Endtown by Aaron Neathery for May 06, 2016

And thus, a non-lethal shot knocks the doc unconscious? Looks like he may mutate right here.

They shot Doc!!!

Oh, no! They shot Doc Chase! But like Sasha said, it appears non-lethal. Panel 4 shows the bullet passing clean through his body. Missed all the vitals, but will cause severe pain and a long recuperation period.

If Doc’s going to mutate now, he’ll start healing faster.

“You will be absorbed…”

“He’s dead, Jim”“I’m a doctor, not a marathon runner!”

“Gorb, dis is turnink into one of dose plans – de kind vere ve keel everybody dot notices ve’s killin’ people.”

“It is?”

“Uh huh. Und how do doze alvays end?”

“De dirigible iz in flames, everybodyz dead an’ I’ve lost my hat?”

“Dot’s right. Und any plan vere you lose your hat iz…?”

“A bad plan?”

“Right again!”

Girl Genius, Oct 17, 2003

What am I supposed to say to this? APEX’s goons are gunning folks down, and so far a good 67% of those were recognized, local civil law enforcement personnel. So either Apex is ignoring the local government, or is in charge of it and thereby able to ignore it anyways.

I hope it didn’t hit his liver. I don’t know much about anatomy, hope it isn’t hit anything that bleeds a lot.I thought I saw a mousy tail but the think is the car’s legs.

All three entered a contamination zone without wearing NBC protection. Doc Chase may be taken alive, and held for observation. Or, he could make it to his car, where Holly could be hiding, and Holly drives the getaway car. Holly: Doc, what happened to your car? It is so big and the pedals are so far away. How can normal people drive a normal anti-gravity jet car? Doc: Wheeze! unh Holly, maybe it is delirium from gall fluid, or early peritonitis, but you are looking a little mousy this evening. Did you take your prenatal vitamins? Hack! Wheeze!

You’re the disease. We’re the cure.The good news is that all mutation carriers were isolated.The bad news is that the treatment is lethal to the patient.The good news is that we have an unlimited stream of patients.

Time for your shots, Doc!

When you shoot the doctor who treats you…

No witnesses.

I would not be surprised if Holly and Doc are taken into custody, and isolated from each other, for obervation. So NDCC can learn more about the pathology of the mutations. If they are separated, because Holly has mutated and Doc hasn’t, Holly may not be able to tell Doc about Babyfish. Or Doc may just figure Holly is delusional. But if Holly is held in an isolation cell, it may key in the memory of the horror she has experienced, until later, when she is held for the milk trial, and all those repressed memories come flooding back. “Wally I lost the baby” may be a memory which was brought back to the forefront later, due to the isolation in the Milk Trial.

If the End is already underway and they know it, they wouldn’t care about authorities at this point. An infrastructure was already in place for Apex to retreat to when WWIII started, so someone knew it was coming. They would know if they had planned and implemented it. Create a crisis, supply the weapons to deal with it, then contract for the cleanup. It may not have gone as planned by Apex, but it may have gone as planned for other entities using Apex to destroy the world. The players we know about are Apex (the Topsiders), Lucraneans, Marx, the mutants, and “I”. “I” would be the best bet for manipulating Apex for whatever evil reason it has. Unless there’s still someone else.

I forgot who the Lucrainians, and I is totally an unknown. Nothing clear to see right now.

So the question is captured for study or escaped til later? Now we have to wait until Monday to find out. And yes the multiple view points have me wondering if Wally, and crew are separate and viewing things from different angles or suffering vertigo from the changing perspectives.

Lucrainians were the ones who developed the flying ships that Marx was flying when he first appeared in this story.

A police officer doing his job with what information he has………I doubt the NDDC shares much info.

Uh-oh! Looks like a shootout in progress!

Marx’s airship was a Lucrainian Salvage vessel. According to Marx, the Lucranians were a society that was solely based on the accumulation of wealth. He said they were extremely greedy, will cheat at the drop of a hat and absolutely love bargains. They have their own language (written and spoken) and are the only culture I know of that has a literary subgenere known as “financial erotica”. We do not know if they are human or some other species but the Opabinia Queen’s furnishings suggest they are humanoid and probably human sized. Given what Marx has said about greed and a willingness to cheat, I could see the Lucrainians pulling this off if they found a way to profit from it. If they come from another reality, they might be willing to trash human society in this reality so they can salvage things from it and sell them in another reality.

If Doc Chase is wounded (even badly), becomes unconscious, and changes—he might awaken with his wounds healed. After all, that’s what cured Sarah’s cancer.

Shocked unconscious, that doc will wake up a Quack for sure.

“The disease was already air born. And as far as we know, still is seven years later.”>Actually, we don’t know that. The mutagen may have started out more like anthrax, being passed on by contact with a diseased carrier, and didn’t become air borne until being further weaponized by Apex, or as a result of the pea soup mix of contaminants created during The End.There’s a very good possibility that Lyn was signed on to Apex specifically as a guinea pig for mutagen testing, which is why NNDC showed up at the scene so much faster than with Ethel’s case. If so, Lyn was infected at the Apex offices, and simply turned out to respond more slowly to the mutagen than Holly did.

Apparently they’ve got a policy of No Witnesses.

Hope they all get to mutate before bleeding out … and ofc that “disease control” gets eaten by monster mutants.

I’m going to guess that Doc loses consciousness due to his injuries and mutates in that state, and the naturally accelerated recovery which is part of that mutation then allows him to recover from his wounds.

I’m guessing that those in the NDDC are controlling things, or are trying to control things. At the moment they are still hoping that they can contain things by destroying the infected, burning the surroundings and killing all witnesses. I suspect that they may have started WWIII as a last ditch effort to contain everything once the plague got out of hand. They seem to have been very careful to have stockpiled resources in preparation for the end and they became what we now call the Topsiders and try to kill off all the infected in hope of containing the plague.The problem is that they don’t seem to understand that their actions have probably contributed to things spiraling out of control. I suspect that the Buddibomb explosions have already made the mutagen airborne, at least locally. I’m guessing that the missiles of WWIII will make things airborne on a greater scale, at least continent wide, maybe worldwide. By the time we get to the time of Gustine’s quest, things seem to be airborne to the point where even the destruction of all the “plague rats” will do nothing to stop it. I believe the TS carry on out of ignorance or stubbornness.

If you’re not an Endtown patreon, you really should become one. Aaron’s April patreon newsletter just explained some REALLY key elements regarding the NDCC, Holly’s miscarriage, and (believe it or not) Mallard’s relationship with a particular pre-End group.

I love the grass perspective in the 1st panel; the cracked safety glass, doc’s shadow underfoot, etc. Btw, and thoughts on the incoming very dark cloud cover? It seems sudden, and growing larger in every panel.

I’m not sure about Doc’s injury… the way his coat is billowing, and the small bullet with its matching exit hole in the coat, indicate to me that he wasn’t actually hit. Grazed, maybe. Bullets deform when they hit something resistant, and the exit hole winds up being larger than the entrance due to the way the fragments tumble.

Or maybe “Manic White Flamingos”?

Actually, my favorite is “Mango Walrus Feathers” ;-)