Malaya probably got woken up at the same time Sal did, since they’re roommates. Once that had happened, why not go see what all the fuss is about and maybe get some ass to kick?
…clearly I’m not awake enough to recognize Carla… but to be fair, I’m used to her having her hair up. I expect whacky shenanigans powered by tech from her parents’ company.
But AG’s not tagged; this is Amber facing Sal. For Amber this night is basically All the Nightmares and she’s running on several nights of virtually no sleep, at least two major battles’ worth of injuries, and severe emotional trauma. I’m afraid she will fall down in the middle of the street and vapor lock at this point.
I don’t think anyone in universe can tell at a glance. The people who know what’s going on still need to ask who’s driving in situations where it’s not blatantly obvious.
My point is that I don’t Sal even knows to ask. Unless I’m missing something, Walky’s the only one we know knows for sure. Danny’s been seen struggling with the concept and no one else has shown any awareness of it.
You could make the argument that while Blaine is a shittier person than Malaya, he also causes conflict which makes the comic more interesting to read. Malaya on the other hand is just generally unpleasant but she doesn’t really push the story forward that much.
Blaine is the cartoony manchild villain that should be in prison.
Malaya is just the annoying BONGO, and I am tired of this page censoring the word bongo when it is appropriate to describe bong-FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!! THAT’S IT! BASTITCH! THANKS, LOBO! YOU CAN’T CENSOR THIS WILLIS!
I mean, Blaine has no good in-universe reason for being in the story, so he has to have an agenda that motivates him to show up and cause trouble.
Malaya, on the other hand, is around because she’s a student in the same classes and friend groups, so there’s no need to provide her with further motivation. (Mary is the same way. Ryan also, but fuzzier.)
I mean, imagine if Blaine was, like, a janitor for the university and then subtract his motivations. Like, say Amber got a scholarship or something. Then he’d just be this annoying background character making snide shitty-parent remarks in random hallways: equally shitty human, but little to no plot relevance.
Malaya is a jerk to be a jerk. She’s somehow a less interesting Mike. At least his assholeness was eventually couched into pushing people towards improvement. Not a grand quality but he’s a Force ghost now so whatever.
I’d rather see Blaine than Malaya eight days of the week.
She’s probably got a RUTTECH drone in position over Blaine’s van already. All she has to do is give it the command, and it generates a tightly-focused, short-range electro-magnetic pulse that incapacitates the engine.
Carla “recovering” the Amazi-Tracker on Sal’s phone seems like an ample fulfillment of the “tech genius plot device” function for this early in the morning. When did the Amazi-Tracker last show up…?
I expected Sal. I’m delighted that Carla’s with her. They’re just missing Marcie. Hopefully they’ve been sharpening their elbows in practice and smack Blaine around once they catch up.
She probably just tagged along like Malaya, but on the other side.
If Sal’s going to haul all her friends around she might as well get a Goldwing, then there’s plenty of room for everyone. I can’t imagine getting pulled around at 30+ MPH on a skateboard is very stable; one rock or pothole and you’re on a one-way trip to Road Rash City.
You know they could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if they’d just flown there on eagles in the first place.
Or just give the stupid ring to an eagle and have bird drop it in.
I think the point of the Hobbits doing it was they were so small and humble that they could, indeed, “simply walk into Mordor.” If Eagles flew there, they would absolutely draw Sauron’s attention and fail.
If Dorothy ever does run for president, she’d better pick Sarah as a running mate. She passed on more crucial, accurate information in less than twenty words than anyone in the current administration has provided in any number of press conferences and tweets.
I believe the word that fits there would be ‘prosecute’ = “to continue [with a course of action] with a view to its completion”; e.g., “the inability to maintain a steady chain of supply represents a serious threat to the government’s ability to prosecute the war.”
So like Blaine’s already in the next county right? He is gone! So how are they gonna track him in the first place? Also are these the slowest cops ever or what?
It was a partial exaggeration, but I doubt he’s respecting traffic laws and last we saw of his vehicle it was already over the horizon. Sal has a fast bike but finding him in the first place is the issue. Every moment that passes he gets farther away and it’s been at least a few.
A lot of commenters seem to think vehicles can teleport.
“The problem started multiple seconds ago. Why aren’t police on the scene yet!?” and now “Blaine started a van; who can even tell what solar system he’s in by this point?”
The one time in my life I called 911, they didn’t. even. answer. I sat on the phone for at least 5 minutes (based on the timer on my cell, not just that it felt that long) and no one picked up! Thankfully the situation was resolved reasonably peacefully, albeit only after someone got threatened with a tire iron, apparently. (Note, I was witnessing the scene from a distance and did not personally see this part, this was related by another bystander)
He JUST got out of sight. There’s almost no way he’s out of the county YET and if he is that’s MORE reason to follow him so they can report a location to their friends so they don’t just shrug and say ‘Iunno’ when the police get there and want to know where Blaine is.
And the police can’t teleport. They were only called once it looked like Blaine was subdued because that was the earliest time the hostages could call them and AG chose not to when she was freed earlier because she was worried about corrupt cops on the mob’s dime.
I was kinda exaggerating some of my comment for comedic effect. I don’t actually think Blaine is in the next county. I’m more wondering how they are gonna track him since he is out of sight now.
The cops? Eh, I don’t know. My comment was meant to be at their expense but I guess logically it’s been a little bit of time. Dorothy said they’d arrive “shortly” which is vague enough. They did have a whole hostage situation and conversation with Blaine before he escaped but who knows how long that really took. A couple minutes? I’d say at least 60 seconds but it’s still believable cops haven’t shown up yet. This isn’t a story about cops saving the day anyway.
Okay, that’s fair. I didn’t get the comedic effect. That’s my bad.
Yeah, I’ve seen some people wondering with varying degrees of seriousness why the police aren’t here yet – to the point I’ve seen some question whether they were actually called. Sometimes it seems people have high expectations for what emergency vehicles can actually do. When I was younger my mom called an ambulance for me and it took so long even the 911 operator was freaking out going ‘WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY’. Sometimes it really does take quite a bit.
I suspect the mob ties are coming into play, because this IS a bit weird. They are not far from the Bloomington police station itself. They should have been able to get there during the few minutes people were in the basement with Ross.
Apologies if I sound like a Certified Dum-Dum™️, but if this story arc doesn’t end with everyone safe and sound and back at school I will literally run away to the woods and become a forest wizard.
Ugh, do you all KNOW how much money forest wizards make, ugh,…it’s pathetic! You can never buy anything, all you can do is barter for stuff. The city wizards will prank and taunt you if you go into a big town for supplies. Small towns always have bad cross-bred …. whatevers skulking around; halflings, half hobbit x half elf, half orc x human, dragon x Wyvern, borg cross Vorlon…. ok I made that one up, but serzly, Forest wizard is tough work for not much glory. Better to study Sfeer theory at the university.
What I don’t think we’ve seen is Sal and Amazi-Girl together since then. I was kind of hoping we’d get that while Amber and AG still weren’t sharing memories.
Stock exhaust on street bikes can be surprisingly quiet. Even if their attention wasn’t elsewhere, they might not have picked up on it over the commotion.
They probably tuned it out. You learn to tune out loud engine noises in downtown Bloomington….very fast. If it isn’t motorcycles, it’s car club people revving their engines down Walnut and College
The part where the whole dorm doesn’t rally to stop a kidnapping? That’s by far one of the MOST believable parts. I’m actually kind of surprised Malaya bothered to show.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll just drop everything to help stop a kidnapper or whatever. Because that’s realistic.”
“Get real, it’s mid-terms today. And I’m already sleepy, since some loser pulled the fire alarm at 4AM.”
“What do you want me to do, chase down the kidnapper and beat them up? It’s not like I have the training to do anything useful.”
“I barely even know those losers anyway.”
“Someone else will help, try calling the cops.”
Let’s say a virus that is deadly to some people was going around, had already killed more people than major wars and there was a call to wear masks. Everyone would charge over to help right?
“Wearing masks is inconvenient, I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to stay inside!”
“What about my important freedoms?”
“Life free or die! Also, I won’t wear a mask or quarantine.”
“I SAID the people who die are heroes, I did my part.”
Can AG pull it together? I mean, I’m inclined to say yes, based on how effectively she took out Blaine and the damn government agents earlier, but she was exhausted even then. And based on her cartoon head rings, I don’t think she’s up for another thrilling vehicle chase.
“Good; she was trouble. So, is Amber willin’ to do what it takes to save her friends?”
That aside, I think that riding pillion on Sal’s bike is the biggest thrill Carla ever had. Previously, she only dreamed of being cool; now she knows what it feels like!
Carla will be, always is, and always was cool. And she knows it. If she’s dreamed of being cool it was not as a juxtaposition to her normal life, but rather as the development of her next escapades.
Thing about being cool, is that it’s like being the one in the Matrix. You can’t think you are, you just know you are, “balls to bones.” And it’s not something that actually cool people express or worrt about.
I’m still not sure HOW Sal is going to help… Even if she catches up to the van, what do they do next? They can’t physically stop the vehicle (PLEASE don’t try ramming the van with your motorcycle. That can only end badly), so the most they could do is tail it to see where Blaine is going, after which they call the police, but then we’re back to that same “a bunch of black teens are acting suspicious and hassling a white guy!” scenario that Sarah was afraid to get into.
She could jump onto the roof, have a gun/kick-fight with Blaine which causes truck to run off the road with Blaine unconcious on the ground and a victorious Joyce rising from the ruins proclaiming “AGAIN!”
I think Sal is expecting a long chase followed by Amber jumping onto the top of the van from the pillion and somehow disabling it. Or at least something else suitably stereotypically superheroic. However, I’m not sure that is what Willis is aiming for.
FWIW, I’m still thinking that Joyce will be able to save herself (or, at least, make a good enough try to crash the van). My gut makes me feel that Amber will get hurt saving Faz and Joyce from the wreck but that Blaine’s story will end there alongside the superheroic persona that he was a major part of creating.
Joyce being in, apparently, a panic attack is the only reason I think Blaine managed to get her into that van. The bad news is, those can last a while. (Especially since the kidnapping’s only gotten worse and her body’s probably finally catching up with the last four hours.)
If she comes out of it enough, I think she’ll be able to be more trouble than she’s worth to Blaine. But that’s a bit of an ‘if’, right now.
She attacked him and next thing we saw he was heading outside, with her held restrained. I don’t think a panic attack was necessary. He simply overpowered her.
Ballpeen is apparently much more dangerous in a fight than Blaine was, even now that he’s hurt.
Yup. An Amazi-girl phone tracker, specifically. AG installed it when Ryan swiped her phone at the rally fight, then Sal uninstalled after they’d gotten the phone back.
Personally I can’t wait for the inevitable Amber versus Blaine fight scene.
Blaine:”You can’t be me. You’re not ruthless enoughm”
Amber proceeds to break a knee and pummels Blaine to a pulp.
Amber:~breathing hard~ “How’s that? I think that qualifies as fairly ruthless.”
Have you seen the live performance where the producers said they only had 4 minutes to play and wanted them to cut the song down? They just double timed it and fit a 7 minute song into the 4 minutes
Sal, Sarah and Amazi Girl speeding away from the scene of the crime on a bike is hopefully not going to attract any undue police attention before Becky can give the cops the full story?
You won’t need to fear, because those are scheduled until 3rd or 4th year. By which time we will all likely have passed on to that “great web-comic arc in the sky” (or “down below”*, depending on you point of view).
(*) And when I say “down below”, I don’t mean it in the California High Desert sense, meaning “Los Angeles” (although, based on the few times I’ve been there……).
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“It’s the Salvary!”
“that should be cavalry, but with Sal”
“Salvalry?”
“…ok n/m it actually sounds worse that way”
Sal-vation has arrived!
And the theme music is awesome.
Don’t pretend you don’t hear it in your head.
Is it “For the Win” by Two Steps From Hell?
https://youtu.be/rl_ndy61ON4
Here I was thinking this would have been more appropriate, less the facial reconstruction of the MC
https://youtu.be/oNyXYPhnUIs
I’m actually hearing the ‘She-Ra’ theme song in my head for this.
No “running in the 90s”?
“Ca-Sal-ry!”
Sounds too much like “Casualty,” but thanks for contributing.
It may look so, but now I’m curious how you pronounce casualty? Or Sal?
Its part of the Salution to the problem!
It’s so refreshing to see new characters
Not new characters, but, you know what I mean
More characters!
Gently used characters.
Certified Pre-Appeared characters, with extended 3-year, 36,000 mile warranty and run-flats.
Al dente characters
I FREAKING KNEW IT. Cavalry to the rescue.
(OT: Jigglypuff! *hugs it*)
Sal and Amazi-girl… Joining forces one last time to save Joyce
If only Amazigirl were here.
I was thinking of making a joke about Sal being Amazi-Girl, but it’s been simultaneously too many and too few years for that to be funny.
Oh please, don’t refuse the opportunity!
Amber and Amazi-Girl … joining forces the first time to save Joyce!
Sal and Carla to the rescue! Let’s bust the Blaine Beast!
And Malaya!
Dang thing needs an edit tool.
And, for some reason, Malaya.
Seriously, how did they get Malaya involved?
Probably by telling her there was the potential to impress Marcie if she helped put the beatdown on Blaine.
Sal: C’mon, girls, Amazi-Girl needs our help!
Malaya: Pfft. Whatever. I’m out.
Sal: *looks back at her* Fine with me. More people for me to punch.
Malaya: PUNCHING? You shoulda led with that! I’m all in if I get to punch people!
According to the tags Marcie is present. I don’t see her, though. Or Walky either.
Walky’s tagged because he’s the one saying “Sis!” Don’t know about Marcie, though.
She’s the one not saying anything. ;p
Good one.
She’s off panel. They’re going to need more than a motorcycle if the Salvary can catch up with the white van. Not sure if Blaine’s a speeder.
One crime at a time. When you’ve got an unconscious girl in the back of your van, you should scrupulously obey the traffic laws.
Who am I kidding? He’s not that smart.
He’s already up to five crimes at once. Might as well go for a half dozen.
In for a penny in for a pound. Of flesh.
Marcie is no longer tagged, though that doesn’t mean she’s not present, just not in any way involved in this strip itself.
Blaine truly deserves to be defeated by Malaya in the end.
Yes, yes he does.
No, Blaine deserves to be defeated by Faz in the end.
…. maybe they could do a team-up?
That is entirely correct.
…I mean, he deserves to be defeated by explosive diarrhea, but I’ll take what I get.
So a three-way teamup. Blaine gets defeated by Malaya, Faz, and explosive diarrhea.
I’ll just set my bowel disruptor to “unspeakable gut horror”, then .
Malaya probably got woken up at the same time Sal did, since they’re roommates. Once that had happened, why not go see what all the fuss is about and maybe get some ass to kick?
Ngl, I was hoping Ruth would have a femur to brandish.
…clearly I’m not awake enough to recognize Carla… but to be fair, I’m used to her having her hair up. I expect whacky shenanigans powered by tech from her parents’ company.
Yeah to be fair I thought she was Rose at first. Took a bit to process
Did Malaya skitch her way here?
She was hanging onto the back of Sal’s bike.
That’s what skitching is.
It’s like these kids have never played a Tony Hawk game.
There’s a Tony Hawk game where you get to hold onto the back of Sal’s bike?
I never had the game, but I’m told there is a stunt session where you get towed to speed by a bike of some kind and then grab back on between jumps.
Is “McFly” an appropriate synonym, when used as a verb?
I’m not sure they can all fit on Sal’s motorcycle.
Cut AG some slack, she’s still incredibly sleep-deprived and probably coming down off the adrenaline.
I don’t think that was meant as criticism. It was a, “If you’re up for this, you’re invited.”
But AG’s not tagged; this is Amber facing Sal. For Amber this night is basically All the Nightmares and she’s running on several nights of virtually no sleep, at least two major battles’ worth of injuries, and severe emotional trauma. I’m afraid she will fall down in the middle of the street and vapor lock at this point.
Sal doesn’t know that, she just sees the costume. We don’t know if she can tell the difference at a glance yet.
I don’t think Sal even really knows the difference, does she?
Amber said some things during the fight, but there was no sign Sal picked up on it. Or am I forgetting something from afterwards?
I don’t think anyone in universe can tell at a glance. The people who know what’s going on still need to ask who’s driving in situations where it’s not blatantly obvious.
They don’t know to look for cheek blushes?
My point is that I don’t Sal even knows to ask. Unless I’m missing something, Walky’s the only one we know knows for sure. Danny’s been seen struggling with the concept and no one else has shown any awareness of it.
But Amber has been facing Sal quiet a bit, with roller derby practice… I don’t think it’s fair to call Sal a nightmare here.
Yup the girl with a record should definitely enact in vigilantism. This will end well.
And hello Malaya how unpleasant to see you again.
After all the Blaine and Ross in this storyline, even Malaya is a breath of fresh air.
You could make the argument that while Blaine is a shittier person than Malaya, he also causes conflict which makes the comic more interesting to read. Malaya on the other hand is just generally unpleasant but she doesn’t really push the story forward that much.
Blaine is the cartoony manchild villain that should be in prison.
Malaya is just the annoying BONGO, and I am tired of this page censoring the word bongo when it is appropriate to describe bong-FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!! THAT’S IT! BASTITCH! THANKS, LOBO! YOU CAN’T CENSOR THIS WILLIS!
God, I hope he censors it.
But how? Bastongo? Snare drum?
Personally, I lOVE the bongo censor. I pretty much type the word ‘bongo’ just to trigger it.
I just type bongo. Or sometimes “drum”.
I imagine that if I put my creative mind to it I could figure out a work-around, like a intentional misspelling that still conveys the point.
Bee-yatch will probably work.
I mean, Blaine has no good in-universe reason for being in the story, so he has to have an agenda that motivates him to show up and cause trouble.
Malaya, on the other hand, is around because she’s a student in the same classes and friend groups, so there’s no need to provide her with further motivation. (Mary is the same way. Ryan also, but fuzzier.)
I mean, imagine if Blaine was, like, a janitor for the university and then subtract his motivations. Like, say Amber got a scholarship or something. Then he’d just be this annoying background character making snide shitty-parent remarks in random hallways: equally shitty human, but little to no plot relevance.
I feel the exact opposite about Blaine and Malaya.
Malaya is a jerk to be a jerk. She’s somehow a less interesting Mike. At least his assholeness was eventually couched into pushing people towards improvement. Not a grand quality but he’s a Force ghost now so whatever.
I’d rather see Blaine than Malaya eight days of the week.
Walky!verse Mike was an Asshole Sage. This one’s just a dick to be a dick.
Malaya is a jerk because she’s insecure in herself. She puts people down to raise herself up. That won’t work. It just makes her a jerk.
Or you know, just follow Blaine’s van because -a friend of hers got kidnapped- and report his location to the police.
We clearly have been reading two different comics if you think things are going to proceed that logically.
Come on, Carla! It’s time for you to whip out some ultra secret tech device to save the day!
She’s probably got a RUTTECH drone in position over Blaine’s van already. All she has to do is give it the command, and it generates a tightly-focused, short-range electro-magnetic pulse that incapacitates the engine.
She can do the same as in Spiderman Far From Home where Peter accidentally activates a deadly drone.
Attach some kind of Ruttech GPS tracker to the van so they can track it without getting killed.
Or so the EMP drone can follow it autonomously.
It’s… a gun!
If this were RWBY, (sentence intentionally unfinished as an exercise for the reader).
Carla “recovering” the Amazi-Tracker on Sal’s phone seems like an ample fulfillment of the “tech genius plot device” function for this early in the morning. When did the Amazi-Tracker last show up…?
Sal’s motorcycle has a RUTTECH engine. Perhaps Carla knows a secret override that’ll let the bike go faster.
I expected Sal. I’m delighted that Carla’s with her. They’re just missing Marcie. Hopefully they’ve been sharpening their elbows in practice and smack Blaine around once they catch up.
Pretty sure hitting with elbows is actually illegal in roller derby.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
This isn’t roller derby, it’s combat with a supervillain.
Easy to get them confused.
Marcie is actually tagged, even though as far as I can tell we can’t see her.
She probably just tagged along like Malaya, but on the other side.
If Sal’s going to haul all her friends around she might as well get a Goldwing, then there’s plenty of room for everyone. I can’t imagine getting pulled around at 30+ MPH on a skateboard is very stable; one rock or pothole and you’re on a one-way trip to Road Rash City.
Only problem with that, Sal, is AG isn’t listed as being in today’s strip. At this point … can AMBER pull herself together? 🙁
Can Amber and AG pull themselves together?
Although I hope so, I expect not. Not without a lot of therapy.
Hurry, to the Sal-Mobile!
GET 👏 HIS 👏 ASS
The return of Sal/Amazigirl team-up, woo!
THE CAVALRY HAS ARRIVED.
Sarah is ON IT too. You love to see it.
She may deny it publicly, but she’s bought into being Joyce “Big Sis” wholeheartedly. This does not surprise me in the least.
Also, they are the two characters least likely to think the police will be helpful even if they didn’t have Mike’s Corruption on The Force info.
I want that first panel FRAMED. (Also, Carla looks so happy to be riding with Sal, it’s adorable.)
The Carlavery.
Excellent job summing that up, Sarah.
FUCKIN
EAGLES
(😆)
I KNEW I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE THINKING ABOUT TLOTR!
You know they could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if they’d just flown there on eagles in the first place.
Or just give the stupid ring to an eagle and have bird drop it in.
I never thought of that
Why did I never think of that
Proof positive that the ring was influencing your mind just reading about it.
Do you have any idea what an eagle could do with that ring?
It could fly around unseen, dropping basketball-sized eagle shits on people’s cars.
This comment section needs an upvote button 🤣
I think the point of the Hobbits doing it was they were so small and humble that they could, indeed, “simply walk into Mordor.” If Eagles flew there, they would absolutely draw Sauron’s attention and fail.
One does not simply ‘walk’ into Mordor… and if I recall, you cannot telnet into it, either…
No, the Eye of Sauron would have spotted the Eagle and they would have been shot down. The hobbits only managed because they were beneath notice.
Eagles tend to eat their riders, is why.
I’m trying to remember where I saw that….
Carla and Malaya are BOTH gonna be disappointed that the motorcycle only fits two!
…. oh boy, are we gonna get some Malaya character development out of this?
If Dorothy ever does run for president, she’d better pick Sarah as a running mate. She passed on more crucial, accurate information in less than twenty words than anyone in the current administration has provided in any number of press conferences and tweets.
Well, that’s because they’re dishonest. Anybody can do that with one word.
Sarah did better than that.
That is now way to treat kidnap victims, Malaya, but I know you don’t care.
Also, with this starts the second vehicle persecution of DoA, and hopefully there’s no “integrity moment”.
“Persecution”? Voice to text or autocorrect?
Let’s hope they persecute the chase successfully.
I believe the word that fits there would be ‘prosecute’ = “to continue [with a course of action] with a view to its completion”; e.g., “the inability to maintain a steady chain of supply represents a serious threat to the government’s ability to prosecute the war.”
I find the war not guilty.
What are you, a Republican?
Honest, officer. I’ve never publicked before in my life.
That’s Animaniacs-level funny, clif.
How would Malaya know they’re kidnap victims?
Amber told Ruth they were kidnapped, Ruth told them something.
I mean, in complete fairness, she didn’t know they were kidnapping victims yet… but she totally would’ve said the same stuff anyway so
ONWARD NOBLE STEED
(in Eddie Murphy’s voice) — “I hope you heard that. He called me a ‘noble steed’.”
So like Blaine’s already in the next county right? He is gone! So how are they gonna track him in the first place? Also are these the slowest cops ever or what?
I think you are either wildly overestimating how fast Blaine is driving, or wildly underestimating how big counties are.
I’m sure he’s not on a highway yet.
It was a partial exaggeration, but I doubt he’s respecting traffic laws and last we saw of his vehicle it was already over the horizon. Sal has a fast bike but finding him in the first place is the issue. Every moment that passes he gets farther away and it’s been at least a few.
>Blaine gets busted for running a stop sign.
He’s no longer in sight. That probably puts him a few blocks away.
A lot of commenters seem to think vehicles can teleport.
“The problem started multiple seconds ago. Why aren’t police on the scene yet!?” and now “Blaine started a van; who can even tell what solar system he’s in by this point?”
Oh wow, I somehow missed that comment did both at once.
I dunno, cops can’t really be trusted to be where you need them, when you need them
Growing up in Oakland probably has me biased but this response time feels right to me
The tweet’s gone out by now. Who gets there first, the cops or the news?
The cops, because who else will hassle the news crew to move?
Well this comment aged poorly…
The one time in my life I called 911, they didn’t. even. answer. I sat on the phone for at least 5 minutes (based on the timer on my cell, not just that it felt that long) and no one picked up! Thankfully the situation was resolved reasonably peacefully, albeit only after someone got threatened with a tire iron, apparently. (Note, I was witnessing the scene from a distance and did not personally see this part, this was related by another bystander)
He JUST got out of sight. There’s almost no way he’s out of the county YET and if he is that’s MORE reason to follow him so they can report a location to their friends so they don’t just shrug and say ‘Iunno’ when the police get there and want to know where Blaine is.
And the police can’t teleport. They were only called once it looked like Blaine was subdued because that was the earliest time the hostages could call them and AG chose not to when she was freed earlier because she was worried about corrupt cops on the mob’s dime.
I was kinda exaggerating some of my comment for comedic effect. I don’t actually think Blaine is in the next county. I’m more wondering how they are gonna track him since he is out of sight now.
The cops? Eh, I don’t know. My comment was meant to be at their expense but I guess logically it’s been a little bit of time. Dorothy said they’d arrive “shortly” which is vague enough. They did have a whole hostage situation and conversation with Blaine before he escaped but who knows how long that really took. A couple minutes? I’d say at least 60 seconds but it’s still believable cops haven’t shown up yet. This isn’t a story about cops saving the day anyway.
Okay, that’s fair. I didn’t get the comedic effect. That’s my bad.
Yeah, I’ve seen some people wondering with varying degrees of seriousness why the police aren’t here yet – to the point I’ve seen some question whether they were actually called. Sometimes it seems people have high expectations for what emergency vehicles can actually do. When I was younger my mom called an ambulance for me and it took so long even the 911 operator was freaking out going ‘WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY’. Sometimes it really does take quite a bit.
I suspect the mob ties are coming into play, because this IS a bit weird. They are not far from the Bloomington police station itself. They should have been able to get there during the few minutes people were in the basement with Ross.
Hot damn, Sarah wasted no time on this one
Little Sis is in Danger, Big Sis doesn’t fuck around.
Finally someone who summarizes fast. So many usually just waste time.
Ask, it doesn’t get done.
Apologies if I sound like a Certified Dum-Dum™️, but if this story arc doesn’t end with everyone safe and sound and back at school I will literally run away to the woods and become a forest wizard.
That’s an awesome life plan, you should do that anyway.
I mean, really!
Even if it does end with everyone safe, becoming a forest wizard sounds badass anyway.
Ugh, do you all KNOW how much money forest wizards make, ugh,…it’s pathetic! You can never buy anything, all you can do is barter for stuff. The city wizards will prank and taunt you if you go into a big town for supplies. Small towns always have bad cross-bred …. whatevers skulking around; halflings, half hobbit x half elf, half orc x human, dragon x Wyvern, borg cross Vorlon…. ok I made that one up, but serzly, Forest wizard is tough work for not much glory. Better to study Sfeer theory at the university.
I don’t know what the alt-text is referring to.
Neither do I, really. I just chose to assume it’s a rendering of the awesome theme music playing in the background.
It fits the music hit from the Transformers animated series, which is on-brand. Maybe we’re due for a scene change?
Look how happy Carla is!
She’s hanging out with Malaya, hanging onto Sal, while the throb of a powerful Ruttech engine shakes between her legs. What’s not to be happy?
No Asher? Still a piece of shit, then.
How dare he be blackmailed for going to school on “borrowed” mob money?
Oh, I’m still calling him a piece of shit for narking on Sal all those years back.
This was, however, a chance for redemption that he didn’t take.
I doubt Blaine told him the entire plan, given how he didn’t want to participate even before he got any intructions
I don’t think he knows enough about what’s going on to have a chance at redemption. And: storyline’s not over yet.
I doubt Asher has any idea what’s even going on.
So this is Amber, not Amazi-Girl. I know Sal and AG had been hanging out, but does Amber know? Did Amber ever reconcile with Sal? I forget.
Pretty sure Amber is the one who joined the Roller Derby team, so yes. 🙂 I’m going off the “My social batter is nearly empt…*phone*”
Sal and Amber fought, then made peace, back in Flyin’ to the Red. We’ve seen them cooperate at least a couple times since then.
What I don’t think we’ve seen is Sal and Amazi-Girl together since then. I was kind of hoping we’d get that while Amber and AG still weren’t sharing memories.
Amber: “No, no I cannot.”
Ok seriously… How did no one hear a motorbike…
They couldn’t hear it over the awesome theme music.
Stock exhaust on street bikes can be surprisingly quiet. Even if their attention wasn’t elsewhere, they might not have picked up on it over the commotion.
They probably tuned it out. You learn to tune out loud engine noises in downtown Bloomington….very fast. If it isn’t motorcycles, it’s car club people revving their engines down Walnut and College
So. Amber tells Sal “there’s a kidnap, tell everyone!” – and this is the lame response team?
Dammit, I meant “tells Ruth”
Were was the part where she said “tell everyone,” again?
Plus really, do we NEED anybody else?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/unaccounted/
So she did. Thank you.
The part where the whole dorm doesn’t rally to stop a kidnapping? That’s by far one of the MOST believable parts. I’m actually kind of surprised Malaya bothered to show.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll just drop everything to help stop a kidnapper or whatever. Because that’s realistic.”
“Get real, it’s mid-terms today. And I’m already sleepy, since some loser pulled the fire alarm at 4AM.”
“What do you want me to do, chase down the kidnapper and beat them up? It’s not like I have the training to do anything useful.”
“I barely even know those losers anyway.”
“Someone else will help, try calling the cops.”
Let’s say a virus that is deadly to some people was going around, had already killed more people than major wars and there was a call to wear masks. Everyone would charge over to help right?
“Wearing masks is inconvenient, I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to stay inside!”
“What about my important freedoms?”
“Life free or die! Also, I won’t wear a mask or quarantine.”
“I SAID the people who die are heroes, I did my part.”
Everyone knows evil is no match for a bunch of plucky kids!
Can AG pull it together? I mean, I’m inclined to say yes, based on how effectively she took out Blaine and the damn government agents earlier, but she was exhausted even then. And based on her cartoon head rings, I don’t think she’s up for another thrilling vehicle chase.
Look at that grin on Carla. She’s absolutely thrilled to be on that bike.
OK, Gang…. let’s go fuck-up a killer who… happens to be… Amber’s… dad…
(Salvador!)
CALLED IT
g-grappling hook?
I was kinda hoping Ruth would be with them.
“Sal… I don’t know if I am Amazi-Girl anymore.”
“Good; she was trouble. So, is Amber willin’ to do what it takes to save her friends?”
That aside, I think that riding pillion on Sal’s bike is the biggest thrill Carla ever had. Previously, she only dreamed of being cool; now she knows what it feels like!
Carla will be, always is, and always was cool. And she knows it. If she’s dreamed of being cool it was not as a juxtaposition to her normal life, but rather as the development of her next escapades.
Thing about being cool, is that it’s like being the one in the Matrix. You can’t think you are, you just know you are, “balls to bones.” And it’s not something that actually cool people express or worrt about.
That’s one hell of a sentence to unpack, Sarah.
SAL YOU’RE A BEAUTY!
“DA DAH DAAAAAA”….. With apologies to Walter Schumann!
I’m still not sure HOW Sal is going to help… Even if she catches up to the van, what do they do next? They can’t physically stop the vehicle (PLEASE don’t try ramming the van with your motorcycle. That can only end badly), so the most they could do is tail it to see where Blaine is going, after which they call the police, but then we’re back to that same “a bunch of black teens are acting suspicious and hassling a white guy!” scenario that Sarah was afraid to get into.
She could jump onto the roof, have a gun/kick-fight with Blaine which causes truck to run off the road with Blaine unconcious on the ground and a victorious Joyce rising from the ruins proclaiming “AGAIN!”
…just spittballing here
I think Sal is expecting a long chase followed by Amber jumping onto the top of the van from the pillion and somehow disabling it. Or at least something else suitably stereotypically superheroic. However, I’m not sure that is what Willis is aiming for.
FWIW, I’m still thinking that Joyce will be able to save herself (or, at least, make a good enough try to crash the van). My gut makes me feel that Amber will get hurt saving Faz and Joyce from the wreck but that Blaine’s story will end there alongside the superheroic persona that he was a major part of creating.
Joyce being in, apparently, a panic attack is the only reason I think Blaine managed to get her into that van. The bad news is, those can last a while. (Especially since the kidnapping’s only gotten worse and her body’s probably finally catching up with the last four hours.)
If she comes out of it enough, I think she’ll be able to be more trouble than she’s worth to Blaine. But that’s a bit of an ‘if’, right now.
She attacked him and next thing we saw he was heading outside, with her held restrained. I don’t think a panic attack was necessary. He simply overpowered her.
Ballpeen is apparently much more dangerous in a fight than Blaine was, even now that he’s hurt.
Maybe Carla disables the van’s ECU with some kind of EMP gadget?
She wants to make the van pollute more?
Disabling the engine computer would make the van stop polluting entirely.
I have just noticed how much I missed Sal. Nice to see Carla, too. I hope she gets to be in the action.
And then Amber fucking collapses because she’s too physically exhausted to do anything else.
Carla’s just happy to be here.
Carla, when this is over, here’s a superhero in need of tech. You know what to do!
Stsrts playing epic Back t9cthe Future chase type theme music.
Amazigirl:”When we hit 88 miles an hour you’re going to see some serious shit.”
Sal’s phone had an Amazi-girl tracker?
Yup. An Amazi-girl phone tracker, specifically. AG installed it when Ryan swiped her phone at the rally fight, then Sal uninstalled after they’d gotten the phone back.
Personally I can’t wait for the inevitable Amber versus Blaine fight scene.
Blaine:”You can’t be me. You’re not ruthless enoughm”
Amber proceeds to break a knee and pummels Blaine to a pulp.
Amber:~breathing hard~ “How’s that? I think that qualifies as fairly ruthless.”
No no, to be Ruthless you need to remove a femur.
Well, since Ruth isn’t likely to be at the fight they’d be utterly Ruth-less.
Well, Ruth told them what was going on, so while they’re Ruth-less, they’re not Ruth-less enough.
“Ah, heck” is a remarkably restrained reaction to this.
they’re test-marketing DOA for the Nickelodeon audience
Sal, for all of her ‘cool rebel’ image, actually doesn’t cuss that much.
Besides, it’s not like it’s the FIRST time she’s been recruited to chase down a kidnapping dad on her motorcycle. Second time’s just not as exciting.
May I nominate Hocus Pocus by Focus as the soundtrack for the ensuing chase https://youtu.be/nj2vhFJDLKo
This song is even more hilarious if you play it 1.5x the speed. I love it so much.
Have you seen the live performance where the producers said they only had 4 minutes to play and wanted them to cut the song down? They just double timed it and fit a 7 minute song into the 4 minutes
This one, where the lead singer looks like George Carlin in his heavy drug years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDW9b_ejfI
Ah, the seventies. So much good music, so much chemical creativity aid.
That crazy Thijs Van Leer!
That’s my favorite version!
That’s not Faz and Joyce! That’s not Faz and Joyce at all!
Did Malaya skitch on Sals bike?
Fuck yeah!
I nominate this for chase theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ8_Gp5tNjw
HOORAY!!!!!+!
The only true relatable help♡! And now I think at Malaya going on the skateboard holding on to Sal’s motorcycle .
Thanks Malaya, bye Malaya.
Yes! It’s not exactly the motorized cavalry, more of a wheeled cavalry. They’ll still catch up to Blaine though.
I’m surprised Malaya tagged along, maybe she was bored?
Marcie came along, so of course Malaya did.
I didn’t notice the Marcie tag. Heck I don’t see her at all.
Blaine’s gonna be in a full derby team of pain then.
“Ah, heck.”
My god what is your life even like?
If it wasn’t such a spoiler, I’d say that Sarah’s dialogue in panel 4 would be a great Book 10 title.
Carla looks so CUTE with that big smile!
Honestly, I hope Amber can say “No, I’m exhausted and at the end of my limits. However, I trust you to get her back.”
I also hope that Amber powers up and teams up with Sal to kick her dad’s butt, so I have multiple win conditions.
I KNEW Ruth would not be happy just being brushed away.
I like Sarah. “Exposition can wait, here’s what you actually need to know, go!”
Sal, Sarah and Amazi Girl speeding away from the scene of the crime on a bike is hopefully not going to attract any undue police attention before Becky can give the cops the full story?
Last time around, Amazi-Girl riding a skateboard behind the car didn’t attract any attention even when she tried to wave them down.
Is the rollover text supposed to be the Zelda Item Get jingle? I can’t figure out anything else with that timing.
TEAM-UP…
again…
Still hype tho
I wonder who Malaya was expecting instead?
those crotch rocket motorcycles are actually pretty quiet, it’s Harleys that are stereo-typically loud.
Good golly … is it even Thanksgiving Break yet?
If this is only first semester of freshman year, what the hell else can happen? Thermonuclear war between dorm buildings?
You won’t need to fear, because those are scheduled until 3rd or 4th year. By which time we will all likely have passed on to that “great web-comic arc in the sky” (or “down below”*, depending on you point of view).
(*) And when I say “down below”, I don’t mean it in the California High Desert sense, meaning “Los Angeles” (although, based on the few times I’ve been there……).
“Good golly … is it even Thanksgiving Break yet?” BTW, Great DOA Book Name idea!!!
And one more and then I will melt away…. I’m about 60 miles from Alan in DC. I’ll stop now.
“Ah, heck. [Another Typical Tuesday.]”