It's a mod so rule of three applies.

Chris wandered into one of our meetings at Gencon and declared himself part of the team. We haven't had the heart to tell him otherwise.

What was weird was the way he just curled up into a ball on Rupp's lap.

...

Everyone knows Chris is a cat, right?

PULSE WAVE Give this character a ranged combat action even if it is adjacent to an opposing character; the area of effect for this attack is half the character’s range. Draw lines of fire to all other characters within the area of effect, including at least one opposing character; these lines of fire ignore all game effects except for walls, blocking and elevated terrain. Game effects possessed or used by characters with a line of fire drawn to them are ignored until the action has been resolved. If a line of fire is drawn to more than 1 character, this character’s damage value becomes 1 and is locked. Each character hit is dealt damage.

THE BIGGER THEY ARE, ROBIN...: The Dynamic Duo can use Super Senses. When the Dynamic Duo is targeted by an attack, increase The Dynamic Duo's defense value by the attacker's printed damage value. This power can't be countered or ignored.

Sorry if this has been brought up but does pulse wave even target anything? No where in its wording does it say target. Is drawing a line of fire considered targeting? If it doesn't target then how would that effect the DD's defense power. I would assume they still get the SS roll but no bump to the defense value.

This is in the player's guide, pg 4:
Any game effect that has a line of fire drawn to it is considered a target. So PW does target, because it draws a line of fire, and THE BIGGER THEY ARE, ROBIN... can't be ignored so it will still be in effect: they will get the SS roll and the DV bump.

From the core rule book:

Some powers and abilities use the term “area of effect.” An area of effect allows a power or game effect to target more than one character. Characters within the area of an effect are affected even though they may not be within the character’s range or line of fire. When it includes an attack, only one attack roll is made and the Attack Total is compared to each target character as well as any other characters specified by the area of effect. When a character is attacked exclusively as a result of being in an area of effect, it is not considered a target of the attack and it may be friendly to the attacking character. The game effect including an area of effect will define how damage is dealt to hit characters and may specify targeted characters’ damage differently from other hit characters. When a power or ability uses a ranged combat attack with an area of effect, if the game effect describes target characters, then the attacking character may multi-target normally, possibly creating multiple areas of effect.

Which is correct? Target or not a target?

It seems like PW only attacks exclusively as a result of being in an area of effect

No it doesn't. PW tells us to draw a line of fire to every character in the AoE. This means that PW targets.

Energy Explosion "splash" would be an instance of being attacked just because the character is in the AoE.

Ok. I see the distinction. Based on you and necros responses I can see where the dynamic due would still get the mod. Believe me, I wanted to be wrong on this one. But just to play out all foreseeable arguments should this come up in a game:

Since the lines drawn by pulse wave are a result of being in the aoe why isn't that character still considered being attacked exclusively as a result of being in the aoe therefore not targeted per the wording of aoe?

Because every time a line of fire is drawn to a character, that character is targeted. It's that simple.

Pulse wave definitely targets. I agree though that the aoe definition could use a little clearing up as all characters hit are hit exclusively due to the aoe. I'd expect a written clarification in the future.

Good to know the wording wi be cleared up. I am on track with how it works but I was worried for a minute there. Im glad there is a new batman that can stand up to PW since the recent change dethroned the FFJL one.

It's a modifier!