Endtown by Aaron Neathery for April 20, 2016

Lyn doesn’t seem to like Holly’s new look. And she just presented him with a -bouncing- floating baby fish. Is Lyn mutating while awake? I thought he was just shaking his head and it appeared he had three eyes and two mouths, but his nose is noticeably flatter on the starboard side of Panel 4. Yes, I would expect his nose to be flatter, from doing a faceplant into a wall, but there is no blood.

Holly is certainly not having a particularly good day…

Okay, it has gone from hitting the fan blades to the manure spreader. Lyn is really beside himself with his mutation or being “two-faced” has taken on a whole new meaning. Buddibombs away in the next scene!

But, where’s a real Holly? Is she living through this? Or another observer like Wally & co, but we didn’t see her yet? Aaron needs to give us answers!

Aaron will answer that on due time. For now, strap yourself in, grab the bar, and ride this insane but great rollercoaster ride that’s End town.

Oh, no! Lyn is mutating into a monster!

…I meant Endtown. A pox on auto-cottect!

Nightmare fuel, coming up…. Alas, poor Lyn. Wife’s a mouse; kid’s a dead fish; now none of his new Apex suits will ever fit again… How Holly goes from this staircase to Endtown is bound to be one heck of a story. As Karen Carpenter so beautifully put it: “We’ve only just begun…” ;-)

Holly: “Gee, these stairs sure got big.” “Why Lyn, what big teeth you have. In both of your mouths…”

Monster mutation! Bad…

Oh boy, he’s going to turn into a horrible mutant monster of death because he’s mutating while awake. Too bad falling down the stairs didn’t knock him out.

Oh this is awful. He is going full tilt monster! I’m glad that her view isn’t our view!Bad enough. I hope the Buddibombs will get him. If they are smart they will drive him outside before blowing him up.Like they waited for Holly to leave before they blew up Ethel.Or maybe she will make her way down the side of the house with a sheet tied to the bed.I bet this is when she learns to run real fast.

Good thing that he is afraid of her right now.

The mother mutates into a small rodent and squeezes out a fish that drowns in water, then the father tumbles down a staircase, smashes his face, grows extra eyes and mouths and deforms into a hideous, ravening monster. Hmm… These home births all sound fine until there are complications.

And the movie “Fargo” was pretty bad from the beginning.

I hope that’s Lyn moving quickly in that last panel and not Lyn transforming into a monster.

Holly: “Sheesh, no need to shout. If you want me, I’ll be in the next State.”

“Where’s the D-Con!!!”

So much for the theory that Lyn mutates into Wally.

I’d wait to see if Lyn is mutating or is this a nightmare sequence. Remember that this whole bit may be an artifact, driven by memories rather than a direct link to history.

I’m wondering whether he is saying Stay away from me is more of a warning.He gets out more and may have heard stories about people becoming a monster and killing their own loved ones.

People are (rightly) sympathizing with Lyn, but I’m ore sympathetic with Holly right now. In the span of a few hours, she’s seen her best friend turned into a snake (that was blown to bits by buddibombs), given birth to something that’s usually a main course on Fridays, turned into a mouse herself and how has her husband shouting at her to stay away. It all has to be heartbreaking for her.

Ok, so he starts mutating himself and at least coherent enough to have her keep away. Shame to lose him though.

“Why can’t we be friendsWhy can’t we be friendsWhy can’t we be friendsWhy can’t we be friends

Sometimes I don’t speak rightBut yet I know what I’m talking about"

this is either the dittos illustrating Holly’s fragile state of mind at the time, or Lyn is mutating while conscious, meaning he turns into a kronenbergian horror that has a high possibility of going feral.

This is evidence that the mutagen has become airborne.

Really doesn’t work out well for bit players in this strip… ;-)

Lyn could use a Snickers Bar about now….he’s just not himself.

People keep commenting about the Buddibombs, but if there were still any around, they would already have gotten Holly. Remember that Ethel was a non-monster mutant, but the Buddibombs got her!

I’m guessing that Lyn’s distress in Monday’s strip came from him realizing that he was beginning to change and he raced down the stairs so that Holly could be safe from what he was becoming.

If Lyn is changing, how was he exposed? Is it from being in the vicinity of Holly…or is the mutagen now in the air of their closed community? Did Holly catch it from Ethel, or is it in the air? Was it put into the air when Ethel was blown up?

I suspect that when Lyn went running out of the room, he may have felt himself starting to change.just a thought.

When you think of how Holly reacted to Ethel’s transformation, it’s hardly surprising that Lyn is reacting thus. If anything, the latter is worse still: this is his wife and (dead) child, and it’s too much to take in, let alone accept. Ethel’s husband probably would have reacted similarly if he realized what his wife had become, had the Buddibombs not kicked in.

Maybe you can accept your anthro state (after the initial shock and horror, yet even then… ), but to a human not yet transformed, it beggars belief. And now it appears to be Lyn’s turn. In the previous strip, it had appeared (to me, anyway) that he had fallen down the stairs and was either unconscious or dead. But no: he’s wholly conscious, and has almost certainly been infected — and you all know what that means. Also, since mutations also bring vocal changes, the slightly blurred and shadowed lettering suggests that Lyn is indeed mutating.

Can’t bear to look; can’t bear to look away.

I wonder if Lyn was already mutated? Although I don’t think we’ve seen one, he could be a “shape shifter” who was keeping everything under control – until now.

I thought that look on his face in 3rd panel of the last strip was a little un"Lyn" like.Does this mean he’s of two minds (and faces) about their situation?

Does this mean it’s too late to recommend a nice, quiet nap?

Regarding exposure – remember that both the bedroom and the bathroom are splattered with blood and probably other fluids. That offers a lot of transmission vectors for a pathogen.

Run Holly—Run! Run like the wind!

As a man who has dealt with multiple miscarriage, Holly and Wally’s love story hits me hard. The relationship dynamics when loss like this is experienced is very hard to understand. Do you think having Wally learn this backstory will bring him closer to Holly or split them further apart?

I don’t think that anyone thought that Wally and Lyn were the same person.She didn’t look like she recognized him when he showed her his photo.This has me feeling bad for Holly, Lyn and the babyfish. Glad Wally has kept Kirbee and chick from seeing the bathroom scene, though they would have had to see bloody Holly run behind Lyn.

So… either that’s an extreme optical illusion caused by violent motion and the intense emotional atmosphere of the strip… or the mutagen is still around and acting.

i’ve always thought that the mutagen was created and was initially hard to catch (neither Holly nor Lyn changed after the first incident) Everytime the mutagen gets his with another blast of ames radiation, however, it mutates to a more virulent form. Thus the topsiders are making it worse in the way they try to stop it.

I still would like to know how how Ethyl became infected.

Nightmare fuel coming up. Cheap cost these days so give me a full tank.Now just waiting for the APEX D-Con units arrive to “cleanse” the area.

I think Lyn is mutating, and having worked for Apex may have seen it. I’m not sure about how the story of Lyn and Holly in the car fits, because it appears then, that they saw the final explosion. I think Apex has a bio weapon that got out of hand; just one mutant (on the plane) could spread it. And couldn’t a bio weapon mutate, like a flu virus does?I think Lyn is part of the dittos who made the illusion in the first place. He looks at Wally because he knows Wally has some “ditto control” experience.I’d forget about the buddibombs. I think Holly was returning them, we just never had them all in the panel so we could count all 12.

Lyn was awake when his mutation took hold. Damn.

Bad Kismet todayLyn transformed Holly depressedHorizon dark bleakLove anger fright madWhich will win today

UGH! This definitely isn’t going well.

oh lordy, Lyn has mutated into an AJ Fosik art piece!

this comic is gutting me.

Y’know…since this replay of Holly’s life before the apocalypse is just a replay…and the entity who’s playing Lyn has shown some awareness of Wally and Company…now that he’s mutated into a monster, things could go pretty hard for Wally and Company…

I don’t think Lyn is mutating. I’m pretty sure it’s an artistic trick to indicate his head swiveling to shout at Holly..

Everything would just go in one mouth and out the other.

Almost 10 am, and still no update?