Episode 249 of the Letters Page: Creative Process: Rambler Foes

General GTG Sentinel Comics Lore
#22

They said that Demiurge’s robes are constantly being pushed away from him, so my thought is that whatever normal clothes he was wearing when he got cursed were torn to shreds immediately, and then he has to just sort of toss new robes over his head every once in a while. He floats, so they probably don’t get too dirty.

Can he get sweat on them? Does he literally sweat bullets, that get expelled from his body at high speed as soon as they leave his pores? And what happens when he uses the bathroom? Presumably he doesn’t have to anymore, since he doesn’t eat or drink, but his bowels and bladder would have had something in them when the curse struck. If he falls in water, does he displace all the water around him and go splat on the bottom? Heck, I just wonder how he locomotes at all.

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#23

Demiurge is a magnetic monopole! Someone alert the Nobel Committee! That is, assuming this discovery hasn’t already been made by Dr. Meredith Stinson or some other scientist in Sentinel Comics.

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#24

It was me who said that, not @OddballPaladin, so I should take any heat about that comment!

When they created Aeternus in the underworlds creative process episode, it felt pretty disconnected from everything. But the Backerkit reveals showed it to be very much a thin re-skin over Dante’s Inferno, the “theme park” version, as you put it so well above, and Christopher made the stretch to say that a realm of torment is a universal cultural concept, which…er, no. And that’s the assumption of Christianity as default that I’m talking about. I suppose the most uncharitable interpretation would be that Sentinel Comics is planting a flag to say, hey, that belief system over there is the correct one. The most charitable would probably be that these are all mythologies and Aeternus could have inspired the mythology of Christianity just as the Ennead could have inspired the mythology of ancient Egyptian religion. I find myself somewhere in the middle: I don’t think Sentinel Comics is picking winners, but I do think that Aeternus-involved stories are going to assume that readers buy in to stakes that only make sense through an (American pop-culture) Christian lens. For example, by using a “Soul” keyword in a deck to build narrative tension. It’s not about accurate portrayals or favored treatment of characters, but the assumptions made about readers’ backgrounds and the narrative beats or stakes that they know and/or accept as a given. And this particular assumption is a very common thing in American media, BTW. I’m just disappointed to see it here, too.

Anywho…I, too, immediately wondered what happens to Demiurge’s clothes! Here’s a fun thing: I’ve been on a zero-g aircraft flight, and one of the weird things about micro-g is that it feels like nothing, because your clothes immediately float off your body anywhere they would have been contacting you. It feels very strange. But also, they don’t have to move that much to lose contact with you. How Demiurge breathes, though…

And thanks, @Rabit, I appreciate it!

#25

This just in: People write what they know, readers act surprised by this universal concept.

If anything, Sentinels is extremely unusual that Christopher’s part Venezuelan origins also give various aspects of Sentinels a Latin America flavor that just doesn’t exist in most real world superhero comics.

I’m also not really sure what you’re asking for here. That C&A replace their pop culture Cheez Whiz theme park of Christian religion with pop culture Cheez Whiz theme park of another religion? Would that really be an improvement?

Look, one of the things I liked about Sentinels was it had creators who approached progressive social matters in a way that was mature, constructive, and multifaceted, and initially attracted fans who approached things the same way. Having had spent time in too many fandoms who approached social matters in tired shallow and often actively wokewashing toxic behavior, it was a welcome change.

But as of late I’ve seen it start creeping into the fandom. Women being attractive is bad! White people are bad! Americans are bad! Cishet relationships are bad! Christianity is bad and getting special treatment even when it’s an utter shallow Cheez Whiz that would be not be deemed real representation if it was a different religion being given the same treatment!

While my discontent with the fandom was primarily over the regularly occuring abusive and dishonest behaviors, the fandom starting to more and more adopt the shallow eye-rolling empty sloganeering “looking for things to be offended by” attitudes I’d been happy to leave behind elsewhere didn’t help my opinions on stepping way back any.

And this isn’t “keeping politics out of Sentinels” either. I like politics being in Sentinels the way C&A handle them, which is with nuance and constructive discussions of real world problems free of knee-jerking and sloganeering.

Sentinels can have people of color without dumping on white people. It can have people from other countries without dumping on Americans. It can have LGBT people without dumping on straight relationships. Adam draws both sexes rather attractively and even draws the men with more fanservice than the opposite. Etc. Yet seems the fandom can no longer handle that balance.

And there’s an irony here that religion is Sentinels’ one blind spot where it actually kind of treats Christianity with a lot of disdain and negativity (note how on top of the theme parking, Fanatic embodies a lot of bad extremely negative stereotypes about Christians and her Christian cohorts tend on average to be incompetent at best and evil at worst), yet even that negative treatment is somehow still seen as too good for certain people in the fandom even though as someone with Catholic upbringing I find it nose-crinkly.

Sorry I stepped in. I probably should have known that pointing out “The fandom actively asked for and liked Black Fist” and “You really shouldn’t be offended by Christianity being portrayed in Sentinels when it’s so cheez whiz, fake, and often actively negative to boot” would just result in people trying to come up with reasons why we shouldn’t view that as mattering when to me those are the most relevant factors, and the usual resulting endless go-round arguing.

#26

Just to engage in thoughtful criticism of the media I love with other people who love it. My understanding is that Aeternus is wildly popular and I didn’t see my view represented, so I decided to contribute. I am not trying to say that you don’t have your own different and valid criticisms of Aeternus (and Fanatic) as well! Those also make a lot of sense, and thank you for articulating them.

I agree with your points about how well Christopher and Adam built the world of Sentinel Comics so far. Part of how they got there was by not writing only what they know, but by expanding their lens with empathy and understanding. I think that’s terrific. As a creator myself, they are role models for me. And most of the time, they do great. When they don’t, it’s nice to have a positive, respectful fandom that can have these conversations. (At least, that’s what I see as a forum-only participant. I’m getting the sense that your mileage may vary.)

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#27

I can say (as a Christian) that I am not personally a fan of Æternus, but not surprised or really offended by its existence. I do like that they haven’t tried to fully interweave it into biblical stories, so that it is removed from any of my actual beliefs.

This is the same reason I like that Fanatic isn’t actually an angel. It removes my beliefs from the game, and allows it to just be its own entity.

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#28

I think we got crossed up that when I asked “what you’re asking for here”, I meant in regards to “what would you have rather seen C&A do instead specifically here”. I was trying to get an idea of what you would consider a “better” depiction.

The fandom has never been good at being positive and respectful.

It’s good at claiming it is, and there are definitely specific individuals who actually live up to that, but the fandom as a whole is just as prone to toxicity and negativity as everywhere else but with less self-awareness and thus less capacity to effectively deal with it. But that’s a different post in and of itself.

This gets into why this specifically is a bit of a sore spot for me.

The way Sentinels depicts Christianity is probably the sociological misstep I find most annoying. A lot of it is cheez whiz theme park at best and “every negative stereotype about Christianity” at worst. And there’s a distinct lack of as I said the equivalents of characters like Nightcrawler and Daredevil while where their stories do deal with the negative sides of Christianity plenty of times it’s in a way recognizable to what real life adherents of it deal with.

And it’s a little ironic how this dovetails into discussions of representations of people of color, where statistically speaking black and Hispanic/Latine people IRL are as likely or even more likely to be religious or religion-adjacent, but it doesn’t come up with any of Sentinels’ black, Hispanic, and/or Latine characters. (Outside of Fanatic I mean, but she is the most negative and Cheez Whizzy depiction thereof so she doesn’t help any.)

But what tips it over into a sticking point versus annoyance is when some members of the fandom still characterize that cheez whiz negativity as being “favoritism” and somehow better treatment than other religions.

In discussions I’ve had elsewhere on the internet I’ve sometimes snarked that “privilege” is “actually having the exact same issues as everyone else but being denied the equal right to express upset about them”, and this particular topic of religion in Sentinels always tips over into that same flavor for me.

#29

I always assume air “doesn’t count” in sci-fi. Otherwise phase-shifters would suffocate (as well as fall through the floor), teleporters would explode, speedsters would overheat, etc.

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#30

Or due to the nature of the curse he doesn’t need to breathe, but always feels like he’s not quite getting enough air. That’ll make you cranky enough to be a villain!

Personally, I liked Adam’s suggestion of naming him Hankerin’. If they weren’t being serious he could’ve also been Hangry.

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#31

You have it better than me. I get a song stuck in my head every time I hear the name, but it’s that blasted “Beep Beep” tune. It is literally impossible for me to take this character seriously when all I can imagine him doing is racing a Caddy in 2nd gear.

Also my headcanon insists his first name is Nash, of course. He’s as absurdist as anything in the Guise Book to me no matter what the intention behind him is.

#32

If either of you would like a “more accurate” song, there’s this.

(And on that note, we know his full name - Robert Johnson)

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#33

As I said, the intention behind the character fails for me utterly because of the unfortunate association with that earworm of a song, which was inexplicably a favorite of my parents and my sister when I was much younger. And don’t even get me started on Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini…

I get what they’re going for, but that doesn’t affect my perception of him one bit.

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#34

I think they allowed the Naturalist focus of Tome to limit themselves.
Gwydion’s story involves changing from one animal to another just like Naturalist and Anansi the king of stories is one of Gwydion’s identities so I could see the writers connecting Naturalist to the greater universe by making this big reveal(retcon) in his book.

I also see Gwydion and his different identities a bit like Mister Mxyzptlk in “What ever happened to the man of tomorrow?” he was a goofball making mischief and playing pranks for 1000 years but now he is going to be monstrously evil for a while. Maybe 1000 years from now he will try being repentant.

#35

Speaking of the conceit of the Rambler character… what are his motivations, exactly?

It kind of seems like he just wants to be left alone to play guitar in dive bars, and only has adventures in response to either being attacked or coming across an opportunity to make an advantageous deal. But why does he even try to get advantage at all, if he just wants to go back to the dive bars? He’s kind of a strange character to have as a protagonist.

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#36

At about 20 minutes into the episode they explain it pretty well with a “check kiting” metaphor. He pretty much has to keep an eye out for hustles he can pull off so that he’s got the resources needed to get out of trouble if/when his previous debts and wrongdoings catch up with him. How he got started isn’t clear, but once he started tricking/ripping off supernatural entities he had to stay on the treadmill pulling new scams to hopefully pay off or intimidate anyone/thing that tries to collect past-due bills.

They seem to think he’s a lot more gray than he really is, the guy’s really a scumbag con artist who just happens to pick on baddies often enough that people could confuse it for having some vestige of morals. I’ve known real-world people like that and they’re something to avoid like the plague. You can’t believe a word they say and they’re always out for themselves first and foremost, and many of them manage to drag innocent people down with them when their scams do catch up with them. One of those IRL examples got himself and the woman he was currently parasitizing shot dead by a fellow petty criminal he’d shafted years before.

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#37

Yeah, so far I’m personally not enjoying the new heroes in DE. (I made this observation in Discord earlier, but…) So far, we have/think we’re getting:

  • Alpha - A dark anti-hero who takes out her own allies
  • Darkstrife & Painstake - Dark anti-heroes
  • Rambler - A dark anti-hero (?) who messes with people
  • Fashion - A hopefully-not-dark (although they did say she’s darker than she originally was after her stint with the Bloodsworn) hero (hopefully :unamused:)
  • Felicia’s Legacy - Hopefully she’ll help get us back to actually positive characters… :confused:

Seems to be a lot of dark in the new. :worried:

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#38

We’re getting out of the main heroes and often in comics after you get past that you’re treading into the anti hero and darker hero role. Even as it stands you can look at any of the original EE characters and they all have something about/related to them that gets dark and isn’t as positive.

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#39

And some people still think The Punisher is a hero…

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#40

Oh, I understand all that. You need the comic heroes to be interesting, complex, and capable of evolving over time - otherwise they won’t survive through decades of storytelling. :wink: But we also know there are lesser characters out there that aren’t anti-heroes and that the creators can make whatever decisions they want to make, as they are creating all of it.

But my comment (as I said :blush:) is really more about me than the characters. I just don’t enjoy playing anti-hero characters in the game. Other people do, and that’s fine - I’m glad they are there for them - they’re just not there for me. :+1:t2:

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#41

I don’t really see Alpha as an anti-hero? That’s a bit like calling the Hulk an anti-hero. Her power/power source may be unconventional, but I don’t think she really does shady things? When she hurts others, it’s unintentional. That’s her “weakness”.

And a similar thing can be said about DS&PS - but they are certainly dark!

Rambler, however, is definitely an anti-hero.

But if you don’t like playing them, that’s fine :man_shrugging:

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