Given my… inability to suspend disbelief concerning the sociopolitical situation concerning monster rights (even in the face of rampant human deaths at the hands claws of monsters) in the contemporary fantasy webcomic Paranormal Mystery Squad, it would probably come as little surprise that I’ve found the conclusion of the most recent PMS storyline to be delightfully amusing. To be honest, there are two reasons for this. First I’m always glad to see Director O’Keeffe (who’s been the bureaucratic antagonist to the PMS crew) foiled in some way; seeing U.S. Army General Nathaniel Briggs (introduced in this latest storyline) use his own political pull to stymie O’Keeffe’s ongoing persecution of the protagonists was a thing of beauty, especially when he rubbed it in.
To comment on the second point, I need to look back several weeks to when General Briggs himself was stymied by O’Keeffe, claiming that a several-hundred-foot-tall monstrosity on a rampage to destroy Las Vegas was “endangered” and thus protected under law. At that time, Briggs commented on Congress repealing the laws protecting cryptids (monsters). While it might be mere wishful thinking on the General’s part, I can’t help but wonder if this might be a future plot point in the comic… and one that would result in a most interesting conflict of interests for the PMS crew.
At this point in the comic, half of the crew are cryptids; Charlotte Roth’s kid sister was bitten by a werewolf, and while she’s able to control herself (with some help), she’d still be considered a monster. Likewise, J.C. Summerfield (a PETM employee placed on the PMS team though he’s angered his boss by killing several monsters while protecting his new teammates) is a dampire (basically the semi-mortal child of a vampire and a mortal, though thankfully he doesn’t sparkle); considering he’s become enough of a teammate that Charlotte and crew went out of their way to rescue him in the recent storyline, it’s more than likely that if the laws protecting monsters were repealed, that Charlotte would be reluctant to turn him over to the government as well.
Naturally what would be called for would be some happy medium where cryptids were tolerated up until they became an active threat to humans. Unfortunately, human nature tends to abhor the concept of moderation, and given the televised loss of life in the most recent storyline, I can’t help but suspect the pendulum will swing fully to the other side. This may also result in an interesting twist where PMS is forced to cooperate with their former antagonist (O’Keeffe) to protect their own… and maybe even learn why it is PETM is so certain monsters are deserving of ethical treatment. Of course, there’s no guarantee that writer Adam Arnold will shift away from the status quo, but such a twist would be more interesting than a continuation of the “monster-killing of the week” that has ultimately been at the core of the comic.
Given that Marcy O’Keefe is indirectly responsible (in a couple of different ways) for every death caused by the dual rampages of Lita and the giant stompy monster thing, I do not consider this to be anywhere close to sufficient punishment for her. Her stupidity is so extreme that it breaks my suspension of disbelief, but it also makes me hate her enough that I wish someone would just kill her already so we don’t have to deal with her ridiculousness in the story any more.
I don’t see Marcy as stupid. I see her as… having ulterior motives. In short, I think she wanted something like this summoning to happen… and is working toward the destruction of the human race (seeing I don’t think she’s human). But just because this is my suspicion about her doesn’t mean it’s right… and seeing her forced to moderate her own beliefs to allow for coexistence between cryptids and humans would make for good storytelling in a comic that… well, needs some improvement in it.
Rob H.