Yeah, I think it would be better written as “Joe’s voice in my head is now officially Nathan Fillion.” That’s what he meant, whatever you thought he meant by “official”…
On the subject of the Venture Brothers, I followed that link and I’ve never watched any of that before and now I want to watch it so fuck you. I watched a summary going up to season five and fuck, that seems screwed up. So maybe I should watch it.
Doctor_Who
Watch all if it!
Season 1 is a little bit of a slow starter, since it needs to set up everything, and the titular brothers’ personalities hadn’t really “diverged” yet, but everything from season 2 onward is solid gold.
Jen Aside
We started watching from the “Yard Sale” episode (S1E6) and were HOOKED
Dr. Horrible is pretty, um, horrible as soon as you dig down more than a layer and start to think about it. But the music is great so I prefer to separate the two. Because nuance is a thing, but perfection is not.
Spencer
Mostly I just hate how it’s quirky and funny and then has an out of nowhere, completely arbitrary tragic ending tacked on.
I know that’s Whedon’s thing, but it stopped being shocking and interesting after the millionth time.
modulusshift
You’re not great with tragedies in general, are you? Billy is a tragic hero, and his flaw is being a modern man. He’s attracted to his career and his rivalries to prove his worth, when the only measure that matters is that he’s compassionate and devoted and romantic to a fault. He listens to what society tells him he should be (which he sucks at) instead of exploring who he really is.
Penny was ready to show him his flaws, and told him how to be who he really is, like she did. “Grief replaced with pity, for a city barely coping. Dreams are easy to achieve if hope is all I’m hoping to be…” But he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t listen to her, because she’s the goal, not a friend, not someone to pursue on the side, she’s someone he had to win when all she needed was someone to really be there. “This is perfect for me, so they say, I guess he’s pretty okay. After years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?”
So, he had his flaws, he was given a chance to fix them, and instead took the encouragement to solve things the way he was going to anyway. It’s so dumb. He was doing it for Penny, and he knew it wasn’t going to work: “the thoroughbred of sin?” “I mean, Gandhi.” and “and though she may cry, her tears will dry when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia!”
Penny went through the same grief Billy did, but she took it in stride. Billy had to try to get even. he wanted to show them all, but when he finally succeeded, there was no one left to show, just because his own true nature got in the way for a minute.
modulusshift
“There’s no happy endings, so they say, (not for me anyway), should I stop pretending, or is this a brand new day? (and take a chance to build a brand new day?)” Billy says that he’s been told all his life he’s a loser, a nerd, what society hates, and that the hero, the jock, the deceiving ass, will always win, always defeat him, and his only chance is to stop pretending he can be the good guy, fully embrace his role as evil and build his own new day. Penny is only going along with liking Capt. Hammer because everyone says he’s perfect, and only she is starting to see the cracks, and she’s wondering if she should stop pretending she can’t, or if things really are as people says, and this is her new day. Neither of these new days are happy endings, and neither is the real one.
The earliest time you could see it coming is Billy almost brushing off Penny in favor of the wonderflonium. Penny is working with those around her, and Billy is focused on the big picture and thinks she won’t change anything. He thinks he can’t change anything either, yet. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through, all that matters is taking matters into your own hands, soon I’ll control everything, my wish is your command-“
Spencer
The bomb explodes in his face but it completely misses him and hits Penny with shrapnel even though she’s across the room, and had no reason to even be in there in the first place.
Andor
Yer stubble’s getting thick…
modulusshift
Penny is there as the guest of honor and one of the people who made the homeless shelter happen. But, besides that, you’re missing the point: would Billy not killing Penny have made a happy ending? The entire story is building up to calling Billy a heartless idiot for wanting to be Dr. Horrible. Penny never could have accepted Billy that way. her dying words were “Captain Hammer will save us…” Even after she started to have doubts, being the one non villain that understood Hammer as an ass, she still prefers him to Dr. Horrible. Billy never could have redeemed himself that way.
Spencer
What you’re describing sounds really awesome, but in practice it was a total mess, with Whedon’s trademark surprise death scene for a character with no actual personality beyond being a piece of meat for Dr. Horrible to pine over. I didn’t care about any of them.
You might as well be trying to tell me that The Room was actually the subversive masterpiece Tommy Wiseau insists it was.
modulusshift
Dude, it was only 45 minutes long. Of course it was a huge mess, and it takes several watchings and perhaps reading what other people got out of it to get the message across. Idea 9/10, execution 7/10, and that only because it’s so damn rewatchable, with the interleaving lyrics and catchy music and cohesiveness. Penny in particular really doesn’t get any characterization beyond cute activist girl swooning and then unsure. If you think about it, you realize she must have gone through basically everything Dr. Horrible did except the supervillain result, but there’s no more than hints of that in the actual video.
But claiming that the tragic ending is slapped on completely ignores that any happy ending would have been completely incongruous with any of the characters. It’s a deliberately screwed up world. If Penny had lived, it would have served to shove it in your face even more.
Spencer
Like I said, what you’re describing sounds really cool and interesting, but in practice, it sucked. None of the characters were enjoyable or interesting. The death at the end was ridiculous because Horrible is right next to the bomb when it goes off but he’s fine, but Penny just decided to hide in the auditorium instead of run, and then stand up.
The music was really good, though.
modulusshift
I don’t know, I think it’s perfectly in character that the one thing the death ray can’t possibly harm is what it’s pointing at. In fact, they almost lampshade it before the fact. “Let’s see if this works any better than the others.”
She stood up to see what was happening.
Anyway, it’s still my favorite shortform thing of all time, including tv episodes.
Kryss LaBryn
Dr. Horrible was lying on the floor, below the level of the shrapnel. Captain Hammer took a direct hit, but is nigh-invulnerable, so while it caused him actual pain (for the first time in his life), it didn’t damage him. Penny was standing and caught a direct chunk. If the gun had exploded radially then Dr. Horrible would have taken hits as well, but like bouncing betty bombs, it went off laterally.
zoelogical
i figure that at the time that was supposed to be potshot commentary at comic books and fridging.
it doesn’t age very well, though, which is why i’m holding out for a sequel. tagline: a bad penny always shows up.
Spencer
Does it count as a potshot if it’s just the thing it’s making fun of with no subversion or hint of irony?
zoelogical
depends?
i mean. of the three of them (penny, hammer and horrible), penny was the only one working to affect real change that wasn’t just holding up the status quo. the central irony is that horrible had to kill a hero in order to become a villain, and that hero was penny. hammer was, arguably, just as much of a villain as horrible was trying to be, he was just societally approved.
penny’s absence from the narrative is a weakness of the story, and i can’t look at it without thinking what a loss she is to the world. and horrible was able to recognize that, which is the tragedy of it. she’s killed for manpain, but she’s also a loss in and of herself. in her own value. maybe my standards here are low, but like. it’s not like her death is long and drawn out for the audience’s pleasure?
i mean, like. whedon was revolutionary in the 90s, and this sort of marks his decline into just being behind the times. it probably would be a much more effective twist to have, say, horrible kill hammer and then to have penny take hammer’s place as a hero because she doesn’t want a brand new australia, horrible, what’s even the point of that?
…it’s probably more a point of what you compare it to.
Spencer
That’s actually a really cool analysis of Penny, and I think it’s something that would have made the story a lot better, that with her dead and Hammer broken, Horrible starts getting cheers from the villain community, but we see the breakdown of the work Penny tried to achieve. As it is, she just comes off as the girl-du-jour for Horrible to moon over and then sob about. The only impact of her death is that now Horrible feels sad.
Yeah, but I wonder if he’d ever try it out just to make sure. Sounds like something he might do. *shrugs* But his response to Danny’s question about him potentially doing dudes was “of course not” so I might actually be wrong about that.
His needs are simple. Since this comic has a floating timescale, if we as a culture ever invent holodecks or sexbots, he will never be seen in a strip again. His life will be complete.
We’re probably not that far off from inventing sexbots. If we haven’t already.
>.>
Lou
We have.
Silvester Crow
If we don’t and tell Joe that…well just look at the Walky-verse. He’s smart…he just needs motivation.
Doctor_Who
My theory used to be that the reason UC ended up as a girl-bot was that Joe just happened to have a ton of female robot bodies lying around and UC didn’t care about gender so she just pointed to one and said it’ll do.
Gave up on that idea when we saw that she lacks ladyparts under her clothes. No way any bots Joe made for his own use wouldn’t be anatomically correct. Hell, they might have spares.
So far Joe has demonstrated little more than an interest in getting laid. If there’s more depth there we haven’t seen it yet.
Kryss LaBryn
He is also interested in making sure the lady has a good time, too.
Also he has a secret but deep interest in toys (unless I’m getting this mixed up with the Walky-verse; I’m rereading both) and is thinking of going into engineering design or something like that so he can design Transformers. Which would be cool. Sadly, I think doing that would ideally mean transferring to MIT or something because IU doesn’t have all of the course requirements.
Greenygal
That’s Walkyverse Joe; I’m pretty sure DOA-verse Joe hasn’t mentioned any engineering interest.
224 thoughts on “Complicated”
Jen Aside
Joe’s practically a cardboard cutout with hammer attached
[the hammer is his penis]
inqntrol
No,no. It’s not a hammer. It’s a multi tool.
Doctor_Who
Or maybe a drill with multiple bits. So it’s good for holes of various sizes.
Bicycle Bill
Just as long as it’s not a Snap-On tool.
Israfel
OK Sue Johanson, but you know the hammer technically is a multi tool. It can remove nails too!
Kamino Neko
… Huh. I never expected to see a Sex With Sue reference, here.
Doctor_Who
Joe’s official voice in my head is now Nathan Fillion.
Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t already.
batman
Yas
JustCheetoDust
Not really “official,” but whatever.
On a related note, I can’t wait for his episode(s) in Season 6 of The Venture Bros. next year.
Znayx
Yeah, I think it would be better written as “Joe’s voice in my head is now officially Nathan Fillion.” That’s what he meant, whatever you thought he meant by “official”…
On the subject of the Venture Brothers, I followed that link and I’ve never watched any of that before and now I want to watch it so fuck you. I watched a summary going up to season five and fuck, that seems screwed up. So maybe I should watch it.
Doctor_Who
Watch all if it!
Season 1 is a little bit of a slow starter, since it needs to set up everything, and the titular brothers’ personalities hadn’t really “diverged” yet, but everything from season 2 onward is solid gold.
Jen Aside
We started watching from the “Yard Sale” episode (S1E6) and were HOOKED
John
When all you’ve got is a hammer, every lady looks like someone to nail.
gkheyf
take that, maslow!
jepmz
In Enchanted, books was used instead. Interesting
Spencer
I never could bring myself to actually like Dr. Horrible, as great as the music was.
Then again, I hated most everything Whedon is attached to.
Lou
Dr. Horrible is pretty, um, horrible as soon as you dig down more than a layer and start to think about it. But the music is great so I prefer to separate the two. Because nuance is a thing, but perfection is not.
Spencer
Mostly I just hate how it’s quirky and funny and then has an out of nowhere, completely arbitrary tragic ending tacked on.
I know that’s Whedon’s thing, but it stopped being shocking and interesting after the millionth time.
modulusshift
You’re not great with tragedies in general, are you? Billy is a tragic hero, and his flaw is being a modern man. He’s attracted to his career and his rivalries to prove his worth, when the only measure that matters is that he’s compassionate and devoted and romantic to a fault. He listens to what society tells him he should be (which he sucks at) instead of exploring who he really is.
Penny was ready to show him his flaws, and told him how to be who he really is, like she did. “Grief replaced with pity, for a city barely coping. Dreams are easy to achieve if hope is all I’m hoping to be…” But he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t listen to her, because she’s the goal, not a friend, not someone to pursue on the side, she’s someone he had to win when all she needed was someone to really be there. “This is perfect for me, so they say, I guess he’s pretty okay. After years of stormy sailing have I finally found the bay?”
So, he had his flaws, he was given a chance to fix them, and instead took the encouragement to solve things the way he was going to anyway. It’s so dumb. He was doing it for Penny, and he knew it wasn’t going to work: “the thoroughbred of sin?” “I mean, Gandhi.” and “and though she may cry, her tears will dry when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia!”
Penny went through the same grief Billy did, but she took it in stride. Billy had to try to get even. he wanted to show them all, but when he finally succeeded, there was no one left to show, just because his own true nature got in the way for a minute.
modulusshift
“There’s no happy endings, so they say, (not for me anyway), should I stop pretending, or is this a brand new day? (and take a chance to build a brand new day?)” Billy says that he’s been told all his life he’s a loser, a nerd, what society hates, and that the hero, the jock, the deceiving ass, will always win, always defeat him, and his only chance is to stop pretending he can be the good guy, fully embrace his role as evil and build his own new day. Penny is only going along with liking Capt. Hammer because everyone says he’s perfect, and only she is starting to see the cracks, and she’s wondering if she should stop pretending she can’t, or if things really are as people says, and this is her new day. Neither of these new days are happy endings, and neither is the real one.
The earliest time you could see it coming is Billy almost brushing off Penny in favor of the wonderflonium. Penny is working with those around her, and Billy is focused on the big picture and thinks she won’t change anything. He thinks he can’t change anything either, yet. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through, all that matters is taking matters into your own hands, soon I’ll control everything, my wish is your command-“
Spencer
The bomb explodes in his face but it completely misses him and hits Penny with shrapnel even though she’s across the room, and had no reason to even be in there in the first place.
Andor
Yer stubble’s getting thick…
modulusshift
Penny is there as the guest of honor and one of the people who made the homeless shelter happen. But, besides that, you’re missing the point: would Billy not killing Penny have made a happy ending? The entire story is building up to calling Billy a heartless idiot for wanting to be Dr. Horrible. Penny never could have accepted Billy that way. her dying words were “Captain Hammer will save us…” Even after she started to have doubts, being the one non villain that understood Hammer as an ass, she still prefers him to Dr. Horrible. Billy never could have redeemed himself that way.
Spencer
What you’re describing sounds really awesome, but in practice it was a total mess, with Whedon’s trademark surprise death scene for a character with no actual personality beyond being a piece of meat for Dr. Horrible to pine over. I didn’t care about any of them.
You might as well be trying to tell me that The Room was actually the subversive masterpiece Tommy Wiseau insists it was.
modulusshift
Dude, it was only 45 minutes long. Of course it was a huge mess, and it takes several watchings and perhaps reading what other people got out of it to get the message across. Idea 9/10, execution 7/10, and that only because it’s so damn rewatchable, with the interleaving lyrics and catchy music and cohesiveness. Penny in particular really doesn’t get any characterization beyond cute activist girl swooning and then unsure. If you think about it, you realize she must have gone through basically everything Dr. Horrible did except the supervillain result, but there’s no more than hints of that in the actual video.
But claiming that the tragic ending is slapped on completely ignores that any happy ending would have been completely incongruous with any of the characters. It’s a deliberately screwed up world. If Penny had lived, it would have served to shove it in your face even more.
Spencer
Like I said, what you’re describing sounds really cool and interesting, but in practice, it sucked. None of the characters were enjoyable or interesting. The death at the end was ridiculous because Horrible is right next to the bomb when it goes off but he’s fine, but Penny just decided to hide in the auditorium instead of run, and then stand up.
The music was really good, though.
modulusshift
I don’t know, I think it’s perfectly in character that the one thing the death ray can’t possibly harm is what it’s pointing at. In fact, they almost lampshade it before the fact. “Let’s see if this works any better than the others.”
She stood up to see what was happening.
Anyway, it’s still my favorite shortform thing of all time, including tv episodes.
Kryss LaBryn
Dr. Horrible was lying on the floor, below the level of the shrapnel. Captain Hammer took a direct hit, but is nigh-invulnerable, so while it caused him actual pain (for the first time in his life), it didn’t damage him. Penny was standing and caught a direct chunk. If the gun had exploded radially then Dr. Horrible would have taken hits as well, but like bouncing betty bombs, it went off laterally.
zoelogical
i figure that at the time that was supposed to be potshot commentary at comic books and fridging.
it doesn’t age very well, though, which is why i’m holding out for a sequel. tagline: a bad penny always shows up.
Spencer
Does it count as a potshot if it’s just the thing it’s making fun of with no subversion or hint of irony?
zoelogical
depends?
i mean. of the three of them (penny, hammer and horrible), penny was the only one working to affect real change that wasn’t just holding up the status quo. the central irony is that horrible had to kill a hero in order to become a villain, and that hero was penny. hammer was, arguably, just as much of a villain as horrible was trying to be, he was just societally approved.
penny’s absence from the narrative is a weakness of the story, and i can’t look at it without thinking what a loss she is to the world. and horrible was able to recognize that, which is the tragedy of it. she’s killed for manpain, but she’s also a loss in and of herself. in her own value. maybe my standards here are low, but like. it’s not like her death is long and drawn out for the audience’s pleasure?
i mean, like. whedon was revolutionary in the 90s, and this sort of marks his decline into just being behind the times. it probably would be a much more effective twist to have, say, horrible kill hammer and then to have penny take hammer’s place as a hero because she doesn’t want a brand new australia, horrible, what’s even the point of that?
…it’s probably more a point of what you compare it to.
Spencer
That’s actually a really cool analysis of Penny, and I think it’s something that would have made the story a lot better, that with her dead and Hammer broken, Horrible starts getting cheers from the villain community, but we see the breakdown of the work Penny tried to achieve. As it is, she just comes off as the girl-du-jour for Horrible to moon over and then sob about. The only impact of her death is that now Horrible feels sad.
bodmans
hey Jen, what happened to Ana?
Ana Chronistic
felt like some licky-time
Spencer
Or Sue, for that matter?
AnvilPro
Just when I thought there couldn’t be any more sexual tension. Joe walks in.
CrikeyCrocAnon
DO EACH OTHER. DO EACH OTHER. (I’m sorry my shipping juices are flowing)
JetstreamGW
We don’t need to know about that. That is private.
-Sentinel-
I take it you haven’t been here long?
Captain Button
Are those real shipping juices, or just reconstituted from concentrate?
Doctor_Who
I hear it’s just high fucktose porn syrup and artificial savorings these days.
Captain Button
+1 Internet
Tacos
Here, have an internet.
StClair
*slow clap*
JustCheetoDust
http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/picard_clapping.gif
lejwocky
the shipjuice must flow
AgentKeen
I don’t think Joe is into dudes.
doubleW
“C’mon, think of all the yaoi-nerd chicks you’ll score if you tell them about this!”
Emma
Yeah, but I wonder if he’d ever try it out just to make sure. Sounds like something he might do. *shrugs* But his response to Danny’s question about him potentially doing dudes was “of course not” so I might actually be wrong about that.
Captain Button
Why should Joe become more complicated? He is getting everything he wants already.
Lou
When has becoming complicated ever gotten people things?
Stephen R. Bierce
Shaving Cream/Be nice and clean/Shave every day and you’ll alway look keen!
cesium133
I have a sad story to tell you
It hurt Amber’s feelings a bit
At noon when Danny had kissed her,
he just swallowed a big pile of…
(wait, why is he eating shaving cream!?)
Leorale
Does your husband misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave?
Shoot the brute some BURMA SHAVE
AgentKeen
I’ll have you know I am not clean shaven!
LeRoyEstMort
Whiskers long
Made Samson strong
But Samson’s gal
She done
Him wrong
BURMA SHAVE!
Leorale
If you think
She likes
your bristles
Walk bare-footed
Through some thistles
BURMA SHAVE
James Small
Why does Joe have life more figured out than everyone? Is this some weird commentary on adulthood?
Doctor_Who
His needs are simple. Since this comic has a floating timescale, if we as a culture ever invent holodecks or sexbots, he will never be seen in a strip again. His life will be complete.
Tacos
We’re probably not that far off from inventing sexbots. If we haven’t already.
>.>
Lou
We have.
Silvester Crow
If we don’t and tell Joe that…well just look at the Walky-verse. He’s smart…he just needs motivation.
Doctor_Who
My theory used to be that the reason UC ended up as a girl-bot was that Joe just happened to have a ton of female robot bodies lying around and UC didn’t care about gender so she just pointed to one and said it’ll do.
Gave up on that idea when we saw that she lacks ladyparts under her clothes. No way any bots Joe made for his own use wouldn’t be anatomically correct. Hell, they might have spares.
Gigafreak
Two of everything.
Vagin-A and Vagin-B.
A-nus and B-nus.
And so on.
Tan
Instead of orifice, andifice?
Kamino Neko
Boo-ravo.
Matt Heath
Just lots of nadifices. You van make anything with those.
tim gueguen
Give Joe some undetermined amount of time and he’ll suddenly realise how utterly shallow his life is, prompting a giant existential crisis.
Someone
prompting him to team up with Danny, Howard and Rachel, and go fight aliens in space.
masterofbones
Shallow – someone with a value-set other than that I hold.
tim guegue
So far Joe has demonstrated little more than an interest in getting laid. If there’s more depth there we haven’t seen it yet.
Kryss LaBryn
He is also interested in making sure the lady has a good time, too.
Also he has a secret but deep interest in toys (unless I’m getting this mixed up with the Walky-verse; I’m rereading both) and is thinking of going into engineering design or something like that so he can design Transformers. Which would be cool. Sadly, I think doing that would ideally mean transferring to MIT or something because IU doesn’t have all of the course requirements.
Greenygal
That’s Walkyverse Joe; I’m pretty sure DOA-verse Joe hasn’t mentioned any engineering interest.