The more things change
January 4, 2016
2:55 am
Funny story that has basically nothing to do with this comic, I actually just found out about the Captain America character, Nuke, for the first time this week and realized Tank probably seems like he’s supposed to be a straight-up lampoon of him. It sort of makes me proud that I hand picked his tropes well enough to resemble characters I wasn’t even aware of.
Anyway, this bit of history between the two of them is actually what most of the side comics I’ve been posting on patreon have been about. I think there’s like 16 of them up at the $1 tier right now over the past couple months.
Bit of a callback to this one.
Now I got to admit, that’s a little odd. Dating your ex’s brother is pretty gutsy.
I figure there’s like a couple hundred super soldiers tops who all grew up together so everyone has those tense romantic histories like you get in small towns.
Makes sense. The lecture / romantic recrimination while fixing things is pretty adorable in a Commandery way, too.
By the way, just wanted to say that the Lobo fanart would already have made this week’s worth waiting for (and I didn’t even have the slightest interest in Lobo until you started explaining him), and for any callback to the Bisexual Barbecue, double worth waiting for.
I think you mean “Bi the way”!
Bum dum tssssh.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BiTheWay
Now I want a space opera/soap opera series based on this premise. Desperately.
“Desperate Batch-Fives”?
I second this motion!
Did anyone else read this as
I figure there’s like a couple hundred super soldiers tops
and not
I figure there’s like a couple hundred super soldiers, tops
if you know what I mean
I have a fraternity brother whose mom is married to his dad’s brother. He has an unclestepdad. So, yaknow, art imitates life imitates art…
(Apparently everyone’s pretty much mostly-fine with it, BTW. It’s not like this schism that’s ruined family gatherings forever, or anything. She was just, like, “Well, I knew I wanted to marry into this family, just picked the wrong brother. Whoopsie!” #NotAnActualQuote)
Soooo… it was like dating Brucie Kibbutz?
More like simultaneously dating Brucie and one of his cars.
I kinda would love to see who has dated who of this group, growing up with a rather small social circle seems like it would lead to loads of “well I’ve kinda dated everyone here but my own siblings” situation
So Tank was the guy that Commander picked up? I would have thought that after the Spider incident he would have stopped dating coworkers.
And where did he get the leather jacket from?
After rereading the comic, as well as last week’s, I came to the obvious conclusion. He knitted himself a leather Jacket and Jeans.
… Sheep wool… Cotton… Synthetic fibers… Leather…?
Just a hoodie and sweatpants to change into when they finished playing their game.
It”s actually evident that it is a sort of post-workout scenario, seeing Jones with a towel
Armor is ridiculously sweaty in most weather conditions. As soon as you get out you’ll want to get rid of some of that. Preferably with a shower, but hey.
Speaking as someone who’s worn full plate, this person speaks truth. Wearing full plate on a warm summer day is about the closest a human can get to being delicately roasted in their own juices and still be alive and mostly functional afterward.
It was routine battle strategy throughout history against heavily armored foes to just deny engagement while they broiled under the sun for hours, then charge them while they’re exhausted and delirious from the heat.
Makes me think Tank would mess with them sometimes just so the Commander can work on him.
That kinda makes sense really.
…oh my god…I ship it.
Having just read the paron comics, I love Tank/Lobster.
I mean, I did like Lobster/Jonsey but.. I like him with tank more. theres something adorable about the fact Tank needs Lobster, theres a level of support and dependancy. While Jonsey dosen’t need him atall, she just likes him. If that all makes sense.
Heres to hopeing one day he’ll get back with Tank >.>
Dude, NO. Nobody should ever date anyone else with the intention of “fixing” them. Don’t bother dating anyone unless you’re both grown-ass people working out your own issues. Trying to change someone will only end in heartache and/or handguns. Been there, seen that, called the cops.
But he’s not trying to fix him! he’s stabalising him. (well technically he is fixing him in a mechanical sense, but thats like a doctor fixing someone up.) He’s acting as a big solid Rock (lobster) to give Tank some stability. Its pretty adorable in a messed up way.
No denying that Jonsey/Lobster is the more healthy relationship, but Lobster/Tank is more impacting and interesting to see. Which in a comic is what you want.
as someone with mental illness DATING someone else w/ mental illness, do not maintenance-date anyone. just dont. if you are together for other reasons, you can do the support-system thing, but DO NOT date anyone for your or their mental or physical health. D O N T
even the hyper-codependant dance me and the smoochfriend are doing is low-key fucked up, just
dont date to fix, change or maintain anything about a person
THIS. I’m disabled for mental illness, my husband is able-minded. I have a rule with him: NO SAVING, NO PATIENTS. Like, yes, he gives me stability, BUT I GIVE HIM STABILITY TOO. He’s my hubby, not my shrink or my care worker.
In story form, I totally get what Commander and Jonesy get out of their relationship. And while I could see what Tank would get from Commander, I DON’T see what Commander would get out of that relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I feel empathy for Tank, in this “god, now I know EXACTLY how my husband felt every time I thought it’d be a great idea going off my meds” way, but I personally would rather not see that trainwreck.
making another person responsible for your happiness can be an unpleasant, ticking time bomb for both parties.
Yeah, I can definitly see why they broke up. And as I said, Lobster/Jonsey is a LOT more healthy of a relationship. I just find something adorable about Tank/Lobster after reading the little background comics. Its sweet in a messed up way.
Yeah, that kinda relationship kinda just makes me cringe. Reading this comic as someone disabled by mental illness, I was like, “wow, now I know EXACTLY how my husband felt every time I thought it’d be a genius idea to go off my meds.” The difference being, I was smart enough to LISTEN to my husband when he was like, “Honey, no. Please no.”
Like, I understand the appeal, but having been someone where people have tried to be my rock and stability, it is SO not actually sweet being there. I give my husband stability too. He doesn’t just balance me; I help balance HIM.
…YES.
For some reason, I’m reminded of a scene from the Books of Magic (Harry Potter comic book by Neil Gaiman, before there was Harry Potter). The main character, boy wizard, has a magic rock that makes it really easy for him to do magic, and someone else takes it away. Paraphrasing:
“Hey, you took the rock that does all my magic!”
“You need to learn to stand on your own, not use this as a crutch all the time.”
“Will you give it back if when I need it?”
“No. I’ll give it back when you don’t.”
Err. Sorry, I was kind of vague. I meant that I ship one-sided Lobster/Tank, with Tank being as tsundere as a cactus and moe as a terminator-cyborg.
I wouldn’t ship it. Even as I typed it I knew that that sounded dysfunctional. I was going to say that it seems like a relationship built around Munchhausen but I wasn’t sure if that was right.
I had a friend that would always talk of suicide, and I would always be his emotional crutch. After awhile it became very emotionally draining. One day he said something that made me snap at him as I realized that he was doing it for attention. I’m still his friend just not as close as before. They make it seem simple in those stories but on the opposite end it is extremely exhausting.
A relationship like that is definitely a horrible idea. I had the same issue with a friend, except he would call me every few days or so to describe these horrible placebo symptoms he had. He was your regular ol’ hypochondriac, and he would regularly drive me to the point of tears and anxiety because he was in “pain” and scared and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It was very toxic, and I finally snapped at him one day when I was at a friend’s house, because he got mad at me for choosing swimming over hearing about the rhetorical breathing disorder he developed overnight. We stopped talking altogether until maybe a few months ago (6 years later). It seems he’s gotten out of his spells, thankfully, but I’m glad I wasn’t part of the process. He needed real help, and an awkward teenager that was 4 years younger than him was not going to cut it. Worst part, though, is people thought we’d make an adorable couple, even when I told them about all this stuff. A toxic spill just waiting to happen, and they were disappointed that I didn’t date him and that “I could have made him better”.
You’re right. In a real life situation that type of relationship dynamic would be incredibly unhealthy. I know I get angry at the whole manga rape-turns-into-relationship thing, and my reasoning actually runs on the same fail-logic.
I’ve had a couple of clients as an intern who had borderline traits, if not outright borderline pd, and they were draining as hell with the constant phonecalls as stupid o’clock and the anger and rage when you don’t answer or try to pull back and reassert boundaries.
It’d be a… lobster tank?
Tank’s last line made me giggle because it’s really very true.
Wait, what happened to Spider’s Hotel?!
it has a megalodon smashed through one of the walls.
I just realised we can still see the megalodon in his sweater in the background.
I love finding details like this.
And… let’s count the levels of relationship between these two. Tank and Commander are siblings. Tank used to bully Commander. Tank used to DATE commander. This is just… wow…@.@
They’re not siblings. Jet, Ace, and Cate are the only ones in his family unit test tube pod. Spider is Tank’s family unit test tube pod sister.
I do refer back to the link you gave me a few Comics back showing the family groups in the team but I still find it hard to relate to just how each person is related. even though I love how they are with each other. And how spider treats Tank like the spoiled, annoying little brother when she told him that his ego was the reason why Cate was beating down
Rock, Ace, Jet, and Cate are one family
Angel, Sigrun, Wagner, Brunhilde are one family
Tank and Spider are one family
Rock and Spider were together until Spider Robocopped herself, Angel is married to Jet.
Their family units were tactically strategic groupings they were grown in the same bell jar with, like a big guy like tank with someone tiny and nimble like Spider so she can get across precarious obstacles and set up a safe way to get get him across.
Are Tank and Spider the only ones in their family, or are there others we haven’t been introduced to yet?
Whoops, now I’m imagining an asymmetrical coop action platformer starring Tank and Spider.
Think Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, except with rad future soldiers and a leveling system that involves grafting on robot parts.
Oh my god yesssssss.
It made me think of the Lego video games.
That does explain why Tank is always up in Commander B’s grill whenever he messes with the hormone balance.
This blends with the patreon stuff just wonderfully, love your work Coelasquid
Agreed, knowing the history meshes really well :)
Didn’t the commander mention something about there being nothin fun to do with a project car if it doesn’t damage itself occasionally?
Probably part of why he’d frown on Tank trying to dehumanize himself like that.
“Man, ya gotta fukken stop talking about yerself like that. ‘Sides, as someone that works with a tonna video game characters, in my professional opinion yer more Mario Kart than Project Cars.”
This weirdly reminds me of “wish fulfillment” brain-chemistry scenarios I sometimes think about. Like, if you could change aspects of your personality at will, it would just take a single moment of weakness – “I wish I didn’t care so much about other people” – to turn into a different person with no reason to change back. Just a slippery slope of bad or at least selfish decision-making.
There’s a cursed helmet in D&D that does something similar. Put it on and you switch to the opposite of your current alignment–and since that’s your alignment now, you probably see no reason to get it changed back.
I dunno, “not getting slaughtered by paladins and/or my teammates” can be a pretty compelling reason if you adventure with murderhobos.
Taking off the helmet kind of means death for that personality, though, unless they put it on later.
As I recall, the Helm of Opposite Alignment and Girdle of Opposite Gender impose their curse once per person, and it sticks. Taking them off and putting them back on accomplishes nothing; you need powerful magic like Remove Curse to break the enchantment. I think the Helm of Opposite Alignment does work on evil twins generated by a Mirror of Opposition, but they’ll still be compelled to kill the original.
what the heck does it do to True Neutrals? Or Chaotic or Lawful Neutrals for that matter?
‘i used to be a self-focused loner with a thing for stirring up trouble for laughs but now I am Rules McNoFunAllowed’?
As with all things DND, it depends on the DM. I personally would probably randomize the alignment of the sucker that used it, but I could see the argument for it doing nothing, and just having them say “Hey, cool helmet.”.
Also, Lawful don’t mean Rules McNoFunAllowed all the time. I’ve always interpreted it as being a character with a strong sense of order. A friend of mine played a char where he played a Lawful Neutral thief, who had a strong code of personal ethics and a desperate need for routine rather than any adhesion to a legal system.
I’ve gone from “being unable to focus and wishing i could center on something” to “absolute focus” and everybody agreed it was way worse.
I feel really bad for Tank for having such fits because the “hangover” from them is not only damaging for him but for people he normally cares for. As Jones puts it in panel 6, it’s damaging for everybody. So more respect for Commander to handle the situation. Even more so, because they were so close before – closeness inflicts more pain. As funny as the whole excursion comic was, this part is pretty depressing. It gives the characters more depth than expected.
I gotta admit, I’m pretty confused about all the super soldier characters, can we get a summary cast page one day? :)
Um.
>a href=”http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/big-shakeup-news”>We already did.
Aaand this is one of many reasons I shouldn’t comment after 2 AM. Whoops.
Commander and Tank used to date? I honestly didn’t see that coming o_O
Aside from Nuke’s weird American patriotism and face flag tattoo, you are right, Tank does seem to resemble him in the personality department. Marvel and DC are so full of overpowered muscled and big guys, when people make their own versions for their stories it is rather easy to hit some similarities from the comic collective. In this case: Soldier, cloning, metal enhancements, and a rage that only he understands.
So wait, Rock and Tank’s romantic relationship were Rock driving Tank as a car?
How very Utena.
Countdown to Jonesey getting Robocopped XD
Tank just looks so sheepish about the entire fiasco. I guess once the rage drugs wear off, he’s embarrassed about being a malfunctioning project. His comparison of himself to a project car would indicate some self- esteem issues.
It’s like the spacefuture equivalent of waking up with a hangover and realizing you left your ex a dozen voice mails.
For a moment there I thought Tank used to go out with spider and got himself an unrelated boyfriend later.
more guy dating “hints” uh? interesting hehe
This isn’t so much of a “hint” as a canonical “Commander is bi and used to date Tank.”
AFAIK Rock’s relationship history: dated Spider in high school, Tank at an undisclosed time after Spider (WOG earlier in the thread), married/divorced Maddie, now going-to-bars with Jones
Coela, thank you so so so so much for including a badass, hilarious, caring, unapologetically bisexual father in your comic. It’s hard to tell you how much this means to me, and probably several other bi folks who read MGDMT. But it means a lot.
What Ducky said.
Casually dropping the bi-bomb is scary as heck, because once you’ve mentioned one relationship, people will often slot your sexuality accordingly to that one relationship and it’s so tempting to just stay quietly in that category and not say anything that would confuse people needlessly.
Obviously I’m a complete coward, but it would be so cool to be badass and casual like the commander. I have found my fictional role model.
Word.
“The right person” is harder for some people to wrap their head around than “the right boy” or “the right girl”, but there’s no less authenticity or love involved.
Yep.
And cue endless discussions when you bring your sig. other, who is of the opposite sex, to functions and people asking if you’ve finally gotten past your queer phase. :/
I generally don’t bring it up at all because I hate getting angry.
Wonder if there’s something subconscious with Tank that part of why he messes with his system is because it might give him some more time with Rock. That or it could also be addictive, in terms of surges of feelings of power or something similar. I have to say that the more I learn about the commander the more interesting this becomes. Have to agree with Ducky, I’m not bi myself but it’s always nice to see more bi characters.
It sounds a little bit like what bipolar people sometimes deal with — the high of the “manic” stage influences how the brain handles the memories made during that time. While controlled by meds, after a while of taking them and having a relatively normal existence, sometimes people start to wonder if they need the medication after all — they are totally OK when off of it (human memories are so fallible it’s incredible), after all. So they go off the medication, and start having ups and downs again, until it gets bad enough that other notice and intervene.
Only in Tank’s case, his temptation is that after a while he remembers himself as having been much more awesome and effective when his system is fucked up than he really was, and begins to worry if he’s making himself a wimp by *not* messing with his various hormones and such. Like if he viewed Aggro Tank as the equivalent of himself having been overclocked.
Hm okay. Learning this about Tank actually raised some questions for me about the Commander.
So clearly, unlike Tank, Commander is confident in himself and his masculinity. He doesn’t really worry whether or not people see him as strong or ‘manly’ enough. Despite his outward appearance and demeanor, we regularly see his more gentle side. That said, he does perform and participate in a great deal of ‘manly’ activities (smoking cigars with the boys, training free range fire, worshipping Marlon Brando, wanting to kill Canada guy, etc.) and he clearly chose his position at the top of a hierarchy of ‘manly’ men; granted, to help them reintegrate into society, but still. My question is, how much is Commander trying to fit an image? Does he just naturally happen to like stereotypically manly things? Or does he have his own image insecurities that we don’t usually see?
A lot of stereotypically “manly” things are in reality super fun to do, to be honest. I think in his case it would be a combination of “things he grew up doing because they were trying to make him a cool badass” and “things he enjoys doing because he grew up doing them”. A person who goes out fishing with their family every weekend as a kid is more likely to go out fishing as an adult than someone who has never held a fishing rod before. Commander does things he enjoys, sometimes that’s punching meat in an industrial freezer, sometimes it’s baking muffins with his kids. That balance of old world timey charm and vigor without the old timey masculine stifling social boundaries.
Yeah, it seems to be a misunderstanding lots of people have. “Manly” stuff in and of itself is not contrived at all for a lot (if not most) of us dudes: it’s what we’re used to and even sometimes without prior experience take to naturally. Sometimes we just enjoy trying even if we’re bad at a particular one. We know we have our other strengths to fall back on (i suck at fishing, but I dare anyone to throw a spear/shovel a driveway better than me!).
In fact, since the details of what is considered “manly” vary widely (even if the basics are common), to say aspirations towards manliness in general is stifling is a mistake: you can have a particular take on manliness be limiting if it is too widely enforced, but the general concept is too broad to be limiting. I.e. being an overly assertive arse is considered manly by some, but most people I know consider being chivalrous and respectable the hallmarks of manliness – these are polar opposites, yet encapsulated in the same concept.
I’ve always found it strange how some people strongly discourage any and all “manly” pursuits and urges because they consider manliness to be the purview of assholes (in short). They don’t know it, but they are usually the ones with the most restrictive view of manliness and their recommendations amount to the ultimate form of stifling social boundaries. My usual thought in response to this is “dude, if you don’t like it, don’t do it, but by Crom mind your own business”…
…Which is why I love this comic. It actually shows an understanding of the diversity of its main subject, being manliness in all its goofy glory. And through this understanding, we get to see one of the manliest characters around, a true role model.
Crom approves of Rock Lobster. If Canada Guy didn’t exist, I’d vote for the Commander as Prime Minister.
… although I have to ask, will the megalodon be returned to the sea? It might be tricky to pry it out of the collapsed hotel.
I think that’s an issue I have with how far some people have taken that whole “masculinity so fragile thing”, like, okay yeah it is silly that on a broad scale soda companies have found men avoid diet pop because it’s been advertised in such a heavily gendered way towards women in the past that now they’re trying to use aggressively polar “NOT FOR WOMEN!” branding to turn the tables, but a lot of really aggressively “Manly” branding is pretty fun and self aware. I mean, I used to get my hair cut at an old-timey styled barber shop connected to a tattoo parlour called “Manly and Sons” that gave to a free shot of rum with every cut, and it was the best. One of the friendliest barber shops I’ve ever been to, and they always did a great job of cutting my hair. If someone wants to say that kind of thing is toxic masculinity in action I would have to respectfully disagree while I enjoy my free rum and entertaining conversation and good haircut.
That sounds awesome. o:
…Dammit, this is going to depress me tomorrow when I go get my haircut. There will be no rum. Why will there be no rum?
Ask them for all of us here “But where has all the rum gone?”
It only becomes toxic when it is used to exclude women from all the fun stuff — which is how it was used on me, growing up in a conservative Christian society in the Seventies. “You have to be the one who stays home and cleans and cooks while your father and brothers go out and have all the fun, Because God Said Girls Must.”
OK, but are the raptors alright? Are they still in their adorable tuxedos?
They probably tore the sleeves off and are playing cute little macho raptors. Preparing for the next Games and all that.
Oh My God. Now I’m getting this mental image that Tank and Commander’s idea of a foreplay is Commander polishing his shiny parts and replacing the used oil in his servomotors.
I like how you don’t make a big thing about sexuality in your stories. “Yeah, I’ve dated guys.” Then they just move on. I think that’s pretty awesome. Never been attracted to a guy, myself, but it gets rather tiring, seeing all these characters whose sexuality is blasted out there, like you can’t be gay, bi, or pansexual, without always making a big thing of it, and you can’t be straight without being uncomfortable around anyone who’s not. A long way to go, to get to this point, but here it is. You keep it classy, and light, and I like that.
Problem is, it hasnt been completely normalized yet, so its still seen as this sensational thing, especially in mainstream media. Give it a few more decades, and it’ll just be an afterthought like hetro romance.
I’m enjoying the idea of Commander dating someone who can pick him up and cuddle him like a teddy bear. That must have been a novel experience for him.
Maybe after dating pocket-size Spider, he wanted to see what it was like from the other side?
Daawwwww…. So sweet I’ve got a mouthful of cavities.
Geesh, who HASN’T he dated?
Cut the guy a break, it’s a small dating pool in the generic spacefuture super-soldier barracks.
But he’s dated people outside that pool as well. He has an ex-wife with kids and is now dating Jones too. Makes me wonder how MUCH experience he’s had. lol
Which begs the question of how the hell he met his ex-wife. I know it was probably time-travel shenanigans, but still…
I thought that Tank was supposed to be a riff on The Russian from Ennis’ Marvel Knights Punisher run, but then again there’s a lot of that run that’s a pisstake/tribute to Frank Miller, so it all comes around.
He’s sorta like some combination of Bane and the Russian with Brock Lesnar’s disposition.
Nobody mentioning the elephant in the room, which in this case is a sweater wearing megalodon in the background… is it dead? It can’t survive being beached that long I don’t think… is there gonna be a big shark barbecue?
Are they gonna eat the sweater too?
The level of quality in this comic has now dropped. You all should be ashamed.
HOW HAS NO ONE ASKED WHERE THE MEGALADON IS!?
(And yes, I do realize the capslock is the most base form of conversation.)
You can see it right behind them, it’s still stuck in the wall.
Could this mean that Mr Fish is about to get a giant monster friend?
Damn, only now I see it
But will it die? *sad face*
I love sharks. Please find a way to show it lived on and made it out of the mess alive :)
It’d be very appreciated!
All of Commander’s sea monster handling skills came from Jared, and just look at how well Mr. Fish is doing.
No wonder one of the first thing he did with his fish was smack it into something.
Jared tried to ride his water type pokemon with a 4 x weakness against electricity around with Magnimites strapped all over it… For some reason I do not trust Jared’s ability to keep pokemon alive; I think it’s more that whoever lives through it will get very sturdy, lol. Got to be a high level of luck involved in that equation. Also, his pokemon ate a whole bunch of baby pokemon. Jared’s got about as big of a sense of responsibility as my younger siblings do :/
Feeding a gyarados baby pokemon is not unlike a snake eating baby mice.
True enough. And yet Pokemon don’t naturally eat each other, do they? o_O Great, thanks for that image! Lol… Still my point stands; Jared didn’t mean to feed the gyarados with baby pokemon, as one can tell by his somewhat embarrassed face after the fact. And he did almost kill his own gyarados with those magnimites! I wouldn’t trust him near my pokemon…
It’s okay though; I’ll just brain-wash myself into thinking The Shark grew legs and crawled back into the ocean (which looked more like a lake, so it’s probably a Loch Shark, must mean it has special powers). It’s probably simply that awesome! Just like the Commander :D
Late to the game here, but juding by the descriptors in some of the pokedex entries, they eat each other all the goddamn time. When you consider how much of the ecosystem of their world Pokemon make up (they are flora, they are fauna, they are FUCKING ROCKS), it’s inevitable. Considering the intelligence levels of most pokemon, also terrifying in implication. The entire world is full of sociopaths, and not just the trainers.
About an hour late.
… oh. I hadn’t seen it either. You can see the blue wool shirt it’s wearing now that you look for it. It’s just so enormous it’s invisible in the picture (the foreground draws attention). My brain had interpreted the odd blue colors as more wall.
In truth… that’s no wall. That’s a shark.
I… I thought that was bs with the crabs not seeing the humans in The Long Mars. Guess I was wrong!
Huh, someone else read the long earth books.
*senseless garbled noises*
you speak fan, right?
Google “change blindness” and you’ll be able to see first-hand that a lot of things can be quite hard to actually notice even when we see them.
(Of course, if the crabs don’t notice humans when they’re moving {hasn’t gotten that far in The Long Earth}, that’s probably BS. Noticing movement is usually a survival trait.)
you write good interpersonal dynamics, C
good to see, feels nice and natural while still catching us unawares once in a while
family is a hard thing to write well but you do it
Heh. Let’s just casually rewire him eh? I do hope the megledon gets what it deserves, being used to crash through a wall and being forced into a sweater.
Also, just a thought, something I think would be hilarious. The Commander a d some of the other guys trying to cook a meal and bawling at the onions. Maybe Jones or the Canadian could come by and do it no problem. Like I said, just a thought.
Love this comic!
Knowing that Rock and Tank used to date makes the previous comics / banter between the two a little bit more saddening.
Just don’t ever feel bad about making up characters and then figuring out they’re spoofs or ripoff of other characters you had no clue existed. It’s hard to come up with new ones now a days.
Definitely relatable. Years ago for rp purposes I came up with an OC named Lucy, who was blonde with pigtails and was sexy curvy with big boobs but was a genius. Fast forward to a few months ago and I discover the character Lucy from Fairy Tail. Same first name, same body type, same hair, pretty much same hairstyle. Sometimes that sort of coincidence just happens.
…is there a wallpaper of Commander Badass and his Sweater Clad Megladon? Cause, y’know, not going to lie, I really like that image. xD Just realized.
I second that statement
As resident Butcher, is Jones gonna cut up the megaladon and make something foodlike out of it?
Hey now, we don’t eat friends. Even Princess knows that.
Not sure you’d see my previous comment in the middle of the others, so I am putting my request a last time.
Please find a way to show us that the giant shark survived this mess, I really don’t want it to die because Rock choose to crash him into an hotel. Sharks are awesome, and deserve their freedom & life.
As a hard core fan who doesn’t usually meddle in any way or complain in any way; please save the awesome giant shark, Coela, and I’ll be so happy :)
Like, the commander mentioning him in a sidenote, or even a small drawing of him waving goodbye to it at the lake or something.
Pretty please with cherries?
:D
Given Coela’s reply to you up there, I think it’s safe to say the shark will live–and, if Rock crashes it into enough hotels, eventually evolve into the world serpent Jörmungandr. Rock learned sea-life-handling from Jared, after all.
(I didn’t know he was a laser fish.)
Unless being a raptor trainer, it DO had better NOT being in a cage with a boar fur wearing lion.
Rock and Tank thing should be the only way( also a disgusting way) trough space warrior bitch cycles and havin a family father like life.
Hope that Tank also jailbreak havin more space madness
Hmm.
Y’know who I think the Commander’d be friends with? Asgore. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
Just don’t put Undyne in one room with Tank or any of the Macho guys. That wouldn’t end well…
Undyne could wrestle with Samus!
…So why does Jonesy have a towel?
Because she probably wanted to take a shower after walking around in plate armour for x number of weeks.
Also she’s a pretty hoopy frood.
I love that this news post tells me you recently watched Jessica Jones.
I’m mildly curious about how Tank and Rock started dating. Rock and Spider broke up b/c he wanted to nest while she wanted to be an awesome robo-soldier, so Rock already knew he wanted to settle down when he started dating Tank, and Tank presumably had some idea of this, so… was Tank also interested in settling down? Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
Is the shark going to be okay?
Long time reader, first time poster (Probably), but I just wanted to say I emphasis with Tank based on what the Commander tells us. The whole “Nah your acting like a pussy” thing resonates well with Tank’s “Don’t think, feel” type of character archtype he was most likely tailored to fit. Because when Tank isn’t totally aggro, he’s not really in control of the things around him. And yes, it’s ironic that the alternative is “Let the anger juice fuck around with your brain chemistry”, the difference is that the former leaves Tank to do nothing but have someone else tell him what he can do, while the latter at least has him take the initiative and do something (Something stupid perhaps, but hindsight is 20/20). I wouldn’t even say that when Tank isn’t aggro’d that he’s thinks he’s being a pussy, just useless. After all he was made to get juiced up and hulk out. Some of his best memories and accomplishments were likely done in those states; when he isn’t he just feels weak and useless, and all the more reason why he’d want to rage out.
While Tank doesn’t come off as actually stupid or even simple-minded, he has a very specialized set of skills that see’s limited utility outside of it’s intended purpose (Ultra violence). Where as others like Angel knows how to lead a team, Rock who has helpful hobbies, or Spider with her vast robot intellect on how to build and run a five-star resort, Tank good at applying a power in the greatest concentration he can muster into the point of his fist. When he has to compete against arguably more skilled opponents, there isn’t much he CAN do aside from what he does best, and that’s getting juiced up and going all out. Evidently it still isn’t going to work, but it was all he could do at the time.
Now maybe you’re asking why he didn’t just ask Spider to help him since she is part of his team (Or at least that’s the implication I’m getting for why “went on her own” instead of already working by herself), and it all falls back to that insecurity. This is a competition to be the most radical survivor man/woman/badass, and for someone like Tank relying on someone else to do all the cool stuff doesn’t really sit well with a man of action like him. Of course there’s nothing wrong with cooperating with your family/friends to do awesome things, but where does the line between helping each other out end and letting someone else do all the work begin?
tl:dr version: Rage feels good, but Tank deconstructs the Dumb Music trope.
I haven’t heard of the ‘dumb music’ trope, and tvtropes doesn’t appear to have it yet, what’s it mean?
ooooooooh, thinkiness.
the Golden Hammer, sort of.
Tank has some kind of issue with female authority figures (this proved frustratingly contentious for some, so Word of God had to come in a specifically state it), maybe that’s part of why he didn’t work with Spider
Well, if you hadn’t seen it yet, I say check out Jessica Jones.
Twelve years ago current time? Relative time? Experience time? From the prehistoric moment they are currently in?
Stop, me. Don’t think about it.
Did Tank zing the Commander at the end, there? Or himself? Or both? ‘Cuz I can see it being meant any of those ways…
Dating someone that is the human equivelent of a project car sounds like something I’d do if cyberware were a thing……
whoo, totally called the Nuke similarity. nerd points for me! Also, if you haven’t watched Jessica Jones, he’s one of the main characters. (And you really should. It’s fuckin’ amazing and deals with a lot of very real shit, though in a fantasy context)
A bit unrelated but, Sargent Hatred from Venture Bros is based on Nuke.
Yeah, I’d seen the character floating around and recognized that he was probably Sgt. Hatred’s inspiration but I didn’t know anything about the aggro pills and cybernetics until I watched Jessica Jones. (Though I got a kick out of them turning him into a proto Chris Evans hunky dude instead of the blocky Brock Lesnar drill Sergeant he was in the comics)
OMG the squeeing I have now. Woofy, bearish, happy squeeing. <3
Hey Coelasquid, have you seen this? This feels 100% Jared.
http://gizmodo.com/scientists-gave-preying-mantises-tiny-3d-glasses-to-pro-1751607948
In many ways, I think I connect to Tank more than any other character in this comic.
You tax your family and friends’ patience because you’re not comfortable in your own skin?
I got the impression early on that all of them were essentially siblings. I’m not even sure why I got that impression, but it refuses to go away which makes every mention of any of them dating each other unfortunately disturbing.
They’ve been talking about Rock and Spider being a thing for like two years now.
I am very well aware. As I said, it’s only a misinterpretations that’s rather unfortunate. I think it’s from the page where they tried to turn Commander into Batman by telling him his family was dead and when they showed up, I missed the part where they weren’t all related. I’ll try to knock some sense into my skull.