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He landed on his feet, dabbed, did a backflip, dabbed three more times, shotgunned some Pepsi, backflipped while dabbing, and tweened away mid-flip like Steve from Blue’s Clues.
In the split second before Mike hit the ground, Mike did his Mike thing with the concrete where he was an asshole, but was right, and the concrete, seeing that Mike was right, changed its state from a rigid solid into a trampoline-like surface, allowing Mike to land hard, but immediately bounce back unharmed.
He did a full flip through the car’s sunroof, landed in the driver’s seat, and did a sick burnout to get away even though the car’s underpowered, front wheel drive, and has an open differential.
“There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Mike has totally read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?
There’s no way Mike is dead, or even hospitalized. I was assuming this was bad until Blaine acted smug about it. There’s now 2 reasons Mike is alive.
1: Blaine is a lying liar.
2: Mike is a quantum asshole. His physical health is whatever you don’t want it to be. Right now, Blaine would be much happier if Mike was dead. Therefore, he’s absolutely not.
Willis even then said he would make exceptions for characters who our main cast wouldn’t much mourn (citing Tony as an example), and he more recently said on Twitter that he’d broken one of his Major Rules of writing Dumbing of Age – many have taken it to mean the “no-killing” rule, as that’s the one the most are familiar with.
Another major rule Willis had was that any characters that were in a relationship in the Walkyverse would not be paired together in the Dumbiverse. That way he can explore new things, but some previous relationships COULD be interesting in this new setting as it might have been quite toxic in the Walkyverse, like Sal/Danny (hell, she seems open to it, though Danny is not really so at this time).
Hell, he already sort of broke that rule with Sal’s affair with Jason, so he’s willing to break that one in the right context.
Case in point on the “reserving the right to change his mind” thing: there was originally Word of Willis that Amber was Blaine’s only biological offspring in this ‘verse (as opposed to the scores in the Walkyverse), but a couple of years back he said on Patreon that he’d forgotten all about having ever said that – and it’s since been all-but-stated that Faz, at least, is also Blaine’s.
It was originally made a rule on the grounds that, if broken, the characters would all be mourning for literal years (our time), it would bring the pacing to a grinding halt for literally the rest of the comic, and it would just overall suck. I’m not gonna say 100% that that wasn’t the Rule he broke, I’m just saying it’s probably the worst one to break from a practical standpoint, because it had the soundest reasoning behind it when it was first put up.
She cut him up, but stopped before killing him. It’s unclear exactly what happened, but I’d hesitate to describe it as “tried”, since she apparently had the opportunity, but stopped herself before actually finishing him.
It’s possible that she only stopped because she thought he was dead or about to die, but it’s not clear that’s the case.
Mm. That ‘I tried’ could mean a number of things, though. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it’ seems at least as likely as ‘I tried, but it looks like he’ll pull through’.
1) He’s claiming that he personally defeated Mike.
2) He’s claiming that he killed Mike, when we know #1 isn’t true.
3) Therefore, Mike is alive but also in a controlled environment.
4) Blaine is going to kill all of them?
5) Then who is going to contact Amazi-Girl?
6) Carol would not consent to Joyce being killed, even for the “greater good”.
7) Ross, even though he has been swayed to murdering Mike, is not about to kill six children, including his daughters best friend, for no reason. Was he ready to shoot up a college? Yes. But let’s think about that for a minute. In his mind, the college was the enemy. These are just six kids that they already subdued.
Blaine is 100% playing himself here. Is there more heartbreak and drama (and trauma) to come? Most definitely. But Blaine’s roll in this is quickly evaporating.
Why would he care what Carol wants? He should care more what Ross wants since he’s actively depending on him and he’s right there, but there’s no reason he should care about Carol.
Provided it’s somebody within his congregation who shares his particular idea of God. So basically if anything, Carol may be more unreasonable than ToeDad
Actually, this might bring up a good possibility for the “no death of anyone the main cast would mourn” rule. Maybe Blaine does try to hurt the kids and Ross decides things are going too far and tries to stop him. If Ross dies to protest everyone, I think they would still mourn him and so would Becky. It would be redemptive enough that he would be forgiven his past sins and I think it would still hit everyone really hard, so they would be mourning him the rest of the comic, but (because of what he did) not so much that it would prevent other things from happening to progress the story.
Probably referring to Joyce’s comment regarding Amber and Amazi-Girl. “Amber is Amazi-Girl” is only true in the sense that they both share the same 5-foot-2-inch meat vehicle.
I actually forgot he took Blaine down with him. If Blaine, a middle aged man who likely is already pretty battered and bruised, survived with few lasting issues? Then Mike DEFINITELY survived
Finding someone physically attractive isn’t the same as being their friend. “Kind of” about describes it for Amber I think. She mostly put up with him for Ethan’s sake. I can’t think of a time when she intentionally spent any time with him.
Walky seemed to care about him when he had not seen him in a day. Amber clearly thinks of him as a friend. Joyce invited him to her dorm party, though he had to promise to be nice (he declined that invite).
Dorothy clearly found him irritating. I doubt Sarah knew he existed in the first place.
I think he is trying to make them think Mike died because none of them can confirm otherwise and the word ‘friend’ is being used more as ‘peer’ here rather than in a literal sense of ‘friend’. And Amber and Ethan and presumably AG at the very least see Mike as a friend.
The rest see him as someone they are at least attached to due to familiarity and none of these people at the very least would be ones that would say Mike deserves to die even if they did like him.
Which actually strikes me with the thought that I would like for Danny to help Mike. I don’t know why, it just seems like as a previous kidnap victim of Blaine, that it would be nice if he was involved in saving everyone in some way.
There are several old limestone quarries near Bloomington. Maybe not technically cliffs, but a big hole in the ground with steep, rocky sides should be close enough.
Probably broken rib(s) or serious bruising of the torso. Same principle for either, that breathing in becomes difficult due to the pain caused by the chest expanding. He could have internal bleeding but it would not cause him to make the sounds he’s making.
My guess is broken rib(s). I broke a rib once and it was very painful to take deep breaths. And this was a hairline crack while I was taking it easy to let it heal, not running around like Blaine is doing.
“Fun” fact: if your ribs are so badly broken that they are stabbing at your lungs, that can kill you. We can only hope that’s the case here…
Possibility: Amber while trying to convince her dad that she is Amazigirl provokes him into beating her, she is unable to fight back due to the ducktape binding her, this reveals Blaine as not caring about his daughter at all to Ross and shows he is a liar.
My guess is that Willis will have to ignore the pandemic in his comic. I mean, the net two months of strips are already drawn, by the time he can start introducing elements of the Quarantine in the comic, it just might be over.
You know I just remembered in the original continuity Mike *did* die but was resurrected via alien tech. Now given that Word of God has sworn no deaths in this new universeI ‘m thinking Disney Death since we never saw the Body and Mike ig gonna have a Big Hero Moment with a last minute resuce after rousing himself from injuries.
You didn’t threw Mike, you coward. He threw you, and you luckily survived by hanging from a rope. You lack the guts to be a killer. You are scum, and I hope you get beaten to death or at least get a life sentence for kidnapping many teenagers. Also claiming you killed Mike counts as a legal confession, so you will be sentenced for murder. Have a horrible day, asshole.
Ok, I’m calling it. Mike’s kidnapped with a broken leg or whatever–Blaine isn’t a kill quick kind of villain, especially not someone who’s *personally* been a lil shit to him for the last century.
I’m going to point out he said .”threw off” he didn’t say killed. Sure the preamble before implied death. But Given Neckless Dad (becky’s dad) reaction to them and asking if they’re okay.
that lends that Mike is alive, just injured-either there or more likely hopital.
These two ran off immeddiately after the fall I bet.
but yeah. really. Don’t kill off Ruth Ruth okay? She’s died in your continiums too many times. But this is way similiar to last time, got a good moment, then a crashing doom next, followed by death doom.
I think he’s wincing from internal injuries. He’s in his mid-forties at least, and just yesterday took a flying kick to the chest*, another flying kick to the face, and then saved himself from a 30+ foot drop by grabbing a rope with one hand. He’s probably got a couple cracked ribs, and a sprained wrist and shoulder.
*Yes he’s wearing something like motorcycle armor, but that’s still a blow he had to absorb.
I’m not taking this as confirmation Mike’s dead, because Blaine is a lying liar who lies (both in this strip and when he claimed to the police that at least one ‘very large man’ beat him up at the McDonalds, or something to that effect, when we all know it was AG and HE knows full well it was AG.)
But given how fucked up Blaine is from yesterday when he didn’t take the full fall, it doesn’t look good.
Aaand now we have the classic ‘Bruce Wayne dies unless you bring me Batman!’ in full, with bonus peril to Becky! (Poor, poor Becky. This is gonna suck for her.)
He just said to consider his fate, which sort of implies death in conjunction with the previous statement, but it could also just mean “i’m not messing around here”
After all this is over, I heard Blaine gets locked up for eternity for attempted kidnapping and charges for murder. This guy is far more evil than Toedad will ever be.
I doubt that what he did there meets the legal definition of kidnap. The elements of kidnap include abducting a person (from one place to another) and false imprisonment. Maybe decoying Danny into meeting him meets the criteria for “abduction”, but he did not prevent Danny from leaving, so there was no false imprisonment.
Well, that one might be attempted kidnap. There are still six counts of really-o, truly-o thirty years in prison kidnap to leave Blaine face a sentence that ends in the twenty-third century.
He has protested against some of it but yeah, for the moment ‘I didn’t like the idea of doing this’ really doesn’t stand up as a leg to stand on, especially when he did hit Mike with a damn car.
I wonder if he forgets he’s Amber’s dad when he puts the mask on, or is he extremely incapable of believing that Amber could have a spine that he immediately blanked out her last statement.
He is incapable of believing her because he is delusional as to Amber’s capabilities. We know it was Amber that beat him up, but from his perspective, it was AG. Though he may be remembering she still gave him a solid punch and escaped him, as he has backed right up out of her face.
Are those Hnk sounds due to internal injuries. I’d like to think Blaine is bleeding internally and will die in this vendetta because he didn’t go to a hospital.
That was a hallucination that Amber was having. She also has been shown hallucinating AG’s voice coming from her mask, so there is a precedent for her hallucinating people she knows. It is also possible that time when we thought Blaine was just a manifestation of her thoughts was also a hallucination.
Based on the fact that he somehow can’t tell that Amber is Amazigirl despite having the same hair and same body shape, I’d say that all the blunt force trauma has given him some severe brain damage and he’s not thinking clearly at all
Blaine wants Amber to drop out so he’s off the hook for her tuition. This seems to have escalated a bit, though, so it’s not clear just what he expects to get out of it.
His ostensible goal is to distress and traumatise Amber so much that she drops out of college and saves him her tuition and accommodation costs. But he seems to have completely lost sight of that. Now he’s just acting out toxic-masculine fantasies of authority and power.
Okay, here is how I think this is going down…
1) Blaine grabs Toedad’s gun.
2) Blaine accidentally shoots himself, right in front of Amber.
3) Jeph Jacques sues Willis for stealing Faye’s backstory from “Questionable Content.”
Someone else mentioned that Sal knows Amber is Amazi Girl. Sal’s gonna come in the amazi-girl costume, not telling anyone about because of her distrust of authority and who would she tell? But she’ll need to go into to Amber’s room to grab the costume so Billie and Ruth will catch her (cuz Ruth called Billie, being worried and wanting help) and Billie will FINALLY get her Sal is Amazi Girl pay off
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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leaving out the part where Mike landed on his feet like a spiteful cat
(bc it didn’t happen, oops)
As far as you know.
He landed on his feet, dabbed, did a backflip, dabbed three more times, shotgunned some Pepsi, backflipped while dabbing, and tweened away mid-flip like Steve from Blue’s Clues.
(Dabs at eyes.)
Dab you Willis!
In the split second before Mike hit the ground, Mike did his Mike thing with the concrete where he was an asshole, but was right, and the concrete, seeing that Mike was right, changed its state from a rigid solid into a trampoline-like surface, allowing Mike to land hard, but immediately bounce back unharmed.
What is he, a fuckin’ Fullbringer?
This!!!
He did a full flip through the car’s sunroof, landed in the driver’s seat, and did a sick burnout to get away even though the car’s underpowered, front wheel drive, and has an open differential.
He’s okay because he landed on your mom. Like usual.
“There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Mike has totally read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?
If he hasn’t, he’s heard Amber and Ethan quote it enough times that it counts.
Well fuck.
#MikeIsDead?
There’s no way Mike is dead, or even hospitalized. I was assuming this was bad until Blaine acted smug about it. There’s now 2 reasons Mike is alive.
1: Blaine is a lying liar.
2: Mike is a quantum asshole. His physical health is whatever you don’t want it to be. Right now, Blaine would be much happier if Mike was dead. Therefore, he’s absolutely not.
Also Willis has said that he won’t kill anyone.
Willis even then said he would make exceptions for characters who our main cast wouldn’t much mourn (citing Tony as an example), and he more recently said on Twitter that he’d broken one of his Major Rules of writing Dumbing of Age – many have taken it to mean the “no-killing” rule, as that’s the one the most are familiar with.
Which quite blatantly doesn’t include Mike.
Yes, he’s an annoying POS, but he’s also Amber and Ethan’s best friend.
Right? If Mike is dead, literally the entire comic from this point on is going to be mourning with how time works.
Another major rule Willis had was that any characters that were in a relationship in the Walkyverse would not be paired together in the Dumbiverse. That way he can explore new things, but some previous relationships COULD be interesting in this new setting as it might have been quite toxic in the Walkyverse, like Sal/Danny (hell, she seems open to it, though Danny is not really so at this time).
Hell, he already sort of broke that rule with Sal’s affair with Jason, so he’s willing to break that one in the right context.
Other Walkyverse couples he has already paired on-screen in the Dumbingverse: Billie/Ruth, Mandy/Grace/Sierra, Dorothy/Walky…
Unfortunate because Mike/Amber are my OTP.
Willis also reserves the right to change his mind/that thing about him claiming or implying to have broken one of his “rules.”
Mike might not be dead, but old Word of God might not be the protection you think it is.
Case in point on the “reserving the right to change his mind” thing: there was originally Word of Willis that Amber was Blaine’s only biological offspring in this ‘verse (as opposed to the scores in the Walkyverse), but a couple of years back he said on Patreon that he’d forgotten all about having ever said that – and it’s since been all-but-stated that Faz, at least, is also Blaine’s.
It was originally made a rule on the grounds that, if broken, the characters would all be mourning for literal years (our time), it would bring the pacing to a grinding halt for literally the rest of the comic, and it would just overall suck. I’m not gonna say 100% that that wasn’t the Rule he broke, I’m just saying it’s probably the worst one to break from a practical standpoint, because it had the soundest reasoning behind it when it was first put up.
Didn’t Amber kill whats-his-face, the guy who tried raping Joyce? Or did she just completely fuck his shit up but he survived at the hospital?
She tried to kill him, but didn’t. Now his family is suing her.
She cut him up, but stopped before killing him. It’s unclear exactly what happened, but I’d hesitate to describe it as “tried”, since she apparently had the opportunity, but stopped herself before actually finishing him.
It’s possible that she only stopped because she thought he was dead or about to die, but it’s not clear that’s the case.
Amber told Joyce that she tried to kill Ryan.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/comforting/
Do not know why that didn’t work.
Mm. That ‘I tried’ could mean a number of things, though. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it’ seems at least as likely as ‘I tried, but it looks like he’ll pull through’.
Blaine is 100% overplaying his cards here.
1) He’s claiming that he personally defeated Mike.
2) He’s claiming that he killed Mike, when we know #1 isn’t true.
3) Therefore, Mike is alive but also in a controlled environment.
4) Blaine is going to kill all of them?
5) Then who is going to contact Amazi-Girl?
6) Carol would not consent to Joyce being killed, even for the “greater good”.
7) Ross, even though he has been swayed to murdering Mike, is not about to kill six children, including his daughters best friend, for no reason. Was he ready to shoot up a college? Yes. But let’s think about that for a minute. In his mind, the college was the enemy. These are just six kids that they already subdued.
Blaine is 100% playing himself here. Is there more heartbreak and drama (and trauma) to come? Most definitely. But Blaine’s roll in this is quickly evaporating.
Why would he care what Carol wants? He should care more what Ross wants since he’s actively depending on him and he’s right there, but there’s no reason he should care about Carol.
Ross and Carol are friends, and Ross will likely consider Carol’s wishes as he isn’t a COMPLETELY unsympathetic piece of shingle.
Yes, he is.
No he isn’t
Provided it’s somebody within his congregation who shares his particular idea of God. So basically if anything, Carol may be more unreasonable than ToeDad
Actually, this might bring up a good possibility for the “no death of anyone the main cast would mourn” rule. Maybe Blaine does try to hurt the kids and Ross decides things are going too far and tries to stop him. If Ross dies to protest everyone, I think they would still mourn him and so would Becky. It would be redemptive enough that he would be forgiven his past sins and I think it would still hit everyone really hard, so they would be mourning him the rest of the comic, but (because of what he did) not so much that it would prevent other things from happening to progress the story.
Blaine didn’t actually say that Mike is dead, even while stretching the truth. Does that make it more or less likely?
Doubt it. I’m sure he’ll be back for unfinished business.
Blaine could be lying, though he didn’t specifically say that Mike died from that fall either.
Blaine is lying. He did not throw Mike off the staircase.
Plus that was so not three stories
He was replaced by a doppelganger back in the sixties.
damn it willis what do you mean “mostly true” WHAT’S MOSTLY TRUE
Well, according to Miracle Max, …
Miracle Max (inflating bellows): And what’s so important that you need to stay alive for?
Mike: Toooo fuuuck yooooour moooom.
And that’s why Miracle Max decided not to revive Mike.
As far as you know.
And Max’s wife then leaves a nickel on the table…
Only because his mom was eaten by a Giant Owlbear years ago.
Probably referring to Joyce’s comment regarding Amber and Amazi-Girl. “Amber is Amazi-Girl” is only true in the sense that they both share the same 5-foot-2-inch meat vehicle.
Well, Blaine didn’t actually throw Mike, Mike jumped at him and they fell together.
^this
I actually forgot he took Blaine down with him. If Blaine, a middle aged man who likely is already pretty battered and bruised, survived with few lasting issues? Then Mike DEFINITELY survived
Blaine managed to grab hold of Amazi-Girls rope while Mike fell.
Link
“It’s mostly true, the majority of it”
Everything Blaine said in panel 3 except the words “I” and “threw”
Non-Ethan people think of Mike as their friend?
Your mom does.
Only for a nickel though.
Amber, kind of. She sometimes willingly associated with him, and she once commented on how hot she found him appearance-wise.
(And Amazi-Girl non-convincingly denied being turned on by tying him up and then sitting on him while they were on the floor, IIRC.)
She didn’t tie him up. Mike only wished she would.
Finding someone physically attractive isn’t the same as being their friend. “Kind of” about describes it for Amber I think. She mostly put up with him for Ethan’s sake. I can’t think of a time when she intentionally spent any time with him.
Walky seemed to care about him when he had not seen him in a day. Amber clearly thinks of him as a friend. Joyce invited him to her dorm party, though he had to promise to be nice (he declined that invite).
Dorothy clearly found him irritating. I doubt Sarah knew he existed in the first place.
Sarah didn’t like him either: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/recording/
And while trawling the archives, I was reminded of THIS creepy bit of foreshadowing: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/included/
And don’t forget Sal’s foreshadow-y comment in this strip, in the same panel as Mike: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/impulsive/
(Also, Blaine comments to Ross in the strip immediately following that one that he “wouldn’t be too bothered” if something happened to Mike.)
Oooh, I missed that one!
That doesn’t make it any less of a shock to hear someone you know died suddenly, and it also adds weight and credibility to Blaine’s threat.
I think he is trying to make them think Mike died because none of them can confirm otherwise and the word ‘friend’ is being used more as ‘peer’ here rather than in a literal sense of ‘friend’. And Amber and Ethan and presumably AG at the very least see Mike as a friend.
The rest see him as someone they are at least attached to due to familiarity and none of these people at the very least would be ones that would say Mike deserves to die even if they did like him.
Which actually strikes me with the thought that I would like for Danny to help Mike. I don’t know why, it just seems like as a previous kidnap victim of Blaine, that it would be nice if he was involved in saving everyone in some way.
That is supposed to say ‘even if they didn’t like him’ at the end of the second paragraph.
JFC
What else to consider, Blaine, it’s still a hyukking open ending for whats-his-name!
What would also do to them kids, huh, throw them off a dang cliff?
Where’s the nearest cliff in Indiana?
Indiana is where god rested his elbows while making the interesting stuff And fiddle-y bits on the coasts. ‘S why it’s so flat, big elbows.
Most of the prominent cliffs in Indiana are man-made. I mean, the southern half has plenty of hills.
Perhaps the most prominent cliff near campus is a strip mine that they filmed a scene for the movie Breaking Away in.
There are several old limestone quarries near Bloomington. Maybe not technically cliffs, but a big hole in the ground with steep, rocky sides should be close enough.
Any reason Blaine seems to be having trouble breathing?
Hopefully? Internal bleeding.
Probably broken rib(s) or serious bruising of the torso. Same principle for either, that breathing in becomes difficult due to the pain caused by the chest expanding. He could have internal bleeding but it would not cause him to make the sounds he’s making.
I’m guessing he suffered big injuries from Amazi-girl after mike fell, hence the missing tooth.
Wasn’t he already missing that last we saw him?
He got an Amazigirl kick to the head not long before Mike died or didn’t die.
Yup, when she grappled up to the fire escape. We see it missing in the red-panel-Mike-fall strip a couple days later.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/bucket/
My guess is broken rib(s). I broke a rib once and it was very painful to take deep breaths. And this was a hairline crack while I was taking it easy to let it heal, not running around like Blaine is doing.
“Fun” fact: if your ribs are so badly broken that they are stabbing at your lungs, that can kill you. We can only hope that’s the case here…
also didn’t he have the nose brace on since the first beatdown?
Amazi-Girl kicked him in the chest a couple of times, and he took a bit of a fall. H’s probably got some broken ribs, and possibly a pneumothorax.
He’ll be fine until he gets kicked in the chest again.
I’m assuming he was hurt in the fight with Amazi-Girl and Mike.
Having been previously hurt in the fight with Amber and Danny, and come back without taking time to recover fully.
Possibility: Amber while trying to convince her dad that she is Amazigirl provokes him into beating her, she is unable to fight back due to the ducktape binding her, this reveals Blaine as not caring about his daughter at all to Ross and shows he is a liar.
uni: go home for the rest of the semester
me and my friends: (panel 4)
“Those stricken expressions aren’t a problem, but can we get two meters between each of you, please? Leave room for
Jesusthe pandemic.”My guess is that Willis will have to ignore the pandemic in his comic. I mean, the net two months of strips are already drawn, by the time he can start introducing elements of the Quarantine in the comic, it just might be over.
Maybe he can post something in Shortpacked!?
If so, it will probably be tomorrow.
Remember the last strip titled “Stakes”? My my, but those were the days, right?
I’d like to hope we can return to those days after this storyline’s over.
Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. The past isn’t coming back, so you better brace yourself and try to beat the shit out of the problems from the future.
Show them your ball peen, masked guy.
didn’t mike tackle him off the roof and they fell together hence why he is so injured?
Yep. Blaine is an unreliable narrator (father, human being, etc.)
Even so, he didn’t actually say what Mike’s fate was.
Damn. Even knowing, this still has me on pins and needles, especially the gutwrenching fourth panel.
Sal knows amber is amazigirl
call sal, amber.
sal will help.
You’re lying, Blaine.
You DID NOT throw Mike of that stairwell.
he jumped…
Blaine was thrown off by Mike. Close enough.
Christ, what an asshole
And now the next act begins?
“We’re in the endgame now.”
Even the Transformer on Ethan’s shirt is shocked at that revelation!
(Forgive me, I don’t remember his name…)
It’s Ethan. You got it right.
The real Ethan was switched at birth.
Dinobot.
It should follow all of Ethan’s expressions, like the little duck head on Wade’s life preserver in Garfield and Friends.
I could feel that shock in Panel 4, feels like my soul floated away.
Why is he grunting? Am I out of the know?
Probably internal damage from whatever Amazi-Girl did to him yesterday morning.
Gosh, I hope he has internal damage.
We’ve always known he has internal damage, now he has injuries too.
You know I just remembered in the original continuity Mike *did* die but was resurrected via alien tech. Now given that Word of God has sworn no deaths in this new universeI ‘m thinking Disney Death since we never saw the Body and Mike ig gonna have a Big Hero Moment with a last minute resuce after rousing himself from injuries.
On the other hand you’d think a guy with mob ties would know to at least look for a body
Hussie: “You forgot an important detail. You took your sight from the body.”
Is that from MSPA?
You didn’t threw Mike, you coward. He threw you, and you luckily survived by hanging from a rope. You lack the guts to be a killer. You are scum, and I hope you get beaten to death or at least get a life sentence for kidnapping many teenagers. Also claiming you killed Mike counts as a legal confession, so you will be sentenced for murder. Have a horrible day, asshole.
Ok, I’m calling it. Mike’s kidnapped with a broken leg or whatever–Blaine isn’t a kill quick kind of villain, especially not someone who’s *personally* been a lil shit to him for the last century.
*decade, whoops.
Mike has reincarnated, and his previous iteration was a lil shit to Blaine for the last century!
They’re basically the same thing.
To an immortal, sure.
The difference is a zero, and zero is nothing, so the difference is nothing.
Everything is nothing. Eat Arby’s.
I love the little packets of horseradish sauce. Bet they would even make nihilism taste good.
5 original Arbys’ for $10.
This week.
Finally the gang is updated on the plot.
Wait… That still doesn’t tell us if he lived or not! He could have landed in a bush or a tree or a magic plot device!
I’m going to point out he said .”threw off” he didn’t say killed. Sure the preamble before implied death. But Given Neckless Dad (becky’s dad) reaction to them and asking if they’re okay.
that lends that Mike is alive, just injured-either there or more likely hopital.
These two ran off immeddiately after the fall I bet.
but yeah. really. Don’t kill off Ruth Ruth okay? She’s died in your continiums too many times. But this is way similiar to last time, got a good moment, then a crashing doom next, followed by death doom.
Y’all see it, right? Blaine blinked. Amber said “I kicked my dads ass” and he retreated with threats. But he backed out of her personal space.
Also he hiccuped like a mofo so he’s obviously scared.
I think he’s wincing from internal injuries. He’s in his mid-forties at least, and just yesterday took a flying kick to the chest*, another flying kick to the face, and then saved himself from a 30+ foot drop by grabbing a rope with one hand. He’s probably got a couple cracked ribs, and a sprained wrist and shoulder.
*Yes he’s wearing something like motorcycle armor, but that’s still a blow he had to absorb.
I’m not taking this as confirmation Mike’s dead, because Blaine is a lying liar who lies (both in this strip and when he claimed to the police that at least one ‘very large man’ beat him up at the McDonalds, or something to that effect, when we all know it was AG and HE knows full well it was AG.)
But given how fucked up Blaine is from yesterday when he didn’t take the full fall, it doesn’t look good.
Aaand now we have the classic ‘Bruce Wayne dies unless you bring me Batman!’ in full, with bonus peril to Becky! (Poor, poor Becky. This is gonna suck for her.)
But it wasn’t AG. It was Amber.
Also Blaine didn’t say Mike died.
He just said to consider his fate, which sort of implies death in conjunction with the previous statement, but it could also just mean “i’m not messing around here”
After all this is over, I heard Blaine gets locked up for eternity for attempted kidnapping and charges for murder. This guy is far more evil than Toedad will ever be.
It’s not attempted kidnapping. He has kidnapped six people.
Seven if he’s got Mike.
He also kidnapped Danny before.
I doubt that what he did there meets the legal definition of kidnap. The elements of kidnap include abducting a person (from one place to another) and false imprisonment. Maybe decoying Danny into meeting him meets the criteria for “abduction”, but he did not prevent Danny from leaving, so there was no false imprisonment.
He did try to prevent Danny from leaving. That’s what provoked Amber to lash out and attack him in the parking lot.
Well, that one might be attempted kidnap. There are still six counts of really-o, truly-o thirty years in prison kidnap to leave Blaine face a sentence that ends in the twenty-third century.
Make that multiple counts of kidnapping. Nobody will bail SuperDouche.
Ross is cooperating with the kidnapping and murder threats. I’m not giving him any credit here.
He has protested against some of it but yeah, for the moment ‘I didn’t like the idea of doing this’ really doesn’t stand up as a leg to stand on, especially when he did hit Mike with a damn car.
It’s “whom”, you asshole.
Pretend I’m actually Amber responding to Blaine when you read the above.
Hah!
Alt text: Now, mostly true is slightly a lie.
Mostly true is slightly a lie is stretching it a bit.
Well, now they’re all gonna fuck him up.
I wonder if he forgets he’s Amber’s dad when he puts the mask on, or is he extremely incapable of believing that Amber could have a spine that he immediately blanked out her last statement.
He is incapable of believing her because he is delusional as to Amber’s capabilities. We know it was Amber that beat him up, but from his perspective, it was AG. Though he may be remembering she still gave him a solid punch and escaped him, as he has backed right up out of her face.
Keep talking, Blaine. It’s hard to distinguish internal bleeding from other pain.
It’s not until you see him in dramatic profile, but DAMN, Blaine sure has an angular head.
He could use a Kleenex box for a hat.
Psst, random goons that Blaine has. You just heard that he just threw a kid off a building, right?
If you’re members of Joyce’s church, do you REALLY want to go through with this? Especially after he just threatened to kill six more?
Ross referred to them as “your hires” while addressing Blaine; it’s unlikely that they are his co-congregants.
Are those Hnk sounds due to internal injuries. I’d like to think Blaine is bleeding internally and will die in this vendetta because he didn’t go to a hospital.
There is way too little punching evil dads in the face going on right now
“Meet my demand or you will all die!”
So… Unless he untied any of them, he’s not getting them to contact anyone.
Only a third rate super-villain backs up a bluff with an unsubstantiated claim. So… fitting.
A true villain.
But Mike was just in the March 8th strip? Talking to Amber in his and Walkys room after Amber and Walky made out and Walky rushed off to class.
That was a hallucination that Amber was having. She also has been shown hallucinating AG’s voice coming from her mask, so there is a precedent for her hallucinating people she knows. It is also possible that time when we thought Blaine was just a manifestation of her thoughts was also a hallucination.
Could someone remind me of what Blaine’s endgame is here? Ross wants to get Becky back, okay; what exactly does Blaine want?
Also hi, hope everyone’s washing their hands and staying away from each other. I’ve been in isolation, alone, for 27 days now. It could be worse.
Just to be an asshole?
Based on the fact that he somehow can’t tell that Amber is Amazigirl despite having the same hair and same body shape, I’d say that all the blunt force trauma has given him some severe brain damage and he’s not thinking clearly at all
Blunt force trauma, drunk, and too deeply invested in loathing his daughter to think clearly to begin with.
Blaine wants Amber to drop out so he’s off the hook for her tuition. This seems to have escalated a bit, though, so it’s not clear just what he expects to get out of it.
His ostensible goal is to distress and traumatise Amber so much that she drops out of college and saves him her tuition and accommodation costs. But he seems to have completely lost sight of that. Now he’s just acting out toxic-masculine fantasies of authority and power.
So Joyce did not have a firm opinion about Amazi-Girl’s identity after all.
Okay, here is how I think this is going down…
1) Blaine grabs Toedad’s gun.
2) Blaine accidentally shoots himself, right in front of Amber.
3) Jeph Jacques sues Willis for stealing Faye’s backstory from “Questionable Content.”
No bets…
Toedad’s gun is in an evidence locker somewhere.
There are other guns out there…
Exactly so. Why, then, would Blaine grab Toedad’s?
He could have gotten another… that would still be “his”.
I dunno, I think it time to kick some ass! But that’s just me…
I love how Blaine is taking credit for the accident.
Yeah, Mike tackled him. But a narcissist would still take the credit.
Enter Mike on April 1st:
a) Heavily bandaged
b) Within a flashback
c) As an apparition/hallucination
d) Well, just the letters of his name
Choose your poison.
e) In Shortpacked!
Someone else mentioned that Sal knows Amber is Amazi Girl. Sal’s gonna come in the amazi-girl costume, not telling anyone about because of her distrust of authority and who would she tell? But she’ll need to go into to Amber’s room to grab the costume so Billie and Ruth will catch her (cuz Ruth called Billie, being worried and wanting help) and Billie will FINALLY get her Sal is Amazi Girl pay off