Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE

Alice Grove MCDLT - THE END...?

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mikmaxs:
Alright, list! (This isn't to make any point I haven't already made, I'm just compiling everything, so I'm gonna slide this in a spoiler. It's an infodump. The point is not that any one of these issues breaks the suspension of disbelief, it's that all of them combined create too much of a burden of implausibility.)

(click to show/hide)From Alice's scuffle with Sedna, we know that Alice is a little faster than Sedna. We also know from the scene where Ellie dies that Church is much faster than Alice - He doesn't even start moving until she's crossed half the distance to Pate, and still easily catches her. Yet, Sedna had time to break off her own arm, snap it into a passable shiv, and then catch up with Church. Either Church was running very slowly, or Sedna gained new powers overnight.
   (And no, Church wouldn't be worried about charging past Alice or otherwise building up too much momentum - When he caught Alice's wrist, he was able to come to a complete stop so quickly and easily that he he appeared to simply materialize next to her. His top speed is presumably MUCH higher, or else he has absolute control over his movement at top speed.)

Sedna's Humerus, as seen, should not be a strong enough weapon based off of what we've seen, for the following reasons:
Sedna's bone was not particularly optimized as a shiv for obvious reasons: She'd just broken it into a sort-of point, not sharpened it or done anything to make it into an idealized weapon.
We have not seen any evidence that Sedna's bones are particularly strong relative to the other Super Soldiers - Church is easily able to crush her shoulder.
We HAVE seen that the armor Church wears is incredibly durable - It stands up to an orbital bombardment laser, a direct hit on the head from Alice's Warhammer, and being submerged in lava, with him suffering no apparent long-term damage. Two of these weapons are presumably designed to be able to kill Supersoldiers - You wouldn't arm Alice with a weapon that was ineffective against the people you want her to fight. And yet, with both of these weapons at her disposal, Alice decided that it was easier to submerge Church in lava and trap him than to try and kill him.
Presumably, the people who designed the above weapons (The Warhammer and Laser) are the same people who developed the super soldiers, or at the very least, they were in contact with one another. If a shattered bit of bone was better at punching through armor than their Warhammer, then why didn't they arm Alice with a shattered bit of bone?
Similarly, it takes Church a ton of effort to break through Alice's faceplate, but he only has to gently squeeze his hand to shatter Sedna's bones. Why wouldn't a broken shard of faceplate work better for a weapon than a bit of bone?

Yet, despite all of this, her humerus not only punches through the armor, it comes out the other side as if it were stabbing through tissue paper.


If "Sneak-attack Church while he's distracted with attacking Alice" was a plausible plan that had a good chance of working, why didn't Sedna try it while they were in space? If anything, it would have been easier - He pummels her for a while, takes time to creepily monologue for a bit, and is completely focused on attacking her. Additionally, he would not have been able to hear any warning or sounds of ambush - In space, nobody can hear you scream and all that.


And lastly, (Most contentious, but included for completion) Church has been seen to be hyper-vigilant and generally impossible to get the upper hand on. How did he not hear the massive CRACK of Sedna's bone getting broken?

brasca:

--- Quote from: OldGoat on 07 Jul 2017, 17:50 ---
--- Quote from: WareWolf on 07 Jul 2017, 14:38 ---I'm pretty sure Pate knows what Alice is. ISTR that he noticed that she was like Church, just not as strong or fast. Which raises the question of who he's addressing his question to.

--- End quote ---
I submit that Pate thought he knew what Alice is, but is surprised and dismayed that he isn't as well informed as he believed.  Or at least that's how I'm reading the facial expression Jeph gave him.

He's not a big guy and hasn't shown much in the way of any form of physical prowess, yet he's at the top of the food chain in the city state he rules.  That means he's pretty damn good at collecting, analyzing, and using information.  Realizing that his information is nowhere near as complete as he thought it was is terrifying, especially since it looks like his principle enforcer is down for the count* if not dead.  He's thinking, "Shitohdear Jesper, they might kill you!"

*Again, note that in panel 2 Alice speaks of the neck-pierced, brain-punctured, down-on-the-floor-in-a-pool-of-his-own-blood Church in the present tense.  He'll self-repair, but it's going to take him long enough that Alice feels no urgency with regard to dealing with him.

--- End quote ---

Perhaps, but they shouldn't dawdle for too long keeping Pate in check.  If Church can survive that attack then he'll be recovering shortly. 

JimC:

--- Quote from: mikmaxs on 07 Jul 2017, 16:40 ---Well... No, that's not my belief, that's what the term means.
--- End quote ---
You appear to be on the borders of telling me what I should be thinking. Humpty Dumpty applies.

In this sort of circumstance I'm reminded of something in UK comics history. The comic 2000AD used to use, from time to time, an artist called Massimo Belardinelli, sadly no longer with us, who produced totally wonderful surrealist fantastic images, but had in some eyes the perceived fault that his 'human' characters tended to acquire some of the surreal features of his other characters. This offended those who for some reason thought that in fantasy comic artwork  every apparently human figure should have art school correct human anatomy. Think about how well that would have worked with say Picasso's art... Anyway, this art school correct anatomy way of thinking acquired an excessive influence on 2000Ads editorial policy at the time (something that they have gone into print as regretting with hindsight) with the result that Belardinelli was desperately underused, much to the loss of those of us whose suspension of belief included that we didn't much care how accurately the extensor carpi radialis longus muscle was portrayed in a story that included faster than light space travel...

I'll also venture to suggest that pointing out perceived plot holes to those who haven't noticed them is at least as much of a 'spoiler' as anything else one might do. So I fully support your decision to put your list in spoiler tags. For myself I tend to slide over such things, but maybe with hindsight there's some other things you might wish to edit and put in spoiler tags for future readers? I'm quite comfortable (as is obvious) with discussing aspects of the plot and story development, but I am much less comfortable with detailed criticism of plot holes and the like without spoiler tags, simply because such risks detracting the enjoyment of the strip from those who haven't spotted them. I recall decades ago someone voicing a specific criticism of a piece of music I loved. I don't think the criticism is valid, yet it still comes to mind, and detracts from my enjoyment of the music.

(click to show/hide)to be honest I do find myself rather disappointed with certain aspects of the way things are developing at the moment, and could wish the author had done things differently, but hey ho...

blt:
I never understood the idea of "you can't question it, because it was in the script".  When did you stop being allowed criticize art?

That being said I don't really have an issue, suspension of disbelief-wise, with Sedna's attack, since we know so little about the super soliders.  I just think it's a little rushed and could have been better handled.  Alice's explanation is a little lame too.

mikmaxs:
To be clear, my problem isn't simply that it doesn't make sense, my problem is that it doesn't make sense in such a way that contradicts the established rules and stakes of the story. The story has gone to incredible lengths to show how indestructible Church is.

If there had been a moment where Alice said something like, "Our bones are the hardest objects on the planet, only another supersoldier can break them, etc," it wouldn't adhere to any set of physical laws that I'm aware of, but that wouldn't matter - The rules of the story would have been established in a self-consistent way.

By breaking its own rules (both literal and thematic,) the story undercuts itself and makes me unwilling to either care about the stakes or try and guess what's going to happen. Why should I bother? The story lied about what was actually a problem and what was possible.

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