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Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Comment Room Archive

Comments for the week ending August 11, 2024

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1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm2dtkcXPtY

A voice swap video of Belos and Demona.

2. So would Puck incidentally be easy for Hooty to get as a bestie? I mean if not for restricted transformation or separate dimensions. If nothing else, Owen might find the bird tub fascinating.

Antiyonder

Todd - "Thanks for the results." You're welcome.
"Why the different totals?" Because you can submit your quiz without necessarily having to answer all the questions; all of those 51 people answered the Weird Sisters question, but for reasons of their own one neglected to answer the time loop question, hence the different totals.

Craig - "Thanks for those stats." You're welcome.
"I did get the Archmage timeline one wrong. For some reason, I thought the final date was 1996." To be fair, it almost was: according to the Timeline, the Archmage died on December 30th 1995, so although he never got to '96 he was pretty close to it.

CarumboZabumbo
Noi siamo le creature della notte! Noi siamo... i Gargoyles!

Carumbo > Thanks for those stats. I know my Weird Sisters. I did get the Archmage timeline one wrong. For some reason, I thought the final date was 1996.
Craig

Thanks for the results. One bit that puzzled me me; in the "_ out of _ guessed right" part, some of these are given as "_ out of 50" and "_ out of 51". Why the different totals?
Todd Jensen

51 people have tried their hand at my quiz in these first 24 hours, and these are the results:

30 points: 3 people.
29 points: 2 people.
28 points: 2 people.
27 points: 4 people.
26 points: 1 person.
25 points: 1 person.
23 points: 1 person.
22 points: 2 people.
20 points: 3 people.
17 points: 1 person.
16 points: 1 person.
15 points: 5 people.
14 points: 3 people.
13 points: 2 people.
12 points: 1 person.
11 points: 1 person.
10 points: 3 people.
9 points: 4 people.
8 points: 2 people.
7 points: 3 people.
6 points: 2 people.
5 points: 2 people.
3 points: 1 person.
1 point: 1 person.

Most difficult questions:
1)Which Weird Sister is which (19 out of 51 guessed right).
2)Years visited by the Archmage during the time loop (19 out of 50 guessed right).
3)In how many episodes does Goliath not appear (20 out of 51 guessed right).

Easiest questions:
1)How often did Tom return from Avalon (43 out of 50 guessed right).
2)Last person/people Demona spoke to before the Wyvern Massacre (40 out of 51 guessed right).
3)Who said he hadn't been to the Rookery since he hatched in the first episode (39 out of 51 guessed right).

CarumboZabumbo
Noi siamo le creature della notte! Noi siamo... i Gargoyles!

I got 27/30. I do not know Greg’s birth year.
Craig

As was to be expected, the average here is higher than on Discord or Reddit: Todd, Matt and Jurgan are all in the Top 10; as of now, only two people got to 29, and nobody achieved a perfect score yet.

Taking a look at the results, it seems like more or less anyone knows who Jamie Thomason is and how often Tom returned from Avalon; the "which Weird Sister is which" question, on the other hand, is making people go nuts.

CarumboZabumbo
Noi siamo le creature della notte! Noi siamo... i Gargoyles!

I only got 22/30, or 73%. For shame.
Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]

I got 28 out of 30.
Todd Jensen

I got a 27 out of 30. I can live with that.
Matt
"And, thus, given no choice, we waited..." - Alesand, "The Reach"

To celebrate Gargoyles' 30th Anniversary, I've made a quiz with 30 multiple-answers questions; if you wanna try it, this is the link: https://forms.gle/uusu8X1sjzryenmu7

The difficulty level is "tough, but not impossible", and in the spirit of fairness I've only put in questions to which I myself know the answer (without having to check, I mean).

Please tell me what you think of it.

CarumboZabumbo
Noi siamo le creature della notte! Noi siamo... i Gargoyles!

So we've now found a way to delete the bot posts.
Todd Jensen

Irony.
Matt
"And, thus, given no choice, we waited..." - Alesand, "The Reach"

Should be catching up soon at the comic store this month (Been very hot over here).

So just got some more Amazon stuff, including The Art of DuckTales Deluxe Edition which came with Scrooge's Number One Dime.

Antiyonder

Finished watching "Batman: The Caped Crusader" last week. On the whole I would just call it okay, a little too short and missing a certain something that 90's Batman had.

There is one element that I feel I should bring up, Cedric Yarbrough as mob boss Rupert Thorne. There's something about his performance that makes me think he was channeling the late, great Ed Asner in his vocal performance. Now no one could ever replace Ed in my opinion but if ever Gargoyles was to get an animated revival or continuation, I'd would certainly consider him to take over as Hudson.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

August brings the sheaves of corn
Then the harvest home is borne

"The Garden Year", Sara Coleridge

Welcome back, Blaise, and thanks for your review.

Todd Jensen

****An older model (think mid-late 1990s) computer on a desk appears in the Comment Room. The blocky CRT monitor springs to life and shows Blaise crouched into frame.****
Okay, yeah...this is uncomfortable. Anywho...

FIRST!!

ACQUISITIONS> [SPOILER] This title does not begin with the letter “Q,” but nevertheless contains the letter within the first two syllables (as a bridge between them, even). So it’s a “Q” word in the same way that Writing and Arithmetic sit alongside Reading in “The Three ‘Rs’.” I’m fine with it. Besides, how many words (or sentences) beginning with “Q” could be used? Although, I think “Quisling” might work given Coldstone’s role...

As has been the case in animated action shows for as long as I can remember: all-out violence against your enemies is OK as long as they’re robots! We get some nice action shots of various clan members taking out the suits (love Broadway’s “Hey, save some for us!”). Coldstone does some targeting of multiple suits with the side effect of destroying their control-modules, much to Lex’s annoyance since he now can’t use them to find out who’s controlling their robotic foes. I know I’m not the only one to think that this was most likely done deliberately by Coldstone, but I do love his rather confused “A-apologies?” Guy gets told he’s doing things wrong all the time...
Turquesa is not partaking in the battle, however, as she is focusing on keeping the newly recovered Sun Amulet safe. Thus, she is in a great position to see a familiar silhouette gliding off into the night.

With Demona gone and things quieting down, Owen is now free to come out and let everyone (and I mean *everyone* since the whole clan, including Elisa, is gathered in the next shot) know what happened. I have to admit, I’m a little surprised Demona didn’t kill Owen after she got what she wanted from him. I suppose there’s no indication she didn’t try and he just managed to avoid it, but maybe she has something else planned for him (in either of his personas). One thing I find interesting is that Turquesa knows of Demona by name--did Goliath and/or Angela fill the Mayan clan in on her back in Guatemala or am I forgetting some dialogue from the previous issue?
Anyway, Jade mentions the lance-head and Owen grows more concerned (I think...he’s so stoic). Coldstone demanding an explanation is interesting to me as I wonder if he’s just deflecting suspicion from himself, if he wants to know how much Owen knows (and therefore how much the clan will learn), or if he perhaps suspects that Demona is keeping something from him and this could be a way to find out.

Owen reveals a few things: 1) that he has (or had) his flute, having “mystically picked” Oberon’s pocket to retrieve it while Oberon was stripping him of his powers (I wonder if there’s more to this, but I’ll take his word for now), 2) that he noticed it has had a “not insignificant increase” in its power recently, and 3) that he *is* the Pied Piper of Hamelin (which a lot of us had suspected since 1996). On page 7, right side, second panel from the top: does Puck have obviously white eyelashes there or is that light indicating “mystical pocket-picking” magic?
At any rate, Owen couldn’t stop Demona because Alexander was gone, taking any possible justifications and loopholes for Owen to become Puck with him, so I guess Demona knows about that little proviso (most likely from Coldstone). Thankfully for Our Heroes, Owen is also knowledgeable about the Three Keys to Power and is able to make a working hypothesis about what is going on with Demona’s acquisitions (hey, I did a title drop!), leaving Goliath to voice his hope that these are just the first two and they can stop Demona from getting the third or “Humanity may well be doomed.” This is said over a panel of Angela looking downcast--a great image. Sorry Angela, but your mother is a super-villain. This is what she does.

After checking in with Antoinette and Demona as the latter places Puck’s Flute in her little collection, we skip ahead four days to Thailog and Shari doing the 1990’s equivalent of a video call with the most upper of the top three Illuminati echelons: Fleur, Duval, and number One himself, Peredur Fab Ragnal(l). I love Shari taking the time to point out that she outranks Thailog in this situation and she “knows these people” before they start the call. Like many, I wonder at the position the Top 3 are in during this call, all sitting or crouched against the side of a wall (although my first thought was that they were in a cylindrical tunnel of some kind, but that could just be how I see the shadows). Thailog says he got the Hand of Valmont because of an encounter with Demona (nice that they already know of her, he doesn’t have to spend time explaining) but says that he’s giving it to the Illuminati *instead of* giving it to Demona (so not a trade going on here). Duval immediately demands the Hand be brought to Carbonek and Peredur just as immediately says to take it to the Treasurer at Eastcheap instead, which means we’ll get to see Falstaff again! But also, more indications of a connection between Duval and Valmont..and Peredur apparently prefers to keep them separate.

The next day Coldstone meets with Demona and gives a brief flashback to Owen’s conversation with the Clan (I think the panel of Goliath and Coldstone being the same as when we last saw them is meant to indicate that) where Owen tries to tell the clan about Demona’s Townhouse, but apparently finds he can’t. I am inclined to believe that Owen is being honest here and that his “magic gag order,” if you will, is a bit of surprise to him. With things like the flute (and managing to get it before getting completely magically shut down) he probably has enough leeway that the barriers between his two selves are foggy, but with this bit of knowledge (where he was only ever at the Townhouse while Puck) he hits a definite wall. So the clan knows about Demona’s plans and are looking for her, but she doesn’t have to worry about them showing up on her doorstep right away.
However, Coldstone also points out that the clan would probably have been looking for her anyway because of Angela and the upcoming Commitment Ceremony to Broadway, elaborating that Angela still seeks reconciliation with Demona and hopes the latter can be at the ceremony “despite everything.” Yeah, even Coldstone knows this is being *really* open-hearted of Angela. And for her part, Demona actually does stop and think for a moment in a very nice image. I especially love that she still keeps one fist clenched (feels appropriate since she refuses to let go of her hate, to borrow a phrase from another franchise). But Demona, of course, just says “not yet” and focuses on her scheming.

The next night, Shari is apparently flying Thailog to Eastcheap (she’s a pilot? Guess not too surprising with over a millennia of experience). Shari is actually needling Thailog about the near miss they had with the Hand possibly going to Carbonek, something they did NOT want. Thankfully for them, though, Eastcheap is exactly where they wanted to be. There’s some fun with Thailog’s asking if this is “the *right* secret lair.”
And Falstaff returns, this time in living color! Something I find interesting is the fact that we never seem to see his eyes here; they’re always squinting or just off panel. He still has his “big fun” personality with his little “hand the hand over” line (yes, count me as another who liked that). Also, fun is how warmly Shari greets Falstaff and then on the very next page admits to Thailog that she does NOT trust Falstaff. Oh, and Falstaff is apparently “Acquisitions (title drop!) and Security” and not the actual Treasurer of Eastcheap. No, we meet him next, after Shari elbows Thailog and warns him to speak quickly.

WYVERN THE DRAGON RETURNS! He was mentioned in the solicitation, yes, but that had been so long ago I kind of forgot about it. But now? He is not only the Illuminati’s Treasurer of Eastcheap, but one of the other two number Threes. And he seems to have met Shari before, although he dismisses it as “all you humans look alike to me.” Well, he hasn’t changed that much, it seems. Although he does seem a bit more sedentary than before, not moving his head for a few panels, and possibly has his forelimbs buried in the treasure. I find myself wondering if he mostly just sleeps on/in that pile or if he ever pulls a “I’m rich!” Duck schtick (Daffy or Scrooge) in the gold from time to time. His sense of smell is good enough to note something is off about Thailog, though, much to the clone’s offense. Shari swoops in, though, and casts her brand of Enthrallment, telling the story of how they got the Hand. She seems to need to *really* pour it on for Wyvern, though, as her eyes start glowing. So do Wyvern’s, to the point where you can barely see the scar around his left eye. While the dragon is distracted, Thailog goes digging though the treasure with a very familiar looking eyepiece (did Demona give that to him, or had she left it somewhere at Nightstone Unlimited?). He manages to find the haft of Gugnir and smuggle it out beneath his wings.
As Shari reveals on the flight back, however, it wasn’t just her storytelling that kept Wyvern off of Thailog there, but the enchantment that the dragon had placed on the treasure that would tell him if a human stole from it. Gargoyles, however, don’t trigger his Alarm spell because he is speciest like that. And may I just say, I TOTALLY CALLED THAT!

Well, a few nights later Thailog and Demona make their exchange, with Demona getting her stick and Thailog getting his controlling interest share. “And everybody’s happy” as Demona says (excuse me while I laugh bitterly). Back at base, Demona and Antoinette confer. Our fire-headed villain doesn’t feel ready to reforge Gugnir yet as that would send out a power-surge and be like lighting up a “we’re doing bad things here” sign. So the plan is now to wait for the third Key to come into her hands first.

And now we really start jumping ahead:
* Late September, Goliath and Elisa meet on the rebuilt Clock Tower (so iconic). Elisa has been reinstated as Detective Second Class in the 23 Precinct! This good news is followed with the not-so-good news that neither of them have turned up any leads on Demona or the Keys. Elisa doesn’t show worry, however, and says they are in this for the long haul.
*More snippets of life over the next couple of months as the clan searches for Demona (and one time out for Gnash to have his Halloween adventure in “Trick-Or-Treat”). We see Katana with Coldfire, the Trio on their own search, and Angela standing alone with her thoughts...

The action proper picks up in the latter half of November with Antoinette at an auction in Geneva as buyer 16 (what is this, “Young Justice”?). She successfully purchases, for just shy of a million dollars, Celopatra’s Necklace. This appears to be the third and final Key to Power, and I LOVE that it’s just bought like this. To be fair, Demona tried to buy the lance head at the beginning, only resorting to “smash and grab” when that didn’t work. Not every mystical super talisman needs an epic quest and death-defying adventure to obtain--especially not when it *wasn’t* a mystical super talisman last year.

And now, Demona has all three keys. Heaven help us all...

This was really good, seeing all the scheming going on and learning a bit more about the Illuminati (I admit, on a personal level, I’m most interested in learning who the thirteen Thirteens might be). The issue does at times feel like too much to pack into 24 pages (and Owen does some heavy lifting in the exposition front), but I’m OK with it bursting at the seams like that.

Obviously, I can’t wait for the next issue, but of course we have to. Still, I feel like it won’t be anywhere near as hard a wait as the one between issues 4 and 5 will be, regardless of how many weeks pass between them. I feel like issue 4 will have one doozy of a cliffhanger... [/SPOILER]



This computer will self-destruct...now.
****As stated, the computer displaying Blaise on its monitor explodes, but somehow does so in such a way that no debris is left.****

Blaise
"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."--The Doctor