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

[BR549]

A small lead weigh generates gravitational potential energy,

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'weight'

 

[xSieg]

Ha, has Batman gone full Sinestro because he's mainlining the Yellow Light? He stands to profit the most from carte blanche executive powers

 

[RichardWhereat]

Ha, has Batman gone full Sinestro because he's mainlining the Yellow Light? He stands to profit the most from carte blanche executive powers

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I hope he does. Earth needs unification, and Batman would make a good King.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"budget"

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...I would have said ten-foot-pole, but I suppose it's narrow quarters.

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'weight'

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[Ngamer11]

For all that I dislike Anarky mucking around, I hope he's on to something so that we can see Paul fix things in a way Anarky wasn't expecting. Also, I really hope Anarky will eventually be recruited to the OLC. It would be a good way to broaden his horizons and help him develop a more reasonable modus operandi on how to improve society.

 

[AmericanNumbers]

There's reasonable ways that this can get cocked up. Justice Lords. Someone hijacking the law to rule the world in the league. The light using it. Some sort of memetic spell.

Honestly, Paul should run it by Vic Shade, John, Mist and Dox. Probably John first.

 

[WereDragon]

"No. I just needed attention. From you, and from other people."

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"A supervillain? Is that what you think I am?"

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"There are few things as permanent as a temporary solution. You should look into it a little more closely."

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This arsehole is not quite as narratively annoying as Nylor Truggs. But he is close enough that I would already prefer OL prioritise hunting him down and marooning him somewhere before putting any thought to his vague warning.

 

[Ilphros]

Because he knows Paul is going to read it all very carefully in any case.

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And if he doesn't point to something, it's nearly impossible to prove that Lonnie was wrong about his assumptions. Paul is likely to find something suboptimal, after all - and so long as Lonnie hasn't expressed an actual, specific complaint then there's no way to prove whether his enhanced intelligence and focus on doing other things than the Justice League is doing, on his own time, might have turned up... whatever Paul found.

That would be unusually deceptive for Lonnie to do for that reason directly... but I am also somewhat annoyed that he went and smashed a major public works project to send a message. And it would be entirely in character for a more generic someone who doesn't want to lie, but also doesn't want to be emotionally vulnerable by expressing an opinion directly - so it might simply be that I don't have a clear read on where Lonnie draws the lines of hypocrisy and deception, or Lonnie justified it to himself one way or another.

If Lonnie built this communicator, and this communicator is sufficient to keep him insulated from OL's investigation, there are many, many other - similar, even! - ways to get the device sent to OL. Lonnie picked... this one. Which showed off Lonnie's ability to sneak and sabotage and control technology - but also showed that off instead of his subtlety or care of other people.
(So, you know, a good foil for OL. But that doesn't necessarily make one a good person!)

It is also interesting as a contrast to Truggs, who... If I recall correctly, Truggs DID manage to slip multiple messages to OL, while maintaining his own safety against OL's immediate and active attempts to track him down, often without disrupting even one other person's day. Although sometimes by exploiting immediate, bigger problems. Lonnie falls so far into an interesting in-between, there.

 

[Tbryan]

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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I remember this fic. Joker pretended to surrender and was lifting his hands in the air, but was actually still controlling the smilex plants with his hands and about to set them all off like he did in canon. Only Batman and Jacob noticed what he was doing but Batman was too far away to stop him. Jacob was forced to use his power to behead Joker just before he could set the plants off.

Batman immediately dumped him in Belle Reve without trial and neglected to tell anyone that Joker was about to set off the plants.

 

[Duke Long]

I carefully scan the… Device, sitting on a small office chest of drawers that's had the drawers removed. The only thing that it immediately reminds me off is the clock that Commander Sisko made on Deep Space Nine while under the influence of some sort of alien personality download. It looks a little baroque but it's not; the parts are relatively simple and the apparent decoration isn't decoration; I recognise runes and… Other arcane symbols. It looks like intricate decoration but it's not.

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'of'

"Yes, I know, and it's less that we've got now. And it's temporary."

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'than'

Well, one obvious suspect for this sort of government fuckery is Boss Smiley. I'd be a bit surprised since we saw him recently (I've forgotten how, but he was involved in that Gamemnae business), but it's possible.

Another suspect is Batman, as others have said, because he's a bit mental now and he apparently had involvement in some versions of the OMAC thing in the comics.

The last possibility I see is Mister Atom, since he does in fact want to rule the world. Turns out giving an AI who wants to rule the world joint command over the global reconstruction may have been a bad idea, who knew. Beyond his goal, the main evidence of this is the fact that he was mentioned as being involved in writing this new legislation. But Batman also advocated for it…

Maybe Batman and Mister Atom have teamed up to take over the world? A 'who watches the watchman' situation, where they're supposed to keep each other in check but have instead collaborated.

 

[Mr Zoat]

'of'
'than'

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[NightmareWarden]

There's reasonable ways that this can get cocked up. Justice Lords. Someone hijacking the law to rule the world in the league. The light using it. Some sort of memetic spell.

Honestly, Paul should run it by Vic Shade, John, Mist and Dox. Probably John first.

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Thats a fun idea. That would also give a clear, recurring, and important magical objective to the patriotic embodiments of the world's countries: stop magical viruses from getting hidden in your legislation. I imagine the embodiments in the UK and bureaucratic China would have some experience there.

 

[Ardy]

There's reasonable ways that this can get cocked up. Justice Lords. Someone hijacking the law to rule the world in the league. The light using it. Some sort of memetic spell.

Honestly, Paul should run it by Vic Shade, John, Mist and Dox. Probably John first.

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Who is Vic shade in this scenario? The shade?

 

[LazySloth13]

Man if Anarky/Lonnie thinks the Justice League taking over the world is bad imagine his reaction to the existence of The Light and Boss Smiley who embodies business/societal corruption.

 

[Darko]

Who is Vic shade in this scenario? The shade?

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I think they tried to write Vic Sage.

That's the Questions civilian identity.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th March 2025
09:57 GMT -5

Eve holds out her right hand, pink light rippling outwards from her palm as she transmutes a sword into being. It's identical to mine in most respects, though she hasn't been able to apply the x-ionisation process to it. She holds it up slightly for me to examine.

I nod. "You understand that for you to be able to do that, your power must be able to interact with matter at the sub-atomic level? And since there wasn't any temperature change-."

"Yes, I know, but that doesn't mean that I can actually feel it happening. Or that I can feel matter that I'm not transmuting."

"Right, but-."

But I'm clearly reaching the end of her temper. I attach an orange rope to her sword and send it to subspace before replacing it with one of mine.

She looks nonplussed for a moment, but I just smile at her. "Our little secret."

She still looks confused, but she transmutes herself a white scabbard with pink decoration and belt and sheathes the sword.

"Have you found any of those spy drones yet?"

I nod. "Several, but they're deployed in clusters near each of the various Invincibles. And I'm not all that good at sneaking up on things. Ideally, I'd wait until several got destroyed and then ambush the last one left. But I'm starting to wonder why Angstrom Levy is behaving in the way that he is."

"Because he wants everyone to associate Mark with what all the other Marks are doing. According to him, other Invincibles murdered his family in their dimensions, and now he can't remember which version of him his memories come from."

"Right, but logically, he-."

She sigh/gasps in frustration. "Did you see his giant mutant brain? He's not being logical."

"Okay. Based on the G.D.A.'s files on the first time he attacked your Invincible, he could use a portal to send him anywhere. He could kill him by sending him to a dead Earth and leaving him there. Or a reality where the Earth never formed. Or any other reality, because his friends and family wouldn't be there. He didn't. He sent him to places where he'd probably get a bit roughed up, and then brought him back. Each time, except the last one where he was in a coma and couldn't."

"So..?"

"So he doesn't want to kill your Invincible. And he doesn't want to specifically kill anyone else, because it wouldn't be that hard for him to get hold of a weapon, portal himself into range, fire and then leave. What he wants to do is inflict as much physical and psychological harm on your Invincible as possible. And keep doing it. So he finds a bunch of arsehole Invincibles because they'll know the best way to hurt him, and their costumes and faces are similar enough that people will associate them with him." She gives me a small nod. "But he blames them as well. Right?"

She nods, mildly perturbed. "He wants them all to die. He doesn't want Mark to die, but he didn't bring… Different versions of me who hate their Invincibles, because he wants them to die and he barely knows me. They.. probably all did something to him or his family when they took over their Earths."

I nod. "There's no reason for him to reappear at this point. Not until the Invincibles stop attacking or their numbers drop below the point where they can't cause the sort of havoc that he wants."

"Why are they helping him?"

"He offered them things. Technology that will let them access parallel universes so they can conquer other Earths. One of them wanted to steal your Invincible's mother to replace his own. A couple just wanted to fight strong opponents."

"What about your Invincible?"

"I don't know." I shrug. "I just got my marching orders, and went."

"What, that's it? I thought you two were friends?"

I regard her levelly for a moment. "I didn't know him before Invincible and Omni-Man conquered the Earth. I obey and make myself as useful as possible because as far as I can see that's the best way to make things less terrible. Have you ever seen, um..? The video of the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Not the.. bit where one man stops a tank division while armed with a plastic bag. I mean, the bit where they mowed protestors down with machine guns and then shot the ambulances that went to try and help them. Repeatedly."

"No, but I know what you mean."

"People tried protesting Omni-Man's take-over too. Now, in theory, two people can't occupy a planet. And they can't in practice either. But they can kill anyone who openly protests about it or tries to fight them. And it's not as if they need to win an election afterwards, so any amount of force… I mean, the more people who die, the fewer they have to bother trying to corral, right?"

She nods with obvious reluctance. "I just.. can't believe that Mark would do that."

"My Invincible isn't your Invincible. And… If I had to guess, I'd say that once Director Stedman got his mother killed, he just went along with what Omni-Man said… At least until he got too invested in it to stop. And… Governments and people around the world didn't ever quite seem to accept that they couldn't win, so the… Killing kept happening."

"But you didn't fight him." I shake my head. "If you could make these swords, why didn't you help when Omni-Man took over the world? You didn't need to work for Cecil to do that. You could just have handed them to someone else."

"I couldn't make them at the time. I learned that afterwards. I didn't bother trying to learn how to use my powers for fighting until after I started working for Invincible, and that was mostly because Viltrumites wouldn't respect someone who couldn't fight. And if they respect me at least a little then I can make the occupation less onerous." Hm. "Can you transmute antimatter?"

"I.. don't know."

"It works on Viltrumites, but don't do it on an inhabited planet. Antiprotons and positrons can be contained with magnetic fields, but make sure that they're in a vacuum, because-."

"I know what antimatter is. I'll try finding out if I can make it once this is over." She looks around, then returns her attention to me. "How do we isolate a drone?"

"I'm not… Did you meet Angstrom?" She shakes her head. "But he knows that you exist?"

"Probably."

"Okay. Then my best idea is that we find an Invincible at the lower end of their power range and you engage him with a few other local heroes. I detect the locations of the drones and you 'accidentally' destroy all but one during the fight. Once there's one left, I sneak up on it, or… Engage you to 'help' that Invincible, and covertly take control of it."

"You said that he'd come here if we beat all the Invincibles."

I nod. "That's my best guess, but he might just toddle off to get more recruits first. I don't know how many different parallel Earths there are, but I suspect that it's more than twenty."

"How are you going to persuade him?"

"I'm not sure. Tell him that my Invincible's gone rogue and that I want a portal home? New orders? Tell him that some of the Invincibles are annoyed that they're dying and suspect that he's not planning on holding up his end of the bargain? I'll scan the drone in detail and see if I can open a portal myself?"

Scan. Where are the Invincibles?

"If you don't have a better idea, there's a good fight going on in Seoul right-."

"Hold on." She listens to something on her earpiece, then her eyes widen. "One of them's attacking the Teen Team! We need to-" Pink light bursts from her hands and feet as she turns herself in what I assume is the direction of their headquarters. "-go!"

I dart forwards, grab her and transition us.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

6th March 2025
09:57 GMT -5

Eve holds out her right hand, pink light rippling outwards from her palm as she transmutes a sword into being. It's identical to mine in most respects, though she hasn't been able to apply the x-ionisation process to it. She holds it up slightly for me to examine.

I nod. "You understand that for you to be able to do that, your power must be able to interact with matter at the sub-atomic level? And since there wasn't any temperature change-."

Click to shrink...

To be fair to Eve, I suspect half the issues Lantern is seeing with her powers is down to the mental blocks that prevent her from really cutting loose. It's certainly not intellect or stamina that's limiting her, after all.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

"Yes, I know, but that doesn't mean that I can actually feel it happening. Or that I can feel matter that I'm not transmuting."

"Right, but-."

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God, could you imagine how mind-bending a power to sense all matter around you would be? Not simply 'solid objects I can see' but every last molecule, even in the air. Nope, nope, nope. Informational overload.

But I'm clearly reaching the end of her temper. I attach an orange rope to her sword and send it to subspace before replacing it with one of mine.

She looks nonplussed for a moment, but I just smile at her. "Our little secret."

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A pity she can't read molecular structures not directly affected by her power. Studying that blade might prove interesting.

She still looks confused, but she transmutes herself a white scabbard with pink decoration and belt and sheathes the sword.

"Have you found any of those spy drones yet?"

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And at least a basic sword like that doesn't need much more skill than 'swing sharp-edge first'. Although she might want to be careful about backswings.

I nod. "Several, but they're deployed in clusters near each of the various Invincibles. And I'm not all that good at sneaking up on things. Ideally, I'd wait until several got destroyed and then ambush the last one left. But I'm starting to wonder why Angstrom Levy is behaving in the way that he is."

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He's a complete psycho lunatic, basically. Clear case of hyper-cognitive psychosis.

"Because he wants everyone to associate Mark with what all the other Marks are doing. According to him, other Invincibles murdered his family in their dimensions, and now he can't remember which version of him his memories come from."

"Right, but logically, he-."

She sigh/gasps in frustration. "Did you see his giant mutant brain? He's not being logical."

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Eh, he kind of started it by pulling his plan to combine all the scientific prowess of all his alternates into himself, apparently?

"Okay. Based on the G.D.A.'s files on the first time he attacked your Invincible, he could use a portal to send him anywhere. He could kill him by sending him to a dead Earth and leaving him there. Or a reality where the Earth never formed. Or any other reality, because his friends and family wouldn't be there. He didn't. He sent him to places where he'd probably get a bit roughed up, and then brought him back. Each time, except the last one where he was in a coma and couldn't."

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Possibly one of the most busted power, if you can think how to break it utterly...

"So..?"

"So he doesn't want to kill your Invincible. And he doesn't want to specifically kill anyone else, because it wouldn't be that hard for him to get hold of a weapon, portal himself into range, fire and then leave.

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...Oh look, Lantern can work out just one way to break it.

What he wants to do is inflict as much physical and psychological harm on your Invincible as possible. And keep doing it. So he finds a bunch of arsehole Invincibles because they'll know the best way to hurt him, and their costumes and faces are similar enough that people will associate them with him." She gives me a small nod. "But he blames them as well. Right?"

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And yes, I suspect Levy picked ones that conquered their Earths as payback of a sorts. It certainly fits with his cracked state of mind that he'd enjoy using his family's murderers as weapons.

She nods, mildly perturbed. "He wants them all to die. He doesn't want Mark to die, but he didn't bring… Different versions of me who hate their Invincibles, because he wants them to die and he barely knows me. They.. probably all did something to him or his family when they took over their Earths."

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I see Eve had the same thought.

I nod. "There's no reason for him to reappear at this point. Not until the Invincibles stop attacking or their numbers drop below the point where they can't cause the sort of havoc that he wants."

"Why are they helping him?"

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Sadly, with this lot, trying to get them to stop doing this would be near-impossible. Especially the ones that find it fun.

"He offered them things. Technology that will let them access parallel universes so they can conquer other Earths. One of them wanted to steal your Invincible's mother to replace his own. A couple just wanted to fight strong opponents."

"What about your Invincible?"

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The 'steal my alternate's mom' one sounds a bit cracked himself.

"I don't know." I shrug. "I just got my marching orders, and went."

"What, that's it? I thought you two were friends?"

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...For a given value of 'friend', sure.

I regard her levelly for a moment. "I didn't know him before Invincible and Omni-Man conquered the Earth. I obey and make myself as useful as possible because as far as I can see that's the best way to make things less terrible. Have you ever seen, um..? The video of the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Not the.. bit where one man stops a tank division while armed with a plastic bag. I mean, the bit where they mowed protestors down with machine guns and then shot the ambulances that went to try and help them. Repeatedly."

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...Yeah, that actually happened. And yet it's the tank guy that everyone remembers. Probably for the symbolic resonance.
(And let's not argue over the event itself, shall we? It's outside the Rule 8 cutoff, but better safe than sorry...)

"No, but I know what you mean."

"People tried protesting Omni-Man's take-over too. Now, in theory, two people can't occupy a planet. And they can't in practice either. But they can kill anyone who openly protests about it or tries to fight them. And it's not as if they need to win an election afterwards, so any amount of force… I mean, the more people who die, the fewer they have to bother trying to corral, right?"

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And viltrumites... Are very good at casual mass murder, given their physical capabilities. Seriously, just fly at knee height through a crowd with arms outstretched... It sends a very clear message.

She nods with obvious reluctance. "I just.. can't believe that Mark would do that."

"My Invincible isn't your Invincible. And… If I had to guess, I'd say that once Director Stedman got his mother killed, he just went along with what Omni-Man said… At least until he got too invested it in to stop. And… Governments and people around the world didn't ever quite seem to accept that they couldn't win, so the… Killing kept happening."

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Probably a mix of said mourning depression, and sunk-cost fallacy. He knows that trying to undo it, to free Earth, would bring down the full force of the Viltrumites on both him and the planet, after all.

"But you didn't fight him." I shake my head. "If you could make these swords, why didn't you help when Omni-Man took over the world? You didn't need to work for Cecil to do that. You could just have handed them to someone else."

"I couldn't make them at the time. I learned that afterwards. I didn't bother trying to learn how to use my powers for fighting until after I started working for Invincible, and that was mostly because Viltrumites wouldn't respect someone who couldn't fight. And if they respect me at least a little then I can make the occupation less onerous." Hm. "Can you transmute antimatter?"

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Definitely not one of the best situations an Alt!Paul is stuck in. Though some might have had it worse. Anti-Green, for example.

"I.. don't know."

"It works on Viltrumites, but don't do it on an inhabited planet. Antiprotons and positrons can be contained with magnetic fields, but make sure that they're in a vacuum, because-."

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You've mentioned it to her before, but the point bears repeating, I suppose. Better very safe than horribly sorry.

"I know what antimatter is. I'll try finding out if I can make it once this is over." She looks around, then returns her attention to me. "How do we isolate a drone?"

"I'm not… Did you meet Angstrom?" She shakes her head. "But he knows that you exist?"

"Probably."

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This is the tricky part. How to catch something you can barely see, much less chase without it spotting you? ...I assume they're under some measure of concealment, anyway.

"Okay. Then my best idea is that we find an Invincible at the lower end of their power range and you engage him with a few other local heroes. I detect the locations of the drones and you 'accidentally' destroy all but one during the fight. Once there's one left, I sneak up on it, or… Engage you to 'help' that Invincible, and covertly take control of it."

Click to shrink...

...Well, for an off-the-cuff plan, it's about as good as they'll get, I bet.

"You said that he'd come here if we beat all the Invincibles."

I nod. "That's my best guess, but he might just toddle off to get more recruits first. I don't know how many different parallel Earths there are, but I suspect that it's more than twenty."

"How are you going to persuade him?"

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Twenty is probably about as many as he could manage to keep directed. Enough to form a couple of squads, but not so large you need lieutenants to command them.

"I'm not sure. Tell him that my Invincible's gone rogue and that I want a portal home? New orders? Tell him that some of the Invincibles are annoyed that they're dying and suspect that he's not planning on holding up his end of the bargain? I'll scan the drone in detail and see if I can open a portal myself?"

Click to shrink...

And once he has Angstrom in his presence, well... Whether it's Branding or Assimilation, he will do what he's told...

Scan. Where are the Invincibles?

"If you don't have a better idea, there's a good fight going on in Seoul right-."

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Define 'good', mind. An Invincible having a rollicking slaughter with no opposition, or one struggling?

"Hold on." She listens to something on her earpiece, then her eyes widen. "One of them's attacking the Teen Team! We need to-" Pink light bursts from her hands and feet as she turns herself in what I assume is the direction of their headquarters. "-go!"

I dart forwards, grab her and transition us.

Click to shrink...

One thing she can't replicate, almost guaranteed...

Oooh, that's almost certainly the point where a member of the Team sacrifices themselves, isn't it? Perhaps this interference will prevent that death, and the mauling of the others. Let's just hope their plan to grab a camera drone doesn't go poorly, though. Or Angstrom may decide to escalate matters.

 

[Shadowj6480]

Define 'good', mind. An Invincible having a rollicking slaughter with no opposition, or one struggling?

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I believe that may be the one fighting Best Tiger. The black and yellow one referred to as Sinister Mark.

Spoiler: AKA

The one that later eats a bunch of Mark's in another dimension.

 

[Darko]

Right, but logically, he-."

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He's not really thinking logically.

She sigh/gasps in frustration. "Did you see his giant mutant brain? He's not being logical

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Yep.

So he doesn't want to kill your Invincible

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I have to disagree with this.

And he doesn't want to specifically kill anyone else

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Also disagree.

"What, that's it? I thought you two were friends

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Viltrumites don't do friends.

got too invested it in to stop

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"in it to"

 

[Darko]

Definitely not one of the best situations an Alt!Paul is stuck in. Though some might have had it worse. Anti-Green, for example.

Click to shrink...

I wonder if that version would upgrade himself with reanimen tech in order to survive his ring.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"in it to"

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[Eld_Tiger]

I saw the tank guy on top of the tank talking,then his friends took him away.

 

[Lord Ernest]

Spoiler: AKA

The one that later eats a bunch of Mark's in another dimension.

Click to shrink...

That one was always kind of stupid to me.

Spoiler

They're Viltrumites, they can fly somewhere else rather than stay in that barren Earth. They don't even need to immediately find another civilization, like Omni-Man did when he left the planet, just finding another world with life is enough for them to find food rather than descend to cannibalism. And I imagine eventually they will find some civilization; if Allen can fly to other planets no problem, even confuse Earth with Urath, then they can be found by Viltrumites as well.

Maybe that Mark was always a cannibal, but it came across like they resorted to that due to not having food and it feels like Kirkman didn't think that one through.

 

[Duke Long]

Have you ever seen, um..? The video of the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Not the.. bit where one man stops a tank division while armed with a plastic bag. I mean, the bit where they mowed protestors down with machine guns and then shot the ambulances that went to try and help them. Repeatedly."

Click to shrink...

I hadn't, but now I have. Interesting that the BBC had a reporter there, I had no idea.

 

[Darko]

That one was always kind of stupid to me.

Spoiler

They're Viltrumites, they can fly somewhere else rather than stay in that barren Earth. They don't even need to immediately find another civilization, like Omni-Man did when he left the planet, just finding another world with life is enough for them to find food rather than descend to cannibalism. And I imagine eventually they will find some civilization; if Allen can fly to other planets no problem, even confuse Earth with Urath, then they can be found by Viltrumites as well.

Maybe that Mark was always a cannibal, but it came across like they resorted to that due to not having food and it feels like Kirkman didn't think that one through.

Click to shrink...

Viltrumites can't survive in space past a certain point.

They still need to breathe.

They can hold their breath for weeks, but eventually they're going to need to take another one.

That's how they tracked Thragg in the comics after his exile; listing off all that planets with a breathable atmosphere and thus marking down the places Thragg would need to go to in order to survive.

They're also in another universe, so aside from the planet they're on there may not be another planet with an atmosphere around. At lest not close enough that they could make the trip.