A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
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Finding out Mike died literal seconds after the timeskip was an absolute GUT PUNCH that I was not expecting to be hit with moments after waking up in the morning.
Doubt Ethan would have messaged Danny, Danny’s face isn’t even in this which has me confused. He’s currently freaking out about his hat flying away. Ethan and Danny did just literally have a fight over Mike, so I doubt he’d message him. This looks like exactly what power says, literally seconds after the timeskip. (Also I hit flag instead of reply at first, please ignore that Willis.)
I guess you both would mean literal seconds into the time skip. The roof/hat flying scene happens and then we don’t see the characters for months. The stuff after those months would be after the time skip, so this would be during? It’s all just semantics though. I still got what you meant!
The flag/reply confusion seems to be happening a lot. Maybe because Flag is the furthest out? I wonder if swapping the two over could fix it (and if it’s possible)?
…Leaves open the possibility that it was one of the cops, just waiting for all the kids to leave to allay any suspicion that might be aroused by the 2 deaths’ (Mike’s and Blaine’s) happening at the same time.
Mike fell from a height of 20-30 feet or so and landed on his head. Honestly, living for 72 hours after that (and without prompt medical attention, and having been moved by someone who wasn’t medically trained!) is fairly impressive.
Eh. I feel like making Mike’s death more sinister doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything. Like King Daniel pointed out, he was already in really bad shape and him dying was always gonna be possible-to-probable. I don’t see what having him deliberately offed at that point adds to the story.
Of course, if it turns out that way, then so be it. I’m just going to need to be sold on why that was necessary.
Mike was concerned enough about police in the flashback with Amber (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/ninest/) to refuse a call to EMS. My inference was that Mike knew he was known to the police already by then, through Blaine, and that his knowledge of their financial arrangement was his insurance for safety.
I was more under the impression that Mike refused the call there since Blaine was still a present threat on-scene at that moment. Chalk it down to different interpretations, I suppose.
There’s also this other strip: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/predator/
Where Blaine threatens to have Mike killed in the hospital. The implication I read into it was that Blaine had already informed some of his contacts that Mike was dangerous to them, and that they were keeping an eye on him but not killing him yet as leverage against Amber.
As far as we know, no one in the Mob knew about what Blaine was up to with his private scheming until it blew up into a whole Big Deal. That was kind of why they ended up killing him in the end.
Because Mike kept track of all the money laundering that the mob was doing through Blaine’s business, and which police were taking bribes to look the other way:
Yeah, but as far as we know Blaine didn’t tell the Mob that Mike knew. He got killed right after claiming that Amber “would like people to think that she’s” Amazi-Girl.
Exactly. There’s seemingly no reason for the mob to kill Mike.
There’s reason for Blaine to kill Mike, but whatever that leverage or Mike’s had amounted to, apparently wasn’t enough to murder him over since he had it for years.
Until today, I would have said that I wish I’d gotten into DoA a few months earlier so I could’ve bought that print while it was available. Now, I’m not so sure.
I think it’s reflexive, since “unflag” isn’t an option. Not so much an apology to the flagged person so much as a declaration of accident toward whoever is reviewing the flags, to indicate it’s not supposed to be
Mike apparently died essentially the same day all that shit went down with the kidnapping. Ideally there was a chance he would hang around for a bit maybe. But death rarely happens like that. As someone who just recently suffered a family loss it might sound cliche but it really happens unexpectedly.
Well, the day after. The gathering on the rooftop was the next chapter (and they refer to “the kidnapping yesterday” in it a few times), so it wasn’t the same day.
Welp, that took a turn very quickly, I’ve got some serious emotional whiplash. But I’m slightly confused. Is Amber’s concern that Mike woke up but died a short time later and she could have said goodbye? Or is Amber concerned because he died comatose and she wasn’t there?
…Am I the only one whose mind immediately went to the idea that she was talking about her Dad, who despite the absolute bullshit she went through, she might want to see one last time?
Or am I the only one whose mind is on that inevitability due to real life circumstances, I guess…
As the camera pans out, coincidentally in the direction of the hospital, and strip fades out to black, you start to hear the steady beep of a heart monitor. The volume on that, too, starts to fade, but not before it changes to a flatline. Fainter still, sounds of people, indistinct but hurried, yelling no louder than a whisper. The sounds of people fade even faster, so that the last sound left fading out is that flatline, until you think you can still hear it but in fact it has been silent black screen for a full second now. A few more seconds of the silence pass. You see movement at the bottom of the screen, but it is simply the credits beginning to scroll as a soft acoustic version of the usual credits theme plays. At the end of the credits is the simple message in white text on black background: “Dumbing of Age will return in the spring semester.”
I still don’t actually blame Danny for that. Certainly imprudent, but Mike was a piece of shit to him on a regular basis, including on the night he got critically injured. I doubt he’d have said it if he knew for a fact what was going to happen, and he likely regrets it, but one of his biggest flaws/boons is being honest to a fault, so I don’t think it’s in him to pretend he was torn up when he just wasn’t.
If you look at the party night, Danny wasn’t concerned about how Mike treated him, but about how he treated Amber and especially Ethan. They’re the ones he thought would be better off without Mike for awhile.
I agree with you. I remember people being so offended by that, but like you said Mike was awful. I’ve known some awful people who passed away and it sucks how people expect you to act like the horrible things they did when they lived didn’t happen.
Though Danny was responding to the comment that Mike might not wake up for a while, not that he might die. i don’t take that to mean Danny (necessarily) wanted him gone forever, just not able to abuse him more right away. Still not a good thing to say to Ethan, but not as bad as people are making it.
Yeah, people forget that Danny wasn’t wishing Mike dead, just that he was ok with Mike being in a coma for a while longer. And considering how awful Mike treated Danny pretty much every time they interacted with each other, it’s not that surprising that he said that. If a person who bullied me and treated me like shit any time I was around them got injured and was in a coma, I’d probably be glad to not have to deal with them for a while too.
And particularly, if you look back to their last interactions at the party, Danny was more concerned with how he treated Ethan and Amber than with how he treated Danny.
I’ve been there. I mean, not having a friend murdered by a supervillain father, but the whole “finding out one of my best friends is dead, when I dearly hoped a miracle could kick in.” It sucks.
It was rough. It’s one of those things where you find yourself asking, “What could I have done differently?” countless times until you make the decision for your own sanity to make peace with having done what you could, you know? What-Ifs can drive us nuts.
If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs,
The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon, “If only, if only.”
Anyway, Holes references aside, my therapist doesn’t seem to love the word “should.”
They were more on ‘friends with benefits’ situation by midterms because of the Sal thing. Seems more like Walky said or did something that just made Amber not want to be friendly towards Walky after.
Witness protection. Ninety five percent of the cast was elsewhere when he ‘died’, shortly after someone else tied to the same incident was silenced by the mob.
I don’t actually think that’s the case, since Amber had her whole ‘say goodbye’ chapter, but I’m banking this one in the off chance that I can say ‘I told you so’ later.
Honestly I’ve been thinking of this as a possibility for ages now. I’d imagine the process normally takes longer, but when a shooting happens in the same hospital? I’d say that’s fair grounds to speed things along.
Yeah that seems plausible. I guess Mike died and then came back in the other comics Willis does (which I haven’t read in their totality) so people were predicting it would happen here too. Witness protection seems like a viable scenario.
Mike is hardly unique among Walkyverse characters to have died and come back (even Walky died and came back)—the most you could say for him is that the method by which he was resurrected was left unexplained for the better part of a decade, while it was explained fairly promptly or even preemptively for all the other post-mortal characters.
Why would anyone think to put him into witness protection? As far as we know, the only people that knew Mike had goods on the mob were Blaine and Ross.
Ethan and Amber probably know he knew about the mob thing – Stacy knew and felt safe enough with that knowledge to tell Richard, so it was apparently not really a secret anymore, and AG wasn’t surprised when he told her not to call an ambulance because of the risk of dirty cops – but the financial details Mike had? Much less likely they knew he had those.
Also, speaking of the ‘AG and Mike post-rooftop’ scene, I am now seriously wondering if part of the reason he deteriorated so quickly is that you really shouldn’t be carrying someone with, among other things, serious head trauma that knocked them unconscious in your arms, without training, however far AG had to go to get him to the hospital. Because precisely what Amber and AG need is more guilt that following Mike’s advice could have caused his death.
Mike’s dead, people. And his death is extremely plausible given what we know.
My only guess is, the FBI would want some more info on the the mob using whatever Mike knows about Blaine’s involvement to get closer. Or maybe the the mob themselves took him, or even a different crime group in general who heard through the grape vine bout a young kid who was good with numbers and decently in the know about dirty cops
Even without information to give, Mike shown quite a bit of skills in secret info gathering, blackmail and how to for the most part keep it as a secret till the end of his “life”
But because he kept things secret, there would be no one to tell the FBI Mike was a potential witness who could link this guy who just died under shady circumstances to the mob.
For anyone to put him through witness protection, they would have to know that he’s a witness. NO ONE, to our knowledge, knew that he knew things.
Aah that’s a familiar reaction. When my mom was dying, I sat with her for the entire 8 hours it took for hospice to pick her up. I collected my mother’s day gifts (she passed April 29th, but I thought ahead enough to get my gifts for her ahead of time just in case) but by the time my dad and I got to hospice… she was asleep. Resting, for the first time in two months. I gave her my gifts (one of which was a teddy bear, that kept her company from hospice, to funeral home, and now rests alongside her urn), sat with her for a while, and eventually went home. I COULD have stayed with her… but after everything, I wanted the one night, just the one, to sleep in my home. She had been given an estimate of 48 hours left to live so… I had time right? …5 hours later, my dad woke me up and handed me my cellphone. Hospice was calling… and she had passed. For a long time I felt guilty that neither of us were physically there when she passed, but thinking on it… I think she would prefer it that way. She wouldn’t want to pass with us there. It’s a small comfort to offer for Amber, or others in these situations, but the image of watching someone die haunts the memories, and our loved ones usually want to spare us this.
…Except Mike, I’m sure he just heard Joyce’s optimistic little words from beyond the pale and decided to be a fuck. Very on brand.
Both a friend of mine and I had each our mothers pass in a similar way. A nurse told us that it is surprisingly common for a person to pass shortly after the family leaves, possibly for the exact reason you suggest.
(Mike, as you surmised, just did it to be a dick.)
Since we got the Pepsi colors, red and blue, how about a new game?
1) What is your favorite kind of soda pop?
2) Is there a flag (of any kind) or logo that you find particularly aesthetically pleasing, regardless of significance? If so, why?
It’s weird that I agree with this sentiment, because I know and fully understand what kind of person Mike was and yet he was still my favorite character.
Oh, hey, not only are we Cerebus Retconning the gang on the roof, but we’ve also got a call back to Amber’s funny intro strip, where she’s quoting Buster Meridith in The Twilight Zone.
Mike was the awfulness singularity and he prevented a very large amount of awfulness by channeling it through himself and being only one person being medium awful, that was his superpower
and so the moment he became comatose, all the awfulness that was removed from the world by him returned which is why the kidnapping happened in the first place and why everyone became more shitty towards each other afterwards
Ugh, flagged rather than replied again. That’s gonna be a learning curve.
Right? Up there for me with the triumph of Amber punching her shitty, shitty dad (which I submitted to the Crowning Moment of Facepunch Tumblr way back when), immediately running and putting a hall full of people between herself and him, and then shortly afterwards Amber having a breakdown as she felt guilty for enjoying punching him.
man i knew we’d be getting something like this in this arc but i didn’t exactly expect it to be so soon. well, it seems like now we have clear confirmation…unless mike did actually fake his death and we’re all just being bamboozled. i know what it’s like to have a very sudden loss of someone very close to you, so i can really relate to amber here. makes me worried about her tbh
Honestly i was convinced when it was revealed that it was all a ruse to protect him from any lingering remnants of the mob Amber’s dad was connected to. Took me a while to accept he was dead dead.
It’s like getting a reminder Rush Limbaugh is dead, or that the fucks behind Enron’s bankruptcy being prosecuted: Sometimes there’s a little beauty in the world.
Kind of wish we’d seen this when it happened. Definitely more of a downer ending, but it would have given the audience a bit of a chance to get closure and not be as weirded out by the cast having had some time to move on while we still didn’t know for sure.
It was like we were supposed to assume he was dead, but at the same time couldn’t be confronted with it because that would be the wrong tone.
This doesn’t really change my opinion. Some things about the time skip, including how Mike’s death was hidden and then anti-climatically revealed always irked me, but just finding out it happened right away doesn’t really bother me. Other than reminding me of it.
That’s fair. I guess it bothers me because if it had been, say a week into the time skip, I could see not cutting back in just for that. But when it was right away?
Also, since the time skip, I’ve had some more discussions about nonlinear story in general, and combined with now being more reminded of it has shifted my perspective some.
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Ghost Mike: your MOM had longer
…
wait no
Not like that
More like his new album is getting released:
Mike – Unplugged
Brutal and horrible. I like it.
Using his preferred art style, flatline.
Oh that’s even worse than him dying on Halloween.
Before they made it off garbage roof when the book ended.
Finding out Mike died literal seconds after the timeskip was an absolute GUT PUNCH that I was not expecting to be hit with moments after waking up in the morning.
Probably before. Danny’s face looking like that seems less incongruous if Ethan messaged both Danny and Amber, and Danny has already seen the message.
Doubt Ethan would have messaged Danny, Danny’s face isn’t even in this which has me confused. He’s currently freaking out about his hat flying away. Ethan and Danny did just literally have a fight over Mike, so I doubt he’d message him. This looks like exactly what power says, literally seconds after the timeskip. (Also I hit flag instead of reply at first, please ignore that Willis.)
I guess you both would mean literal seconds into the time skip. The roof/hat flying scene happens and then we don’t see the characters for months. The stuff after those months would be after the time skip, so this would be during? It’s all just semantics though. I still got what you meant!
The flag/reply confusion seems to be happening a lot. Maybe because Flag is the furthest out? I wonder if swapping the two over could fix it (and if it’s possible)?
Danny lost his hat; that’s what that expression was about, he was going to chase it.
Wish it had been sooner. Would have liked to see him die onscreen.
Sometimes the difference between a happy ending and a sad ending is where you stop reading
Very true.
Oh so it was like, just after the camera faded for the time skip that Mike died
…Leaves open the possibility that it was one of the cops, just waiting for all the kids to leave to allay any suspicion that might be aroused by the 2 deaths’ (Mike’s and Blaine’s) happening at the same time.
Mike fell from a height of 20-30 feet or so and landed on his head. Honestly, living for 72 hours after that (and without prompt medical attention, and having been moved by someone who wasn’t medically trained!) is fairly impressive.
He held on exactly as long as necessary to make the timing of his passing extra-tragic.
Exactly the way he would’ve wanted it. :'(
Also, Ethan very pointedly remained at the hospital (and Mike’s bedside) when the others left. He might have been present when Mike died.
OK, yeah, that makes more sense. Thanks, King Daniel!
…Of course, they might have used the lockdown while the hospital was evacuated to slip something into Mike’s IV…
Something slow-acting.
See, e.g.:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/evacuated/
et seq.
Eh. I feel like making Mike’s death more sinister doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything. Like King Daniel pointed out, he was already in really bad shape and him dying was always gonna be possible-to-probable. I don’t see what having him deliberately offed at that point adds to the story.
Of course, if it turns out that way, then so be it. I’m just going to need to be sold on why that was necessary.
I just wouldn’t think the cops would want to leave loose ends open.
I also like conspiracy theories, so clearly it was Jason. That was the price his father levied for letting him stay in America.
Would they have even known that Mike knew? Blaine didn’t tell them, at least on-screen.
Mike was concerned enough about police in the flashback with Amber (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/ninest/) to refuse a call to EMS. My inference was that Mike knew he was known to the police already by then, through Blaine, and that his knowledge of their financial arrangement was his insurance for safety.
I was more under the impression that Mike refused the call there since Blaine was still a present threat on-scene at that moment. Chalk it down to different interpretations, I suppose.
Yeah, I guess we’ll (maybe) find out (or not).
There’s also this other strip:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/predator/
Where Blaine threatens to have Mike killed in the hospital. The implication I read into it was that Blaine had already informed some of his contacts that Mike was dangerous to them, and that they were keeping an eye on him but not killing him yet as leverage against Amber.
…’Course, Blaine could have been lying.
As far as we know, no one in the Mob knew about what Blaine was up to with his private scheming until it blew up into a whole Big Deal. That was kind of why they ended up killing him in the end.
True, true. I suppose you’re right…
Would explain his appearance and mood post-skip.
Why off Mike as opposed to anyone who was kidnapped when it was the fallout from the kidnapping that got Blaine killed, not the fight with Mike?
Only Amber/AG know that Blaine had anything to with Mike’s condition since Mike was in a coma and Toe dad was already dead.
The mob themselves might not even know.
Because Mike kept track of all the money laundering that the mob was doing through Blaine’s business, and which police were taking bribes to look the other way:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/receipts/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/smash-2/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/ninest/
Mike was keeping tabs on Blaine’s (mob- and dirty-cop-entangled) finances from the beginning.
Yeah, but as far as we know Blaine didn’t tell the Mob that Mike knew. He got killed right after claiming that Amber “would like people to think that she’s” Amazi-Girl.
Exactly. There’s seemingly no reason for the mob to kill Mike.
There’s reason for Blaine to kill Mike, but whatever that leverage or Mike’s had amounted to, apparently wasn’t enough to murder him over since he had it for years.
But only Blaine (and Ross, if he picked up on Mike’s comment) knew that, and they were both already dead. Neither the mob nor the cops were aware.
Why off Mike? Maybe because coming up with new ways for Mike to be a jerk was getting tedious?
Rather fitting, as the aftermath of this could very well feel like a timeskip in someone’s memory.
Based on the poses, literally a *fraction of a second* after that cheery final panel. For old times sake, DAMN YOU WILLIS
(Frack! Accidentally flagged.)
So the Federal Marshals said to say.
Well that sucks.
…jesus christ. i have two seconds before this moment on my wall. im looking at it right now. this is
wow
Until today, I would have said that I wish I’d gotten into DoA a few months earlier so I could’ve bought that print while it was available. Now, I’m not so sure.
I got that poster too!
I regret nothing. It’s what Mike would want.
Yeah, it’s amazing how completely this changes the tone of that moment. “May we be blessed with uneducational times!” “Mike’s dead.” God.
(Also, so sorry for accidentally flagging you instead of replying – haven’t used the comments in a while)
Nobody can tell you’ve flagged them, and the flag limit is like 37 or something.
I think it’s reflexive, since “unflag” isn’t an option. Not so much an apology to the flagged person so much as a declaration of accident toward whoever is reviewing the flags, to indicate it’s not supposed to be
definitely the case when I’ve done it.
Wait what was there time for?
Presumably for him to recover, but without more context it’s hard to say
I think, time to say goodbye to Mike.
Mike apparently died essentially the same day all that shit went down with the kidnapping. Ideally there was a chance he would hang around for a bit maybe. But death rarely happens like that. As someone who just recently suffered a family loss it might sound cliche but it really happens unexpectedly.
Well, the day after. The gathering on the rooftop was the next chapter (and they refer to “the kidnapping yesterday” in it a few times), so it wasn’t the same day.
I am so sorry to hear about your recent family loss, Sirksome. Take gentle care of yourself during your time of grieving, please. <3
Mike not dying yet, wym
…DAMN YOU DAMN YOU DAMN YOU
MIIIIIKEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
It’s almost like time skipped forward for Mike isn’t it?
oh my god
a flashback within a flashback
A pluperfect flashback!
Flashbackception!
Flashback within a flashback!
We have to go deeper! How many meta-flashback colors are possible? THE WORLD MUST KNOW
Amber’s traumatic flashbacks have always been red.
Welp, that took a turn very quickly, I’ve got some serious emotional whiplash. But I’m slightly confused. Is Amber’s concern that Mike woke up but died a short time later and she could have said goodbye? Or is Amber concerned because he died comatose and she wasn’t there?
Maybe that there wasn’t time to make her peace with Mike (and Ethan).
…Am I the only one whose mind immediately went to the idea that she was talking about her Dad, who despite the absolute bullshit she went through, she might want to see one last time?
Or am I the only one whose mind is on that inevitability due to real life circumstances, I guess…
But her dad was already dead? Unless I’m misunderstanding you.
Ahh, okay. I mixed up the timeline. In fairness, it’s been a while.
Her dad was shot while they were at the hospital iirc.
There was a lockdown.
Pretty sure her dad didn’t survive getting shot.
Who knows, maybe Blaine had Dad-Joker Immunity
oh damn
that’s brutal
nicely done, and also brutal
Fuuuuck.
Why do we play? And why do we lose?
It’s a dangerous life we live, We Two…
We all play dice with and float within this beautiful, crude universe…….
Here’s the original strip from right before the flashback, in case you want to read it.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/transformative/
Way to lob the universe an easy one, Joyce.
I guess this was a series wrap for Mike as well.
Thanks! I was looking to see if someone linked it, so I could compare the two. Gotta say, I love the art on that one, esp. the light and shading.
As the camera pans out, coincidentally in the direction of the hospital, and strip fades out to black, you start to hear the steady beep of a heart monitor. The volume on that, too, starts to fade, but not before it changes to a flatline. Fainter still, sounds of people, indistinct but hurried, yelling no louder than a whisper. The sounds of people fade even faster, so that the last sound left fading out is that flatline, until you think you can still hear it but in fact it has been silent black screen for a full second now. A few more seconds of the silence pass. You see movement at the bottom of the screen, but it is simply the credits beginning to scroll as a soft acoustic version of the usual credits theme plays. At the end of the credits is the simple message in white text on black background: “Dumbing of Age will return in the spring semester.”
He died as he lived: Being inscrutable and unpredictable in a way that seriously inconveniences everyone he knows.
I couldn’t have said it better myself! BRILLIANT!!!
Hahahaha oh man this is evil even for you
Mike died literally hours after Danny told Ethan “would that be so bad?”
I still don’t actually blame Danny for that. Certainly imprudent, but Mike was a piece of shit to him on a regular basis, including on the night he got critically injured. I doubt he’d have said it if he knew for a fact what was going to happen, and he likely regrets it, but one of his biggest flaws/boons is being honest to a fault, so I don’t think it’s in him to pretend he was torn up when he just wasn’t.
Oh I agree with you 100%. It’s just the timing of it all is really the, ah, final nail in the coffin that contains Ethan’s friendship with Danny.
The final? Wasn’t it the only?
And I thought on party night Mike was nice to Danny. He was certainly in the same headspace regarding his worth.
If you look at the party night, Danny wasn’t concerned about how Mike treated him, but about how he treated Amber and especially Ethan. They’re the ones he thought would be better off without Mike for awhile.
And after I spent years waiting for a payoff on that ship…
I agree with you. I remember people being so offended by that, but like you said Mike was awful. I’ve known some awful people who passed away and it sucks how people expect you to act like the horrible things they did when they lived didn’t happen.
It’s just twisting the knife in a little deeper.
Though Danny was responding to the comment that Mike might not wake up for a while, not that he might die. i don’t take that to mean Danny (necessarily) wanted him gone forever, just not able to abuse him more right away. Still not a good thing to say to Ethan, but not as bad as people are making it.
Yeah, people forget that Danny wasn’t wishing Mike dead, just that he was ok with Mike being in a coma for a while longer. And considering how awful Mike treated Danny pretty much every time they interacted with each other, it’s not that surprising that he said that. If a person who bullied me and treated me like shit any time I was around them got injured and was in a coma, I’d probably be glad to not have to deal with them for a while too.
And particularly, if you look back to their last interactions at the party, Danny was more concerned with how he treated Ethan and Amber than with how he treated Danny.
I don’t know why it’s more shocking that Mike died literally right after the camera panned away for the time skip but damn
Because it retroactively went from a moment of uplifting hope to a moment of brutal loss. Particularly for Amber.
Remember that this happened literally right after Joyce said ‘well, here’s to uneventfulness’.
Probably for the best book 10 ended that way. I think the comment section would’ve imploded.
That said – I like seeing Sarah be the first to ask Amber what’s wrong.
I’ve been there. I mean, not having a friend murdered by a supervillain father, but the whole “finding out one of my best friends is dead, when I dearly hoped a miracle could kick in.” It sucks.
My condolences, I can’t imagine the pain you must have felt.
It was rough. It’s one of those things where you find yourself asking, “What could I have done differently?” countless times until you make the decision for your own sanity to make peace with having done what you could, you know? What-Ifs can drive us nuts.
Some therapist (this was years ago so I forget the name) said the two most dangerous words in the English language are:
“If only …”
If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs,
The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon, “If only, if only.”
Anyway, Holes references aside, my therapist doesn’t seem to love the word “should.”
It truly does.
Soooo I’m guessing Ethan’s not showing up for the Halloween party.
If he does he’s probably going to cause one hell of a scene and probably be very very drunk.
Also reminder that Walky and Amber didn’t survive Halloween, and… yeah this might be a contributing factor.
I’m surprised they made it to Halloween. That’s, what, ten days after the red panel events?
They were more on ‘friends with benefits’ situation by midterms because of the Sal thing. Seems more like Walky said or did something that just made Amber not want to be friendly towards Walky after.
Sure, but I’m still surprised they made it to Halloween– as whatever they were– when it was ten days after Mike’s death.
Okay, I first read this very literally, and my brain was all, “But Walky and Amber are still alive??”
Plot twist: Amber could see Ghost-Mike because she was actually undead herself.
There was time now… time enough at last.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one thinking this!
Didn’t Amber make this exact reference earlier? With Mike pulling her away from her computer?
Yup!
♪ Won’t you please make way for a very special guy ♫
Oh snap, it’s Pepsi colors time!
Jesus mike, did you decide to die just in time to be a dick?
Is this the first use of flashback-within-a-flashback coloring?
Also, what color is the next layer?
Oohhhhhhhhhh
Witness protection. Ninety five percent of the cast was elsewhere when he ‘died’, shortly after someone else tied to the same incident was silenced by the mob.
I don’t actually think that’s the case, since Amber had her whole ‘say goodbye’ chapter, but I’m banking this one in the off chance that I can say ‘I told you so’ later.
I choose to believe this is a possibility.
Doesn’t ever work in real life, but here there might be a chance :V
That’s really not how witness protection works in real life.
I still think it’s plausible that it could happen in this comic
Honestly I’ve been thinking of this as a possibility for ages now. I’d imagine the process normally takes longer, but when a shooting happens in the same hospital? I’d say that’s fair grounds to speed things along.
Yeah that seems plausible. I guess Mike died and then came back in the other comics Willis does (which I haven’t read in their totality) so people were predicting it would happen here too. Witness protection seems like a viable scenario.
Mike is hardly unique among Walkyverse characters to have died and come back (even Walky died and came back)—the most you could say for him is that the method by which he was resurrected was left unexplained for the better part of a decade, while it was explained fairly promptly or even preemptively for all the other post-mortal characters.
Why would anyone think to put him into witness protection? As far as we know, the only people that knew Mike had goods on the mob were Blaine and Ross.
Ethan and Amber probably know he knew about the mob thing – Stacy knew and felt safe enough with that knowledge to tell Richard, so it was apparently not really a secret anymore, and AG wasn’t surprised when he told her not to call an ambulance because of the risk of dirty cops – but the financial details Mike had? Much less likely they knew he had those.
Also, speaking of the ‘AG and Mike post-rooftop’ scene, I am now seriously wondering if part of the reason he deteriorated so quickly is that you really shouldn’t be carrying someone with, among other things, serious head trauma that knocked them unconscious in your arms, without training, however far AG had to go to get him to the hospital. Because precisely what Amber and AG need is more guilt that following Mike’s advice could have caused his death.
Mike’s dead, people. And his death is extremely plausible given what we know.
My only guess is, the FBI would want some more info on the the mob using whatever Mike knows about Blaine’s involvement to get closer. Or maybe the the mob themselves took him, or even a different crime group in general who heard through the grape vine bout a young kid who was good with numbers and decently in the know about dirty cops
Even without information to give, Mike shown quite a bit of skills in secret info gathering, blackmail and how to for the most part keep it as a secret till the end of his “life”
But because he kept things secret, there would be no one to tell the FBI Mike was a potential witness who could link this guy who just died under shady circumstances to the mob.
For anyone to put him through witness protection, they would have to know that he’s a witness. NO ONE, to our knowledge, knew that he knew things.
Because some people here desperately want to believe he’s not really dead.
That’s it. That’s the reason.
“Surrounded by floodwaters, a drowning person may grasp for even the flimsiest object floating within reach.”
Aah that’s a familiar reaction. When my mom was dying, I sat with her for the entire 8 hours it took for hospice to pick her up. I collected my mother’s day gifts (she passed April 29th, but I thought ahead enough to get my gifts for her ahead of time just in case) but by the time my dad and I got to hospice… she was asleep. Resting, for the first time in two months. I gave her my gifts (one of which was a teddy bear, that kept her company from hospice, to funeral home, and now rests alongside her urn), sat with her for a while, and eventually went home. I COULD have stayed with her… but after everything, I wanted the one night, just the one, to sleep in my home. She had been given an estimate of 48 hours left to live so… I had time right? …5 hours later, my dad woke me up and handed me my cellphone. Hospice was calling… and she had passed. For a long time I felt guilty that neither of us were physically there when she passed, but thinking on it… I think she would prefer it that way. She wouldn’t want to pass with us there. It’s a small comfort to offer for Amber, or others in these situations, but the image of watching someone die haunts the memories, and our loved ones usually want to spare us this.
…Except Mike, I’m sure he just heard Joyce’s optimistic little words from beyond the pale and decided to be a fuck. Very on brand.
Both a friend of mine and I had each our mothers pass in a similar way. A nurse told us that it is surprisingly common for a person to pass shortly after the family leaves, possibly for the exact reason you suggest.
(Mike, as you surmised, just did it to be a dick.)
“I can sense they have summoned the dragon. Be a real dick move to die right now.
Hurk!”
wonder what color a triple nested flashback merits
FLASHBACK X2 COMBO
(Though, didn’t “red tint on panels” already mean something else?)
Red panels are usually traumatic flashback time.
I wonder if this will become like an epistolary novel like Frankenstein, like flashbacks inside of flashbacks inside of flashbacks?
And i hope this counts as non-triggering discussion, because I promised an opportunity for it and otherwise I’m drawing a blank.
Since we got the Pepsi colors, red and blue, how about a new game?
1) What is your favorite kind of soda pop?
2) Is there a flag (of any kind) or logo that you find particularly aesthetically pleasing, regardless of significance? If so, why?
I’ll start:
1) I like French sodas: seltzer with a layer of cream and a little flavoring (usually chocolate or mint).
2) I love the Lebanese flag: a cedar tree surrounded by two sunset-kissed mountain ranges. It just makes me think of such a quiet landscape.
1. Dr Pepper, but classic coke is always a favorite
2. NASA, ’cause imma STEM geek
We have to go deeper!
Traumatic flashbacks, wrapped in traumatic flashbacks, shoved into more traumatic flashbacks. It’s a traumatic flashback turducken.
Maybe we’ll find teal and purple flashbacks if enough are nested together, but at this rate only the parents have a working memory of the 90s.
B&W flashbacks for someone watching old TV.
DAMN YOU WILLIS NOW I CAN’T GO BACK AND REREAD THAT MOMENT WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT THIS
It’s traditional to shake your fist at the sky for accompaniment.
Wait to ruin the moment, Mike
…[what a] way to?
He died as he lived!
Sigh. I don’t like being reminded of the death of the only consistently likable character in the strip (other than Sarah).
It’s weird that I agree with this sentiment, because I know and fully understand what kind of person Mike was and yet he was still my favorite character.
Yeah, sometimes I feel the desire to root for the villain, too.
i’m still on team “mike faked his own death to fuck with literally everyone.”
Mike
is 
“Jennifer”
#WillisConfirmed
Big oof.
Now the post-skip Brain Mike chapter is extra-tragic; Amber didn’t take the opportunity to ‘properly’ say goodbye, and now it’s too late.
Oh, hey, not only are we Cerebus Retconning the gang on the roof, but we’ve also got a call back to Amber’s funny intro strip, where she’s quoting Buster Meridith in The Twilight Zone.
Burgess Meredith, I mean. I shouldn’t be posting at not-yet-eight-in-the-morning UK time.
Buster Meredith was killing spiders in TheTwilight Zone?
I don’t think this is a retcon, this feels like something that was always the plan
But i thought retcon was when I don’t know a thing and then a character informs me if the thing.
That’s an infodump. Retcon is when you go to scout out an area to get a feel for what it’s like.
I thought that was the company Ant Man runs in his sequel movie.
Mike was the awfulness singularity and he prevented a very large amount of awfulness by channeling it through himself and being only one person being medium awful, that was his superpower
and so the moment he became comatose, all the awfulness that was removed from the world by him returned which is why the kidnapping happened in the first place and why everyone became more shitty towards each other afterwards
Mike was the true secret superhero all along
I’m still not sure y’all aren’t just imagining this alleged recent shittiness.
It’s a scientific principal known as the conservation of Mikosity.
Make sense.
So Mike is Nny?
And good fuckin’ riddance, too. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy
It could have happened to worse guys too
It did. Twice.
This feels like a pure “Damn you Willis” moment.
One of the most wholesome moments on the strip, “retconned” into having one of the worst moments, only 10 secs later.
Amazing! I salute you Willis. This is top
But also…
“DAMN YOU WILLIIIIIIIIIIIS!!!!” *shakes fist to the air, while getting weird looks from coworkers*
Ugh, flagged rather than replied again. That’s gonna be a learning curve.
Right? Up there for me with the triumph of Amber punching her shitty, shitty dad (which I submitted to the Crowning Moment of Facepunch Tumblr way back when), immediately running and putting a hall full of people between herself and him, and then shortly afterwards Amber having a breakdown as she felt guilty for enjoying punching him.
Amber gets this a lot, unfortunately.
man i knew we’d be getting something like this in this arc but i didn’t exactly expect it to be so soon. well, it seems like now we have clear confirmation…unless mike did actually fake his death and we’re all just being bamboozled. i know what it’s like to have a very sudden loss of someone very close to you, so i can really relate to amber here. makes me worried about her tbh
Oh okay. So Mike’s death was literally offscreen
Honestly i was convinced when it was revealed that it was all a ruse to protect him from any lingering remnants of the mob Amber’s dad was connected to. Took me a while to accept he was dead dead.
Unless it is a ruse and even Amber is unaware…
I mean, if it was a ruse, considering amber hallucinates Mike talking to her out of guilt of his death she definitely wouldnt have known
But yeah he died like, immediately after the big “things are gonna be okay!” Like an emotional whiplash
Yeah, I thought I was reading Dumbing of Age, not Kingdom Hearts
Thank you for reminding me Mike was dead, I needed a pick me up. Thank god they didn’t have to wait around for that to happen.
It’s like getting a reminder Rush Limbaugh is dead, or that the fucks behind Enron’s bankruptcy being prosecuted: Sometimes there’s a little beauty in the world.
Except Rush should have died in prison for his little sex tourism trip to a place where there was no statutory rape law.
knowing mike, he just thought “f*ck this sh*t I’m out” and noped himself from his coma into death
red, blue, blue red
*Plays “Black and Blue” on the hacked muzak*:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LDPUfbXRLM
“What did I do, to get so black and blue?”
Actually alt-text, I’m not sure that I agree. The screams of “DAMN YOU, WILLIS!!!!” would probably be like nothing we have ever seen.
Kind of wish we’d seen this when it happened. Definitely more of a downer ending, but it would have given the audience a bit of a chance to get closure and not be as weirded out by the cast having had some time to move on while we still didn’t know for sure.
It was like we were supposed to assume he was dead, but at the same time couldn’t be confronted with it because that would be the wrong tone.
Agreed. I was super confused about whether Mike was dead or not. I don’t understand this time jump.
We may yet get an Ethan flashback
Yeah. I didn’t really mind the time skip, but this is making me like it less.
This doesn’t really change my opinion. Some things about the time skip, including how Mike’s death was hidden and then anti-climatically revealed always irked me, but just finding out it happened right away doesn’t really bother me. Other than reminding me of it.
That’s fair. I guess it bothers me because if it had been, say a week into the time skip, I could see not cutting back in just for that. But when it was right away?
Also, since the time skip, I’ve had some more discussions about nonlinear story in general, and combined with now being more reminded of it has shifted my perspective some.
Sure, but it happened when Willis wanted it to happen, not at any fixed time.
…Okay? Like, obviously? Not sure the point of this comment.
Wow literally like 5 seconds
Looks like we didn’t miss much then, at least about that situation
Mike has had time for what?
Not dying.
Ooooooh so this will be much more than just explaining the Ruth/Billie breakup. Well played (as usual), Willis.
Flashbacks within flashbacks!
Love the color palette.
Yeah. It is sorta of sad how many of Ambers memories get to be red though.
This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Blaine and now has seen the end of Mike.
Worse. This may also be the day (in the “blue flashback”) that Amazi-Girl hangs up her mask. Almost like a third death.
Amizi-Girl still plays roller derby.
But she’s still hung up her mask. She doesn’t wear the costume or beat up bad guys.
Yes, with Mike dead, there is no true evil left for her to fight.
So she changed hobbies. If I quit playing Yu-Gi-Oh! and start painting model trains, that doesn’t mean I’ve died.
Willis, you MONSTER.
No, no, you misunderstand. We are HAPPY Mike and Blaine died. Amazigirl would be the only tragic loss in this.
Can you kill an alter without killing the entire body?
I think so. From what I’ve read, sometimes alters “die” in the mind, reintegrate, go away, etc. I could be wrong.
Flashback inside a flashback.
:[
Yo dawg I herd you liked flashbacks so I put a flashback in your flashback so you can flashback while you flashback