by JR Cook - 7 years ago     show comments

So here are a few notes about “Reflections” that might be relevant to folks who like the tiny details about the world of Overwatch.

1. Tracer doesn’t need to wear her chronal accelerator at all times in order to keep herself rooted in the present. Note that it is in the room with Tracer when she’s with Emily and later in Winston’s lab at Gibraltar.
2. Those are Torbjorn’s kids that Reinhardt is reading stories to. (However, you’ve got eight kids but only six stockings? Hmmm.)
3. The lady off Reinhardt’s left shoulder, however, is Brigitte. She’s Reinhardt’s armorer from the “Dragon Slayer” comic. No confirmation yet on whether Brigitte is Torbjorn’s child or not, but it would make sense.
4. Also: notice that Torb’s left hand is clearly visible, so despite how it looks in-game, he really does have two complete arms.
5. Pharah is apparently not on a date; given that the gentleman is older, speculation is high that this is Pharah’s father.
6. Some folks are taking that a bit further and speculating that, since they’re watching Canadian television, Pharah is in Canada. Together with Pharah’s Thunderbird and Raindancer skins, this implies a connection to a specific First Nations tribe which this theoretical father could be a member of.
7. Genji is writing a letter with a feather quill, followed by Mercy holding a similar feather while she’s reading the letter.
8. Oh, Roadhog and Junkrat are unironically listening to Men At Work.
9. In case you’re having trouble reading it, the grave Widowmaker is standing in front of is Gerard Lacroix, her husband, whom she killed while brainwashed by Talon. Despite what the “Alive” short would have you think, she apparently still has feelings.
10. D.va, Mei, Zarya, Symmetra, and Lucio all make cameo appearances, either on broadcast screens, billboards, or magazine covers. Bastion is super-hard to find.

What’s great about this comic is that it does what every good holiday episode does: it tells a self-contained story about a Christmas miracle, ties it in with a secondary narrative about celebrating together with family, and takes a bit of time to showcase what the rest of the cast is up to if they’re not directly involved with the former. What’s more, there are a few notes on particular characters that help to accentuate their individual stories without needing to force a story that involves everyone.

1. From the “Recall” short, we know Winston has been longing to put his family back together. Even when your family ends up being two Brits, a talking gorilla, and a jokester AI, it’s still a family.
2. Ana and Jack are off being dead together, but both are reflecting on their past lives.
3. There’s a lot of ways to interpret Reaper’s frame, but the most charitable is that he longs for the normalcy of a family as well, which is something he can no longer have.
4. It’s easy to assume that Torbjorn fits the trope of a guy who gets lost in his work and doesn’t have time for anything else, but seeing that he has a pretty expansive family and has a tender relationship with his wife (whom I have dubbed “Brunhilde”) puts that on its ear.
5. It’s also easy to assume that because Torb and Reinhardt have some catty interactions with each other in-game that they wouldn’t hang out together. And yet here is Reinhardt and his squire basically there as part of Torb’s family.

Also, if we can take a moment to comment on this: the reveal that Tracer has got a girlfriend is handled in the best way possible. The story isn’t about Tracer coming out, but about the lengths one person will go to in order to find a last-minute present for someone they care deeply about. That’s a story that’s been done with heterosexual couples an untold number of times, so telling that particular Christmas story with Tracer and Emily does absolutely everything to normalize their relationship without sensationalizing it.

Overall, you have to read between the lines to extract the kind of story notes from this comic that previous comics in the digital short series have delivered in spades. But because this comic’s focus is on the season instead of a particular character, the fact that it doesn’t deliver much story is appropriate. And again, telling a short, predictable story (or two, as this one does) that nonetheless makes a huge impact because of who the story’s about is a great application of the digital short format: the point isn’t the story itself, but the fact that the story was told.

We’re ready to get more comics down the line, especially for some of the characters who haven’t had a comic or a cinematic yet. Let’s go D.va adventure time! (When it happens, you’ll see it here.)