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

16th June 2012
20:23 GMT -5


"Okay!" Janet's eyes move around the recreation room without pausing on me. "Uh. Should I get a couch to lay on?"

"Janet, I'm not a qualified therapist." I sit down on a bar stool and gesture for her to take the seat next to me-. I look at the ring on my left hand. "Honestly, I'm probably closer to being a priest than anything else."
Oh, yes, sit at the bar together. That's not going to look totally innocent if someone walks in. 😏 To anyone on the outside, these two probably look quite taken with each other... Which is a problem, at this stage.

"'cause of the norn stone?" She shrinks, flies over to the seat and then enlarges herself again. "Do you wanna tell Thor, or shall I-? Or-? Are you serious about-?"

I shake my head. "These rings each come with a distant attachment to a… Primordial emotion elemental. So I'm technically requesting power from a semi-divine being every time I use it."

"Oh, like a-" She nods. "-D&D cleric, not like a real priest."
Hey, given the nature of the Marvel Universe, every religion has some measure of reality.

"Given that you're not living in the Garden of Eden, I think that Ophidian the Tempter is real enough."

"Garden-?" She leans away from me slightly, blinking rapidly. "You mean your ring gets powered by the snake from the Garden of Eden?"
Not necessarily, given the number of demonic figures in the Marvel hells, but it could have informed some cosmic monomyth.

"Supposedly. I haven't tried checking. That seems like it would be unwise. And I'm not sure if it's a literal description or a metaphorical one; were Adam and Eve tempted by an actual being who directly spoke to them, or was in a desire they already felt that led them astray?" I shrug. "If we ever run into an angel, I'll ask." Heh. "Though you'll note that all official Avengers documents and the website list Thor as the 'Prince of Thunder', from a species ancient humans worshipped 'as gods'."
Ironic that there are nearly no Angelic superheroes in the Marvel universe, at least to my knowledge. Not Abrahamic angels, just people with bird wings like Warren 'Angel/Arhangel' Worthington...

"Yeah, but we all know what it really means." She sighs, relaxing slightly. "So… Okay, how do we start?"

I want to know what she thinks the problem in their relationship is. But… I remember… Someone? A sociology study where the person conducting it found that asking someone to describe his positive traits before asking them for a date resulted in a higher success rate. I don't want to push her towards a negative mindset when she'll inevitably associate that mindset with Henry.
Good idea. Last thing you want is to antagonise her, especially when Hank is already iffy about you.

"I don't think I've ever… Really asked, but what made you want to become an Avenger?"

"I was there when we all fought Graviton!"
No, that's how you became an Avenger. AMH!OL was asking about reasons, not opportunity.

"Yes, and I wasn't, I remember."

"No, I didn't mean-." She huffs. "It was like… Fate, y'know? All of us fighting together against a bad guy trying t' destroy the city?"
At least here, it wasn't them being tricked into fighting against someone who would also have been a founding member. Ironic that Loki's silly trick ended up creating one of the premier teams of the Marvel universe.

"I'm not convinced he was trying to destroy the whole city, but I take your point. Had you been..? Thinking about it before that? Becoming a superhero?"

She leans forwards slightly. "I had a costume ready."
Quite a winsome one, I bet.

"Had you been out before?"

"Sssssssort of." She sighs. "I went out a few times, but… Crime in New York's gone down a lot in the last twenty years. I couldn't find much to do. No supervillains, not even a mugging or something."
Yeah, turns out there aren't muggings happening in every alley, despite what comics like to portray to give action moments.

"And then there was Graviton, and the breakout."

She nods. "No trouble finding villains with the Avengers. And SHIELD's entire spy network. And literally every law enforcement agency in the country asking us for help when something goes crazy."
True, that's part and parcel of being the foremost superhero team. The Fantastic Four are too science-focused, the X-Men are mutant-focused, and other groups like the Defenders are too small-scale.

"And what is it about this lifestyle that appeals to you?"

"Beating up bad guys!"

"Is it the rush of the fighting itself, or-."
Because that can be a legitimate motivation for some 'heroes'.

"No." She looks aside for a moment. "Okay, a little bit, but it's mostly giving bad guys what they deserve. Stopping them hurting people or stealing stuff. I like being able to stand over them while they're laying knocked out on the ground and say 'Yeah! You're not gunna be able to hurt anyone for a looong time! Because you'll be in jail!'."
...Which seems kind of pointless, if they're out cold and thus can't hear you.

"I don't remember hearing you say that."

"I said it-. Like, once, before you joined. Hank had a… Thing about it."
I'm sure he did. Hank has had quite the stormy relationship with superpower stuff over the years...

"A thing?"

"A thing. You know?" I shake my head. "Like me saying it when they were unready unconscious would make them keep being criminals, rather than them just being bad people. And I don't wanna make his job harder or anything, but… Really?"
Not that they would hear it, unless there was someone filming it and they caught the video later.

She's looking at me like she's expecting something.

"Hm."

"So?"
Yeah, non-committal noises are the 'thinking music' of conversations.

"So I'm not on anyone's side-"

"Oh God, you actually are a therapist."
Please, anyone can attempt therapy without a license. The trick if knowing what to say, which is where the education comes in.

"-but what do you see happening with the escapees?"

She looks at me like she's not sure what I mean. "They go back to prison?"
...Not inaccurate. They wouldn't have been there without reason, after all.

"Why? I mean, obviously they've been sentenced, but I was wondering what you thought the purpose of it was?"

"Sooo they can't hurt people?"
Yes, that kind of goes with the territory.

"They could hurt people in the prison. Including the guards and civilian workers. And they could escape again. And unless they've got a whole life tariff, then they'll eventually be released."

"I guess?" She shakes her head. "I don't get it."
Oh, well done, AMH!OL. Basically cut all the legs off her suggestion at the same time.

"So what's the value of imprisonment over… Summary execution?"

"Ahhhummm…" Her face goes a little blank as she thinks about it. "I mean… If they've murdered people… They could be sentenced to death."
Sadly not likely in comics, given the editors would like to keep marketable characters around. But this place does function closer to reality...

"No, I mean, right there in the street. You don't want them to ever hurt anyone again. You could kill them."

"That's-. Like, super-illegal. That's murder."
Hey, anything could happen in the middle of a fight. Human bodies tend to be surprisingly fragile, even super-powered ones.

"Ignoring Defence of Another statutes… Is that the only reason why you don't do it?"

"Huh?"
Well, vigilantes who kill people do tend to attract a bad reputation. Consider the Punisher....

"Is the only reason why you didn't kill them because it was illegal. I mean, following on from your statement that they've brought it on themselves and you don't want them to hurt everyone else, killing them is significantly more reliable then returning them to a prison they've already escaped from."
True, but killing is something that takes a certain sort of mind to consider, much less do without psychological issues later.

"I mean I… I mean I guess…"

"You guess death is reliable?"

She rolls her eyes. "No, death is reliable, I just-. Like… I dunno?"
True, Lady Death meets everyone in the end.

"Okay. So, you beat them up, hand them to the police and off to prison they go. What do you want to happen next?"

"Well, I guess it would be nice if Hank could actually rehabilitate them for once-." She blinks. "Oh."
Ah, there you go. Sudden realisation for the win.

"So, you don't want them to be killed, you want them to be rehabilitated."

"I… Guess..?"
Good to keep that clear in her head, if nothing else.

"I don't know the content of your mind, Janet. Do you or not?"

"I don't think it's gunna happen, but I'd like it to."
True, as noted before, most Marvel villains aren't the sort to change without serious outside influences.

"Okay. Now, do you think that Henry wants… The Serpent Society running around robbing places?"

"No-. He just-. … No."
An amusing band of villains, and decidedly not an apocalypse cult like Kobra. And some of their number have been rehabilitated over the years in the main Universe.

"He just wants to do the rehabilitation bit, and you want to do the apprehending bit. Yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"But you both want someone doing the other bit. Yeah?"
Although bonding over beating costumed loonies probably helps their relationship sometimes.

"Yeah?" She weighs things up for a moment. "Yeah!" She smiles at me. "Hey, you're really good at this!"

I raise my right hand, fingers bending into an approximation of the shape of the fat man sigil of the Orange Lantern Corps as I bless her. "Praise be unto Ophidian the Tempter."
I always pictured the symbol as a view down the Ophidian's gullet. Though for some reason I pictured her with four jaws for a long time.

Hopefully he does address the main issue in a moment after setting her at ease. And for someone who's not a therapist, he's doing a decent job of it. I doubt a talk with Hank would be so easy to navigate, though. I just hope he isn't sitting there watching them through security cameras without sound and getting angrier and angrier...
 
The Asgardians greater selves literally created the Marvel universe...

Do you mean 'create' as in they created everything in it or that they created the space that contains the universe? Cause from what I can tell, pretty much every mythology has claim to creating the universe and its not like monotheistic god is the top being in the Marvel Multiverse (because unlike DC, the One Above All isn't the same guy as the biblical God). And that's not even getting into Jack the Fulcrum.
 
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Did this Paul get sucked into Krona's thing a few years ago? Was that 'all except Grayven (stabby stabby) and Peter Wynne (Clayface)' or a random cross-section?
 
Did this Paul get sucked into Krona's thing a few years ago? Was that 'all except Grayven (stabby stabby) and Peter Wynne (Clayface)' or a random cross-section?
I can't recall whether this one was, but it's definitely a random cross-section (or perhaps based on 'universal distance' or somesuch). I'm pretty sure that for example, Krono and both Warhammers did not go.
 
"He just wants to do the rehabilitation bit, and you want to do the apprehending bit. Yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"But you both want someone doing the other bit. Yeah?"

"Yeah?" She weighs things up for a moment. "Yeah!" She smiles at me. "Hey, you're really good at this!"
For everyone (like me) who is getting a bad case of brain whip-lash reading the dialogue, be aware that this universe was represented in a string of children's TV series and animated films. Janet isn't exactly acting unusually here, superhero self-awareness is a rare commodity in these parts. In this universe, superpowers are comorbid with wearing lots of brightly-colored spandex and not thinking too hard about internal problems.

I raise my right hand, fingers bending into an approximation of the shape of the fat man sigil of the Orange Lantern Corps
I tried to do this myself and the instruction were unclear and now my hand's broken. Wow thanks @Mr Zoat, how am I supposed to eat Spaghettios now?
 
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"No, I mean, right there in the street. You don't want them to ever hurt anyone again. You could kill them."

*One domestic squabble after yet another supervillain prison break later*

"You know, Paul had a point. There's one way to make sure they never hurt anyone again. Rehabilitation is a lovely ideal, but it doesn't seem to be realistic... I think I need to talk to Frank."
 
I tried to do this myself and the instruction were unclear and now my hand's broken. Wow thanks @Mr Zoat, how am I supposed to eat Spaghettios now?
No, that just means that you've done it right.
"You know, Paul had a point. There's one way to make sure they never hurt anyone again. Rehabilitation is a lovely ideal, but it doesn't seem to be realistic... I think I need to talk to Frank."
"Let's be Frank here; you're never going to be rehabilitated."
 
Dude, this is Paul we're talking about here. Do you really think he's gonna care? Especially after we've seen how another version of him dismissed the actual Olympian gods in the same way?



Tell that to the overwhelming majority of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.
Kraven got resurrected, and Mysterio turned out to have faked his death in a way that tricked everyone for years, which only kind of counts. Green Goblin and Doc Ock both only resurrected through alternate universe / clone shenanigans though.
 
Surprised that he's not being all 'jumped-up elementals', I remember him being more like that early on. Though I did read that years ago, and maybe this one had had enough time to come around on the subject.
Jumped up elementals makes sense talking about being manifested from the dream who really on the thaumosphere. Marvel Asgardians are more biological, aliens with powers.
 
Kraven got resurrected, and Mysterio turned out to have faked his death in a way that tricked everyone for years, which only kind of counts. Green Goblin and Doc Ock both only resurrected through alternate universe / clone shenanigans though.

Goblin was resurrected by the retcon that his healing factor was just that good.

Ock was resurrected by the Hand.
 
Do you mean 'create' as in they created everything in it or that they created the space that contains the universe? Cause from what I can tell, pretty much every mythology has claim to creating the universe and its not like monotheistic god is the top being in the Marvel Multiverse (because unlike DC, the One Above All isn't the same guy as the biblical God). And that's not even getting into Jack the Fulcrum.
It's not a claim, we actually see them do it in one of the Thor comics when the old universe dies.
 
I raise my right hand, fingers bending into an approximation of the shape of the fat man sigil of the Orange Lantern Corps as I bless her. "Praise be unto Ophidian the Tempter."
You know, if the Ophidian is a multidimensional entity rather than having local iterations like mortals do, she might realize she could have more Pauls at some point.
 
Kraven got resurrected, and Mysterio turned out to have faked his death in a way that tricked everyone for years, which only kind of counts. Green Goblin and Doc Ock both only resurrected through alternate universe / clone shenanigans though.

I was mostly talking about villains escaping prison, but resurrections work too.

Spider-Man's rogue gallery comes back to life all the time...

Not all of them, though. A few of them are still dead to this day. Besides, even for the ones who do come back to life all the time, then that's all the more reason why sparing their lives is pointless, because even when you don't kill them, they just keep breaking out of prison over and over again. If they're going to come back no matter what you do, then there's no point in holding back when fighting them. Might as well just eviscerate them all, since they'll come back no matter what.
 
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You know, if the Ophidian is a multidimensional entity rather than having local iterations like mortals do, she might realize she could have more Pauls at some point.
Back in Paralax arc we had Zoat tentatively decide that the Embodiments are only multidimensional between their Universe-Anti Universe Pair. So an Opidian of Universe 14 and -14. Another for Universe 16 and -16. And so on.
 
Back in Paralax arc we had Zoat tentatively decide that the Embodiments are only multidimensional between their Universe-Anti Universe Pair. So an Opidian of Universe 14 and -14. Another for Universe 16 and -16. And so on.
OK but how does that work for Paragon and Renegade who are both on Earth 16?
 

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