That would be funny, but it occurs to me bad guy’s costume does a way better job of hiding his identity than anyone else in the comic. The opaque glasses may change the shape of his face, the suit seems to have padded shoulders and all. People in the comments kept thinking he was Ryan, maybe it’s enough to trick Dina.
as I recall, no one actually kidnapped Dina
she just noticed all of her friends being kidnapped and thought the social norm thing to do would be to join them
To be at least a little fair to Filmation, their cartoon was a sequel to / continuation of a live action series they produced in 1975. (Even if it was a blatant attempt at cashing in on the movie.)
So for the past few days I was thinking Incelerator was just some ridiculous jerk but then I remembered he was part of the group that murdered Mike and it feels a bit more serious.
The weird thing about Dumbing of Age is that the costumed villains feel like much bigger threats than they do in actual superhero stories. Here we are more attached to the heroes as we spend more time with them out of costume than in. Also, our rag-tag team don’t have the bullet-proofing afforded by being a multimillion intellectual property or super powers.
A guy in roller-skates would a laughable threat to batman or spiderman, but here where conflicts are largely low-stakes fist fights between college kids, the fact that Incelerator could be stopped by a small pebble or any non-paved surface seems less important than the simple fact that he is willing to be party to crimes as severe as kidnapping and murder. In this comic world, a villain’s capability for violence is trumped by the mere capacity for it and it makes even the most low-stakes ridiculous foes a horrifying threat.
He also was part of the group that tried to break into houses they thought were occupied by women who accused Ryan of rape and do god knows what to them. Thankfully, AG flooded the places they hung out with fake addresses.
Were the junior kidnappers part of the crew when Mike was hurt (technically, I’m not sure you can even claim Blaine killed Mike, let alone anyone else since Mike tried to save AG by taking Blaine out with him)?
And I’m not sure they were aware of Blaine killing Toedad since it happened on the spur of the moment in the basement while none of them were down there.
Which would mean they were only part of kidnapping more than half a dozen people (admittedly, that’s still a major felony, but it’s much less serious than murder).
There’s also the attempted witness intimidation or whatever they were doing for Ryan, but I’m only trying reference the Blaine related crimes.
They weren’t with Blaine and Ross when they attacked Mike, nor were they in the room when Blaine attacked Ross, but they were still part of the operation and can still face charges as accessories.
I’m not up on Indiana laws, but in TX if you’re part of a group that one member of which kills a person the everybody in the group is guilty of capital murder. Unfair, I know, but that’s the law.
I think it usually has to be actually committing some crime as part of the group, not just hanging out with your pals when one of them flips out and kills someone. “Driver of the getaway car” is the usual example. “One of the kidnappers” certainly counts.
Mike wasn’t murdered, he died trying to stop Blaine. Possibly as a murder-suicide attempt if you want to get really dark. But I’m inclined to think as a ill conceived attempt at atonement.
Dude was part of a kidnapping, though, that involved the murder of Toedad.
Mike died as a result of injuries suffered in the fight initiated by Blaine and Toedad attacking him with stated intent that he die. There’s really no way to cut that that isn’t both legally and morally murder.
There were only 3 witnesses to Mike’s fall.
One is no longer a giant walking talking toe, which leaves two witnesses (Blaine is dead as well, but he has to be alive for the purpose of this hypothetical arrest and trial).
So we’d have Blaine, a known mobster, kidnapper, and murderer who also has ties to law enforcement.
And we have AG, a vigilante alter of Blaine’s emotionally abused daughter.
Leaving aside the he-said-she-said aspect, and that AG would probably describe what happened truthfully – that Mike took the initiative to throw both him and Blaine over the railing – the average jury member is a layman when it comes to alters, as am I, and so would probably not trust AG as a reliable witness for that alone, let alone being a vigilante and his abused daughter.
There’s also no physical evidence against Blaine showing he threatened violence against Mike because, while he planned to kill Mike, he never actually laid a finger on him.
Mike was out of reach during the scooter chase, Toedad hit him with the car, and AG was fighting Blaine the whole time after that.
I’m sure even a subpar defense lawyer could get that down to manslaughter, and a decent one might get him acquitted.
Blaine himself wouldn’t hesitate to put the blame on Toedad, and Toedad couldn’t defend himself from the grave.
Hell, it’s possible that the district attorney wouldn’t even charge him for Mike’s murder so as not to muddy the waters for the much stronger cases of multiple kidnappings and Toedad murder.
It wouldn’t be that he said-she said though. Blaine told the group he kidnapped that he threw Mike off a third story balcony when he told them that if AG didn’t show with Becky, he’d kill all of them so they knew he wasn’t bluffing. If all of them testified to that, that would probably help. Plus Mike’s injuries would be consistent with what AG said happened.
Saying something meets the legal definition of a crime isn’t the same as saying the person would be found guilty of it in court. Your points were interesting, but also a lot of time rebutting something that wasn’t said.
To say an action committed by a specific person in a specific situation is legally a crime ultimately culminates in what the person committing a crime is convicted of and/or if the crime itself can be deemed as such even without knowing who committed it.
There’s a difference between saying killing someone is murder and saying YOU killed someone and that doing so was murder.
People who were convicted of murder had actions judged as such, saying their actions were legally that, but if they are later acquitted, say like they were exonerated based on dna evidence, then THEIR actions were not legally murder because they did not actually commit actions leading to such.
When Tan says it is both legally AND morally murder, the connection to Blaine and Toedad’s actions become intrinsic to that statement, as morals wouldn’t come into play otherwise.
And once it becomes dependent on their specific actions, they either must legally be convicted of murder or Mike’s death must unequivocally be deemed a murder.
Since Mike jumped, what would make his death a murder would not be the method of death, but instead everything that led up to it, which, again, depends on how the Evil Dad Duo’s actions are judged in court.
Still no, dude. Saying something– a specific situation even!– meets the legal definition of a crime is not dependent on the party being found legally guilty. If you murder someone and never get caught, you have still murdered someone, and it’s still illegal.
If you want to argue Mike’s death doesn’t qualify as a murder legally, go for it. But don’t base it on what would be presented in court because we’re not in court.
Thats my point.
The death itself found from an outside party with no knowledge of the how it happened could not say it was murder vs manslaughter vs negligent nomicide vs reckless endangerment vs an accident vs suicide, so it would only legally be murder based upon the actions that led up to it, and those would have to be judged in court due to the circumstances of this particular death.
Sorry that you had to go through something that this discussion is bringing up past trauma for you.
I stand by what I’m saying though, so I guess we’ll have to drop this here.
I still don’t see how it’s hard to understand that there’s a difference between what happened– like, what you, as a reader, saw happen– and what could be presented to a court. You could absolutely make your argument without all the bullshit hypotheticals.
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about if Mike’s death would meet the legal definition of murder; the issue I have is how you’re not talking about that but something else, and saying it’s the same thing.
It is an argument which seems to be derived from the common notion that Law *itself* can never be something which is there to guide members of society, but only ever to *punish* people.
The unfortunately common conception of results of effective enforcement of Law via the whims of a small handful of people who run The System being where the utility of Law in society stops and ends, isn’t about shaping society, but communicating which kinds of people have to fear law enforcement (plural folk like Amber, POC and queers), and those who get to admire them.
Racists who instigated lynchings in the 1950s were very much guilty of murder by legal definition, however were often acquitted because all-white juries refused to convict.
In US Court, jurors cannot be punished for their verdict, even if they reached it improperly, and to this day the unfortunate reality is that Jury selection is far more likely to favor racist white people than people who think the justice system is racist.
The outcome of the flawed system is wholly independent of the fact that these people were very much legally guilty of murder.
Either genuine faith in the court system or collective suspension of disbelief in it’s efficacy does not magically change the fact that it is by itself unreliable in upholding the purpose of law itself.
TLDR: Mike’s death is not legally murder.
The reason is because he jumped of his own volition.
A case could be made that Blaine murdered him because of the situation surrounding his death, but that needs to be proven in court because the death itself is not murder; the extenuating circumstances are necessary to achieve that verdict, but I don’t think it would be enough.
It was not my intention to say a person is only guilty of a crime if convicted.
My intention was Mike’s death wasn’t murder, FULL STOP, you could argue in court that Blaine murdered him due to the circumstances, but I doubt it would stick because of reasons, FULL STOP.
————————————-
I guess I wasn’t clear if lynch mobs being found innocent of murder is being compared to my comment.
So I’ll try one more time to convey my thoughts.
If I still come across the way you perceive after this, I just have to chalk it up to a failure of communication on my part.
Here we go:
Mike’s death does not fit the legal definition of murder.
No one else killed Mike; he killed himself.
No one threatened Mike into killing himself.
No one drove Mike into a situation where he had no choice but to kill himself.
No one gave Mike a choice of either kill himself or option B.
Mike completely chose to throw himself over the railing with no physical, visual, or verbal input from anyone else.
And he did so to save his friend.
Neither Blaine nor Toedad told him, suggested to him, implied to him, expected him, or wanted him to do what he did.
If I honestly want to shoot you dead, I intend to do so, you know this, and you decide to drink yourself to death with my threat being very real, I did not legally commit murder (other crimes, yes, murder no).
But could a case be MADE to charge me with murder (not a lesser charge, but murder) on the idea that I drove you to that, sure, but that case would have to made in court as the death itself is not enough to say it was murder, let alone that I did it.
I’m saying what I just described would be the same situation as Blaine being charged with Mike’s death, and I gave reasons why I don’t believe the charge would stick.
I guess it’s my fault for not clearly separating that Mike’s death wasn’t legally murder from my further idea that the charge wouldn’t stick.
It was NEVER my intention to say NO ONE is guilty of a crime unless they are convicted of it.
My intention was to say that since this specific death does not fit the legal definition of murder, the only way to get Blaine for this death AS a murder would be to succeed in court, and I doubted that possibility with the reasons I gave.
Compare that to the death of Toedad: it unequivocally fits the legal definition of a murder (murder 2 probably, but not murder 1 since it wasn’t preplanned).
Blaine could have escaped scott free or even been acquitted in court for some bs reason and I’d still say he murdered him.
I feel that Mike’s death meets the qualifications of felony murder, which I would still consider murder. But– legally. I actually feel Mike’s death is LESS morally murder– for the reasons you outlined– than it is legally murder.
Your previous comments, yes, lynch mobs, those acquitted of abuse that occurred, victims whose cases were thrown out before they could even try to argue them in court– all those were in discussion with your initial comments.(I mean, you brought up he-said-she-said when determining if something was legally a crime or not.)
As I said initially, I do think you bring up interesting points– I fall on the side of felony murder, but not unmovably so– but the most you could have been said to give to “legal definition” before moving on to the court room stuff was “Nah.”
All my comments were either about Mike’s death specifically or made a distinction for crimes that were unequivocally what they looked like (even I’m annoyed at how many times I used the word).
A lynch mob is unequivocally murder.
We didn’t go into details about abuse victims and cases that never went to court, but there’s no need to go into details about a lynch mob being unequivocally murder because lynching is a type of murder and is inherently part of the term.
I brought up he-said-she-said specifically for AG vs Blaine on the witness stand for trying to get Blaine for Mike’s murder, not crime in general.
I did not mention it in relation to whether if anything is ever a crime, but in reference to getting Mike’s death judged as a murder with Blaine as the murderer, due to the lack of physical evidence in that specific crime that would normally do the heavy lifting.
Since Blaine never touched him, and we have no knowledge of any surveillance in the area, the only way Blaine gets attached to the murder in court is if AG says it’s him.
I write a lot to try to avoid confusion (it doesn’t always work, clearly), so it’s easy to for points to be missed, either because others didn’t see/get it, or because I didn’t say it clearly/at all.
I think this conversation was a little of column A, a little of column B.
A lot of people might work from the baseline assessment that Mike’s death DOES meet the definition of murder — such as the one you replied to. I didn’t find it clear you had moved on to a different argument aafter the first two lines of your first comment, and you seemed to affirm you hadn’t. That’s where all the other stuff (via living in a society) came in.
I also feel that holding convictions to a high degree of proof and having empathy for victims whose assailants are acquitted is important in society, which is why I think a lot of this stuff matters.
“To say an action committed by a specific person in a specific situation is legally a crime ultimately culminates in what the person committing a crime is convicted of and/or if the crime itself can be deemed as such even without knowing who committed it.” is pure nonsense, on roughly the same level of legal understanding as Sovereign Citizens. Laws have definitions that facts either meet or do not meet. In an ideal world this would (roughly) correspond with convictions, but neither we nor these characters live in an ideal world.
The facts of what happened meet the legal definition of murder, whether it would be provable beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law or not. You are getting super caught up on hypothetical testimony and what a hypothetical jury would and would not choose to believe when that is simply unnecessary. The jury finds the facts of what happened, but we already KNOW the facts of what happened because we saw it. If the jury knew what we know, and assuming no corruption, Blaine would be guilty.
Mike was fighting for both his own and Amber’s life. “He jumped of his own volition” is also nonsense. He was cornered at the top of a narrow stairway with two men blocking his way down, one of whom had a weapon he was swinging with obvious lethal intent (both in his actions and in his words). Mike lunged at said attacker, because his other option was to stand there and watch Blaine kill his friend and then kill him.
But let’s go back to your absolutely nonsense premise. Is this a situation that can be deemed a crime without knowing who committed it? Mike has injuries consistent with being hit by a car, followed by a long fall. No car accident involving Mike was reported. Blaine, Toedad, and Mike are not giving statements on the matter due to being dead. Amazi-Girl is not giving a statement on the matter due to being a vigilante who would be putting herself at risk for no benefit. So at minimum someone who knew nothing else of what happened could readily conclude that this was a hit-and-run that resulted in a death, which, hey, that’s definitely a crime. Going a little further might even find damage to Toedad’s car consistent with having hit a person and having been in the right area at the time (and given the knowledge that Blaine and Toedad were working on kidnapping a bunch of kids from this university campus, all of whom are friends with Mike, might even reasonably conclude that this happened during attempts to kidnap, which would make it murder specifically). They’d be wrong about how it got there, but your premise didn’t mention anything about being correct.
Or, alternatively, we could just… Look at the series of pages where the things happened and say hey this is murder, based on this knowledge of having read exactly what happened. Which is what I did.
I think you’re talking about the difference between what’s legally true (if all the facts were proven) and what a jury will believe (given the evidence presented).
Not exactly.
I’m saying that due to Mike basically taking himself out, what makes it murder depends solely on the actions of the others involved and how they are judged.
Without those actions being judged as murder, it’s not murder.
If no one knew the circumstances of how Mike ended up like that, it could be deemed an accident, self harm, or murder.
As opposed to someone who died in a way that was unarguably murder, like being hit repeatedly until they died.
And I know I would find it hard to deem Mike’s act of self sacrifice to save a friend as him being murdered, even if the end result was what the Evil Dad Duo wanted.
If the that part is left out, if all that’s said is that there was a fight, an attack, and he ended up going over the railing, sure, I’d probably see that as murder or, more likely, manslaughter.
But since both AG and Blaine would probably tell how he threw himself off, I don’t think murder would be deemed the actual crime.
Joyce may be an Atheist, but I assure you Christian Atheist is NOT an oxymoron. Especially given her Fundamentalist Background.
For all her life, Joyce’s known rules first and foremost as things not to help people and shape society for the better, but to judge and punish Those Who Stray From The Path.
…also thinking a little more I’m a little worried for Walky here considering his arc has had him grappling with institutional/subconcious racism, and he’s wearing a mask against someone who has an even lighter skin tone.
Pretty sure he got kicked in the face by her when she first introduced then there were like several other encounters up until the kidnapping where he may or may not have been the one being Hurricanranaded into a dinning table, tied up, then punched out by Malaya.
Okay but I’m just waiting for Joe to realize that this is stupid, he’s larger than both of them combined, and just like, knock the incel over and sit on his legs
I’m picturing him winning this like a 6’4″, 280lb friend of mine won a fight one.
Angry drunk dude just started punching him in the back for some perceived slight, my buddy eventually turns around and says, deadpan: “I haven’t reacted to you hitting me yet. I’m going to do so eventually. Are you sure you want to be here for that?”
1) It should be obvious that in this setting being larger has little to do with being dangerous, even more so than in the real world. Joe is also larger than Amber & Sal combined, but that wouldn’t help him.
2) The Incel here’s annoying, but he hasn’t really crossed the line into physical threat. Maybe if someone had just reacted to him smapping Dina’s tray, but it’s been a bit and he hasn’t done anything else. Joe’d be the one in trouble if he attacked now.
Wait a minute. Incelerator only introduced himself like 15 seconds ago, far to little time for Walky to have gone up and retrieved his costume. As Walky did not recognize him, this means Walky just saw some guy dressed up like that and instead of thinking “oh cool, a sophomore is putting some flare into his physics presentation today” he assumed he was a hardened criminal and prepared to throw hands.
No wonder we haven’t seen Nightguy around, he’s probably been busy stalking all the visiting sports mascots trying to learn their nefarious schemes.
For what it’s worth, NightGuy! may well have spotted the Incelerator out the window or something before the arrival at the food court, and thus began hustling here early enough to show up this promptly.
He would have great difficulty stalking any sports mascots at Indiana University, considering his reluctance to ever visit the stadium; Google tells me that IU has no mascot of its own, so it’s not like he could stalk the home team’s either.
WAit SHIT! Im out of state on clunky ass bush wifi. Someone put nightguy, Incellerator and amazi-girl in the Spiderman meme all pointing at each other!
For a bush wifi? I’m not sure what my portable Internet costs per year because it’s part of a package, but that seems highish, but if the equipment is thrown in, maybe not.
I believe that’s his eyes behind the shades.
When he looked at Dina from the corner of his eye two strips ago, it seemed to be in that approximate position to match.
The stakes have never been lower! It’s an incel on wheels who doesn’t know what he’s doing here, versus a superhero who’s trained for no time to be the best at anything!
Who could the incelerator be, though… Who has met nightguy, one of Blaine’s hired idiots? DID DANNY GET DUMPED EARLIER TODAY AND ARE THOSE THE CONSEQUENCES?
Is it coincidence that Incelerator is up against a incredibly popular with women person of color man who respects them and thus has gotten laid in multiple relationships?
Boring surprise: she texted the campus police. We just need a few more strips to assemble all of the people who were kidnapped, so they can all point and say in unison: “HE WAS ONE OF THEM! ARREST HIM!”
Honestly it would be funny. Walky all proud of his new hero name and getting confused when people like 10 years older than him make references he lacks the knowledge to understand
I’m starting a Go-Funned-Me to finance a campaign to get Nightguy his own tag.
I plan to accomplish this by taking the proceeds and buying and consuming Larado Tacos (which are actually burritos but a large step up from Taco Bell anything) and letting the universe work it’s magic.
Next question, how do you resolve any of this? No one is in danger so far. Definitely harrassed, but you’ll both need a lot more encouragement for this to escalate to fisticuffs. Maybe if Dina had been allowed to bite out his throat. I think the moment’s passed though. Now everyone who’s not a costumed idiot is just annoyed.
The only fitting resolution is for the encounter to just end at some point and everyone go about their day. It doesn’t deserve to be an all-day situation.
Walky missed a big opportunity when he failed to recruit Lucy as NightGirl.
Lucy: “Costume? This is just pajamas!”
Walky: “Because NightGirl rules the night!”
Lucy: “Why the cutout over the chest? It’s cold out there!”
Walky: “It’s you, it’s very you.”
I say this in all seriousness. What the hell does Walky think he’s doing? Does he think his home-made costume grants him superpowers? Does he think this is a joke? Is he really that childish or has he finally snapped?
He doesn’t think it gives him powers, but it’s also a dude who willingly is calling himself “Incelerator”. Walky probably doesn’t need to be terribly concerned.
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WwnNightguy, the VILLAIN’S supposed to be the one monologuing
Heros are allowed a certain amount of introductory monologuing
Why bother? Dude immediately copped to circumstantial evidence he kidnapped several of the angry people surrounding him.
I don’t think any of them have realized that yet. Costumes and masks work. Except for Walky.
And except on Dina. Would be amusing if she recognized him as a kidnapper and just assumes everyone else did too.
That would be funny, but it occurs to me bad guy’s costume does a way better job of hiding his identity than anyone else in the comic. The opaque glasses may change the shape of his face, the suit seems to have padded shoulders and all. People in the comments kept thinking he was Ryan, maybe it’s enough to trick Dina.
as I recall, no one actually kidnapped Dina
she just noticed all of her friends being kidnapped and thought the social norm thing to do would be to join them
…so that’s not who you called ?
Well the answer to ‘who you gonna call’ is Ghostbusters, obviously.
The Real Ghostbusters, not the “original” Ghost Busters.
One cartoon was legit to the True OGs (OGBs?); the other was fake, false, and lies by Filmation.
To be at least a little fair to Filmation, their cartoon was a sequel to / continuation of a live action series they produced in 1975. (Even if it was a blatant attempt at cashing in on the movie.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrAfikM7Ck
Presumably she was expecting Amazi-Girl, but got Walky/Night-Guy instead; which is far funnier albeit less badass.
Honestly I feel like Incelerator does not deserve a badass response. It’d feel too validating.
Perhaps that’s compensated for enough by the de-validation (as he must see it) of being taken down – yet again – by Amazi-girl.
I can’t decide if getting his ass beat by a girl would outweigh the “legitimacy” of getting a “real” superhero’s attention/rivalry.
yeah, as we all know, Walky has a good ass, like a dodgeball
Perfect Gravatar is perfect.
See, Walky? You’re already getting your own rogues gallery!
Walky is in over his head, and I am here for it.
Nah, Dina is there. All he has to do is trick him into saying something wrong about dinosaurs.
He already attacked Dina’s cereal, she doesn’t really need further reason to attack.
I’m pretty sure Jocelyne is focused on things other than your use of correct names right now, Joyce ^_^’
He remembers Nightguy too?
He remembers Walky. As in, he helped kidnap Walky.
Walky was in his early NightGuy costume at the time.
So for the past few days I was thinking Incelerator was just some ridiculous jerk but then I remembered he was part of the group that murdered Mike and it feels a bit more serious.
The weird thing about Dumbing of Age is that the costumed villains feel like much bigger threats than they do in actual superhero stories. Here we are more attached to the heroes as we spend more time with them out of costume than in. Also, our rag-tag team don’t have the bullet-proofing afforded by being a multimillion intellectual property or super powers.
A guy in roller-skates would a laughable threat to batman or spiderman, but here where conflicts are largely low-stakes fist fights between college kids, the fact that Incelerator could be stopped by a small pebble or any non-paved surface seems less important than the simple fact that he is willing to be party to crimes as severe as kidnapping and murder. In this comic world, a villain’s capability for violence is trumped by the mere capacity for it and it makes even the most low-stakes ridiculous foes a horrifying threat.
He also was part of the group that tried to break into houses they thought were occupied by women who accused Ryan of rape and do god knows what to them. Thankfully, AG flooded the places they hung out with fake addresses.
ELEVATE!
ELEVATE!
Were the junior kidnappers part of the crew when Mike was hurt (technically, I’m not sure you can even claim Blaine killed Mike, let alone anyone else since Mike tried to save AG by taking Blaine out with him)?
And I’m not sure they were aware of Blaine killing Toedad since it happened on the spur of the moment in the basement while none of them were down there.
Which would mean they were only part of kidnapping more than half a dozen people (admittedly, that’s still a major felony, but it’s much less serious than murder).
There’s also the attempted witness intimidation or whatever they were doing for Ryan, but I’m only trying reference the Blaine related crimes.
They weren’t with Blaine and Ross when they attacked Mike, nor were they in the room when Blaine attacked Ross, but they were still part of the operation and can still face charges as accessories.
I’m not up on Indiana laws, but in TX if you’re part of a group that one member of which kills a person the everybody in the group is guilty of capital murder. Unfair, I know, but that’s the law.
I think it usually has to be actually committing some crime as part of the group, not just hanging out with your pals when one of them flips out and kills someone. “Driver of the getaway car” is the usual example. “One of the kidnappers” certainly counts.
Mike wasn’t murdered, he died trying to stop Blaine. Possibly as a murder-suicide attempt if you want to get really dark. But I’m inclined to think as a ill conceived attempt at atonement.
Dude was part of a kidnapping, though, that involved the murder of Toedad.
Mike died as a result of injuries suffered in the fight initiated by Blaine and Toedad attacking him with stated intent that he die. There’s really no way to cut that that isn’t both legally and morally murder.
Morally? Sure, let’s go with that.
Legally? Nah.
There were only 3 witnesses to Mike’s fall.
One is no longer a giant walking talking toe, which leaves two witnesses (Blaine is dead as well, but he has to be alive for the purpose of this hypothetical arrest and trial).
So we’d have Blaine, a known mobster, kidnapper, and murderer who also has ties to law enforcement.
And we have AG, a vigilante alter of Blaine’s emotionally abused daughter.
Leaving aside the he-said-she-said aspect, and that AG would probably describe what happened truthfully – that Mike took the initiative to throw both him and Blaine over the railing – the average jury member is a layman when it comes to alters, as am I, and so would probably not trust AG as a reliable witness for that alone, let alone being a vigilante and his abused daughter.
There’s also no physical evidence against Blaine showing he threatened violence against Mike because, while he planned to kill Mike, he never actually laid a finger on him.
Mike was out of reach during the scooter chase, Toedad hit him with the car, and AG was fighting Blaine the whole time after that.
I’m sure even a subpar defense lawyer could get that down to manslaughter, and a decent one might get him acquitted.
Blaine himself wouldn’t hesitate to put the blame on Toedad, and Toedad couldn’t defend himself from the grave.
Hell, it’s possible that the district attorney wouldn’t even charge him for Mike’s murder so as not to muddy the waters for the much stronger cases of multiple kidnappings and Toedad murder.
It wouldn’t be that he said-she said though. Blaine told the group he kidnapped that he threw Mike off a third story balcony when he told them that if AG didn’t show with Becky, he’d kill all of them so they knew he wasn’t bluffing. If all of them testified to that, that would probably help. Plus Mike’s injuries would be consistent with what AG said happened.
The défense lawyer could just object to that as hearsay though.
The defense lawyer could also get fucked. We’ll see what happens.
Saying something meets the legal definition of a crime isn’t the same as saying the person would be found guilty of it in court. Your points were interesting, but also a lot of time rebutting something that wasn’t said.
Well no.
To say an action committed by a specific person in a specific situation is legally a crime ultimately culminates in what the person committing a crime is convicted of and/or if the crime itself can be deemed as such even without knowing who committed it.
There’s a difference between saying killing someone is murder and saying YOU killed someone and that doing so was murder.
People who were convicted of murder had actions judged as such, saying their actions were legally that, but if they are later acquitted, say like they were exonerated based on dna evidence, then THEIR actions were not legally murder because they did not actually commit actions leading to such.
When Tan says it is both legally AND morally murder, the connection to Blaine and Toedad’s actions become intrinsic to that statement, as morals wouldn’t come into play otherwise.
And once it becomes dependent on their specific actions, they either must legally be convicted of murder or Mike’s death must unequivocally be deemed a murder.
Since Mike jumped, what would make his death a murder would not be the method of death, but instead everything that led up to it, which, again, depends on how the Evil Dad Duo’s actions are judged in court.
Still no, dude. Saying something– a specific situation even!– meets the legal definition of a crime is not dependent on the party being found legally guilty. If you murder someone and never get caught, you have still murdered someone, and it’s still illegal.
If you want to argue Mike’s death doesn’t qualify as a murder legally, go for it. But don’t base it on what would be presented in court because we’re not in court.
Thats my point.
The death itself found from an outside party with no knowledge of the how it happened could not say it was murder vs manslaughter vs negligent nomicide vs reckless endangerment vs an accident vs suicide, so it would only legally be murder based upon the actions that led up to it, and those would have to be judged in court due to the circumstances of this particular death.
Sorry that you had to go through something that this discussion is bringing up past trauma for you.
I stand by what I’m saying though, so I guess we’ll have to drop this here.
I still don’t see how it’s hard to understand that there’s a difference between what happened– like, what you, as a reader, saw happen– and what could be presented to a court. You could absolutely make your argument without all the bullshit hypotheticals.
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about if Mike’s death would meet the legal definition of murder; the issue I have is how you’re not talking about that but something else, and saying it’s the same thing.
Have a good day, Yumi.
The court room argument is honestly fucking enraging. As a survivor, I’ve been trying to write the rest of this message and deleted it several times.
I feel this as well.
It is an argument which seems to be derived from the common notion that Law *itself* can never be something which is there to guide members of society, but only ever to *punish* people.
The unfortunately common conception of results of effective enforcement of Law via the whims of a small handful of people who run The System being where the utility of Law in society stops and ends, isn’t about shaping society, but communicating which kinds of people have to fear law enforcement (plural folk like Amber, POC and queers), and those who get to admire them.
Racists who instigated lynchings in the 1950s were very much guilty of murder by legal definition, however were often acquitted because all-white juries refused to convict.
In US Court, jurors cannot be punished for their verdict, even if they reached it improperly, and to this day the unfortunate reality is that Jury selection is far more likely to favor racist white people than people who think the justice system is racist.
The outcome of the flawed system is wholly independent of the fact that these people were very much legally guilty of murder.
Either genuine faith in the court system or collective suspension of disbelief in it’s efficacy does not magically change the fact that it is by itself unreliable in upholding the purpose of law itself.
TLDR: Mike’s death is not legally murder.
The reason is because he jumped of his own volition.
A case could be made that Blaine murdered him because of the situation surrounding his death, but that needs to be proven in court because the death itself is not murder; the extenuating circumstances are necessary to achieve that verdict, but I don’t think it would be enough.
It was not my intention to say a person is only guilty of a crime if convicted.
My intention was Mike’s death wasn’t murder, FULL STOP, you could argue in court that Blaine murdered him due to the circumstances, but I doubt it would stick because of reasons, FULL STOP.
————————————-
I guess I wasn’t clear if lynch mobs being found innocent of murder is being compared to my comment.
So I’ll try one more time to convey my thoughts.
If I still come across the way you perceive after this, I just have to chalk it up to a failure of communication on my part.
Here we go:
Mike’s death does not fit the legal definition of murder.
No one else killed Mike; he killed himself.
No one threatened Mike into killing himself.
No one drove Mike into a situation where he had no choice but to kill himself.
No one gave Mike a choice of either kill himself or option B.
Mike completely chose to throw himself over the railing with no physical, visual, or verbal input from anyone else.
And he did so to save his friend.
Neither Blaine nor Toedad told him, suggested to him, implied to him, expected him, or wanted him to do what he did.
If I honestly want to shoot you dead, I intend to do so, you know this, and you decide to drink yourself to death with my threat being very real, I did not legally commit murder (other crimes, yes, murder no).
But could a case be MADE to charge me with murder (not a lesser charge, but murder) on the idea that I drove you to that, sure, but that case would have to made in court as the death itself is not enough to say it was murder, let alone that I did it.
I’m saying what I just described would be the same situation as Blaine being charged with Mike’s death, and I gave reasons why I don’t believe the charge would stick.
I guess it’s my fault for not clearly separating that Mike’s death wasn’t legally murder from my further idea that the charge wouldn’t stick.
It was NEVER my intention to say NO ONE is guilty of a crime unless they are convicted of it.
My intention was to say that since this specific death does not fit the legal definition of murder, the only way to get Blaine for this death AS a murder would be to succeed in court, and I doubted that possibility with the reasons I gave.
Compare that to the death of Toedad: it unequivocally fits the legal definition of a murder (murder 2 probably, but not murder 1 since it wasn’t preplanned).
Blaine could have escaped scott free or even been acquitted in court for some bs reason and I’d still say he murdered him.
I feel that Mike’s death meets the qualifications of felony murder, which I would still consider murder. But– legally. I actually feel Mike’s death is LESS morally murder– for the reasons you outlined– than it is legally murder.
Your previous comments, yes, lynch mobs, those acquitted of abuse that occurred, victims whose cases were thrown out before they could even try to argue them in court– all those were in discussion with your initial comments.(I mean, you brought up he-said-she-said when determining if something was legally a crime or not.)
As I said initially, I do think you bring up interesting points– I fall on the side of felony murder, but not unmovably so– but the most you could have been said to give to “legal definition” before moving on to the court room stuff was “Nah.”
All my comments were either about Mike’s death specifically or made a distinction for crimes that were unequivocally what they looked like (even I’m annoyed at how many times I used the word).
A lynch mob is unequivocally murder.
We didn’t go into details about abuse victims and cases that never went to court, but there’s no need to go into details about a lynch mob being unequivocally murder because lynching is a type of murder and is inherently part of the term.
I brought up he-said-she-said specifically for AG vs Blaine on the witness stand for trying to get Blaine for Mike’s murder, not crime in general.
I did not mention it in relation to whether if anything is ever a crime, but in reference to getting Mike’s death judged as a murder with Blaine as the murderer, due to the lack of physical evidence in that specific crime that would normally do the heavy lifting.
Since Blaine never touched him, and we have no knowledge of any surveillance in the area, the only way Blaine gets attached to the murder in court is if AG says it’s him.
I write a lot to try to avoid confusion (it doesn’t always work, clearly), so it’s easy to for points to be missed, either because others didn’t see/get it, or because I didn’t say it clearly/at all.
I think this conversation was a little of column A, a little of column B.
A lot of people might work from the baseline assessment that Mike’s death DOES meet the definition of murder — such as the one you replied to. I didn’t find it clear you had moved on to a different argument aafter the first two lines of your first comment, and you seemed to affirm you hadn’t. That’s where all the other stuff (via living in a society) came in.
I also feel that holding convictions to a high degree of proof and having empathy for victims whose assailants are acquitted is important in society, which is why I think a lot of this stuff matters.
“To say an action committed by a specific person in a specific situation is legally a crime ultimately culminates in what the person committing a crime is convicted of and/or if the crime itself can be deemed as such even without knowing who committed it.” is pure nonsense, on roughly the same level of legal understanding as Sovereign Citizens. Laws have definitions that facts either meet or do not meet. In an ideal world this would (roughly) correspond with convictions, but neither we nor these characters live in an ideal world.
The facts of what happened meet the legal definition of murder, whether it would be provable beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law or not. You are getting super caught up on hypothetical testimony and what a hypothetical jury would and would not choose to believe when that is simply unnecessary. The jury finds the facts of what happened, but we already KNOW the facts of what happened because we saw it. If the jury knew what we know, and assuming no corruption, Blaine would be guilty.
Mike was fighting for both his own and Amber’s life. “He jumped of his own volition” is also nonsense. He was cornered at the top of a narrow stairway with two men blocking his way down, one of whom had a weapon he was swinging with obvious lethal intent (both in his actions and in his words). Mike lunged at said attacker, because his other option was to stand there and watch Blaine kill his friend and then kill him.
But let’s go back to your absolutely nonsense premise. Is this a situation that can be deemed a crime without knowing who committed it? Mike has injuries consistent with being hit by a car, followed by a long fall. No car accident involving Mike was reported. Blaine, Toedad, and Mike are not giving statements on the matter due to being dead. Amazi-Girl is not giving a statement on the matter due to being a vigilante who would be putting herself at risk for no benefit. So at minimum someone who knew nothing else of what happened could readily conclude that this was a hit-and-run that resulted in a death, which, hey, that’s definitely a crime. Going a little further might even find damage to Toedad’s car consistent with having hit a person and having been in the right area at the time (and given the knowledge that Blaine and Toedad were working on kidnapping a bunch of kids from this university campus, all of whom are friends with Mike, might even reasonably conclude that this happened during attempts to kidnap, which would make it murder specifically). They’d be wrong about how it got there, but your premise didn’t mention anything about being correct.
Or, alternatively, we could just… Look at the series of pages where the things happened and say hey this is murder, based on this knowledge of having read exactly what happened. Which is what I did.
I think you’re talking about the difference between what’s legally true (if all the facts were proven) and what a jury will believe (given the evidence presented).
Not exactly.
I’m saying that due to Mike basically taking himself out, what makes it murder depends solely on the actions of the others involved and how they are judged.
Without those actions being judged as murder, it’s not murder.
If no one knew the circumstances of how Mike ended up like that, it could be deemed an accident, self harm, or murder.
As opposed to someone who died in a way that was unarguably murder, like being hit repeatedly until they died.
And I know I would find it hard to deem Mike’s act of self sacrifice to save a friend as him being murdered, even if the end result was what the Evil Dad Duo wanted.
If the that part is left out, if all that’s said is that there was a fight, an attack, and he ended up going over the railing, sure, I’d probably see that as murder or, more likely, manslaughter.
But since both AG and Blaine would probably tell how he threw himself off, I don’t think murder would be deemed the actual crime.
It’s kind of funny that Incelerator seems actually pleased to see him.
Also, I like that Walky knows this about the police structure of Bloomington.
I mean, Incelerator is doing this for the attention.
She’s trying.
Very, very trying.
Joyce may be an Atheist, but I assure you Christian Atheist is NOT an oxymoron. Especially given her Fundamentalist Background.
For all her life, Joyce’s known rules first and foremost as things not to help people and shape society for the better, but to judge and punish Those Who Stray From The Path.
Her pointing out her progress in pronouns here is likely motivated from her long ingrained fear of being judged, same basic deal with why she was motivated to stop Ruth from “backsliding” when she was seen dating Jason.
my exact thought!
I’m a little worried because Nightguy is up against someone who could, by virtue of when he appeared, be a Dayman.
You know, the fighter of the Nightman. And the champion of the sun.
A really goofy battle is about to commence!!!
SHO EXCITING! I’ll grab popcorn! ^^
*plays “Rubber Bazooka” from One Piece CD on hacked muzak*
…also thinking a little more I’m a little worried for Walky here considering his arc has had him grappling with institutional/subconcious racism, and he’s wearing a mask against someone who has an even lighter skin tone.
How many concussions did AG give him?
Pretty sure he got kicked in the face by her when she first introduced then there were like several other encounters up until the kidnapping where he may or may not have been the one being Hurricanranaded into a dinning table, tied up, then punched out by Malaya.
Okay but I’m just waiting for Joe to realize that this is stupid, he’s larger than both of them combined, and just like, knock the incel over and sit on his legs
Joe’s not much of a fighter.
…. seriously, I think all that we’ve seen out of him, fight-wise, is getting punched a lot by Mike and Joyce.
Joe is the tank, not the dps.
I’m picturing him winning this like a 6’4″, 280lb friend of mine won a fight one.
Angry drunk dude just started punching him in the back for some perceived slight, my buddy eventually turns around and says, deadpan: “I haven’t reacted to you hitting me yet. I’m going to do so eventually. Are you sure you want to be here for that?”
Joe might also get arrested for assault in this universe. He doesn’t have a costume to protect his identity or loved ones.
1) It should be obvious that in this setting being larger has little to do with being dangerous, even more so than in the real world. Joe is also larger than Amber & Sal combined, but that wouldn’t help him.
2) The Incel here’s annoying, but he hasn’t really crossed the line into physical threat. Maybe if someone had just reacted to him smapping Dina’s tray, but it’s been a bit and he hasn’t done anything else. Joe’d be the one in trouble if he attacked now.
oh he’s a villain alright
but I’ve yet to see any evidence of him being a super one
Actually, he does seem to have presentation down.
…. the rest of him is awful, of course, but at least he’s owning the look.
Funny/sad thing is he probably thinks of himself as the hero.
Well, he’ll either die soon enough or live long enough to realize he’s the villain.
(First time using italics so I hope I do it right).
close! ya gotta close it off with the tag spelled right
dammit, the parser ate the tag, here:
come on, if i can’t show HTML what does the
code tageven DO? (-_-)You need “code”, not “tag”.
Or just resort to HTML trickery and spell out the HTML entities for < and >: < and > 🙂
So: </i> closes the tag.
…also,
tagis not in the list of allowed tags right under the comment window.Nightguy finally establishing a rogues gallery
I forgot for a moment Walky was in his Nightguy persona the entire time he was kidnapped.
Thanks for the reminder.
It’s awfully nice of half the main cast to just be indulging this man’s humiliation fetish.
🧺 “Come on everybody, bounce your balls!” XD
Ok this Walky is definitely NOT taking out any aliens etc
Time for someone to fetch Joyce her cannon.
Wait a minute. Incelerator only introduced himself like 15 seconds ago, far to little time for Walky to have gone up and retrieved his costume. As Walky did not recognize him, this means Walky just saw some guy dressed up like that and instead of thinking “oh cool, a sophomore is putting some flare into his physics presentation today” he assumed he was a hardened criminal and prepared to throw hands.
No wonder we haven’t seen Nightguy around, he’s probably been busy stalking all the visiting sports mascots trying to learn their nefarious schemes.
For what it’s worth, NightGuy! may well have spotted the Incelerator out the window or something before the arrival at the food court, and thus began hustling here early enough to show up this promptly.
He would have great difficulty stalking any sports mascots at Indiana University, considering his reluctance to ever visit the stadium; Google tells me that IU has no mascot of its own, so it’s not like he could stalk the home team’s either.
…oh, flair. Took me a while.
He probably got a quick change costume made of “unstable molecules” from Reed Richards. Like the X-Men did.
WAit SHIT! Im out of state on clunky ass bush wifi. Someone put nightguy, Incellerator and amazi-girl in the Spiderman meme all pointing at each other!
That’ll cost ya $300.
For a bush wifi? I’m not sure what my portable Internet costs per year because it’s part of a package, but that seems highish, but if the equipment is thrown in, maybe not.
I don’t think that’s internet service plus equipment; I think it’s a commission rate.
Now it’s $700, after the sass fee.
Does the Incelerator© have some sort of glowing light source behind those goggles, or is that just supposed to be glare from the overhead fluorescents?
I believe that’s his eyes behind the shades.
When he looked at Dina from the corner of his eye two strips ago, it seemed to be in that approximate position to match.
That would be hilarious. He built some leds in there too look cool, rendering him mostly blind
The stakes have never been lower! It’s an incel on wheels who doesn’t know what he’s doing here, versus a superhero who’s trained for no time to be the best at anything!
Who could the incelerator be, though… Who has met nightguy, one of Blaine’s hired idiots? DID DANNY GET DUMPED EARLIER TODAY AND ARE THOSE THE CONSEQUENCES?
He’s Nightguy and he can breathe in space.
It’s a shame he doesn’t have any other powers, since that one is unlikely to come up.
Incelerator is one of Blaine’s hired idiots.
“So we meet again, Nightguy! FOR THE LAST TIME!”
“Not today…whoever you are.”
another gaza gofundme for anyone who can give! https://gofund.me/418f3c31
Surely Nightguy’s ability to maturely deal with emotions will be of use here.
anyway as well designed the incelerator is i hope he is hit by a truck
Is it coincidence that Incelerator is up against a incredibly popular with women person of color man who respects them and thus has gotten laid in multiple relationships?
I mean…probably?
One can be a multiple if you’re working with fractions, I suppose.
Still… I was expecting Carly and I think that Joyce was as well. Who but another roller skater can take this guy?
Dunno, stairs might prove effective
So Joyce wasn’t expecting Nightguy. I wonder if Amazi-Girl or a new superhero we haven’t seen before is gonna show up soon too.
Boring surprise: she texted the campus police. We just need a few more strips to assemble all of the people who were kidnapped, so they can all point and say in unison: “HE WAS ONE OF THEM! ARREST HIM!”
Anyone else notice that NightGuy looks a lot like Sal? Coincidence?
“I’m Jennifer, this is TMZ” XD
Walky’s going to handle this? Three eminently capable people on hand, and It’s Walky?
Stupid problems need stupid solutions.
The stupid thing is that sometimes works.
I mean, he’s not a physical threat.
He’s a roller skating supervillain.
So Nightguy is just a seasonal cameo?
Yeah, who’s the Commissioner ’round this city? And are they prepared against… Notre Dame
Is that a reference I am not getting, or a reference to the rightly-long-forgotten* movie “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home”?
* Except by me, obviously.
No reference today. Just that there’s a game this weekend against them.
Look at him. He’s finally getting the attention he thinks he deservers.
Disgusting.
There’s only so many ways to say “the incel is devoid of human value”.
That just means we gotta get creative!
His superhero name really ought to be “Walkman”.
That could mean trouble with the sliding timescale – do Kids Today™ still know what a walkman was?
Honestly it would be funny. Walky all proud of his new hero name and getting confused when people like 10 years older than him make references he lacks the knowledge to understand
Night Walker maybe to fuse both?
I’m starting a Go-Funned-Me to finance a campaign to get Nightguy his own tag.
I plan to accomplish this by taking the proceeds and buying and consuming Larado Tacos (which are actually burritos but a large step up from Taco Bell anything) and letting the universe work it’s magic.
I wonder if this guy has delusions, of the clinical sort.
okay walky you might actually have this one
he’s on skates, you just gotta shove him in a direction there’s stuff to trip on
Next question, how do you resolve any of this? No one is in danger so far. Definitely harrassed, but you’ll both need a lot more encouragement for this to escalate to fisticuffs. Maybe if Dina had been allowed to bite out his throat. I think the moment’s passed though. Now everyone who’s not a costumed idiot is just annoyed.
The only fitting resolution is for the encounter to just end at some point and everyone go about their day. It doesn’t deserve to be an all-day situation.
Do it like you do the fundamentalist missionaries on campus.
Walk away and ignore him.
The better approach to the fundie missionaries on campus is bagpipes.
Or just eat their ass and tell their parents they’re getting their ass ate by someone other than Jesus.
Mockery, I think.
Unless he gives enough hints that someone realizes he’s one of the kidnappers, in which case, call the cops.
I find it hilarious that Ethan looks like Nightwing but Walky is the one who became him.
Walky missed a big opportunity when he failed to recruit Lucy as NightGirl.
Lucy: “Costume? This is just pajamas!”
Walky: “Because NightGirl rules the night!”
Lucy: “Why the cutout over the chest? It’s cold out there!”
Walky: “It’s you, it’s very you.”
Jennifer: Oh my God, Amber is Nightgirl!
Lucy: OH COME ON.
Imagine them doing choreographed action poses like Gohan and Videl
One of NightGuy’s powers is NightSight(tm), which makes it look like it is night to him, even when it isn’t.
I say this in all seriousness. What the hell does Walky think he’s doing? Does he think his home-made costume grants him superpowers? Does he think this is a joke? Is he really that childish or has he finally snapped?
The other guy’s costume doesn’t give him superpowers either.
He doesn’t think it gives him powers, but it’s also a dude who willingly is calling himself “Incelerator”. Walky probably doesn’t need to be terribly concerned.
Let’s hope his superpower is ‘Distracting the villain long enough for actual help to arrive’
Just wondering if Willis starts to draw full-circled eyes in all chars, like he did with Nightguy today…
I’m pretty sure it’s because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see Walky’s — I mean NIGHTGUY’S eyes at all in that mask.
Maybe for the daytime Night Signal they briefly turn off the stack scrubbers at the power plant?
“Did you ever throw me into a van?”
“… gonna have to be more specific.”