Rip Haywire by Dan Thompson for May 14, 2020

Holy Plot Twist, Batman!

Breezy may be more like Lexy than I’d thought ..

Who’s this guy, Rip’s brother?

This is more disconcerting than the Catpocalypse. That was just a goofy reset for the plotline of the strip. What it did not do is reset certain basic assumptions of the strip such as that there were good guys who could be trusted, bad guys who could not be trusted, and the occasional wild card such as Cobra to provide comic relief.

Now it seems no one can be trusted. That is a huge change that goes to the very foundations of the strip. It seems going forward “Rip Haywire” may not be as comic as it once was.

Does that mean we should not trust Dutch when he tells Rip Breezy is betraying him? Does that mean Sopapilla is going to turn traitor on R.J? Does that mean that T.N.T has been a Skull agent all along and just feigning incompetence and cowardice as a way of slowing Rip down?

And who is going to get custody of Baby FireBall? How can Breezy have custody if she ends up in jail? How can Rip continue to be an adventurer if he suddenly becomes the single father of a toddler?

Ka-GAH!

KA-GULP!!….say it ain’t so joe……breezy you are ka-sundering my poor myocardium…..

So, Rip says Jenkins is not the criminal mastermind. But also that Breezy is helping him. Sooooo, is Breezy the criminal Mastermind? Or is there a side hustle going on?

So Dutch is telling Rip that Rip’s wife plotter not only to kill him but also his son and his son’s girlfriend? Yowza, what a life Rip, but the only kind of life needed by a man whose fists giggle at the sight of danger!

I’m really hoping that someone has come to a wrong conclusion. Someone like Dutch.

Somethings never change. If there’s bad news to deliver, up pops “Old Gable Haywire” to deliver it.

Plus, Rip always belonged with Cobra.

Doesn’t make sense. Breezy, despite changing the Starlite Pancake house into a Waffle House to spite Rip, has always been the “good girl” (at least when compared to Cobra.) Why would she turn? Especially with someone she can’t trust like Jenkins?

My guess is that Dan has figured out that Rip having a family life with Breezy isn’t working out strip wise and he is looking for a way to write her out of the strip.

I never believed Jenkins could be a mastermind (criminal or otherwise). I also never believed Breezy could be evil (either pre- or post-Catpocalypse). I suspect this plot twist will be followed by others, and things may wind up being not at all what they seem.

No! Breezy good. Bad Dan!

Ka-shocker! This is a WWE style heel turn of treachery if she’s truly aiding him. Say it ain’t so, Breezy!

It’s good to see Dutch return to the strip after a few years. This should be interesting. I don’t think all is as it appears to be, though. Breezy, a criminal mastermind? That makes no sense. We’ll see how this goes but I think Dutch may be confusing his daughter-in-law with her cousin.

This can’t be happening… I LIKE BREEZY!

Not logical. I have to believe there are layers to this…Just because she is “communicating” w/ him doesn’t mean she’s bad.

Consider today’s Real World (which is amazingly comic-like ;) ) — All Is Not As It Seems.:-D

Well, she DID have a fling with Jenkins when she thought RIP was dead. So it’s not entirely out of nowhere. But I do agree with some of the above comments that turning breezy away from rip is a big change to the basic story of the strip, and I’m not entirely pleased about it. I mean, they’ve got a kid together, this doesn’t really seem like the type of woman breezy has been portrayed as until now. Maybe she’s just suffering from some post-partum?

Side note, unless “sleeping with” was meant really figuratively, breezy had a fling with rj, too…

Hmmm, there’s one other family member left out of the picture here.

Wow. Dan certainly knows how to stir his fan base, huh? I agree with some of the others: we don’t know a lot about what kind of contact Breezy and Jenkins have been having. But Dutch tends not to be wrong.

We do know that Haywire men tend to be attracted to women with a dark side to them. Dr. Skull. Cobra (though she is still awesome). So in terms of history, Evil Breezy isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

I’ve never been a big fan of Breezy. She’s a nice girl in the wrong strip. And I felt Rip having a family would limit the options about what can be done storywise. Rip either has to give up jet setting and placing himself in dangerous situations for his family’s sake or he has to tell Breezy danger comes first. Either choice limits what can and can’t be done. So I didn’t welcome the marriage.

But I didn’t stop reading the strip. Yeah, I complained. But Dan does good work. A bad Rip Haywire strip is worth twenty ‘good’ Breaking Cat News strips. Sorry to you Cat fans. Just not my cup of tea.

I guess my point is this: is it worth giving up on a strip just because it makes a plot twist you don’t like? If you discount this twist, is there anything else you dislike about this strip enough to give up reading it? There’s no wrong answer. Everyone has their own tastes. But I would just hate to see someone give up a good strip just for one issue. It’s like giving up bread because you don’t like raisins in your cinamon toast.

KA-DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING!

Well, here’s an interesting plot twist! While I don’t like the idea of Breezy being evil, who’s to say that’s actually Breezy? It could very well be her evil lookalike cousin Lexy that’s helping Jenkins.

Remember Jenkins was there for Breezy when Rip was gone for a long time.

I think she’s being KA-FRAMED! It’s all part of Jenkins’ incredibly, unbelievably, outlandishly evil plan.

KA-PLOT TWIST!

KA-BETRYAL!

Its a good thing Rip has that sling, otherwise we’ll be hard put to tell him and RJ apart especially since they’re coordinating their outfits.