I still feel like the PRT forgiving Skitter her crimes isn't in the cards. And I hope that Skitter knows that. It would come off as giving one of the most notable villains in the US amnesty.

I also don't know where Skitter would go from there, because I can hardly believe she'd join the Protectorate or, God forbid, the Wards. She said flat out that she'd rather go to the Birdcage back in Extermination. If anything, her opinion of the PRT has gotten worse since then.

Right now, my expectation is that she gets her trial and gets a light, non-Birdcage prison term, in which case she can escape, or she gets a Birdcage sentence and then somehow is let escape. I doubt the second over the logic of the first, but the PRT really does have to focus on politics right now and Skitter is not nearly as dirty as many villains are if it comes to trial. All of her positive actions will come to light, and her popularity in BB will as well.

 

Also, something that doesn't really make much sense to me, Tagg kept talking about playing the long game, that sure he would do illegal and unpopular things now and nobody would care in 5 years. Thing is though, he knows that the world is going to end between 2 and 16 years from now, so uh, what's the point of doing shit that will screw him and the PRT over now when there may not be a later.

 

/ramble

/also mass spoilers

So I read the whole thing in <3 days. Pretty freakin' long. The guy's a machine to have written so much in what is it now, 2~ years? Pretty crazy the story's stayed relatively consistent the whole time. Mishie brings up a glaring flaw though, should probably bring it to the author's attention - Tagg isn't making sense. The battle is short-term; the long-term doesn't matter. If he didn't buy into the world ending "soon", fine, but he does, so that's rather inconsistent.

Here's my theory - Skitter obviously knows that she won't be forgiven. PRT will drag her through the mud in an attempt to regain control of the city. They're going to (or should go on) a smear campaign and the Undersiders will probably create a pretty negative reputation for themselves without Skitter to reign them in. If I were Tagg, that's what I'd do anyway. I'd make Skitter confess and lie to a grand jury in exchange for whatever it is she wants; the result is the PRT has some legs to stand on.

But it does make sense to me. Skitter is closer to her enemies when she's in their custody. She can corrupt more heroes there and unite the disillusioned. It also shows that the PRT is completely worthless - she gave herself up! They didn't even catch her, they didn't get the satisfaction. It's like a game of Go, sometimes, you need to give up small spots of territory in order to surround your opponent. Giving herself up was the right choice I think, for an expident victory. She's out to win a psychological war. It's also analogous to the start of the story - Skitter is in a hostile environment; trapped. Only this time, she's going to fuck with the authorities instead of bow powerless to them? Or at least, I hope so. Not sure I could endure reading a cowed protagonist at this stage.

From a story standpoint, this also pretty much strips Skitter of all the shit she's worked for. Now nobody gives two shits about her; whatever positive things she's cultivated for herself, for her reputation, are gone. She gets sent to a prison, likely where Sophia and others are being held up, and we have a whole psychiastrist section with that doctor. Only reason I feel like she was introduced recently. Seems like the kind of thing I'd do.

Skitter will probably get abused in jail by Sophia? I expect bad shit to happen. Possibly second awakening, since Skitter will be "trapped" again? (But maybe not, she's been trapped two times already - once in the burning building, second inside Noelle, and neither event was enough to cause a second trigger). What other reason for her to go to this prison, but to grow in power, or her allies to grow in power? Only way it improves the chances of beating the end of the world like Dinah wants.

But then again, this theory of mine is a bit flimsy. They could just put her in solitary. That's what I'd do. Either that, or birdcage, which would put her within reach of Dragon and plenty of prisoners. Skitter has charisma and a backbone now, I could see her recruiting sympathizers (why else do we have all those interludes in birdcage? Skitter's going to go there eventually and Dragon will be empathetic and let her loose, when it's realized she's necessary to stop this cataclysm) there. Also probably the most "trapped" she could ever possibly be.

But I dunno, that theory doesn't hold much water either. It makes sense, but it all could just be pointless fluff. Like that whole arc on the travellers (which while I guess interesting, really contributed little to the story's actual momentum?)

What I fear most about this latest arc is it could disturb everything that's been built up so far. It might be the author's intent, but I consider it a strong possibility, given how "long" Skitter may intending to be away from the Undersiders, that when she comes back, we may be at the "endgame" of this story. I think the author's intent might be for the Undersiders to grow as characters without Skitter's influence, as well as to unground Skitter from her friends, to allow her to grow even more morally ambiguous? But that sounds shitty too, we'll have another tiresome round of, "We trusted you Skitter!" "Why did you betray us and run off without telling us?" "Didn't you get mad in the past over us not sharing things with you, hypocrite?" It seems really dumb. She should have just told them; now it's all silly drama. At this point, they should just trust her. They seem to, but to what extent?

I guess it comes down to "seeing the ending" of this story, which I just can't yet. Is Skitter going to be the one with the choice to destroy or save the world? Is she or her possible child (two vs sixteen years til the end of the world and the whole "no period" stuff is telling) the "messiah" of sorts? Or is it more mundane than that, that she has to choose between something or another, that she couldn't do if she didn't change as a person? But what would that even be? What is she going to gain going to prison that she wouldn't otherwise get just sticking with her original plans?

Maybe my biggest gripe with this story is the whole cataclysm crap. I liked it a lot more when it was just about a morally ambiguous superhero that dealt with the future of a single city while trying to keep her shit together. But it's being forced to abandon what I think would be interesting on its own (political games between Undersiders and PRT) to address what amounts to the "burning legion", "Xel naga" or whatever unstoppable apocalyptic badguy team bent on destroying the world. We know a conflict like that will force both sides to band together and it feels like the protagonist here is going to have to make some hamfisted, overly dramatic sacrifices to save a bunch of strangers from their doom.

The whole way Coil was dealt with just felt hamfisted to me, too. He should have been the primary antagonist, with the "Endbringers" being a deus ex mechina to keep the stronger heroes from interfering with his takeover. If I were writing the story, I would have also had Jack die, the whole slaughterhouse nine stuff - with them being practically invincible thanks to some crazy medical techniques - just feels tired (why can't Sawbones just cause mass agnosia and kill everyone on earth in about five minutes? It couldn't possibly be that hard, let alone require two years to end the world with her ridiculous medical knowledge). The story's suffering from power creep I guess? But Coil just died too easily. They had no reason killing him like they did - why did he freaking teleport Tattletale and keep talking to the Undersiders? Why didn't he use armor-peircing rounds against Skitter? Or have her body double wear a bomb? And without Coil as an antagonist, and with the PRT being ineffectual, I guess it demanded that something like this all happen. It just feels forced.

And, I hate Dinah from the sense she's an enormous kick in the face. She's a precog that can see the future. She basically forced Skitter to do what she did. She made her cut ties with her friends; this wasn't an idea she came up with on her own. She's putting faith in a vague round-about "destiny" of sorts - that Dinah can set her on the right path, that Dinah can make all the right choices for her. But that feels like cheating, the protagonist should be the one to realize the pivotal things, it feels like Dinah is going to steer this story down a dreary deterministic path that our protagonist is going to be fine with? She's just going to trust this strange girl she admittedly knows next to nothing about? Doesn't she believe in the power to make her own destiny? This hasn't even been addressed by the story yet - so maby she doesn't.

And at the end of the day, with any super hero story, granted, I don't read them much, but I always wonder - why isn't there ever a bad guy with "secret identity seeing powers"? Why did it take Coil "years" to get the information on the Skinhead group's identities? Why did he need PI's? Really minor nitpick, but even so - Tattletale couldn't be the first person with the abilty to just 'know' things.

Not to say that I hate this story or anything - I read it rather quickly, so I clearly enjoyed most of it. But I feel like it's creeping in the wrong direction. There isn't enough "downtime" in this story - I mean, they had an Endbringer and the 9 back-to-freaking-back and I only just realized the first 20(?) or so arcs occur in less than a month. All that action day after day after day without any respite; it's freaking crazy. If there's two years before the end of the world, I don't think it's a problem. Skitter isn't exactly a super saiyajin yet, but two years of constant fighting like she has been is all she'll need to take on whatever nonsense that's thrown at her (really though, are they seriously going to send clones of other heroes against her? God, I hope not. That feels so tacky). There's maybe too much action in this story, with not enough character development to go around - we haven't even heard yet what happened to all of the injured from Echidna. What happened to what's-his-face with the radioactive dust? And although there's been 'sufficient' development of all the Undersiders, I'd argue not nearly enough (Alec? Aisha? Even Brian and Lisa could still use a lot of development nevermind the dozens of heroes).

 

Are you getting this from 21.1? What I read from their conversation was not that he was playing "the long game," but that all of Skitter's actions going against the PRT--"an institution"--were essentially futile. She's just the leader of a local gang. The PRT is global. So she can make the PRT look defeated on one day of bad press, but in the end, it's not going to amount to much. That's the paradigm that Tagg is working off of. I imagine Goliath felt exactly the same way when he first faced David.

 

Definitely not after her admissions of murder were captured on a dozen cell phone video cameras. Armsmaster also did horrible things, but his crimes were kept silent. <-- Correction: Howdy points out that Skitter didn't actually admit to murdering anyone.

Her severe reaction to joining the Wards was mostly because of Sophia, but you're right, I don't think she'll be joining them or the Protectorate.

The Guild, on the other hand?

They're Canadian, not American, and so a different jurisdiction. Dragon is a proper member, unlike with the Protectorate. They focus on international threats, and if we're looking for Skitter to step up, and maybe fight the next Endbringer, then that'd do it. They're lead by Narwhal [assuming she survived Leviathan; she's not listed as dead on the Cast page] who's both a leader of the Guild and the Ontario Protectorate base. If she's a Case53 [giant horn], and Dragon's spilled the beans, then she may have already split ways with the Protectorate.

If Skitter joined the Guild, it'd be a good opportunity to assume a new identity and change her name. Her powers in combination with her body shape make her easily identifiable though, so maybe a Dragon-crafted robot suit or other body alterations. It'd account for the "You’re different but you’re there" prediction.

If the Guild is where she ends up, then how does she get there? Hmm.

Alternatively, she's sent to the Birdcage, but when Dragon takes custody of her at the prison entrance, she's secretly sent to Canada instead, assumes the heavily foreshadowed new name, and prepares for the end of the world. And satisfyingly, she'd finally have a tinker on her team. Not just any tinker, but the best tinker.

More wild speculation.

 

She didn't actually admit to murder at Arcadia. It wasn't on the list she rattled out. In fact she's never admitted it.

Just wanted to be clear.

 

I'm honestly expecting Dragon/Defiant to doublecross the Protectorate and join the 9. Defiant goes crazy like Mannequin and corrupts Dragon's code. Also, Mannequin was never confirmed dead, right? He's probably still around.

 

Mannequin got Bakuda-bombed. He's dead.

And no D&D might go AWOL, but there's no way I can see them joining the Nine. The Nine don't need extra help.

 

Dammit. I've read 20.5 heaps of times, and I'd always thought that was part of her speech. I can't believe I got that wrong.

 

I agree with Chime:
I really wish Jack and Bonesaw had kicked it. They were interesting for a while; but now Worm is less like a Superhero Deconstruction and more like a comic from the 90s or something. Super Kaijuu!plus the World Ending As We Know IT!plus super secret societies! I'm still interested, I just frown in disapproval every time the Nine pop back up. It feels like a cop-out, sorta.

 

My personal hope is that the Nine unlock whatever unmentionable evil that Jack is destined to and then promptly are destroyed by it. I also have no real love of seeing those characters, now that they've had their day in the limelight.

 

I feel like there is going to be some irony and it forces the nine to band together with Skitter, Defiant, and the rest, to fight the endbringers? Or maybe the otherway around - the end bringers ally with the Skitter's group to take down the nine. Something convoluted like that.

Also, Scion was transferred to that woman, or whatever. What would happen if someone evil realized that Scion was being controlled? What would stop them from controlling the woman and taking hold of Scion? I'm thinking that could be the 2-year event; it could be Jack that stumbles upon the woman and gets control of Scion.

Also, Scion is actually Zion. And all of the other endbringers are named after similar reliigous entities, I think it's suggestive of a correlation.

The key is probably in anticipating the author's intent for Skitter's power-up. She's going to get a second trigger event, no way won't she if she's going to take on two sets of world-stomping monsters. Will it be the ability to become a full on-psychic like Regent and control people? What about getting the power to control the Endbringers/Scion? I don't see a natural evolution of her powers being anything but that. Perhaps it's a less forceful psychic manipulation. Or perhaps her power-up turns her into an Endbringer, she meets her "passenger" who takes over her body and that's the game-over event; the endbringers are all former humans who were taken over by their passengers, mortal bodies discarded. We know the endbringers were "never human" (at least according to Skitter I guess? I forget who said that), so that implies they're either creations or manifestations of passengers? Gods?

She was trapped. She wanted to be free of the locker. So she reached out to the bugs - she probably wanted to become invisible, to disappaer from the world, to crawl in the dirt like a worm. That's the source of her powers. A second trigger will probably revolve around that? Perhaps her power-up will be about transformation, maybe bug-creation (Atlas is slowly falling apart and without her to care for it now it will surely die; for shame too, I like the imagery of her using it) to get a new Atlas? Maybe she grows wings? Erm, she's said a few times lately she doesn't want to be known as Skitter, but doesn't know a new name - foreshadowing there, so I fully expect something big to happen soon, for her to get a new name, either thanks to her new powers, or something catastrophic in the prison?

 

There's a distinct Hebrew flavour to the background world. For example, aleph, as in Earth Aleph, is from the Hebrew alphabet. Leviathan, Behemoth, and Zion are all names with Hebrew origins. Simurgh is the odd one out with Persian origins.

I don't recall the other instances where Jewish influence shows in the Wormverse, but I'm sure they're there. For a while I even suspected that the Heb in Taylor Hebert meant that she was of Jewish descent, but it actually turns out to be an old French name.

 

Taylor was called a jew once in the story, mistakenly by one of the skinheads. Stuck out to me. Sort of why I'm expecting a messiah to bust out of a can somewhere, but I'm not so good on Jewish mythology and I doubt this story is going to parallel anything like in the bible? Has there been an allusion to her giving up something yet, becoming a sacrifice of sorts? Making a covenant with god or something? Taylor has said in the past she's not religious in the least, so I don't know.

Actually... there is a lot of skinhead/neonazi stuff in this story when you think about it. Could just be a coincidence, but the fact there's been a lot of focus on Purity and her family, I imagine Judiasm is going to play an important role at some point.

 

Considering that Jack is basically the single biggest influence on Bonesaw, his survival/leaving BB may very well lead to her do something important / catastrophic.

I doubt it though.

 

No preggers? Damn. I get his reasoning, but I was thinking it would be pretty spooky for her to go to prison and start showing. You could write some pretty horrible stuff in a situation like that, shake Taylor pretty deep.

 

No... Just fucking no.

The last thing I'd want to read about is Taylor getting pregnant.

 

http://img4.joyreactor.com/pics/post/funny-pictures-auto-joncomics-spider-man-475094.jpeg

This image is strangely relevant.



Joke aside, her getting pregnant would ruin the dynamic. I'm longing for the days with some easy 'banter' between the wards and the Undersiders.
I'm not a huge fan of Bonesaw, so I'm not looking forward to another arc with her involved.