Mind Control Comics Forum

Tuesday, February 25!

Sounds... ominous.

Everyone down
or the one

Well then.  

Somebody's getting shot.

Also, I want to add that the art has been kicking butt lately, but in this page the shadows are *very* weird.  I dunno.

someone with hunning rifle with a scope is going to shoot the handgun out of Vikram hand. :o
Who do we know have a hunning rifle? ???
Do blame Vikram try take and keep Amy for His wife!

Wow, Vik's really gone off the deep end here, hasn't he?  Now his delusions have made him think that he and Amy were actually engaged before Adrian entered the scene?  (Though at least the "Congratulations" banner that Alex was putting up last time makes more sense.)

Someone ages ago posted on the forum that Vik's mini-breakdown when Adrian was meeting Laura and he was meeting Kanti back at the lab was a good supervillain origin story.  After 150 issues or so, I've come around to complete agreement to that view.

Lastly - more interesting interactions between the level of control provided by #49 and by the watch.  I maintain that the watch's control is more fundamental, but other forms of control work as long as they don't actively interfere with the watch's programming.  So I think Amy's probably thinking that she could get married to Vik and still be Adrian's, though it's clearly causing some internal conflict.

Last point - who's aiming the rifle at Vik's hand?  Q and Kanti are at the lab.  Erin, Dani, Marliese, Cherry and Laura are at the Infirmary.  Leaving ... Mallory?  Rain?  Jacqui? Yves?  Right now, my guess is Mallory: a) she knows how to use a rifle; b) we last saw her (some time ago now) asking Baron Samedi to show her the face of her enemy, so she might have been told that her enemy - i.e., anyone who puts Adrian in danger - is Vik; c) it seems very plausible that Marliese would call her (of all people) to get her to do something to help. 

I'd be interested in the theories of other, smarter people.

Hmmm...could you elaborate? We can't improve if you don't tell us exactly what the weird is :D

Okay, I thought Marli was saying she'd be there as soon as she could, but if that was someone on the phone reassuring her, it probably was Mallory.

By the by, how do we know that Mallory knows her way around a rifle?  There wasn't one in the big pile of armaments assembled as a reaction to the hit and run.

I doubt Marliese was calling someone to go help Adrian.  How would she even know he was in that kind of trouble?  Wanting someone to help with Cherry and Erin is much more plausible to me.

That said, I have no good theories about who is aiming at Vik.  I just hope he or she is a good shot.

Hmm... wasn't the last thing said in the Q/Yves thread something about getting Vik?

Yves wanted Vik there while Q brewed his PC immunity potion probably because he thought Vik would be a check on Q if Q decided to do something else.  Whoops.

Which brings me to the following--If Vik is Blue Gloves (as it seems he is) and his entire relationship with Amy is a delusion (as it seems to be at this point) who stole his notes from the lab and why?  Q doesn't have them, the doc is busy with unnamed other stuff (still investigating his own break-in?), and Vik was leaving the premises with Kanti when the break-in happened.  And Cherry and the Thug hadn't arrived in town yet...had they?  Is Rain's walk around the block with Adrian before or after the break-in because there's a shady looking dude standing in the middle of the street who might be Cherry's Thug.

Is this Marliese batting cleanup in the chem lab as she was at the doc's office, or somebody else?  SJI has a lot of firepower, but I didn't see any scoped rifles on that table.  Could the Thug be protecting his investment so that he'll get a repaired Watch back?

We know that Mallory is good with a shotgun., she load or clean one (SJI-I 201) on the table
Do Mallory Have a rifle and training?
Danielle have handgun training but what about Rifle?
What type gun training that Rain have?

It may be Julian Pichier be protecting his investment?

Who take shot hope Vik bullet miss Hayley

I think the last panel is a sloshed Mallory using her now empty rum bottle as a telescope.

If Vik is Blue Gloves then why Alex and Katie? Why "Anything he wants"? I can see some motive for trying to frame Q but, I mean, he's the one who's suddenly got a harem. That's the very thing that Q told him would give someone away. He even sent Alex out with more Pink Clouds.

All good Mallory with empty Rum Bottle as a Telescope very good!

Vik doing the framing and he more likey be the Blue gloves

Maybe Rain is the burgler.  She seems to have ties to all the methods of mind control seen so far in the series.  Maybe she's a collector.

The edges of the shadows are very, very harsh and contrasting with the non-shadowed areas, mainly.  It's particularly noticeably when the shadows are very heavy (like in this page) and gives Vik's face a weird cast to it, almost like he has black paint splashed on his face. 

Like, I don't mean to be overly critical.  I really like the comic as a whole, both the content and the art style.  It was just really noticeable this time. 

Just to clarify that: I mean it's hard to make sense of this if Vik is Blue Gloves, acting alone and to his own ends. The delivery -> Alex -> Katie -> "anything he wants" - that looked like a plan. Vik doesn't seem like a man with a plan, or even a man who would know how to steal a van. On the other hand, I did suggest a while back that the point of events on Saturday night could simply have been to test whether Pink Clouds worked on members of Adrian's harem. Having established that it did via this incredibly complicated plan, Vik may then have had the confidence to walk up to Amy and use it on her in the street. But wouldn't it have been easier for him to surreptitiously try it on Laura (which in fact he'd already done, albeit apparently unknowingly)? And it's a remarkably involved plan to come up with and execute within a day of learning about the effects of Pink Clouds.

As far as we know, the entire harem is at the SJI except for Amy and Mallory. We haven't seen anyone leave, including Jacqui. I guess we know Raven doesn't shoot. Obviously that still leaves quite a few other contenders, but given that I suspect she may have done the break-in, I'm wondering if Miriam owns a rifle.

There's still this strangeness around Julian and Cherry too. We assume that since he had the watch, Julian is at least connected to the BMW driver, and therefore also to Cherry. He's given the watch to Adrian and asked him to get Dani to fix it. So what is Cherry doing in the house? How is she helping Julian get the watch fixed? Is it possible that there's a false assumption in there somewhere? Or is Cherry there to take some kind of action that will demonstrate to Adrian that they mean business?

Houses have multiple doors, and not every coming and going is noted.

Cherry look for the heart of the watch?

Tagore?

But isn't that part of what Julian is demanding? I mean, I don't know, but I took it that Julian was expecting to get back a fully-working watch.

It seems kind of odd to ask Adrian to get the watch fixed and at the same time send Cherry in to get its most vital part. I suppose she could simply be checking that Dani has it, but in that case why would she have wanted to take it from Dani (267)?

Different agendas?  Julian is there for The Watch on behalf of his employers (the Kuplers).  Cherry might be there on her own account for the crystal and a side dish of revenge.  It seems that Julian drove the car in Dani's hit-and-run and chauffeured Cherry in her initial scouting.

I find it hard to believe that someone who is prepared to kill to get what he (or she) wants is going to chauffeur around someone else who is pursuing a different agenda that appears to run counter to his own. It's not impossible, obviously, but it seems far more likely to me that they're working in tandem.

What about: 

Julian's role is to get the watch into Adrian's hands and, through sinister threats, get him to order Dani to rebuild the watch.
Cherry's role is to ascertain that the red shell is still in Dani's possession and to sow dissension among those close to Adrian.  If she manages to end up with the shell and coerce Dani into rebuilding the watch, so much the better.

I suppose it's possible that Julian and Cherry are working together, but that Cherry is also working her own agenda simultaneously.


On the subject of the shadows - I quite like the nighttime shadows in SJI, especially because this all takes place in winter.  Darkness with multiple light sources (e.g., porchlights, streetlights, etc) combined with the reflection of the light off snow can create harsh effects like those shown here, and it works especially well in this case because it enhances Vik's harsh, possibly insane expressions.  I've always been impressed with the 'lighting' in SJI.

The way I saw it, the BMW driver turned up on Saturday night and was repelled by Erin's blood monster. So he sought help in the form of Cherry (possibly literally, I thought). Cherry got into the house where he had failed and set about furthering their aims. Or so I thought.

But then Julian just happened to be hanging about outside the place Adrian was heading to, so he didn't need to gain access to the house at all. So... I don't know.

I just wonder about what happened on Saturday night. Was it Julian who was chased away? What was he going to do if he got to the door? Why kill Dani in a manner liable to damage the watch if you can't repair the watch without Dani? Because you know what's going to happen? Because you know Dani won't die?

We saw the BMW first of all. Then we got a hint or two about its driver. Then we saw Cherry and saw that she got into the BMW and saw that she wasn't driving. I saw that as the chronology. But of course Cherry could have been in the car when Dani was run down. She could have been driving. Maybe she's running the show.

As usual I'm not going (or getting) anywhere with this; I'm just turning it over trying to find some way of making it fit right.

GodWilling
I'm with you
Try to make it all the story piece to fit together
to many side storys ::)

It depends which bits of Cherry's various natterings are true to what degree and in which order.  We saw the BMW run Dani down.  We saw the BMW return to the scene of the crash.  We saw the driver pick up the housing of The Watch (and mutter to himself...or possibly someone else in a foreign language).  Then we saw somebody get out of the BMW and try to break into the SJI, but be repelled by Erin's blood magic.  Then, we saw Cherry "run into" Erin after Theatre rehearsal and get into the BMW afterwards (speaking to the driver in a foreign tongue).  I think, Julian and Cherry arrived together and Julian is under the impression that they're working together because he thinks the Kuplers still actively control Cherry because she was part of Jakob's harem and was away from his apartment when his plane went down.  So, he's relying on her as part of a two-pronged plan, but Cherry's letting him think that while she pursues her own revenge/power game against Erin with the raw crystal as the prize.  I am equally flummoxed and could just as easily be going nowhere.

Vikram did not need to steal the van if he had alarm four number code SJI-I 269
here can take the pink van
It seem that Vikram have been to the place and may work there.
Yves Bouchard said In SJI - I 269
(but I don"t like this, I want Vik here)
How Yves Know Vikram?

Why would Miriam help Adrian and have rifle?

Try put the parts together

From 148:-
Q: It's Kanti's brother. I think he hit on Pink Clouds.
Yves: Shit. What are you going to do?

Q doesn't need to explain who Kanti's brother is, so it's reasonable to assume Yves knows something about him already here. But if Vik had worked at Princess Pink, wouldn't Q have called him "Vik" here, rather than "Kanti's brother"?

That said, it's possible Vik worked with Yves during the time that Q was in prison, so that while Yves knows him by name at this point, Q doesn't yet.

But either way, remember that in 269 we're coming late to a conversation in which Vik's name will have been used quite a lot. Yves knows someone made the Pink Clouds that was used on Caitlyn. Presumably he knows it wasn't he. He knows Q can make Pink Clouds. And Q has told him Vik can make Pink Clouds. We don't believe he knows of anyone else who can make it. He doesn't know if he can trust Q. He wants both of the people who might have made the Pink Clouds here so that he can get to the truth. That's how I read it anyway.

And whoever took the van (I'd still call it stealing) used Q's alarm code. Presumably if Vik has an alarm code then Yves would know what it is. And if it were the same as Q's code, Yves would probably have spotted the implication of that.

Why would Miriam return to Kearsarge at the same time as Q? Why was she running around in the background in 180? Why wouldn't she help Adrian? Why wouldn't she have a rifle?

(I don't know the answer to any of these questions. But I suggested a long time ago that she may have been responsible for the break-in and it would be nice to get at least one thing right.)

I suspect that isn't the case, but I could go with it.

If Cherry were simply a victim of the watch though, I don't think "they" would see any value in her being in Kearsarge. From "their" point of view, there has to be a motive for bringing her and sending her into the SJI, otherwise she wouldn't be there. It really isn't clear to me where Cherry's conversation with Erin is heading, although Marliese is obviously seeing trouble ahead.

Perhaps the Julian/Cherry axis is going for more than one thing.  We seem to be assuming that Julian is a partial heir to Jakob.  He knows about the Watch, and he seems to have the loyalty of at least one of Jakob's former harem.  Per Cherry, Jakob wanted to add Erin to the harem, perhaps because of her magical abilities.  So what if Julian is trying to pick up where Jakob left off?  He'd want to get the Watch reconstructed and he'd want to somehow recruit Erin.  If he knows about the problems with multiple conflicting Watch programs then he wouldn't want to use the Watch for that purpose, so some kind of psychological manipulation would have to serve.  Such as, perhaps, playing on Erin's guilt over what happened to Cherry.

Random speculation is fun!

@Haight - Thank you for the clarification...it does help. I think, sometimes, my coloring 'fights' a little with PK's inks...he has a wonderful 'noir' style (especially prevalent in these kinds of dramatic pages) and I'm never sure I'm a good enough colorist to complement the black and whites...learning all the time, though and your comments do get taken on board so thank you for them :)

@Werdna - Awwww...thank you from both of us.

@Everyone else - sorry...didn't mean to interrupt the flow...carry on :D

Miriam came here to go to school
SJI- G-01
It's the Best Jewish Studies Program in the Country

And it's just a coincidence that she came back at the same time as Q? I mean it may be. But if it isn't then she would need an excuse to be here, wouldn't she?


For what it's worth, my feeling is that Jakob needed to disappear and Julian & co may be the reason why. But, yeah, random speculation...

Miriam show up SJI-I 84 and we find out from rain that Q is out jail SJI-I101
Yes it's hard to say

And I think those two episodes take place on the same day - although obviously I'm not suggesting this means they actually both arrived back in town on that day.

I think Pearl's visit to her mother is the...oh, nope.  That is a question.  How long had Kanti been going out with Q when #49 crossed their path.  The visit from Pearl and the first crash into Q happen the same night, but Q has to have been around for a bit before that happens.  I think Rain's visit happens the night before Pearl crosses paths with her mother and Q has a cue ball dropped on his toe.

Memorably we were formally introduced to Rain in SJI 101. That episode begins with Jacqui looking at a photo of her and Pearl in happier times. For once we understood what we were seeing there because we'd just met Miriam. Miriam had turned up (for the second time) while Jacqui was going over a couple of things with Adrian in the stock room. Adrian recounted to Erin what happened there after her brief introduction to Q. So... all those things happened on the same day.

So Jacqui found out on the same day that both Miriam and Q were back in town. But it was ages before it became clear that Q was Jacqui's ex, so the coincidence there was kind of hidden in plain sight. As I've pointed out before, Pink Clouds, Miriam, and Q were introduced to us in very rapid succession without us seeing the connections. You only appreciate just how good the storytelling is when you look back. And, I mean, just look at the last two panels of 83...