brooklyn the red one writes...

greg do u think if there was a medical procedur to change a human in to a gargoyle,(full blown everthing glowing,eyes'stone skin,ect)
peopel would it do you think most of all the fans would do it. how would you feel about fans turning them selfs in to real gargoyles
would have it done
thanks for your time

Derek writes...

How come Hudson doesn't take on a more fatherly role with the Trio? He seemed to with Goliath and to a lesser extent Demona.

ashley bourke writes...

how will brooklyn and katana get along when they first meet what will katana be like how will brooklyn feel about her and how will katana feel about brooklyn

Purplegoldfish writes...

My Review for #5

The art is beautiful...Karine and Stephanie did a wonderful job. All the characters on model, colors are great. Finally the male gargoyles don't have 200 pound boulder muscles.

-I love that first panel of the eyrie building! That must have been fun to construct...
-Mary and Finella-hm, don't know what to think about them. Why didn't they meet the gargoyles? I guess they're in costumes of...themselves from 1000 years ago? Cuz I really hope Mary hasn't been wearing that rag on her head for 20 years.

-Dr. Sato is on the scene...we know where this is going. Good thing he's there--coincidence?

-I love those altered glass slipper foot coverings on Angela. I don't think we've ever seen gargoyle foot wear. I also like Broadway's full lion body suit, even though he didn't have it on last issue. It's so cute, especially when we see a shot of his back with the tail hehe.

- Oh man, is Thailog mean or what? He slams Goliath headfirst into a wall AFTER he stabs him. Talk about low.

-So Duval's not number one. Hm interesting. There's been some pretty cool theories going around S8. I don't really know enough about Arthurian legend to speculate though.

-hilarious moment when Brooklyn makes his grand entrance as "Super-Goyle." I like how he shows up right after Margot is berating Brendan for his "stupid get-up". It's funny, when people in here were discussing what they thought Brooklyn would show up as and it wasn't the Scarecrow, I predicted he would be a superhero of some sort, but I didn't post my thoughts about it, ah well. I'm phsychic! Not really, cause I was totally wrong about Brentwood, which I'll get to later.

-Angela: "YOU BASTARD!" Mwahahah. Note to self...Angela is not a sweet little angel, don't get on her bad side-well, unless of course you're Thailog, who was able to slash the whole Manhattan clan singlehandedly. I have no doubt he could have killed them all if he had aimed for their necks.

-I figured Robbins knew Hudson was a gargoyle. Though I'm not sure how he equates the smell of "old leather and concrete" to gargoyles if he only heard about them on the news. And does stone skin actually smell like stone? Does Robbins know the gargoyles turn to stone?
Anyway, some nice elements from the TGC ep, "The Dying of the light" which was one of the better ones of that series. I always kind of liked in that episode how Robbins was annoyed at Hudson for assuming he would want nothing to do with Hudson once he found out he was a gargoyle. Robbins seems to be taking it all in stride here though.

-The fight scenes look great. Very dynamic, and I can tell what's going on, which I had trouble with in earlier issues. I especially love that bird's eye shot of the whole clan and the clones.

-Elisa: "I'm a part of this clan." I think here she realizes that she can never have a normal life as she expected to. How many humans are members of gargoyle clans? I'm willing to bet she's the only one.
Thailog comes on to Elisa as he slashes her. He seems to have a creepy attraction to her...eww.

-Xanatos gets his first assignment from the illuminati. I'm betting it has something to do with the gargoyles. This could cause a lot of problems. I love Xanatos'smirk at Quincy when he's a smart aleck with him.

-Owen finds Delilah...in Xanatos' lab...Okay. Delilah struts into the fight and effectively stops it. I had thought she would be this meek defenseless creature, boy was I wrong. She rocks! She really sticks out as one of the most attractive female gargoyles of the series, if not the most attractive. Goliath must have it really bad for Elisa since he hardly looked Delilah's way. She sticks it to Goliath--who deserves it since he was kind of a jerk to her--but she should wait until he's not spilling his guts on the floor.

-Thailog takes Delilah's refusal in stride. I wasn't expecting that. Obviously she isn't the real reason he came to the castle. He's such a nonchalant jerk-I love him!

-Brentwood stays with Thailog. I had thought he would be the one to go back to the labyrinth. Very tricky! I love Lex's reaction to it-seeing his clone's desicion as a bad reflection on him.

-That's such a beautiful image of Thailog and Brentwood leaving the castle-it just sticks out.

-I've heard that Brendan is the one who alerted DR. Sato. So he does have compassion after all. I hope he leaves that witch of a wife.
So DR. Sato saved Elisa's life and now he's saving Goliath's. Nice, they owe that man a lot.

-and then comes my favorite panels of the book, probably of the whole comic series. Goliath and Elisa exchange "I love you"'s and they kiss! SQUEEEEEEE!!! I've been waiting for this for so long, and seeing it in the morning before work literally made my day. I honestly didn't expect them to say IT so soon, so I was pleasantly surprised. And Goliath's smiling even though he's probably in a heapload of pain--Awwww.
(Though I am somewhat surprised that Goliath is still conscious at this point. Though it's harder to tell passage of time in the comic than in the series, so maybe the fight wasn't as long as it seemed.)

-Brooklyn: "Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me..." hehehe. Even his clone gets more tail than him.

-It took my third reading before I realized Thailog was in Nightstone Unlimited. Hmm, interesting. It seems Sevarius still works there. And we find out Thailog's primary objective for picking up the clones and Delilah was really to get DNA from the clan, one of them being Elisa's, hmm. Thailog+Sevarious+Gargoyle DNA= Very Scary!

-And then we have the shocking ending-Thailog is in the Illuminati, and he's working with Shari the "Labyrinth Girl" who's really high up there on the food chain. Hard times are coming for the clan...I wonder if the Illuminati are in on Thailog's clone plans.

Anyway this has been the most awesome issue so far and I can't wait to read where this is heading. Great job everyone!

Walter writes...

Would Demona kill Angela if it meant the achievement of her goal, or would that be too much even for her?

Carla writes...

Will we see the romance between Delilah and Malibu develop in the comics?

Jonny Modlin writes...

Are sales picking up for Gargoyles Season 2, Volume 1 on DVD yet for Disney to release Season 2, Volume 2 of Gargoyles on DVD that I want to get to complete the entire series of Gargoyles on DVD? Thank you and have a nice day.

Jonny

Mostly Harmless writes...

1. Since Mr. Duval isn't the head of the Illuminati as previously thought then who is the true number one? Is he a previously established character?

2. Given that the Illuminati has a membership of 666, I guess they aren't ubiquitous as previously thought, so how much control do they really have over world affairs?

3. When was Thailog recruited by them?

Greg Bishansky writes...

This is more a ramble reply to Alex Garg's post, but I definitely think this is a fascinating subject, and could make a great Ask Greg discussion.

Honestly, at this point, I don't think anyone in the Manhattan Clan cares much about any of the clones. Any of them. What was the first thing said when Thailog appeared to perish and the clones had no where to go? "We can't just bring them back to the Clock Tower can we? I mean, they kind of give me the creeps."

Right there, the Manhattan Clan wanted nothing to do with them. Wanted to pretend they didn't exist. Let Talon take them to live in a sewer. Out of sight, out of mind. Not that the reaction is not understandable, it is. I think we'd all be uncomfortable around clones of ourselves made against our will and knowledge. It's a fundamental violation of our individuality.

Did any of the Manhattan Clan go down to see them between "The Reckoning" and "Invitation Only"? I'd be very surprised if the answer is yes. The one time they do go down, they want something. Goliath is following Elisa's request to attempt to date Delilah. Brooklyn... just wants to make a play for the only available female he's aware of. They were down there both for selfish reasons.

So, yeah, all of their talk about free will probably was less for the clones' sake, and more towards the Manhattan Clan's hatred for Thailog. They hate Thailog, so naturally they don't want the clones to be helping him. At this point, do they have any other reason to care?

Lexington's only real concern when Brentwood chooses Thailog is how it makes him [Lexington] look. Not concern for Brentwood's safety, or eventually having to face him as an enemy. Lex thinks it makes *him* look bad.

I know this is a pretty serious indictment of the Manhattan Clan. I love them, they are heroes, there's a lot to admire in each and every one of them. But, they're not saints. Which is fine, they're more interesting this way... if I wanted a group of pure goodie goods, I'd read a Silver Age Justice League of America comic book.

Alex Garg writes...

This is something that had I wanted to bring up in the Culture/Biology panel at the Gathering, but we ran out of time. Besides, it feels a little better to be able to ask this question now that "Bash" has broad exposure (although it's still new enough to constitute a SPOILER warning).

Gargoyles and Free Will.

A theme of Gargoyles since the introduction of the clones has been just how much control they have over making their own decisions, particularly given that they were programmed to obey Thailog. This comes to a head in "Masque" and "Bash," where the clones are bombarded with the "Free Will" message to the point where they can finally make their choices, but what's most curious to me is the pressure that they receive from the Manhattan Clan.

It doesn't surprise me that Maggie would bring it up in "Masque" - she was born and raised in a democratic society, so the idea that people have free will and the right to self-determination is ingrained in her psyche - but for Goliath and Lexington, and Angela to a lesser extent, to make the case for it in "Bash" was more surprising.

Goliath and Lexington both come from an era where there was no broadly applied concept of a person's right to self-determination. On the human side was the reign of the Catholic Church (and I'm writing very generally now) which in terms of ethics framed the argument for free will in such a way that while humans have the *capacity* to choose between different courses of action, our *obligation* is to obey God's commands; the fact that they did not was why we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Therefore, under those circumstances, we don't really have a choice - God's infinite wisdom overrides our mortal judgments. That dogma then went on to inform the monarchies of the day, Scotland not excepting, where kings ruled by Divine Mandate. The idea that a king could be overthrown for unjust rule wasn't introduced until St. Thomas Aquinas, an act which prior to him (and even well after) would have been viewed as taking up arms against the will of God; and even then it was the laws of the Church which would be the standard by which a king would be considered ruling in an unjust manner, not the opinions of his subjects.

The gargoyles' "government" also has no apparent nod to free will or self-determination. Goliath became the leader because Hudson said so, Brooklyn became second-in-command because Goliath said so, and in each case the other gargoyles appear to acquiesce unconditionally to these decisions. Even in mating, you mentioned in the panel that gargoyles aren't necessarily choosing mates as much as they are naturally drawn to one another - even in human rituals it's a subject of debate over just how much "choice" we have in when and with whom we fall in love.

While you've said that gargoyles are free to pursue their own hobbies and curiosities, it doesn't strike me that alone is enough to constitute an understanding of free will in the sense of making determinations about leadership in the way that the clones were being pressured to choose between the Labyrinth and Thailog.

So from what we saw in "Bash," where Lexington demands to know why the clones are choosing to help Thailog, and where Goliath says that "choice must extend to those who choose unwisely" - which is a very different concept than a basic, arbitrary choice between right and wrong - I have to ask: Where have Goliath and Lexington gotten the understanding to ask those questions?

Angela also presents an interesting case, because while she was raised by humans, she was raised by humans for whom it can't be assumed would have had the same understanding of free will as you and I do having grown up in a democratic society as it applies to personal choice, much less in making decisions of leadership. So is her command to Delilah founded more on her hatred of Thailog, or is she also making a case for free will; and if the latter, what informs that for her?

Touching on the same vein: Since 1996 would be the first U.S. election year that the gargoyles have really been exposed to - it seems to me that in 1994 the Manhattan clan was more curious about their new physical surroundings than cultural; and it was a midterm election anyway with much less media hype than a presidential cycle - what do the gargoyles of the Manhattan clan make of democracy, given their less than democratic heritage?