page 1140 – just the best of friends
(Historical Notes: YAY! More blatant filler/stretching! This is another set of pages where I reeeaaally wish I could find the original commentary, because I’d love to see what Past Me’s excuse was THIS time. I can’t for the life of me remember what, if anything, was going on at this point for me to have used as an excuse, but I CAN say that this and the next few pages could easily have been condensed into a single comic without losing much. I’ll admit that they do LOOK pretty nice, and there’s at least one subtle bit of visual storytelling across these pages, but I still can’t get over just how much this material is being streeeaaaaached. Oh, and speaking of stretching, I think Past Me was trying to draw Hiro putting Avi into some kind of ankle lock… but forgot to actually draw Hiro in any way touching Avi’s ankle, just making this weird pose entirely pointless. Honestly, that’s be totally in character for Hiro, but I can’t imagine it was on purpose.)
Honestly, due to the Historical Notes, I’m looking at Avi and and his leg being held by Hiro and thinking “Either Avi has some freakish flexibility and is supported off the ground somehow, or something should be seriously damaged there”.
Just to be clear, I’m talking about how Avi is being bent 180 degrees from his hip to where his face is looking. Lynne literally SITTING on Avi’s incredibly bent back only makes me believe that Avis has SOMETHING done to protect his spine from gross damage and flexibility, or else it would be snapped from this page.
Yeah, I have sneaking suspicion that Avi’s face was originally supposed to be more on the floor, and I might have changed it to accommodate Tarkus’ food without thinking about the physical implications.
But on the other hand, they ARE little boys, who are scientifically confirmed to be made out of rubber.
…wait, if all of them have bones with the elasticity of rubber, it might explain why Hiro, despite seemingly training himself on a highly regular basis, is never in contention for any achievements, even within his own age bracket (I’m not sure if he actually usually competes within his own age bracket, but I assume that he should do it on occasion). With rubber bones, no matter how much more durable you are, you’ll lack the structural integrity required for the musculature attached to them that everyone else has. This means that Hiro is competing with a notable disadvantage in any non-aggressive competition. And in any aggressive competition, he’s also more liable to be harmed from blows to the head (the skull is solid for a reason, making it rubber, even dense rubber, would be counterproductive to protecting the brain), meaning that he doesn’t have any real advantage in those, either.
It’s highly likely that between genetic engineering, biological mods after the fact, bionics, implants, nanotech, and other assorted future-y plot devices, nobody in the FOTverse’s biology even remotely resembles ours any more, and likely doesn’t resemble each others much either. I mean, you KNOW that kids with parents that rich are by default going to buy them at (and before) birth EVERY single possible invisible mod and tech to make them completely invulnerable to permanent harm and nearly invulnerable to temporary harm, Given their vast history of Adventures in Stupidity and Poor Judgement, it’s probably the only reason they’re still alive. (Well, that and a Nitpicker-led army covering up for them and protecting them, of course)
Incidentally, it also explains the otherwise surprising fact that Jenna has been able to survive years of having Megaweapon as a sibling.