TroyHickman

I do a lot of hand-waving too, but in my case it's usually to distract my victims from what's going on below my waist...

No, but I am shocked about this stuff I'm putting on my toast; I can't believe it's not butter...

Thanks! If you want cheesecake magic, though, you oughta see how fast I can make one disappear...

Ha! I got paid for the comic, but not for the arc; that's just because I love the game. And the Cyrus statue came as a complete, but very moving, surprise to me. I'm hoping that when I kick the bucket myself, they'll put a statue of me smack-dab in the middle of Frostfire's base, to taunt him for all the thousands of times he's killed me in game.

And I still blame you.

The allusion is to the old joke: "How do you get down from an elephant?" "You don't get down from an elephant...you get down from a duck!"

But if you want a goose, I'll oblige ya...

You don't get down from an elephant; you get down from a duck...

Or, as I call it, Thursday...

No, it never occurred to me to give them maxi-pads...damn...

Actually, Breakneck died because the Circle of Thorns are evil and powerful. If the Phalanx hadn't got involved, never existed, or instead decided that day to watch Jersey Shore, Cyrus Thompson would still be just as dead, along with probably most of the rest of the world (including the CoT; I don't know why they think a demon would want to keep around a bunch of goofs who look like ZZ Top in their nightshirts).

As far as Statesman's death, I don't know what to say about any of it, as I just learned of it about six minutes ago. Let me eat a popsicle and mull it over...

OK, I'll admit, I just called that number to see what would happen, and it just kept ringing (try it!). Then I figured that must be because I'm not there to answer it...

It's true. It's a corruption of the ancient Babylonian phrase "trooi hicchmahn," which means "your junk is showing."

Mom, what are you doing on the forums?

That IS a cool idea!

Y'know, I can't begin to tell you how happy I was when they made the COVERS of the comics available as a base item. I never make bases, and I created one just so I could put those up!

The feeling, as always, is moochal, my good man...

Sorry, but you can't do that. I'm here, I'm without peer, get used to it...

Didn't we learn anything from 1950s sci-fi? There are some things man was not meant to tamper with!!! (Cue the theremin)

Seriously, the title of the thread is misleading, because nothing we do genetically is going to abolish evil. It might affect some folks' ability to do antisocial acts, but evil, contrary to Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, is not a chemical reaction. It's a conscious choice (that's why accidentally killing someone is not evil, though it may be many other things). And it's intrinsic to the human species.

Ethically? Well, we could also greatly cut down on antisocial behavior by lobotomizing folks once they've committed it, but most of us would probably be against it.

Beyond that, though, it doesn't take into account the fact that in many cases those antisocial tendencies might also be tied into some positive aspects of the human animal, or that at the very least they might enable us to do things that must be done . Snake Pliskin, for instance, very definitely has some antisocial tendencies, but they also might enable him to save the world...or destroy it (er, sorry, I wanted to write like a movie ad for a minute). Of course, the question there might be if he would've HAD to do anything if EVERYONE in the world had genetically had their "demons exorcised." I dunno...

It's the kind of argument that our geometrically-growing scientific knowledge brings to the surface, though, and not just in cases of good and evil. You mentioned sexuality, and we certainly see it there. It's probably one of the reasons that discussing the CAUSE for one sexual orientation or another has become somewhat verboten in recent times, because it brings up a potentially nasty can of worms. If sexuality is environmental, then theoretically various behavior modifications techniques might be able to alter it. On the other hand, if it's genetic, then eventually we'll probably be able to determine it in the womb, and CHANGE it in the womb (or potentially earlier...or POSSIBLY even after birth with some sort of gene treatment). And there's no way around it, because even if it's a combination of genetics and environment, that means it might be altered with a combination of DNA science and therapy. The question, as always, will be should we...just because we can?

I think I need a beer...

Ah, OK. Whew. I was worried about that. I think the only person who died in that storyline was Cyrus Thompson. I DID have a kamikaze mage attack States, but it just hurt like hell.

Wait...when did I kill Statesman?

Have I repressed a horrible memory?

I do have a character called Hoosier Daddy, based on myself, actually, but I don't remember his server...

Bear in mind that I'm talking about mainstream, conventional comics as they exist. Twilight Guardian would never wear stilettos...

Well, it's hard to say in a comic universe, but I've become friends with a lot of folks in the Real Life Superhero community, and they wear costumes primarily because (A) given the kind of suits they wear, it offers a modicum of protection, (B) they do a lot of community service, and a costume allows folks to recognize them (when they pass out food, water, toiletries and such), and (C) it's a convention of the superhero genre. I don't know if they're intrinsically exhibitionists, though I'm sure some of them are.

Most everything in superhero comics is impractical: the suits, the powers, the dialog (you can't deliver a thousand words of dialog in what would probably amount to ten seconds of fighting). But then, if you look at most mythologies, they're not practical either. Stories don't exist to conform to reality; they exist to entertain, inform, reinforce values, make money, etc. As far as superheroines go, well, the reason some women in the real world dress in an impractical but sexy fashion is because there IS a certain practicality to it, as one of the ways women have been able to achieve power in our culture is through beauty or sexuality (if you don't believe it, watch a busty blonde get stopped by a traffic cop), so maybe if you really wanted to, you could make the argument that some heroines think it might give them a slight edge...? That's all speculation, but then, this is the internet...

(1) It's true. I'm in the Witless Relocation Program.

(2) I did that in the comic for a couple of reasons. The more practical of the two was this: Mark Waid had made the characters pretty edgy in his initial arc for the comic. As mine followed his, I didn't want to just suddenly do a "culture shock" kind of deal with them when I made them more the way I wanted them. That's why the Phalanx in the first issue of my arc (especially Psyche and Statesmen) don't necessarily act the same way by the end of the third. I was hoping that the writers who came after me would follow my lead, though I'm not sure they did. I was shooting for the group to be more like the JLA or Avengers of the 1970s, a Steve Englehart kind of group. With Psyche, I was told that she was rather, er, "witchy" (or something like that), but I didn't really care for that notion, so while she might've been MORE that way in the beginning of the arc, I wanted her to be a lot more than that by the end.

The other reason is that she's someone who, even though she has some control over her mental abilities, has to constantly be picking up thoughts, and there are going to be a fair number of those thoughts that are lewd in nature (some probably downright disgusting). If you were perpetually having folks who didn't know you as a person telling you what they wanted to do to you sexually, it might make you occasionally cranky (talk to some of the women who frequent comic shops... ). So yeah, she kind of bites the poor kid's head off in the first issue. I like to think after the third issue was over, though, she took him out for ice cream and gave him an 8x10 glossy. As far as the costume thingy, she probably doesn't see any point to "covering up" as a way of diverting such thoughts, as we all know that you can be wearing a gunny sack stuffed with doorknobs and guys (and girls) will still fantasize about you.

Anyway, that's what I was shooting for. Realize that I had to tell a story with seven or eight heroes, half a dozen NPCs, and a bunch of villains, all in something like 55-60 pages, so a lot of it had to be shorthand. I'll leave it up to you whether it worked.


P.S. I'd have to give the last question some thought.

I'm sure there's a spackling and grouting joke in there somewhere...

Well, I don't draw, but if I were giving the artist directions, it would depend on my conception of the character. Is there a reason for her to be human-shaped? If the rock people don't feed their young through lactation, for instance, there's not necessarily a reason to give her stone breasts (and even if they do, there's not necessarily a reason to). Has this come up earlier in the thread?