Starbrand & Nightmask #5 - "Eternity's Children [Attend University], Chapter Five: Registration"

[laughing_tree]

"I do want to capture [college's] feeling of constant discovery, of constant exposure to new people, ideas and life experiences." -- Greg Weisman

Comments

[skjam]

So Libra is attacking the wrong Starbrand.

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

Sister Sun! Nice! That takes me back.

[beyondthefringe]

Sha-Shan is definitely one of the weirder relics of Spider-Man in the '70s, and it's nice she hasn't been forgotten. Even if I'm sure most writers would rather forget her origins. :)

[sanjuro]

I haven't seen her mentioned since the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon which was great by the way.

[arilou_skiff]

Obviously way weirder than I thought. (since the last time I saw her she was Flash Thompson's girlfriend he was cheating on with Betty Brant) when did she become a kung fu warrior of light?

[beyondthefringe]

That was in her origin, so even before she became Flash's girlfriend, I think. Or rather, she's always been a martial arts cultist of some sort.
The '70s were weird, man.

[arilou_skiff]

Whoah. Yeah, definitely.

I thought she was just Flash's vietnamese girlfriend he met during the war. But apparently there's more to it than that...

[janegray]

I don't get the logic in the first page.

"I'm really, really good at something! So I should avoid graduating in that field I'm really, really good at, and instead pick a field I have to constantly struggle with, so that when I graduate I'll have to keep struggling at work for the rest of my life instead of getting a job that comes naturally to me."

Sounds like the worst career advice ever to me.

[arilou_skiff]

Depends on what you see college as doing.If your goal is to get a good job? Probably bad advice. If it is to BECOME AN EDUCATED PERSON (alas, there's no proper english substitute for "Bildung") then you should probably take the chance to broaden your horizons and study something you wouldn't normally do.

[janegray]

...Are there really people who go to college without the goal of getting a good job?

Especially in America, where college can cost more than buying a house?

[long_silence]

To be fair Kevin and Adam aren't there to start their careers. They enrolled in university reconnect with humanity, to get motivation to do their jobs as Planetary Defense mechanisms, they're literally just there for the experience.

They aren't even really paying tuition, Nightmask hacked their way into the school and Starbrand is transmuting matter into gold to get the necessary funds for free.

[janegray]

Ahhhhhh. Ok, I see, thanks for the explanation :). Heck if you can make gold you don't even need a job ^^

[thezmage]

Yes, definitely. I had a friend who would get super argumentative whenever I so much as hinted at the possibility of college as a means to an end and not an end itself

[leoboiko]

I did. Twice!

Luckly, college is free in my country. Seriously, y'all crazy with that whole college debt thing.

[seisachtheia]

Considering the humanities haven't dried up and blown away, yes, it would seem that there are plenty of people who choose non-vocational majors. Universities aren't vocational schools. You study something you like, you get your degree, you get a job in something unrelated to that field. That's what most people do, it would seem.

[cainofdreaming]

I think the point was that his powers would help him 'cheat' at it. Which might still be fine, if not that ethical, if superpowers didn't have a tendency to fail at the most inopportune moments. Can you imagine a surgeon who relies on skill mimicry losing his powers in the middle of a surgery for an instance?

[icon_uk]

In normal circumstances i'd agree, but we're talking about two beings who are close to abstract concepts, so in this particular instance, I think it's as much that Ken's powers would make such a course much TOO easy for him, and Nightmask is keen that they experience college in a manner as close to being ordinary students as possible, and part of that includes dealing with things you're not terribly good at.

[icon_uk]

Interesting that even the New Universe that names like Starbrand, Nightmask, Justice and Spitfore all originated (thematically, if not specifically) never, to my knowledge, had a Cipher.

[long_silence]

Cipher was from newuniversal, the 2006 reimagining of New Universe.

But I think Cipher was the newuniversal version of Spitfire.

[thanekos]

" We must challenge ourselves and engage with the world. We must impose arbitrary restrictions on ourselves, no matter the frustration. "

" Aww.. "

" We will then enhance our understanding of humanity. Already do I feel the smugness of justification through a vague imperative setting in. "

[ekrolo2]

Superman would take exception to this comment :P