Neptune: Behind the Science

Neptune: Behind the Science Neptune is a good example of why I don't want to treat every god in the Grimm Universe as just a person with a different element attached to their name. His story in Grimm Universe #1 is driven by what happened to Salicia. The sea, the monsters and the trident are part of it, but underneath all that is someone whose grief has turned outward into something dangerous for everybody else. Spoilers for Grimm Universe #1. There's a particularly important detail in the way he releases Charybdis. He takes a dark form from the container he's carrying and throws it into the sea. The creature's arrival is supernatural. It isn't the same scene as Neptune simply waving a hand and generating a normal ocean current. Keeping those separate matters, because otherwise we end up turning “god of the sea” into an unlimited list of abilities the page hasn't actually shown us. The real-world connection is what moving water can do once something sets it in motion. Water doesn't need to be sentient to become terrifying. A current can carry enormous momentum, and a rotating flow can pull floating material along curved paths. A whirlpool isn't a hole punched through the sea. It's moving water, shaped by the flow around it and the geography or obstacles affecting that flow. NOAA explains ocean currents through several drivers, including wind, tides and differences in water density. Those processes don't all work at the same scale or speed. That's useful when looking at a sea monster like Charybdis: a sudden, localized disturbance is a different problem from changing the circulation of an entire ocean. The comic can connect both to the sea without either one automatically proving the other. A supernatural creature causing a dangerous flow would also have to affect a lot more than whatever happened to be directly in front of its mouth. Water around the disturbance would respond. Nearby floating objects could be drawn into motion, and the forces on a boat would depend on its position and orientation. That's the part I find frightening. You don't necessarily have to be struck by the creature itself to be caught in the environment it changes. Neptune's trident gives us a different kind of power to look at. In the flashback after Salicia is attacked, he directs a visible blast toward Zagreus. The weapon is doing more than giving him three sharp points to fight with. But that glow doesn't tell us whether we should call the attack electricity, heat or something else. What we can say is that the story presents it as a supernatural ranged attack through the weapon. If we were designing a physical device to do anything comparable, aiming would be only one problem. We'd have to supply the energy, keep the device from destroying itself and control what happens at the target. A handheld object producing that kind of result would need more than strong metal. The source of its power and the way it survives releasing it would matter just as much as the shape of the head. He also fights Heather directly and can knock her down. So this isn't a character who becomes powerless as soon as somebody gets past the trident. His physical force is part of the threat as well. That still doesn't mean every ability connected with Poseidon or Neptune in some other comic should be added to this version. I want to discuss the Neptune we're actually reading. And for me, the most revealing contrast is that he has the strength to hurt people and the means to unleash monsters, but those things haven't repaired what happened to him. He has to go to Hades for help with the creatures. Power doesn't mean independence from everybody else, and it certainly doesn't mean control over grief. That's what makes this more interesting than an ocean-themed power demonstration: a god can alter the danger around him while still being unable to undo the loss that started it.