Sidekick Girl

16 responses to “HeroCon IX”

• Hitokiri Akins on September 20, 2017 at 11:43 AM

  Well, that’s one way turn a tragedy into something good. I’d love to see a super fight between Darius and Shiver one day.

• Kraziekat on September 20, 2017 at 12:00 PM

  Is anyone else worried about glasses shadow in the background of panel 2?

• Black Rose on September 20, 2017 at 12:36 PM

  What is backstory scholarship anyway???

• Xero on September 22, 2017 at 8:38 AM

  Remember how SG couldn’t get hero cause shes not built like a model or have an interesting back story? He has a interesting backstory so the agency is willing to pay for him to go to school to earn his bluecard

• John on September 20, 2017 at 12:52 PM

  Ah, yes, the Luke Cage Grant.

• Caliban on September 20, 2017 at 12:59 PM

  Probably someone trying to manipulate Super Hero tropes for good.

  If something bad happens to you and you have powers, you can either:

  A) Try to get revenge on the world (turn villain)
  B) Decide the source of your troubles needs to be punished (turn vigilante)
  C) Try to protect others from suffering the same fate you did (turn hero)

  The scholarship is probably trying to nudge kids with powers and traumatic experiences towards the Hero path.

• SolCannibal on September 20, 2017 at 3:30 PM

  Sounds Legit.

• Moe Lane on September 21, 2017 at 8:25 AM

  I like this as an explanation. It’s self-consciously meta, but in a non-worldbreaking way.

• David Johnston on September 21, 2017 at 3:54 PM

  Bear in mind that one of the things that kept Val out of the hero track was her lack of a great back story that could be used to market her. If her parents had been murdered, or she’d been attacked by the Coroner while still a teenager then they’d have a story to interest people in her merchandise even if her power wasn’t all that flashy and she wasn’t suited to be dressed up as a sexpot.

• Captain Bill on September 21, 2017 at 8:25 AM

  Why is never D or F

  D. Make a legit living from your powers.
  E. Pretend you don’t have them and not use them. Being A. B. C. or even D. (with the wrong job) means getting hit, repeatedly, if not shot, burned, frozen etc.

• Caliban on September 21, 2017 at 12:40 PM

  Oh, those happen all the time. You just don’t read about them in the stories because they are boring.

• David Johnston on September 21, 2017 at 3:46 PM

  It’s fairly clear that in SG’s world there are a lot of people who have powers but don’t use them for much or find some legit application that doesn’t involve law enforcement. The whole licensing scheme guarantees it in fact. Note that we’ve already seen one character who stayed out of the game. But Darius doesn’t have the option of just pretending he doesn’t have a power or finding a non-combat application. It’s too visible and impairing in anything except combat.

• BloodPlum on September 21, 2017 at 1:29 PM

  I just realized, Harvey Birdman.

• Storel on September 25, 2017 at 11:47 PM

  Kraziekat says:

  > Is anyone else worried about glasses shadow in the background of panel 2?

  Those aren’t shadows in the background, they’re actual people; they’re just being shown in silhouette so as not to distract from the foreground characters. (Kind of a visual metaphor of how everyone else fades into the background when you’re focusing on talking to one person.) So the one in panel 2 is just someone who’s wearing glasses.

• SolCannibal on September 26, 2017 at 4:43 PM

  Yes, though the highlighting of the glasses in contrast to the silhouette does make that one more noticeable to the reader than others, what can in itself be suspicious or a Chekov Gun of sorts.

• Mischa Avros on September 27, 2017 at 6:31 PM

  Or, just for a twist, the glasses themselves might be alive, and be floating in the air, generating shadow minions that nobody notices because they fade into the background.

  Wow. I like this idea.