Headscratchers / PS238

New entries on the bottom.

DNA Locks

• Fridge Logic: If Zodon uses his mechanical arms to manipulate everything (as we have seen him do every time on screen), then how does a DNA scan work to keep him out of the school's systems?
  • No DNA, no worky. Duh.
  • *points at Doctor Positron*
  • He gets a special dispensation, as the system was designed with him in mind. And maybe that helps explain how Zodon was able to use a calculator and a Speak-N-Spell to overcome the locks that first time...

Rainmaker kids crimefighting

• The kid who can turn stuff into food. The ground under a criminal is stuff. Soup is food. It would be a perfectly effective power for fighting crime. It's certainly better used for things other than crime-fighting, but what isn't? So why is he in the rainmaker program?
  • Because while yes, in theory you could use your power to sort-of fight off normal criminals, imagine what happens when you're up against a super-powered criminal. 'Oh look you made the ground beneath me soup, woe is me-oh, wait, I HAVE EYE BEAMS! *ZAP*'
  • Also, he specifically says that he can't change what it looks like, just how edible it is and how it tastes and suchlike. He can make a brick taste like chicken soup, but he can't quite make it look like it just yet.
  • It doesn't matter what it looks like. It matters what the consistency is. He can make a brick edible, which means he's messing with the consistency.
  • The distraction lasts long enough to make a big difference for the fight. Much larger than the advantage eye beams give over conventional firearms. In addition, it can be used from behind cover, and following it with turning the soup into hard candy would effectively end the fight.
  • So far, it appears he has to touch the thing to make it work. There may be some limitation in how his powers work that keep him from being able to do this productively.
  • Has he ever not been touching the ground? As long as it's not nearly as deep under himself, it should work fine.
  • The whole Rainmaker arc demonstrates that all of the Rainmaker kids have powers that could be used for crime-fighting. Presumably they get put in the program if they have abilities that are clearly much better suited for something else, or if they or their parents simply prefer a non-violent career path.
  • The kid who can manipulate sound is probably the best example of this. His powers ARE used by some superheroes. His parents presumably don't want him to go into crime fighting.
  • All of them have powers that are much better suited for something else. The vast majority of things are not fighting crime, so it would be rare for that to be the ideal use of a given power. The rainmaker group isn't even particularly good. A genius inventor could do more to feed the world than someone who has to be present to make food.

Mister Extraordinary and FISS

• Is Mister Extraordinary counted on the F.I.S.S. list? He never used his flight powers in front of anyone other than his family, resulting in them being pretty much unknown. If he's not on the list, then the entire list needs to be rewritten, as he was the first documented meta-human, making him the first F.I.S.S.
  • Or he's number zero.
  • There's also probably quite a few metahumans they don't know about. The list isn't intended to be perfect.
  • The documentry The Headmaster shows a pupil has his image in it. I would assume that after F.I.S.S. became well known they worked out that he was almost certainly one who, for whatever reason, was never recorded as flying in public. Plus, the FBI did find out after all.

Lack of Secret Service Protection

• If Principal Cranston used to be President, where's his Secret Service detail?
  • For that matter, where is any acknowledgment of his former presidency anywhere outside of flashbacks? Was the knowledge magically/psychically retconned from everyone's memory?
  • No, it was hinted at quite early on, far before it was revealed. Issue #6, I think, the first with American Eagle and Patriot Act.
  • Also, most of the comic is from the perspective of the kids. Not many kids in elementary school are going to be that conscious of former presidents, especially ones that were serving when they were infants or not even born yet (depending on precisely how long ago Cranston was in the Oval Office). For a lot of the kids, not realizing half their teachers are former members of a popular superteam is more unlikely.
  • You can decline Secret Service protection as long as you are not the current (Vice) President or the (Vice) President elect. Presumably Cranston waived Secret Service protection to help put that part of his life behind him.
  • Given who was involved in the attempted coup, he is probably safer without them.
  • Considering his flashback implies he was unofficially impeached and removed from office due to violating a constitutional amendment banning metahumans from office, it's likely the lack of Secret Service and acknowledgement is due to having become an Un-person in American politics.
  • Former Presidents don't get Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives.

Obstruction during an alien invasion

• Is that Obstructive Bureaucrat Ms. Riley really so stupid/insane that she's willing to put a meeting over an alien invasion with multiple students and faculty in direct danger? There's a time and a place for these things, and that's not it.
  • Her point was that she needed Cranston to help deal with Praetorian Academy, and he was not actually needed for the invasion until he had to sign that permission slip. He's not a general. In her opinion, he would have been more useful in his capacity as principal, helping her figure out what to do about the Obviously Evil rival school that was about to siphon their kids away.

Congressional Hearing

• In the first chapter we see a congressional hearing about the school, but for some inexplicable reason the hearing isn't closed. Rather, it was somehow considered easier to allow the press access and sabotage all their equipment so the contents of the hearing wouldn't be released. In what way does this make sense? Not only is it a waste of resources to do this instead of simply denying the press access to classified information (which has technically been leaked anyway, just without proof) but it's also a blatant violation of the press' freedoms. The government didn't just keep the hearing a secret, it openly lied to the public about the hearing and then declared it a secret anyway. That's the making a scandal if I ever heard one.
  • Herschel's reference to it as a "closed" hearing suggests that it was supposed to be closed but for some reason isn't. Given Senator Durvin was a direct opponent to Cranston during the latter's political career, and is known to hate metahumans, some of his allies in Congress probably did a little obstructionism dance to keep it from being properly closed to the public just to throw another land mine in the school's path. They could even have anticipated someone like Herschel intervening to maintain the school's secrecy, knowing full well there would be a potential scandal they could use if an opportune moment came up. Just that it hasn't yet.

Prospero

• While the faculty make a compelling case for keeping Prospero and his spaceship on campus instead of at another secure facility, at no point do they give a reason to allow the alien to wander freely around the school and attend classes. They literally know nothing about him, yet they encourage him to fraternize with the children even after it's revealed he possesses dangerous weaponry when his ship transforms into a mecha and trashes the gym. They even send him aboveground to interact with the non-powered children despite him being a security risk of unknown power they can't even communicate with.
  • To be fair, he's hardly more dangerous than the metaprodigies and there aren't any Muggles that can communicate with him. Also, this is about superheroes. If there is, worst case scenario, a security risk and the possibility of an invasion then surrounded by superheroes is probably the maximum of maximum security prisons.
  • Yes, I would expect superheroes are trained to deal with powerful threats, including those with unknown capabilities. However, the majority the school's metahuman population are children whose training is incomplete, and the school's Muggle population is at least the same size. That's a lot of people to place at risk, at least half of whom are unaware of the danger, compared to simply keeping the alien of unknown power in a more contained setting. The inability to communicate with Prospero is also a HUGE problem, since they can't understand his intentions nor is there a way to be sure he understands their's. Sure they understand him better over time, but they were completely in the dark when they made the decision to let him roam freely. If one of the students misbehaves then the teachers can scold and punish them, but there's no guarantee Prospero will know what the rules are or even that he is being punished for breaking them.
  • There might be some "Rainmaker" history at work - essentially, that people are leery of putting someone in a box to be studied given the implied fallout of the original Rainmaker program. The school is already a very secure facility to study a friendly alien without making him fear They Would Cut You Up like previous such facilities have done.

Danger at School

• The school itself is one massive child endangerment case waiting to happen. While the superpowered kids will understandably face danger every now and then, the regular children aboveground are regularly placed in extreme danger without the knowledge or consent of their parents. The "metaprodigies" can and do lose control of their powers or use them irresponsibly, placing the normal kids at serious risk. It doesn't matter if the faculty can respond fast enough to protect them, it is still illegal to place a child in that situation without parental consent.
  • Perhaps, but ultimately this was the fault of the government, not the school. The Department of Education won't acredit the school.

Supervillain kids

• Why are supervillain kids allowed to attend the school? While it makes perfect sense to teach all children to control their powers, regardless of their lineage or upbringing, Zodon and Von Fogg commit actual crimes at the school and openly express an intent to commit crimes in the future. These aren't children breaking the law without knowing it or minor offenses, Zodon confesses to violating federal law by rerouting a cargo plane and endangering hundreds of people when it nearly crashes into a highway. And he did it all as a way of psychologically bullying another student. Shouldn't he be in juvenile hall or something? He is a danger to the other students, is fully aware of it, and wants to be. Why do the faculty not report him to the authorities or at least keep him away from the other kids?
  • It's an attempt at socialization. If the villainous kids spend time around normal, friendly children who set a good example, they might turn out better. The Von Fogg kids are apparently the children of a Doctor Doom expy, and so grew up being groomed to be the rulers of a nation where they're practically worshiped. Putting them in a normal environment will help quite a bit. They're still jerks, but at least they're evolving into Jerk with a Heart of Gold rather than plain old psychopaths.
  • That's a good idea, but it's still not entirely safe. They begin socializing the supervillain kids BEFORE they've undergone character development. When they're introduced, they still demonstrate a willingness and ability to hurt people for extremely petty reasons. It's also clear that these kids were raised to consider themselves superior to everyone else, and that kind of anti-social behavior doesn't just go away when you put them around other people. Granted I haven't caught up to the present, so I'm just commenting on the illogic of what the school did prior to chapter 17.
  • Given Zodon's behaviour as of late, it may well be working.
  • There's probably several reasons behind it. One reason that hasn't been brought up yet is having a couple budding supervillains in the class helps teach the rest of the class how to deal with villains that are around the same general ability they are. And from a narrative standpoint, almost every comic book villain has some sort of tie to their heroes anyway, so the school's just getting that out of the way now.

Tyler's Parents' Powers

• What are Ultima and Sovereign's actual powers? They definitely include flight and one of the mirror!Tylers mentions having physical powers that are just as good as theirs which suggests they've got something going on beyond your average mortal, but I've never been able to find anything concrete.