My latest story commentary essay is up at Noble Cobra Magazine. Yes, I’m again talking about My Hero Academia, though this time I’m dealing with a part where it falls short by discussing its version of the “villain’s rise to power” arc and comparing and contrasting it with what I think is a better done take on a similar storyline in The Order of the Stick. Albeit, I also do a bit of compare-contrast with an earlier and better part of MHA as well…

Anyway, enjoy.

Today we’re going to discuss the worst part of My Hero Academia. At least, the worst part so far, but as the series is building towards its grande finale, I think it’s safe to say that, unless they really drop the ball in the final few chapters, this is going to remain the nadir of the series: the ‘Meta Liberation Army’ arc.

(Though I should note that, for all the criticisms I level at it, it’s not an awful arc, just the weakest part by far of an extremely strong story).

For a quick summary: this is a world where almost everyone has some kind of superpower or ‘Quirk’ as they’re called. As this arc kicks off, we join up with our main team of baddies, the self-described ‘League of Villains’, who are a pretty collection of psychopaths, lunatics, and deviants, led by a childish monster named Shigaraki, who has the power to disintegrate whatever he touches.

At this point in the series they’re at a low point, having been largely eclipsed in the public mind after several defeats and suffering the loss of their master – arch-villain All For One – as well as their member with teleportation power, leaving them comparatively vulnerable. They’re then targeted by a group calling itself the ‘Meta Liberation Army’, which is a secret society dedicated to repealing all Quirk-related laws to allow everyone to ‘be themselves’, and who feel the League is an obstacle to them. The MLA is led by a man named Re-Destro, the son of a famous terrorist of yesteryear (one thing the series does very well is creating the impression that it’s a continuation of an earlier story, reinforcing the theme of legacy. See, even when I’m criticizing it I keep noticing its virtues).

Anyway, the arc is about the vastly out-numbered, despised League of Villains utterly devastating the MLA – which numbers in the thousands – and in the process overcoming some of their own psychological blocks to become even more dangerous villains, ending with Shigaraki claiming headship of the MLA, thus leaving our resident walking nightmare with an army to play with.

This is a not-uncommon story for bad guys: their ‘rise to power’ arc. Usually it starts with them relatively weak or at least despised by the broader establishment. Then, bit by bit, they outwit or overpower the previous big bad and position themselves as the head of the empire, so to speak. The Dark Knight showed the Joker doing this by manipulating and eliminating the mob bosses around him, for instance.

The trouble is, this one falls comparatively flat.

Read the rest here.