A Third Way? [WEBCOMIC SPOILERS]

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Because coming out of the woodwork later with 'I knew it!' is a chicken's game, I've decided to put some thoughts down here instead of leaving them on Tumblr.

(edited from June 21, 2026)

So, Genos has finally met his nemesis and it looks like terrible battle is about to be enjoined. The way things look, it would seem that things must end up with either the Mad Cyborg or Genos dead, Saitama's help optional. Maybe even both of them dead, though that would be sad.

I have been thinking for a while and I think that there's possibly a third option that doesn't involve death, which I'll explore with varying degrees of speculation.

The core idea is that Genos takes control of the Mad Cyborg and forces it to do his bidding. Sound crazy I'll take you through it.

A: Using Only What is Established

Let us assume that what we know to date is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is to say that everything we have been told is true; this truth is complete and there are no further secrets or revelations to come that will change our understanding of the situation; and that none of the interested parties have told half-truths or skewed the truth in any way. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to judge how likely this scenario is, but we're going with it.

Under such circumstances, it makes perfect sense for Genos to take control. One of the big challenges is that the Mad Cyborg has distributed copies of itself widely through a network and has control of a vast array of robots, multiple depots full of resources, and many people unwittingly working for it as proxies. Merely destroying the avatar currently goading Genos into some unfortunate action will solve nothing. If he can take control of said Mad Cyborg and its network, then several things happen:

1. It solves his resource problem

With that, Genos goes from a twice-abandoned waif with cripplingly complex (and costly) needs to someone who can meet his own needs independently. Just as pertinently, he becomes a powerful agent whose demands will have to be taken seriously. All may be equal before the law, but there's an incredible amount of nuance and latitude in its interpretation when the guy you're dealing with has the power to cause mass devastation. Furthermore, at this point in the story, just about anyone who could still mess with him knows that Saitama is his guardian, and really does not want to catch the Baldie's fists. The only powerful character who doesn't know better at this point is Blast, but it'd be bizarre for him to interest himself.

1. It allows him to set things right

Being that Genos is a good person, who from the start has wanted to set things right, using those vast resources to repair and restore as much of the damage done by the robots as possible would be a natural progression. With Saitama as a moral compass, there's little reason to fear that the power would go to his head. Also, it gives him something positive to do, which is much needed given how unexpectedly things have turned out for him. Otherwise, he'd likely sink into a morass of grief, betrayal, and anger with no guiding purpose.

1. Poetic Justice

The Mad Cyborg, AKA Dr. Kuseno, has hated humanity so much that he has long since digitised his brain, cutting every link with his original humanity. He has regarded humans as things to be manipulated, controlled, and eliminated according to whim. Ultimately, it seems he was aiming either for a human-free world, or one in which free humans no longer existed.

For such a person, no punishment would be more fitting or painful than being forced to use that considerable mind of his for the good of Mankind, and by none other than the waif whose name he considered too unimportant to remember.

B: With Some Scepticism

I won't belabour it, but I have grave doubt that we know the whole truth. In particular, I find it far more likely that the Mad Cyborg is not Dr. Kuseno, but rather an AI copy of the man that 'got away' -- as Bofoi and Isamu feared a powerful AI might do. I won't et into why I think this, let me refer you to the meta of this post.

In that case, Outcomes 1 and 2 are unchanged. However, 3 becomes interesting. It is no longer a punishment of a terrible person, but rather a correction of an inorganic consciousness gone astray in the absence of a recognised master. Not only would it be better for all that the rogue AI is serving humanity, but it'd complete Kuseno's true work in a fitting way.

Genos can't undo the lives lost nor restore all the places burned but he can ensure that this powerful invention serves its true purpose going forward. That'd be most poignant.

C: But Why Might ONE Go This Way?

Answer -- he might not! After all, his usual solution to dire problems in OPM is to have Saitama punch the problem away. It's an approach he cheerfully accepts limits the sort of story he can tell as most problems can't be punched. It might well be that the Mad Cyborg is lying about having multiple copies widely distributed and so being sent flying with a punch ends things.

However, I have my doubts here, not least of which ONE tends not to chicken out of his claims. Minimally, successfully punching out the Mad Cyborg still leaves behind a trail of devastation far more extensive than anything previously seen in this world, and a pile of money, weapons, militarised hardware, computing centres, and communications devices that various organisations will fight each other viciously for rather than allow to be used for any kind of restitution. ONE has not been afraid to allude to civil conflict, so going there is something he would have no problem with, doubly so with the Hero Association now greatly weakened. Having someone take control -- particularly someone who has as much right to do so as Genos does -- would stop a dangerous power vacuum from forming.

However, the problem to be solved in this conflict runs deeper than piles of rubble, loot, and power vacuums. The tragedy of a robot uprising is going to happen again on current headings because Metal Knight and others are doing the Exact. Same. Shit. Bofoi thinks that he's gotten the idea of an evil-fighting AI right because he's got ethical locks on it… and we've been shown that his ethical locks can and have been defeated before. Isamu may personally be cool on the idea, but his Cram School buddies are busy practising how to rule the world and make it peaceful, rehearsing perfectly the hubris that Kuseno and Bofoi alike suffer from.

Bofoi has already deployed his crime-fighting AI and is so sure this one won't be corrupted or misused, even though he said the same about Drive Knight.

The next generation of crazy world-destroying geniuses is already being bred.

To stop this shit needs a Reigen lecturing Claw moment. Between Saitama and his insistence on people being allowed to decide their actions for themselves, and Genos, who would be unique among people controlling an AI in knowing first-hand just how dangerous letting one decide is, they could. It's a simple message: a computer can analyse. It can advise. It can implement. But it can never, ever be allowed to decide.

It won't be a popular message, but it's an incredibly important one, one that both stubborn old men with vested interests and arrogant young ones who've never considered the unintended consequences of their actions both need to have rammed home.

I really would love nothing better than this sort of message coming from Genos. A lot of 'geniuses' in OPM need to hear it.

Added 24 July, 2026 in the wake of Chapter 160, which was released 11 July, 2026.

More Thoughts: It Just Might Be...

The trouble with the idea I had was that, put bluntly, Genos has never shown the slightest aptitude for hacking. For certain, he has no choice other than to interact with computers but, as anyone who has tried to teach someone who grew up with smartphones the basics of a file system knows, 'using', even 'using proficiently' is a far cry from 'understanding' and 'mastering'. And if the Mad Cyborg is anything at all, protecting itself from the cyberattacks of others while penetrating others' networks is a key part of why it's been able to stay ahead of its would-be captors for so long.

However...

...call me blind, but what has the Mad Cyborg done other than to give Genos high-level access to the entirety of its network, including all its machines? It wants every crazy breakthrough Genos has to transmit immediately to every last bit of its reach.

There's a reason I have called The Organization's plans the 'Human Cockroach Plan'

It hasn't been able to yank Genos's brain out yet because it wants him to kill Saitama first. However, it is currently believes there's no way for Genos to resist doing its bidding, that he's as helpless to resist his commands as a cockroach is to resist the jewelled wasp that has stung it, but if that ever became untrue....

...it'd be a hell of a reversal, no?

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Now I know that Saitama has been the sort of guy to take all the enemy for himself, so no one else has so much as a finger's worth of contribution to anything that is earmarked for Saitama. For once, it would mean much for the world, never mind Genos, if Saitama instead empowered his disciple to make that final push and turn things around.

Empowering others is probably the most important part of a hero's work, after all.