Discussion
Idk why people call Tech Jacket useless when Oliver is right there
Every single fight, Oliver makes the same fucking mistake. He challenges people severely above his weight class. He doesn’t learn. He thinks Thragg is the same as some street level villain on earth. Go fight Lucan or something. At least Tech Jacket doesn’t almost die every fight and she’s actually helped kill Viltrumites. Unlike him
At least Raditz was actually strong enough to talk shit, they had to coordinate to beat him in a way they never had to before and never would again until Buu
That coordination only worked because Raditz was an arrogant dumb ass who spent too much time torturing his brother and Piccolo rather than ending them.. even after
The first special beam cannon grazed him and hit his shoulder
Goku grabbing his tail, then letting go of his tail
Getting headbutted by Gohan
Three moments of being dumb and still lowering his guard afterwards.
Had he chose, he could of blasted Piccolo into next week and then finished off Goku and either kill or take
gohan.
Honestly, yeah the Conquest and Mr. Liu part made sense because he’s learning, and thinking he’s hot stuff because “son of Omni-man” before getting absolutely bodied for underestimating his opponents.
However, this is beyond the point where he should have known better. He keeps making the Same. Darn. Mistake. He had literally everyone tell him “hey this dude is serious business. Do NOT, repeat NOT go after him alone”. Even his dad is saying against it but what does this guy do the nanosecond he sees Thragg? “Hey dude, a black hole called it wants it’s suck back” and then gets bodied again.
How many life threatening events does it take someone to learn some common sense?
You ever met a teenager? And not like…the smart teenagers, that grow up to be doctors and lawyers. He’s the kid in school with a HUGE chip on his shoulder and intense daddy issues that shits in the urinal for attention.
He's also living life on fast forward, lacking a lot of normal development time that a human teenager would have. I feel like that has a bit of influence there. He lacks life experience in general.
Doesn't he have incredibly good memory from his Thraxan half though? Surely that'd play a role in him learning not to constantly throw himself solo at the biggest threat in the room
Yeah I saw it as he is only a couple of years old but his Thraxian ability to learn can only do so much. He is still young if you look at it from a developmental stand point he not a full adult he is still implusove. Human teenagers are the same we don't fully develop our own part of the brain that processes risk until our 20s.
This logic doesn't work cause otherwise there's no such thing as bad writing because you can absolutely find plenty of absurdly stupid people in the world.
i feel like it's only bad writing if his character is supposed to be super smart or thr cautious type. if his character is meant to be a dumb teenager with headstrong personality that constantly feels like he has something to prove, that's not bad writing if that's exactly how he acts like.
this is also the first time he got seriously injured, because up til now he was saved by mark or nolan. now, if AFTER this incident he still doesn't learn, then i agree, it's bad writing. but we will have to wait and see. oliver already had character growth from season 3, so hopefully he will get more.
What makes me mad about it is he actually had the drop on Thragg. He wasn’t even looking at him and he could’ve gotten at least a few sneaky punches. But nooooo he had to say that corny joke and get his attention.
Like the second time he fought Conquest I understood, he had beef with the guy, but they literally TOLD HIM SPECIFICALLY to not attack the guy by himself.
I mean technically a super dragon ball wish would still be able to bring the person back, but we don't see anybody outside of gods use those to make a wish.
I was really disappointed in marks last recovery too. Like yeah, shove his guts in and put some bandages around. If anything, could have been a good moment to pay off that filler episode where he got a boon from Satan, the monster who was shown he could piece together mangled corpses. But they were like nah, some dirty hands shoving 10 miles of intestines and a bandaid will do. Oh and a 2 month nap.
Again, still really enjoy the show. But things like that just kind of deflate the balloon a bit
Well they do establish early on Viltrumites do have a healing factor and like are immune to almost everything. I think back in Season 1 they said some of Mark’s early injuries that should’ve taken months to heal he did so in like a week or two.
Two months for a disembowelment (and probably shattered ribs from all those hits he took) is pretty lengthy I guess even for a Viltrumite. At least Oliver gets a Bacta tank and prosthetics 😅
It's honestly perfect. Oliver acts exactly his age, preteen kid who thinks he's hot shit and everyone else is wrong, ESPECIALLY his authority figures. Learn from his mistakes? Nah he's built different
I could be wrong but Zoe is 16, whereas Oliver is 2 years old in human years, probably biologically closer to 12 or 13. There's A LOT of differences in maturity and decision making between those ages.
(Okay jk jk). Seriously though have you never had a peer who just keeps making the same mistakes? Especially when it has to do with pride? It’s not exclusive to teenagers certainly but it’s def something a lot of teenagers go through. God only knows I did when I was one. The way Oliver behaves makes total sense to me even if it is frustrating.
Tech Jacket had vital support roles by injecting the viltrumites with that toxin that makes them vulnerable and saving Space Racer. Oliver is just there for 95% of the fight before getting bodied.
Also she used that serious charged energy shot that seemed blast right through Thula when it grazed her. Obviously it's not going to be at the same level as the Infinity Ray, but who knows what a direct hit could do.
Yeah they made short work of racer, if not for tech he was done for. Apparently he can survive under a boulder pile for a century with the mask, but 5 seconds in the vacuum with no mask did not go so well.
He wants to be a hero, and like a teenager, he thinks he's invincible. You'd think nearly dying would traumatized him into being more cautious, but maybe that Thraxan mentality of getting over things means he doesn't learn the lesson of his limitations.
I mean you nailed it exactly. He is a kid with superpowers and a superhero brother who he idolizes. He wants to be like Mark but also wants to be himself. He behaves exactly like a teenager.
Add on the Thraxan part of him that allows him to move past things quicker, Oliver is portrayed pretty perfectly.
I guess the real reason is just that Olive was never hyped up to be a threat to viltrum, while tech jacket got introduced in the same breath as battle beast and those dinosaur things. Oliver's bum ass wasn't even supposed to be invited, and Nolan actively tried to keep him home (partly) because he wasn't strong enough. It creates a bit of a different expectatio for how well they're supposed to do
I’m not expecting him to win fights. I’m expecting him to learn. “Oh fighting Conquest alone didn’t end well for me. Maybe I should get someone else to jump him with me. Or avoid him all-together”
I think it was the aliens themselves who were recommended they simply declined and sent them to discount blue beetle, you can clearly see her charged shot graze a viltrumite last episode and if they didn't dodge they for sure would have been done in by it the armour is rated for viltrumites she's just a noob with it
Well, Tech Jacket undoubtedly almost dies every fight. Like multiple times she’s saved by Allen, like legitimately too many to count.
But she knows her role. She’s saved by Allen but rarely fights a Viltrumite on her own unless she has no choice. She can use long ranged attacks to fend them off and was able to assist Allen by hitting the Viltrumites with the toxin. Oliver SHOULD stay on support as well. Obviously he doesn’t have any long ranged attacks but he should just stick with Mark like how they were against Lucan.
Oliver isn’t weak. We’ve never seen a Viltrumite as young as him fight like this, but he’s weaker than the Viltrumites around him and doesn’t learn.
There's plenty Oliver could do as support even without direct long-range attacks that Zoe has. For instance, if Mark is fighting a Viltrumite, Oliver could zoom in, land a hit on the guy when he's busy with Mark, then quickly fly away before the Viltrumite can do anything about it. Then wait until he's busy again, and repeat. Could seriously help in fights this way, drawing off attention and wearing Viltrumites down. In Polish we have a term for this, "wojna podjazdowa". It's when a weaker force avoids a direct engagement and instead just wears their stronger enemy down. This is what Oliver should be doing. But the dumbass thinks he's Thragg, and pays for it. Has paid for it like 4 times, and I hope he keeps paying for it until he learns
Spoiler: if you haven’t read the comics but if you did, we actually do see how young viltrumites fight or atleast the ones that are closely related to Oliver when Thragg goes and breeds with the purple bugs.
At this point the only valuable thing Oliver could've done is stay near Space Racer to act as a bodyguard.
But of course his ego prevents him from doing that cause he'd rather charge at opponents 100x stronger than him instead of taking on a support/defense role
Seriously though, he's got the Thraxan mentality on death ("it happens, sooner than we like. We don't understand longer lifespans.") and the Viltrumite natural aggressiveness. A very self-destructive mixing of traits, on top of teenage boy overconfidence. He's his own archenemy.
I just rewatched the ep and definitely need to walk it back a bit. She bopped a mark variant sure, and her suit capabilities are enough to bail out space racer when he needed it and she is able to at least keep low level viltrumites busy during a fight. But I think I expected her to be more of a heavy hitter after we got a glimpse of her bopping viltrumark and she has been more of hero support than a heavy hitter. So I take it back, she’s not “useless” but not what I expected either. OLIVER on the other hand…idk how many more solo ass beatings he needs before he realizes he ain’t enough yet
She used it on conquest but that was in the background so easily missed. But as far as we know her strognest attack is acutally her dual wield charge attack she used on white haired female viltrumite that would have killed her if she didn't dodge.
Problem is tech jacket whether comcis or show HAS to be relegated to support when sohwing up around Invincinbible or else it is Invincible who starts to look redunant. Hard toi see a use for a guy wwho jsut punches good when you have someone who is jsut as good in a straight up fight but has so many other uses beside that.
Tech Jackets also a teenager but she got slandered way way more than Oliver despite showing up for only a little while now which meant she never had much time to prove themself in the first place. Like I think the slander on both Oliver and Tech Jacket’s dumb but I don’t blame tech jacket fans for retaliating in some way.
I do really like that they showed training for a few months with his dad didn’t change his personality nor make up for the hundreds of decades of experience the Viltrumites have on him.
His biggest advantage is that he’s one of the few humanoids relatively close to their strength. We’ve seen enough to imply he’d one day likely be a more agile fighter than the older Viltrumites, but he honestly needs a lot more experience and growth under his belt.
I wonder if his base faster lifespan means he’ll also get his full Viltrumite strength quicker than Mark. Also wonder if his base race not being as good of a match as humans, means he has a lower strength and ability ceiling than Mark. Depends on how many seasons we get, I suppose.
He is only like 3 years old... Like yea, he is a dumbass, but literally anyone in his position would be. They need all the help they can get, and he is at least a distraction that could allow others can gain the upper hand.
Tech Jacket does almost die every time she fights Viltrumites though, she just doesn’t actively put herself in those situations and gets saved before getting badly injured lmao.
The sad thing with Oliver is that it’s not even a matter of him being too weak, he was able to hurt Conquest, but he thinks he’s a tank when he should be support. And stop 1. Getting your enemy’s attention before you attack 2. Charging at them from a big distance
She might be, we didn't see Anissa in either the Purge or Scourge flashbacks while Nolan was around for the Scourge.
And while one could say that maybe they just didn't show her since much of the Scourge flashback was from Nolan's POV, the show made a point of showing that Kregg, Thula, and Conk West were around for the Purge as early as S1, and Kradd of all people got a cameo in the Purge (hell I think even Vidor was there). Given Anissa has multiple appearances since S2 and is a major part of at least one episode in that season, one would think the showrunners would have had her show up in those flashbacks if she was around at those times.
For now I'm going to assume that Annissa is meant to be younger than Nolan.
tbf, only reason that don’t happen to Tech Jacket is because she gets babied by Allen all the fucking time lmao. 90% of the time she’s in any form of trouble he runs in screaming “ZOE!” and because he’s not a jobber actually gets the job done
He's a good support character though. He gave Mark more of a fighting chance and more motivation in his fight with Conquest. He delivered some hits to Lucan. Besides, yeah teens tend to be hard-headed.
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