Endtown by Aaron Neathery for July 16, 2013

Jake talks a good game but AM doesn’t look too sure.

It has been a good time since dinner, so my stomach is empty. Otherwize I maybe would have just lost it. This kind of BS just curls my nostril hairs.Blessed Be

Pig in panel 2: “How do you propose to overthrow the Topsiders? And will you be leading the troops yourself?”

…and there’s mr. marx, in the other room…let’s see what he has to say…

Yes, I remember JJ’s plans involve the complete elimination of all Topsiders.

JJ’s position only remains stable as long as his very big secret stays secret.

Jake Jackrabbit: Mutant of the Hour.

Hem.

What came to my mind about leading the troops:

Princes in the Line

Words and Music: Tom Lewis ©2006

The heir to England’s throne stood proud, before a wall in France, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends!”; he bid the troops advance, His armour, and his honour, bright; all men could see them shine, So they followed to the battle for their prince was in the line.

When Charles’s cavaliers were called to muster for the king, The monarch’s only nephew heard the call to duty ring, Foremost in the fighting rode Rupert Of The Rhine, There was honour in the battle when a prince was in the line.

Chorus: (But/For) the children of our rulers will not join the fight today, (and) Kings of Commerce never send their sons into the fray, The children of the poor will fight the wars that they design, But what honour’s in the battle with no princes in the line?

The South Pacific blazed, and rang with Freedom’s fire-alarm, The name of ‘old Joe’ Kennedy could keep his sons from harm, But the Navy needed brave young men; this was the place and time, So a Once-And-Future President stepped up into the line.

Chorus

A bitter South Atlantic wind blew over icy sea, The Queen of England’s son flew out to face the enemy, As target for the missiles, to protect the fleet so fine. This argument’s not: ‘Right or wrong?’ – but: ‘Princes in the line?’

Chorus

Prime Ministers and Presidents take us to war with lies, In parliament and congress they wear flags for their disguise, Their kids wear trendy camouflage while sipping vintage wine, But they will not wear the uniform, and step into the line.

Chorus: For the children of our rulers will not join the fight today, (and) Kings of Commerce never send their sons into the fray, The children of the poor will fight the wars that they design, But what honour’s in the battle with no princes in the line? But what honour’s in the battle with no princes in the line? If there was honour in the battle… there’d be princes in the line.

http://www.tomlewis.net/music/princes.mp3

And any mutant that don’t change their last name to that of their species.

Hmm… Given that Marx has played the role of afterlife guide for Flask, it may not be too good for Jacob to associate with him. Other universes may call him Charon, Grim Reaper, Anubis, and so on. As well as St. Peter and Dis. Like Flask, Jacob may find himself having to give a reckoning to Marx before going to his final fate.

Marx knows something….

And who are these guys Jake Jackrabbit is toasting with? The new Politburo?

Remind me, but wasn’t Marx worried about whoever was watching over him?

I have a feeling Mr. Jackrabbit has a piper’s bill coming due…

What happened to the prisoners? The feeling in this scene made me think of Animal Farm for some reason.

Apparently Marx doesn’t seem to agree with him.

“Children of the Revolution (Endtown version)”From the song by Marc Bolan, as played by T. RexWell you can clink your wineAnd you say you’re real fineWell you can talk aboutHow you worked it outBut you won’t fool the children of the revolutionNo you won’t fool the children of the revolutionWell you can make your sceneOn a TV screenSmoke your Marlb’ro Red‘Cause you’re such a swell headBut you won’t fool the children of the revolutionNo you won’t fool the children of the revolution

It seems like we’re seeing another few loose ends that need tidying up before this story’s through.

“President Jackrabbit sir, as the new leader of Endtown, what will be your first act?”“Cosmetic dental surgery.”

Jackrabbit had better take care or AM may relieve him of a swollen head. Not a good move to use a powerful dimension traveler like a tool, only to discard/disregard him when one’s goal is reached.

Mr. Rabbit will walk the path he laid out before others in the end …

Well, there’s only one thing that can happen now… The Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation will be the first against the wall, now that the revolution has come to Endtown.

Marx looks drained of all joy.He may have seen more than he wanted to after consuming some of the Oracle.He may have changed the lane Endtown was in from a quick dead end but has seen far enough down the road that the bridge is out and there are no signs.Marx looks very bent and sad.Jake’s toast should have been to the fallen ones of Endtown.Now what to do with a power crazed rabbit.

like I said, AM sees the end but doesn’t like the means.

Well, this series was excellent while Nearthery kept his Marty Stu Marx out of the stories, but it appears that Marx is going to appear in every storyline.

With a heavy heart, I am unsubscribing. Nearthery is cabable of great writing and amazing art, but I can’t stand Mary Sues and author avatars.

Enjoy yourselves, everyone.

I’m wondering the same thing about the Three Milkmaids, Logan. What happened to them? Is the trial over? Has there even been a verdict? They’ve seemingly gone from being integral to the storyline to post-afterthought.

I have to admit I’m not a big fan of Aaron Marx either. He’s been likeable enough in the past (sort of a Tom Bombadil type), but his presence has tended to take the solution of problems out of the hands of Endtowners by simply waving his magic whatever. I love this strip, but Marx is given too much of a central role in it for me. I’d rather see a “genuine” Endtowner like Wally or Al saving the day because you know that whatever happens, they’ve worked for it.

Speaking of which, we haven’t seen Wally for a while but he’s still out there somewhere looking for Holly.

The challenge of writing for overpowered characters is that they can easily solve peoples problems with a snap of their fingers. That is one thing that seemed to derail the “Countdown” story arc. Our heroes were surrounded with no apparent way out. For Holly, Wally and Linda the only choices were to die fighting or allow themselves to be captured and harvested. Flask had no choice. We see the three and Petey succumb. Then it all becomes a ditto mess and we later find everybody safe and sound. It felt more than a little disorienting, I’ll have to reread this when I get Endtown 4 and see if it works better in real time.That said, if there’s no limit to what a character CAN do, its important to limit what they WILL do. Early Marx’s actions seemed to be limited to the eithos, “only if its fun”. Now he’s drank from the Oracle and has seen something that has convinced him that supporting Jake is the least of all evils. He may have had fun playing the over the top council speaker and toying with the rats but once the games are over he’s left with the realization that supporting the least of all evils still involves supporting evil.

An interesting note about the trio’s rescue, not only did Marx have little to do with it, it would have happened even if Marx had stayed home.In the beginning of the Flaskback sequence, Marx lists the people who would have died had he done nothing. He includes Holly, Wally, Linda, all 7000 people living in the Topsider community and THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP. This suggests that, had Marx not intervened, the Lucranian salvage vessel would have flown over the same spot and picked up the transporter containing our heroes. After the Captain dealt with our heroes, Flask rummaged through the salvage bins untill she found a weapon. Then she shot the captain, became the ship’s new captain and ordered it to fly to the Topsider domes, it was fired upon killing all on board and creating an explosion that destroyed the community. Marx’s intervention was primarily to remove the Captain from harm and leave the ship captainless so that Flask could take control without shedding blood. He then rigged the gun and told Wally about how he could become captain leading to the events that we have seen. That and pulling everybody off of the ship before it exploded.

Stop me if I’m wrong…It was August 14, 2012…Aaron Marx made a promise to Professor Mallard that he would not jeopardize Endtown in any way.Perhaps Aaron is now wondering just how well he is keeping this promise.

Shall we not forget that now JJ has had his television/radio speech and the plotters are celebrating:

The milk three are still in lockup, I would say, after all they were just pawns and pawns normally take a back seat to the “higher calling”. They should be release soon with a JJ sponsored hoopla.

Even though some of you might say, “yea, Right”, the mayor was beginning to get the police in Endtown to start looking at what was going on and how come things were being reported directly to the Rats and not to the police (military verse local police force). Which leads to how would JJ spin that bit of news. Yes I know, blame the panda, but how much does JJ and crew really know what is going on in town.

AM looks as if he did the wrong thing by staying away from the celebrating but listing into what is being said. Is he just waiting for the next shoe to drop?

I feel the keeper (priest/priestess) of the Oracle does not like what it sees and so, what will it do, if anything, about it, if it can do anything.

There should be a few Interesting months ahead.

I suppose some might characterize me as a “fanboy” here, though I don’t believe I have ever shouted anyone down for not liking something about Endtown. I realize nothing is everyone’s cup of tea, so criticism is to be expected. I have, on occasion, responded to criticism that I felt was misdirected so maybe that counts in some people’s opinion. I find myself saddened at the apparent turn of events primarily because if things are as they seem, the multitudes of criticism may be valid. For now I am holding on to the fact that so often things here are not as they seem, and we may yet come to a more generally acceptable conclusion. If that makes me a “fanboy” so be it. I prefer to think of myself as one who wishes nothing but the best for Aaron.

..I hate that rabbit as much as anyone..

Just got here. those don’t look like happy campers at all. Marx looks sick. It bodes not well.

Marx is so much in shadow here it’s hard to say anything about his expression…

As to commentaries, sometimes you’ll find some well-thought-over ones you missed if go back to previous days and go down to the last postings on the list.

It appears that Jake has bitten off more than he can chew. Marx to the rescue? The last time we saw Marx, he was setting Flask up for a long haul. I would love to see a spin off to that story line, It has lots of potential.

Veteran,My point of departure here is the August 22, 2012 strip in which Aaron Marx is beginning his post mortem chat with Flask. He says, “Do you realize how many people you would have killed if I hadn’t intervened? The poor captain whose ship you stole, Holly, Wally, Linda, Petey, that head in the cooler…”To me that signified that Aaron had watched this show before, had seen what happened and decided to intervene. Thus he entered this reality, won the ship from her Lucranean Captain in a card game and stayed out of the bridge so that Flask would become the Captain sans bloodshed. He also told Wally how to keep this from happening and he rigged the gun. I imagine that there were many guns in the various cargo bins on the ship, but that Aaron had seen this before and knew exactly which gun to rig…I’m taking Marx at his word about being infinite and possibly being able to go back in time. Thus I assume this had happened before, Marx saw it and went back in time to do something about it. And in the original, the ship picked up the transporter and the captain made the mistake of letting Flask roam free and paid for it with his life.

Does this mean Jackrabbit won’t be working at the paper anymore?

For better or worse, Marx is in the room. He’s not above booby-trapping to fix things. Jacob does not represent the greater good if he is planning a violent purge. All of the plotters are in the same room…about to share a drink. A lot more horror could be avoided if the drink was “doctored”…

It definitely seems like some of the fun has been drained out of Marx… I won’t be surprised if tomorrow we see him mumbling:“All work and no play makes Marx a dull boy…”