The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Doc's hunting a cockatrice. Makes perfect sense given the first few pages.

Update

How are you gonna make pizza out of that?

Seriously? Cockatrices don't turn you to stone by looking at you, they do it by touch. Somewhere a mythologist is crying because Chris mixed them up with the Medusa.

edited 19th Aug '14 9:57:05 PM by Fighteer

Ol' Billy Shakespeare, among others, beat Hastings to that gaze-petrification interpretation.

(Also, "Medusa" was her name, rather than her being "the" Medusa. She was turned into a gorgon.)

edited 19th Aug '14 10:14:35 PM by Enlong

Could be touch, could be sight, or even breath.

This is a world where it's perfectly plausible for a car flipping sideways during the course of a high-speed chase of a man on a dirtbike to invoke the sound effect "SICKNASTY!" and you're focusing on whether a cockatrice's abilities are portrayed inaccurately.

And IIRC Medusa's own gaze also did nothing. You were turned by seeing how ugly her face was (getting cursed by the Greek gods was a bitch), not by magic eye beams. Perseus looked at her through a shield, which distorted the image, making it not so horrid.

edited 20th Aug '14 12:57:16 AM by Marcach

If he were mixing up powers, wouldn't the basilisk be more likely than Medusa?

I'm recalling that prequel chapter, where Doc is desperately trying to disprove the supernatural so he doesn't have to spend time worrying about stuff that can't be explained by science.

He has clearly abandoned that line of investigation. Now he uses science to defeat the supernatural.

So, is that supposed to be blood or gastric fluids? The latter would make some sort of sense if the cockatrice would eat the statues.

Looks like blood from the placement of the... tubes? They look like what an art major might imagine for petrified blood vessels.

edited 22nd Aug '14 7:11:36 AM by Fighteer

I thought in the prequel that Doc was trying to use science to disprove the supernatural because that was his only hope of defeating "the wizard". The same wizard who's the reason why Doc can't ever reveal his first name.

Depending on the legend, cockatrices have been known to petrify through physical contact, their gaze, and/or even their breath. Some versions don't even petrify through the aforementioned effects; they just kill outright.

Unlike Actual!Medusa and much like modern portrayals of the character, having the cockatrice look itself in a mirror is considered a surefire way to kill it. Far easier, however, is the sound of a rooster's crow, which will instantly kill any cockatrice that hears it.

Lastly, Doc is completely correct in his advice here - not about the internal juices of the cockatrice, that's new, but about the egg. A cockatrice hatches from a yolkless egg laid by a rooster. Throwing the egg over the barn will prevent the cockatrice from hatching, sparing the farm the horrors the creature would unleash upon them.

edited 22nd Aug '14 9:46:41 AM by TobiasDrake

He was just trying to find the root cause for supernatural. That would let him declare it scientific now (because science understands it) and possibly trying to figure out how to deal with the wizard.

I do not really see anything changed about that. He's not trying to research the cockatrice because he evidently already knows it.

I imagine he is still trying to work out the wizardry to beat the guy hanging over his neck. The plot is just not about that, so we don't see it.

Yeah I think the business with the wizard is a Riddle for the Ages. If there is a conclusion to that sub-subplot, it'll come when we least expect it.

And almost certainly as a surprise gag, not a full-fledged storyline or climactic event. Just like, "Hi, remember this offhand reference, now it's a Brick Joke, haha!"

The wizard will turn out to be...

Chuck Goodrich!

or

polymorphed into Judy

I'd imagine throwing the egg over the barn would stop a cockatrice from hatching because the egg would just break.

It turns out there's a Ron Wizard in every universe. Doc's universe isn't nearly as cool, so he's a stereotypical wizard—a skinny dork with a gray beard, pointy hat, and robes. Which is why Doc didn't recognize it was the same man as the muscle-bound, cyborg-armed badass.

And our universe's Ron is a washed up stage magician who took himself way too damned seriously. Oh, and he's racist to boot, you can't get away with talking about your "mystical powers learned by swamis of the Orient" nowadays.

edited 22nd Aug '14 12:34:16 PM by Rotpar

As you explicitly have to throw the egg over the house without it hitting the house in the process, I'd imagine that just breaking the egg would immediately birthe the cockatrice, who would kill you.

It's a mythical beast from before science. It doesn't have to make sense.

Bravo good sir.

It would also be funny if the wizard was the ghost-wizard the family defeated awhile back and Doc doesn't realize he's free yet.

The real question is: if you were petrified with your mouth closed, would they have to administer cockatrice blood via a feeding tube?

If you saw a huge monster, would you not scream?

What if they recently had dental surgery and their jaw was wired shut?