Page 3. Changed.
I’m leaving tonight for a short trip so there may be a little delay in approving any new comments. Next page will go up Monday as usual. Oh, and here is a documentary Kickstarter I would love to see funded by the time I get back.
O Human Star
by Blue Delliquanti
MORE OF BLUE’S STUFF
That last panel… Damn, AL, you really struck a nerve.
In the first panel Al looks like he’s about to lay down a sick rap battle or.. you know…a sick burn.
In the third panel, looks like the flow is still going strong.
Papa’s back to spit some knowledge (Do robots spit?)…
I didn’t think I could possibly find Brendan more irritating than in the flashbacks..but holy hell, has he gotten more entitled and annoying as he’s aged.
I agree. Age and experience haven’t done **** for his attitude.
I just realized… Brendan doesn’t seem to out with Sulla much – she’s always on her own – so it makes sense he doesn’t know how shy she is in crowds…
Now I kind of wonder if Sulla acts peppier at home because she knows Brendan is excitable but kind of lonely… :'(
I hate to play Devil’s advocate, but I’m really starting to feel bad for Brendan. I know he has his flaws and some of the things he does are in need of redemption, but let’s recap a little bit about his character.
Brendan was raised in a very different household than Al, leading him to be more sociable; he tries to raise Sulla in the same kind of environment. HOWEVER, in raising her in a continuously positive environment, he may forget that Sulla is still a teenager and has moments in her life where she isn’t happy, though she probably keeps these moments from Brendan because she doesn’t want to bring him down. Maybe.
Brendan got dealt a rough set; He played second fiddle in a business he and Al built together, lost his lover, failed to bring him back, Al returns unexpectedly, who remembers their previous problems and rejects the life Brendan currently lives, including his daughter, who Brendan has just discovered he doesn’t understand as well as he thinks he does.
In a sense, these things were caused by Brendan; He, despite their issues, let Al stay in the home with them without considering how this would effect Sulla’s life. Al returning was obviously going to bring up some things and it would make sense that in the next panel, Brendan will get defensive.
He has basically been told that he failed in raising his daughter and his ex lover, who just returned only a week or so ago, has done a far better job.
Its also sad to realize that Sulla and Brendan aren’t as close as they think they are.
Seat belts?
Today I noticed for the first time, that the name Sulla is (might be) a variation of the last two syllables in Alastair backwards. Well it works the way I pronounce it.
Or is that what her name actually comes from? I remember something like ‘she read it in a book and thought it was pretty’ but it has been so long since I read the older pages.
So, am I making stuff up in my head or was this canon all along and I kinda didn’t notice?
Sulla’s name is taken – both in-universe and meta-textually – from the Czech play “RUR”, which is also where the comic’s title comes from!
Right. In the translation by Claudia Novack-Jones the title comes from:
“You still stand watch, O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit. Each of your rays a great idea — O torch which passes from hand to hand, from age to age, world without end.”
Her’s is the best of the available English translations, in my opinion. This quote does not appear at all in the more common shortened version of the play by Selver and Playfair.
Brendan actually has a point. Although Al had his heart in the right place, the advising he’s given Sulla (“be smart, conceal who you are, and do what you need to pass as human”) is questionable, to say the least.
Years ago DC comics had a story where Wonder Woman was trying to help the hapless mortals and she couldn’t understand why they didn’t accept her even after her heroic deed. Clark Kent pulls her aside and gently explains there is a reason he cultivates a human ‘identity’, it’s so that he can co-mingle with humanity and get to know them without having his marked differences keep him at more than arms length from everyone else, which leads to isolation and resentment. If you can fly and have super strength and possible immortality, you aren’t exactly ‘people’ anymore, you are something else, alien. Sulla in a selfless act basically has outed herself as something ‘alien’. The scene where she is floating above the amazed crowd is iconic; Sulla sees the people below her, the crowd looks up at her, and there is a distance between both of them, no matter how one feels about the other, that can’t be casually crossed. In that instant Sulla knew that her cultivated relationship as a normal fifteen year old girl with the people she had met was gone.
If Brendan has one working nerve in his head, he should be
thinking about how he is going to shield Sulla from the military getting their hands on her. He has basically ‘built’ supergirl.
I think we should cut Brendan a bit more slack. Judging by the quality of his daughter – bright, empathetic, brave, and capable – he’s been a good father, and he’s obviously deeply concerned for her right now.
“I understand what’s going through her head.”
And there it is.
Not willing to cut Brendan any slack on this kind of comment. This seems more like a bit of resurgence from his old issues with Al, and Brendan’s own propensity to force Al with being open instead of accepting Al’s fear of being outed. He wasn’t empathetic about people (like Al) who don’t feel comfortable or safe being open about being gay, and seemed frustrated with him at best, scornful at worst. It was his lack of empathy and patience/respect for Al’s anxiety that I liked the least about him in the past, and unfortunately it seems like he hasn’t gotten over it.
Yeah- Brendan’s been a good dad, and to some extent this comment was about Sulla, but I think his anger here is for Al, and for Al’s coping methods. He seems to think the Sulla HE knew wouldn’t have run away after outing herself: the problem isn’t that she outed herself or that she’s upset, he’s angry that she ran away from it, a course of behavior he identifies with Al. So now he’s blaming this new ‘cowardice’ on Al instead of wondering why his daughter felt terrified or upset enough to run away.
I guess Brendan has always been a confident, extroverted person, so Sulla might have felt uncomfortable talking about her social anxiety and her desire to fit in and not be outed to him, and he’s her father and she might not want to make him worry, so it makes sense why she would talk to Al instead of her father about this. Al is who she’s based on and he gets how she behaves instantly, so there wouldn’t be a point in hiding it. I only hope they get past this initial finger-pointing from Brendan and Al can explain some of how Sulla’s feeling to him. And hopefully, for everyone’s sake, Brendan can start understanding more about why Al did what he did and why Sulla’s behaving this way.
Honestly, my biggest fear is that he communicates to Sulla that her behavior is inappropriate.