Sure the executives are bad but youre worse in helping them having control over the heroes.

That's a lot of revelation in the middle of civilians... now wonder Rodger Mann had to fix this PR damage !

I mean, if you bring a malevolent spirit into the world, and give it access to nearly unlimited power - you're going to hurt someone whether or not you personally do the hurting.

Theres some good commentary here about leeches that subscribe to systems of power that hurt people, because they believe that their role in the mess is insignificant, or that someone else would be involved in their stead.

He's the one that put himself in this position. He's just a clerk of course, but he's still a cog in the machine.

He's reasoned himself that the amount of pain he's inflicted is nothing but a small amount comparatively.

And he's right. He is the lesser evil compared to the executives, who've orchestrated all of this. He's simply a weak opportunist that barely found his way to a mild amount of power through circumstances that were out of his control. He's the banal bureaucrat who doesn't dare dream of anything and would rather be forgotten, enjoying his spoils without the spotlight.

He's gonna cry and shout and yell and claw his way out of this situation. Begging others to let him go because he's terrified of jail and terrified of the consequences of his actions.

Thats what makes him a good final boss. And I hope Neo doesn't reveal a bigger bad than that behind all of this. Vonny and the Executives and Evyle being a greedy jerk are all caricatures of real life assholes and straight up evil, but theres something fundamentally about someone who's as weak as he is, aspiring to squeeze himself into power knowing full well of the consequences of his actions, trying to reason himself into a position that he isn't the villain, and doing it all anyways.

@Sporf, continuing from previous page:

I can't seem to find a page that explicitly states that Shahlia is an esper, but she discusses the sight in 1390 and 2055. She can see Infinite's Pandemonium spirit, just as Noel can. Her bio thing isn't an esper ability exactly, but she states that the sight is apparently a requirement for joining the unit, so it's probably needed somehow.

As for magic disruption - I don't think she NEEDED to do it yet. I think she only got attacked by a power once, and she could just easily dodge out of the way. In addition, Evyle mentions that espers have different power levels, and Noel has trouble with certain abilities. Shahlia might be a weak esper and unable to reliably shut down powers, instead relying on GO's tech for combat.

Notice how he didn't heal this time, and the injuries actually got WORSE instead.

I just noticed, the saturation goes up in the last two panels.

Morty reminds me of grifters who buy, say, PS5 consoles in bulk and then insist that they are not villains, they are just a middle man who makes the distribution of the consoles easier, or something along those lines... never mind the fact that they buy the consoles from a middle man, making it harder for people to get their stuff from official and more easily accessible middle men, and are, through a combination of jacked-up prices and the lack of customer security that comes with buying from a non-official distributors, in actuality major inconveniences AT BEST.

The person in the poncho there on the far left has been lurking around most of the major events for this arch... And they've got a very distinctive design in a way that doesn't quite mesh with the other background characters. An undercover hero from higher up the Heroland ranks, perhaps?

@Feddlefew,

in comic 2824 there are two poncho men! I suspect that ponchos are just popular?

@Stinger, we already know there's a bigger bad, though. Morty really is just a cog, like you said. Vonesperda is clearly the larger threat here, though I don't think that even she is the true pinnacle of this scheme's pyramid. I place her on the same level as the corrupt Heroland executives: Right below the top, but not quite there. Who could be in charge, I'm not really sure, but I suspect it's probably connected to the two who showed up back at the Baron's place.

Reminder that an executive seat isn't accounted for, we don't know what the current suits were waiting for that made them confident the mess will be settled, and we haven't seen anything on Piper's end.

Also can't wait for Burk to throw the psychological punch next page, if he decides to elaborate beyond "Pablo said so".

If Evile did not know about the "fineprint text" of the contract, I doubt the Executives did either. As far as they are concerned, if the heroes violate the contracts they will be safe from them, but they probably do not know about the abyssal entity that would gain it.

Which means it is still the clerk who is the bigger villain here (after Vonesperda, but I don't think Burk can interact/fight with them in a reasonable way).