With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

For anyone curious, the Doylist reason for the way the DCEU Parademons basically being Borg ripoffs is because that's what DC made them after Flashpoint.

Since Parademons were insectile I don't know why they didn't rip off Aliens or Mimic instead of Star Trek, but that's neither here nor there.

 

Truest words have never been spoken by Grayven, but seeing him utter them so... nonchalantly makes it extra funny.

And I thought he was gonna go for the Justice League, but is he trying to add members to it or does he not think them capable? Or is it because right now Superman is dead?

 

Given the introduction and its circumstances, I rather suspect the Themyscirans did jump to the obvious conclusion. But really, given their limited information, it's understandable. Especially when you stepped out of the Boom Tube...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Well, how hospitable. Surely, o Queen, a fellow this polite couldn't be evil.

He's not Herakles, you know, no need to be so hostile.

And honestly, if the Boxes can't take a nuke or two without being scratched, they're clearly not worthy of the name...

Yes, please, do elucidate. So far it's been a mystery.

I suspect if he knew of a way to destroy it, he would have by now. Sadly, as mentioned above, it's probably quite resilient.

I rather do prefer the LEGO Parademon minifigures from the Superheroes line. Much more appropriate colouring, even if they're still lumbered with the movie aesthetic.

"Please, excuse his attempt at civility. He is a good fellow, really." And it does seem a somewhat convoluted way of going about terraforming. Or should that be terror-forming?

And no doubt the Renegade would happily bake cakes, especially with his kids.

Such aggression. She seems determined to play the resistant captive, doesn't she? Flashbacks to Herakles, perhaps?

Correct-ish, if a little abridged, summary of his history. I'm sure he doesn't feel the need to brag about his magical equine lady-friend or his many partly-demonic children.

Like, say, a certain Spectrum Entity whose mere existence is treated like a super-super-secret detail by the Guardians. Presuming it exists here, even if the Lanterns do.

And given how much mayhem Earth seems to attract, it's probably going to be more trouble than it's worth to hold.

Heh. Nice reference to the bride-abduction myth of Persephone.

To be fair, Renegade, I'm not sure the Themyscirans have an equivalent to tea in their history. And their drinking vessel looks awkward as...

How awesome he is? How good a leader he is? Someone to talk to for narrative reasons?

And no doubt Diana will end up calling Batman and others together to battle the Renegade.

What reason would he have to lie? You're basically at his mercy. He could have simply killed you at any point here. But he wants you as an ally, not an enemy.

...There's the exit. No strings attached, no door to hit you where the Goddesses split you... In back, I mean, not... Well, that joke rather went to an odd place.

Really, they need to call it a different name, it's probably insulting the real Mother Box present every time they use it. How about Granny Box?

Which raises questions of who he's collecting. I'm betting it'll be a parade of various DCEU-compatible villains...

...Interesting. I foresee a lot of rage in that one. Kind of reminds me of the pics of DCEU Doomsday I've seen in terms of looks, despite being from over ten years earlier.

Well, there's a somewhat loose reason for why he's here. No doubt playing it a little villainous to encourage the heroes of this Earth to ally together... Despite some of them being right gits. I mean, sad detective man, moody wonder lady, dudebro fish-man and millennial speedy guy didn't seem too heroic from what I've seen. I can only hope a Green Lantern and a certain Martian show up to nudge things along.

 

Given the death of the Olympians, Hercules may not have existed.

And even if he did, it's possible that his conquest of the Amazons didn't happen here.

Or it could be the fact that this oaf invaded their home and kidnapped her.

Those two things do not instill gratitude to anyone.

I mean, they may do it for some people.

Hyppolita: I used to see a guy that was into weirder things.

To be an asshole.

To trick her into doing something that she wouldn't do if he just brute-forced the issue.

See the above point.

Well it is larger compared to its comic counterpart, so it honestly may be an older model.

 

"If you were as good as me, you'd be this smug too."

There isn't a Justice League at the moment. There are a couple of people with superpowers, but few of them even know each other. Batman and Wonder Woman met for about five minutes.

 

If I’m remembering my DCEU lore correctly, the Olympians have been dead for tens of thousands of years by Ares, Themyscira and the Amazons were created by Zeus right before his death and also Diana is a daughter of Zeus. I really want to see Grayvens reaction to all this nonsense.

 

Very nice

 

so if Gravy is the god of conquest, and he fulfills his plan, what then? if everything is united under his banner and he truly wins and everybody is content as a subject beneath him, what happens to the god of conquest when there's nothing left to conquer?

 

This. He opens a gateway to a parallel universe and starts again, because he finds the process so satisfying.

Though I should point out that he is lying here as part of hamming it up for Hippolyta.

 

None of this makes any sense. How is he "finished" ruling the universe?

 

Seems like something he'd do. Though if he makes it too obvious that he's involved here he may be just creating a team like Sinister 6 to inspire the heroes to team up.
Heroes arise where Villains thrive and all that.

 

Well, you know 'the universe'..?

But on a more serious note, it's more like the end of WW2 in Hearts of Iron. He could keep going, but the parts he's personally connected to are resolved.

 

Could’ve sworn Zoat said something about the renegade ending the story screaming at the source wall, which implied a less-than-happy ending than what this one implies

 

If memory serves, he was talking about the season, and Gravy already did that scene.

 

He was referring to star crossed? Damn that was a fun arc

 

She may know that, but Zordon, a guy that's fought her before, probably has defenses.

And she may not want to blow it up from orbit since there's a chance the Rangers have another base that they can retreat to and she may have no idea where that is.

Rita's people aren't exactly the top of their fields.

And even if they just showed up in the same city it would be pretty easy to track the monster down since they're not exact subtle or quiet.

Never attack a wizard on their territory.

Abridged Red Tornado: Because magic, you fucking potato.

 

Soooo everything we've read so far is his fever dream?

 

No? At least that isn't confirmed yet.

It's just the current Paul is an alchemical construct based on the Power Ranger universe's deception of the normal Paul we've been following.

Perhaps our paul is remotely controlling this body if you want to make it even more meta.

 

So... what do you do when you find out you're a cheap copy of an actual person, with memories that might as well be artificial, made alive by a possible "one episode monster" magic potion?

Are you actually alive? Do you try to extend said life and make it your own? Go all "Pinocchio wants to be a real boy"? Or do you accept that you're a copy with quick expiration date or a golem with no true life and the real "you" is probably ok?

This is some trippy stuff when you think about it.

 

A somewhat familiar situation for him. Great power but finite energy and no method to recharge.

Three broad responses: Absolute conservation to stretch your time, spend power seeking a new power source and go out in a blaze of glory. Last time he went with two. Kinda expecting him to lean towards three this time given his meta situation.

 

Cocaine and hookers, and sending a nuclear blast to the moon.

 

More likely it has a passive 'Don't pay attention to this' field in place around it. The soon-to-be-Rangers only spotted it in the first episode because Zordon wanted them to. Who knows, maybe from a distance it just looks like an oddly geometric rock formation that's entirely uninteresting...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Of them, the only noticably dangerous one is Goldar/Grifforzer. The others are mostly blithering idiots who are only dangerous by accident, or non-combatant types like Finster/Pleprechaun. Why do you think she sends out her monsters?

I would have many, but often one question prompts another.

No doubt still fully armoured up, because secret identities. Unmasking would seem foolhardy.

Which also raises the question of why their teleport signatures aren't seen. Unless the colour-coded blobs flying through the air are just for the audience's convenience.

Like, is it precise down to the foot, or in a general 'couple of hundred meters' range? Though generally, panicked bystanders tends to be a useful indicator of point of origin.

I doubt the detection is able to just ping 'monsters' just sitting around, can it? They'd have to actively be using some form of exotic energy to show up... Otherwise, so many things would have shown up sooner.

Interesting that he can read that through the helmet, again assuming he's smart enough to still be wearing it. Or is Zack overacting by tilting his head, scratching his head with one hand and acting generally nervous?

Good cover. Helps that Billy's about the only member whose name starts with the same letter as his colour. As for the whole 'intelligence agency contact' thing, I doubt they'd be willing to work with teenagers, and probably demand Zordon put their hand-picked agents in Ranger suits... Then again, there were teams like Lightspeed Rescue and SPD.

See, questions lead to questions. Friendship values increase!

And is the one in OL's comic considered as badass as the main canon one, if they aren't the same thing...

Still, you feel real, you think like you should... Is there really any difference? Cogito Ergo Sum and so on.

So, is the Young Justice universe an entire Animated canon here, DCAU style, and how would OL look in the Dini style?

...Please tell me this universe had 'Batman' '66 and he's just being a typical dumb teenager...

Honestly, Batman '66 is one of the most gentle versions of what being Batman is like. The Joker's more of a capering clown than a mass murderer, Catwoman is a sexy socialite cat burglar, and most of the villains are generally lighter and softer than their modern counterparts...
Barring any unspoken 'fridge horror' things like a ray that dehydrates people into piles of dust, yet allow them to be reconstituted without difficulty. As long as you don't mix the piles, anyway.

The human brain isn't built to cope with 'suddenly giant thing way too close to me'...

...And yet it can adapt so quickly through habituation.

...And I'm suddenly reminded of the SNES Power Rangers game, in which the final boss fight is Megazord versus Cyclopsus on the moon.

...Wait, they took their helmets off? I guess they decided 'oh, he's a good guy, it's fine'.

And that raises all manner of questions. I'm sure OL can think of a few.

That's assuming the potion can manifest more than one person at a time. Would be awkward if they tried it, and this OL popped as another sprang up.

Not the kind of 'how' he meant, Trini.

Effectively making it a magic ring in truth and not just reputation. Though it may explain the lack of Empathic vision, as without the proper Spectrum, the magic making him exist has no way to replicate it... Or something.

And that's assuming he has any of his subspace arsenal, including his Lantern, in this state.

So, this is likely a particularly deep version of the usual 'Alternate Paul' vision OL usually gets, then. He's thus in a trance in Mount Justice, believing he's directly mentally linked to this OL but they're just synergising overly well. One way to check would be to look at the next page of the comic, which I hope they brought with them. If OL can perceive it, it's a vision, because there'd be no rational way to see his own future moments. ...Or something like that.

---

He looks left and right, but the other Rangers are out of sight.

Then suddenly you've got something the size of a skyscraper screaming at you.

 

Mastodon Zord (capitalised "Z").

Clearly the first step is to establish whether there's a local Ophidian, and/or whether the subspace pocket contents are intact and/or working, including the Lantern?

Also, I'm kinda expecting a meta Star Trek joke about Vasquez rocks.

 

Not possible, by the logic of the Turbo movie.

Also Forever Red, and more recently O&A. Though I think generally speaking Zords are made for terrain combat, since underwater fighting only happened a few times (once in MMPR, once in Zeo?), and space combat is similarly rare until at least the halfway point through the series (In Space didn't have much actual space combat).

I want to know who the author/s are and when it was published. Were ISSNs a thing back in the 90s?

 

Plus while Paul hasn't been hostile so far, it may be safe to have some protection.

Most people also don't look up in the air all that much, and if they do, they may just think the weird colors were tricks of the light.

And it's actually good that they'd be teleported some distance from the monster.

If they teleported a few feet from it then it may just kill them before they have a chance to raise their defenses, but if they're farther away then they have a chance.

Though if I remember correctly they managed to tap into the Morphing Grid without his help.

Though it's been years since I saw either show, so there's a chance I'm wrong.

One reason Zordon may not work with governments is because he knows various Earth situations are very, very complicated and messy, and throwing giant robots into the equation is not exactly all that helpful.

Yeah, he's fought in wars, but the people he fought against were puppy kicking levels of gleefully evil and had little ambitions aside from just being the worst of the worst, so any moral dilemma he may have had would have been easily removed when he saw his enemy shopping for shoes that would inflict the largest amount of pain on the puppies that they're going to kick.

Aside from the Nazis, a lot of conflicts and wars on Earth are morally gray.

 

Best case scenario, I'd assume he'd be able to tap into the Morphing Grid or something to sustain his existence.

 

No, he's just saying that if they had, he still wouldn't recognise them.

Thank you, corrected.

Who is Vasquez?

 

No idea, but it's the name of the rock formation that the Command Center building was superimposed over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_productions_using_the_Vasquez_Rocks_as_a_filming_location - the place
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandeis-Bardin_Institute - the building, also known as The House of the Book.

 

First thing I'd ask Zordon is why the hell is it called the Morphing Grid?

It's a mult-dimensional energy that connects literally everything together including parallel universes and alternate timelines. If one has a way to enter the Grid, they can go anywhere and anywhen in space and time.

It contains the knowledge and memories of everyone who's ever connected to it.

It can grant those connected to it enhanced strength, speed, magic, etc.

It's essentially an afterlife with a revolving door.

And they use it for spandex.