to be totally fair, solomon is in stopped time so likely had a proper age to figure out why mottom was throwing him some kind of magic sickle on a chain.
In hindsight, Mottom was the one talking since day one about how gods-scary Jagganoth has become and Solomon is always the practical one, so it seems likely those two would at least have talked over some general anti-Jagganoth strategies or even this specific move at some point. Maybe they are secret penpals. That’s a hilarious image.
I get the impression that Mottom, Mammon, Solomon and Jadis get on quite well (apart from Mottom and Mammon falling out over Allison) but they hate and despise the other three. I love how the clique is cooperating here, but the loners are still the more interesting characters.
I keep having a feeling that the clique you identify might be forced into administrative positions in some new order, rather than ever actually being defeated.
Contrary to the contrary – being assigned to a position where nobody will notice you but you still have all the power you need to shape the world is the very best kind of victory.
“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Like most Douglas Adam’s quotes, this seems like a joke until you take a look at what Mitch Mulvaney has been up to for the last four years. Dude can exploit a distraction.
Touché. But in truth positions like that are only conspired, never assigned – they are something entirely different. For example, did the Ring of Power contestants who received minor titles for standing down win a perfect victory, or a consolation prize with strings attached?
While I am by no means an expert when it comes to combat, isn’t it the four fingers that make contact when punching? The thumb not coming into contact?
true but what the og poster is referring to is the way ki-rata uses “point” techniques. the higher the points the more damage they deal, with ten-point being the highest we’ve heard of.
Hmmm… perhaps Jagganoth is cleverer then we give him credit for! I bet you 10-point strikes would level the whole city, and so by attacking Solomon in his capital, he forces the warrior-monk to hold back!
Either that… or 10-point punches also obliterate the wielder and thus remain purely hypothetical.
He then proceeded to block a sword stroke aimed straight at him afterwards.
I have a feeling he did that precisely to make sure the collateral damage wouldn’t damage his city any further.
Solomon is a crushingly overbearing ruler, but that tyranny comes from a place of obsessive love. He’s effectively an overprotective dad who refuses to let his child grow up. Now that his child has been actively harmed, he’s gone into an almost-blind rage.
(There’s also a deep pride in there, but that’s its own thing.)
The only demiurge that hasn’t done anything cool yet is Gog-Agog. I’m assuming she’s about to show up in a big worm-kaiju-abomination body and literally clown on the rest of them.
Yes – For someone very skilled, like Jagganoth, perhaps the worms will work in the other direction too, providing an escape tunnel out of the binding:
We know that Gog-Agog can see what the ‘wormheads’ experience, which means there must be a connection back to the”worm-mother-body”. Can this link be hacked by someone like Jagganoth?
Y’know, there’s definitely precedent for clown-themed secondary villains usurping the BBEG position, so now that I think about it I could see Gog pulling that off, especially since her whole ominous “the mass always wins” speech never went anywhere narratively.
She can bide her time and let the whole multi-verse kill herself. Endless bodies on countless worlds across millions of realities is a lot of worm food.
I believe that the later only applies when you are relying on material rope. Ethereal coils made from one’s own might be a demonstration of rather than a substitute for power.
“Jadis manifests the Hex Sphere…
Mottom crafts the Chain + Sickle of Binding…
Mammon moves her to position for the forward pass…
AND SOLOMON RECEIVES da Weapon in the Hemi-Sphere of NO TIME !
SOLOMON WINDS UP FOR THE NET….!
CAN HE SPIKE JAGGANOTH TO INFINITY AND BEYOND ? !!!”
((( ROARING EXCITEMENT FROM DISTANT PLANAR OBSERVERS )))
I’m promoting you to acting captain until we find out what happened to Jim. If the medical officer given you any trouble, here’s a video with instructions.
By the looks of it, he paused the timeslicing for a moment (as the afterimages merge into one Solomon catching the sickle) and then resumed it in order to stretch the chain.
A mightily impressive display. Three demiurges joining forces against one. And three remain, to add their own power. All impressive and commendable, save for a minor detail. It takes only one, acting against their own self-interest for reasons of volatile mind, to ruin things for the other five. And of those who remain, one is fragmented to ruinous degree, one has a death wish, and one has already turned coat to Jagganoth before. What could possibly go wrong?
I sincerely hope like the Alt-Text is canon and that the demiurges actually DID practice these moves. I bet Gog-Agog provided the music and commentary. Solomon probably did the blocking and choreography.
Well, the Red One cannot be discarded before A) we see more of the demiurges power, B) Allison doesn’t enter the fight in some capacity and C) we don’t get to FINALLY see his presentation card.
That said, it would be extremely dissapointing if none of this had any effect whatsoever in him. I think the author is a best writer than that
I dunno, that also seems kinda predictable to me. I really liked someone’s theory last page that this *will* work only for Allison to need to free him later for some reason – perhaps after grasping the truth of the cycle? That could put his presentation card at the very climax of the book, which would be fitting imo.
Woooo teamwork and all but I thought she was actually going to do something herself. Instead she took power from someone else, to make a weapon to give to someone else, while riding in the back of sentient being who does not actually need a rider.
Eh, I’m willing to give some credit here, Jadis provides the raw power, Mottom crafts it into a tool and Solomon is meant to use it. Technically earlier Mammon provided a distraction allowing Solomon to momentarily incapacitate Jagganoth and he could only do this because Mottom aimed him (he’s borderline blind).
Having said that the real question now is what will go wrong. Is this not going to be enough? Is Incubus going to interfere, or use the situation to launch some other operation? Thorns will come? They succeed at binding Jaggy but it still reignites the war since they can’t agree what to do with his power or Gog-Agog takes this opportunity to just devour him whole and absorb his key? So many possibilities…
She forged the raw energy of a spell into a precise and powerful tool that she put into the hands of the strongest brute strength fighter they have. No amount of brute damage from a spell or incineration could equal what he can do via precision execution of that kind of power, and she knew it.
Nobody else could have turned the power into a tool like she did, or probably have thought to. Not to mention that she came up with this idea when the alternative was floating there while Solomon hopefully finished him.
I get the sentiment of wanting to see her do some direct damage, but this is far from a lack of teamwork.
The squad is pulling of a chain attack of epic proportions, Solomon passes the ball to Incubus and shouts “Cast him into the void, destroy him!” and Incubus smirks and says “No..”
Meanwhile Gog-Agog missed the button prompt for participating and the big bad boss survives with 1hp and the team wipes.
I am allow wondering just how much time is passing for Solomon inside his double bubble of time. Hours? Years? Millennia?
With a single stoppage, he did about a minute of carnage in, oh, let’s call it a millisecond. Rough it out to 100,000x in slowdown.
With another slowdown inside that, makes it 10 Billion.
So I’d say at least 30 seconds have past in normal time, and 300 Billion seconds for Salami… or about ten thousand years if some sustained, insane power output
Somehow I don’t think every Solomon we see is always part of a linear progression. I get the impression it’s closer to a sort of soul projection, like the dozens of Jagganoths with bows or the two extra Mottoms here.
They are going to teleport Jagganoth outside of the ‘corpse reality’ which will allow Jagganoth to start destroying the whole thing from ‘outside’ the dimension.
I think her “Imprisonment” is more meant to contain her form. She saw the wheel in its entirety, a sight that cannot be contained even by one of the seven. Should she break free from the glas that contains her, she might just rot away to nothingness in an instant.
There’s a disturbing absence of Gog-Agog thus far (aside from seeing her get impaled a little, I mean). I don’t like the idea of Incubus being out of frame for too long either.
The problem with there being 6 gods who I wouldn’t turn my back on is that I only have one back.
Indeed. There are many, many ways in which any of this can go wrong.
And let us not forget Maya is to get involved as well. That makes 8 demiurges in play, or close enough
Maya’s a whole other frightening factor and I don’t know enough about her to trust her timing in this matter. Exciting scenario though, like hurling spanners into complex, volatile machinery.
Now THIS, right here, is the kind of problem solving I like to see.
Like the mighty tortoise I shall flip on to my back so that I am in the best position to deal with anything that comes my way.
Jadis’s Key color is the bright blue, so we can see her magic get transfered tov Mottom who shapes it and sends it to Solomon David, where his Key color momentarily flashes slight blue.
I think Solomon’s Facial expression is meant to be reminiscent of Nio, Kongorikishi and Vajrapani dharma protectors.
The bodyguards of the Buddha who were meant to represent the power of the buddha and the capacity to protect enlightenment and sapient beings with physical force.
Notably these figures themselves are not usually considered to be enlightened beings themselves.
Who doesn’t want to adopt new things that can help you to move forward? I am newly registered at the kill six billion demons platform I feel really proud of myself for making the decision to come here.
THE MANTLE IS PASSED. THE BEAST IS BOUND.
THE WROTH GOD’S MYRIAD ARMS SURROUND.
THEY HOPE THAT WITHIN, THE BEAST IS FOUND
HARKEN FORTH, A NEW KING CROWNED
JAG’S JUST DIGGING A TUNNEL TO EVADE NOW
Too easy. My boy Jagganoth ain’t gonna fall for no Tholian Web tricks.
MAMMON!
MOTTOM!
SOLOMON SNARES AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT!
SURRENDER YAUN, YOU CANNOT FIGHT!!
None of this is important.
I would totally tap dat ass.
GOG-AGOG!
THAT’S RIGHT!
This sounds suspiciously similar to the rocketeer guild’s motto…
wow, for people who can never get along, these guys have AMAZING teamwork skills!
to be totally fair, solomon is in stopped time so likely had a proper age to figure out why mottom was throwing him some kind of magic sickle on a chain.
In hindsight, Mottom was the one talking since day one about how gods-scary Jagganoth has become and Solomon is always the practical one, so it seems likely those two would at least have talked over some general anti-Jagganoth strategies or even this specific move at some point. Maybe they are secret penpals. That’s a hilarious image.
Well, it was actually discussed back in King of Swords. Page 5-50, to be exact.
(I’m rereading the comic and I just got to that page, which is the only reason why I know…)
I get the impression that Mottom, Mammon, Solomon and Jadis get on quite well (apart from Mottom and Mammon falling out over Allison) but they hate and despise the other three. I love how the clique is cooperating here, but the loners are still the more interesting characters.
I keep having a feeling that the clique you identify might be forced into administrative positions in some new order, rather than ever actually being defeated.
On the contrary – such an assignment is indistinguishable from defeat.
Contrary to the contrary – being assigned to a position where nobody will notice you but you still have all the power you need to shape the world is the very best kind of victory.
“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Like most Douglas Adam’s quotes, this seems like a joke until you take a look at what Mitch Mulvaney has been up to for the last four years. Dude can exploit a distraction.
Touché. But in truth positions like that are only conspired, never assigned – they are something entirely different. For example, did the Ring of Power contestants who received minor titles for standing down win a perfect victory, or a consolation prize with strings attached?
Solomon used… the power of teamwork.
It’s… maybe effective?
Solomon looks… serious.
And with only eight fingers, these aren’t even serious punches.
While I am by no means an expert when it comes to combat, isn’t it the four fingers that make contact when punching? The thumb not coming into contact?
true but what the og poster is referring to is the way ki-rata uses “point” techniques. the higher the points the more damage they deal, with ten-point being the highest we’ve heard of.
Hmmm… perhaps Jagganoth is cleverer then we give him credit for! I bet you 10-point strikes would level the whole city, and so by attacking Solomon in his capital, he forces the warrior-monk to hold back!
Either that… or 10-point punches also obliterate the wielder and thus remain purely hypothetical.
After a simple look at past pages, I raise a serious doubt over anyone “holding back”.
Solomon dodged an attack that proceeded to hit the city. He’s pissed about it, but he’s absolutely not holding back for his world’s sake.
He then proceeded to block a sword stroke aimed straight at him afterwards.
I have a feeling he did that precisely to make sure the collateral damage wouldn’t damage his city any further.
Really you want one or two of the base knuckles to make contact, only. Keep the fingers out of the way.
I think he looks angry rather than serious, we saw serious Solomon when he was beating the flame outta White Chain before she broke apart.
This is “I just lost thousands of my own people” Solomon, this is “Boiling with enough rage for a nuclear blast” Solomon
Solomon is a crushingly overbearing ruler, but that tyranny comes from a place of obsessive love. He’s effectively an overprotective dad who refuses to let his child grow up. Now that his child has been actively harmed, he’s gone into an almost-blind rage.
(There’s also a deep pride in there, but that’s its own thing.)
ULTIMATE BINDING MANTRA: ONE HUNDRED CHAINS CANCEL THE WICKED
The only demiurge that hasn’t done anything cool yet is Gog-Agog. I’m assuming she’s about to show up in a big worm-kaiju-abomination body and literally clown on the rest of them.
She’s waiting to see if the others manage to immobilize Jags and if they do she’ll shove worms down his throat.
Oh.
Oh no.
That would be… REALLY bad.
Yes – For someone very skilled, like Jagganoth, perhaps the worms will work in the other direction too, providing an escape tunnel out of the binding:
We know that Gog-Agog can see what the ‘wormheads’ experience, which means there must be a connection back to the”worm-mother-body”. Can this link be hacked by someone like Jagganoth?
Y’know, there’s definitely precedent for clown-themed secondary villains usurping the BBEG position, so now that I think about it I could see Gog pulling that off, especially since her whole ominous “the mass always wins” speech never went anywhere narratively.
What would his name be then? Jaggagog? Goganoth? Shai-Hulud?
She can bide her time and let the whole multi-verse kill herself. Endless bodies on countless worlds across millions of realities is a lot of worm food.
There is no art more dangerous than binding, to be bound is to know your true strength, to bind another is to mistake a rope’s strength for yours
I believe that the later only applies when you are relying on material rope. Ethereal coils made from one’s own might be a demonstration of rather than a substitute for power.
OH SHIT
Cooooooombo Kill!
Damn, here’s hoping this sort of works, either way Jaggy’s going to feel it.
Also, I suspect Stinky-Boy’s totally going to fuck this up somehow.
HEY MOTTOM YOU DROPPED YOUR FANCY HAT
Damn, this looks like all the heavy hitters working together to achieve a common goal. Narratively, they cannot win. This will be where they break.
Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but ‘Abaddon will subvert narrative expectations’ is pretty much a given by now
Now it is revealed… he doesn’t have a soul anymore. He lost it long time ago, when they were making a Dead Man of him.
Winding & Binding
“Jadis manifests the Hex Sphere…
Mottom crafts the Chain + Sickle of Binding…
Mammon moves her to position for the forward pass…
AND SOLOMON RECEIVES da Weapon in the Hemi-Sphere of NO TIME !
SOLOMON WINDS UP FOR THE NET….!
CAN HE SPIKE JAGGANOTH TO INFINITY AND BEYOND ? !!!”
((( ROARING EXCITEMENT FROM DISTANT PLANAR OBSERVERS )))
IN COMES INCUBUS WITH THE CHAIR!
Appears to be a Tholian technique.
I’m promoting you to acting captain until we find out what happened to Jim. If the medical officer given you any trouble, here’s a video with instructions.
Let’s hope it turns out better than it did for the Tholians.
Didn’t they do this before?
So did every Solomon catch it?
There is only one Solomon he moves so fast the eye registers him as being everywhere at once. or…. EPIC DIVISION OF SELF
Ah, so the earliest Solomon caught it.
By the looks of it, he paused the timeslicing for a moment (as the afterimages merge into one Solomon catching the sickle) and then resumed it in order to stretch the chain.
Three haikus.
Marrow-drunk lords strung,
Toy gods fat from spent worlds,
Stage of heaven acts!
Wheel dares to splinter,
Finale of bright slave Zoss,
Team snips seven strings.
No conqueror-king,
His tragedy is undone,
Know strength beyond strength.
A mightily impressive display. Three demiurges joining forces against one. And three remain, to add their own power. All impressive and commendable, save for a minor detail. It takes only one, acting against their own self-interest for reasons of volatile mind, to ruin things for the other five. And of those who remain, one is fragmented to ruinous degree, one has a death wish, and one has already turned coat to Jagganoth before. What could possibly go wrong?
It remains to be seen, if the Worm has any interest in this spectacle.
I wouldn’t write It off just yet
I sincerely hope like the Alt-Text is canon and that the demiurges actually DID practice these moves. I bet Gog-Agog provided the music and commentary. Solomon probably did the blocking and choreography.
Given how many pages have gone into this there is no way it does anything to him right?
Well, the Red One cannot be discarded before A) we see more of the demiurges power, B) Allison doesn’t enter the fight in some capacity and C) we don’t get to FINALLY see his presentation card.
That said, it would be extremely dissapointing if none of this had any effect whatsoever in him. I think the author is a best writer than that
It would definitely be a huge letdown if he just no-sold this.
But a few panels of relief followed by him tearing his roaring way out of whatever dimension he’s been sealed in?
*chef’s kiss*
I could also accept the complex maneuver failing thanks to Incubus revealing his true colors
I dunno, that also seems kinda predictable to me. I really liked someone’s theory last page that this *will* work only for Allison to need to free him later for some reason – perhaps after grasping the truth of the cycle? That could put his presentation card at the very climax of the book, which would be fitting imo.
Oh! Now THERE’s an idea!
oh god the field of salamis dave i’m wheezing
Goddess 2 of 3 is seriously hot stuff.
Mhmm
I got a bad desire
Oh oh oh, I’m on fire
I’ve always thought that was one creepy and fucked up song.
Goddess 2 of 3 is the woman, not the little girl.
Looked up lyrics
Much regret
White Chains Born in Emptiness Returns to Subdue Evil!
Still not going to work…
The englober has become the englobed?
Woooo teamwork and all but I thought she was actually going to do something herself. Instead she took power from someone else, to make a weapon to give to someone else, while riding in the back of sentient being who does not actually need a rider.
Eh, I’m willing to give some credit here, Jadis provides the raw power, Mottom crafts it into a tool and Solomon is meant to use it. Technically earlier Mammon provided a distraction allowing Solomon to momentarily incapacitate Jagganoth and he could only do this because Mottom aimed him (he’s borderline blind).
Having said that the real question now is what will go wrong. Is this not going to be enough? Is Incubus going to interfere, or use the situation to launch some other operation? Thorns will come? They succeed at binding Jaggy but it still reignites the war since they can’t agree what to do with his power or Gog-Agog takes this opportunity to just devour him whole and absorb his key? So many possibilities…
He says, to someone he could not reach without the internet, reading a comic he could not read without the internet.
She forged the raw energy of a spell into a precise and powerful tool that she put into the hands of the strongest brute strength fighter they have. No amount of brute damage from a spell or incineration could equal what he can do via precision execution of that kind of power, and she knew it.
Nobody else could have turned the power into a tool like she did, or probably have thought to. Not to mention that she came up with this idea when the alternative was floating there while Solomon hopefully finished him.
I get the sentiment of wanting to see her do some direct damage, but this is far from a lack of teamwork.
Stopping time won’t stop the tide from coming in
The sun upon the surface, the blood beneath the skin
If you don’t love me now, you’ll never love me again
The squad is pulling of a chain attack of epic proportions, Solomon passes the ball to Incubus and shouts “Cast him into the void, destroy him!” and Incubus smirks and says “No..”
Meanwhile Gog-Agog missed the button prompt for participating and the big bad boss survives with 1hp and the team wipes.
Incubus, “No.”
Solomon, “ISILDUUUUUR!”
This is going to be particularly funny when he no-sells it.
Or, at least, comes out of it only mildly inconvenienced.
If by “funny”, you mean “dull”, I concur.
HOLU SHIBARI SKILLS ACTIVATE
Those wrinkles.. they’re from his very scrunched up brow right..? Not because he ages when he uses the full extent of Ki Data?
I am allow wondering just how much time is passing for Solomon inside his double bubble of time. Hours? Years? Millennia?
With a single stoppage, he did about a minute of carnage in, oh, let’s call it a millisecond. Rough it out to 100,000x in slowdown.
With another slowdown inside that, makes it 10 Billion.
So I’d say at least 30 seconds have past in normal time, and 300 Billion seconds for Salami… or about ten thousand years if some sustained, insane power output
Might be some wrinkles after this.
Somehow I don’t think every Solomon we see is always part of a linear progression. I get the impression it’s closer to a sort of soul projection, like the dozens of Jagganoths with bows or the two extra Mottoms here.
Anyone who predicted white chain would join the combat, is technically correct.
The best kind of correct
It was about time for some teamup attacks.
Epic. Is this the move White Chain is named after?
Meanwhile Incubus is on the side lines eyeing his monkey wrench.
They probably used this move on Zoss…
They are going to teleport Jagganoth outside of the ‘corpse reality’ which will allow Jagganoth to start destroying the whole thing from ‘outside’ the dimension.
Oh my goodness but Crone-Mottom just looks so genuinely happy for this page and the previous.
Like she’s spent a very long time dreading this exact scenario and has finally looped around to “Well, screw it, we doin this right”
We also don’t have Jadis’ title card, right? What if she breaks free and deals the true final blow
I think her “Imprisonment” is more meant to contain her form. She saw the wheel in its entirety, a sight that cannot be contained even by one of the seven. Should she break free from the glas that contains her, she might just rot away to nothingness in an instant.
There’s a disturbing absence of Gog-Agog thus far (aside from seeing her get impaled a little, I mean). I don’t like the idea of Incubus being out of frame for too long either.
The problem with there being 6 gods who I wouldn’t turn my back on is that I only have one back.
Indeed. There are many, many ways in which any of this can go wrong.
And let us not forget Maya is to get involved as well. That makes 8 demiurges in play, or close enough
Maya’s a whole other frightening factor and I don’t know enough about her to trust her timing in this matter. Exciting scenario though, like hurling spanners into complex, volatile machinery.
Oh, how to solve such a dangerous and lethal conundrum?
I know!
Just lie down, flat on your back! That way, you see the sword coming.
Now THIS, right here, is the kind of problem solving I like to see.
Like the mighty tortoise I shall flip on to my back so that I am in the best position to deal with anything that comes my way.
That’s not actually your problem. Having more backs would exasperate the situation. The problem is that you only have one front.
her old face in the first panel is so funny she looks like shes having a great time
I would love to see this animated by Don Bluth.
Jadis’s Key color is the bright blue, so we can see her magic get transfered tov Mottom who shapes it and sends it to Solomon David, where his Key color momentarily flashes slight blue.
“Excuse me jagganoth but do you understand yet that you are not welcome here, sir?”
“ >:c “
-Solomon David
Too bad that’s only four demiurges working together, and Jaggy is worth six.
Solomon’s expression reminds me of Batman. That can’t be good for Jagganoth…
I think Solomon’s Facial expression is meant to be reminiscent of Nio, Kongorikishi and Vajrapani dharma protectors.
The bodyguards of the Buddha who were meant to represent the power of the buddha and the capacity to protect enlightenment and sapient beings with physical force.
Notably these figures themselves are not usually considered to be enlightened beings themselves.
Mottom in the previous page was clearly meant to be reminiscent of both the Triple Goddess of Greek mythology and the Scandinavian Norns.
It kind of feels as if Abbadon is hinting at what the Demiurges might have become if they hadn’t been consumed by Want.
This is going to be so epic when Jaggs no sells this entire thing.
Gog’s not gonna join in and screw them.
exhausted
Now that’s a SICKle burn!
Now just cover the chain in worms.
If the binding has actually worked, are we going back to Throne? Solomon monologued about throwing Jagganoth off the rim so he falls forever.
Please let’s go back to Throne. It’s way cooler than Rayuba.
This is as good as it gets for them. Y’all know that…
Who doesn’t want to adopt new things that can help you to move forward? I am newly registered at the kill six billion demons platform I feel really proud of myself for making the decision to come here.
This site extremely instructive !