what with you calling your shots and all, goldman, you will never hit!
the burk senses of burk makes burk immune to telegraphed attacks!
burk burk burk!

Concerned Nightshade hype!

What's arguably even more shocking is that there's no meme by that name, despite the fact that we've got the age-old meme "surprise buttsecks"...

I think this whole scene has a magic effect name:

"Comedy Gold" ...

I'm honestly surprised Tinklin or someone else sent to off Burk isn't watching.

@random
Shirley you mean Golden Comedy?

I bet he can fire that backwards.

Burk being immune to telegraphed attacks according to his own words earlier on and never disproven is rapidly making this fight boring, as the stakes are so low.

Either fast-forward to the end or have Pablo show up (he encountered the nightshade hero, perhaps?) to give Burk dispensation, after which Burk knocks out Goldman with one Burk-level attack.

huh. Goldman doesn't seem to have a good combat sense. He's outmatched so far but his own confidence makes him believe he can still one shot Burk. he relies too much on his magic telling him he can do it

I think the fight remains interesting because we keep seeing Goldman pull out new tricks to deal with Burk, and we're seeing how smug and overconfident he is.

I can only imagine we're going to see the fight end pretty soon - And Goldman isn't going to look good by the end of it.

I actually think that it's fun to watch Burk dodge all of these attacks easily.

@Deliverance
There aren't any stakes to begin with. Burk loses absolutely nothing if he loses the fight because the terms of the fight ask him for something he won't have. It means nothing if he wins or loses, and that's probably the whole point. We could be blindsided tomorrow by a page where he loses the fight and it simply wouldn't matter, because Burk is in a position where he can only gain or break even.

The REAL meat of this is that we're getting a slow drip of Goldman information as this goes on, provided simply by letting the villain do his thing while Burk goes on being Burk.

Does this suggest that Burk actually would be knocked out by a Golden Bullet if one hit him? Burk doesn't seem to be denying that.

@someone

There are stakes.

1) Piper the captive. Burk's prize for victory is that Goldman will stop arresting himself, Piper, or Pablo. This makes it important for Burk to win.

2) Instructions to Burk from heroland. This is either worth nothing, as you assume, or it is worth something and potentially a lot. We do not know.

You are acting on the assumption that Burk does not have *any* instructions from heroland to reveal. It is an assumption that I tend to share, but it is just that: an assumption. It isn't something we know from the comic.

While we can feel pretty confident that he doesn't have any instructions from heroland related to the specific spying on Goldman, that does not mean that Burk does not have instructions from heroland.

All we KNOW from the comic about Burk's relations with heroland is that he has to be known to the heroland top becauset 803/803 files connected to him are classified so high that they aren't available to the local heroland executives of the branch office we are visiting.

What his relationship is with heroland we don't know.

Operative? Magical experiment in next generation hero gone wrong (or right)? Mysterious outsider they are keeping track of but whose existence is for some reason kept a secret from lower ranks? Something else entirely?

We don't know. But a relationship of some sort exists, even if it is only keeping track of Burk. And if it isn't merely the latter, then he may well have instructions from heroland.

...Even if the instructions amount to "die" as they push him out of an airship prior to strip #1.

Burk is a mysterious fellow indeed.

There are indeed stakes as being arrested is still a stake. Especially since there held on suspicion with no mention of charges or trials. They are investigating him and it's still best thst he not know what they are specifically investigating so he can't try to hide it or warn other to cover it up. The only problem with the stakes is that Goldman is likely no where near the threat level of the Pirate of the Storm or even Logan. The trying not to fight is the only reason Goldman is a threat at all.

So Goldman is a cheater?

Burk, I know Pablo will be pissed, but please dude, smack him in his face ONCE.

I'm curious if Burk's actually dodged all of the bullets.. especially that first one.

Theory: Burk fell out of the sky at the start of Chapter 1 after going through something like Tobi did in (www.neorice.com/hoh_tobi_501) to arrive at the desert near Lorg. This makes both Burk and Tobi sort of outsiders to the universes that they're now in.

Back when Goldman shot the Heroland Shader (www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_1590), it looked almost like Goldman didn't shoot the Shader's body so much as its.. "spirit"? But if Burk's somehow outside of that universe, does he have a "spirit" to shoot?

In short, I wonder if Goldman's missing Burk much like a laser-beam misses fully-transparent glass.

@storm I was wondering that as well. But I would think Goldman would have figured that out by now. He knows Burke isn't using spirit to fight and if the bullet doesn't work on people not using spirit then you think he'd stop trying it. But I suppose it could be that just requires spirit potential to hit, and Goldman is still assuming Burk has that.

I think Goldman is missing because he’s using something akin to the magiball as an attack, and since burk doesn’t use spirit, it’s in essence, the “mask” ability

No one gonna mention Alfen Finnegad (aka the Nightshade Hero) taking a peek at the match?

In that last panel mini cha is sparkling and looks FABULOUS!