Loki: Agent of Asgard #7 - "Fall Out"

[laughing_tree]

"To Doctor Doom, gods are to be overcome. I see Doom as someone who skim-read Nietzsche in college and decided that he is the Overman, that he's crossed the bridge that is humanity and overcome it. In his own eyes, he is, to all intents and purposes, a God - and we'll see that some of subjects feel the same way. So when he looks at Loki, who was born into godhood, there's the contempt the self-made man feels for the man who inherited his power." -- Al Ewing















Valeria and Loki unleash a "truth wave" across Latveria:

Comments

[lilacsigil]

That is such a good description of Doom, a skim-reader of Nietszche!

I also really liked his Valeria - she often comes across as very adult, but her behaviour here was quite plausible for someone with great intellectual powers but not a lot of emotional experience. Not just the kissing=bad decisions part, but the quick change from one paradigm to another when she had more information.

[drtechnobabel]

Agreed. I really like both of their portrayals here, especially Doom's reaction to both the Hate and Truth Waves. And I think this is the first time I haven't been creeped out by Val, in either appearance or behavior. Though her fluctuating age is still a little disconcerting, both the writer and artist here seem to at least have a consistent and somewhat stable grasp on how they are portraying her, which is more than I can say for most people who work on her.

[md84]

I like how the same willpower that allows Doom to resist the Hate Wave also allows him to deny the Truth Wave. Almost a shame the Truth Wave didn't last longer -- it looked like it was actually getting through to him near the end.

[drtechnobabel]

You know, I never expected Doom to be the kind of guy who would blatantly rip off one of the most popular songs of all time. Then again, I also didn't expect him to still use jukeboxes, or have enough of them to line of walls of his underground museum cave. Clearly, I am unable to comprehend the genius that is Doom.

As for the song itself, I like to imagine that Doom himself sang it one State-Mandated Karaoke Night, and then decided that his rendition was so perfect that he immediately made it into the Latverian National Anthem.

[aperturedreams]

All of those things can be explained by the fact that that sequence is a thiny-veiled reference to the 1960's British tv show "The Prisoner" series finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2MIvUx9uiQ

[halloweenjack]

"Quite often when grown-ups make bad decisions, it's because someone's doing kissing somewhere."

She is a genius.

[janegray]

"It's easy to hate what you don't know"

I dunno about that. Some people, the better you know them the more you hate them.

[icon_uk]

Depends on the level of truth you find out perhaps.

You might find out the truth that someone IS a raging homophobe, but you might also see the truth is that they were never taught how to be anything else.

You might find out that someone is a bully, but you might also find out that they were bullied and never given the support that might have let them overcome that.

That doesn't excuse them of course, but it does perhaps explain them.

[md84]

On the flip side, realizing that someone you initially dismissed as an inhuman monster actually has a human side -- and STILL engages in monstrous behavior -- could make you hate them even more. They're capable of empathy, but couldn't spare some of it for their victims. At least a sociopath is genuinely incapable of it.

[janegray]

As md84 said.

For example, there was an article about a guy who kidnapped and raped a bunch of women, he had a whole system to pick vulnerable victims who wouldn't be able to report the attack so he could keep doing it again and again. The article talked about his family life, how he took care of his aging mother and sister and always protected them.

I've never hated a rapist more than I hated that guy. You love your mother and sister and take care of them, yet you think nothing of horrifically torturing other women??? What kind of twisted, monstruous thing are you if you understand the worth of women as human beings yet you still make the conscious choice to put them through hell? Other rapists may claim ignorance, as we live in a misogynistic society where women are dismissed as crazy and "other" (which of course doesn't even belong in the same universe as excusing them, but as you said, it can offer an explanation), but that guy didn't even have that.

Even if you dig in further and find that he acted that way because he was never taught any better, learning that he was capable of both acting like a decent human being and as a sadistic monster has already made him far more loathsome than the evil you don't know.

[selke]

"'ray!" I am way too amused by this.

[agharta75]

DOOM read someone as petty and insignificant as ... Nietzsche?

BAH.