General Discussion

Yeah I've been going crazy on tumblr looking at art because only 1 person I know knows/cares about tf2's comics HENCE THIS THREAD so we can discuss it here too :D!

Once again: IM SO GLAD THE NAME EUGENE IS NOT REAL, we already got to see Spy's handsome face.

On the subject of themes, yeah, I love stories about the cycle of revenge and the importance of letting go. Fallout New Vegas has a similar arc when it comes to letting go of things that are so vital to us. They could've very easily made Olivia Mann the next in line for the cycle of bitter hatred and pointless violence, but the fact that they let us see her being let go was everything to me. Metal Gear Solid also focuses pretty hard on the toxic cycle of revenge and how it does nothing but cause bloodshed.

Saxton Hale realizing that the thing he was obsessing over, Mann Co, was not the source of his happiness and abandoning everything for Maggie, honestly, I teared up. I'm glad they get to be happy together. Mags deserves it, at least.

To conclude and add a question: what do you guys think about the Bidwell/Reddy thing? Do you think they will fight over Mann Co. themselves? I know that's probably what they were implying, but part of me really hopes the hatched will be finally buried, idealistic as it is.

oh there's so much cool fan-content over on the 'blr, its fun seeing it all :]

I think the theme of letting go is really interesting!! I wasn't expecting such an emotional storyline from the TF2 comics of all things, but wow it really was intense. The Administator is such an interesting character to me, driven by rage and hatred so much that she was living for nothing else, brought back a dead man just so she could revel in the idea of revenge... And she can't even remember why she started in the first place. Ourgh.
Not to mention Pauling literally seeing everything she worked towards and followed dutifuly for years turning to ash in front of her very eyes. Every single time her face was lighted up by Australium in Comic #7 I just wanted to stare at the art forever, it's just... So much to be said with just an image!! Something something about power and corruption and whatnot lol.
I saw a few people dissapointed that Pauling didn't become the next Administrator, which is a bit odd to me! The whole point is that Pauling, for the first time, decided to act for herself instead of being a pawn for Admin, the conversation between her and Engineer is a big deal to me. Out of all of them I think they'd understand eachother the most, considering all the things they Know, Dell's family line, etc etc.

A bit that tugs on my heartstrings is, at the end of the comic, they show Saxton and Maggs old, but still fighting, and saying 'You wanna live forever?'.
I saw somebody say it's sort of representitive of TF2 as a whole, an old game that's still kicking. Something to be said about somebody wanting to live forever being a major plot point and TF2 still being pretty popular and staying alive despite being an almost eighteen year old video game. The indominable spirit of a silly hat game/dress up simulator!

Oh!! I didn't consider the idea of Bidwell and Reddy fighting over Mann Co, but it makes sense! I want to say 'regretfully' but I mean it in a silly way, like 'oh god, not another endless war started over petty nonsense' LOL. It does make sense though I mean... Bidwell for BLU... Reddy for RED... I wonder if that's intentional... Interesting!!
I wonder if they'd utilise the scarcely mentioned Other Teams in this theoretical, because our mercs are way past all this fighting.
There was that big statue with ABCDE on it and talk of 'real' mercs, which I assume means theres Other teams, and the missing stone/letter being F must be Team Fortress, taken off of the statue because they're weird failures and nobody assumed they'd make it. Wrong!! Makes me curious to the other teams though... Such a Huuuge world-building thing and it's never explicitly mentioned! I saw somebody say the Classic team might've been one of the ABCDE teams (i dont know what else to call em lmao) but I've no clue really. Interesting anyhow.

woof thats a lot of writing, but theres a lot to think about with this silly game :]

QUICK answer since this is really cool and i don't wanna forget my thought before I go out in a moment (ill probably edit more):

I don't think the classic team would still be an ABCDE(F) team since they were hired by Gray Mann to kill every other team as they searched for Australium, but they might have been one in the past before being retired, or maybe they were fired due to age, or they got greedy and figured they could earn more without being in direct contract. Who knows.

the 6ft tall cardboard cutout of soldier in my room appreciates this thread:)

I've been so excited for so long, but can someone explain why they liked it so much because I feel like I'm the only person who's been disappointed with it and I want to like it but I don't. Is there something I'm not seeing? Please tell me there's something I'm not seeing.

It just felt like a bunch of disjointed fan service with barely any actual plot and half the mercs acting entirely as background props (including my fave, which doesn't help things). It's nice they had a happy ending, and finding out names was cute, but idk. It felt like nothing really happened and the few things that did didn't even mean anything. "Oh yeah, Soldier had a load of Australium the whole time! In the cave he sleeps in! (Even though if he'd had prolonged exposure to it, via sleeping in a cave full of it every night, he wouldn't be such an idiot.) But that doesn't even matter because it's all going into the ocean. Anyway, here's something entirely unrelated."

I'm glad people are happy though, even if I'm not.

@Phlogistinator [Spoiler] As far as I know, Bidwell and Reddy were first named in the WAR! Update Comic back in 2009. And.... I [b]highly[/b] doubt they had this stuff planned as far back as 2009... @Phlogistinator, @Felicidade The ABCDE Teams are actually mentioned in "The Naked and the Dead", during Classic Heavy's death scene... [img]https://i.ibb.co/0Df68vz/image.png[/img] Presumably, Team Echelon is the E Team, Team Citadel is the C Team and Team Ajax is the A Team. Classic Heavy's emphasis on Ajax also implies to me that the teams are ranked according to their prestige/skills/value, with Fortress at the bottom and Ajax at the top. The Classic Team [i]were[/i] probably the previous Team Fortress, but it's probably a matter of A. back when they were Team Fortress the gap in (perceived) competence between Team F and teams ABCDE wasn't as pronounced as it is with the current Team Fortress. So maybe that Team Fortress were the least of the best, but they were still considered Real Mercenaries B. their experience and ruthlessness and maybe Gray's funds is what allowed them to best all the current teams ABCDE (Although also, while I was looking for that panel. Because I remembered these name drops but couldn't remember where they were, I found out that when "The Naked and the Dead" first came out, "Team Ajax" was originally "Team Vanguard" and it got changed after the Comic 7 Update. I guess the idea of the teams names also indicating their rank is something the came up with during the seven years gap in updates? Or maybe there was some communication issue between the staff [/Spoiler]

@GoldenSorceress Absolutely, I'd think at most they'd make their names share the first letter of RED and BLU just as a fun little detail at most, but everything else I feel like was worked on wayyy more recently.

Oh!! I completely forgot he said that! Shocked that it was right there the whole time and I never thought much about it! Really good to know that we get some of the team's names though, it's a really interesting lore piece to me. It'd make total sense that they'd be ranked based on skill, and it's interesting that they went back to change it when Comic 7 came out. Wonder if TFC Medic got killed while they were hunting down the other mercenaries, and thats why they had to hire our Mr Medic TF2.
The second idea would be really interesting to me, the original Team Fortress being seen as incompetent and yet they're the ones to take out all the other teams, then they're beaten by the new Team Fortress? That's fun to me. Both seem really plausible though! It's all so interesting to think about...