This Is The Admission I Usually Make At The End Of An Intro
And, lest ye be unaware, there is a distinct SPOILERY cast to this particular Intro, as we are going to be discussing "Invincible" the animated series in some detail. Both because I can, having just finished watching the second season, and because you know Conrad: a hair-splitting nit-picking pedant of the very worst (or best) kind. Art!
One minor difference I have noticed between comic and animation is that Omni-Man no longer goes barefoot. This was one particular 'schtick' as I believe the yoof say, presumably at the behest of Robert Kirkman, the creator. Art!
This actually makes sense in terms of animation, as it's a lot easier and quicker to simply animate a boot than a foot with five separate toe.
ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe was pondering on the "Guardians Of The Globe", whom you might call the Image/Invincible Universe's equivalent of the 'Justice League'. That is, a motley collection of superheroes who have banded together to collectively defeat evil. In this case they are employees of the Global Defence Agency, because bureaucracy trumps even the most high-powered superhero. Art!
This is the second iteration after the originals were all murdered by an unknown party. They are missing Monster Girl, who is under a curse where she can transform into a gigantic ogre, at the expense of her normal body getting younger each time this happens. She looks about ten but is twenty-four.
ANYWAY AGAIN my query was - why do only Rex Splode (in red-and-yellow) and Robot (take a wild guess) use weapons? Robot fires bolts of energy that seem to be quite harmless overall, and Rex throws sticks and disks that explode violently on contact. With the rest it's all punch-punch-punch. Art!
"Die fast, bottomholes! My pizza's getting cold!"
Here we see Rex and Dupli-Kate going into action against the Lizard League, whose (rather naff!) schtick is that they all adopt various lizard-like costumes.
Now, as I mentioned about Rex, he can chuck around impact-sensitive explosive artefacts. But Kates 1 - 6? Entirely unarmed. For these close-in fights you would imagine a club, axe, spear, sword or, you know, a GUN would be better? Art!
This green goblin is one of the LL, and as you can see her costume or uniform or whatever has great big talons at the end of it's fingers or digits - classifying lizard-human appendages is not one of Conrad's strengths - and the clearly visible blood on both sets is evidence that these work. Art!
I have forborne to show these two LL members getting scragged in gorious scarlet fashion, thanks to Rex finally getting a couple of decent hits in. As you may be able to discern, one has been bisected and the other decapitated. Now, imagine if Dupli-Kate had been armed. This fight would have been over in seconds. Art!
This is King Lizard, whom eschews big talons or martial arts or steroids, and instead utilises that most basic of weapons, a hand-held pistol. He manages to bungle the headshot, mind, because he's too busy giving his Triumphant Monologue. "The Incredibles" was spot on about that being a critical weakness of villains and it seems the bigger the villain the more gloating exposition they feel compelled to spout.
You wouldn't even need a lethal pistol to deal with the threat the new GOTG are dealing with aboard a Martian spaceship full of evilllll Sequids, bent on conquering Planet Earth. Art!
They have taken control of astronaut Livingston, which allows them to function as a hive mind, and since they can't control Martians, Earth it is. There are millions of 'em, Sarge.
Conrad, being rather direct, would have said taking Ol' Livvie out of the equation is the GOTG's first priority, so if he got the King Lizard treatment that would solve this little difficulty. Cecil, head of the GDA, would have been mightily offended, mind. So, then - why not settle for shotgun baton rounds or an industrial Tazer? They might only put him down for a couple of minutes but that's the sequids seen off. Why not a blunt object plucked from the fabric of the ship's hull and propelled at great speed towards his cranium?
Because, one supposes, that wouldn't create dramatic tension, as the threat would be over in seconds. Instead, Robot has to gimmick together a sonic MacGuffin that paralyses and neutralises the sequids, who incidentally look as if they'd go well in a seafood bouillabaisse, or deep-fried in batter. Just a thought. O and it takes Robot (or Robot's operator, Rudi) several aching minutes to assemble his screaming device.
Both battered and beaten, soon to be eaten
I did have even more I was going to propound about the Viltrumites, which will have to wait until the morrow. One bets you can hardly wait.
"The War Illustrated Edition 204 13th April 1945"
If you recall the map illo from yesteryon, the Allies had arrived on the Rhine's west bank and were slavering in anticipation of breaching this last major barrier to Gerrmany. The French especially, looking to get a touch of revenge in. Art!
This is the Ludendorff railway bridge across the Rhine at Remagen, which the South Canadians captured before it could be destroyed. The two pictures at upper port and starboard show the bridge from a recon overflight, and a map of the local area. The port mid picture shows how the railway lines had been boarded over to create a rough-and-ready roadway for vehicles, alongside the first South Canadian officer to cross the bridge. At bottom you can see part of the non-stop procession of men and vehicles that poured across the bridge to establish a large foothold on the Rhine's east bank. As the blurb grimly informs, the Teutons took this capture so seriously they executed officers deemed responsible for the disaster. Art!
Despite the most frantic efforts of the Teutons - kamikaze aircraft, jets, mines, frogmen and V2 missiles - the bridge only gave up after 10 days of unceasing wear and tear. Here it is, collapsed into the Rhine. By this date the South Canadians, riding a wave, had assembled pontoon bridges and ferries across the Rhine that meant the Ol' Ludey wasn't missed. One imagines Herr Schickelgruber was chewing the carpet by this point.
More Self-Correcting Manglement
I shall keep this one succinct, as we are approaching the Count total. Briefly put, there was a tale on Youtube's Reddit collations about a South Canadian business that actually tolerated it's employees managing a work-life balance. Art!
Many of the employees cycled to work, which helped to keep them healthy, decreased the number of vehicles on the roads and thus lowered pollution, and the prospects of being hit with lethal force by a quarter-ton of metal doing 60 in a 30 zone.
Consequent on arriving, these people would go for a shower before starting work, because sitting as a sweat-soiled salty sluice next to your compatriots is horribly ignorant. This often meant they started after the 09:00 deadline, which was compensated for by their staying on after official hours ended at 17:00.
Enter the newly-appointed HR lady, as a result of the company's growth. Art!
She instantly asserted her dominance by instructing all staff that they had to be available at 09:00:00:00:00 without exception, the end. She showed them!
Except not, because if the toiling masses were going to be forced to adhere to the very microsecond, then all the freely given overtime was going to go away, too.
Suddenly every employee left at 17:00:00:00:00 and projects and products began to back up, not being made on time or reaching deadlines. Never mind, because HR showed them!
Then complaints began to arrive from customers and clients and partners, griping that their purchases weren't being delivered on time or at all. Still, never mind, because HR showed them! Art?
Senior management realised what the problem was and rescinded the 09:00:00:00:00 rule. Productivity returned to normal. HR witch bitch 'jumped before she could be pushed', that is, resigned before she could be fired.
A Tool You Never Knew You Needed
Conrad is probably going to spring several of these upon you in the near future. Art!
This is a Black Walnut, a tree species native to South Canada, which can grow up to 120 feet tall. They are prized for the shade the provide, the nuts they produce and the very valuable timber, which is where the 'Black Walnut Board Calculator' web page comes in. Imagine that your BW is 78 inches in circumference, and over 100 feet tall. Art!
Say about 1,000 feet of board. At the current market value of $10 per foot, that's $10,000 worth of timber. From one tree.
Stick a pin in this, we'll come back to it.
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