Dead in the Water

I feel sorry for Sniper.

You never thought you’d see me write that, but it’s true. I genuinely feel sorry for Sniper. I pity the poor guy. His life has been one mistake after another. He must be feeling like shit right now, especially with those gunshot wounds. Poor bugger.

Let’s have a quick recap as to what’s happened to Sniper as of late. He fought a bread monster. That wasn’t too bad. Stupid thing stole his rifle but he got that back. Discovered that he has some musical talent too. Didn’t get a single line in that short, but oh well. Then we pop into the future for a bit to see how he’s doing in the TF2 comics. Turns out, his parents died, they weren’t his real parents, Demoman has blatantly insulted him, he discovers his real parents, finds out he’s not Australian but actually a New Zealander, realises that his mother is an angry drunk and that his dad is a money-needing moronic genius then watches helplessly as his parents both abandon him and leave him in a flooding dome of nothingness. And after all that, Sniper gets shot in the chest by his Team Fortress Classic counterpart. Multiple times.

Gameplay-wise, Sniper’s not having much fun either. His last weapon turned out to be utterly useless. I don’t think I’ve seen a single Sniper use the Classic. I’ve seen more Snipers use the Bazaar Bargain than the Classic. And the Bazaar Bargain starts off as a straight downgrade until the heads start exploding violently from nasty high powered gunshot wounds. He’s coping though. Just.

Thing is, our good Australian buddy just got retconned, and not in a good way. I’m not talking about “killing then bringing Spiderman back to life yet again” retconning and re-writing of lore. Not even “Brand New Day” Spiderman retconning (god I absolutely hated all that Brand New Day crap). I’m talking about “holy heck what the hell did they do to you, Skarner?” retcons. Alright, that’s an exaggeration, Sniper being a Kiwi is nothing like going from a wholly intelligent and powerful being made out and with the ability to control crystals to being a dumb nasty monster that guards a random cave, but it’s rather, well, weird.

Sniper is basically a poor man’s Superman. And Superman is lame. He’s too powerful, his story isn’t that interesting really and that disguise of his is fucking awful. I mean, seriously! He’s built like a fricking body builder, but he puts on a pair of glasses and suddenly he’s this nerdy journalist. At least Spiderman wears a mask, so Peter Parker is somewhat unrecognizable and average. Now, Sniper’s origin is technically a parody, but it’s not that fun a parody, because it leaves both his (now foster) parents dead. You know, those nice homely folks from Meet the Director that reference Courage the Cowardly Dog. And his real parents turn out to be utter bastards that abandon their poor son. Sniper’s mum doomed them all by making a giant hole in the dome that was stopping them from drowning and Sniper’s dad stole the mercenaries’ submarine. And on top of all that? Sniper’s real name is bloody awful.

You’re probably wondering right now, perhaps I just feel guilty for letting those damn Team Fortress Classic mercenaries shoot Sniper? Not at all. I don’t get guilty about things like that, although I did consider going into hiding when that comic was released. No no no, I just don’t like people being kicked in the bollocks for no reason. Which is exactly what’s happened to Sniper, story-wise, lately.

Thing is, Sniper has no choice but to live with all this now. Let’s just hope that the other comics don’t go and leave one of the other mercenaries stuck with a crappy backstory.

Oh no. I might be next.