Sigh.

I really disliked this chapter. It’s emblematic of a whole host of the things that bother me most in latter-stage OP storytelling. Parsing it is taking up considerable mental real estate for me, so why not dump it all here as a point-by-point numbered list.

1: Retroactive Tragedy Reduction: First things first, the reveals of this chapter massively reframes the scale of tragedy of the Robin Flashback. Interpretation is subjective, and I know that these reveals are expected/unsurprising to some, but to me the tragedy of Robins flashback was about how everything was stripped from her, how the entire legacy of Ohara end up contained within this one poor child. The scholars desperately try to save their research materials, but the materials are still discovered by the WG after the raid. Regardless of whether or not Saul is frozen with a move called “capsule” at the end the process is still visually indistinguishable from the previously established Quite Quickly Lethal Ice Time move, and Sauls final words is for Robin to find new friends since, you know, he won’t be around. Cue him going out with a laugh, D style. ”Returning things Robin thought she’d lost” by revealing that neither the research nor Saul were gone reduces the tragedy of the flashback, unless you wanna go full “Pells sacrifice still has weight in retrospect because he thought he’d die at the time."

Furthermore, in keeping Saul and the research alive…

2. Reframing Robin in the present: This might just be me, but for a longas time I viewed Robin as this pretty unique and singular factor in the series; the only one who could discover the Ancient Past, the Only one actively working to uncover said Ancient Past. Skills and goals that in turn made her a massive target, and in turn isolated, hunted and friendless. But as the series goes on, it turns out theres quite a few people sympathetic to Robins cause, including the Worlds Most Dangerous Man and his army of revolutionaries, as well as the Worlds Most Brilliant Man. And hey, Saul too is alive as well- good on Robin for finding some new friends as well in the time before a literal army sympathetic to her plight found her , and also her old friend is still alive too, nice.

The avenues for discovering Ancient History also keeps expanding, as does people with extensive knowledge of it, eclipsing even Robins. In the case of one giant Elephant, it even lived during the Ancient History! I know both these Things aren’t new, theres Precedence etc, but this chapter is just so emblematic of it, and leads to a separate issue:

3. Thrilling adventures in exposition! Again this might just be me, but way back when I thought the conceit of Robins character would be that we’d gradually piece the Ancient History Mystery together along with her, as the story progressed and she did Adventurous Archeology. And to an extent, we are learning of the Ancient History through her, but now it’s through more knowledgeable, senior characters telling Robin these things up front. It’s not so much about Robin uncovering these things, it’s about Robin being an excuse for other characters to exposit about it, because she’s the only one with the correct frame of reference. What started as this huge unknown void left for Robin alone to fill is now becoming other characters handing over their notes on the subject, pointing Robin in the right direction and going “you might find the very last puzzle piece kiddo, or at least appreciate the completed puzzle in a new way”. This is again an issue going back to the gang chillin’ at RayRays 560 chapters ago, and much like that chapter, a further problem I have with the Exposition here is…

4. It’s just so friggin boring to look at. Regardless of what the characters are talking about, regardless of the occasional insert shot of Robin looking sad/happy, I just have a really hard time finding this comic book chapter compelling when so much of it is a bunch of characters talking back and forth in a hallway. Half the characters literally can’t move, the other is devoid of personality and incapable of expressing emotion due to a Daft Punk reference (and possible Reveal Concealer). The insert flashback is mostly a conversation between a guy with a permanent scowl, and a guy almost incapable of expressing emotion due to a giant Einstein reference. Though at least they both stand up and sit down. The most dynamic panels in the first 13 pages are the ones quickly recapping a 670 chapter old flashback.

5. Selective Incompetence: Those books did turn out to be pretty important after all huh? Pretty wild that when sent on a mission to eradicate Ohara and its researchers for the crime of doing forbidden research, and you find a whole bunch of research materials the scholars were evidently very keen on saving, you just shrug and go “eh whatever, probably unimportant”. And then despite Ohara being branded highly evil enemies of the world you just, idunno, let the island and the leftover books be completely free of surveillance or barriers, allowing symphatizers to make it a memorial site and salvage the scholars belongings a few months later? Cool cool. I’d say the WG being incompetent is at least in character, but then again these are also the same guys who can learn of the illicit Oharan research in the first place, or Roger having a son, or the Pluton blueprints and so on. More like the WG is exactly as competent as it needs to be for the Current Plot Development to happen.

6. Interconnectedness and the shrinking of worlds: Also helping the plot expediation along is the increasingly elaborate Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’ing of the Opverse. Like we need to have an excuse for why Vegapunk and also Dragon are invested in Ohara, so we get a retroactive rejiggering of Clovers character – 670 chapters ago he was just a kindly head of research, but now we need a reason for why Dragon would know such a guy I guess so now he’s also a rogueish adventurer who hunted the world for Lost Century Knowledge and amassed an army of followers! Which is a wrinkle that drastically reframes the whole Oharan research effort; instead of it being a generational effort of the entire culture it now becomes extremely Clover centric – there may have been research before, but he – this guy that Clover and Vegapunk knew – was the one that REALLY got Ohara going, which moves the needle from “WG discovers that the respected research institution of Ohara is doing forbidden work” to “Rogue and 10-times jailed Void Century enthusiast Clover and his group of personal followers were doing Void Century research? Yeah that tracks, wonder why it took us so long to look into that.”

The more details we get the more issues and inplications are raised, and on a personal level I’m just so exhausted by the amount of connections between various disparate characters/plotthreads, connections the story need to relegate time to address or awkwardly ignore. Going into a new island some of the new characters might have connections to pre-existing things, but here Vegapunk is juggling:

Being the friend of Clover and an Ohara sympathizer and also a friend/sympathizer to Dragon despite being the head of the WG super-science division, by Dragon also acquainted with Kuma whom was used as the basis of the pacifista lineup thus also making him acquainted to Bonney, this being a different pacifista project than the one that produced a super-soldier child clone of a SH pirate member the crew fought five minutes ago (we’ve moved on though, will probably get back to that shortly)

(inhales)

Vegapunk was also a former criminal as part of the MADS gang which included former antagonist and drugger of SH-befriending PH children currently getting de-giantification treatment Caesar Clown, as well as super scientist asshole father of SH Sanji, and also Vegapunk made the experimental DF of the SH’s good personal friend Momonosuke based off of preceding arc antagonist/Emperor Kaidou and has his hands in all sorts of other research projects, such as giantification…

I realize this is Endgame One Piece Babyyy but it’s just so much, and it makes the world feel small, inorganic and convenient to me; Like theres a singular panel of 5 different Straw Hats having 5 different parallel crumb-sized reactions to different parts of Vegapunks whole bombshell spiel. Theres just so much going on, but no time for anything more organic.

7. Clueless Best Friends: Lastly, the subject of the supposed depth of friendship in the SH pirates have been discussed several times here. Mostly it is what it is; OP is a series where you have to buy that the Crew will put their lives on the line for each other, despite the story showing making little time for deep moments showcasing bonding or deeper affection/understanding between them. And so in the CP9 arc, where Robins past/goal was this whole curse that prevented her from forging any connections, the story had the Crew go “We don’t know or care about Robins past, but like her regardless” as opposed to the more powerful “we know Robins past, but like her regardless”. It is what it is. But the problem with that former approach is that when you get a situation like this some 670 chapters later where Robins past/goals are explicitly brought up, the crews reactions make them seem clueless at best, insensitive at worst. You’ve got this new character whom Robin has never met before moving her to tears of happiness because he provides catharsis rooted in knowledge of Robins past and goals, while her supposed best friends go “DURH, WHY YOU MAKE ROBIN CRY YOU BAD MAN” to the side.

And on top of that, for three of the 4 other crewmembers, the reaction to the discussion of Robin/Oharas past is, the past that hounded Robin and made her friendless until she met the SH’s is…to freak out, to want no part of it. Oof. Beyond “Oh noooo the government is gonna get mad and target usss” being pretty outdated at this point, I’d just be so bummed out if I was Robin, and this was what I got out of my “accept me for who I am” friends. Like I know the two moments are displaced by real time and narrative YEARS, but can you picture this reaction playing during the Enies Lobby Raid? Like, this reaction while the crew are standing defiant before the tower of Justice? I certainly can’t, and it makes the bond between the crew seem puddle deep.

So yeah. I didn’t like this. I can understand why others might. But regardless of whether or not the current reveals “make sense” or could be expected”, I just can’t with the current OP trend of dragging past seemingly clear-cut things out in the present and retroactively reframing them, certainly not when it seems like it’s mostly for the benefit of efficiently propelling the plot forwards and managing its increasingly tangled Plotline Web.

Aaaaand I'm back! What a shiny new site, looking good. I've missed having an actual forum around, as opposed to commenting on articles on various sites where discussions have a shelf like of like, a few hours tops.

Now, to try and restrain myself so that I won't spend too much time on pent-up critical analysis.

I find it really hard to interpret Hiyoris retort being about Orochi and only Orochi given the context of the conversation, where the pun is a clapback to Orochi evoking the grudge of his clan at large. Going "screw YOU Orochi, and just you!" would leave the grudge of the clan at large unadressed, and wouldn't really work as a blow so devastating that it dispels the evil specter of Orochi in despair, considering that he is specifically evoking a curse bigger than himself on the land.

Also if Tama is actually canonically a Korozumi, the omission of any juxtaposition of her with Orochis clan subplot is downright bizarre.

Though I very very much wouldn't object to scenes of the SHs showing an active interest in what each other are doing/have been doing, I can mostly accept that OP is just not the kind of series that allots time for that, and roll with the straw hats as good friends just because. What sometimes break that perspective are the instances where newer SH's show complete ignorance to their crewmates prior adventures -being casual and living in the moment is one thing, but living together for months on end and apparently not having any conversations about things that happened in the past (the quite recent past!) just feels bizarre to me, considering what a close-knit, familial unit they're supposed to be. Like they don't need to sit down and have sould-searching conversations while they look into each others eyes, but it sometimes feel as if questions akin to "so, how did you spend your weekend?" or "what did you do for your summer vacation?" don't exist on the sunny

Regarding WCI, I'd need a minor essay to go over my various hangups with the arc, but I don't think the chase is an issue, and theres tonnes of arresting, cool rollercoaster moments throughout. The arc also benefits from having a (comparatively) restrained cast. But theres all sorts of choices and resolutions (or lack thereof) that just bug me.

• A lot of plot beats/character repositionings are really sweaty in order to work (for example Wadatsumi and the boat), with several characters popping into existence to bluntly facilitate a certain outcome - like Katakuri fangirl Flampé, latecomer nonentity Streussen suddenly being supremely important, or worst of all, random eggplant guy sleeping in Sanjis bed (the amount of hoops needed to get Sanji and Luffy to meet back up is something else)
• The Vinsmokes are initially executed well as hateable assholes, but I find them and Sanjis new backstory very conceptually jarring, and them being positioned as "COOL" near the end is pretty maddening.
• The resolution to Sanjis handcuffs and the Zeff hostage situation feel very flat, and trading those stakes for "Sanji needs to save his Just Introduced Family of Supreme Assholes (Because Zeff cares deeply about honoring your blood ties?) feels like a major step down.
• I remain the only person on the internet who's totally bothered by the "Lets use CC warcrime rockets to assasinate Big Mom" scheme no matter how many times I hear rebuttals of "Moral greyness" and "end justifies the means" because the story itself expresses zero awareness of it being supposedly "Morally grey". As fun as Bege is, working with him after his attempted murder of Pekoms, and a big speech from Jinbe about how he betrays people for fun, also seems like something that there should be some textual awareness of, but not really.
• trying to wring sympathy for King Baums "sacrifice" also feels tone deaf, considering he was forcibly roped in against his will
• I wish Pedro wasn't so boring, considering his sacrifice.
• the Katakuri fight has a lot of cool imagery and has interesting characterization for Katakuri, but it has some issues- Luffy landing hits on Katakuri due to the latter being flustered doesn't carry forward in the fight, neither does it feel like Luffys CoO upgrade does -the fight ends up going so long - both in terms of chapters and in universe time -that it ends up feeling as if Luffy is "allowed" to keep going until he wins. Which you can say about many fights, but theres a balance to strike to make it believable, and I think Luffy v Katakuris balance is off, where it feels like save for a few hits Luffy is on the back foot for like 12hrs plus of continuous fighting, until he suddenly wins. And as said Katakuris characterization is interesting, but the beat of him murdering his subordinates to protect his image ("The thing Luffy hates most") feels completely forgotten by the end where we're supposed to find him sympathetic, and where Luffy even helps protect his image. I like the idea of "Perfect Big Brother is a bit tired of being perfect", but I think this moment goes too far into standard OP villainy mode for how otherwise "honorable" the fight ends up as.
• The arc ends feeling like theres a lot of shoes waiting to drop with Big Mom, that still haven't dropped post-defeat and might not ever. And even if there was never supposed to be any further follow up with Sanjis whole cake-baking business, I don't feel the callback to his "I'll feed anyone!" mantra fully works - with Gin he earns his respect by feeding him out of the kindndess of his heart with nothing to gain, but with Big Mom the cake is a means to deflect the wrath of someone he's just tried to have assasinated, not really something he does because Big Mom is starving, or for the sake of her children or something.

All that said...It's definetely among the best Post Skip arcs. Probably the best. Like much of Post Skip I feel like some things could have used more time, some things are real sweaty, some things are glossed over...but it also feels more streamlined and cohesive than other post-skip arcs, and as said, more character-focused. Comparing the last chapter of Whole Cake feels like a world of difference to the last chapter of Wano, though Whole Cake arguably gains a lot by leaving the threat of Big Mom for the future to deal with.

Also, It's gonna be rough revisiting the Vinsmoke scenes, knowing that in the end all judges genetic tampering did take, and was even beneficial.

@BellisarioFaith said in Chapter 1057: The End:

Also gotta say: what is with this weird thing of trying to push Law as "totally definitely Luffy's rival now for real!"? Like, Luffy has had way more of a "rival" dynamic with Kid all this time, so the whole attempt at "Luffy and Law and Kid are three-way-rivals and equals like they originally were at Sabaody" is just not really believable after Luffy and Law have been allies for nearly 400 chapters (almost 40% of the entire story by now) and acted more like vitriolic friends when it was just the two of them around without Kid. And hell, it's not even just Law; I always kinda liked that One Piece averted the whole "stock Shonen rival" thing by having the closest thing to a rival for Luffy be his main enemy Blackbeard, so trying to force this whole rivalry thing now with even Kid, let alone Law, this late in the story just feels hard to take seriously. Meh, sure, whatever.

The trajectories -or lack thereof - of Law and Kid over this arc feels so underwhelming to me. Their rapport doesn't feel like it has meaningfully changed, it doesn't feel like the feat they just accomplished together has really sunk in. It's just "Well, back on the road again, see ya chumps!", but as you say, Luffy and Law have been allies for 400 chapters at this point (more if you go back to Marineford), over the course of which Luffy brought down Laws bitter archnemesis, they've accomplished the goal Law laid out in Punk Hazard, you can have him be a little grateful, show a little bit of a pride and satisfaction in their feat.
And Kid entered this arc totally bitter and mistrustful of the whole alliance concept, but ended up helping bringing down two Emperors through the power of Teamwork, in an arc all about gathering allies to pull off the impossible, so you could have a beat of him showing begrudging respect to Luffy.
Like still have them bicker and macho-posture if you want, but it'd be satisfying to see a depiction of a changed relationship to Luffy, like how usually happens. I can only assume its down to them being fan favorites slated for reappearances later, rather than more arc-specific characters, but it still leaves the arc resolution flat for them, especially considering how personally invested they were.

@Zar I may not've written full-fledged reviews but I've written a lot of criticism of manga over the years.
It's hard to nail down a specific "approach"; it starts with a gut feeling of "is this satisfying?" Like, does [moment] nail the emotion its going for, does it earn its payoff with clear setups, is there a buildup to the resolution or is it entirely offscreen? Is the moral/thematic point, if any, cogent and consistent?

One thing I've arrived at over the years is that I'm almost entirely interested in whats on the present page. Forget about speculating about how hypothetical future events might radically redeem things, what matters more is are things working as intended now. Similarly in terms of things being satisfying/earned I have little patience for grand character developments being left offscreen, leaving me to headcanon in all the lacking buildup and infer the connective tissue - I'm not here to puzzle out a story, to go "Oh that happened? Well, if we look back at X Y and Z I guess we can infer that it makes sense", I'm here to experience a story told by a narrator, to hopefully go "Amazing! Of course that is what happened, that is a satisfying payoff"

Also, where have you been reading reviews? Most discourse I see on One Piece (or anime in general) seems more concerned with summaries or playing the prediction/theorizing game than evaluation of pros and cons and such.

I feel the idea that ”Saul wasn’t that a big deal so it’s OK for him to return/ Robin lost everyone and Sauls death is undone the easiest so it’s OK for him to return” to be a bit disingenuous.

Firstly, while peoples appreciation of Saul is of course subjective – he’s not close to being my favorite flashback character- he was unambiguously positioned as extremely vital to Robins backstory. Saul specifically gets a little tease before the flashback proper starts, and in short order Robin is spending more time bonding with Saul rather than clover. Saul is probably at least as prominent in the flashback as Olvia, whom he not coincidentally shares Vol 41 cover prominence with, he’s immediately established as the “D” person Robin was established knowing way back in Alabasta, he’s the one who on-panel gets to instill ideas and hopes in Robin, he’s the one that gets the last big emotional capper to the flashback complete with farewell speech, his speech is the one that is called back to in chapter 398 where Robin finally accepts the Straw Hats, and Robin and Aokiji explicitly discuss Saul during the denouement of the arc.

The idea that Saul was not that big of a deal to Robin is explicitly not what the flashback is selling, and not this chapter either – Robins happiness here is predicated on Saul being a very important person to her!

But beyond that, resurrecting Saul feels completely redundant because of, well, Sauls big farewell speech. He literally tells Robin that he’s done for, and that Robin will find NEW friends in the future who will love and support her. The whole catharsis of Robin in the CP9 arc is that she has now found those New friends in the straw hat pirates, which is why 398 is such an all-timer chapter. Arc concluded! Catharsis achieved!

The flow of “Guardian of child dies leaving them alone, but assures them they will find companionship eventuallychild becomes embittered and isolatedeventually child obtains supportive True Friends/Found Family, hurray!” is nothing new, but it WORKS and tacking on “and then the child gets the Guardian back!! As a treat!!” is completely redundant at best, thematically incoherent at worst. Just imagine how hard people would roll their eyes if Sauls survival had been revealed during the actual CP9 arc, where the entire focus is about Robin finally having companionship in this little gang of people. “Good on you for finding friends Robin, I’m glad I left you alive as a final favor to your last true friend Saul, but also Saul totally lives you just haven’t met him yet. Also good on you for carrying the torch of Ohara, but also turns out people have been able to go to Elbaf and catch up on Oharan research all this time, because that research is still around”.

You don’t “earn” any backsies for your tragic backstory if your backstory is tragic enough (certainly no quarter was given to Noland and Calgara who both die completely miserable), but if you must undo a character death, someone like Saul, who’s parting words to Robin are literally “I’m done for, but you will find NEW friends” might literally be the worst choice. Trafalgar Law also ends his flashback completely and utterly devoid of ANY sort of companionship and it’s very sad, but that doesn’t mean he “deserves” a resurrection, and not just because “it would make less logical sense” for Rocinante to be alive.

(also something I discovered upon a reread; After having immobilized Saul with “Ice Time Capsule”, an attack traveling across the ground to freeze up Saul, Aokiji follows it up with regular-ass Ice Time later to completely encase Saul, the same Ice Time which kicked off the entire arc where it was established as highly lethal and made Robin freak out, which thus in turn makes it make sense to read Sauls fate in the later same arc-flashback as fatal and thus traumatizing to Robin as opposed to “even though this is the emotional capstone to the flashback it is a clever setup for Saul NOT being dead”).

Starting off with Drake, I’ll join the chorus that he has so much wasted potential. To start off with, he’s a marine mole who’s infiltrated an Emperor crew, and we’ve seen him make the effort to join this crew specifically as far back as two years ago. And yet we never learn what his mission is, nor do we really get to see him do any real subterfuge or undermining of Kaidou from within. The closest is when he lets Law, a guy who’d shown up a few days ago, out of jail, but we have no sense of what he’s been doing for the past two years, or what he was hoping to do.

In terms of integration into Wano itself he feels lacking, which I feel is a major problem for all the supernova – going along with Drake being a largely inqonsequential mole he never seems to really care about the people of Wano. In fact quite the opposite, as he helps the Beast Pirates out at Yasuies execution and the Pivotal Soba Stand Raid, and very pointedly was the one to raze Tamas village to the ground, something that is absolutely NEVER brought up again. You could’ve so easily done some beats of Drake gradually coming to sympathise with the plight of the Wano residents which informs his switchings of sides, perhaps even have him go against his orders to do so, but instead he just joins Luffy when his cover is blown and a “Coby told him to trust Luffy” flashback materializes. And then at the end, Luffys whole alliance just forget abouts him and he’s left forgotten and beaten up inside Onagashima, lol?

Drake also expresses another problem of some of the other Supernova in Wano, in lack of follow through on his various interactions and connections. Like mentioned before the Tama connection goes nowhere. He tangoes with Sanji in act 2, but don’t interact with him after that. He rescues Law, but I can’t recall them ever getting a moment after that. He’s betrays Hawkins and is betrayed by him in turn, but ends up fighting…Apoo, whom he out of nowhere declares that he has a deep grudge against. Then suddenly, CP0 enters from stage left.

Like I said Drake had a lot of potential for interesting development, but he’s just left a bowl of sprawling, undercooked plotline noodles.

Also, he has the worst looking hybrid form in the entire series, which doesn’t help matters.

@Ivotas I feel similarly, but then again one of my overall qualms with current One Piece is the apparent very deliberate and blunt overusage of "Mysteries! Answers pending! Stay tuned and speculate!". This in turn feels like it has resulted in somewhat of a divide in the fans, at least here, where old-timers (including myself) are aggravated that things feel incomplete and resolutions seemingly get punted to the ineffable future, where other readers are more willing to give adopt the "wait and see" approach where things getting payoffs 200, 300 or more chapters down the line is as fine as getting payoffs in the context of the arcs themselves.

The biggest issue with the "Lingering Mysteries!" now is, as you allude to, that the things that go unanswered are deeply integral to the arcs themselves - I just can't get over how "opening Wanos borders" was at once an absolutely crucial bit of character motivation, and also left completely inscrutable

@Johnny-B-Decent The show leads deliberately into this, as a lot of Raphs plans boil down to "we smash ourselves in, smash the enemies, and keep smashing until we have the target in our smashy hands!". He's not particularly good at it, but he's the most motivated to actually go do missions aboveground and be a hero. Conversely Leo is the one who oftentimes has the plan and the savvyness that saves the day, he's just more arrogant and self aggrandizing...which the movie in particular really dives into.

@Robby What can I say it's a subjective thing, but the designs being so distinct, and so indicative of the turtles revamped personalities is a net positive for me. I'm going to have a hard time going back to Raph not being a giant burly alligator turtle after this. And it's not just the fights, the general posing of them is always super dynamic and interesting to look at, and they're just so expressive - this just has an energy that more locked-in character models (of CG-based shows especially) can't match, it's kind of old-school in that way.

After the whole Change the Channel outburst I'm never touching anything Doug Walker (or Brad Jones) related ever again.

Anyway, speaking of Theme Parks, Jenny Nicholson did an extensive deep dive into the fantasy park Evermore:

And speaking of crediting people for small pieces of sound, Hbomberguy did a video about a sound effect in Roblox

@pariston_hill I hd no idea who or what this was referring to, but now I do, and it was pretty fun.

I've just made it into the second season, and this show still is a rip roaring good time. Sometimes the "jokes above all" priority can leave the worldbuilding a little wonky, but at its best this sings like nothing Turtles related I've ever seen before. And of course, it remains an insane feast to look at, seriously One Punch Man season 1 level at times. It breaks my heart that this got dismissed so thoroughly and cut so short because Raph was the leader and Splinter was chubby or whatever. Raph is extremely loveable and the Turtles' interplay is great, and Splinter gets to have the meatiest character arc and be as ass-kicking as ever, while also being frequently hilarious

I'ts gonna be a tonal whiplash going back to Gargoyles again after this, but at the moment I'm basically just mainlining this show and nothing else

A question from someone who's never played FF14, but is it some sort of multiversal FF crossover-thing? There seems to be a lot of stuff from older games in the series in it, which I know is like FF tradition, but here it's like, the entire Crystal Tower from FF3, or suddenly Ruby Weapon from FF7, or Ivalice, or literally a boss battle with Exdeath

Going by the first poster, I'm glad Luigi seems to retain some personality, which I like. Love my man Luigi. Though what the hell does "You just got Luigi'd" mean??

I'm fairly convinced the CP0 are wearing masks here solely because CP9 were masked early on in the W7 arc,
. Like, CP9 had actual secret identities to maintain and did so under the guise of dressing for an impending carnival, but since that’s how the "secret assasin" concept was introduced, guess CP0 also needs fancy masks, context be damned.

Really, I maintain that CP0 is Odas most transparent latecomer retcon created solely to be a plot-expediating device. Nothing about them makes sense. They're the publically known sgency that handles world noble business and also their public, personal superpowered bodyguards but ALSO diplomats to foreign countries on non- noble related business and ALSO on very CP9 style undercover/assasination missions and will also take a chance to like, score a big pile of treasure for the WG and wait weren't these guys supposed to be world noble handlers?

Trying to have them both be public facing bureaucrats/bodyguards and secret undercover assassins BUT MORESO THAN THE SECRETS SUPERPOWERED ASSASINS WE ALREADY HAD is just a mess.

The only phase 4 thing I've seen was Dr Strange because I like Sam Raimi and my wife loves the first Dr Strange, and while it has some occasional bright spots I thought it was a total mess.

Will maybe check out Ms Marvel and She Hulk at some point, but otherwise Guardians 3 is the only one I'm really interested in, though the Gamora Factor is putting a slight damper on that.

In case any of y'all have a Disqus profile, The Avocado is having a Batman/Spider-Man themed month of discussion prompts

Todays topic is their romantic lives!

https://the-avocado.org/2022/11/17/30-day-batman-spider-man-challenge-day-17-the-romances/

@Kdom To me it comes down to uncoupling Robin - a character I like - being rewarded/made happy - from what serves the storytelling and its themes.

Reviving a character from Robins backstory, where the entire point was "all may be lost now, but you will find new friends" - specifically reviving the character that says "all may be lost now, but you will find new friends"- just undercuts the entire arc of that storyline.

It's like if you had a story about a deformed/misfit outsider character who's told that eventually they'll be accepted for who they are, and then they do end up getting friends...and then they also magically get a normal appearance. It's a ""happier"" ending, but is needless because a resolution has already been achieved, and it undercuts the story being told.