Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
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I mean, he’s either suffering eternal damnation in hell for his sins, or has had his religion proven false one way or another, which for him could possibly be a worse fate.
Well, if he’s wrong about the existence of an afterlife, he’s not aware of it, so while it’d be something he’d be upset to learn, he wouldn’t actually learn it.
I felt more for Becky than for ToeDad. He was scum, but scum or not he was Becky’s father. That’s going to be painful, no matter how she tries to hide it.
Abusive parents still get mourned by their children. That relationship is complicated at the best of times.
Yeah I wouldn’t say Willis got many people to feel for Toedad, but I guess I felt something for him at least. Unlike Blaine, it seems like he really was trying to do the right thing, it’s just his idea of the right thing is waaaaaaay out of wack. I like to think that maybe someday, with a buttload of hard work, he could have been redeemed, or at least gotten a start towards it. Maybe I’m just being naive though.
“True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for the actions that caused [God] to turn away from you. That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong. You have done none of this.
“Perhaps, if you had more time … but then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all. It is not for everyone.”
Uh oh, if there’s bandages around his head that means they likely shaved it and Willis is going to have to draw a different haircut if he wake Mike up.
Oh, right, Ethan hasn’t clued into the whole disassociation thing, has he. He probably just thinks that Amber disn’t tell him about their childhood friend being in the hopsital, doesn’t he.
This is going to be a very painful conversation, isn’t it.
I thought by Ethan stating “Amazigirl brought him in” that he was acknowledging the Amber/Amazigirl dissociation. (After all, he didn’t say “you brought him in”.)
He might have gotten a bit of an idea from it taking Amber an amount of time before realizing Blaine was telling the truth, but he might think she was spending that time deciding whether or not to admit she was there
True, but if I am correctly picking up what Hex Hornet is putting down, I think they were hoping for an actual supernatural event within the Dumbverse.
If by ‘magical thinking’ you mean her belief in her religion, I would much rather believe that there is an all-powerful yet possibly imaginary deity running the world rather than be forced to accept whatever it is we have running the show now.
I mean, Amber’s kinda deal until very recently has been to deal with her trauma in ways that hurt both her and others. Stabbing a defenseless kid, picking fights because she wants to beat up/get beaten up by some 18 year olds drinking booze, shoving Mike against a wall because she thought he might have drawn some penises on whiteboards, general pushing people away and keeping secrets.
Mike being in hospital is 100% Blaine’s fault but for the other stuff I feel Ethan deserves to tell Amber off (before hugging because he does really care for her).
Amber is out and about. That means the cops haven’t arrested her (or at least questioned her) about Amazigirl. (Which was one of the potential issues with this story… that Amazigirl’s identity would be revealed and she’d be arrested by police for being a vigilante.)
Don’t know if that means she’s out of the woods…. maybe because its not an immediate issue the cops will wait a while before acting on it?
Well in this situation where a guy murdered someone after kidnapping a bunch of people I think Amber’s vigilante activities are kind of a low priority. Although lets not kid ourselves. They probably wouldn’t have come after her anyway for most of what she’s done.
I guess that all depends on what Blaine says or doesn’t say.
If Blaine says that Amber is Amazigirl, the cops most likely won’t believe him? If he says she isn’t maybe they will investigate?
Blaine isn’t the only one to be concerned about… At least some of the henchmen were told it was Amazigirl they were releasing when they released Amber. Plus, when Amber unmasked at the end you could see at least one witness in the background.
(You also would need her to dispose of her costume after the fight and before the cops showed up… Not many hiding places there.)
I’ve had it up to just about here (visualize me holding my hand level with my eyebrows) with this ACAB mentality that seems to be sweeping the country. Sure there are some bad cops out there, just like there are bad lawyers, bad doctors, bad waitresses, and bad Uber drivers. But it is not fair to tar an entire group with the same brush.
I cannot imagine how they won’t learn Amber is Amazi-Girl, but they’ll have a hard time bringing charges because they have no evidence.
Except for Becky’s bodyguards, everyone she’s pounded was in the process of committing a crime, so who’s going to testify against her?
Robin can get the bodyguards to keep quiet (only one saw her), and that part of the story doesn’t necessarily come out, if the police don’t decide to track her every move.
Beef and his cronies hadn’t done anything illegal (yet, I stress) when AG hammered on them back in Book One. Plus, people who got arrested because of AG probably mentioned her while being questioned.
Plus, even if Danny hadn’t been hit yet, I think beef and his cronies would probably be breaking some laws over using threats/intimidation/harrassment. After all they didn’t just attack Danny with no warning.
Memory suggests that Beef’s cronies who punched Danny and got hammered by AmaziGirl did not in fact include Beef. When Danny wanted to reconnect with AmaziGirl and tried to get Beef to beat him up, Beef wanted to know what was wrong with him.
So I’m not actually sure how accurate a descriptor Beef’s cronies is.
Any of her “victims” can testify against her. Their crime is either already known by this point or they can lie about it. “I had just discovered that vandalized car when this chick in a spandex uniform blames me for it and assaults me”. Heck, the guy Amber slashed is suing her family already, and he was caught on camera assaulting her. I’m curious as to what will happen with Amber/AG going forward, because I don’t think there is any going back.
Further proof that our legal system is totally fucked up and some lawyers are just human sleaze. He had already physically threatened Dorothy and Amber with a knife, made verbal threats of further violence against Joyce (“the blue-eyed girl”) in the next day’s installment, and then once Amber had gotten Dorothy inside and safe, he continued to come at Amber with knife in hand and malice in his heart. Whatever he got he had coming to him, and any lawyer with a half an ounce of ethics should have shown his parents the door instead of agreeing to pursue the case.
Taking into account DoA’s pace, Bandaged Mike will be in that bed for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile Willis can decide on whose brains he wants Unshadow Mike to do his thing.
Wait, if Amazi-girl brought Mike in then does that mean that Blaine’s threat about being able to have Mike killed was just a bluff? Surely if Amazi-girl brought him in then Blaine wouldn’t have had access to him.
I still don’t understand how Amazi-Girl “brought him in” at all. Mike didn’t want the police involved, but there’s no way she could have safely transported him by herself, right? Does that just mean she called 911 and rode in the ambulance with him? I don’t get it.
Of course, it’s also straining my suspension of disbelief that Amber is *visiting* the hospital right now instead of being *admitted to* the hospital.
Not sure if that’s sincere or not, but if it is: That is Brain Ghost Hallucination Mike! Amber’s been seeing him since the fall. You’ll note that every appearance since then had him appearing and disappearing in ways that were impossible, and that his shading never matched the surroundings. (This was either a stylistic change or a cue to the readers since after the stabbing, when Amber hallucinated a Brain Ghost Blaine that WAS shaded consistently to her. But there was no question HE wasn’t real, I suppose. Alternately, it’s yet another sign of how fragile Amber’s mental state has been getting.)
Still REALLY creepy she has no memory.
Can we at least get Ethan asking her to get help since there’s clearly a memory wall between her split personalities now?
They’re talking to each other and sharing at least some memories again, but only as of about 5 AM this in-strip morning. Amber was a bit… preoccupied to be focusing too much on Mike then.
It’s still not 100% clear how much Ethan knows about the dissociation and recognizes as such. (Basically only Walky, Danny, and Dina appear to know for certain, unless I forgot a reveal for Sal or Dotty. Everyone else who’s in on the secret at all is only in on Part One of said secret, not part two.)
(I mean Dorothy might know since she witnessed ‘Unfortunately for you, I am not Amazi-Girl,’ but it’s unclear how much of that she actually heard through the door and how much she realized was non-metaphorical/superhero trope. The fact that there IS the superhero level makes it a lot harder for characters to figure it out, which is why Danny only got it AFTER the breakup despite Amber talking about the car chase as dissociation. I don’t think it fully sunk in until the ‘sharing a meatsack’ line.)
Oh, and I think once Joyce has time to process it more thoroughly, Amber’s ‘us’ line did appear to ping her radar. But I’m not certain she’s had the time to actually Get It.
That’s not completely fair to Danny, since when he was dating AG, they were much closer. She was treating it more as secret identity/rolepaly. There was very little in the way of clues to the disassociation until after they’d broken up and by then he was very used to thinking of it that way.
I don’t know if he’s gotten it even now, but he does know there’s something going on.
Like, SIGNIFICANTLY Not Good. Media being media and this storyline still playing fast and loose with reality vs superhero rules, he could still recover, but.
Yeah, seems unlikely Mike’s coming back to the story any time soon. A shame, since he was just on the cusp of realizing he COULD be a better person. (Redemption Equals Death is fine enough, but a bit played out to my tastes.)
Depends on if it’s induced to heal the injured brain, or as the result of said injury. Induced comas can last for months with no lasting after-effects. As the result of the injuries then the longer they last the less likely recovery becomes.
He very well still could recover. Realistically, most people that are going to recover do within the first three weeks and they can in fact make a full recovery with no remaining effects. Mike has only been in a coma for a day and a bit, so time wise, he still has a good chance to recover and it may take a bit because his brain is you know, trying to heal itself. Whether he’ll have lingering effects or wake up quickly is up to the mercy of David Willis, approximately three months ago when he wrote these strips.
I wonder if Blaine is going to become Amber’s Khylin (Dutch’s psychotic father from Killjoys)? Now that she’s “proven herself” by besting him, he will try to shape her into his “rightful heir.”
I don’t like the idea of Mike being written out of the story. He’s a really interesting character and deserves to have an active role in his possible redemption. Anyway, it’s still early and I hope Willis won’t go down that route.
But for Mike, when did he receive his injuries? The same night we just came out of or was it the night before? Did a day elapse before the false fire alarm?
Mike went splat late the night of the party at Becky’s place. We saw the day after that last chapter (someone said they didn’t see Mike “all day yesterday” back in the basement), and now it’s early morning the day after that.
Actually, I can see the next few strips being Ethan giving an emotional declaration of his true feelings to the comatose Mike as the ‘Mike’ alter in Amber’s head gives a hilarious off-colour commentary and Amber and Amazi-Girl desperately try to shush him.
amber and ethan should have some hope and faith for this is mike we are talking about mike is too stubborn to let something like close to death stop him for some miracle he will wake up and in a surprise be nicer then what mike normaly is
Not sure how asset forfeiture works in the US upon arrest and conviction, but wouldn’t Blaine’s estate be on the hook for that?
I know Mike technically did that to himself, but Blaine admitted to being at fault in front of a ton of witnesses, and nobody is left alive to conflict that other than Blaine himself.
Optimus Prime broke down and cried on the set of "Transformers" (2007) due to the extensive use of green screen filming. He reportedly said, "This is not why I became an actor."
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 1d
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 1d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
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Hailey Piper 
worst Mike drop
ಠ_ಠ
oldmanshakesfistatcloud.png
Lmao!!! Ty-i soooo needed that!
He landed on his head. He’ll be fine.
Tell your mom’s to be saving up their nickles.
Who has time to be keeping woodpeckers in this economy?
Well-played!
yes, it takes time, but you never know when you’ll run into a diming in the rough.
Hahahahaha
You were so concerned with if you could, you didn’t stop to ask if you should.
Given his solid hair and hard-headedness, one might even call it a brick joke.
Cheers I’ll cry to that one bro
You’re awful, and PERFECT!
The doctors are baffled. His heart-rate seems strong, but it’s oddly erratic.
Hopefully they’ll eventually bring in one who both understands morse code, and isn’t overly sensitive about their mother.
If Mike could, Mike would.
Upvote system for DoA comments when
This is like that time Thunderclash tried to warn about the Personality Ticks.
“He had to reduce his lifespan by six hours to generate that apostrophe.”
“I know that’s not supposed to impress me, but…”
The man is dedicated to his craft I’ll give him that.
Someone talk about their mom so he reflexively makes a mom joke and wakes up
He can’t exactly speak with a ventilator tube down his throat.
Mike probably knows either American Sign Language or Morse Code for just such an contingency..
I choose to believe Mike is having a series of zany adventures in 1970s Indiana with Gene Hunt.
The entire show would just be Mike mispronouncing the first letter of Gene’s last name.
Oh, and Mike looking up the mothers of everyone he knows so he can seduce them. And occasionally their fathers. And possibly beating Blaine up.
Gene eventually gets very confused. “I thought I was supposed to be the bad cop!”
“Are you complaining?”
“…I guess not.”
“Good. Double curb-stomp?”
“Ooh, I always wanted to try that.”
Life On Moms
Yeah more evidence that this comment section needs an upvote option because that was brilliant
A 1973 Ultra Car Quatro.
Well, he’s alive, and we know where he is. It’s Mike. He’ll be fine.
i didn’t pay a nickel to see this
he paid your mom a nickel to see this
It’s what he would have wanted
he wanted your mom and a nickel
But sometimes you have to make the hard decisions.
Your mom decided on something hard.
For a nickel.
I wonder how long it’ll be before Imaginary Brain Mike makes an inappropriate comment.
I choose to believe he already has and that’s the reason for Amber’s expression in the 3rd panel.
Think amber remembers now? I smell a couple of flashbacks monologues ending in a triumphant Mike waking up to tell Amber she really was worth it.
IIRC she’s remembered everything since she figured out who the masked guy kidnapping them was
Cling to life, Mike. We need you back.
I just realized. In _one_ story arc, Willis got us to feel for Mike, ToeDad, _and_ Faz.
I mean, I’d still probably dance the hornpipe on Toedad’s grave, but two out of three ain’t bad.
When did we feel for Toedad? I remember feeling for Joyce because she was feeling for Toedad, but I don’t remember that other part.
When he was murdered, probably.
I wanted him to suffer endlessly. Dead people don’t feel pain.
I mean, he’s either suffering eternal damnation in hell for his sins, or has had his religion proven false one way or another, which for him could possibly be a worse fate.
Well, if he’s wrong about the existence of an afterlife, he’s not aware of it, so while it’d be something he’d be upset to learn, he wouldn’t actually learn it.
If he’s wrong about the nature of the afterlife, on the other hand…
Oooh, I like this; Ross being reincarnated as some kind of deep-ocean monstrosity, yet retaining all of his human memories
I felt more for Becky than for ToeDad. He was scum, but scum or not he was Becky’s father. That’s going to be painful, no matter how she tries to hide it.
Abusive parents still get mourned by their children. That relationship is complicated at the best of times.
Yeah I wouldn’t say Willis got many people to feel for Toedad, but I guess I felt something for him at least. Unlike Blaine, it seems like he really was trying to do the right thing, it’s just his idea of the right thing is waaaaaaay out of wack. I like to think that maybe someday, with a buttload of hard work, he could have been redeemed, or at least gotten a start towards it. Maybe I’m just being naive though.
“True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for the actions that caused [God] to turn away from you. That you even acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong. You have done none of this.
“Perhaps, if you had more time … but then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all. It is not for everyone.”
Lord Soon, Order of the Stick.
Uh oh, if there’s bandages around his head that means they likely shaved it and Willis is going to have to draw a different haircut if he wake Mike up.
I don’t mind, so long as it still breaks the laws of geometry.
Behold, Mike’s new look!
This whole arc was an elaborate scheme to give Mike a makeover
I thought that was Jason at first and was very confused.
There is an old pilots’ song about throwing a nickel on the grass…
I’m an old pilot and I have no knowledge of this song, might you share a link?
Here you go.
Thanks. I was ground crew, but I appreciate the song.
Yeah Korea was a bit before my time. And I flew ultralights and a Piper J-3, not warbirds.
But thankee verra much.
I remember my dad and his buddies singing that song, he was a fighter pilot in the RCAF.
I remember a different version from childhood summer camp. Salvation Army: “Throw a nickel in the drum, save another drunken bum”
Oh, right, Ethan hasn’t clued into the whole disassociation thing, has he. He probably just thinks that Amber disn’t tell him about their childhood friend being in the hopsital, doesn’t he.
This is going to be a very painful conversation, isn’t it.
I thought by Ethan stating “Amazigirl brought him in” that he was acknowledging the Amber/Amazigirl dissociation. (After all, he didn’t say “you brought him in”.)
I don’t think Amber updated him when she and AG stopped sharing memories, though.
I thought he was just refraining from outing her secret identity.
He might have gotten a bit of an idea from it taking Amber an amount of time before realizing Blaine was telling the truth, but he might think she was spending that time deciding whether or not to admit she was there
Not that I wanna lose him, but, for a while there, I was actually pretty excited about the concept of actual GhostMike.
How about Astral Projection Mike?
Already been done, see Kanon, by Key.
I mean, it’s not like amber’s internal mike can’t stick around even if the original is back.
True, but if I am correctly picking up what Hex Hornet is putting down, I think they were hoping for an actual supernatural event within the Dumbverse.
Nah, Joyce has renounced magical thinking.
Magical thinking is fine to make sense of yourself. Wish people stopped applying it to real-world scientific problems, though.
If by ‘magical thinking’ you mean her belief in her religion, I would much rather believe that there is an all-powerful yet possibly imaginary deity running the world rather than be forced to accept whatever it is we have running the show now.
It skirts ‘reality’ a little, but, YEAH.
Still wouldn’t be the least logical thing in this comic.
If Amber wants them to do each other that’ll cost two nickels. keep in mind.
Sure, because how bad could _another_ disassociated personality in Amber’s head be?
Brace yourself for Astral Projecting While in Coma Mike
Lolol @ Dr Who, NinjaMaid, AntJ, Foxhat- really needed the laughs right now
Nooooooooooooo
I think he’s saying “Thank You”. You know without actually outing Amber as AG.
Either that or “F#*k you”, for the secrets/lies that helped Mike get injured in the first place.
Nothing Amber (or Amazi-Girl) did caused that. That was all Blaine and Ross, and a little of Mike’s decisions to, and how to, confront them.
He might be mad she didn’t mention it, though.
I mean, Amber’s kinda deal until very recently has been to deal with her trauma in ways that hurt both her and others. Stabbing a defenseless kid, picking fights because she wants to beat up/get beaten up by some 18 year olds drinking booze, shoving Mike against a wall because she thought he might have drawn some penises on whiteboards, general pushing people away and keeping secrets.
Mike being in hospital is 100% Blaine’s fault but for the other stuff I feel Ethan deserves to tell Amber off (before hugging because he does really care for her).
Okay, I’m glad he’s alive. Nothing’s over until you’re underground, as Darby Allin’s chest tattoo tells us.
…. so Eugene Shoemaker’s not done with the whole space thing?
Neither, I guess, is Clyde Tombaugh.
James Doohan is likewise in permanent stable orbit, or at least the bit they used to make the diamond.
Never look back, never say die.
The DoA comments was like the last place I’d ever expected to see Darby Allin mentioned.
One side note:
Amber is out and about. That means the cops haven’t arrested her (or at least questioned her) about Amazigirl. (Which was one of the potential issues with this story… that Amazigirl’s identity would be revealed and she’d be arrested by police for being a vigilante.)
Don’t know if that means she’s out of the woods…. maybe because its not an immediate issue the cops will wait a while before acting on it?
Well in this situation where a guy murdered someone after kidnapping a bunch of people I think Amber’s vigilante activities are kind of a low priority. Although lets not kid ourselves. They probably wouldn’t have come after her anyway for most of what she’s done.
I guess that all depends on what Blaine says or doesn’t say.
If Blaine says that Amber is Amazigirl, the cops most likely won’t believe him? If he says she isn’t maybe they will investigate?
Blaine lies when the truth hurts his pride.
Blaine isn’t the only one to be concerned about… At least some of the henchmen were told it was Amazigirl they were releasing when they released Amber. Plus, when Amber unmasked at the end you could see at least one witness in the background.
(You also would need her to dispose of her costume after the fight and before the cops showed up… Not many hiding places there.)
I mean its been explicitly shown that Blaine has at least one corrupt cop on his side.
(Yes, I know “corrupt cop” is redundant.)
I’ve had it up to just about here (visualize me holding my hand level with my eyebrows) with this ACAB mentality that seems to be sweeping the country. Sure there are some bad cops out there, just like there are bad lawyers, bad doctors, bad waitresses, and bad Uber drivers. But it is not fair to tar an entire group with the same brush.
Perhaps the police ought to stop executing people in the streets, if they’re so tired of being criticized for their murders.
Be fair. Some of them are bad in ways that have nothing to do with corruption.
I cannot imagine how they won’t learn Amber is Amazi-Girl, but they’ll have a hard time bringing charges because they have no evidence.
Except for Becky’s bodyguards, everyone she’s pounded was in the process of committing a crime, so who’s going to testify against her?
Robin can get the bodyguards to keep quiet (only one saw her), and that part of the story doesn’t necessarily come out, if the police don’t decide to track her every move.
Beef and his cronies hadn’t done anything illegal (yet, I stress) when AG hammered on them back in Book One. Plus, people who got arrested because of AG probably mentioned her while being questioned.
One of them had just punched Danny when she jumped in.
Plus, even if Danny hadn’t been hit yet, I think beef and his cronies would probably be breaking some laws over using threats/intimidation/harrassment. After all they didn’t just attack Danny with no warning.
Memory suggests that Beef’s cronies who punched Danny and got hammered by AmaziGirl did not in fact include Beef. When Danny wanted to reconnect with AmaziGirl and tried to get Beef to beat him up, Beef wanted to know what was wrong with him.
So I’m not actually sure how accurate a descriptor Beef’s cronies is.
Either that or my mind is making stuff up.
Beef is the only one named, hence “Beef and his cronies”, though yes, Beef is the only one who doesn’t really get involved.
It wasn’t Beef that Danny tried to get beaten up by. Tony, I think.
The only other Beef appearances have been at the party with Roz and in the background. Interestingly, at the rally during the Sal/AG confrontation.
@thejeff – okay, I got that part wrong. First guy who got hit had punched Danny. Second dude didn’t, though.
But then again, excessive force is Amber/AG’s M.O.
Second dude had shoved him. All of them were involved in the bullying. It’s kind of a stretch to call that too excessive.
Any of her “victims” can testify against her. Their crime is either already known by this point or they can lie about it. “I had just discovered that vandalized car when this chick in a spandex uniform blames me for it and assaults me”. Heck, the guy Amber slashed is suing her family already, and he was caught on camera assaulting her. I’m curious as to what will happen with Amber/AG going forward, because I don’t think there is any going back.
Further proof that our legal system is totally fucked up and some lawyers are just human sleaze. He had already physically threatened Dorothy and Amber with a knife, made verbal threats of further violence against Joyce (“the blue-eyed girl”) in the next day’s installment, and then once Amber had gotten Dorothy inside and safe, he continued to come at Amber with knife in hand and malice in his heart. Whatever he got he had coming to him, and any lawyer with a half an ounce of ethics should have shown his parents the door instead of agreeing to pursue the case.
I’d like to know how she got away with that, since last we saw she had the AG costume around her ankles…
Oh, i was just playacting because my deranged father wanted to involve amazi-girl.
She stepped out of it and stashed the costume before the cops showed up?
Headcanon says it’s till there, and she shuffled all the way to the hospital.
Does Sal’s bike have a storage bin?
Hmm, is this Mike being written out of the story for the foreseeable future? And/or time for Walky to get a new roommate with shenanigans?
No way. We still have the existential horror of Mike’s first drunk to look forward to.
Taking into account DoA’s pace, Bandaged Mike will be in that bed for at least a couple of years. Meanwhile Willis can decide on whose brains he wants Unshadow Mike to do his thing.
Like your mother’s brain.
For a brain nickel.
If Mike dies, he can just haunt Amber while singing
“I’m alive I’m alive I am so alive
And I feed on the fear that’s behind your eyes!”
Dear god, Brain Ghost Mike going full Next To Normal, that’s a scary thought.
(And though you made me, you can’t change me
I’m a perfect stranger who knows you too well)
Nice to know Mike’s alive, at least.
Who is that guy?
Some crazy Transformer nerd that hangs around Amber and my mom’s friend.
Good one!
Clearly it’s Eglamore.
Clearly
Hi Bagge. I told you I would save this comment link for you.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/solving/#comment-1446696
Tan, you are my favorite right now.
Not only did you remember that comment – you brought it out in the best time possible.
So, I stand corrected. We DID learn what happened to Mike. I still like my version better.
But it isn’t January yet,
People keep saying it’s Mike, but I don’t believe it. I mean, he’s clearly not scowling. Or flipping the bird. Or fucking your Mom. For a nickel.
So, yeah, no, clearly not him.
*plays Coma by Guns N Roses on the hacked muzak*
Wait, if Amazi-girl brought Mike in then does that mean that Blaine’s threat about being able to have Mike killed was just a bluff? Surely if Amazi-girl brought him in then Blaine wouldn’t have had access to him.
Blaine lied? I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Mike taking him by surprise must have hurt his pride.
I don’t see how those are related. Why does Amazi-Girl bringing him in mean Blaine couldn’t get to him?
She had Mike’s ID, suggesting he was admitted unidentified and thus Blaine would have trouble finding him.
I still don’t understand how Amazi-Girl “brought him in” at all. Mike didn’t want the police involved, but there’s no way she could have safely transported him by herself, right? Does that just mean she called 911 and rode in the ambulance with him? I don’t get it.
Of course, it’s also straining my suspension of disbelief that Amber is *visiting* the hospital right now instead of being *admitted to* the hospital.
She’s got a hospital bracelet on so she’s probably been looked at and is allowed out of bed.
Perhaps she was strong enough to carry him to safety (public place?) Then made an anonymous 911 call.
Can someone please let Mike’s family know he’s in a coma!
I’m sure the hospital’s taking care of it, now that he’s not a John Doe.
“…I didn’t know…we weren’t talking”
Why is he at the hospital in a coma? Wasn’t he just at the house saying “Crap did I miss him dying?”
I thought he was fine, I don’t understand?
Mike is not bound by the laws of reality as we understand them.
He pushed Blaine off the balcony and fell onto the pavement.
His appearances since then have been Amber’s hallucinations, for lack of a better word.
Not sure if that’s sincere or not, but if it is: That is Brain Ghost Hallucination Mike! Amber’s been seeing him since the fall. You’ll note that every appearance since then had him appearing and disappearing in ways that were impossible, and that his shading never matched the surroundings. (This was either a stylistic change or a cue to the readers since after the stabbing, when Amber hallucinated a Brain Ghost Blaine that WAS shaded consistently to her. But there was no question HE wasn’t real, I suppose. Alternately, it’s yet another sign of how fragile Amber’s mental state has been getting.)
Also, Amber specifically pointed out that he wasn’t really there. And I think he did, too.
Still REALLY creepy she has no memory.
Can we at least get Ethan asking her to get help since there’s clearly a memory wall between her split personalities now?
They’re talking to each other and sharing at least some memories again, but only as of about 5 AM this in-strip morning. Amber was a bit… preoccupied to be focusing too much on Mike then.
It’s still not 100% clear how much Ethan knows about the dissociation and recognizes as such. (Basically only Walky, Danny, and Dina appear to know for certain, unless I forgot a reveal for Sal or Dotty. Everyone else who’s in on the secret at all is only in on Part One of said secret, not part two.)
(I mean Dorothy might know since she witnessed ‘Unfortunately for you, I am not Amazi-Girl,’ but it’s unclear how much of that she actually heard through the door and how much she realized was non-metaphorical/superhero trope. The fact that there IS the superhero level makes it a lot harder for characters to figure it out, which is why Danny only got it AFTER the breakup despite Amber talking about the car chase as dissociation. I don’t think it fully sunk in until the ‘sharing a meatsack’ line.)
Oh, and I think once Joyce has time to process it more thoroughly, Amber’s ‘us’ line did appear to ping her radar. But I’m not certain she’s had the time to actually Get It.
I’m not even sure Danny understood. I always read him as obliviously thinking it was some sort of role-play.
That’s not completely fair to Danny, since when he was dating AG, they were much closer. She was treating it more as secret identity/rolepaly. There was very little in the way of clues to the disassociation until after they’d broken up and by then he was very used to thinking of it that way.
I don’t know if he’s gotten it even now, but he does know there’s something going on.
Agreed. There’s at least one canon Slipshine which makes it clear he knew he was dating both of them and that it was complicated.
Comatose for over a day is… not good.
Like, SIGNIFICANTLY Not Good. Media being media and this storyline still playing fast and loose with reality vs superhero rules, he could still recover, but.
Yeah, seems unlikely Mike’s coming back to the story any time soon. A shame, since he was just on the cusp of realizing he COULD be a better person. (Redemption Equals Death is fine enough, but a bit played out to my tastes.)
Yeah, when I read that, I was like “I sure hope this is a Hollywood Coma and not a real Coma.”
Still got my fingers crossed for Hollywood.
Hollywood coma, please. Or better yet, Disney coma. Ethan should kiss him, just to check.
Crap. Forgot to add that this is why I have never and will never use a coma as a plot point in any of my novels.
Like amnesia, the tropes associated with comas make them very difficult to use “well” and “realistically” at the same time.
Depends on if it’s induced to heal the injured brain, or as the result of said injury. Induced comas can last for months with no lasting after-effects. As the result of the injuries then the longer they last the less likely recovery becomes.
“comatose since he was brought in” sounds like the latter.
He very well still could recover. Realistically, most people that are going to recover do within the first three weeks and they can in fact make a full recovery with no remaining effects. Mike has only been in a coma for a day and a bit, so time wise, he still has a good chance to recover and it may take a bit because his brain is you know, trying to heal itself. Whether he’ll have lingering effects or wake up quickly is up to the mercy of David Willis, approximately three months ago when he wrote these strips.
He’s ok, he landed on his hair, he’s fine
I wonder if Blaine is going to become Amber’s Khylin (Dutch’s psychotic father from Killjoys)? Now that she’s “proven herself” by besting him, he will try to shape her into his “rightful heir.”
I don’t like the idea of Mike being written out of the story. He’s a really interesting character and deserves to have an active role in his possible redemption. Anyway, it’s still early and I hope Willis won’t go down that route.
Mike will live because death doesn’t want to put up with his sarcasm.
The old joke in our family was, “God doesn’t want you and the devil is too afraid you’ll go down there and take over.”
Similar joke about why I didn’t stay dead when the truck hit me. Along with the “You have something that needed to be done yet” trope.
“Really? A black cloak? You’re STILL wearing that? And what’s with the scythe? Most killers these days just use a gun. Get with the times, dude.”
Any second now mike is gonna wake up and say something insightfully cutting, yeah??
In morse code due to speaking difficulties but still
I can’t make a mom joke right now. I will throw all my nickels away.
It’s a hell of way to realise that they did love Mike after all.
He’s alive!
To a certain value of ‘alive’, that is.
I’m making a note here: Huge Success.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Dumbing of Age! We do we want because we care.
For the good of all of us… except the ones who are dead.
Amber’s staring a hole through the fourth wall. “Well, now you know. Satisfied?!”
I love how his middle finger is the one that is hooked up to monitoring equipment. Mike wouldn’t have it any other way
Pulse oximeters are pretty friggin clever for what they do and how non-invasive they are.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4pZZ5AEEmek
Wow is almost like her having a broken psyque and blocking her other personality was a …really terrible thing …maybe she should take therapy
With her extrajudicial activities, prison might be a serious option.
5 months!!!
…at least the neck wasn’t damaged ?
Well that looks pretty serious. Might take awhile before he gets back to school.
But does this mean Walky gets automatic passes for his classes?
Only if he does Mike in before the semester ends.
Sorry, I’m convalescent right now, so your mom’s gonna need to commute to give me her nickels.
For you and me, it’s been a matter of weeks.
But for Mike, when did he receive his injuries? The same night we just came out of or was it the night before? Did a day elapse before the false fire alarm?
I got a bit lost.
Mike went splat late the night of the party at Becky’s place. We saw the day after that last chapter (someone said they didn’t see Mike “all day yesterday” back in the basement), and now it’s early morning the day after that.
I’d guess that less than 36 hours have passed.
Is… the alt-text referencing a Condenser Mike?
Well it’s not a very Dynamic Mike.
A Dynamic Mike. Though if he had landed harder he would have been a Ribbon Mike.
Nice to know he’s still alive.
TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH
Phew Mike hasn’t been offed by any of Blaine’s cronies. Watch out for them guys!
If anyone wasn’t sure that the drama tag had been pulled, they should be sure by now.
The drama tag was never installed to begin with, the drama has flown from the begining!
Ethan: Mike, I… I don’t even know if you can hear me…
*Mike’s hand twitches*
Ethan:… Mike?
*First, third, fourth fingers curl up for a second, second finger remains extended*
Ethan: *throws himself into Amber’s chest, sobbing* He’s STILL THERE, Amber! He’s still there…
Actually, I can see the next few strips being Ethan giving an emotional declaration of his true feelings to the comatose Mike as the ‘Mike’ alter in Amber’s head gives a hilarious off-colour commentary and Amber and Amazi-Girl desperately try to shush him.
And the comatose Mike is close enough to awake that he hears it all.
amber and ethan should have some hope and faith for this is mike we are talking about mike is too stubborn to let something like close to death stop him for some miracle he will wake up and in a surprise be nicer then what mike normaly is
How rich are Mike’s parents? Suddenly thinking about how the hospital bills for this will be … steep.
Not sure how asset forfeiture works in the US upon arrest and conviction, but wouldn’t Blaine’s estate be on the hook for that?
I know Mike technically did that to himself, but Blaine admitted to being at fault in front of a ton of witnesses, and nobody is left alive to conflict that other than Blaine himself.
That’s the most I’ve been able to tolerate Mike ever since he’s been introduced in this comic.
Where are Mike’s parents?
At home. The hospital didn’t know who he was until Ethan got there.
Depending on how long it’s been since Ethan got here, they might be on their way now, or preparing to do so.
Damn you Willis! We want our jerk back! Now!
… Honestly I’m just relieved he’s actually alive.