Supercrooks #4

[history79]

12.33 pages of 37

Comments

[lucean]

Okay, I will be honest. I utterly popped for that Gladiator spot.

It really also worked on a narrative level as it really established how far the supercrooks were from the top heroes/villains of that world.

[atom_punk]

The characters of Gladiator and Praetorian really stood out for me in this story honestly. The former is a clear "Captain America" analogue with the patriotic-style costume and focus on fisticuffs while the Praetorian is an amoral, mercenary "Superman" analogue with his multiple different powers.

Then you have our villain-protagonists who are the Captain Colds of the universe. Dudes with ray-guns or powers that while useful for crime aren't the best for out-and-out combat. And the thrashing Praetorian hands them, compared to the beating he takes from Gladiator really shows the different leagues they're in...err...no superhero pun intended.

On a side-note, I really love both Gladiator and Praetorian's costume designs.

[glprime]

On a second read-through, I'm kinda wondering how exactly Gladiator isn't outclassed by Praetorian, who seems to have more powers than him. Is he just stronger and more durable? Who knows. But it kinda made my fanboy sense twitch.

[atom_punk]

If I were to put my theorycrafting hat on, I'd say that Gladiator has a power-nullifying ability. Something that lets him cancel out other people's superpowers so they can't hurt him (invincibility as opposed to "merely" enhanced durability) or otherwise straight-up prevent them from using them.

We see from the scans where Praetorian is beating the entire robbery crew single-handed that he has some kind of superspeed or maybe teleportation that lets him attack everyone almost at the same time. Well that or some kind of ability to make duplicate/clones of himself. Kind of hard to tell without motion lines to suggest superspeed :p

The fact that he doesn't use any powers to try to evade Gladiator's punch, to fight back or even flee the scene and that he doesn't use any of the abilities he displayed just moments ago makes me think that he CAN'T. It would also explain why Praetorian is in such a panic upon realizing he's fighting Gladiator, the one guy who can take away all the advantages he has enjoyed in his fights.

It also puts some context to an earlier scene from Issue #1 where Johnny squares off against Gladiator and says something along the lines of "Stay back! I've got electric powers!"

And Gladiator promptly knocks him out anyway, handing him over to the cops with the bemused warning "Careful officers. He's got electric powers."

Assuming Gladiator's power-nullifying ability is publicly known, it would explain his amusement at Johnny's desperate attempt at intimidation. ("As long as you're fighting me, you have NO powers PERIOD you idiot.")

Again though. Just a theory XD

The ultimate reason of course is that this is a short ongoing series that lasted 4 issues and Mark Millar needed the fight scene to be brought to a quick close xD

[gnarll]

My impression is that Gladiators powers just have more watts. There was a bit where he jumped into a subway car going full tilt that implied super-speed, and I just get the feeling that he is way stronger, faster and tougher than Praetorian.

I kind of see him as a Superman-analogue, where Praetorian is more of an asshole version of Spider-Man. Acrobatic, fast and strong. Ranged attack. Lots of different powers. Beats the crap out of normals and low-level supers.

Just...not Superman or anything like that.

Also, I get the feeling not all of Praetorians powers are combat useful, and some may overlap. He seems to be using two different kind of energy-powers there.

[thanekos]

Johnny manipulated a retired old man into getting back into the active swing of things.

Well played, that.

[glprime]

He revenges on the group that hurt his friend AND gave the guy he swindled something to occupy himself with so he doesn't bother continuing to chase after the $800 million (because let's be honest, the accounting would quickly show these weren't the guys who robbed him). I can kinda buy Johnny as the Danny Ocean of his set with how well this comes off.

[atom_punk]

I do love me a good Kansas City Shuffle. Anytime characters manage to pull one over on each other through misdirection, I usually end up having a good time.

The Bastard assumes he managed to get back to his mansion. Nope, it's a psychic illusion.

The Bastard assumes he shot and killed the woman he was interrogating. Nope, another illusion.

The Bastard assumes its Salamander and his crew and goes after them. Nope, it's actually some C and D-list nobodies disguised as Salamander's people.

And like glprime noted, framing Salamander encourages The Bastard to get back into the supervillain game again. Which might be what The Bastard wanted to do deep-down anyway. So even The Bastard gets a happy ending spending his golden years ruling his empire again, and is less motivated to dig a little deeper into who exactly robbed him.

[gnarll]

What rings a bit flat for me here is the Bastard. He is kind of Doctor Doom or Magneto here, with his own fief an the rep as the worlds greatest Super-Villain. And his power is fairly intimidating, but... thats it?

Surely someone would have taken him out with a high-powered rifle by now, or even a handgun, his power does not seem instant.

[liliaeth]

I'm just really happy that Gladiator had a happy ending, that he was smart enough to get rid of the lie, so people couldn't blackmail him over it anymore. And that things worked out ofr him, aka that with the exception of Praetorian, the other superheroes aren't assholes and they're just happy for him.