No, ULTIMATE Mike would be he inexplicably, impossibly wakes up after ten years in a coma, and proceeds to troll all his former friends in their post-college lives.
“Hey, Joyce – or should I say ‘Mrs Rozenthal’? Didn’t take YOU long to move on, did it?”
Veering dangerously into territory I’m only allowed in Fantasy Land, in the dead of night with the lights off.
Let’s return to IRL and have Greta Th. be in charge off the Natural Guard.
Man, I honestly do sorta think about dying a martyr just to spite people who talk trash about me.
“That yoto is a perverted asshole”.
“Oh yeah, well he died saving orphans from a burning building and donated all of his life savings to charity.” ”
“But he was such a dick to me online”
“Yeah but he was like donating to caused and battling his inner demons. He was a saint”
God that’d be good revenge.
Becky: He trolled her
Hank: He liked fishing?
Becky: He was kinda like an edgelord jackass
Hank: He liked extreme sport with donkies?
Becky: Totally lit. Extreme kleenex
Hank: I know words…
Our Edgelord, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy spite
Give us this day, our daily troll
And rib us for our trespasses
As we rib those who trespass against us
And lead us not into boredom
But deliver us from complacency
For thine is the anger, and the contempt, and the spite forever,
Amen.
Thing is, while Mike could be an asshole, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make a nasty remark that wasn’t also a genuine criticism of a someone’s personal failing. He would point out flaws or bad habits that, if they were addressed, would make people better off for having addressed them.
He was a huge dick about it, but I wonder if on some level he was also trying to point out shortcomings to people so that they could deal with them. Maybe he wasn’t even aware of it, but maybe he hurt because, deep down, he cared.
I mean, aside from all the mom-fucking cracks, obviously.
He routinely plays on people’s insecurities, not just “personal failings” but percieved personal failings. Remember the time he took photos of Dorothy and Walky in bed together and pretended to extort her? Or literally all of his interactions with Ethan?
I think that was a jab to try to drag Ethan out of his funk in a way, though. ‘Just imagine, if only you pretended to be straight, you could still be in a sham relationship with Amber.’ But Ethan was too ‘oh yes, that logic makes perfect sense!’ to pierce the veil of sarcasm.
Did Pandora not deserve her wisdom because no-one was willing to listen?
The title of sage is bequethed not because people listen, but because the teacher has knowledge that they shared. The problem is that people don’t listen (see the Oatmeal: Backfire Effect). Mike is undoubtedly aware of this. Given his flashback nice guy representation, it’s possible the asshole is the affectation out of frustration that people ignore the truth when presented with it. I think his realization before the railing was possible in part because he genuinely cares for people, and he could see he had been taking his affectation too far.
But his supposed wisdom comes from his ability to read people and figure them out and if he can’t see how his closest thing to a friend will react, he’s got none of it.
I’d read the realization more as “I’ve been using it as an excuse, like abusers do.”
All of this. If he DIDN’T intend to encourage Ethan back into the closet, if he DIDN’T intend to seriously aggravate Amber’s self-loathing on multiple occasions (and uh, he did,) and he’s saying it anyway? Then no, he’s not an asshole sage, because he fundamentally cannot read people in his assholery to HAVE positive effects. He’s just an asshole, because intent is not magic and his actions have done real harm. (Note that Walky has some distinct toxic masculinity issues, like with the shoe. You really think Mike recording him crying and showing it to people – for any reason? – would have a POSITIVE impact on those, or cause him to double down.)
(I do tend to lean that Mike severely underestimated how bad being in a car all day with Blaine would be for Amber relative to her anxiety being on a bus. And like, NO ONE could foresee just how bad that one would have ended up. But a Mike that could accurately read ‘Blaine driving Amber all day under threat of repercussions, even with Ethan there with her, would lead to Blaine taking all his resentment out on Amber through his usual verbal abuse’ and did it anyway? Isn’t just an asshole, that’s flat-out monstrously cruel.)
I’m with thejeff, the realization wasn’t just ‘I’ve been mistreating my friends,’ it’s ‘I’m treating them exactly like Amber’s abusive dad does, with exactly the same justification. Do I really want to be THAT guy?’
Pranks, but also revenge, if only for Walky’s farts. (Though in that one confirmed case, he could spin it as trying to break Walky and Dorothy up for Dorothy’s own good.)
He beat up Joe, and I mean repeatedly punched Joe in the head/FAAAAAAAAACE area, while Joe was on his date with Joyce. At one point, he cites that utterly false claim that men think about sex every six seconds to justify pounding the snot out of someone who, while having some sleazy motives, had in no way earned a continuous beating. That wasn’t him trying to point out Joe’s failings, that was him just beating someone up for no reason.
Hank: Oh he teased you?
Joyce: Dad, no, not like that.
Becky: Yeah, I’m the one doing that.
Joyce: and Joe.
Becky: and Walky, come to think of it.
Joyce: What?
Walky: What?
Hank: I see…
Hank’s growth is in some ways inspired by need rather than choice. Few people go out and challenge their beliefs to see if they need to grow. Hank is accepting of his kids because he places his love of them over the status quo of his world-view. If he needed to learn to understand poly relationships I have little doubt he would do so. Would it be easy or quick? No, obviously not. But I have zero doubts that he would work on it as long as it took and would still love his children regardless of the cost to hisself.
I bedoubt me much that Mike will be assumed into Heaven to become the Cult figurehead for The Willis Above. Our Willis is a merciful Willis, ….haha haha, …. crap, I woke up the dog.
Yeah, and the whole “substitutary sacrifice” thing. Good’s omnipotent, he obviously doesn’t have to sacrifice himself to himself to appease his own anger. The Incarnation and Passion were to make us repent, i.e. feel that we are undeserving pieces of shit. It’s very Mike.
can I just say im very tired of becky at this point, she barely had any interaction with mike at all and for the most part they werent enough to say much about anyone and I dislike her believing Robins a bad politician at this point when everything shes done after the scandal has been reformative if not advantageous for becky herself
Becky didn’t interact with Mike much (outside the Joyce party invite I can’t think of one time they spoke). But she does talk to Joyce and her friends… If Mike was treating THEM badly, I think that might give Becky some reason to see Mike in a bad light, even if she didn’t get personally trolled.
Not that there aren’t other reasons not to like becky.
Joyce has gone through a lot of changes since that first day in the dorm, but still, old habits die hard. So when does Joyce’s old schooling kick in and she suggests that they … oh, I dunno … maybe actually PRAY for Mike?
She might have checked out the research and discovered that sick and injured people who are prayed for have worse outcomes than matched controls in randomised studies. (But not when the studies are blind….)
I question your data. Published results on such studies have been all over the place. And almost all of them are subject to some form of criticism. Is a study double blind when the person doing the praying must know which group the person prayed for is in? Is your control group a valid control group if their friends and family are praying for them and contaminating the results? And how would you go about preventing that in a double blind study? Is there an implicit bias in assuming that prayers of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Nudists, Pagens, and Atheists are equally effectatious. If the power of prayer depends on the strength of individual faith, how do you control for that?
If you ignore such questions and simply combine the results of published studies between 1955 and 2010 there is a beneficial effect at the edge of statistical significance. The combined data shows evidence of both the Hawthorne and Rosenthal effects (when patients knew a such a test was being conducted but not which group, the outcomes were better, and even double-blind experiments have a statistically significant tendency to have outcomes that reflect the expectations of those setting the experiment up.) The strongest evidence was from a relatively large triple-blind test (the persons doing the praying were physically distant from the patient and knew the patients identity only indirectly) however the very same researchers were unable to replicate the results in a follow up test. Eliminating the studies with problematic procedures or invalid statistical techniques (a surprisingly high number for published work) left 23 studies, 12 of which showed net positive outcomes, 2 showed net negative outcomes, and 9 no significant differences between the two groups.
I’m sure there have been studies since I last read up on this.
Nudists should have been Buddhists. I *think* I currently have spell correct turned off, so I have no idea where that came from. I call devine intervention.
Mike is like a White Hat Hacker for your personality. He’ll tease you about your own failings in the hope you get better… But he’s also doing it so you don’t get too close.
Mike would save the world just to make people be angry about him being the savior and not someone more likable.
Mike: “I am dying without regrets, and without integrity. I will make you all feel confused about why I saved you all, and that will be my ultimate masterpiece.”
……..gee, maybe she’s trying to do that but is conflicted? What about that panel makes you think she’s looking for someone else to tell her with to think?
Mike’s an edgelord asshole supreme… who risked his life and ended up in a coma in order to protect her and her friends. That’s going to leave anyone a fair bit conflicted.
Basically. She does come from a very black-and-white moral background, and the fact that people can be complicated is one of the ones she’s having to adjust to. I mean, everyone know you’re supposed to hate Nazis and puppy-kickers, that one’s not hard. But then, when you’re a Christian you’re supposed to love your neighbors and your fellow Christians, but when one of your fellow Christian neighbors is Mary…
Among the many things Joyce has lost in the past few weeks (her time, not ours) is certainty, and that may be the most destabilizing of all. In high-stress times, it would be nice to revert to — but with Mike, she can’t. It would be nice if someone could just show up and tell her how to feel, but she knows that’s not going to happen (though Hank may try next strip). Not that I think she’s literally hoping for someone to do that, but it plays a part. “What am I supposed to think about x?” It’s a lot harder out of the abstract. She has to apply morality (for lack of a better way of putting it) to someone she knows; that’s complicated.
Whether she phrases it “What I’m supposed to think” or “What I should think,” it’s still sort of an appeal to authority — which could get two very different answers: “Here’s what you should think about it,” and “You should think about it (and discover what you think, and thus what you believe, morally).”
Damn, no edit function… Meant to add that the fact that “supposed” is bolded is why I considered the possibility it might be more than just a figure of speech.
Honestly, I really wondering how Walky feels about the whole situation, now that he won’t have a roommate. (He won’t be given all A’s if Mike dies, that’s a myth.)
(I’m also wondering when Masturbating Girl from the Slipshine ad shows up. Didn’t Willis promise she’d show up in a bit role? Did I miss her already?)
It’s definitely a little off-putting, but he’s in a state where he’s not guaranteed to come out okay on the other side; talking about him as if nothing was wrong could end up looking flippant or facetious at best, and utterly shitty at worst. Nobody wants to be the one who said “maybe it’d be better if he stayed like that for a while”, even as a joke, and then find out he passed away.
It could also be folks trying to reassure themselves about him, remembering that in spite of his awful behaviour (and how he’d probably be making off-colour jokes if someone else was in that bed instead of him), there was still some good to him.
The best thing to say is “feelings are complicated”
Amber talking like that is her guilt acting up. Everyone else is just how everyone is kind “dealing” with it. He’s in a coma and frankly it’s entirely possible he may never awaken. While it is not an optimistic viewpoint, for all intents and purposes he is effectively dead until he wakes up.
Both of the above. When Linda pointed out Blaine might have killed Mike, she was not remotely wrong (on that point, for once). No one knows if or when he’s waking up, no one knows what state he’ll be in if he does. And given how Mike was, in fact, a raging asshole to everyone around him, that means a lot of processing how the fuck to feel about him if he DOES die, particularly given his last conscious acts were putting himself in harm’s way to protect people.
Doesn’t bother me. In most of their minds, they are uncertain if Mike will come back from this. They are processing their thoughts on who Mike was and what knowledge they have of him because it is possible there may never be (in their minds) any further input by him that can change things further. They are solidifying their opinions of him for the case that he never comes back from this.
I think that Willis did a good job in this strip of summarising the entire mystery and paradox that is Mike Warner with remarkable efficiency. Also, I do wonder if, in a bizarre manner, what Mike did was a way of showing affection. He’d just never got past the ‘shoving, throwing things and pulling pigtails’ stage.
Interesting to note that almost all of Hank’s solo panels since splitting with Carol have been outside of the panel walls, floating loose in the alpha channel behind the rest of the comic. Plus Joyce gets the same treatment this time when she starts introspecting. It’s such a cool yet subtle effect.
I relate to Mike a bit. I don’t trust people. Not gonna whinge about it, just how I am. But I still think that there’s decency to be found, right alongside all the fuckery. It leads me to be quite a… optimistic cynic, I suppose.
I find a lot of fun in messing with people. Word play, jackassery, that sort of edgelord nonsense. I do it, as I said, because I find it fun. I also do it because it keeps people at an arm’s length, which is only just shy of where I’d like them to keep the minimum distance.
Unfortunately, I also feel the need to be better. Not better than other people, I’m no different from anyone else, better than who I am. Better than who I was. I hate myself of today only slightly less than that version of me that was here yesterday.
So I donate to charity. I help the homeless. I enlist. I help those unfortunate bastards who think being my friend was a good idea. I stand by my family. God it’s fucking hard, especially when all I want to do is suckstart a shotgun. But I do it. Because those are the right things to do.
But I hate, more than anything, people who demand praise because they’re doing the things that people say make you a good person. The type to post selfies of giving change to a homeless man on the street. So I don’t talk about it. I actually wish I could be totally anonymous when I work at a homeless shelter. I also don’t like it when people find out that I do “good” things, because it often leads to attention I never asked for, and runs the risk of acquiring more friends.
So I keep people guessing. I help, then I spew some acrid comment so no one feels too grateful for my liking. I pick a drunk friend up and get them home, while calling em a stupid bastard for waiting as long as they did. I don’t want people to think I’m good, because I’m not. I’m as shit as the rest of humanity. I’m just trying, and effort is not result.
I have avoided any and all chances to work at a homeless shelter, because I find performative gratitude to be embarrassing and awful and it makes me want to run away… and sincere gratitude is even worse.
I’m able to justify it because it’s something important that almost constantly needs bodies. Thankfully not every job is customer facing. See if your local shelter has any need for people to sort clothing or prepare food. Specify that you want to remain behind the scenes, if ya want.
It occurs to me that Hank is another character who has been brushing up against the Fourth Wall of late. After all, is Joyce/Mike not a popular fringe ship in this fandom? Heck, I considered having Joyce married to him in the ’10 Years On’ fan-fiction I recently published!
I mean, I love Mike as a character, but in order to have any chance of a good solid relationship with him, you’d have to start out with Amber levels of twistedness.
Mike clearly has his issues he needs to work out, if the flashback with Amber’s dad where he says no one is worthy is anything to go by. But he also seems to still be capable of genuine affection, even if he is currently unwilling to show it. His time with Ethan, his last words to Amber. I can’t help but hope that some incarnation of him, especially this one, still young and with a full future, is able to make peace with himself and with humanity.
If that results in him being able to find a person, or persons, he wants to be with romantically, good on him. If not, whatever. I do think it’s not a romantic partner’s job to fix their partner, which unrelatedly is why I tend to steer clear of relationships myself. I worry a lot of Joyce/Mike shippers have that “redemption through love” thing in mind. It wouldn’t be out of character for her either, that’s part of the problem.
That theory doesn’t really pull in his realization a few moments before how much his reasons sounded like Blaine’s. Not surprising, since I don’t think anyone knows about it.
So many bad people find outlets for their softer side that it’s almost a surprise to find someone like Dylann Roof who seems not to have a revealed softer side.
Not sure I’d use that softness to over-ride their signature nastiness though.
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the ultimate troll, the Heel Face Turn
Hell Face Heel Face Who The Fuck Knows Anymore.
There are no heels or faces. There’s just “Who is the bigger asshole today?”
Mike is all about being aware of that, and reminding everyone of their potential to be assholes… Including (especially) himself.
It’s just that there are levels of assholery far beyond Mike’s, (such as the late Blaine & ToeDad)
Not really a Heel Face Turn. He’s still on the same side, but shows his emotions a different way from normal people.
A heel can team up with a face and still be a heel. A heel can thrown down against a bigger heel and still be a heel. Doesn’t have to be a face turn.
(“throw” not “thrown”)
(Insert Joker “Very poor choice of words” gif here)
It could also be a Hazy Feel Turn.
The Heel Face Moebius
He’d do it. You know he’d do it.
That would be pretty much ultimate Mike.
No, ULTIMATE Mike would be he inexplicably, impossibly wakes up after ten years in a coma, and proceeds to troll all his former friends in their post-college lives.
“Hey, Joyce – or should I say ‘Mrs Rozenthal’? Didn’t take YOU long to move on, did it?”
He doesn’t verify all these little digs, yet somehow they’re all completely accurate.
Mike “Hey, can we go up another landing? I’m afraid if I fall from here I’ll just break a leg. Thank you for your patience.”
Good ol’ Chaotic Neutral. Always leave ’em guessing.
Do the right thing while still being a jerk? Total power Mike move.
Yeah. He’d do it. Even if he was also trying to be better, or was better. he’d totally pull that power play too.
Oh shit Mike, that’s the move.
I think it’s fair and maybe even most appropriate to have a casual indifference. It’s what Mike deserves. Rest in meh, Mike. Rest in meh.
Legendary trolling. I believe it.
I love how Joyce and Becky just sum up Mike’s entire personality
Mike would absolutely 100% do that and I don’t know how to feel about it.
…You know what? That theory in the last panel. That’s probably canon
I’m Opus the Poet, and I endorse this message.
Paid for by the Opus for County dog catcher committee and the Natural Guard.
If it didn’t take any effort, I would absolutely go out and try to recruit 18 year olds for the Natural Guard.
Not to be confused with the Au Natural Guard.
Veering dangerously into territory I’m only allowed in Fantasy Land, in the dead of night with the lights off.
Let’s return to IRL and have Greta Th. be in charge off the Natural Guard.
All in favor of renaming the National Park Service Rangers to the Natural Guard?
If you are recruiting for that, I strongly suggest you make sure they are at least 18.
It’s in-comic. It’s canon until Mike denies it.
Especially if Mike denies it.
I am literally laughing out loud.
Man, I honestly do sorta think about dying a martyr just to spite people who talk trash about me.
“That yoto is a perverted asshole”.
“Oh yeah, well he died saving orphans from a burning building and donated all of his life savings to charity.” ”
“But he was such a dick to me online”
“Yeah but he was like donating to caused and battling his inner demons. He was a saint”
God that’d be good revenge.
Maybe, but being a surviving and successful perverted asshole is even better.
I’ll probably never be successful. I’d much rather be content.
Being content can be its own form of success. There are just, you know, some things we shouldn’t be content with.
Becky: He trolled her
Hank: He liked fishing?
Becky: He was kinda like an edgelord jackass
Hank: He liked extreme sport with donkies?
Becky: Totally lit. Extreme kleenex
Hank: I know words…
Ooh! Mike Warner, Christ-like figure!
Go yea and model your life upon him.
And let ye who is without mother, cast the first nickel.
Our Edgelord, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy spite
Give us this day, our daily troll
And rib us for our trespasses
As we rib those who trespass against us
And lead us not into boredom
But deliver us from complacency
For thine is the anger, and the contempt, and the spite forever,
Amen.
This was beautiful.
I mean, none of those options are mutually exclusive.
Fair point.
Thing is, while Mike could be an asshole, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make a nasty remark that wasn’t also a genuine criticism of a someone’s personal failing. He would point out flaws or bad habits that, if they were addressed, would make people better off for having addressed them.
He was a huge dick about it, but I wonder if on some level he was also trying to point out shortcomings to people so that they could deal with them. Maybe he wasn’t even aware of it, but maybe he hurt because, deep down, he cared.
I mean, aside from all the mom-fucking cracks, obviously.
He routinely plays on people’s insecurities, not just “personal failings” but percieved personal failings. Remember the time he took photos of Dorothy and Walky in bed together and pretended to extort her? Or literally all of his interactions with Ethan?
Like how he told Ethan to pretend to be straight just to be happy.
I think that was a jab to try to drag Ethan out of his funk in a way, though. ‘Just imagine, if only you pretended to be straight, you could still be in a sham relationship with Amber.’ But Ethan was too ‘oh yes, that logic makes perfect sense!’ to pierce the veil of sarcasm.
Maybe, but if he can misread his closest friend that badly, he doesn’t deserve his asshole sage rep.
It’s always the other person’s fault if they don’t improve from whatever bullshit Mike spews.
Did Pandora not deserve her wisdom because no-one was willing to listen?
The title of sage is bequethed not because people listen, but because the teacher has knowledge that they shared. The problem is that people don’t listen (see the Oatmeal: Backfire Effect). Mike is undoubtedly aware of this. Given his flashback nice guy representation, it’s possible the asshole is the affectation out of frustration that people ignore the truth when presented with it. I think his realization before the railing was possible in part because he genuinely cares for people, and he could see he had been taking his affectation too far.
But his supposed wisdom comes from his ability to read people and figure them out and if he can’t see how his closest thing to a friend will react, he’s got none of it.
I’d read the realization more as “I’ve been using it as an excuse, like abusers do.”
All of this. If he DIDN’T intend to encourage Ethan back into the closet, if he DIDN’T intend to seriously aggravate Amber’s self-loathing on multiple occasions (and uh, he did,) and he’s saying it anyway? Then no, he’s not an asshole sage, because he fundamentally cannot read people in his assholery to HAVE positive effects. He’s just an asshole, because intent is not magic and his actions have done real harm. (Note that Walky has some distinct toxic masculinity issues, like with the shoe. You really think Mike recording him crying and showing it to people – for any reason? – would have a POSITIVE impact on those, or cause him to double down.)
(I do tend to lean that Mike severely underestimated how bad being in a car all day with Blaine would be for Amber relative to her anxiety being on a bus. And like, NO ONE could foresee just how bad that one would have ended up. But a Mike that could accurately read ‘Blaine driving Amber all day under threat of repercussions, even with Ethan there with her, would lead to Blaine taking all his resentment out on Amber through his usual verbal abuse’ and did it anyway? Isn’t just an asshole, that’s flat-out monstrously cruel.)
I’m with thejeff, the realization wasn’t just ‘I’ve been mistreating my friends,’ it’s ‘I’m treating them exactly like Amber’s abusive dad does, with exactly the same justification. Do I really want to be THAT guy?’
He put his textbook’s in Walky’s backpack for the hell of it.
I think there was something where he made a fake website to make Walky think a show had been canceled.
And recorded Walky crying or something.
Sometimes he did things that could be “dark mirror”, and sometimes he was just an asshole.
And as his conversation with Sarah reveals, he is aware he can get away with awful stuff because of white privilege.
Well… the Walky stuff *could* be (if you squint) just standard roommate hijinks/pranks. I mean, low-hanging fruit, with Walky, sometimes.
Pranks, but also revenge, if only for Walky’s farts. (Though in that one confirmed case, he could spin it as trying to break Walky and Dorothy up for Dorothy’s own good.)
He beat up Joe, and I mean repeatedly punched Joe in the head/FAAAAAAAAACE area, while Joe was on his date with Joyce. At one point, he cites that utterly false claim that men think about sex every six seconds to justify pounding the snot out of someone who, while having some sleazy motives, had in no way earned a continuous beating. That wasn’t him trying to point out Joe’s failings, that was him just beating someone up for no reason.
Hank: Oh he teased you?
Joyce: Dad, no, not like that.
Becky: Yeah, I’m the one doing that.
Joyce: and Joe.
Becky: and Walky, come to think of it.
Joyce: What?
Walky: What?
Hank: I see…
Joyce and Walky? I don’t believe it, it could never work.
Never in this world…
The more I see this universe, the more unlikely it seems to me.
The more I see of the Joyce and Walky universe, the more unlikely it seems.
I’ve only seen up to… mid 2001? 2002? Something like that. I think Walky was dating Dina at the time.
O.O
Don’t be like that, it was the best she could do.
oh god
I read all the available archives recently and I do not like Walkyverse Dina.
I feel bad about it, but she was legitimately awful.
Hank would probably be surprisingly comfortable with a poly thing happening to his daughter.
Hard to tell. People have different lines in funny places and nobody changes all at once.
Hank’s been growing a lot but I think he’s a faaaar ways away from accepting any sort of poly relationship.
Hank’s growth is in some ways inspired by need rather than choice. Few people go out and challenge their beliefs to see if they need to grow. Hank is accepting of his kids because he places his love of them over the status quo of his world-view. If he needed to learn to understand poly relationships I have little doubt he would do so. Would it be easy or quick? No, obviously not. But I have zero doubts that he would work on it as long as it took and would still love his children regardless of the cost to hisself.
Well, if Mike dies, he will at least take comfort in the fact he could still make people crappy while doing something so sacrificial.
I bedoubt me much that Mike will be assumed into Heaven to become the Cult figurehead for The Willis Above. Our Willis is a merciful Willis, ….haha haha, …. crap, I woke up the dog.
k, so my buddy sent me that last panel out of context, and I’m not gonna lie, I thought they were talking about Jesus for a second
tbf, if you read some of the apocryphal gospels, Young Jesus could be a bit of a jerk at times
That’s also true of him as an adult in the canon gospels.
Yeah, and the whole “substitutary sacrifice” thing. Good’s omnipotent, he obviously doesn’t have to sacrifice himself to himself to appease his own anger. The Incarnation and Passion were to make us repent, i.e. feel that we are undeserving pieces of shit. It’s very Mike.
can I just say im very tired of becky at this point, she barely had any interaction with mike at all and for the most part they werent enough to say much about anyone and I dislike her believing Robins a bad politician at this point when everything shes done after the scandal has been reformative if not advantageous for becky herself
You can certainly say that, if you wish.
You can certainly say it. I’ve never liked Becky very much.
You can certainly say it. We won’t mock you.
Or at least not much.
I’m afraid we don’t take kindly to not liking Becky round these parts.
Becky didn’t interact with Mike much (outside the Joyce party invite I can’t think of one time they spoke). But she does talk to Joyce and her friends… If Mike was treating THEM badly, I think that might give Becky some reason to see Mike in a bad light, even if she didn’t get personally trolled.
Not that there aren’t other reasons not to like becky.
Ah, yes, the Shadow Weaver gambit
Aw, somebody beat me to it.
Great minds, you two.
………….shit you’re right.
Right? Right? That is what I’ve been thinking this entire time.
Thanatos Gambits are always a crapshoot.
Mike plays to win.
Joyce has gone through a lot of changes since that first day in the dorm, but still, old habits die hard. So when does Joyce’s old schooling kick in and she suggests that they … oh, I dunno … maybe actually PRAY for Mike?
She might have checked out the research and discovered that sick and injured people who are prayed for have worse outcomes than matched controls in randomised studies. (But not when the studies are blind….)
I question your data. Published results on such studies have been all over the place. And almost all of them are subject to some form of criticism. Is a study double blind when the person doing the praying must know which group the person prayed for is in? Is your control group a valid control group if their friends and family are praying for them and contaminating the results? And how would you go about preventing that in a double blind study? Is there an implicit bias in assuming that prayers of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Nudists, Pagens, and Atheists are equally effectatious. If the power of prayer depends on the strength of individual faith, how do you control for that?
If you ignore such questions and simply combine the results of published studies between 1955 and 2010 there is a beneficial effect at the edge of statistical significance. The combined data shows evidence of both the Hawthorne and Rosenthal effects (when patients knew a such a test was being conducted but not which group, the outcomes were better, and even double-blind experiments have a statistically significant tendency to have outcomes that reflect the expectations of those setting the experiment up.) The strongest evidence was from a relatively large triple-blind test (the persons doing the praying were physically distant from the patient and knew the patients identity only indirectly) however the very same researchers were unable to replicate the results in a follow up test. Eliminating the studies with problematic procedures or invalid statistical techniques (a surprisingly high number for published work) left 23 studies, 12 of which showed net positive outcomes, 2 showed net negative outcomes, and 9 no significant differences between the two groups.
I’m sure there have been studies since I last read up on this.
Nudists should have been Buddhists. I *think* I currently have spell correct turned off, so I have no idea where that came from. I call devine intervention.
God answers nudist prayers.
I am disappointed by this revision. Don’t George Lucas your posts.
Last Panel = Shadow Weaver in a nutshell.
It could be all three! He may at least claim all three!
Mike is like a White Hat Hacker for your personality. He’ll tease you about your own failings in the hope you get better… But he’s also doing it so you don’t get too close.
Mike would save the world just to make people be angry about him being the savior and not someone more likable.
Mike: “I am dying without regrets, and without integrity. I will make you all feel confused about why I saved you all, and that will be my ultimate masterpiece.”
Joyce in the last panel, speaking what several of us have to be wondering.
At the very end, he was good, and caring, and heroic. That ASSHOLE.
Panel 5: Joyce, honey, have you considered the possibility you might be allowed to make up your own mind? Or is that still too difficult?
If she hasn’t gotten there already and she’s not actually making a figure of speech, I think she’ll get there, eventually.
……..gee, maybe she’s trying to do that but is conflicted? What about that panel makes you think she’s looking for someone else to tell her with to think?
Mike’s an edgelord asshole supreme… who risked his life and ended up in a coma in order to protect her and her friends. That’s going to leave anyone a fair bit conflicted.
I think it’s the “supposed to”. That she’s not trying to figure out what she thinks, but what she’s supposed to think.
I didn’t read it that way at first, but I can see it.
I figured the supposed to involved the dissonance between how she still sees Mike and biblical ideas of redemption.
“Here’s what I think, but he did x, but I can’t figure out if that’s enough to change it.”
Basically. She does come from a very black-and-white moral background, and the fact that people can be complicated is one of the ones she’s having to adjust to. I mean, everyone know you’re supposed to hate Nazis and puppy-kickers, that one’s not hard. But then, when you’re a Christian you’re supposed to love your neighbors and your fellow Christians, but when one of your fellow Christian neighbors is Mary…
Among the many things Joyce has lost in the past few weeks (her time, not ours) is certainty, and that may be the most destabilizing of all. In high-stress times, it would be nice to revert to — but with Mike, she can’t. It would be nice if someone could just show up and tell her how to feel, but she knows that’s not going to happen (though Hank may try next strip). Not that I think she’s literally hoping for someone to do that, but it plays a part. “What am I supposed to think about x?” It’s a lot harder out of the abstract. She has to apply morality (for lack of a better way of putting it) to someone she knows; that’s complicated.
Whether she phrases it “What I’m supposed to think” or “What I should think,” it’s still sort of an appeal to authority — which could get two very different answers: “Here’s what you should think about it,” and “You should think about it (and discover what you think, and thus what you believe, morally).”
But then, I may be overthinking it.
Damn, no edit function… Meant to add that the fact that “supposed” is bolded is why I considered the possibility it might be more than just a figure of speech.
I mean, it sounds like him.
Honestly, I really wondering how Walky feels about the whole situation, now that he won’t have a roommate. (He won’t be given all A’s if Mike dies, that’s a myth.)
(I’m also wondering when Masturbating Girl from the Slipshine ad shows up. Didn’t Willis promise she’d show up in a bit role? Did I miss her already?)
And will she resume her usual habits once the virus goes away?
That’s an interesting question I hadn’t considered.
Am I the only one a little bothered by how all these people keep talking about Mike as if he were already dead?
I mean, I suppose it’s possible that he will be in a moment but he’s not dead yet.
It’s definitely a little off-putting, but he’s in a state where he’s not guaranteed to come out okay on the other side; talking about him as if nothing was wrong could end up looking flippant or facetious at best, and utterly shitty at worst. Nobody wants to be the one who said “maybe it’d be better if he stayed like that for a while”, even as a joke, and then find out he passed away.
It could also be folks trying to reassure themselves about him, remembering that in spite of his awful behaviour (and how he’d probably be making off-colour jokes if someone else was in that bed instead of him), there was still some good to him.
The best thing to say is “feelings are complicated”
Amber talking like that is her guilt acting up. Everyone else is just how everyone is kind “dealing” with it. He’s in a coma and frankly it’s entirely possible he may never awaken. While it is not an optimistic viewpoint, for all intents and purposes he is effectively dead until he wakes up.
Both of the above. When Linda pointed out Blaine might have killed Mike, she was not remotely wrong (on that point, for once). No one knows if or when he’s waking up, no one knows what state he’ll be in if he does. And given how Mike was, in fact, a raging asshole to everyone around him, that means a lot of processing how the fuck to feel about him if he DOES die, particularly given his last conscious acts were putting himself in harm’s way to protect people.
And now you have me thinking of Spamalot.
Doesn’t bother me. In most of their minds, they are uncertain if Mike will come back from this. They are processing their thoughts on who Mike was and what knowledge they have of him because it is possible there may never be (in their minds) any further input by him that can change things further. They are solidifying their opinions of him for the case that he never comes back from this.
Sarah’s cynicism is rubbing off and I am here for it. Sarah let’s people in, Joyce gets stripped of naiveté. It works well for everyone.
The last panel is the what I’ve been waiting for this whole time instead of the gratuitous bashing.
Thank you for that Joyce.
Hank: Maybe your friend accepted the love of Jesus in his heart at the last part of a miserable life, guaranteeing his salvation?
Joyce: Yeah, no dad.
Actually, Mike MIGHT do it. He’d use the ‘final sacrifice’ heel-face turn loophole to get into heaven, just so he could troll God for eternity.
Pretty sure any God worthy of the name would be able to gauge sincerity.
Now if he could somehow manage to be sincere and then revert back to form later…
I wonder if the Mother of God has any nickels.
I think that Willis did a good job in this strip of summarising the entire mystery and paradox that is Mike Warner with remarkable efficiency. Also, I do wonder if, in a bizarre manner, what Mike did was a way of showing affection. He’d just never got past the ‘shoving, throwing things and pulling pigtails’ stage.
Kind of worried that Joyce’s mum is going to show up and try making a scene in front of Mike’s folks in all honesty. 🙁
Then she’ll get pinned down and escorted again for making a scene.
If Carol does it a third time, she gets a free one-year subscription to Karen Magazine.
Karen Magazine: For the modern self-righteous woman!
Interesting to note that almost all of Hank’s solo panels since splitting with Carol have been outside of the panel walls, floating loose in the alpha channel behind the rest of the comic. Plus Joyce gets the same treatment this time when she starts introspecting. It’s such a cool yet subtle effect.
Willis is really good at panel layout
Stealing ‘floating loose in the alpha channel’.
Floating loose in the Alpha channel sounds like a valuable skill. Do you think Hank could teach me the technique?
Sounds like the name of a new age band to me.
Huh, that does sound like something Mike would do.
I relate to Mike a bit. I don’t trust people. Not gonna whinge about it, just how I am. But I still think that there’s decency to be found, right alongside all the fuckery. It leads me to be quite a… optimistic cynic, I suppose.
I find a lot of fun in messing with people. Word play, jackassery, that sort of edgelord nonsense. I do it, as I said, because I find it fun. I also do it because it keeps people at an arm’s length, which is only just shy of where I’d like them to keep the minimum distance.
Unfortunately, I also feel the need to be better. Not better than other people, I’m no different from anyone else, better than who I am. Better than who I was. I hate myself of today only slightly less than that version of me that was here yesterday.
So I donate to charity. I help the homeless. I enlist. I help those unfortunate bastards who think being my friend was a good idea. I stand by my family. God it’s fucking hard, especially when all I want to do is suckstart a shotgun. But I do it. Because those are the right things to do.
But I hate, more than anything, people who demand praise because they’re doing the things that people say make you a good person. The type to post selfies of giving change to a homeless man on the street. So I don’t talk about it. I actually wish I could be totally anonymous when I work at a homeless shelter. I also don’t like it when people find out that I do “good” things, because it often leads to attention I never asked for, and runs the risk of acquiring more friends.
So I keep people guessing. I help, then I spew some acrid comment so no one feels too grateful for my liking. I pick a drunk friend up and get them home, while calling em a stupid bastard for waiting as long as they did. I don’t want people to think I’m good, because I’m not. I’m as shit as the rest of humanity. I’m just trying, and effort is not result.
I have avoided any and all chances to work at a homeless shelter, because I find performative gratitude to be embarrassing and awful and it makes me want to run away… and sincere gratitude is even worse.
I’m able to justify it because it’s something important that almost constantly needs bodies. Thankfully not every job is customer facing. See if your local shelter has any need for people to sort clothing or prepare food. Specify that you want to remain behind the scenes, if ya want.
Yikes. Those last 2 panels could also be Christian girls trying to parse difficult feels about St. Paul the Apostle…or Tobymac ( minus death).
You should start a site for Christian girls to post their Timothy/Paul hurt/comfort stories.
It occurs to me that Hank is another character who has been brushing up against the Fourth Wall of late. After all, is Joyce/Mike not a popular fringe ship in this fandom? Heck, I considered having Joyce married to him in the ’10 Years On’ fan-fiction I recently published!
I had no idea you hated Joyce so much.
I mean, I love Mike as a character, but in order to have any chance of a good solid relationship with him, you’d have to start out with Amber levels of twistedness.
Mike clearly has his issues he needs to work out, if the flashback with Amber’s dad where he says no one is worthy is anything to go by. But he also seems to still be capable of genuine affection, even if he is currently unwilling to show it. His time with Ethan, his last words to Amber. I can’t help but hope that some incarnation of him, especially this one, still young and with a full future, is able to make peace with himself and with humanity.
If that results in him being able to find a person, or persons, he wants to be with romantically, good on him. If not, whatever. I do think it’s not a romantic partner’s job to fix their partner, which unrelatedly is why I tend to steer clear of relationships myself. I worry a lot of Joyce/Mike shippers have that “redemption through love” thing in mind. It wouldn’t be out of character for her either, that’s part of the problem.
He absolutely would 100% do that
I mean… that DOES sound like something Mike would do.
The correct answer is D all of the above
The last theory fits Mike like a glove.
And if it truly is the last one than that is a good indication that he isn’t completely redeemable and there’s an edge of karma that was at play here.
That theory doesn’t really pull in his realization a few moments before how much his reasons sounded like Blaine’s. Not surprising, since I don’t think anyone knows about it.
Yeah, he didn’t say anything about it and I doubt AG saw his face enough to see the genuine expression there.
Ed Gein and the Kray Twins loved their mothers.
James Woods does a lot for dog rescues.
So many bad people find outlets for their softer side that it’s almost a surprise to find someone like Dylann Roof who seems not to have a revealed softer side.
Not sure I’d use that softness to over-ride their signature nastiness though.
That’s gonna be one awkward hometown funeral… Mike in Chapel 1 and Blaine across the atrium in Chapel 3 inside the same parlor.
*Mike throws double-birds down at everyone as he rides the escalator to Heaven*
as he slides down a mountain of nickels into Heaven.
Fixed that for you.
I’m just seeing him as a Force Ghost at the end of Return of the Jedi throwing double birds at Joyce.
Wow Joyce, if I didn’t know better, I would think she has been reading the forum comments. Surprised she isn’t staring right at us in the last panel.
Yes, Joyce. That is exactly what he did.
..with your mom. For a nickle.
Classic Mike.
Mike summed up in one beautiful truism:
“Mind what people do, not what they say, for their actions will betray the lie.”
-Wizard’s 5th Rule.