What if the Bleeding Monk...

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What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

... is future Toyo Harada? :hm:

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by pixierosa »

THAT would be interesting. Harada's such an megalomaniac, I can't imagine him ever being able to step back and not interfere with his younger self, even if he has lived a very long time and is "wiser".

He said the monk called out to him - issue #1 was Harada finding the monk while still a young man. Why would Harada Monk want his younger self to find him if he wasn't going to try to change something? And if his intent was to change the outcome of an event, why did he merely walk away from the Harbinger Foundation during the conflict with Pete? :hm:

Just thinking out loud. Not sure who he may be or his purpose. All I predict is that the Bleeding Monk's blood will be important - it looks like the Foundation was collecting it in containers not unlike those we saw in the original Rai series.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

Right.

My assumption was that the Bleeding Monk was probably a future Rai, with the memories of the nanites in his never-ending supply of blood... making him seem like he knew the future.
Perhaps he was trapped in the past by some event, and had to wait for Toyo to be activated to reach out to him.
On the other hand, if the Bleeding Monk was a future Toyo, he also would know the moment he was activated and reach out.

If there are always consequences to time-travel, perhaps the Bleeding Monk is an older, wiser Toyo, hoping to change something in the past (our present).
If so, he probably would have hoped things turned out differently between Toyo and Peter, but when they didn't, he decided he might as well leave. :hm:

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by lorddunlow »

greg wrote:... is future Toyo Harada? :hm:
I had a passing thought about this, but I don't think so. But, it would fit with my Bleeding Monk is evil thought I have. It would be really cool.

A little unrelated, but I haven't chimed in on this yet: As far as old/young versions of Harada go, there is no way that he is actually young in appearance and just projects an old image. The reason is that is how he appears on TV/media. I don't think a psychic projection would be stored on film/ink and paper/digital storage and so people would be seeing the true appearance in recordings. However, (and I think Doc mentioned this on OTV) a double would fit with this and still allow Harada to be young, but appear old in public.

I have a 3rd theory, which may go along with your theory above, Greg: Harada can change his appearance at will - his physical appearance. It could even be a twist on the Rai #0 obsession with getting the blood of heroes. He is the bleeding monk who bleeds the blood of heroes who was the vessel in which the nanites for Bloodshot were created. We have already seen that Bloodshot can change his appearance at will.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by Chiclo »

It looks like the Bleeding Monk appears in preview pages for Harbinger 0 that came out today.

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

Chiclo wrote:It looks like the Bleeding Monk appears in preview pages for Harbinger 0 that came out today.
Yep, that's what prompted me to post this in the spoiler area.
I'm just being hypothetical, but it is based on preview pages. :thumb:

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by lorddunlow »

So I'm really thinking Greg may be onto something. I have a theory, but not enough time to type it all out right now. Hopefully tonight I will share.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by depluto »

I'm pretty sure time travel is impossible without a goat.

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by cavemold »

Yea maybe hmn the preview pages looked sweer

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

At this point all I know is the Bleeding Monk is going to be of major importance and lead in some way or another into Rai.

I don't think he's Toyo, though. He has blue eyes, for one.

He may be from the future, but I wonder how far back he may have travelled. I think he has been around for a large portion of history. Perhaps he went back to change the future, but overshot his mark, landing far in the past? That could open up an interesting concept for a new Rai series where he appears earlier in the future and later in the past... :hm:
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by manga4life »

I don't think the Bleeding Monk is Toyo, but I did kind of think about this early on in the book after some discussions between the two. I'm hoping the Bleeding Monk will play a bigger role soon, I'd really like to see what he's all about and his importance within the Harada organization.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

BugsySig wrote:At this point all I know is the Bleeding Monk is going to be of major importance and lead in some way or another into Rai.

I don't think he's Toyo, though. He has blue eyes, for one.

He may be from the future, but I wonder how far back he may have travelled. I think he has been around for a large portion of history. Perhaps he went back to change the future, but overshot his mark, landing far in the past? That could open up an interesting concept for a new Rai series where he appears earlier in the future and later in the past... :hm:
Ah, the blue eyes. I missed that. :!:

OK, how about this...

I'll build on your thoughts a little and say that he is from the future, and the REASON he bleeds is that the time-travel permanently damaged him... but the nanites keep him alive.
That's why he can't jump to the correct time... he barely survived the first jump.

(I'm saying this because in the original Valiant, Ivar was a timewalker because he was immortal... others would be killed by the time arc process.)

--OR--

The Green Lamas attempting to use the Boon accidentally pulled him from the future into the WWII era.
He might be a future Geomancer trapped in the past. :hm:

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by jmatt »

I'll throw this on the table, not sure where it fits in: At the NYCC, I asked the panel if the Bleeding Monk was good, bad or neutral. Josh answered that for now, we can consider the monk neutral.

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by Spylocke »

If he was actually Toyo then I could see why Harada held him in such high esteem. It would make sense that the only person Harada would take advice from was himself.
That delves into the complicated time travel area, though. Maybe finding out about the monk will reveal something about time travel in the Valiant universe and lay down some space/time laws before (I hope) Ivar gets his own series.

I like the idea of the Bleeding Monk being one in a line of Rai, though. If Rai were written into Japanese mythology like one of the kami or some Shinto deity then I can definitely see him taking counsel from him. Even a megalomaniac like Harada would listen to a kami, I believe.

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

Leaving time travel out for a minute, let's assume the Monk is just a precog Psiot (with other abilities likely, as well).

Perhaps he has not been with Toyo for the entire time since their first encounter...What if at some point (during the first Harbinger War, perhaps), either of his own free will or not, the Monk was with PRS? Maybe Toyo was even working with PRS at one point (They do know an awful lot about Psiots)? His continual production of blood may have allowed for the development of the nanites in the first place, and would make him the subject in which the nanites first became "sentient" before the Grey Goo incident. If his blood or DNA was the basis for the nanites, then the appearance of Bloodshot might be mimmicking that of the Monk (as opposed to the retconned reason for Rai's appearance in VH1).
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by Phoenix8008 »

Might have to go back and look at Archer and Armstrong and see what color Ivar's eyes are!
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

Phoenix8008 wrote:Might have to go back and look at Archer and Armstrong and see what color Ivar's eyes are!
Green, I believe.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by MoonChild »

Josh clearly stated that the red dot in the middle of his chest is significant and the fact that it wasnt always in the exact middle on his last shown panel was an artists interpretation only. Meaning he's a RAI :thumb:
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

MoonChild wrote:Josh clearly stated that the red dot in the middle of his chest is significant and the fact that it wasnt always in the exact middle on his last shown panel was an artists interpretation only. Meaning he's a RAI :thumb:
Or a Bloodshot... :thumb:

...or Bloodshot is a Bleeding Monk... :hm:
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by lorddunlow »

I'm not sure if he's Rai yet. I am pretty convinced that the vessel in whom the nanites were primed is the Bleeding Monk. I think that's why Bloodshot has a similar wound. Someone else (I think Bugsy) mentioned that theory in this thread, and I agree with it. The Bleeding Monk may be Rai, but I'm not so sure yet.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

NEW THOUGHT...

What if the Bleeding Monk...

...is Toyo's FATHER?

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

greg wrote:NEW THOUGHT...

What if the Bleeding Monk...

...is Toyo's FATHER?
But wouldn't he have recognized him? Or referred to him as such?
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

BugsySig wrote:
greg wrote:NEW THOUGHT...

What if the Bleeding Monk...

...is Toyo's FATHER?
But wouldn't he have recognized him? Or referred to him as such?
I know we're in the SPOILER section, but I'm reminding now anyway.

OK... here goes...

Harbinger #0 shows us that young Toyo was looking for his father after the bomb at Hiroshima.
Several panels are devoted to Toyo looking for his father.
In the middle of those panels, the Bleeding Monk appears and (telepathically) says "Find Me."

MY SPECULATION:
Toyo looks for his father, and the Bleeding Monk says "Find Me"... That's not a coincidence.

The vision of the Bleeding Monk is significantly older than Toyo's father would have been at the time of the war...
So... an experiment of some kind, perhaps even the "kills one-in-four psiots" type of experiment could have been performed on Toyo's father in the army (Green Lamas kind of thing).
Rather than dying, he "survived" but bleeds. The monk also has telepathic and pre-cog abilities.
He's also a lot older than he should be in 1945, so it seems there's some time/aging thing going on because the monk is essentially the same age in 2012.

Toyo never refers to the Bleeding Monk as his father, but that's story-telling. He might not want anyone to know. Maybe Toyo still doesn't know.

If the Bleeding Monk is his father, it makes sense that the Bleeding Monk would be near Toyo all those years, "mentoring" him, and also makes sense that the monk might leave when he was displeased with the Toyo / Pete outcome.

Since Harada controls pretty much everything, it also makes sense that the Bleeding Monk's blood could be the key to Bloodshot/PRS.
... and the Rai storyline could tie in pretty much any way they want.

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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by BugsySig »

greg wrote:
BugsySig wrote:
greg wrote:NEW THOUGHT...

What if the Bleeding Monk...

...is Toyo's FATHER?
But wouldn't he have recognized him? Or referred to him as such?
I know we're in the SPOILER section, but I'm reminding now anyway.

OK... here goes...

Harbinger #0 shows us that young Toyo was looking for his father after the bomb at Hiroshima.
Several panels are devoted to Toyo looking for his father.
In the middle of those panels, the Bleeding Monk appears and (telepathically) says "Find Me."

MY SPECULATION:
Toyo looks for his father, and the Bleeding Monk says "Find Me"... That's not a coincidence.

The vision of the Bleeding Monk is significantly older than Toyo's father would have been at the time of the war...
So... an experiment of some kind, perhaps even the "kills one-in-four psiots" type of experiment could have been performed on Toyo's father in the army (Green Lamas kind of thing).
Rather than dying, he "survived" but bleeds. The monk also has telepathic and pre-cog abilities.
He's also a lot older than he should be in 1945, so it seems there's some time/aging thing going on because the monk is essentially the same age in 2012.

Toyo never refers to the Bleeding Monk as his father, but that's story-telling. He might not want anyone to know. Maybe Toyo still doesn't know.

If the Bleeding Monk is his father, it makes sense that the Bleeding Monk would be near Toyo all those years, "mentoring" him, and also makes sense that the monk might leave when he was displeased with the Toyo / Pete outcome.

Since Harada controls pretty much everything, it also makes sense that the Bleeding Monk's blood could be the key to Bloodshot/PRS.
... and the Rai storyline could tie in pretty much any way they want.
Or he could be a stand in for Toyo's father...a father-figure for him to search out since his father is more than likely dead...The Monk could be using that very need to his advantage when he reaches out to Toyo.
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Re: What if the Bleeding Monk...

Post by greg »

BugsySig wrote:Or he could be a stand in for Toyo's father...a father-figure for him to search out since his father is more than likely dead...The Monk could be using that very need to his advantage when he reaches out to Toyo.
Possibly... but Pete's father is also more-than-likely dead and I get the feeling there's more to both daddy stories. :hm:


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