#machine gods

The cavalry has a stone in its shoe

The first thing that fucked me up was realising what the sound effect in the first two panels of the chapter was: the sound of the doctor’s increasingly agonised breathing.  What a horrible thing to have to hear, made worse by the three Machine Gods showing up and reporting that their latest kill would have a 0% chance of survival after 5 minutes.

If you thought then that this chapter would be about a by-the-skin-of-the-teeth save, you’re sadly mistaken.  Genos was awesome.  He spared no power (nor powers for that matter) in fighting the three dragon-level machines simultaneously, aiming to kill them as quickly as he could and get that time.

ONE’s grasp on choreography has improved immensely and he’s used it fantastically here.  He’s always been versatile, but this time, Genos was plasticity itself, wielding heat, freezing, magnetism, anti-gravity, electricity and much more.  In turn, they didn’t commit the mistake of trying to attack one at a time, analysing his moves as they went and attacking in unpredictable formation.

it might not be psychic power, but being able to move and warp anything magnetic is a damn useful substitute

Machine Gods may vary in form, but they do share a basic interest, which is in understanding heroes, and a basic personality, which is a snarky wit that’s quick to mock. Machine God Tech lobs a back-handed compliment to Genos, saying that if he’d mastered these variable abilities, he’d have been able to aim for the top of the hero world.  For their confidence, Tech and Ray end up dead in pretty short order, smashed to pieces, leaving an outraged Machine God Body howling about how it simply couldn’t be that a mere ex-human cyborg could outdo them, these magnificent AIs.  He takes up the components of the other two to strengthen himself further, but  he’s dead soon, smashed to bits by an appropriately named Final Smash.

Genos hurries to the doctor, but there’s no let up.  Seven more high-powered robots appear. Thankfully so does Saitama, still in his underwear. He takes on the five approaching from the front, leaving the last two to Genos.  Saitama casually walking through the assault, not even bothering to shape a punch has to be one of the scene-stealers of the chapter and one of the very few light moments in it.

And then it’s over.  Saitama picks the doctor up to try ferrying him to hospital, but the doctor refuses, preferring to tell Genos where to find a secret, final upgrade, to use it to run away from Them (looks like the doctor knows exactly who killed him) and to beg forgiveness.

what a way for a beautiful relationship to end

Genos doesn’t say anything. Nor does he hurry after Saitama, but after the latter has left, he bows deeply in gratitude and says that there’s nothing to forgive, for the old man did nothing wrong in his eyes.

The action recommences at dawn.  For the avoidance of all hope, we see that Saitama has buried the doctor in the forest with a chunck of the lab wall as a headstone and the shovel still stuck in the earth by the grave.  Genos comes out of the repair pod with a new body and the two of them take their leave.  Genos intends to take out Metal Knight immediately, before whatever the plan for a ‘general offensive’ is executed.  Saitama agrees to accompany him.  But as they walk along, there’s a light over the nearest city.  It seems ‘The Plan’ Machine God Tech talked about has begun.

Indeed, on the ground, there’s carnage as a formation of robots marches through, burning every building they pass and shooting down anything that moves.  Various heroes look on in numb horror as the army advances. 

That’s where this monster of a chapter ends.

never ones to half-ass things

Meta

Unsurprising Surprise

The Organization strikes at last.  Our longest-running villains finally show their hand. They’ve measured, they’ve planned, they’ve done their homework, made that list and checked it twice.  Fitting in with Metal Knight’s warning about a shadowy power waiting its time (in the manga, not the webcomic), they’ve struck right when the heroes are at their weakest.  We don’t know the extent  of it. Is City W the only place being scrubbed off the map, or is this part of a much more widespread trend?

Well, now we really do know that when Genos spoke of not only acting for himself when he introduced himself to Saitama, he was just telling the truth.  He might be looking for vengeance, but his scope was always much bigger than just himself.  It’s a shame things have had to deteriorate to this extent for us to see it.

If not now, when?

So this is it! This is as good as it gets for him then. If he is to survive, Genos will have to take a page from Drive Knight’s example and quickly master everything his new body has to offer.  We’ve (well I’ve) complained before that he’s merely competent at using what the doctor gives him, throwing parts and bodies away without giving himself a chance to truly get the best out of them.  No choice now.  And it looks like there’s a world to save -- no time to luxuriate in practice. Or grief.

Forgive me

A few years ago when I was still new to Reddit, one of my first posts was to ask if Dr Kuseno was a good man. Against his manifest good deeds in supporting Genos as he did, it didn’t sit well with me that he’d performed a Reverse Pinocchio on an ordinary boy, turning him into a living weapon.  Not hard to imagine that it wasn’t received too well by the sub, lol.  In time, as we got to see more of Kuseno, my position on him softened, but what the hell, doctor?  never went completely away.

With Kuseno’s dying words being apology, we see that he knew he’d done wrong by Genos.  He knew that roping him into his quest for justice came as much from his own selfishness and rage as it did from a desire to set the world to rights.  I’ve repeatedly said that the cyborg body Genos has has nothing to do with health. It was all about gaining the power to fight and forgoing a chance to have a life in the process.

And so Kuseno died, in agony, weeping and begging for a forgiveness that he never heard come.  He was buried like a dog in what had been his backyard. By a stranger.

Fuck.

That’s cold.

Now I’m not faulting Genos for not forgiving the old man to his hearing. But there’s a hardness to him that he’ll want watching lest it grow more.

this is why the Machine Gods always fail despite their detailed calculations.  They just do not understand the depth of the human heart, nor its importance.

But I’ll add one more thing.  Dr Kuseno did not just raise a warrior.  In the end, he raised a damn fine hero too.  In the end, I really hope that some great good might yet come out of this.

Saitama and compassion

I’m glad that Saitama is here.  I’m even more glad that he’s not been acting to try stealing the show, instead supporting Genos when the latter needs it. It’s not ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ But it is compassionate. 

What’s next?

Why fighting of course.  Lots of it. I hope that somehow, the fog of war ends up nevertheless clarifying the relationship between the Neo Heroes, The Organization, Metal Knight and possibly Drive Knight.  I’m ready for this arc to build to its crisis and resolve one way or the other.

Bits and pieces

Number 23 on the list?  If Kuseno weren’t keeping such a low profile, I’d be insulted on his behalf.

I surmised last chapter that Kuseno must have an extensive basement as the superstructure of his place looked positively humble.  West basement?  With multiple hangars?  That’s not a basement, that’s an underground castle.  I hope Genos has locked up after himself.  If he succeeds in putting sword to his enemies, he’ll want what’s in there.