Duke Thomas: The Signal Appreciation 2020

[J. D. Guy]

Nur is indeed a badass, I just discovered him and I'm about to do a deep dive into him just because I find his powers and the way he uses them (based on his wiki) so fascinating

Aweome! Enjoy!

[Korath]

Custom-made Duke Thomas figurine : https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/co...as_the_signal/

[Sergard]

Custom-made Duke Thomas figurine : https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/co...as_the_signal/

Looks dope . The whole collection looks awesome. Definitely a better representation of the batfamily than what we get in comics most of the times.

[J. D. Guy]

Custom-made Duke Thomas figurine : https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/co...as_the_signal/

I always love to see fan creativity and devotion to Duke Thomas/The Signal. It's usually always very cool and/or heartwarming.

Looks dope . The whole collection looks awesome. Definitely a better representation of the batfamily than what we get in comics most of the times.

Agreed.

[lemonpeace]

[Sergard]

I have a good feeling. I believe "karma" will be on our boy's side this time.

[lemonpeace]

this was a great issue of Outsiders, but once again, an extremely disappointing showing for Duke. I think I'm just gonna give up waiting for Bryan Hill to give Duke his cool moment and just hope he can continue his character development.

[lemonpeace]

sky-top fade Duke

[J. D. Guy]

sky-top fade Duke

Cool fan art. With him implied to have just removed the helmet, it's amazing the high-top fade is still looking so fresh.

[lemonpeace]

Color coordination is everything …

this is the cleanest Duke's Signal armor has ever looked to me

[lemonpeace]

alright, so here's how Duke's shadow powers work. Duke's power is photokinesis, a very specific form of photokinesis that allows him to pull light into his eyes, process the light in a superhuman way, and manipulate the way the light relays information for different optical effects; telescopic vision, microscopic vision, retro-cognition, precognition, the ability to perceive the known electromagnetic spectrum and beyond, multiversal perception, etc. So Duke's most fundamental ability is the ability to absorb light, Ishmael has the ability to "evolve" metahumans with his touch, which is what gave Duke his shadow powers. so I would take that to mean Ishmael expands the capabilities of the metahuman's inherent power. That would mean the shadow abilities can only work as an extension of Duke's fundamental ability to absorb light, which it could, because all a shadow is, is an absence of light in a given area. So the question becomes, how do you bridge the gap? how (and why) would his powers go from absorbing light straight through his eyes to creating shadows that envelopes a wide area? here is how Duke's powers work, Ishmael expanded Duke's light-absorbing capabilities, and so, his body is creating a route to absorb more light over a wider area directly into the body. So the shadow is a pseudo-plasmic light pigment, free-flowing molecules that extend from his body to pull surrounding photons and carry them into Duke's body; he's effectively melinating molecules. Now, for me, what's cool about this explanation is two-fold. It opens Duke up to have the ability to do a lot of cool creative stuff without breaking his abilities premise (meh, breaking it further). Keeping his powers more utility than "shooting solar flares from my fingertips on some anime ****", maybe he could manipulate the light in the pseudo-shadow to project images and relay information, or make himself invisible, or make a whole area invisible, or brightly illuminate an area to blind an enemy - if they're creatively done, the skies the limit! the other cool thing, I like the idea of a superhero who has the ability to make things blacker that is true black excellence! Super melanin? Melanin as a superpower? I just love the symbolism.

[J. D. Guy]

alright, so here's how Duke's shadow powers work. Duke's power is photokinesis, a very specific form of photokinesis that allows him to pull light into his eyes, process the light in a superhuman way, and manipulate the way the light relays information for different optical effects; telescopic vision, microscopic vision, retro-cognition, precognition, the ability to perceive the known electromagnetic spectrum and beyond, multiversal perception, etc. So Duke's most fundamental ability is the ability to absorb light, Ishmael has the ability to "evolve" metahumans with his touch, which is what gave Duke his shadow powers. so I would take that to mean Ishmael expands the capabilities of the metahuman's inherent power. That would mean the shadow abilities can only work as an extension of Duke's fundamental ability to absorb light, which it could, because all a shadow is, is an absence of light in a given area. So the question becomes, how do you bridge the gap? how (and why) would his powers go from absorbing light straight through his eyes to creating shadows that envelopes a wide area? here is how Duke's powers work, Ishmael expanded Duke's light-absorbing capabilities, and so, his body is creating a route to absorb more light over a wider area directly into the body. So the shadow is a pseudo-plasmic light pigment, free-flowing molecules that extend from his body to pull surrounding photons and carry them into Duke's body; he's effectively melinating molecules. Now, for me, what's cool about this explanation is two-fold. It opens Duke up to have the ability to do a lot of cool creative stuff without breaking his abilities premise (meh, breaking it further). Keeping his powers more utility than "shooting solar flares from my fingertips on some anime ****", maybe he could manipulate the light in the pseudo-shadow to project images and relay information, or make himself invisible, or make a whole area invisible, or brightly illuminate an area to blind an enemy - if they're creatively done, the skies the limit! the other cool thing, I like the idea of a superhero who has the ability to make things blacker that is true black excellence! Super melanin? Melanin as a superpower? I just love the symbolism.

Woah! Excellet theory. Ishmael evolving what Duke could already do makes sense in this light (lol!). There's a ton of cool stuff he can do, both with his "base" and his "expanded" set of powers. Your theory of how his Darkness powers work (essentially exuding a field that extends his light-absorption abilities beyond his line of sight) fits so well. (And superpowered melanin is just the type of subtle but still symbolically present and relevant comic book trope we need!)

I will say this, though; Your post would flow a bit better with at least a paragraph, break starting with the "here is how Duke's powers work". That pretty much the part were your the parts of your idea naturally segment.

[lemonpeace]

Woah! Excellet theory. Ishmael evolving what Duke could already do makes sense in this light (lol!). There's a ton of cool stuff he can do, both with his "base" and his "expanded" set of powers. Your theory of how his Darkness powers work (essentially exuding a field that extends his light-absorption abilities beyond his line of sight) fits so well. (And superpowered melanin is just the type of subtle but still symbolically present and relevant comic book trope we need!)

I will say this, though; Your post would flow a bit better with at least a paragraph, break starting with the "here is how Duke's powers work". That pretty much the part were your the parts of your idea naturally segment.

thank you! I admit I probably should've put a line break but I was a little...."chemically altered" when I came up with the idea lol so I wasn't looking at structure. it sounded good on my text to speech reader so I posted it. but yeah, I mainly only did it because i wanted to try to dot the i's and cross the t's on Duke's shadow power considering how much it irritated me that Bryan Hill expanded Duke's power by giving him an ability that's appears to be completely opposite of his usually powers: simply moving shadows to spook people feels too Batman chic for me.

[lemonpeace]

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[lemonpeace]

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