Sarah was complaining about being tragedy adjacent. Dina reminded her that she (Dina) was actually threatened with a gun. Sara disappeared from view (this was in the lobby with the privacy chairs). Dina said, “Sarah, I have object permanence.” Sarah replied, “I’m hoping I don’t.”
You missed the bit where Amber thought she heard Mike? Clearly Mike is alive, hiding somewhere in the room and just about to expire because no ones helping him. Okay, thats prolly 100% wishful thinking……I mean made up on my part but still…
So, you’re saying if he’s in a coffin, we cannot know if he is alive or dead -except statistically? Or are you saying we can either know where the coffin is, or where Mike is, but not both?.. . I’m uncertain.
We’ve seen all of the main characters so far except for Mike. And Ethan.
Head canon: Ethan realizes that a one night stand isn’t enough and goes in search of Mike. He sees the events up on the fire escape and calls 911. He runs over when Mike falls and succeeds in catching him/breaking his fall.
Toedad is shaken by the near death and either turns on Blaine or just runs off.
Amazigirl flees when the cops show up.
If Blaine wasn’t killed by Ross, the cops take him into custody. Both Ethan and Mike go to the hospital.
to be fair 20ft fall isn’t that bad, it all depends on how you land and what you land. If Ethan did show up and catch him, as long as he redirected the head/spine they both could get away with broken limbs and ribcages. Busted but not dead or permi injured
Im going with Amazi called him an ambulance after he fell and now he’s unconscious in the hospital. No one realized, no one goes to see him except probably his parents. This fact further hammers in the effects of his actions when he wakes up and the real redemption arc begins
Fun fact I started reading doa like a week before I started my freshman year of college and last month I graduated with my masters degree. And they’re still on their first semester!
The trouble with making a prediction like that is that you can never claim “Called It!” Mike could always be lurking in the next panel or even the next flashback.
Gee’ Ambs. I wonder why you’re so anxious? Maybe it’s because Mike’s dead and your disassociated identity isn’t sharing that memory with you? That’s just a guess though. Could be midterms. Even if you have those on lock it’s still stressful.
FWIW, someone falling high from a building to their death the previous night would have been pretty big campus news by this point in the morning; kinda bodes well for Mike.
My thoughts exactly. Then again, I guess it’s possible that none of the ones we’ve seen so far would be paying attention to news due to midterms, except for maaaaybe Jacob? Though I imagine he has other things on his mind than “holy shit, my roommate’s kinda-sorta-friend fell from a tall building.”
For that though, they would have had to get Amazi-Girl out of the way first. We know Amazi-Girl eventually left and went home to bed (to wake up later as Amber). With no serious injuries.
I can’t really imagine her running away or just deciding to leave with Mike dead and the Sires still standing.
If it was thought to be a suicide (which…I mean, Mike diddeliberately throw himself off the building – though he had been intending to take Blaine with him), they usually don’t tend to publicize such things, I think.
I’m sure everything’s fine… here, let me attach this tube to your tear ducts… Willis PROMISED no main characters would die, right? I’m sure there’s NOTHING to worry about… yeees, eeexcellent…
Panel 5 Walky: Oh yeah? What if YOU’RE just being a jerk calling it out in the hope of driving her off, redirecting the conversation, or basically anything else to avoid studying calculus?
It’s an interesting contrast between Walky’s concern when Billie had not been seen for a while and his insouciance at Mike’s disappearance.
If, that is, Mike has disappeared. Obviously someone has seen Mike or his corpse and Willis just hasn’t shown that to us. It could even be possible that one of the main cast has seen him and that Willis didn’t show us because the main cast member didn’t know that seeing Mike was significant. Walky might have seen Mike going out to breakfast as he got home to the dorm! Amber only asked if he were here, not whether Walky had seen him or knew where he was.
For myself, I have resolved not to fret about it until The Order of the Stick resumes updating.
I mean, Billie’s basically his sister. To Walky, Mike’s his asshole roommate who tried to break up him and Dorothy way back in the beginning, and later gave away his Dexter and Monkey Master DVDs to some skateboarders to build a ramp out of, and also tricked him into thinking the show had been canceled somewhere during that time. Oh, and he’s also cheerfully talked before in the comic about how Mike dying could only be a good thing.
ah, Walky’ girlfriend tries to help him study to deal with her own feelings of inadequacy. I’m sure that doesn’t bring up any sour memories for Walky or anything.
I mean, I do recall that it it was retroactively explained during the Mike/Amber wedding – Joyce mentioned that someone *coughhercough* leaked out the schematics for the Resurrection Chamber on the condition that Mike (via a bloodstained shirt of his) be their first test subject, and that it was her way of repaying the debt to him for saving her life during the Martian Invasion.
I’m pretty sure the climax of the fight was off-campus, wasn’t it? Could be the powers that be are still coordinating. (Though if we’re after a morning midterm, that seems less likely.)
No, Kirkwood Hall is very much on camps. Definitely in IUPD’s jurisdiction.
Which speaks to Mike being alive and probably no authorities being aware that a crime had been committed — otherwise there’d have been yellow tape and cop cars all over the place, and none of the partiers walking home in the morning could have missed seeing it.
How in the hell would no one be aware something happened? We saw some witnesses already and there sure as hell would be more than the ones we saw on a college campus, regardless of what time it was. They were fighting on a roof escape that is apparently right next to the road. The blood…cleaned itself up? No one walked by on a college campus, where just about every sidewalk gets used multiple times a day? Amazi-Girl didn’t lose, why would she try to clean everything up?
Something about this doesn’t quite add up. Mike is the only person I could think of that might have motivation to keep this all on the down low, and I don’t know how he could have managed that.
If Mike is dead I want Mike Prime to show up and just roast him for how stupid he was leading to his death. He had a transportation, he had a PHONE, he passed DOZENS of people while a man chased him saying how he was gonna kill Mike with a hammer he was holding. The police exists and Mike is white enough to call them on this known gangster who is actively saying outloud that he’s going to kill him.
But I guess it makes more sense to look for your friend who needs to be tranquilized and dragged to the nearest hospital so she can get intensive therapy and meds so she stops dissociating for the specific purpose of hurting people to feel good about herself.
Literally running around hurting people while actively hating herself on both sides. Hospitalization beats either her inevitable pointless death or her inevitably getting someone else killed. I know this is a comic, but it’s more grounded than say Batman.
But I’ll stick around anyway for the 5 or 6 characters I really like.
I like how this comic very much does the thing of the equivalent of cutting from a tense murder mystery to one of the characters casually eating a sandwich. very good for my heart
Willis, I know I am objectively new to this story and have only been following this for two years, but the build up and references to Mike’s destiny are getting annoying. I just want to know of the asshole with golden hair is alive or not!
I suppose they might have, but I could never aspire to Mike’s Zen-like artistry of targeted jerkosity. If he’s dead, I’ll always regret DOA Mike never learned the effect of alcohol on his personality.
If you ask me, it’s obvious whether Mike’s alive. The last post had him falling to his doom in a strip titled “Dead” and afterward we were left in suspense with a character who had a nagging feeling something was wrong. Of course he’s alive! It’s the textbook example of a character-death bait-and-switch! A grave-and-switch, if you will. If there’s not a trope on TVTropes about this sort of scenario, there ought to be! Come on, if Willis wanted to dash our hopes, what would he need the suspense for? He’d just do it mercilessly and unambiguously! No way he’d soften the blow with this “is he or isn’t he?” nonsense. Mike’s probably hospitalized right now, but he’ll be back.
But this way he gets the best of both worlds. He gets to savor keeping us on edge for as long as possible and then he gets to do flashbacks of the sentimental part of Mike’s story we never saw and feast on our tears.
And then, at the end of all that, he’ll reveal that Mike is alive and bring everyone to tears of relief. It’s clearly the best bang for your buck when you’re on a tear-diet. (Don’t knock it till you cry it!)
I don’t think he actually could choose an actually-beloved character to kill without using timeskips (remember, the whole “mourning forever” issue that comes with Comic Book Time) – Mike on the other hand is near-universally loathed in-universe, with even his closest acquaintances generally only tolerating him at best. If anything, he’s the most prominent character who could have been possibly-killed.
It’s a valid point, but I’m still 90% sure Mike’s alive. Clif pointed out that Willis might be trying to stir our fears by making his life/death status uncertain, but delaying the revelation clearly doesn’t make everyone panicked. I’m here arguing he’s alive, for one thing–surely there are plenty of skeptics like me who believe more firmly he’s alive with every day passing with no sign of his fate. Some who did worry he was dead might realize, as the days go on, “Well, he is just a fictional character.” Yes, some people will remain concerned, or even steadfastly convinced that he is dead. But effectively Willis is just dividing us into two camps: one anxious camp of “OH NO PLEASE TELL ME HE’S NOT DEAD” and one jaded camp of “yeah yeah, I see how you’re trying to stir up emotions but it ain’t working on me.” If Mike’s alive, the suspense is making people cry for no reason. If he’s dead, the suspense is making people apathetic for no reason. By going this route rather than just revealing what happened on the strip after “Dead,” Willis is maximizing suffering if Mike is alive, but minimizing it if Mike is dead.
But hey, it could be a double-bluff. Maybe the goal is to get Amber angry at herself for not remembering what AmaziGirl saw, or angry with AmaziGirl for letting Mike die. Maybe the real emotion-stirring happens after the reveal, in the grieving period, when Amber has to confront herself and her alter. I doubt it, and I think if Willis wants to mess with Amber he can do it pretty easily before revealing Mike as alive or dead. But I suppose, to play Devil’sWillis’ advocate, that is a potential motivation for suspense tactics.
I am at this point in the second camp. A few days if suspense is one thing, but now I no longer care and am aware he’s a fictional comic character. In a way I think this could be argument for him actually being dead, though. Usually with a death fake out you get the reveal within a reasonable amount of time. This dragging it out thing could be a lead up to, as you said, a big opportunity for Amber to introspect and integrate.
I can’t see her leaving him to die, but if he was already dead, I’m not sure what else she could do. Call the police, certainly, but she’s not on speaking terms with the cops.
I mean Morse code doesn’t really have an innate rhythm, but it’s
-.. .- — -. -.– — ..- –··– .– .. .-.. .-.. .. … -·-·–
(The -.-.– at the end is an exclamation point, so you can omit that if you don’t want to add the emphasis. Also –..– is the comma, so you can omit that if you don’t want to be grammatical, lol.)
and just to explain the other half of the joke: This arc is titled Remind You of My Love.
“Dadidada dah, dah didada dayada dada da da dayada!” is part of the refrain from You’ll Be Back, A song in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout hit Hamilton, in which King George sings to the colonists of North America using such charming phrases as “I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love” and “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love“.
OH–and i must be totally blind, because i just noticed the two last comics where we saw Mike alive had the title-texts “cuz when push comes to shove/i will kill your friends and family”–and of course the final lyric before the final “da-da-dat-da-da” chorus is “Cuz when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.”
Yet more evidence that Walky has been insufferably content lately, for some reason he’ll figure out eventually. Almost like some annoyance is missing from his life…
So, it’s a vaguely interesting trick to keep Mike’s status unknown and go about ordinary lives, but it’s already been done more thoroughly. In Goblins Comic, a powerful demon was sealed in something called the Axe of Prissan as its prison. It’s said that it is powerful enough to endanger the fabric of reality towards evil. Well, the Axe gets damaged and the demon escaped. Reality was indeed altered for the worse. This problem is way, way bigger than the main characters, presumably hosts of archangels are battling to barely contain the evil. It’s nothing a few level four PCs are going to be able to do anything about. They’re still stuck in dungeons and going about their ordinary lives of trying to keep their hit points above zero.
But. Reality is still torn. Ever since that moment, the wrongness of reality has been represented by the panels of the comic being converted to these gross dripping blood vessel things. It’s been dozens of comics, you could even get sort of used to it. New readers might not even think anything of it. But they’re al always there if you look right at them.
This exactly the game Willis is playing by having the characters go about worrying if they lesbianed each other, or had make outs on the floor, or having the fan club worry about who Billie lesbianed, (kind of a lot of lesbian worries lately), all while the dripping blood vessels of Mike could have snapped his neck and be dead, or captured and tortured.
Frankly Willis could start drawing the panels as blood vessels,why not double down on the Mike edgelord tension we’re going for. It’ll be more tolerable when it’s a few pages in a book or a few minutes of powering through clicking an archive. It’s asking a lot of tolerance from audiences when we comics do these tension tactics in real time over days and days though.
I mean, Willis himself already did this after the Ryan stabbin, it was weeks before anyone in comic even acknowledged it and something like a month before we “saw” amber again (and we didn’t even actually see her, she’s hiding behind a tree).
Obviously these cliffhangers look a lot less cruel when you’re on the other side of them, but they’re in pretty much every long form work. It’s just good storytelling.
Is there any comprehensive writeup anywhere that shows what Major everybody in the series has at the University?
There have been plenty of teases, and a few have been dangled out in the open by the likes of Walky’s mom and Rachel. But the entire cast? Just wanna know.
I mean Sarah, Jacob and Raidah are studying law and we know Joyce wants(or wanted rather) to study to be a teacher
Pretty sure both Amber and Dan are in computer engineering? Dorothy is probably something politics related, Dina and in the future Becky are in Biology, that’s all I can think of at the top of my head but there’s been plenty of hints
don’t think it’s like listed anywhere
Not the whole cast, no. I think most of the ones we know for characters with cast pages are listed on those pages? But that’s not everyone, or even everyone with a cast page.
Elementary Education: Joyce, formerly Becky,
Art Education: Mary
Pre-law: Sarah, Jacob, Raidah
Telecommunications: Walky
Computer Science: Amber, Danny, Rachel
Social Work: Mike (and FUCK whoever let him in for that)
Undeclared: Ethan (considering English), Joe, and Sal
Journalism: Billie, probably Daisy
English: Ruth, formerly Jocelyne
Biology: Dina, Becky wants to be in this
Political Science: Dorothy
Gender Studies: Roz, formerly Leslie
Intelligent Systems Engineering: Carla
We dunno about Malaya or Lucy and Marcie isn’t a student
I’m still struggling to comprehend how that all went down. Were they supposed to be a real threat to AG? Why, given what we’ve seen before? If not, how did it get out of control enough that Mike got whatever happened to him?
Mike’s in a coma, its gonna be a LONG wait for that as a mopey reveal and then it’ll just be this “stuck in limbo” moment where its like “ok he’s alive!” but also “oh but the dire consequences!”. And the characaters probably wont know for a long time after the audience sees he’s a “John Doe” in the hospital. No offense to Willis as an author, but Im expecting ZERO emotional payoff from this drawn out tension of waiting to find out what happened to him
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Yes, Amber, it’s totally the midterm.
It’s actually the fact that she’s repressing that Mike now knows her secret identity and is planning on blackmailing her into being his girlfriend.
I don’t see how that can happen unless Amber has a secret child somewhere.
I feel like there’s a dick joke about object permanence but idk what it is
object spermanence
I’ll take “Horrible hazing rituals for 400, Alex”
when you see Fraternity Bros around the BlowJob Cat…
*narrows eyes*
Not enough. You’ll need goggles.
They’ll do nothing.
*badump tish*
thanks I hate it. ~<3
Knobject spermanence.
Wasn’t there another joke about object permanence a few arcs back? I think with Dina and Sarah but IDK.
Sarah was complaining about being tragedy adjacent. Dina reminded her that she (Dina) was actually threatened with a gun. Sara disappeared from view (this was in the lobby with the privacy chairs). Dina said, “Sarah, I have object permanence.” Sarah replied, “I’m hoping I don’t.”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/ohhoho/
That’s what she said.
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A dick joke about object permanence? It’s funny because Mike is a dick.
But is he, permanently?
That’s the joke.
ie. when you can no longer hear and see Mike, do you still believe he exists?
”In case of ’Object’ permanence, please contact your doctor”
Funxiety. And existential dread.
Is Mike dead or not! You’re killin’ me here, Willis.
Yes, Mike is dead. We’ve all accepted this by now.
…PLEASE SAY MIKE IS OKAY WILLIS YOU MONSTER!!!
You missed the bit where Amber thought she heard Mike? Clearly Mike is alive, hiding somewhere in the room and just about to expire because no ones helping him. Okay, thats prolly 100% wishful thinking……I mean made up on my part but still…
Hm. Everyone wonders where Mike got to, but Amber still hears his voice.
Amber is clearly being haunted by Mike’s ghost
A ghost which slowly possess her. Or at least becomes her third personality.
So clearly, he’s invisible.
Schrodinger’s Mike
So, you’re saying if he’s in a coffin, we cannot know if he is alive or dead -except statistically? Or are you saying we can either know where the coffin is, or where Mike is, but not both?.. . I’m uncertain.
I think Willis is enjoying tormenting us by not revealing whether Mike is dead or alive too much.
Willis is really ginning up his fan’s tears. At this rate, he’ll have enough to live on for years.
We’ve seen all of the main characters so far except for Mike. And Ethan.
Head canon: Ethan realizes that a one night stand isn’t enough and goes in search of Mike. He sees the events up on the fire escape and calls 911. He runs over when Mike falls and succeeds in catching him/breaking his fall.
Toedad is shaken by the near death and either turns on Blaine or just runs off.
Amazigirl flees when the cops show up.
If Blaine wasn’t killed by Ross, the cops take him into custody. Both Ethan and Mike go to the hospital.
Importantly, Ethan was a witness to all of this. He is in the background of this strip
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/smash-2/
And he’s done something like this before when he caught Danny out of mid air to prevent him being hit by Carla.
Might be that his back is facing the window, so he might not have seen anything.
Very true. Likely even. Except that this is a story and thus subject to narrative rules like Chekhov’s Gun.
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/use-chekhovs-gun/
Also catching someone falling from ~2 feet is a lot easier than catching someone from 20+ feet (not to mention, “it’s not the fall that kills you…”).
OTOH, it’s a grand old superhero tradition. Already echoed here by Sal and Joyce snagging AG before she got smeared by the truck.
to be fair 20ft fall isn’t that bad, it all depends on how you land and what you land. If Ethan did show up and catch him, as long as he redirected the head/spine they both could get away with broken limbs and ribcages. Busted but not dead or permi injured
Well, aside from Dorothy and Sarah.
He feel heads first like ten floors down. Even if he didn’t landed on concrete which he most likely did, he would be dead or be very close to death.
Looked more like three floors, but that’s also Not Good.
Im going with Amazi called him an ambulance after he fell and now he’s unconscious in the hospital. No one realized, no one goes to see him except probably his parents. This fact further hammers in the effects of his actions when he wakes up and the real redemption arc begins
Oh that’s a good one. Dammit if that’s it I’m gonna be sad. Glad he’s alive and realizing that is a step to his redemption but fuck still sad.
Today’s strip was somsored by Vimeo–who is trying to reach me in Japanese here.
god I started reading this before I went to university and now I’m in my 4th calculus class, it’s amazing how much more relatable all of this is now
Fun fact I started reading doa like a week before I started my freshman year of college and last month I graduated with my masters degree. And they’re still on their first semester!
And then Mike was never mentioned again.
The trouble with making a prediction like that is that you can never claim “Called It!” Mike could always be lurking in the next panel or even the next flashback.
Gee’ Ambs. I wonder why you’re so anxious? Maybe it’s because Mike’s dead and your disassociated identity isn’t sharing that memory with you? That’s just a guess though. Could be midterms. Even if you have those on lock it’s still stressful.
FWIW, someone falling high from a building to their death the previous night would have been pretty big campus news by this point in the morning; kinda bodes well for Mike.
My thoughts exactly. Then again, I guess it’s possible that none of the ones we’ve seen so far would be paying attention to news due to midterms, except for maaaaybe Jacob? Though I imagine he has other things on his mind than “holy shit, my roommate’s kinda-sorta-friend fell from a tall building.”
Maybe the Sinister Sires hid the body?
… also, I’m now calling Blaine and Ross the Sinister Sires.
The Case of the Sinister Sires.
I like it.
For that though, they would have had to get Amazi-Girl out of the way first. We know Amazi-Girl eventually left and went home to bed (to wake up later as Amber). With no serious injuries.
I can’t really imagine her running away or just deciding to leave with Mike dead and the Sires still standing.
Exactly. The only explanation I can think of is that Mike is ok enough to try to keep his injuries a secret from everyone.
Maybe Amazi-Girl brought Mike to the ER and then Batman-vanished rather than say hi to the police?
And his wallet fell out of his pocket and they can’t ID him yet?
Or they’re just more concerned with contacting his parents than his roommate? Why would they have reached out to anyone we’ve seen yet?
If it was thought to be a suicide (which…I mean, Mike diddeliberately throw himself off the building – though he had been intending to take Blaine with him), they usually don’t tend to publicize such things, I think.
Evil Dads could have hidden his body.
Yeah, I was expecting midterms would be canceled or postponed if a student had been found dead, but Amber just took hers.
We’ll know better when the calculus midterms happens, I guess, since Mike’s actually in that class.
I understand having anxiety, because I have it, because I need to know if Mike is dead.
Ask Blaine’s mom.
Make the fucking the reward for getting the studying done.
Given Walky’s tendency to learn the wrong lesson from things, I’m not entirely sure that’s the best idea.
Thank god SOMEONE on the main cast isn’t taking CALCULUS in COLLEGE.
Mike may not be taking it any longer.
You could say he’s dropped the course.
You mean he had falling grades?
Perhaps they just took a dip.
More like a severe third-derivative following a negative first-derivative.
…. which makes sense, since Mike was what physicists would call jerk.
jesus christ IS MIKE OKAY
It has been 18 days. The last time Willis left us hanging on whether someone is dead (Ryan), we had to wait an almost 2 solid months.
But then again nobody cares about Ryan. On the other hand some people actually like Mike.
You take that back.
Yeah! I care about Ryan……’s phone.
His phone which most definitely is not a knife.
People not caring about Ryan? Why?
No. People liking Mike. If people like Mike, he’s failed.
I dunno that seems like an irrelevant consideration
Why would the potential for Mike’s failure discourage me from doing anything
Shh, no. This is the reaction Willis wants.
I personally don’t give a damn if Mike’s dead if not, and if the story ever does go back to him, I’ll be like “meh”.
WE believe you implicitly.
I’m sure everything’s fine… here, let me attach this tube to your tear ducts… Willis PROMISED no main characters would die, right? I’m sure there’s NOTHING to worry about… yeees, eeexcellent…
And then Mike was never heard from ever again just to piss off readers. It’s a very Mike thing to do.
Chuck Cunninghammed.
Just like Mike, went up a staircase, never seen again
Didn’t Walky break things off with Amber?
He SAID he did. But then Sal gave them her blessing and it’s kinda in limbo now?
Panel 5 Walky: Oh yeah? What if YOU’RE just being a jerk calling it out in the hope of driving her off, redirecting the conversation, or basically anything else to avoid studying calculus?
It’s an interesting contrast between Walky’s concern when Billie had not been seen for a while and his insouciance at Mike’s disappearance.
If, that is, Mike has disappeared. Obviously someone has seen Mike or his corpse and Willis just hasn’t shown that to us. It could even be possible that one of the main cast has seen him and that Willis didn’t show us because the main cast member didn’t know that seeing Mike was significant. Walky might have seen Mike going out to breakfast as he got home to the dorm! Amber only asked if he were here, not whether Walky had seen him or knew where he was.
For myself, I have resolved not to fret about it until The Order of the Stick resumes updating.
I mean, Billie’s basically his sister. To Walky, Mike’s his asshole roommate who tried to break up him and Dorothy way back in the beginning, and later gave away his Dexter and Monkey Master DVDs to some skateboarders to build a ramp out of, and also tricked him into thinking the show had been canceled somewhere during that time. Oh, and he’s also cheerfully talked before in the comic about how Mike dying could only be a good thing.
(Tried to break him and Dorothy up multiple times, I’ll add)
Calling it now. Mike somehow dragged himself back to the Dorm and bed where Walky found him, strangled him in his sleep and then hid the body
Oh, so Amber did hear Mike.
ah, Walky’ girlfriend tries to help him study to deal with her own feelings of inadequacy. I’m sure that doesn’t bring up any sour memories for Walky or anything.
Srsly
I’m calling it – it will take a year before we ever see Mike again, and then he will just show up without comment. We will never learn what happened.
* spoiler to earlier comics *
Kinda neat parallell to the opening of shortpacked, when I think of it.
This comment made me go: OH NOOOOOO
and then: Huh
Yes, there is precedent for Mike just showing up alive one day without explanation. Dangit.
I mean, I do recall that it it was retroactively explained during the Mike/Amber wedding – Joyce mentioned that someone *coughhercough* leaked out the schematics for the Resurrection Chamber on the condition that Mike (via a bloodstained shirt of his) be their first test subject, and that it was her way of repaying the debt to him for saving her life during the Martian Invasion.
Explanation eight or more years later counts as ‘completely unexplained’ for a pretty significant chunk of time.
That… would be absolutely perfect, really. (Hell, the ‘I fucked your mom’ comment was already kind of calling back to his last scene of It’s Walky.)
I just want you to know I WILL dig this comic up on January 25, 2021. I am saving the link. Be prepared.
I’m counting on it! and I stand by my prediction. Say goodbye to Mike for a loooong time
If Mike was dead, wouldn’t someone have let Walky know? After all, he’s the roommate.
I’m pretty sure the climax of the fight was off-campus, wasn’t it? Could be the powers that be are still coordinating. (Though if we’re after a morning midterm, that seems less likely.)
No, Kirkwood Hall is very much on camps. Definitely in IUPD’s jurisdiction.
Which speaks to Mike being alive and probably no authorities being aware that a crime had been committed — otherwise there’d have been yellow tape and cop cars all over the place, and none of the partiers walking home in the morning could have missed seeing it.
How in the hell would no one be aware something happened? We saw some witnesses already and there sure as hell would be more than the ones we saw on a college campus, regardless of what time it was. They were fighting on a roof escape that is apparently right next to the road. The blood…cleaned itself up? No one walked by on a college campus, where just about every sidewalk gets used multiple times a day? Amazi-Girl didn’t lose, why would she try to clean everything up?
Something about this doesn’t quite add up. Mike is the only person I could think of that might have motivation to keep this all on the down low, and I don’t know how he could have managed that.
If his roommate is dead, he gets “A”s in all his classes, right?
A guy claimed that on the Internet, so it must be true.
It may be that Blake hid the body. Mike is an adult, after all, and police broadly don’t investigate missing adults unless they have a good reason.
Why would Blake hide the body?
I think he’s friends with Blaine, sort of the way Amazigirl used to be friends with Amber.
Oh, so that’s Blaine’s supervillain name!
“Blake”… very intimidating.
(I assume it’s pronounced B’lock-ay, like from the Key & Peele sketch?)
I’m trying not to keyboard smash about Mike. It’s hard but I’m doing my best.
(Twitches)
“Maybe you’re anxious because you’re bracing for the wall slamming, bed breaking decibel shattering sex we’re about to have.”
Somebody fuck, is the real message here.
Halfway expect a “Mike steps out of the shower” resolution…
Willis has already confirmed on Twitter that the events of the night were not a dream (nor a hoax, nor an imaginary story).
Of course not. We saw them with our own eyes.
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean Willis has to TELL us what happened that night…
If Mike is dead I want Mike Prime to show up and just roast him for how stupid he was leading to his death. He had a transportation, he had a PHONE, he passed DOZENS of people while a man chased him saying how he was gonna kill Mike with a hammer he was holding. The police exists and Mike is white enough to call them on this known gangster who is actively saying outloud that he’s going to kill him.
But I guess it makes more sense to look for your friend who needs to be tranquilized and dragged to the nearest hospital so she can get intensive therapy and meds so she stops dissociating for the specific purpose of hurting people to feel good about herself.
That, uh…is certainly a comment on Amber’s DID.
Literally running around hurting people while actively hating herself on both sides. Hospitalization beats either her inevitable pointless death or her inevitably getting someone else killed. I know this is a comic, but it’s more grounded than say Batman.
But I’ll stick around anyway for the 5 or 6 characters I really like.
I like how this comic very much does the thing of the equivalent of cutting from a tense murder mystery to one of the characters casually eating a sandwich. very good for my heart
Willis, I know I am objectively new to this story and have only been following this for two years, but the build up and references to Mike’s destiny are getting annoying. I just want to know of the asshole with golden hair is alive or not!
Yes, he is alive or not. Feel better?
((Sorry. I’m being insensitive in honor of Mike. Can you tell?))
Oh, have the replacement-Mike auditions started already?
No, we’re waiting for your mother to set up the mood lighting first.
I suppose they might have, but I could never aspire to Mike’s Zen-like artistry of targeted jerkosity. If he’s dead, I’ll always regret DOA Mike never learned the effect of alcohol on his personality.
If you ask me, it’s obvious whether Mike’s alive. The last post had him falling to his doom in a strip titled “Dead” and afterward we were left in suspense with a character who had a nagging feeling something was wrong. Of course he’s alive! It’s the textbook example of a character-death bait-and-switch! A grave-and-switch, if you will. If there’s not a trope on TVTropes about this sort of scenario, there ought to be! Come on, if Willis wanted to dash our hopes, what would he need the suspense for? He’d just do it mercilessly and unambiguously! No way he’d soften the blow with this “is he or isn’t he?” nonsense. Mike’s probably hospitalized right now, but he’ll be back.
(And if he wanted to trample over readers’ hearts by killing off a character, then he certainly could have chosen a more beloved one…)
But this way he gets the best of both worlds. He gets to savor keeping us on edge for as long as possible and then he gets to do flashbacks of the sentimental part of Mike’s story we never saw and feast on our tears.
And then, at the end of all that, he’ll reveal that Mike is alive and bring everyone to tears of relief. It’s clearly the best bang for your buck when you’re on a tear-diet. (Don’t knock it till you cry it!)
I don’t think he actually could choose an actually-beloved character to kill without using timeskips (remember, the whole “mourning forever” issue that comes with Comic Book Time) – Mike on the other hand is near-universally loathed in-universe, with even his closest acquaintances generally only tolerating him at best. If anything, he’s the most prominent character who could have been possibly-killed.
Well, Mary’s another option. …Not sure if anybody would actually cry over her death, though.
It’s a valid point, but I’m still 90% sure Mike’s alive. Clif pointed out that Willis might be trying to stir our fears by making his life/death status uncertain, but delaying the revelation clearly doesn’t make everyone panicked. I’m here arguing he’s alive, for one thing–surely there are plenty of skeptics like me who believe more firmly he’s alive with every day passing with no sign of his fate. Some who did worry he was dead might realize, as the days go on, “Well, he is just a fictional character.” Yes, some people will remain concerned, or even steadfastly convinced that he is dead. But effectively Willis is just dividing us into two camps: one anxious camp of “OH NO PLEASE TELL ME HE’S NOT DEAD” and one jaded camp of “yeah yeah, I see how you’re trying to stir up emotions but it ain’t working on me.” If Mike’s alive, the suspense is making people cry for no reason. If he’s dead, the suspense is making people apathetic for no reason. By going this route rather than just revealing what happened on the strip after “Dead,” Willis is maximizing suffering if Mike is alive, but minimizing it if Mike is dead.
But hey, it could be a double-bluff. Maybe the goal is to get Amber angry at herself for not remembering what AmaziGirl saw, or angry with AmaziGirl for letting Mike die. Maybe the real emotion-stirring happens after the reveal, in the grieving period, when Amber has to confront herself and her alter. I doubt it, and I think if Willis wants to mess with Amber he can do it pretty easily before revealing Mike as alive or dead. But I suppose, to play
Devil’sWillis’ advocate, that is a potential motivation for suspense tactics.(whoops I made a massive text block, sorry)
Don’t apologize for the gift of a thoughtful analysis.
I am at this point in the second camp. A few days if suspense is one thing, but now I no longer care and am aware he’s a fictional comic character. In a way I think this could be argument for him actually being dead, though. Usually with a death fake out you get the reveal within a reasonable amount of time. This dragging it out thing could be a lead up to, as you said, a big opportunity for Amber to introspect and integrate.
Also also, I can’t see Amazi-Girl leaving him to die. She would have made sure he got medical care.
I can’t see her leaving him to die, but if he was already dead, I’m not sure what else she could do. Call the police, certainly, but she’s not on speaking terms with the cops.
Also I just noticed the title of this storyline. And I just have to say one thing:
Dadidada dah, dah didada dayada dada da da dayada!
You mean I have to go learn morse code?
(What does “Damn you, Willis” in Morse code sound like, anyway? Does it have a rhythm?)
I mean Morse code doesn’t really have an innate rhythm, but it’s
-.. .- — -. -.– — ..- –··– .– .. .-.. .-.. .. … -·-·–
(The -.-.– at the end is an exclamation point, so you can omit that if you don’t want to add the emphasis. Also –..– is the comma, so you can omit that if you don’t want to be grammatical, lol.)
and just to explain the other half of the joke: This arc is titled Remind You of My Love.
“Dadidada dah, dah didada dayada dada da da dayada!” is part of the refrain from You’ll Be Back, A song in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout hit Hamilton, in which King George sings to the colonists of North America using such charming phrases as “I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love” and “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love“.
OH–and i must be totally blind, because i just noticed the two last comics where we saw Mike alive had the title-texts “cuz when push comes to shove/i will kill your friends and family”–and of course the final lyric before the final “da-da-dat-da-da” chorus is “Cuz when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.”
Not to derail the conversation, but speaking of just noticing things, your name is the same upside down and I just noticed That’s flippin’ awesome!
“Flippin’ awesome”? I see what you did there. Nice pun!
Wow, I never noticed!
Thanks!
PLOT TWIST: Mike is _also_ trapped inside Amber’s mind, along with Amazi-Girl!
They make out a lot in there, just to piss Amber off.
Stop this foolishness, Willis!
What. Happened. To. Mike!!!!!
Willis you monster where’s our boy 😭
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Is Mike in Here?
This needs to be an actual title.
Damn, Walky. That was casually harsh.
Yet more evidence that Walky has been insufferably content lately, for some reason he’ll figure out eventually. Almost like some annoyance is missing from his life…
“let’s bang”
Don’t worry everyone, I think Mike is going to be okay</.
RIP my closing tag. Oops.
What I meant to link to is this:
https://nypost.com/2020/01/24/76-year-old-woman-survives-seven-story-fall-from-nyc-apartment/
So, it’s a vaguely interesting trick to keep Mike’s status unknown and go about ordinary lives, but it’s already been done more thoroughly. In Goblins Comic, a powerful demon was sealed in something called the Axe of Prissan as its prison. It’s said that it is powerful enough to endanger the fabric of reality towards evil. Well, the Axe gets damaged and the demon escaped. Reality was indeed altered for the worse. This problem is way, way bigger than the main characters, presumably hosts of archangels are battling to barely contain the evil. It’s nothing a few level four PCs are going to be able to do anything about. They’re still stuck in dungeons and going about their ordinary lives of trying to keep their hit points above zero.
But. Reality is still torn. Ever since that moment, the wrongness of reality has been represented by the panels of the comic being converted to these gross dripping blood vessel things. It’s been dozens of comics, you could even get sort of used to it. New readers might not even think anything of it. But they’re al always there if you look right at them.
This exactly the game Willis is playing by having the characters go about worrying if they lesbianed each other, or had make outs on the floor, or having the fan club worry about who Billie lesbianed, (kind of a lot of lesbian worries lately), all while the dripping blood vessels of Mike could have snapped his neck and be dead, or captured and tortured.
Frankly Willis could start drawing the panels as blood vessels,why not double down on the Mike edgelord tension we’re going for. It’ll be more tolerable when it’s a few pages in a book or a few minutes of powering through clicking an archive. It’s asking a lot of tolerance from audiences when we comics do these tension tactics in real time over days and days though.
I wasn’t aware story ideas could only be used once and then are off limits to all other writers forever.
Didn’t say they were only allowed to be used once per universe. More just comparing a similar, literally apparent form of edginess.
I mean, Willis himself already did this after the Ryan stabbin, it was weeks before anyone in comic even acknowledged it and something like a month before we “saw” amber again (and we didn’t even actually see her, she’s hiding behind a tree).
Obviously these cliffhangers look a lot less cruel when you’re on the other side of them, but they’re in pretty much every long form work. It’s just good storytelling.
Willis has been using Red Panels since forever here, for trauma
You will see Red Panels when Amber remembers part of it.
But its not a fantasy comic. If you want Lampshaded reality warps or Ripped off Drama tags, or Reality Rips, thats all in Walkyverse.
I just wanna throw open the door of this dorm room and yell “HE’S DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!”
The Witch of the West is dead!
Meanwhile Mike is slowly dying behind blowjobcat.
Not slow enough!
Is there any comprehensive writeup anywhere that shows what Major everybody in the series has at the University?
There have been plenty of teases, and a few have been dangled out in the open by the likes of Walky’s mom and Rachel. But the entire cast? Just wanna know.
I mean Sarah, Jacob and Raidah are studying law and we know Joyce wants(or wanted rather) to study to be a teacher
Pretty sure both Amber and Dan are in computer engineering? Dorothy is probably something politics related, Dina and in the future Becky are in Biology, that’s all I can think of at the top of my head but there’s been plenty of hints
don’t think it’s like listed anywhere
Isn’t Walky Communications?
Telecommunications yeah.
Not the whole cast, no. I think most of the ones we know for characters with cast pages are listed on those pages? But that’s not everyone, or even everyone with a cast page.
I gotcha
Elementary Education: Joyce, formerly Becky,
Art Education: Mary
Pre-law: Sarah, Jacob, Raidah
Telecommunications: Walky
Computer Science: Amber, Danny, Rachel
Social Work: Mike (and FUCK whoever let him in for that)
Undeclared: Ethan (considering English), Joe, and Sal
Journalism: Billie, probably Daisy
English: Ruth, formerly Jocelyne
Biology: Dina, Becky wants to be in this
Political Science: Dorothy
Gender Studies: Roz, formerly Leslie
Intelligent Systems Engineering: Carla
We dunno about Malaya or Lucy and Marcie isn’t a student
Could… WALKY be feeling guilty for having the hots for the girl who cut up his sister? So he’s taking it out on Amber?
Yes, he was ready to end things with her permanently until Sal told him not to.
Does she not have bruises from the fight? I imagine that might tip her off that some superhero stuff happened?
She’s used to it.
Doesn’t seem like any serious injuries though.
Blaine is too shitty at fighting for her to have bruises
And yet … Mike?
I’m still struggling to comprehend how that all went down. Were they supposed to be a real threat to AG? Why, given what we’ve seen before? If not, how did it get out of control enough that Mike got whatever happened to him?
Beginning to worry that Mike is not dead, but tied up and at the mercy of Blaine.
beginning to worry Mike is Ambers newest personality alter
Mike’s in a coma, its gonna be a LONG wait for that as a mopey reveal and then it’ll just be this “stuck in limbo” moment where its like “ok he’s alive!” but also “oh but the dire consequences!”. And the characaters probably wont know for a long time after the audience sees he’s a “John Doe” in the hospital. No offense to Willis as an author, but Im expecting ZERO emotional payoff from this drawn out tension of waiting to find out what happened to him
Mike is currently on TV being interviewed by a reporter about the incident the night before. This is why Amber thinks she heard him.
Incidentally, Mike seems to have had his way with the reporter’s mother. For a nickel.
Noooooo
( when you have DID , witness a friends death during a blackout, inherit his personality, and its MIKE )
Mike’s epitaph. “I died fighting to protect my friends. They were relieved that I wasn’t around anymore.”
There’s a sickening tragicomic aspect to this.