AdHoc's debut game, a superhero workplace comedy called Dispatch, released its first two episodes earlier this week, and they feature a pretty standard comic book story: Robert 'Mecha Man' Robertson vie for revenge against the villain who killed his father, the Shroud. But fans are convinced that there are other criminals hiding in SDN and that things are much more complicated than they seem at first glance.
Light spoilers for the first two episodes of Dispatch.
The most popular suggestion is that Phenomaman will pull the wool over our eyes as Omni-Man, pretending to be a noble, kind-hearted and naive scout of a Superman-like hero before revealing his true machinations to conquer Earth and conquer humanity. With the love triangle between him, Blond Blazer, and Mecha Man, and his striking resemblance to Viltrumite, it's easy to see how fans came to this conclusion. But I'm not convinced.
Forget Phenomaman, how about Blond Blazer?
It's not enough too it's obvious how oversaturated the evil Superman trope has become. Throwing another into the mix would be trite, and I imagine AdHoc feels the same way and is using Phenomaman as a red herring. But if he is the distraction, who is the real villain hiding in plain sight? It's a bit off, but some have suggested Blond Blazer may be pulling the strings.
I think it's a double bluff. The writers play on our expectations of perpetually evil Supermans and subvert it by making Phenomaman just a really awkward but well-intentioned guy – u/JollySieg.
Theories range from her being Shroud's secret child to being Shroud because we didn't see them take off their mask, and villains like Toxic were boosted with super strength and escape – her two signature abilities.
Granted, if she's Shroud's child, that doesn't necessarily mean she's a 'secret villain', just that she's tied to Robert's past. However, some believe that her flirting and getting Robert drunk at the bar was a manipulative ploy to further her true goals. Although others argue that she might just want out of her relationship with Phenomaman and that it's really just a messy love triangle.
Is Chase trying to get his powers back?
Another major theory, and one that I personally subscribe to, is this Chase is a secret, twisted villain. As u/Xion2320 explained: “It has a theme with an aging problem, it has a connection [to] main character that no one else has, and made a 'joke' about how he would 'kill' for a chance to be young and powerful again.”
u/Chalky97 goes so far as to say he could be the Shroud, which would explain why he didn't kill Mecha Man while he was in a coma: “Chase really cares about Rob, so he wouldn't”. As for why the Shroud wants the power source, uj/toumakata suggested that Chase could use it to regain his powers without aging.
Another theory is that Shroud is actually Mecha Man's father.
Of course, we don't know for sure that there's even a twisted villain, but these kinds of debates are exactly why episodic issues work so well. They keep the buzz of the community alive for weeks as they stumble headfirst into wild theories and rabbit holes, trailing breadcrumbs that may never have been there (cough cough, Rory is the Master, cough cough). But even if it's all nonsense, it's fun to speculate while we wait.
The next pair of episodes will be released in a few days, on October 29.
