Dumbing of Age

Kinda looks like Faz on the left.

And Blaine's square head on the right.

I'm not one of those guys who complains about the existence of content warnings but so far the characters have been yucking it up while kidnapped by a guy who once tried to shoot the college up so I don't know why it's there.

It's like, if you're gonna put the characters in as grave a situation as this don't start it with Walky making jokes and talking about how he's not going to be traumatized by this event that actually causes horrible lifelong trauma.

I’m wondering if Joyce’s mom is one of them.

If Joyce's mom is one of the League of Evil Parents Enacting Revenge I'm going to let this thread pick out a new avatar I have to wear for a week (as long as it's SFW) because that is so dumb it can't possibly happen.

Well, given some of the forum members were suggesting she killed Hank so that she could talk to Joyce on the phone...

The second panel, the one with Megatron.

Just hedging my bets and dropping my suggestion early.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Mar 26th 2020 at 5:34:37 AM

I mean, its not so far fetched. She’s been sending Joyce weird, foreboding messages. At the very least, she knew what Ross and Blaine were gonna do.

I accept.

I know Carol's a jerkface but accessory to kidnapping is going way too far.

And further down the rabbit hole this goes. Seriously, this is starting to feel like we're in a Dork Age. Remember when the premise of this was "The Walkyverse but more realistic and Slice of Life"? Yet now we have a Legion of Doom managing to kidnap six adults in plain view of numerous people like they were the goddamn Batman, with no struggle or notice, and throwing them down into a basement to do god knows what with. Plus the fact they don't even seem to have Ross' primary goal: Becky. The only reason he's even working with Blaine is to get his daughter and do god knows what with her. And yet right now he's playing sidekick to the Sportsmaster wannabe.

This series is gonna drive me up the wall. Or at least drive my head into a wall.

I'd say that the foreshadowing has certainly been laid for Carol to have been at the very least aware, if not actively aiding them. She's completely fine with the idea of Becky being kidnapped by her own father, and has long since supported the idea of removing Joyce from the university and bringing her back home, under the illusion that it would somehow fix her from her rebelliousness. And with her being aware that Joyce disagrees with her and would resist that, she probably thinks it's in Joyce's best interests to be kidnapped and brought back home, and that she would know better than her own daughter.

It's why I'm hedging my bet this early.

To further show how confident I am I'm extending it to two weeks and Carol doesn't actually have to be in the room for her membership to count.

EDIT: You know this whole time I've yet to even ask: What' Blaine's net gain from this?

Edited by RodimusMinor on Mar 26th 2020 at 6:10:52 AM

Intimidate Amber into dropping out of college so he doesn't have to pay her tuition combined with basic revenge and sadism. Yeah, Evil Is Petty at its finest combined with Didn't Think This Through.

Dude gets to dress up as a supervillain and beat people up with a ball-peen hammer. He's living his best life, not thinking plans through.

To be fair, this is Walky we're talking about - the guy's whole thing is "be as obnoxious as possible to tune out negative stuff happening in my life".

I'm a smartass too but if I were physically manhandled, tied up, and then brought helplessly along with my friends into a basement by a gunman I'd probably start with asking to be let go and very quickly move on to crying.

It's a pretty consistent pattern with this series that Willis is afraid of doing any kind of actual harm to their characters.

Plus, there's the problem of tone. Sometimes, a grave enough situation can excuse a small break in character to keep a serious tone. Even walky has had his serious moments, like back when Ruth tried to die. And to his credit, Willis had been doing a good job of nob breaking tone up until the last storyline. Not so much anymore.

Yeah it kinda is more of a new thing. Things would go wrong and characters were bailed out of it through lots of struggle and sometimes came out worse for wear. Now it just feels like even the characters aren't really taking the story seriously anymore.

Edited by RodimusMinor on Mar 26th 2020 at 8:08:44 AM

Oh, for fuck's...

WORK OUT WHETHER YOU WANT THIS STORYLINE TO BE SERIOUS OR NOT ALREADY!

You know he's gonna crush our souls later be patient.

Y'know, I'm starting to think that Willis isn't very good at serious stories.

I dont think anyone is acting out of character though? Joyce is pissed off as all hell but she's still Joyce. Walky is doing Walky things, etc.

Also im gonna guess Dina noticed they left since ahe seems to be looking off somewhere in the later panels.

He did some good serious bits with psych issues and relationship drama.

He really falls apart when he tries to sit on both chairs at once.

Willis is a kickass writer... most of the time. The Walkyverse is pretty good and only improves over time, and there are multiple stories in Dumbing Of Age that also show he can really go at it when he writes a serious story. It's most of the reason I find this so frustrating: there's extensive proof that he can write this good, but for whatever reason, he simply lost his whole thing after Mike decided to jump headfirst onto concrete.

Like I've just said: this isn't a problem of the characters, it's a problem of the tone. Willis hasn't been able to go two whole comis without showing us how the characters aren't taking this seriously, starting with Walky going out of his way to make fun of the whole thing, and now Joyce, in the middle of her big anger moment, deciding to act goofy for a second. We can't be expected to take things seriously if the characters don't, and right now the characters are acting like sitcom characters while being kidnapped and yet Willis felt the need to warn us about a supposed sustained sense of danger. There's a huge disconnect right there.

It honestly feels like we're reading the comic version of a Disney sitcom right now.