One Piece, Chapter 1120: Atlas
We start off with Punk Hazard 26 years ago, where Clover is asking Vegapunk to join in his research. This is way pre-Ohara, and when Vegapunk was still a massive asshole. Vegapunk rightly calls Clover out for basically falling into the government's plans of letting Clover go multiple times to basically lead him to his co-conspirators of Void Century research. Vegapunk has a bit of an arrogant moment, basically being a strawman in a past-vs-future argument with Clover and basically buying a lot into being a government lapdog.
Clover reveals to Vegapunk something about the name of "D", revealing that someone close to him was killed for having the initial... and that man was Clover's own brother! Clover reveals his full name as Claiomh D. Clover, and lives in shame for denying that he was related to his brother -- drawing a nice contrast with how Bellemere acted in Nami's backstory.
Again, it's a nice showcase of Vegapunk and how he's grown over the years. It is interesting that we flash a bit to the time of Ohara's destruction, where he and his then-assistant Caesar Clown heard news of Ohara's destruction with the Buster Call. Vegapunk was very brusque when we saw him in the flashback as he meets Dragon in that island... but it's clear that the wheels and the seeds of doubt are starting to be planted in his mind as he looks at Nico Robin's bounty poster, and later on to the books saved by the researchers of Ohara in his lake.
Caesar's very heartless comments, as well as Vegapunk's own biases, notes about how 'people won't follow in (Clover)'s footsteps' after this. Except while Vegapunk is a pessimist, people did do so after Clover's death. Hell, Clover himself probably was willing to stay behind and brave the literal and proverbial bullet of death after refusing to stand up for what he believes in when his brother was killed all the way back. I've never really thought too much about Clover as a character, but this chapter really did do a great way really highlighting the impact that Clover had not just on Robin, but also on even an initially skeptical character like Vegapunk...
...who, now in the present day, has also essentially willingly died in order to get his message out. We cut out to Vegapunk's recording giving an extended version of Donquixote Doflamingo's epic quote from the Marineford arc. "History is written by the victors, and the words of the vanquished are usually cast into the deep, dark ocean. That being said, the truth can still come to light if the oppressed carry it on their backs and endure!"
We get a couple of brief shots of some of the last locations we haven't checked in with -- we really are just missing Skypiea now, right? -- which are Zeff and the chefs at Baratie, and Tequila Wolf. We also get Robin crying as she's apparently listening to this part of Vegapunk's message. It's a nice character moment for Robin, but also a very nice confirmation that at the end of the day, the Straw Hats are going to get the gist of Vegapunk's message.
We are still kinda stuck with the Sunny being unable to blast off, with there not being enough distance or thrust power or whatever. It is kinda silly that Ethan is just lurking there while Zoro and Lilith have a full-on conversation, but then Atlas swoops in and full-on decks Lilith onto the ground. She then seems to 'snap' something from Lilith's head, before she tells the other Straw Hats to take care of Lilith, and that she's going to lend a hand.
This signal-severing is basically Atlas's way to fool York into thinking that Lilith is also killed, or at least disconnected from Punk Records, while Atlas himself zips out and charges in to intercept Ethanbaron. Intrestingly, it's Jinbe who's pretty gung-ho about going, though it's clear that he doesn't like it. Having been in a position where he had to make a difficult decision on whether to join or leave a retreating party, I do like that Jinbe has this moment of resolution, or at least understanding Atlas's resolution.
Ethanbaron slices off Atlas's arm, but she just grabs on to Ethan's body and activates her rocket boosts, keeping Ethan away long enough before she blows herself up, giving the Thousand Sunny enough of an extra boost to get through whatever calculations Lilith was talking about. Atlas basically dies with a smile, denying that she's making a 'grand sacrifice of herself', but that she's just helping out. This, nicely, is shown in the context that it's helping the Straw Hats escape but not really damaging Ethanbaron, since he's reforming the chunk of his face that's been blown off.
Luffy's reaction to the Iron Giant is... just what is expected. Despite what the world might insist, Monkey D. Luffy is Monkey D. Luffy, the Man Who Will Become the Pirate King. He does not consider himself to be Nika or Joy Boy, and when the Iron Giant addresses him as Joy Boy, he's just confused and looking behind himself for whoever this 'Joy Boy' is. but the Iron Giant just wades into war to fight against the two giant forms of Ju Peter and Topman Warcury, talking about how he's going to fight "Joy Boy's enemies" like before.
Rather interestingly, Luffy doesn't consider the Iron Giant a friend just yet, mostly being confused about the whole Joy Boy thing. We also get a confirmation of the Voice of All Things communication, where none of the giants are able to hear the conversation.
The Iron Giant is about to fight Ju Peter and his disturbingly toothy sandworm mouth, and his pose is even similar to Franky's Weapons Left pose. The Straw Hats are shocked when they see that the weapons of the Iron Giant misfire, though, and Ju Peter just slams his maw shut on the left side of the Iron Giant, seemingly devouring or at least crushing the entire left arm and chunks of his left shoulder.
We get Saturn scuttling through the beach, yelling at Ju Peter to crush the Iron Giant, before he jumps and lands on the Giants' ship, looming over Luffy and the Giants and growling about how they will not escape. (It's at this point that Atlas's sacrifice and the Thousand Sunny falling from the sky happens). I definitely wouldn't mind a proper knockdown between Luffy and Saturn, because if any Gorosei is going to get a sound defeat in this arc, it has to be Saturn. I don't mind if the other four actually get a good showing.
York cackles about being the final Vegapunk, while the four Gorosei prepare to fight. Ethanbaron reforms, Saturn prepares to fight the people on the Giant Pirates' ship, Peter and Topmana are about to destroy the giant robot... and Emet's last thoughts at the chapter is thinking about whether this is "this time" and whether he can use it, which probably means some kind of self-destruct weapon.
Oh, and one last thing -- while all of this is going on, Vegapunk goes on about his message still. He doesn't say anything particularly important, but he does reveal to the world about "Gol D. Roger". It's... it's neat, I guess, and it's going not make the people of the world in general as aware about the existence of the Will of D... but probably as confused as the fandom is right now.
And... we'll see. I do think that the Vegapunk message has ran its course. I really would be lying if I said Atlas's death affected me at all. It's shocking because Oda actually killed someone, but I don't think we've spent any time with Atlas at all to make me really care about her supposed death. Now I am just waiting to see how the arc will be wrapped up, in terms of the Iron Giant, of the Vegapunks' situation, and how our heroes actually escape from Egghead.
Random Notes:
- Yamato Cover Story: Yamato meets Denjiro, who's the Daimyo of Kibi and has rounded up the bullying kids. Sure. At least we're starting to meet other characters.
- During the 26-year-ago part of the Punk Hazard flashback, Vegapunk is sitting with a baby dragon, probably the young version of the dragon that Zoro slices to death. In the background, a horned head is peeking over the walls, though we don't exactly see the features. This is, I guess, either a captured giant (ancient giant?) or maybe a previous dragon cloning attempt.
- Claiomh Solais is the name of a legendary sword of light in Irish mythology. I became aware of this thanks to a weapon name in Final Fantasy XIII.
- Dragon and his Revolutionaries seemed to have liberated Tequila Wolf in the timeskip when they rescued Robin, but I guess they simply didn't have the ability to hold that location because the slavery has started back up again, probably with a fresh batch of slaves.
- Presumably, Atlas ripped off whatever is the equivalent of Stella Vegapunk's apple-antenna that's in Lilith's head. Is this permanent? Or is this just the equivalent of being disconnected from Wi-Fi? This does bring up the idea that Edison might be doing something similar, though I really don't think he's really going to be relevant enough to make survive.
- It's a short scene, but we also get another scene of the Marines being confused about the giant demons rampaging in the island and getting both horrified and confused.
- Luffy normally has a very good grasp of who is a good guy or not, so the fact that he doesn't readily call the Iron Giant his friend does raise some alarm bells on whether Joy Boy is a good guy or not.
- Speaking of Luffy's refusal to be associated with Joy Boy, I do like that Dorry and Brogy, the two giants that are actually friends with him, aren't referring to Luffy as "Nika".
- Chopper's helm design really confused me as to what's going on in that panel, until I realized it goes over his mouth like a rugby headgear.
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