Its time to lock up Blue Steel

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

As per the title, but why some may ask. Well because he is a violent monster who once nearly beat a 14 year old boy till the point all that was salvaged by Synapse and Positron for research was the kids brain. We know that kid today as the Clockwork King. One of the most misunderstood and at times almost likeable and even adorable so called big bads of coh. One can literally put every bit of violence of the clockwork king on Blue Steel and his unforgivable, truly evil actions that day.

 

I think  if we are gonna do any real updating to the game world and setting we need to start with this. An end to the era of glorification of basically a child killer, and some arcs to really put the King on the path of redemption. At the same time I say lets put blue steel in orange and drop him in the zig. make him like a random EB spawn around it, or maybe create a new outdoor event in which Blue Steel leads a break out of the rogue members of groups like the Vanguard.

 

Because to me Blue Steel has been blight on the reputation of Paragon City. Since year one I typically have avoided using him for training unless Im in a pug in KR and dont want to ask them to wait on me for a RP hangup.

 

 

[BrandX]

Where does it say he's 14?  I just read young man.  Which could be older than 14 and into 20's.

 

However, I didn't know this backstory until now.  I didn't realize Clockwork King had killed some cops.  With Paragon City notoriously underfunded, lacking any power to be a threat to a super and also the most dedicated and uncorrupted cops in the world

[Outrider_01]

Tragic back round lore is just that, tragic back round lore.

Here is how I see it....

• Josh's world turned upside down when his father was shot and killed in the line of duty
• He was a man possessed
• registered himself as a super-powered individual but was made a special 
• He is known to let his still simmering anger over his father's death boil over on occasion 
• Blue Steel beat the man nearly to death and left him for dead. 
• He led one of the early crackdowns against the Clockwork, though has rarely spoken of the encounter.

Determined. Rookie attitude, get the job done. Brash and hot headed, quick to anger.  Tragic moments, tempered his self identity and cooled his attitude.  PTSD like, doesn't want to talk about his mistake that changed his life which is kinda a theme with returning military vets from war.

 

I am over analyzing it, but I interpret

• Batman hero; a vigilante and any arrest would actually be considered unlawful
• Blue Steel, registered officer who can arrest criminals under the law
• Cowboy Cop and By-The-Book Cop turned Veteran Instructor; Batman is just pure vigilante with no trope but his own.
• Creates a villain through their own actions, both seem to regret the action (Differing interpretation for Batman with all the different writers)

Blue Steel isn't just a reference to a uniform color and a badge.  It is also  color of tempered steel, after a forging process to increase increase toughness by decreasing hardness. Blue Steel becomes tougher on himself to become softer; teach the younger heroes how not to act and do something similar to the greatest screw up in his life. 

 

Blue Steel is just the opposite of Batman.  Not all tragic hero stories require their family to be slaughtered, sometimes its the brutality of their own actions that cause the hero to change.

 

Also consider this bit of Clockwork King background

• Ironically, the Clockwork King shares many things in common with a stereotypical nerd. (writer opinion near top)
• stealing a spool of copper wire from a cable service van
• major assembly line production seemed underway. There were dozens of Sprockets attempting to construct

CK was a nerd fascinated with robots and could animate things with his mind; he wanted to build more of them.  Clockwork were not really originally malignant, just building more "toys" but in the process an officer was killed, not all actions are legal but sometimes they result in worse case scenario.  Compare it to the original Joker back round were he was just that; a Joker who played tricks and pranks before he was created to be incredibly insane and brutal.

 

I over analyze things, not trying to defend the character itself but the back round.  Make more sense for a TF having Blue Steel attempting to seek redemption and forgiveness from the Clockwork King for his actions, but it doesn't happen.  I just see Blue Steel-Clockwork King as the same to Batman-Joker, similar type of characters with a different way of how they were created and the hero never truly defeats his archenemy.

 

I don't think I am explaining my point of view well, there are so many tropes of character back rounds that are shared with so many comic book heroes and action movie stars it is easy to spot the similarities.

[Shadowsleuth]

32 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Blue Steel becomes tougher on himself to become softer; teach the younger heroes how not to act and do something similar to the greatest screw up in his life.

 

32 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

Make more sense for a TF having Blue Steel attempting to seek redemption and forgiveness from the Clockwork King for his actions, but it doesn't happen.

 

That is all that is needed, have Blue Steel admit he made a mistake & overreacted. Have him try to make amends & have Clockwork King refuse it (initially), then later have Clockwork King (who wants to prove to Penelope Yin he has changed) accept Blue Steel's apology.

Perhaps part of Blue Steel's amends, his TF deals with acquiring cloning technology that will provide the Clockwork King with a cloned version of his original body.

 

I prefer that to be the way the Devs handle it rather than locking Blue Steel up.

But, If they did lock Blue Steel up I would expect him to say something similar to this.

 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 hours ago, BrandX said:

Where does it say he's 14?  I just read young man.  Which could be older than 14 and into 20's.

 

However, I didn't know this backstory until now.  I didn't realize Clockwork King had killed some cops.  With Paragon City notoriously underfunded, lacking any power to be a threat to a super and also the most dedicated and uncorrupted cops in the world

Well as Ive mentioned in these forums before I did spend a a fair bit of time back on live having regular lore chats with several devs. So I do have this habit of mentioning details that didnt always get clearly stated in the lore. Though I must say you have a pretty broad age range suggested. Maybe its my part of the world but round my parts, the term young man or young lady usually gets directed at those of around puberty age, up till around the age they are sexually active( age of consent in my state is 16) unless its a rather elderly individual speaking to well anyone in general who is not within 10 years of their age.

 

Pretty sure they dont mention how the kings brain ended up in the jar either, but did you think anyone short of synapse and positron in traditional coh lore would of had access to the kids body fast enough to get the brain out and preserved before it died? Yep Synapse the speedster, and yep thats why its Synapse and the king for a tf.

[Cix]

Blue Steel being a trainer for low-level heroes has always made me angry.  Extenuating circumstances, sure.  What he did is understandable.  It should not be normalized.  He should be working a desk job away from impressionable newbies.

 

It also rubs me the wrong way that he is the deus ex mechana for heroes in villain content.

[ImpousVileTerror]

I wanna take a long while to compose my own thoughts on this subject very carefully, assuming I get the chance.

But before I go, one little thing:   In my country, in terms of government funding for programmes and the like, "youth" or "young persons" includes people up to the age of 29.

[Grouchybeast]

The way I've always looked at things, Word of God is pretty worthless.  If something isn't actually in canon, then it doesn't count.  I don't care what some dev said at some later point -- if they wanted the readers to know something, they should put it in the source material.  A creator's later opinions about what the source material should really say isn't worth any more than anyone else's.

 

14-20 seems like a pretty reasonable age range for 'young man' to me.  I might even nudge it a bit older, up to low 20s.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

14 minutes ago, Shadowsleuth said:

 

 

That is all that is needed, have Blue Steel admit he made a mistake & overreacted. Have him try to make amends & have Clockwork King refuse it (initially), then later have Clockwork King (who wants to prove to Penelope Yin he has changed) accept Blue Steel's apology.

Perhaps part of Blue Steel's amends, his TF deals with acquiring cloning technology that will provide the Clockwork King with a cloned version of his original body.

 

I prefer that to be the way the Devs handle it rather than locking Blue Steel up.

But, If they did lock Blue Steel up I would expect him to say something similar to this.

 

While I certainly love me some Watchmen, its not really mainstream comicdom and not what we should be aiming for.

 

Instead we should look to the example set long ago by Marvel in reaction to readers, when it came to Jean Grey, The dark phoenix saga, and how Jean Grey was eventually brought back ( not via redemption but, due mainly due to fan backlash, washed her free of the blood upon her hands. Because in general comic book readers do not feel that any action can redeem a hero who has fallen from grace and taken innocent lives. DC holds this same standard, hence why the modern batman that never kills has become such a heroic icon to rival a living god like superman for main icon of DC.

 

Not all get held to this standard ofcourse. Green Lanterns perhaps most of all, because of being basically an intergalactic military police force whose laws supersede the planets laws at an interplanetary level, is basically immune to having to abide by traditional heroic standards because a Lantern isnt a hero so much as  a super powered soldier. Hence why some have been violent etc and yet not held to the standard( though look how they did the whole parralax retcon so Hal Jordan could come back untainted)

 

Basically I feel that no arc, no act, could ever redeem Blue Steel, and I know  I am far from alone among comic book fans who feel this way.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

8 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

The way I've always looked at things, Word of God is pretty worthless.  If something isn't actually in canon, then it doesn't count.  I don't care what some dev said at some later point -- if they wanted the readers to know something, they should put it in the source material.  A creator's later opinions about what the source material should really say isn't worth any more than anyone else's.

 

14-20 seems like a pretty reasonable age range for 'young man' to me.  I might even nudge it a bit older, up to low 20s.

Well your certainly entitled to your pov. However I am just the opposite. I put the will of the writer above that of publisher and editor. For example there are those who say that with the way the new Trek series Picard ended, Picard is actually dead, and its just a copy. The writers for the show have stated clearly that in the trek universe that is still the real Picard, not a clone, not a copy. In mind and soul the same ol original organic picard. Many fans argue canon does not support this idea. That he has to be a new and distinct being. That having the mind and form do not make him him still. However we then counter by bringing in other sci fi like Altered Carbon, or Doll House, where the mind becomes a distinct and separate aspect from the organic sleeves they may wear. Or how even within trek verse, it ws made very very clear taht when we met thomas riker neither riker was more real then the other.

 

So yeah the fact I heard from the mouths of the makers that CK was a 14 year old mutant just manifesting his powers, who had been in the classic vein of marvels mutant stories, kicked out of his home and was trying to survive on the streets of Paragon while trying to come to terms with and get a grip on his massive powers. And while readers dont forgive adults who take life in comics easily, characters like Cyclops of the x men whose early power manifestations often include the tragic loss of life, are always given a pass.

[Grouchybeast]

Ray Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 as a response to McCarthyism and censorship.  Then much later he said that he wrote it because of the damaging effect of mass media on literacy. 

 

Writer opinions are impermanent headcanons, only the text remains.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

50 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

I wanna take a long while to compose my own thoughts on this subject very carefully, assuming I get the chance.

But before I go, one little thing:   In my country, in terms of government funding for programmes and the like, "youth" or "young persons" includes people up to the age of 29.

Quite an interesting insight, and makes me wonder is anyone around from the rhode island area where Paragon is meant to exist? Whats the age of consent, and the typical age range a term like young adult might typically be directed to there?

 

Because if we are gonna get hung  up on the phrase young man, perhaps we should try to discern how a local to that region would consider a young man, rather that a ,man or adult in general.

[Ruin Mage]

6 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

I think  if we are gonna do any real updating to the game world and setting we need to start with this.

Always a delight to see these sort of threads.
We have no confirmation of if we're going to do it anyway. Also, this is not where I'd start.

 

 

6 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Because to me Blue Steel has been blight on the reputation of Paragon City.

I don't know if anyone takes this as seriously as you do.

 

6 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Since year one I typically have avoided using him for training unless Im in a pug in KR and dont want to ask them to wait on me for a RP hangup.

...You do you, but that's just weird.


 

[Starforge]

It's just a game, dude. Avoid that tiny part of Kings Row if it's that big of a deal to you.

[Alchemystic]

Trying to score points off current events huh? Low.

[Ruin Mage]

Somehow my brain skipped off the current events.

Yeah, real bad time to be suggesting this over a fictional character.

 

[GM Tock]

Remember, everybody.  No divisive real-world issues.  This includes politics, regardless of which side.

 

This isn't anything new, it's a part of the Code of Conduct.