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A new Perspective on "The Incredibles"
I was musing on this wonderful movie this morning, when it occurred to me, suddenly, that the entire movie's main plot could be viewed as driven, not by Syndrome, but by the Machiavellian maneuverings of Edna Mode.
Consider:
1) Where did Syndrome get his costume? Yes, he COULD have made it himself, but if there was, in fact, a "costumer to the stars" for the Heroes, Syndrome would know. And as a would-be hero, he'd go to her. And he's exactly the sort of guy to peeve Edna enough to get her to make him one WITH a cape.
2) Edna's dissatisfaction with the Status Quo is clear. "I used to design for GODS!" She's annoyed in the extreme.
3) Edna is a perfectionist. She COULD have repaired Bob's suit well enough to be unnoticeable even under pretty close inspection.
(one of the most telling points)
4) Edna didn't tell Bob about the tracking beacon. Edna knew that Bob was sneaking around doing Hero stuff. Unless she had ulterior motives she had no reason NOT to tell Bob about the features in the suits. Instead, WITHOUT telling him, she went ahead and made the suits for the rest of the family.
5) She was clearly WAITING for Helen to call. She could have called her any time, but didn't.
In my theory, this is what happened:
Syndrome finds Edna; convinces her to make him a costume, but makes such a pill of himself that she deliberately makes it with a cape, hoping something will happen to him.
Shortly afterward, supers start disappearing. Edna knows a lot of them even in civilian identities, obviously. Eventually she makes the connection.
Edna is already utterly put out that her entire career was derailed by stupid lawsuits. She wants things back the way they were.
So when Mr. Incredible shows up, clearly the next target of Syndrome, she finally has the perfect setup to put her plan into action. She knows Bob married Helen. She knows -- none better -- that the two have been trying their best to stay "normal". She also knows that with Bob keeping it secret, there is one obvious deduction Helen might draw from Bob's sneaking around.
So she doesn't tell Bob about the beacon or Syndrome. She sews the repair Not Quite Perfect and waits for Helen to call. She leads Helen to figure out Bob's been out behind her back, lying to her about the "job", and then hands her the tracker, knowing the family will confront Syndrome -- almost certainly publicly -- and usher in a new era of the Supers. And give her back her proper place.
All that has transpired here has done so according to my fabulous design, dah-lings.
Consider:
1) Where did Syndrome get his costume? Yes, he COULD have made it himself, but if there was, in fact, a "costumer to the stars" for the Heroes, Syndrome would know. And as a would-be hero, he'd go to her. And he's exactly the sort of guy to peeve Edna enough to get her to make him one WITH a cape.
2) Edna's dissatisfaction with the Status Quo is clear. "I used to design for GODS!" She's annoyed in the extreme.
3) Edna is a perfectionist. She COULD have repaired Bob's suit well enough to be unnoticeable even under pretty close inspection.
(one of the most telling points)
4) Edna didn't tell Bob about the tracking beacon. Edna knew that Bob was sneaking around doing Hero stuff. Unless she had ulterior motives she had no reason NOT to tell Bob about the features in the suits. Instead, WITHOUT telling him, she went ahead and made the suits for the rest of the family.
5) She was clearly WAITING for Helen to call. She could have called her any time, but didn't.
In my theory, this is what happened:
Syndrome finds Edna; convinces her to make him a costume, but makes such a pill of himself that she deliberately makes it with a cape, hoping something will happen to him.
Shortly afterward, supers start disappearing. Edna knows a lot of them even in civilian identities, obviously. Eventually she makes the connection.
Edna is already utterly put out that her entire career was derailed by stupid lawsuits. She wants things back the way they were.
So when Mr. Incredible shows up, clearly the next target of Syndrome, she finally has the perfect setup to put her plan into action. She knows Bob married Helen. She knows -- none better -- that the two have been trying their best to stay "normal". She also knows that with Bob keeping it secret, there is one obvious deduction Helen might draw from Bob's sneaking around.
So she doesn't tell Bob about the beacon or Syndrome. She sews the repair Not Quite Perfect and waits for Helen to call. She leads Helen to figure out Bob's been out behind her back, lying to her about the "job", and then hands her the tracker, knowing the family will confront Syndrome -- almost certainly publicly -- and usher in a new era of the Supers. And give her back her proper place.
All that has transpired here has done so according to my fabulous design, dah-lings.
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
(I know how Syndrome survives his "accident", too; can't have a villain really, truly die after his first appearance, you know.)
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
As for other supers, you can always assert that (a) Syndrome missed some of the public supers; (b) there were an arbitrary number of covert supers that Syndrome never knew about; and/or (c) new supers have been born/had laboratory accidents/picked up oddly glowing mystical artifacts/been exposed to weird radiation/dedicated themselves to revenge on all criminals since the older generation went into hiding.
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
Well, the thing is that if I want to use the lovely background info they supply, I have to reduce Syndrome's deathtoll, or 90% of those backgrounds are toast. We SEE them listed as terminated in the KRONOS files.
(b) there were an arbitrary number of covert supers that Syndrome never knew about;
Sure. Undoubtedly, even some that the GOVERNMENT never knew about.
and/or (c) new supers have been born/had laboratory accidents/picked up oddly glowing mystical artifacts/been exposed to weird radiation/dedicated themselves to revenge on all criminals since the older generation went into hiding.
Or all at once? (flashing back to the "What's New with Phil and Dixie" superhero strip and the "overdoing your origin story" panels)
Obviously PCs would probably be in the "new supers" group.
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
Sure, but maybe they faked their deaths. For some of them this might almost be reflexive.
"Hmm, some unknown villain is trying to kill me after all these years. I'll let him think he succeeded then lay low and see what happens next."
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
For some of them, maybe, but that's really much MORE often a Supervillain schtick, not a superhero schtick. If there are some Wolverine/Batmanesque types in that list, yeah, I could see that. Some of them it's awfully hard to justify, though. Gazerbeam, for instance, isn't merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.
And you'd think that most of those Supers would've sounded the alarm rather shortly after escaping Syndrome's trap, if they managed it. Sure, go to ground for a while, but given Nomanisan Island as the killing ground, you'd think it'd be pretty obvious that you weren't the ONLY candidate. A few might not care, but most of them would react the same way Mr. Incredible did at the idea of some psycho killing off Supers.
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
No question.
This is a problem even without faked deaths. I don't remember which version of the Evil Killing Machine was finally sent out against Mr. Incredible, but all the previous versions had gone against another super and lost. In no instance, as far as we know (and barring some sort of government cover-up) was any sort of alarm sounded.
Re: Of COURSE I did, Dahling...
The Golden Age is dead, long live the Silver Age.