One of the challenges of bringing new cast into the roster is to define ways they all interact. We know of old how Vizh and Hatty might relate, or how Al. B and Hallie co-operate. We don't yet know how CZ gets on with Donar, or what Yuki thinks of Ham-Boy. Mapping that out is part of what makes roster changes interesting. Neglecting that makes charatcers interchangable and generic.

I learnt this lesson the hard way early on in my PVB writing. At that time we had a pile of poster characters who roughly had the same archetype, young rookie heroes with American/Candaian blue collar backgrounds who were slightly uncertain of their powers and all spoke in a fairly standard informal manner. There was G-Eyed, Exile, Falcon, Hatman, spiffy, Magnetic Techbird, and a bunch of others. In their own stories they were fine, but in a large group situation where it was easy to give unique lines to Donar or Vizh or Lisa I struggled to avoid relegating all the standard information feed and reaction dialogue to those other characters. I think I cracked it eventually, but it rook me a while.

I don't mean that as a slight on the characters. Some posters worked pretty hard to define their cast, and so early on it was easy to spot a trait and run with it (such as Hatty's boy-scount can-do-ness or spiffy's ability to get into trouble). What I mean is that I had to learn how to integrate them properly into my stories. Now doing that has become an obsession.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I wanted to take the time to define some new character interactions we hadn't seen before, such as Liu Xi/Sallym and to push some others in new ways, such as Mumph/Baroness.







I think you're already established her as a force for balance. Indeed, when Dark Thugos offered her a spot in the New Pantheon she turned him down partly because of that. Otherwise by now she might have been Goddess of Force.




The bigger the retcon the more power it takes and the harder it is to sustain. The original Hood's abilities were quite finite, so he has to use his retcons strategically and sparingly, like judo moves that use his opponents' actions to do his work for him. Went is far more powerful but far less subtle. That said, even the God of Retcons can't retcon in beings of his own power level. He might erase Lara but he couldn't rewrite her as Goddess of Force.




The next chapter re-makes a point originally noted by sorcerer supreme Xander the Improbable, that a really wise and powerful operator simply is not there when it happens, having already foreseen it and prepared the counter long before or set up someone else to deal with it. I forget which famous soldier argued that battles were won and lost before the first shot was fired, but there are certainly entities in the Parodyverse who applaud that sentiment.




Noted.







There's probably a difference in method and delivery too. Hatman's electrical discharges are just lightning, uncontrothed earthing of electical potential. If I understand Lara's abilities, she had mastery over how those forces operate.

And this is proper and good narrative. A Lightning Bolts hat is one aspect of Hatman's range of powers. Lightning is a key part of Lara's power-set. It is only natural that her range and scope is a league ahead of a relatively seldom-used aspect of Hatty's abilities.



I also think Lara has a better shotgun.