Worm Milks An Enormous Amount Of Emotional And Thematic Mileage Out Of Not Being Remotely Parodic.

Worm milks an enormous amount of emotional and thematic mileage out of not being remotely parodic.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about; I recently started watching The Venture Brothers, and in the fourth episode there’s that sequence where The Monarchs henchmen and Baron Underbeit’s henchmen are shooting the shit over beers while trying to breach the Venture compound, talking about their various traumatic backstories and the roads they walked to become henchmen. The scene is extremely funny, because it’s a bunch of guys in ridiculous costumes killing time while trying to organize an assassination, but it’s also kidding-on-the-square; once it milks some black humor out of the mere idea of expendable minions having rich inner lives and incentives driving their behavior, the show actually does evolve into more nuanced examination of the expendable henchman dynamic.

Worm, though, does something different. The book takes the idea of “henchmen” extremely seriously from the start, subtly treating it as foundational to the game from day one and inescapably tying it into the books themes of selfishness, desperation and coordination problems. As early as the second or third chapter, Taylor is casually identifying the collapse of Brockton Bay’s blue collar sector as the reason the city is so attractive to supervillains; because they know the city is full of disenfranchised workers who are desperate enough to take jobs as goons. Her father, a Union Man to his core, brings up the idea of his dockworkers defecting to hench for Uber and Leet as something laughable- but there’s a very real desperation underpinning that framing. He’s desperate to find something to talk to her about, desperate enough that he’s willing to try and laugh off a real societal problem that he feels like he’s personally failing to address, so the beat isn’t really comedic.

In fact, there are almost no comedic beats about where Henchmen come from; the question of where villains find goons is spun around from a hundred different angles; it’s always some combination of desperation, coercion, career militarism (from coils people) or, in Skitters case, forged-in-fire loyalty used as a characterization tool for the protagonist. There are a few characters who behave as though henchmen exist solely to enable their superhuman setpiece violence, and every time the narrative treats that attitude with disdain and revulsion. Worm doesn’t go out of its way to emphasize the absurdity of henchmen; instead, it views them through the lens of community organization, organizational cohesion and movement building. In arc 11, Lisa puts serious thought into the ideal squad dynamics for the minion-backed sortie to merchant territory, and that’s just business. In a show like The Venture Brothers, these same ideas would be expressed through a gag where a mastermind gripes about the surprising difficulty of managing the petty office politics of the death squads.

Is there a more useless cape in the bay than triumph?

After much soul searching, wiki browsing and pondering, the answer to that question is yes. Yes there is.

Meet exhibit A: Trevor, AKA Chariot.

The worst fucking tinker to ever live.

Outwardly, very similar to Triumph. Complete mouthbreathing fodder.

What really puts Chariot in 'I would rather have greg veder have this power' tier is the fact that he had so much potential.

Chariot is a movement tinker, one who I cannot stress this enough, HAS ACCESS TO TELEPORTATION TINKERTECH.

TELEPORTATION TINKERTECH.

One more time for the people in the back,

TELEPORTATION.

TINKERTECH.

I could cry, really I could.

So first off, you need to understand just how good his power is. He literally made fucking POWER ARMOR that could go 100 mph with fucking dogshit scraps. Fucking power armor. The only other tinkers with power armor was trainwreck (a guy who's specialty is literally working with scraps) and Armsmaster, who's funded by the protectorate. And this guy just fuckin made some shit in his basement with an oven and a blowtorch or something.

He's got an extra dash of that shardstuff for sure. Also for some reason he just has extra insight into tinkertech? Just added on, for shits and giggles. His shard was forking over the shardbucks to give it's host a head start, too fucking bad it landed on literally the worst person in existence to have a tinker power. even fucking leet would be better than this idiot.

Not only that, he was able to copy trickster's power. Yk, trickster, just the guy with one of the most versatile and powerful powers in a street level setting and even beyond some of that, no biggie. fucking trickster.

This guy could scan movers and copy their powers.

In a world where this guy had a single braincell, he would've joined the protectorate, scanned strider's power and worked with dragon to set up fucking portals all around the united states or something.

Instead, we get this fucking brainlet.

I'm assuming he could also make some sort of neurological implant to speed up his thoughts to keep up with his tech, but thats just another failure of this troglodyte.

I still, I'm still laughing at how utterly fucking stupid this shit is, but one of his gadgets that he made.

So get this, he made a jetpack right, or a flight pack whatever. Guess what this dipshit decides to add in his shit. A fucking bomb. Yeah, he added a bomb in something he was carrying on his back. The reason? As far as im concerned, as a fucking escape route.

Yeah, you heard that right.

The MOVEMENT tinker, put a fucking bomb in their movement gear, to ESCAPE.

???

Unless he had some sort of secret 540000 iq plan to do something else with that bomb, but considering this guy's track record I doubt it. Even then that's fucking stupid. Why are you blowing up your gear? 'Oh hey! I got a great idea! Instead of doing literally anything else, how about I put an EXPLOSIVE right next to me in volatile tinkertech! What a great idea!'

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, this guy triggered about a year before canon start. What was he doing in all of that time?

Literally fucking nothing.

All he did was just ride around at 3 am being a little shithead. A year btw, he did that for a year.

Then he eventually got caught by assault (lol) and was forced to talk to Kid Win. In an incredible play, since Chariot was working for coil and decided to become a rat, got DISCOVERED BEFORE HE EVEN SIGNED THE PAPERS. LOL?

This fucking dipshit was like 'Yeah, they'll never see it coming >:)' meanwhile the PRT had a meeting deciding to fucking just feed this guy faulty information. Can you fucking do anything 😭.

He just was taking L after L.

He's like Leet but he doesn't even have the excuse that his shard hates him.

He's literally Legend's long lost cousin.

no goals, no plans

what are you doing man? 😭

Worst fucking spy on the planet.

Literal shithead kid waking people up at 3 am going on joyrides, which would be based if he wasn't so stupid. Such a cool power too, definition of wasted potential. I just agh.

WHY DO YOU GET. LIKE. UNDERSTANDING OF OTHER TINKERS SHIT. JUST TACKED ON. WHY ARE YOU BUILT FOR COLLABS AND YOU DO NOTHING.

Only fucking this guy could take a teleportation tinker spec and be absolute fodder.

Im still laughing at the bomb shit. Why is your first thought as a movement tinker to put a fucking bomb inside of your tech. Like what? Instead of literally making anything else. Are you fucking stupid? Yes you are, you are stupid. Even if it wasn't an escape plan (still can't believe it WORKED as an escape plan.) Like, what are you gonna do, throw your shit at the guy your fighting then stumble away because you blew up all of your shit. This fucking guy.

Anyway, stay tuned for more hating.

brian when the rest of the undersiders dont unload the dishwasher

"The Committee said on Tuesday that its newly-published report is the first output from a series of meetings exploring what a united Ireland would mean and examines the current economic relationship between the jurisdictions on the island and the potential of the all-island economy.

The report, the Committee said, goes on to examine the cost of a united Ireland and makes the case for planning and preparation for a united Ireland to begin."

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Underrated recurring character beat for Taylor:  Her frequently-mentioned hatred of seeking the high ground or being on rooftops because it leaves you with no way down, and how frequently the narrative validates that stance, up to and including the oil rig battle.

since the old version of this post was flagged for ‘adult content’…

reblog this post if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

along with that, reblog if your account is a non-binary spectrum safe space or owned by someone on the enby spectrum!