With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Vaermina]

So did Anarky arise from the SI's own actions and failings? No.... well, mostly no. Lonnie was always going to be Lonnie, but I think the way the SI keeps carefully not talking in public about the Justice League conquering the world has helped draw Lonnie's attention to Orange Lantern in particular. That and the fact that OL obviously has a vision and willingness to act on how he thinks the world should be, in a way that most superheroes don't.

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The whole Anti-Life broadcast thing that caused Anarchy to arise was directly caused by OL's actions and failings.

 

[Ngamer11]

The whole Anti-Life broadcast thing that caused Anarchy to arise was directly caused by OL's actions and failings.

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Mannheim was able to do this behind everyone's backs. OL is in no way personally responsible for Mannheim's ascendance.

 

[Darko]

Mannheim was able to do this behind everyone's backs. OL is in no way personally responsible for Mannheim's ascendance.

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I think Vaermina is implying that because Paul summoned the Ophidian and got the Forever People scared enough to not approach Mt. Justice, thus not meeting Superboy and not having his backup during their confrontation with Desaad and Manheim, then none of the Anti-Life fiasco would have happened.

Which is bullshit.

Paul was put in a mental simulation in which he thought his friends were being killed, the planet was being destroyed, etc. and accidentally summoned the Ophidian, an entity he never interacted with before and one that he couldn't control at the time.

There is no way that Paul could have ever predicted that that would have resulted in the world eventually being thrown into chaos by Darkseid.

And before Vaermina replies that he should have remembered the episode, I will remind them that the various versions of the SI all lose their memory of the specific setting they are in, so Paul has no knowledge of the YJ show.

 

[Mr Zoat]

That time Paul ran into Buddy Blank, the guy that gets turned into OMAC.

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I meant to imply that it's ongoing.

I hadn't forgotten this time.

Does he even know what he wants? Or will he think anything that even hints at one group giving another group orders as a government? He's reminding me of Havik from Mortal Kombat, who says he wants to free people from order but is seen mostly as a crazy mass murderer. Anarky isn't as bad as that, but he also similarly doesn't understand that what he says and what he does aren't exactly the same thing.

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Basically, yes. In his first comic appearance, he read newspapers, identified points of common complaint, and then engaged in direct action against the people who were being complained about. Which might have been a problem, except that he was in Gotham. His last crime before being arrested was attacking a building site where a luxury apartment block was being built rather than the cheap apartment block which the community really needed.

In his limited run, he switched from anarchic socialism to full-on Randianism, possibly as a result of his time in prison but more likely as a result in the author's philosophical shift and his inability to write a character whose motives he didn't agree with. Under the new paradigm, his original crime spree makes no sense and his moto of 'vox populi, vox dei' is heresy. Rather, the capacity for deceiving other and deceiving the self is what he seeks to remove so that all social parasites can be moved to concentration camps, ignoring the fact that Gotham crazies or genuinely bad people aren't going to care that they can't convince themselves that they're good.

It's okay when we do it.

Sad that people only interested in engaging in the casual aside about my ongoing Supergirl conspiracy rather than the meat of my post exploring the concept of "Nemesis" in With This Ring. Shame, shame, shame.

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It's alright. I appreciate it.

 

[boo600]

Agh, and I actually read that, too. It was good until he got put in Belle Reve for no reason.

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Didn't he kill Batman's clown waifu?

 

[Mr Zoat]

Didn't he kill Batman's clown waifu?

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I don't believe that Batman had a clown waifu in that story, but it has been a while. If you're referring to the killing that got him sent to Belle Reve, no, it was the Joker hinself.

 

[Shadowj6480]

I don't believe that Batman had a clown waifu in that story, but it has been a while. If you're referring to the killing that got him sent to Belle Reve, no, it was the Joker hinself.

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…What. Why? Did he like string up the clown's corpse and have pieces of it rain down on passerby or something? It'd need to be some ridiculously edgy shit to get him sent to Belle Reve instead of everyone (barring some versions of Harley) being fucking ecstatic that Joker is gone.

 

[Lord Ernest]

…What. Why? Did he like string up the clown's corpse and have pieces of it rain down on passerby or something? It'd need to be some ridiculously edgy shit to get him sent to Belle Reve instead of everyone (barring some versions of Harley) being fucking ecstatic that Joker is gone.

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I don't remember this story, but it sounds to me like a failure in the defense or maybe Anarky just claiming the kill unashamedly.

I imagine everyone would be happy if you killed a serial killer, but I don't think the law and society can't just let it go. You did just kill another person out of your own volition, they have to arrest you and put you on trial, no?

 

[Darko]

I don't remember this story, but it sounds to me like a failure in the defense or maybe Anarky just claiming the kill unashamedly.

I imagine everyone would be happy if you killed a serial killer, but I don't think the law and society can't just let it go. You did just kill another person out of your own volition, they have to arrest you and put you on trial, no?

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Plus if I remember correctly the Light played a hand in his incarceration on order to get him on their side.

I think Talia was sent to legally represent him.

 

[Mr Zoat]

…What. Why? Did he like string up the clown's corpse and have pieces of it rain down on passerby or something? It'd need to be some ridiculously edgy shit to get him sent to Belle Reve instead of everyone (barring some versions of Harley) being fucking ecstatic that Joker is gone.

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No. After killing thousands of people worldwide, the Joker was beaten down and restrained. Then, in front of the assembled Justice League, the SI killed him because it was obvious that he was going to do it again as soon as he could.

I don't remember this story, but it sounds to me like a failure in the defense or maybe Anarky just claiming the kill unashamedly.

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No, not Anarky. Jacob.

 

[Ardy]

No. After killing thousands of people worldwide, the Joker was beaten down and restrained. Then, in front of the assembled Justice League, the SI killed him because it was obvious that he was going to do it again as soon as he could.

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That still sounds like he should've gotten away with it. The Gotham police, as you noted, have a lot of issues with the Joker, as do 99% of the population which might make up the jury, as do many of the judges in the city.

Did they try him outside of Gotham so the police couldn't "lose" all the evidence?

 

[Mr Zoat]

That still sounds like he should've gotten away with it. The Gotham police, as you noted, have a lot of issues with the Joker, as do 99% of the population which might make up the jury, as do many of the judges in the city.

Did they try him outside of Gotham so the police couldn't "lose" all the evidence?

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It happened in Louisiana. As I understand their primitive colonial culture, it's entirely possible that the entire state police force would have lined up to high five him.

 

[Vaermina]

Mannheim was able to do this behind everyone's backs. OL is in no way personally responsible for Mannheim's ascendance.

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I think Vaermina is implying that because Paul summoned the Ophidian and got the Forever People scared enough to not approach Mt. Justice, thus not meeting Superboy and not having his backup during their confrontation with Desaad and Manheim, then none of the Anti-Life fiasco would have happened.

Which is bullshit.

Paul was put in a mental simulation in which he thought his friends were being killed, the planet was being destroyed, etc. and accidentally summoned the Ophidian, an entity he never interacted with before and one that he couldn't control at the time.

There is no way that Paul could have ever predicted that that would have resulted in the world eventually being thrown into chaos by Darkseid.

And before Vaermina replies that he should have remembered the episode, I will remind them that the various versions of the SI all lose their memory of the specific setting they are in, so Paul has no knowledge of the YJ show.

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No, I mean how he was going around sort of promoting and vouching for the group without doing his due diligence and actually investigating them first.

Also how he ignored the giant warning sign that was the identical helmets.

 

[Darko]

No, I mean how he was going around sort of promoting and vouching for the group without doing his due diligence and actually investigating them first.

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He did investigate them and found nothing suspicious at first.

Once he met Manheim he immediately thought that there was something wrong with him and started investigating, but by then it was too late.

Now this doesn't mean that he's incompetent, it just means that Darkseid was more competent.

Probably because he's done things like this before and has experience.

A person can be beaten by another person and that doesn't necessarily mean that the person is weak or stupid. It just means that the other person was stronger or smarter.

He also didn't really promote them.

He basically talked to them, saw that they were okay and were doing good work, and told the League that they were fine.

And it's weird that you're just saying that Anti-Life was Paul's fault.

You're not blaming Batman. A guy who's a much better investigator than Paul.

You're not blaming Scott Free or Barda. They have actual experience with Darkseid and his methods.

You're not blaming the Green Lanterns or Guardians. And they have fought Darkseid in the past and put the Life Entity in the Earth, so they should be more invested in its protection and left some kind of method that would alert them to a significant chunk of Anti-Life running around.

You're not blaming Wonder Woman. Even though she's a divine being with a connection to other divine beings that should have probably sensed the new arrival.

You're not blaming Zauriel or the other angels. They have a connection to the Source, the same thing Darkseid draws power from, so they too should have sensed him.

All of these people have much better methods of identifying things like Darkseid, yet they didn't do that.

Also how he ignored the giant warning sign that was the identical helmets.

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So an organization has its members wear identical clothing?

Truly, that is the most heinous and obviously evil of things to ever happen.

That was sarcasm.

Lots of organizations do that.

And provide a quote from the story where the Justifier helmets appear.

And it has to be before the Anti-Life hit.

 

[Lord Ernest]

No, not Anarky. Jacob.

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Ah, now I remember the fic.

I think there was going to be a trial arc where it was expected for him to eventually go free? But I also stopped reading it at that point.

And I say it again, even if you kill the Joker, I think it's logical to be arrested. If given the chance, the police have to arrest Frank Castle, for example, they can't just give him a pat in the back and well wishes.

 

[Galacticplumber]

Ah, now I remember the fic.

I think there was going to be a trial arc where it was expected for him to eventually go free? But I also stopped reading it at that point.

And I say it again, even if you kill the Joker, I think it's logical to be arrested. If given the chance, the police have to arrest Frank Castle, for example, they can't just give him a pat in the back and well wishes.

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True. Legally required and everything. It's just that any theoretical arrest of a Joker killer likely leads directly into a trial that engages jury nullification if it even reaches trial at all.

 

[NightmareWarden]

wasn't.

I haven't lived long enough to become the villain yet!

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Replacement. https://youtu.be/AFKVy07gE6g

Bottom line, I think it might be too early to call Anarky OL's nemesis, but he is definitely showing some nemesis-like qualities as a replacement for Truggs. (You remember Nylor, the guy that "Silver Age Supergirl" claims vanished in a puff of smoke and then the only other contact was a call shortly after where the guy claiming to be Nylor used a computer-generated voice. But I digress.)

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Perhaps he will be one of Despair's pawns? We have seen in Injustice-type scenarios how Joker's murder of Lois works out. That was malicious though. A few years ago Renegade!Paul's many distracting projects resulted in the apocalyptic collapse of an industrial world around Vega which would have been useful for the Orange Corps. It isn't something that eats away at Grayven. But if it ever happened again, especially to a work he has conquered? He would feel agony and suffer a crisis of identity. There's no guarantee that he will be Grayven for the full run of this story. Go reread what he did with one of the anti-life fragments and his dreamventure with Luna. The Grayven identity is embedded deep, but even after the centuries he's lived due to time travel, Renegade Orange Lantern Paul could untangle that identity from himself. If he WANTED to.


In this version of DC, the Golden Age of superheroes is dead, and the last dregs of it did not save Constantine or Swamp Thing from their suffering. Who is to say that Paragon Paul himself is going to keep smoothing out problems for three more years, five more? A nemesis character like Anarky could ultimately redefine how Paul feels about solving problems in the future. Change his genre to something more tragic, horrifying, and generally more akin to Hellblazer. Darker mega-arcs for Spider-Man and Batman can be used to great effect, especially when a happy ending IS reached at the end, a stubborn little candle to light the path through a seemingly-doomed climax. Anarky, guided by Despair, could crack the nut of Paragon!Paul and result make all his future successes… more draining. Over the next six plus years IRL, I mean.
Less satisfying. Greyer.

 

[Vaermina]

He did investigate them and found nothing suspicious at first.

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No he didn't, he did a basic ring scan and called it a day.

That stopped counting as an investigation the moment he discovered that there were things that could block or fool ring scans.

He also didn't really promote them.

He basically talked to them, saw that they were okay and were doing good work, and told the League that they were fine.

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Going around telling third parties that "Group XYZ is doing good work" is promoting them.

So an organization has its members wear identical clothing?

Truly, that is the most heinous and obviously evil of things to ever happen.

That was sarcasm.

Lots of organizations do that.

And provide a quote from the story where the Justifier helmets appear.

And it has to be before the Anti-Life hit.

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In real life, yes, in comic book land identical helmets on hundreds of people means either evil minions or mind control.