Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 19, 2023

Alan, whatever happens, you’ll always be our right-hand man.

Oops. NOW the walls have ears.

Well. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Can I scream now?

I’m stuck in a wall and I can’t get out!

Oh, no.

Oh lord, I think this cardoodle’s healing ability’s about to get put to the test…

Oh no! And no dittos to amputate his arm…

Perhaps one of the Marxes will show up? Please, pretty please?

Oh %$#@*&^!! I don’t remember who noted his arm was in the way, but good/bad call.

Alan didn’t even feel it. His shock came when he turned to see what everybody was reacting to.

Maybe one good pull…

At least he didn’t get his nose stuck in that wall… though this is pretty awful.

Alan now known as “Lefty”…

I thought he’d swung away entirely from the wall when he rescued Phoebe. He was still braced against it when he pulled her out of harm’s way.

On the good side, his being stuck in the wall isn’t painful. (Unless he’s in that moment of shock and the pain hasn’t set in yet.) Is his hand and wrist stuck in the wall or disintegrated? I.e., if he steps away from the wall will he just have a stump instead? Cardoodles regenerative powers to the rescue?

Aaron is a master of expressions without words. Panel 3: “What?” Panel 4: “Oh.”

And, he’d do it again. That is gonna be a massive injury to try running through the building with, though.

I’m gonna go with the possibility that his hand is now fused with the wall. Probably no pain, but massive panic attack in 3…2…1…!!!!!!!!!

Something something another brick in the wall…

“Phew!”

“Eeek!”

“What?”

“Oh, no!”

If they can do anything at all for poor Alan, they probably don’t have long to do it.

Dude!!! Greater love hath no man than to sacrifice himself for others.

My response is unprintable (but it started with “F”).

Once again, our extraordinary Storyteller has thrown a magnificent curveball; putting the agony in the thrill of victory.

so either he’s going to be fully absorbed once the wall expands again, or you’ll have to cut his hand off…

Rut-Roh!

There are three possibilities: The wall is occupying the space, his hand is occupying the space, or both are occupying the space. If it’s his hand, he may be able to pull it out with some bruising or broken bones. If it’s the wall, he may be able to tear away from it and the binding tissue. If it’s both, amputation is required. Ironically, the least horrible for him, a crushed hand, is most horrible for the two embedded almost entirely in the wall. They may be still alive.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Can any of those “dittos” do anything?

Interesting concept. The Eden “reality” is a Topsider created one. It is the Endtown reality that is reestablishing itself back into the Eden reality. If we presume Alan is from the Endtown reality, then because both realities are the same, Alan’s arm is stuck in the wall and the sandstone (or whatever the material is) is surrounding his arm because no two pieces of matter can occupy the same space and Alan’s arm was there first. If Alan is not from the Endtown reality, then his arm has been amputated, which means someone’s gotta provide a shirt for a tourniquet real fast.

Since he seems stuck to the wall, the former is most likely correct. To modify Dragoncat’s question; “Are there any Dittos around that can provide assistance?”

OMG. NO! Allen!

Wait, they heal fast, so… who’s got a machete …

No machetes, and no zero knife either? Terence lost his when he went after Wally under the influence of the Eye back in the topsider base. Wally used it to open Terence’s suit. Not sure what happened to it after that.

And whatever happened to Terence’s zerp gun?

I thought he might have a few fingers at risk (but not so much of his arm).

Some questions if i may. Is Alan’s right front paw simply embedded in the wall rather than a part of the wall (surely two kinds of matter can’t occupy the same place at once)? If his paw is just embedded in the wall, couldn’t the others just cut him out (but do it fwhile doing it fast of course before the world does any more contractions)?

It probably doesn’t hurt. But, at the same time, Alan is probably not getting it back.

IIRC, Eden is a pocket universe imposed into the baserock under Topside. As the bubble interface collapses, whatever space/time that was Eden reverts to the original rock. Speculations about Alan’s arm imbedded in the rock are moot, it’s all rock. Perhaps it is the bubble interface acting as the glue that locks his remaining arm to the rock.

How on earth does the author write a solution to this into the plot? This is probably one of the most surreal “comics” I’ve read in a long time. It then begs the question: if one’s partly enraptured by the “snap”, they don’t feel pain? What happens to the part of the body that is caught in the wall? Is the person still able to feel that body part, or is it numb? I have so many questions.

Where’s a lightsaber when you need one?!?!

A hard situation, I’ll granite you; Coyoty has some good possibilities for Alan to get a hand out.

They won’t have time to do anything but run. Will Aaron sacrifice him or save him?

I have been wondering if the recovery powers of the mutants are still present after the demise of the cartoon world.

OTH, because of the gimmickry with time going on with Marx, the cartoon world may still exist at this moment in Eden.

I had the feeling this was going to happen.

No! Not Alan ! Why couldn’t it have been “Peacock Boy” instead? He’s annoying as hell, no loss there.

It’s as if he didn’t know his hand was stuck… or felt it!

Maybe it’s just trapped in another dimension?

Well, #$#%!

That was a great save. You’ve gotta hand it to him.