Are we sure how exactly strong the previous null was tho ?
Not exactly I think but I believe to remember that the previous null was only immune to magic, while Phil is also able to shrug off physical damage in much the same way.
The previous null most likely had more combat training however.
Yup Penpen did cover it a bit, as did his “annoying cousin” indirectly. The old Null could not be touched by anything that magic touched, but as we learn when Lia unsealed her magic, he was killed via blunt force trauma to the head. Thanks to Penpen though, so long as he can breathe…
Well, there’s that, plus the fact that the Weirding basically caused magic to rush back into the world, likely touching EVERYTHING. Therefore, basically everything in the world was touched by magic and thus cannot affect Phil. At least, that’s my theory anyway.
That is the most likely thing that happened or Phil got a power boost like the Magi and well yeah
That would have applied before magic sealed too, if it worked like that. I think its more of a magical immune response, and anything that doesn’t kill him outright his power learns ato defend against. I think when the Elementals created the first Null, they created a “living ward” of sorts that learns to improve itself from experiences and absorbs ambient magical energy to power itself, but there’s clearly a “whitelist” in magic that doesn’t get drained at all, unless it is a direct threat, this is why the androids, Kate’s Shadow, Penpen and so on can be around him unaffected.
Mike’s mostly right, but it’s got a bit more of a doomsday vibe. The Null functions very much like the other major magical bloodlines in that the power itself transfers to a new host upon the death of its prior host. And it’s an adaptive ability that grows stronger as it experiences more, regardless of whether or not the host survived it.
In fact, the reason that the legendary Null was immune to basically all hostile magic was because he was the second null, not the first. The first was killed without anyone even knowing about the ability because Death pretty much atomized the first Null ( http://sage.katbox.net/comics/yosh/the-first-null/ ). And because of the nature of Death magic as having a little bit of everything in it, this pretty much made the Null magic practically immune to most (all?) magic, which was the second Null’s claim to fame.
As “the Deceiver” (aka “that jerk demon who used to live in Axel’s head”) noted when he fully possessed Axel, however, the legendary Null was killed by physical trauma, hence his surprise that Phil was unaffected by it. PenPen would elaborate on this much later, noting that Phil’s immunity was not absolute and that PenPen had been attacking Phil for years for the explicit purpose of further increasing the ability’s resistance to damage.
Is Phil going to go for the superhero landing?
Probably, but the staff’s effect on CoG will mess it up…
Nevermind the staffs effect on CoG, Phil’s, well… “Philness” will ensure that any attempted superhero landing would end up as a bellyflop or faceplant straight into the ground. Add in the staff and you probably end up with a Phil shaped hole in the ground with a speechbubble asking for help getting out of it.
So how familiar is she with the Iliad? Cause Kate’s the wooden horse (that was probably made from a couple siege towers). Time to decloak the “jewelry” to save power. I imagine we will mostly be seeing Cain’s robots, if the goal was never to keep Kate hostage, there’d be no reason to risk many mages. I am surprised they haven’t heard any sonic booms, unless they dropped to subsonic early or Kate’s phantasmal servant teleported to her from far enough away to give her time to say all the lines in the last panel before the sound wave catches up
TO WAR FOR THE NERDS WIFE!
Is it just me, or is Kate being a bit of a badass at this particular moment? Very cool.
Her subtle threat there was nice.
“He’s just not interested in being a monster.”
That can be easily interpreted as saying “He doesn’t Want to be a Monster. Don’t give him a reason to actually play the Role of the Monster. It won’t end well.”
Most likely the reason Phil has more power as the “null” is because null magic has a will of it’s own and can sense the intent of the person using it. Phil is more passive and doesn’t like to fight so it’s easy to conclude that his magic felt that it was okay to push his stats up to their most extreme because the possibility of him going “power mad” is precisely zero. It’s basically a “Goku” moment. The most powerful person is also the most casual and good natured.
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Are we sure how exactly strong the previous null was tho ?
Not exactly I think but I believe to remember that the previous null was only immune to magic, while Phil is also able to shrug off physical damage in much the same way.
The previous null most likely had more combat training however.
Yup Penpen did cover it a bit, as did his “annoying cousin” indirectly. The old Null could not be touched by anything that magic touched, but as we learn when Lia unsealed her magic, he was killed via blunt force trauma to the head. Thanks to Penpen though, so long as he can breathe…
Well, there’s that, plus the fact that the Weirding basically caused magic to rush back into the world, likely touching EVERYTHING. Therefore, basically everything in the world was touched by magic and thus cannot affect Phil. At least, that’s my theory anyway.
That is the most likely thing that happened or Phil got a power boost like the Magi and well yeah
That would have applied before magic sealed too, if it worked like that. I think its more of a magical immune response, and anything that doesn’t kill him outright his power learns ato defend against. I think when the Elementals created the first Null, they created a “living ward” of sorts that learns to improve itself from experiences and absorbs ambient magical energy to power itself, but there’s clearly a “whitelist” in magic that doesn’t get drained at all, unless it is a direct threat, this is why the androids, Kate’s Shadow, Penpen and so on can be around him unaffected.
Mike’s mostly right, but it’s got a bit more of a doomsday vibe. The Null functions very much like the other major magical bloodlines in that the power itself transfers to a new host upon the death of its prior host. And it’s an adaptive ability that grows stronger as it experiences more, regardless of whether or not the host survived it.
In fact, the reason that the legendary Null was immune to basically all hostile magic was because he was the second null, not the first. The first was killed without anyone even knowing about the ability because Death pretty much atomized the first Null ( http://sage.katbox.net/comics/yosh/the-first-null/ ). And because of the nature of Death magic as having a little bit of everything in it, this pretty much made the Null magic practically immune to most (all?) magic, which was the second Null’s claim to fame.
As “the Deceiver” (aka “that jerk demon who used to live in Axel’s head”) noted when he fully possessed Axel, however, the legendary Null was killed by physical trauma, hence his surprise that Phil was unaffected by it. PenPen would elaborate on this much later, noting that Phil’s immunity was not absolute and that PenPen had been attacking Phil for years for the explicit purpose of further increasing the ability’s resistance to damage.
Is Phil going to go for the superhero landing?
Probably, but the staff’s effect on CoG will mess it up…
Nevermind the staffs effect on CoG, Phil’s, well… “Philness” will ensure that any attempted superhero landing would end up as a bellyflop or faceplant straight into the ground. Add in the staff and you probably end up with a Phil shaped hole in the ground with a speechbubble asking for help getting out of it.
So how familiar is she with the Iliad? Cause Kate’s the wooden horse (that was probably made from a couple siege towers). Time to decloak the “jewelry” to save power. I imagine we will mostly be seeing Cain’s robots, if the goal was never to keep Kate hostage, there’d be no reason to risk many mages. I am surprised they haven’t heard any sonic booms, unless they dropped to subsonic early or Kate’s phantasmal servant teleported to her from far enough away to give her time to say all the lines in the last panel before the sound wave catches up
TO WAR FOR THE NERDS WIFE!
Is it just me, or is Kate being a bit of a badass at this particular moment? Very cool.
Her subtle threat there was nice.
“He’s just not interested in being a monster.”
That can be easily interpreted as saying “He doesn’t Want to be a Monster. Don’t give him a reason to actually play the Role of the Monster. It won’t end well.”
Most likely the reason Phil has more power as the “null” is because null magic has a will of it’s own and can sense the intent of the person using it. Phil is more passive and doesn’t like to fight so it’s easy to conclude that his magic felt that it was okay to push his stats up to their most extreme because the possibility of him going “power mad” is precisely zero. It’s basically a “Goku” moment. The most powerful person is also the most casual and good natured.