PocketNinja

I hope Ellen is acting on her own will now, but the "groar" isn't exactly reassuring.

It's because he is about to do a jump to the left and then a step to the right..

I am starting to feel just a little more liking for that wand. At least it is giving out useful information now.
You are never going to let them forget the time they were caught playing spin-the-bottle with one of your canopic jars, are you.

Now you have me wondering if one of the magical artifacts might be an Endless Barrel of Exposition.

Oh Lord. I just realised. Kevin is a teacher. He is a teacher from an older system of magic. He can single-handedly revive an entire system of magic that has been dead for centuries. Or maybe single-wandedly.

I take this as canon also.

And with the box now open, a high-strutting bullfrog with a top hat and cane enters the scene singing "Hello My Baby".

Yes, but I don't seem to have Dan's imagination. For some reason I am stuck with just my own.

Small aside. I just watched the pilot episode of Black Lightning. There was a scene where two cops decided Black Lightning was a bad guy and they both tased him repeatedly.
It developed that as brilliant plans went, shooting a superhero several times with a weapon that just made him stronger wasn't among the top ten on the list.

That's actually one of the images I had in mind when I said I'd rather see Susan herself instead of some sort of distorted version of Susan.  Going out in FV5 or some other "enhancement" is like going out in a costume, putting a barrier between those seeing you and your real self.  In this NP, we get to see Susan as she really is, and that makes it more intimate even though she's only taking off one item of clothing instead of all of them.

Hooray!  Susan is more comfortable with herself, and we get to see a character who is actually still that character instead of some distorted version of that character!  To me, at least, this is a more significant, more intimate image of Susan that a naked-but-FV5 "Susan" would be.  And I also like her blaming/crediting science.  ;-D

This is possibly the best NP strip I have seen for quite a while. Susan being able to even temporarily overcome her inhibitions for some reason fills me with contentment.

Back Strain Fu, obviously.

It's Dan plotting out the preliminaries for his new cult movie project, Talk Club.
Rule One: Do not fight about Talk Club.

Dan, have characters avoid needless violence by talking to each other instead?  How unprecedented!  ;-)

Elliot's best stance is "Ellen chooses. I'll back her up, whatever it is.  You (Magus) do not get to choose for her.  If she wants to be a male, I am fine having a twin brother now.."

A lot of real-world people have parents who aren't evil, and are even well-meaning, who try to change who their children are. Does the lack of ill intent justify sending someone through so-called conversion therapy? Just because you brought another person into the world doesn't mean you have ownership of that person's identity. I'm probably not the only one for whom this turn of events hits a bit close to home (my best friend is dead because of this crap).

I would say the main mistake that Magus is making is that he considers himself to be the baseline Ellen when the baseline for this Ellen is Elliot, which would alter the situation in ways that he probably can't process right now.

The secondary mistake is that they're wasting time arguing inside of a warehouse filled with active hoob-joobery.

Magus does have a fair point about the possibility of Ellen trying hard to convince everyone, including herself, that she's happy as a woman because she really doesn't have any choice about it.  In fact, Ellen has said outright that differentiating herself from Elliot is the source of a lot of her personality traits that differ from Ellot's.  We, and Elliot, have the advantage of knowing Ellen well and being pretty sure we can tell the difference between protesting too much and actually liking how she is now, but that doesn't mean Magus doesn't have some pretty good reasons for thinking that's the way Ellen would be reacting to things.  Even Elliot looks like he's considering the possibility of Magus being right.  Note, considering, not agreeing with,
Of course, Elliot's first comment is likely to be that they need to talk with Ellen before transforming her, so she can talk Magus out of it, which is likely how we get into Magus's reasons for being in a hurry.

There is a place where good intentions traditionally tend to lead. In fact, the road there is paved with them.

Wow, this is at the worst end of the range of possibilities I predicted - and that's before we get to the part where we learn Magus doesn't trust Ellen to make her own decisions. (He knows Tedd has the TFG, so it should be pretty obvious even without knowing about Tedd's newest powers that it would be easy for Ellen to assume male form. Sure the TFG's effects are temporary, but it can be re-applied, and at any rate the fact that she has yet to even assume male form once when it is in her power to do so should go to show that having a male form isn't a high priority for her if it's something she has any interest in at all.)
I have a suspicion that Magus is actually quite conflicted about this issue and is doubling down on his prejudice in an attempt to justify his previous decisions and actions. This reads to me more like someone who is trying to convince themselves of their arguments than someone who is perfectly confident in what they're saying. Of course that only provides some hope he might be able to change, it doesn't help anything in the mean-time. (Edit: Come to think of it, it might just make things worse in the mean time.)
On a lighter note, yay for starburst background in six! (Although actually the image of smiling Terra in panel four lifts my spirits far more than a cool background in an unhappy panel.)
It would be rather nicely ironic to have Mr. "I Became A Man To Be Stronger" beaten by the super-powered female form of someone who spends most of his time in male form...

Didn't see this aspect coming.  And he better fail or be stopped.

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2479
Bugger that.
Anyone else want to mount a defence of Saint Magus the Holy Innocent?

Bollocking dihydrogen oxide. It gets everywhere and no-one seems to do anything about it. Do you realise that it is so prevalent that people are actually born dependent on it? It is so addictive that you can barely go without it for a few hours before you start to notice. It's a planetary crisis and the governments don't even care.

My job often requires jerk-like behavior.
Why should I be a jerk when no one is paying me?