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Recap / With This Ring Episode 91

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Episode 91: Bended

Takes place 23 February-1 March 2012.

Short version

Paul and the Justice League enact a series of wargames aimed at preparing the League to respond to future threats; they flunk the first, but successfully defeat the "Mister Atom" robot constructed by the Sivana family, albeit with casualties.

Longer version

The League debriefs after their first wargame, where Paul successfully persuaded all of them except Hawkwoman to switch sides, then had them walk up to a fake nuclear bomb. After he's had a good laugh, they agree to another wargame the following week, and Paul sets out to contact various people whom he wants to participate.

The scenario starts with small-scale thefts. Green Arrow takes down a group of mookbots, but is then 'killed' by a synthetic poison intended to simulate a weaponised disease.

The Flash then guesses that the villain team may be using Mirror Master to move their stolen goods. Several of them fight a team at KordTech, where the villains were attempting to steal an experimental radiation shield. Flash frees a group of hostages, but is then 'killed' by a gamma radiation bomb. Around the same time, Hawkwoman is 'killed' in combat elsewhere, the Hawks' ship having already gone down.

The bomb has side effects, though: many villain employees were 'killed', prompting widespread defection amongst the survivors, and one of them gives the League information that lets them track down the villains' final objective in Russia. The radiation-proof League members converge at Ozyorsk and find a Mister Atom robot, built by the Sivanas, which feeds on radiation and announces its intent to destroy the energy industry and replace it with nuclear power. They successfully disable it, albeit with the 'death' of Lantern Jordan.

In the aftermath, Paul recommends improving equipment such as wards against poison, disease and radiation.

The Renegade is visited again by Empress Maxima of Almerac, and provides sanctuary to her pregnant wife while Maxima fights a war.


  • Alternate Universe:
    • John and Shayera Stewart 50 visit the Renegade. It's not yet decided whether they'll emigrate to Earth 16 permanently.
    • Anti-Green Lantern Paul makes an appearance, declining Justice League membership because he doesn't want to give up lethal force. However, he and the local version of Jade are then "acquired" in a similar fashion to Green Lantern Jade.
  • Anyone Can Die: Only virtually, but the scenario is realistic enough to be quite thought-provoking for several League members. Flash reflects that he honestly doesn't know how he'd react if Green Arrow died for real.
  • Artificial Intelligence:
    • Played with. Paul needs the scenario's "mookbots" to look and act like people, but not to have human-level intelligence, or else they'll be legally recognised as people and have rights that will interfere with the scenario. Georgia Sivana assures him that although they can pass a Turing test, they are just using predictive systems, not laying down new schematic patterns. Her brother would say that that's still as much as most humans.
    • Mister Atom, on the other hand, is highly intelligent, and expresses interest in running for President once he reaches age 35.
  • Assassin Outclassin': A string of Almeracian assassins comes after Sazu and her unborn child, but they're dispatched so easily that the Renegade gets bored with them and leaves them to his minion.note 
  • Batman Gambit: For the first wargame, Paul contacts each League member individually and asks them to play the role of a subverted patsy. Everyone except Hawkwoman agrees, not realising that the others are doing the same, whereupon he simply directs them all to walk up to a fake nuclear bomb. Bonus points for catching out Batman.
  • Energy Absorption: Mister Atom feeds on nuclear radiation. So, of course, he chooses a nuclear waste storage lake as the final battleground.
  • Fantastic Caste System: The planet Almerac genetically engineers its population for different tasks. Sazu was designed as a personal assistant, and sees her marriage to the Queen as simply a greater fulfilment of that role.
  • Feed It with Fire: It turns out that Mister Atom's radiation absorption applies even to Superman's heat vision and Captain Atom's blasts, depending on where it hits.
  • Marriage Before Romance: Nearly a year ago, the Renegade persuaded Empress Maxima of Almerac to marry her secretary, since they have complementary skills. When she drops off her now-pregnant wife on Earth for safekeeping during a war, though, they share a parting kiss that is clearly more than platonic.
  • The Mutiny: The villain team takes a substantial setback when one of their traps takes out a number of mooks along with the Flash, triggering their squadmates to walk away - including the telepath the villains intended to use for interrogations. One of them even contacts the League and reveals what he knows about the villain plan. A particularly impressive display given that the defector and most of the team were robots.
  • Switching P.O.V.: This chapter features the POVs of several Justice League members, and even one from Mister Atom.
  • Synthetic Plague: Sort of. Paul uses a synthetic poison, designed to knock the target unconscious but be very treatable, to simulate a deadly disease outbreak used as a weapon against the League in their second wargame.
  • Willing Suspension of Disbelief: A constant struggle, of course, in a training scenario, but metagaming is prohibited, and Paul does aim for quite a high level of realism.
    • Mookbots can be interrogated, verbally, telepathically and magically, with information being revealed after periods of time based on their simulated resistance. Wonder Woman has the easiest time of it, with her Lasso of Truth getting immediate results. (It's also acceptable for the US Army to shoot the mookbots, although ideally the Sivanas would like to get them back intact.)
    • A deadly disease is simulated with a treatable but very real knockout poison. Green Arrow, after being "killed" by it, admits it was fair and that he's just been lucky enough not to encounter similar traps before.
    • General Lane is given an anaesthetic pill to render him unconscious for a few hours until his "beating" has worn off. He doesn't absolutely have to cooperate, but he agrees for the sake of realism.
    • Batman is persuaded to stop looking up news reports of Paul's movements over the past week and investigate properly.

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