The Redemption of Miriam Sharp? Fear Itself - The Homefront #2

[icon_uk]

I found these uninked, unlettered pages from "Fear Itself - The Homefront" over at Mike Mayhew's CAF page and thought it'd be interesting to share them. Besides I LOVE seeing pencil art.

A new team of villains, who look like some sort of revamp of the Force of Nature, or at least some form of elemental loons (I don't recognise them, but that might be Whirlwind leading them, and one of them might be the Living Laser) arrive in Sanford and start laying waste to anyone who gets in their way. It's a rather blatant murder-fest, and given their powers, no one dies easy...

Robbie Baldwin, being the upstanding guy he is, switches to Speedball in front of Miriam Sharp and goes out to confront them. Given their powers include fire, ice, lightning bolts, lasers (Is that Living Laser?) and superspeed spinning, he does well against them, up to a point, but when they all attack at once...



Oh that's nice, some good Samaritans come to assist the exhausted hero who just saved their asses...

Oh wait, of course they're not, these guys are MU civilians, and so decide to take revenge on Speedball for the criminal act of Nitro... but I'd rather not go down that rant-laden path again on a Friday evening...

After some minor beating the crap out of him whilst he's down (I'm guessing he used up his power reserves fighting the bad guys) they decide to move on to the next step, a bit of lynching....

Now given Speedball's powers, ways to kill him aren't easy to come by, since most forms of assault require kinetic energy and his powers tend to trigger if enough energy to harm him comes into contact with him. Clearly though, these guys have been pondering how best to murder him should the chance arise, which is a deeply bloody disturbing thought.



Speaking personally, deliberate asphyxiation would be one of the most horrible ways to go I can imagine.... Looks like Robbie agrees.



Mr Generic Angry Faces 1 2 and 3 are enjoying themselves a little too much, and then....



Now I'm not a fan of the character for the most part, but damn if that ain't a badass way to make an entrance.

I'm hoping this is her coming to realise that Speedball is NOT the embodiment of all evil that she's been presuming him to be all along, and that trying to save strangers from being murdered is actually kind of a noble and admirable thing, especially since, in her own way, that's just what she's doing here herself!

Comments

[proteus_lives]

"I'd have thought that the DC outlook would be more realistic."

I've always wonder why DC civilians are so submissive to their heroes.

I think DC goes overboard a lot of "they're above us, don't question them" and Marvel goes bonkers with "Outcasts! Freaks! Fear them! Get them!"

[espanolbot]

I thought that it was less "they're above us, don't question them", more "They're here to help, like policemen, ambulance drivers and firefighters, being dicks to them doesn't make that much sense".

Not to say that people aren't dicks to those people, in my town there was someone going around trying to blind ambulance drivers with a laser pointer, but if they're in a job where they're there to help you out and have the capacity and ability to do so, let them.

Not like you'd be in a situation where a guy's been run overby a truck, and when a doctor rushes up to help them, a third person yells "You act so high and mighty, like you're in control of life and death, but you're NOT!!!" and throws rocks at them. Which is what a lot of the anti-superhero sentiment in Marvel seems toboil down to.

[proteus_lives]

Oops responded in the wrong place.

Copy:

"Which is what a lot of the anti-superhero sentiment in Marvel seems toboil down to."

I think it's more complex then that. I think in the MU, heroes are allowed to be more flawed (human) and prone to mistakes. And in the MU the governments and media are more realistic (for better and worse). Same type of example. JJJ's spidey-hate machine at the Daily Bugle and Superman's fawning fan-club at the Daily Planet. Each company focuses on a different angle.

"They're here to help, like policemen, ambulance drivers and firefighters"

Yes but those people are also accountable to us. Heroes/vigilantes often are not. There are good and bad sides to that.

"High and Mighty". A lot of Marvel and DC heroes act like that.

[cleome45]

...Yes but those people are also accountable to us. Heroes/vigilantes often are not. There are good and bad sides to that...

Also, bystanders in these things do not choose to be in life-threatening situations, but they're subject to the whims and decisions of those who did choose it. So there's that. :/

[baxter2814]

Yeah, except, well, no. They don't act like high and mighty, and the accountability criticism is also...well...no. In the DC universe, heroes are technically accountable, because the Justice League smacks down heroes who cause trouble. And if one of the Justice League goes rogue, the other members smack them down too. The heroes keep each other in check. They are held accountable. Unless all the heroes conspire to start ruling over humans, any complaints that "they're not held accountable" fall flat. Heroes are people too. And even if the entire Justice League went all Justice Lords on the Earth, the Green Lantern Corp, etc, would promptly invade and topple them.

Marvel heroes aren't quite as organized, which gives civilians more leeway to be resentful, but it's still a bit stupid, because having heroes who occasionally cause trouble is vastly preferable to having no heroes at all. Sure it would be better if they were well-organized, but remember: in Marvel time, it's only been thirteen years since the Fantastic Four went up in their spaceship. An appropriate, stable status quo has yet to be established, and Marvel is perpetually in a state of semi-stasis because of the sliding timescale.

[arilou_skiff]

But who watches the Watchmen?

The DC heroes are accontable... To themselves. (or in this case, to other heroes) they're not really accountable to anyone else. In effect they're a superpowered aristocracy, they're not oppressive dicks (far from it) but there's really no way of making them NOT be oppressive dicks.

Which is one reason i can actually sort-of understand the MU government's tendency to fund killer-robots: If they'd get it right it would balance the playing field somewhat.

[baxter2814]

Well, that's what the Green Lantern Corps and other alien heroes are for. To intervene if things get out of control.

Quick note though: I once read in a Superman comic once that scientists in Metropolis was building a weapon that could take down Supes. Not because they were afraid of Supes, but because they know he gets mind-controlled a lot. Supes said this was a really good idea. (I personally think it wasn't that great an idea, but only for one reason: knowing the DCU, Luthor'd probably get his hands on it.)

[arilou_skiff]

And that still puts the power into another group of superpowered individuals who are not accountable to you in any sense.

[baxter2814]

Well, yeah, but how can hugely superpowered beings be accountable to normal human beings? There will always be those who ignore the law, especially when they can easily escape punishment, and the only way to enforce human laws is to have enough power to stop those who break it. The solution is to have superpowered beings on your side, superpowered humans. People keep forgetting that most Earth superheroes are human.

[arilou_skiff]

I think it actually touches on a really interesting problem for superhero stories: All our institutions are based on the fact that, despite what some might say, *people are mostly the same*.

That is, our capabilities are *relatively* similar, difference in power largely comes due to difference in organization and position rather than difference in any inherent quality of the person per se. That's the basis of not only democracy but pretty much any other system of government too.

Superhuman beings (not perhaps Spider-Man, but someone like Superman, Charles Xavier or whatever) would totally throw this equation out of the window.

[baxter2814]

I know, which is part of the reason why I find human society in superhero comics fascinating. So many superheroes are people who are completely devoted to humans, feel human, grew up human, consider earth their home, are absolutely loyal to humanity, and would be human without their powers, but are undeniably "extra"-human and the only things keeping them in check are a) other superheroes, and b) the fact that they feel they belong in human society, so much so that they will endue keeping a secret identity in order to maintain a normal human life. You can't compare it to anything else in human history, and it's just so cool to me (especially as I'm a big history/politics/sociology geek).

[arilou_skiff]

The thing is, in a situation like that I don't find it at all strange that people would try to find ways of levelling the playing field (humans aren't exactly known for taking challenges like that lying down)

And remember, if they know that superheroes care about what people think of them, that is a lever: Something that can be exploited.

[baxter2814]

And superheroes are perfectly willing to help humans find ways to level the playing field, (they don't want humans to be completely dependent on them, and I know that Superman at least has helped with scientific experiments) except when it's more likely that the Luthors and Osborns will co opt it for their own gain. So many nice catch-22's that box the characters into sticking to a reader-friendly status quo ;D

[starwolf_oakley]

The DC heroes are accountable... To themselves. (or in this case, to other heroes) they're not really accountable to anyone else. In effect they're a superpowered aristocracy, they're not oppressive dicks (far from it) but there's really no way of making them NOT be oppressive dicks.

DC has done some nose-tweaking of the government wanting to monitor/control meta humans, especially in OUTSIDERS (vol 3.) #50. Batman explains that public superheroes were going to start being monitored by the FBI, CIA, Metahuman Affairs, etc. With the heroes "under the microscope" the bad guys could have more options.

For the most part, the DCU government is more concerned with keeping track of superheroes rather than telling them what and what not to do.

[big_daddy_d]

there was someone going around trying to blind ambulance drivers with a laser pointer,

....Now there's being a dick and there's....that's just evil and I'm disgusted.

[espanolbot]

Here's the story in case you thought I was making it up,
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2059443_five_arrested_after_laser_attacks