Endtown by Aaron Neathery for October 21, 2015

Topsider: “Oops. Sorry. Set my coffee down on the launch button.”Commander: “You know that’s coming out of your paycheck, right?”Topsider: “Hahaha. Paycheck. That’s funny. Want to launch one yourself?”Commander: “Don’t mind if I do. What should I light up?”Topsider: “One patch of dust is just as good as another. You want to be X, or O?”

Homing missile for Clives tracking device?

Tracker possibly, im wondering if he was able to communicate with the TSers in some way. Something like a distress signal. “Im caught! Mutants here, mutants here!”

Somebody must have seen them…unless they’re just firing these things at random…

But is that a drill head on the missile?

Well, obviously the Topsiders got bored with the melodrama as well and decided it needed more explosions. Topsiders: Saving the world from post-tramatic episode through EXPLOSIONS!

Looks like the missile was directed at the pile of supplies they left behind when they ran from the mutts. Maybe the topsiders figure to dig there and find a mutant colony. Oops, too late guys.

New Topsider colony? Start with a tunnel? If that thing can tunnel.

Well now we know where Kirbee buried Clive…..right under the remaining supplies.At least it saves Holly from digging about the place……hole is already dug.Now lets talk about the effects of blinding white flash on open eyes………shall we Holly?

Well, looks like the Topsiders found where Clive was buried. Guess since the mutts found the brain, but it was moving for no apparent reason, they decided to just use area effect weapons to take out any cloaked infected. Though, the nose of that does have a sort of drill, and it released four nose plates, so, this might be interesting.

Maybe I’m looking at this wrong, but although it looks like the drill head is exposed, the landing still looks like an explosion or crash. Odd.

Well, it looks like the supplies have gone bye bye. The drill tip on a missile may be an optical illusion created by the heat of reentry. There is a certain amount of sense to missiles having drill tips. Mutant colonies are mostly underground so a missile that could hit a suspected colony site and bore through the dust and bedrock until it gets to an open space and then explode. The drones and use of mutt teams and airscouts to replace human teams suggests that the TS are automating the great mutant hunt, the use of digging missiles would be another part of that. The only thing is that it appears that said missile exploded on impact.

The apparent automation of the war against mutants suggests two things. First that the TS have the resources to design and build increasingly complicated devices. They seem to be less and less of a scavenger society and more like a fully functioning nation.I’m also guessing that the TS feel that they are running out of time and manpower. It used to be that the biggest threat we had were TS teams rolling around in PTs with zero guns. The last one of those we saw were Clive’s drivers. Are the TS reluctant to send teams into the wastes because they have lost too many to shootouts with Mutants? Has suicide thinned the ranks? Has the stress of living in biosuits 24-7 led so many individuals to crack that the leaders have decided to go full tilt and use EVERY resource at their command to go after the mutants?It would be interesting to see what is going on in those TS colonies.

Holly staring right at the explosion may leave her blind. Which is really bad news for her.I’m wondering how the TS’s are being able to advance their technology. Are there other types of people around that we haven’t met before giving them new technology.Maybe some other kind of smarter but more evil types helping them.

It’s obviously a head-seeking missile.

Any argument that the brain was being tracked, I feel is dead.

So long Clive!

Now we know where Clive was buried. Now what else is there…

Yes….the more I look at the missile I get the feeling that it has a drill head. That would also explain that the explosion was that little. You saw how big the rocket was. If it only had a normal warhead our mates would had no chance.

I love the smell of Napalm in the morning……

Maybe they registered that the signal from Clive had gone underground so they sent a drilling missile to take out what they thought was an underground mutant base

And once again, Neathery shows what a great cartoonist he is.The startled terror on Wally’s face, the flawless tech art and the sense of action, all in four panels. This is unbelievably good work.

Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

Wonderful… Now the Topsiders are searching below the surface for mutants who just want to stay away from them…and possibly everyone else. What’s going to happen when they’ve destroyed the entire world?…Or, what’s left of the entire world, that is…?

A Topsider weapon has abruptly changed the subject.It’s point a drill, potent as any warhead..Has our intrepid band wandered over a mutant hideout, or unwittingly wandered back over Endtown itself?Death has either come before or after our heroes visits.West Albion, Unity, and now…Has this all been a Topsider game, our cat and mouse mere Judas Goats for the bloodthirsty ones in the white suits?With no maps, GPS, or serious landmarks, who knows where they have wandered.Perhaps our illustrious bard will grace us loyal readers with a map of the wastes. Even Tolkien made his own maps of Middle Earth to make sense of distances and lands.Perhaps our stalwart storyteller Aaron has done something similar.What say you sir?

I’m guessing that when the tracking signal from Clive stopped moving, the Topsiders decided that they must have found another underground community of mutants so they’ve now sent a missile to drill down to that community and blow it up.

Wally and company had better scramble if they don’t want to get caught in the blast.

Kurt Vonnegut often had characters flee to some underground place that provided no safety or security. I think it reflected his World War II experiences…

There are two possibilities to explain all this new Topsider Tech. They have managed to absorb all the good tech from Apex and have started getting the more advanced equipment into service. They are designing and building new equipmentThe one question I have regarding the idea that the TS already had the advanced rocket, drones, airships and drill tipped missiles sitting around is why has it taken so long to get all this stuff active? These things could have helped with the great mutant hunt since the beginning. The only thing I could guess is that the TS were intimidated by the more complicated devices and wanted to start off with using the simple, more user friendly devices. As time has worn on (and they feel time running out), the TS have decided they need the complicated stuff.If the TS are designing and building new weapons, that suggests that they have manufacturing facilities, engineering staff and are probably doing advanced R&D. They also either have vast stockpiles of raw materials or an ability to attain the same. Like Night-Guant49 suggested, they probably have a vast network of bases.Either way, Jim was right, the TS have been busy indeed.

I still think the dittos are creating a catharsis for Holly.

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.