Back Alley Brawler dies

still sad they went w/ the painfully obvious choice of Statesman :\

In episode 5? Already!?



(He'll be back by episode 7.)

Just wait until the next SSA where four men claiming to be Statesman will appear; one an evil cyborg, another an emotionless hologram, the third a teenage clone, and the fourth being a token black dude.

It won't last.

From a brand perspective, Statesman is the face of CoH. Every image, every package, even the reworked site art is specific to Statesman's brand. It's a good idea to kill him temporarily but not permanently.

From a story perspective, the whole CoH lore falls apart if Statesman is permanently killed. His alt universe counterpart, Tyrant, loses relevance. Lord Recluse loses relevance (although itd be fun to see Arachnos usurped by a new villain group/leader).

Most likely, Statesman will return at a later date when the final tiers of the Incarnate system are revealed. There is a reason why time/Ouroborous is destroyed and it will be on Paragon Citys best to restore time, order and Statesman at a later date.

Enjoy his "death" for now but don't expect it to last beyond 2012.

I'm still maintaining that this all a set-up by the Devs and it'll be War Witch. You watch. You'll see I'm right. War Witch. I'm calling it.

They could always set up Cole to be the new Statesman. Statesman's death could have a positive impact on Cole, putting him in a position to take on more of the Well's power to face the Coming Storm (with help from us, of course).

He'll be back

One of the things I wondering about with the big hint from the Player SUmmit that Tyrant is going to be defeated permanently is how that might affect the Praetorian zones - like have they built in some larger scale phase tech that would change the zones to look like they'd been liberated from the loyalists dictatorship, or might they decide to go with the idea that the zones are "historical", so that they'd remain unchanged, as they'd be meant to represent Praetoria pre-war?
For example, rather than Nova Praetoria being treated like Atlas Park as a contempory zone for all levels where the timeframe is up to date, they might decide that Nova Praetoria is "frozen" at the GR point of the storyline, where the war still hasn't started yet.
Freezing the zones at the pre-war stoy point would be the easiest way to go, not only because it'd save having to alter the zones to reflect the fall of the dictatorship, but it'd also save them having to make new post-dictatorship content for the zones, whioch they'd have to make if they were going to change the look of the zones.

Thought about this a bit, and realized that sometimes in comics, when a hero decides to retire, they will sometimes refer to the their superhero alter ego as "dead". So, Statesman (his alter ego) will "die", as Marcus Cole gets tired of losing people he loves, and decides to retire as a hero.

So, this could be a total red herring, still leaving parts 6 and 7 to determine who will really die. And, naturally, their death will cause Marcus to change his mind, and resume being Statesman (or not).