October 15th, 2010
Page 232
So smooth.
The first time I finished this page, I totally forgot grin’s mask had been shatterd! 😮
Also, it looks like due to problems beyond my control the hardcover books are now sadly unavailable. This is super lame but there’s nothing I can do about it. I have no idea when/if they will be available again. :/
October 15th, 2010 at 10:48 am
One of my favorite webcomics I follow. -.- Can’t wait for the next page.
October 15th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Aww, Gavin is so sweet~ *semi-sarcastic*
October 15th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
i dnt know weather 2 say “awh” or “kick him in the face crystal!”
I vouge for the second one
October 15th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Gavin needs a theme song. But I’m fairly confident that nothing will measure up to how awesome he is. Although 4’33” is sufficently creepy enough for him, and still has a lack of presence to illustrate his mystique.
October 15th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
That was probably the coolest way to hit someone in the face ever.
Somewhere, right now, Facepuncher is pissed.
October 15th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Oh, lookie there, 4 O’ Clock.
October 15th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Ah, Gavin now undoubtedly has all the makings of a bond villain
October 16th, 2010 at 12:29 am
He… He whipped that guy’s mask INSIDE-OUT.
October 16th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Are Max Facepuncher and Crystal dating?
October 16th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I continue to think Grin is a great character. Look at that face! (Not in a creepy way.) But she looks almost just…broken and remorseful, like she’d rather not be there.
October 16th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Addendum: where are the other four characters? The girls and the ‘original’ hackers?
October 16th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@Keiko No.
@SovietCommissar: The girls have nothing to do with the MI so they haven’t been around lately. They’ll show up again though.
As for the original hacker Craig and Frankie were bought onto the hacker base with Gavin. (On the page before they are the silhouettes with messy hair.)
October 16th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Is this the part where Crystal finds out that MI is actually a government agency with a sinister agenda to end all private control and bring about a fascist regime, while the Hackers are really a group of rebel “freedom fighters” who have been opposing the MI this entire time?
October 16th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
@Phyto, the problem with that explanation is that that individual hackers bully and attack innocents and the group as a whole protects them when they do so.
I suspect he is more of a gentleman villain, he has nefarious plots, but he isn’t a total monster. He harms people when its beneficial to him, not for fun, and he has standards (aka, he probably doesn’t condone a lot of bad things)
October 17th, 2010 at 5:54 am
Truly a gentlman and a scholor. Evil? Yes, but still.
October 17th, 2010 at 6:17 am
It was intended to be a joke, taltamir, but if you want to start analyzing things…
The only “bullying” Hackers has been Craig and his flunkies, neither of which has ever been in uniform. It could be argued in such that they were not full-fledged Hackers yet; they had been trained, but were yet to be initiated into the numbers. In addition, the entire altercation with Craig (in which Angel and Jack threw the first punches, anyway) began out of jealousy, not mindless malevolence. That kind of thing happens when someone you like rejects you. What happened between Jack and Craig had nothing to do with the Hackers.
Gavin also said that “the new blood has been disappointing.” He might not approve of what Craig did, anyway. Why? If the Hackers were really a rebel organization, then they can’t afford to appear petty and uncoordinated. If the Hackers appear to be weak, then the MI could very well start an all-out offensive to uproot and eliminate the Hackers; an attack that, despite their hacking powers, they wouldn’t be able to weather. In essence, Craig’s bullying was unbecoming of the entire Hacker organization.
Then Jack comes along and started, as Facepuncher said, “really damaging their egos.” Everything that has happened to Jack from actual uniformed Hackers has been in response to what Jack did to Craig — a hacker-in-training. Jack made Hackers look weak — the very thing that they couldn’t appear if they were to succeed in taking down the MI. On top of that, MI is already making a move to enlist Jack into their own numbers. The solution? Eliminate Jack — remove the blight on your name and cull the enemy numbers. Killing Jack wasn’t so much a vendetta as it was a tactical decision, as evidenced by Gavin’s willingness to cut his losses and move Jack out of the picture with a truce instead of a body bag.
Also, as said, Gavin is more of a gentleman “villain.” Now, Gavin is also leader of the Hackers, an organization whose members can do pretty much whatever pops into their heads. Gavin creates chairs and teleports through floors…in space, no less. This man is rife with power, the very thing that corrupts the average person into a selfish, self-centered mess. Yet, Gavin manages to be somewhat virtuous: he recognizes the worthlessness of petty pride and vanity, he gives traitors a chance to redeem themselves, and here he keeps respectful of prisoners. Gavin may have to run a tight, hard-knock ship to keep the Hackers out of MI’s reach, but he still knows not to become the very thing he fights.
Now, compare that to I’d-sooner-punch-you-in-the-face-than-shake-your-hand Max Facepuncher and the rough-‘n’-gruff General Bowie-Knife.
October 17th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
He’s trying to win her over with Good-cop Bad-cop. Or is that, Good-boss, Bad-henchman? Either way, DON’T FALL FOR IT, CRYSTAL!!!
October 17th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
I can’t stop wondering what would happen if Crystal took his hand to get up, because Gavin has his keyboard on his hand, so wouldn’t she press the keys (even inadvertently). I think pressing those keys may cause the apocalypse if you’re unlucky.
October 17th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
@Phyto: this ignores a variety of things. For example, controlling their own members with fear and unusual inhumane punishments (aka, turned into monster), and that they attack innocent bystanders to “not appear weak”…
its better for a genuine “good rebels” organization to appear “weak” then to appear evil (say, by attacking a school to murder a kid who bested a hacker in SELF DEFENSE)…
besides which, greg has been accepted right back into the fold.
And their tactics seem to be “target the family” (both jacks family, and now the general), which is generally a terrorist tactic (thats what they are even called terrorist, they induce terror in people by attacking families and other innocent non combatants)
I just don’t see them as being the good guys (unless the author is really sick in the head)
October 17th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
they are, btw, not the typical evil organization though.
Gavin for example sees that he has nothing to gain, but everything to lose, from harming jack’s family, and would much rather call a truce and have jack stay out of his business, rather then provoke him by killing his parents.
Gavin sees no reason to abuse his hostage, and tells off his minion who does so.
He is not your cliche villian, which is what makes him so dangerous. Cliche villians are idiots who always fail because they sabotage themselves. Gavin looks like he might actually follow the evil overlord list (or be smart enough to realize those very same rules)
October 17th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
(Oh, hey, it’s been a while since I had a decent debate. Feel free to drop out any time with no hard feelings if it becomes too much; I’d hate to breed ignominy over a theory that will, honestly, probably be proven completely wrong with the next few pages. With that said…)
I challenge your “variety of things” that you claim I ignore. When has fear been used for control within the Hacker ranks? Who was the “innocent bystander” that was attacked by Hacker ranks? I do not recall either of these instances.
Also, “target the family” certainly is not the Hacker’s tactic. Jack’s parents were never a target of the Hackers — Jack alone was. The only times that the Hackers attacked Thomas and Lilly were when they interfering with the Jack’s assassination. It’s perfectly understandable, as Gavin himself admits, and Gavin pardons them as well in their truce. Crystal, on the other hand is the granddaughter of the enemy commander. Capturing the family of the enemy isn’t so much a terrorist action as it is a tried-and-true political war move. For the most part, it’s used to check an enemy’s attack by threatening to dispose of the captive if an attack is made — further reinforcing the fact that the Hackers may just be an underdog to MI. Just because the targets ended up being family doesn’t mean it’s automatically terrorism.
Also, Gavin’s decision to transform Frankie might not have been so much inhumane punishment as it was poetic irony. Frankie thwarted the previous attempt on Jacks life, so as punishment (again, to keep the Hackers from looking weak), Frankie was to become the instrument to kill Jack the next time. Since direct hacking didn’t work before, Gavin turned Frankie into a monster for the attempt at Jack’s life. Gavin said that had intended to change Frankie back had he succeeded, meaning that Frankie’s monster form was just a means to an end, not the punishment in itself. Hacking Frankie was only Gavin killing two birds with one stone, not a vile retaliation against Frankie.
I think it may be prudent to say, though, that my theory never claimed that the Hackers were “good.” If the hackers are freedom fighters, they certainly aren’t the super-goody love-peace-and-friendship kind of people. As “gentleman villain” as he is, Gavin is not the next Martin Luther King Jr. Gavin keeps to decency wherever possible, but does what needs to be done to ensure victory; no one is going to come out looking like Jesus doing that. Think of the hackers as more of a special interest group rather than the Justice League. So, they’re not “good” guys — but does that make them the bad guys?
Remember, my theory also paints the MI as being part of a fascist government. For as bad as the Hackers are, MI certainly doesn’t appear much better. Max Facepuncher certainly has attacked innocent bystanders — both Jack and Cindy. If MI is such a great group, why has Max been fired and imprisoned? Who can claim that MI is “good” when Facepuncher brutally interrogates a prisoner and Caesar carts around bloody bodies in bags? Facepuncher also attacks Hackers on sight in a spontaneous, prejudiced frenzy — and is still considered one of MI’s top personnel. These are all the makings of an aggressive, dominating organization; I can’t say that I can see MI as being the good guys, either.
October 17th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
no hard feeling at all. It is possible that MI is fascist evil oppressors, but that will just make it a fight between two evil organizations.
The problem with frankie’s transformation being a means to an end is that he was only to be turned back to normal IF he succeeds, that is… “fail me and you remain a monster forever”, very much a villain thing to do. It is actually a classic example of using fear on one’s own troops… since failure is punished very severely (rather then punishing incompetence or disloyalty, merely failure).
Remember when they attacked the school? lots of innocent bystanders there.
I will concede that they didn’t directly go after jack’s family, rather, they encountered them by chance while going after jack directly.
And what do you “poetic irony”… when you disfigure someone’s body as a form of “poetic irony” that is the very cusp of cruel and unusual punishment.
October 17th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
As far as MI being evil, I have little evidence that MI isn’t corrupt and evil (but none that they are evil).
they have treated jack well, but it could be because they wanted to recruit him rather then genuine kindness.
October 17th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
wait, didn’t they say not to recruit him though? that does seem like a contradiction there. They don’t want to recruit him, they were just nice enough to protect him and care for him for no reason at all?
October 18th, 2010 at 4:52 am
Wild mass guessing: Clearly Jack’s parents and the principal (and likely MI) go way back – what if they were on a team with Gavin back in the day, but he went rogue?
Crazy guess #2 – Gavin is actually Crystal’s father – he’s estranged from the general (in this case his father — or better yet father-in-law) and this whole thing is a custody battle gone nuts
Crazy guess #3 – Gavin is Grin’s father or brother – notice he doesn’t object as much when she isn’t in line like the other hackers
Crazy guess #4 – They’re in the matrix and Jack not only knows there’s no spoon, he’s annoyed at the hackers for waving spoons at him.
October 18th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Okay, taltamir, I do suppose that the attack on the school can be construed as an attack on innocent people. However, it seemed to be an attack more in the sense of a “I’m going to interrupt your life for a while. Deal with it” than a “YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! HAHAHAHA!” attack. The attack on the school was conducted in a similar manner to the recent attack on the MI base, in that everyone who was not the target (the rest of the student body in the school attack, and Jack and his parents in the MI base invasion) was detained and warned off from interfering. All hell didn’t break loose at either event until other people started resisting the Hackers. Manic didn’t attack Caesar until he refused to back down — that’s how focused the Hackers are on their primary goals. So, yes, innocents were included in the school siege, but I don’t believe the Hackers intended to harm them in any way if the mission went off without a hitch.
As for Frankie, his plight would be a scare tactic in coercing other Hackers against treason, not failure. Frankie was turned into a monster because he was a traitor and a deserter – people who are not looked highly upon by any organization – not because he failed something. The entire reason Gavin assigned Frankie to kill Jack was because Frankie tried to thwart the Hackers before, not because the Hackers were thwarted. As for Gavin keeping Frankie a monster as punishment for failing, this is clearly not true. Gavin quickly gave Frankie another chance for redemption, and with a much simpler task that time — simply smuggle this self-detonating Zerg bomb into the building he was being taken to. In addition, MI might not have taken Frankie to their headquarters if he was reverted, and it would have been impossible for a normal school kid to upchuck that exploding bag; Gavin keeping Frankie a monster for his failure may still have been a means to an end. In the end, though, Frankie was in no means a Hacker in good standing, so it’s hard to argue that Frankie was a scare tactic for anything but treason.
The “poetic irony” part is sending the very man who curbed your last attempt to finish the job next time. It didn’t really have much to do with turning Frankie into a monster; that was Gavin just trying a new tactic to take Jack down.
As for the MI recruiting Jack, no, the General did say that they weren’t enlisting minors (much to Max’s dismay). The reason that MI still harbors the Cannons is because there’s obviously a connection and history between Thomas and the General. The General protects Jack for old times’ sake, Crystal helps because she’s just a nice girl, and Max keeps Jack close for his own ends. This all went down in the MI headquarters, where Gavin could not see or hear. From Gavin’s perspective, Jack could very well be an open candidate.
On an aside, I think the coolest outcome would be if they were both the Hackers and the MI were evil organizations, and Jack forms the actual rag-tag group of good-guy freedom fighters with the dissidents of both groups to take down both. After all, Frankie’s already on the bad side of the Hackers, both Crystal and Grin would jump ship because they don’t seem to approve of how their group runs, and Max already follows Jack to the end of the world just to keep his “sparring buddy.” That would be an epic comic.
October 19th, 2010 at 1:05 am
OH MY GOD COMMENT WALLS OF TEXT D: *hides under a couch with a survival kit full of cookies* =o.o= *omnomnom*
October 24th, 2010 at 5:45 am
if frankie is a traitor and deserted, that means that the hackers approve of the actions of whatshisname, the first hacker we saw.
military organizations frown upon people obeying “illegal orders”. if you are given illegal orders you are supposed to arrest your commander, not carry them out.
fair enough about your assesment of MIs intentions… and also for both of them being evil (jacks parents clearly have a history with MI, and clearly do not approve of MI)
October 30th, 2010 at 6:41 am
Translation: His staff are/is? all idiots.
February 13th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Frank isnt cruel… On purpose… He just does whatever is needed to bring the end and making people who have a part in it understand why they need to accept theyr fate for the good of the universe, for the end cannot be avoided, it can only be alternated.