Some whole-heartedly supporting MS, some understanding her motivations but condemning her actions, and others who feel that once you kill you’ve gone too far no matter what. I also feel a lot of those camps will be divided among gender lines.

To many of us have had to deal with the aftermath of rape either as children or adults. We can understand all too well what MS is feeling, whether she herself was a victim or if it someone close to her who she felt she should have protected; since she can’t repair what’s been done she’ll damn well make sure someone pays for it. When 1 in 5 women (in the USA) have been raped you already have a good portion of sympathetic supporters who will defend your actions as they’ve seen first hand how society and the ‘justice’ system deals with sex crimes.

I would not be surprised in the slightest if other biodynamics joined her, while others fight against them in order to keep vigilante justice from becoming the norm. Sadly, MS’s situation can be summed up by a line in a E. Autumn song. “When there is no such thing as justice, the best that we can hope for is revenge.” I truly think that’s were she is right now.
Enepttastic

“Ease with which media assumed it must’ve been Invisible Slasher despite no evidence…”

There’s evidence, primarily circumstantial but there nontheless.

The teens'(set #1) death was probably caught on security camera or witnessed establishing the “Invisible Slasher” idea. Autopsy probably had no issue determining the weapon involved as a bladed weapon, most likely a knife.

The abusive father(set #2), at the moment, probably hasn’t been linked to the other two yet since the neither the widow nor the children may have come public about the abuse.

The mercs(set #3), being another high-profile set established a possible link. While the autopsies of the burned bodies may cause issues, since MS left one strung up, we have a the start of a link due to motive(Boys and mercs shared a trait of being accused rapists) and weapon(sharp blade). Also, without some sort of upper hand, it would be illogical to assume that none of the mercs were capable of injuring their assailant. Lack of evidence would show that being the case due to no blood found around the strung up corpse and the fact that the assailant was able to string the corpse up to begin with.

All in all, I’d be more surprised at the “news” media not attributing this attack to the “Invisible Slasher.”
- KatherineMW
  
  The abusive guy in “set #2” was the judge in the rape trial that acquitted the rapists, so the media would have connected him with the invisible killer, given the same mode of death.

Liz

To everyone I pooh-poohed who said Moonshadow only goes after sex offenders.

*sigh*

I’m Liz, and I was wronnng! So I’m singing the Liz-wrong sonnng…

Sabriel

Me too.

*sings the chorus*

Cindy MacDougall

MS was definitely, definitely raped. Period. The question is, who the hell did it? Who was able to do it, you know?

Marc Cabot

We still don’t know much about the emergence of biodynamism. For all we know it was the stress of being raped – or the stress of the aftermath – that made Moonshadow’s powers “activate.” This is how it works in the Worm-verse, for instance.

And if she had them already? Drugs. Threats. Another biodynamic with a trump power. Could be anything.

I think it’s just as likely someone close to her was raped – and she may blame herself for not using her powers to prevent it.
- Cindy MacDougall
  
  Her need for revenge is just too hot for it to have been a loved one — this is the rage of a woman who was violated and was unable to defend herself. Now that she can, she is going to seek revenge for everyone who has been in the same place, I think.
  And in the first few pages of this chapter, she tells the girl who was raped “I know what you’re going through. I know what it is that you feel.”
  - Mito
    
    Many people do not feel rage after being subjected to such horror; often the emotions fall more in the range of fear and guilt. I don’t think it’s fair of you to make such sweeping assumptions about the emotions that each individual may experience after being assaulted.
    - Cindy MacDougall
      
      Fear and guilt are the other side of the rage coin. I may be wrong about her being raped — but I would guess persephone’s reasons would be closer to why.
      Still, MS herself has said to a rape victim: “I know what you’re going through. I know what it is that you feel.”
      Frankly, if you haven’t been assaulted, you have no idea what a victim is going through — and only a total jerk would say that if they hadn’t been.
  - persephone_the_wanderer
    
    I disagree. There’s an interesting gender dynamic to revenge narratives. That is, there are quite a few revenge narratives involving men driven to extremes of rage – just look at Death Wish. But when men are driven to revenge, it’s because their family (typically women) have been attacked, raped, killed. When revenge narratives involve women it’s almost invariably them being raped. But I think the common narrative is just a trope – there’s no reason to think that Moonshadow was the victim of sexual assault just because she hates rapists. After all, Alison was never the victim of violent or sexual assault – but her reactions are really only a step away from MS’s.
Adrienne Herbst

I think this is what Brad was getting at when he said that Mary was “somehow difficult to pay attention to.” What happened in the margins of http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-32-2/ this page. She doesn’t have the bone knife yet, she looks like she’s walking into a situation where both she, and the men waiting for her, are realizing that Mega Girl isn’t going to be coming to save her. The guys in silhouette in the first panel, where she’s all alone, aren’t the same guys as the ones down and covered in blood. Something happened to transform her from that inward body language, scared, invisible spy member of the group to the training montage of violence and having to step up to be the muscle. Ugh.
- Enepttastic
  
  Another point in the favor of this theory is this page: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-3-5/
Markus

Why isn’t being forced by the government to murder strangers for years enough psychological stress to make someone go out and slit throats?
- Cindy MacDougall
  
  See my point below — it’s her victim choice, and what she’s said.

Cindy MacDougall

P.S. And MS has obviously read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

S.I. Rosenbaum

This guy is a psychopath, Alison.

KatherineMW

I’m guessing the guy is either trying to gauge Allison’s reaction, with the goal of seeing if she knows anything about the invisible killer; or is – in the context of the news – simply uncomfortable being alone in a room with a powerful super and is trying (very unsuccessfully) to play it casual.

The former seems more likely, since he appears to be deliberately showing Allison the news report on his iPad.

Sabriel

Oh my god. If that happened to me, I would NOT be able to switch gears and focus on school work. I would be sitting there feeling terrible for that poor girl and trying to summon some brain bleach. Months. Kidnapped for months. By people she should have been able to trust with her life. In a foreign country. She probably thought they were going to kill her eventually. How horrible.

I don’t have any memories to be triggered, just basic sympathy. Can you imagine if he had shown that clip to someone who had been raped? Christ.

You can see the horror on Alison’s face, and her guarded posture. Well done.

Josh

Bonkers!

Matt Trinh

Actually, I think that bonkers comment was Kenneth’s commentary on why Moonshadow never mentioned this. I would have figured that someone who was big on killing rapists would have mentioned that, instead of a pass at one of them killing a family.

Enepttastic

He was? I don’t recall that being stated at any point in time but it’s entirely possible that I missed that tidbit. Mind providing the link to the page that states this?

The only thing I can find is that he’s currently presiding over a trial and from how it sounds, the boys who raped Kaylee had already gone through their trial as stated here: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-3-5/

KatherineMW

I extrapolated from that; everything else in the story seemed tied together. There’s no particular reason to mention that he’s presiding over a trial, otherwise.

TheGonzoMD .

I don’t think we’re supposed to see her as the bad guy, that’s a conclusion that the reader has to make for himself.

If this were a normal superhero comic working on superhero logic, it would be killing=therefore evil, end of discussion.

S.I. Rosenbaum

no there are not legit reasons for killing someone. Jesus.

impishacid

stopping them from committing more atrocities, when the ‘justice’ system gives them free reign to continue.
Markus

Regardless of whether you agree with the death penalty or causing death as a means of ensuring political or social stability, I think the idea “Killing someone has the potential benefit of causing them to not exist anymore” is pretty hard to argue with, even if you think that benefit doesn’t ever outweigh the cost of them, you know, dying.

Markus

I don’t know about that. If they’d killed their fellow Marine in a line of duty in a way that was at all plausibly deniable I doubt charges would’ve been brought up against them.