Tom Sewell

Great minds think alike, and, I see, sometimes at almost exactly the same time if you look at my post just before this one.

As soon as I read "Only one of us is in danger" I thought Pandora knows that Adrian is the real target. It's a thought I had earlier. It fits into the theory that the real reason the Magus-Sirleck plan seems to be working now is that Pandora wants it to work, at least for Magus. But Pandora holding back that information from Adrian even now? That's something I still can't get my head around. It's for sure she's withholding for some very important reason. Unless... Okay, honest, this is a thought I really did not have at all until the end of that first paragraph: The one in real danger is Pandora herself. She knows that as soon as things go really pear-shaped with any of Adrian, Susan, or Diane she'll use her forbidden powers and probably get reset. Who does she really trust to look out for them after that? Well, maybe. Also we might keep in mind that Adrian doesn't seem to have finished that little chore Pandora gave him. And since I have that in mind again, I have a new thought to go with it. Until now, I've been assuming that the reason Pandora told Sarah she wasn't going to talk to her son about that important thing he didn't know about until Saturday was that she expected that is when he'd be finished with his chore. But now I'm thinking that (maybe) Pandora already knew that Magus and Sirleck's plan was set for tonight. I'm still pretty sure Pandora was really surprised there were so many vampires.

I wish I still had my Hyper Police collection. Zeus tries out a line something like "How would you like to be the ____th to feel the Thunder from Down Under?" on the catgirl daughter of Bastet.

Besides Antiope, Zeus is credited with fathering children with 55 named females who were not his wife Hera--the inventor of marriage. I guess we know what Zeus invented. BTW, the name of one of those not-his-wife females was Pandora. However, Krishna trumped Zeus. He could have sex with a hundred women at the same time.

Possibly because he wanted to choose a name old Jerry hated? Remember, he's hardwired to get an "I VOWED!" rocket from his previous self when he even thinks of slacking off on his obligation to Susan.

But it would seem to fall within the rules if all human wizards have Immortal ancestors.

I'm not sure what you meant here. If you mean Pandora used her magic to make Adrian faster, I'm not sure she's allowed to even if he is her child. Maybe she used her magic to speed up the healing of Adrian after the fight with Abraham, but his own powers might have done that. If any of you have read my (very old) Sailor Moon fanfics, you'd know that teleporting is a big feature of them. But there are only two characters in EGS canon that might be able to teleport: Lord Tedd and Nioi. Possibly Immortals can do it, but it's never been made explicit. Too bad Jean Nessman seems to be busy right now.

"Shortly before"; exactly how long is "shortly" here? I can't be sure Dan has considered this point: How do Helena and Demetrius find vampires? If they could find vampires quickly, they should have arranged their demises fairly quickly, since according to Magus, Moperville is "loaded with people who can take them out." But the vampires have been gathering for some time, and apparently it took them two months to lead Lady Andrea to six of them--seven counting Spidey. So at four weeks a month, seven days a week, that's an average of eight days per vampire. So I'm assuming that they really can only detect the vampires easily when they are actually in attack mode, like when they directed Lady Andrea just in time to save Diane. Did they have exact coordinates for Lady Andrea. Well, even if they did, Lady Andrea doesn't have much of a sense of direction, so they had to guide her close enough for her to see her target. Which brings up another snag: If a couple of toddler Immortals can find vampires, why hasn't Pandora found all the vampires at the mall? It wasn't Pandora who warned Susan that the Koala was attacking, it was Diane. Anyway, vampire detection is a big key to the timing for Magus and Sirleck to pull off the Big Zap and make their getaway. Somehow they have to have gotten Helen and Demetrius distracted without killing off all the vampires before they can kill Adrian to fulfill Sirleck's version of the plan. Actual vampire attacks elsewhere much before risk putting Adrian on alert and even leaving the Mall. Doing all this in a crowded mall also has to be part of all opposition plans: Magus', Sirleck's, and Voltaire's. Both of you could be right, but I wouldn't bet too many cookies on it.

Maybe, however so far Sirleck didn't even mentioned them. Sirleck meant he'd sent six vampires to kill Adrian. That could mean he sent all the vampires he hired--or did he? If Helena and Demetrius were distracted long enough for Magus and Sirleck to get to Elliot, wouldn't they be at the Mall right now? With more hunters? If they are, they seem to be pretty late out of the gate...

But has Adrian ever fought so many monsters or Aberrations at once? And not all Aberrations appear monstrous all the time, and Adrian isn't going to attack anyone who appears to be human without hesitation. Unlike the locked-down school Adrian fought Abraham inside, the mall is chock full of human bystanders capable of all sorts of questionable behaviors, especially in a panic. Absolutely right. I don't re-read Painted Black nearly as often as the rest of EGS because I really can't stomach Damien. He makes Hannibal Lector seem cuddly. I very much doubt either Susan or Diane is Voltaire's real target. Bishop William of Occam's razor won't cut if Voltaire's plan involves making sure Adrian isn't killed. Planned? With a squad of vampires? If the vampires have anything like a real force commander, it has to be Scarf Guy. Best plan would be having a commander who isn't a vampire. Well, maybe there are more vampires raining hell in other parts of Moperville. Read about it tomorrow in the Daily Mope. That ought to be out by at least by 2019 in our universe.

I would like to think Dan will make this event as meaningful as he can. Spectacle is always nice, but endless fighting bores me; that's why I gave up on Yu Yu Hokosho after the first two promising volumes.

Or maybe he won't be there at all. However, Dan has shown a certain reluctance to throw away new characters which are basically one-comic jokes, and even mourned their passing in his commentaries at least twice twice (Dambusting Mage and Oprhanage Arsonist). So I think Dan will use Big Mouth again somewhere, and probably at the mall unless he wants to have a vampiric distraction elsewhere in Moperville, most likely for Nanase from what we've seen so far. Dan doesn't have to show the yet unseen vampires at all, even if he kills them all off. He could have used flashbacks to show the six vampires Lady Andrea killed--and I'm hoping he finds an excuse to do that sometime in the future. But he could also just have the action happen offstage; Shakespeare did that trope a lot. EGS is not Battle Angel Alita. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are only three canon occurrences showing one character actually killing another character: Susan killing two vampires, and Dame Tara killing the Spider Vampire, and when Susan killed her first vampire, all we saw was her bringing down the ax, not the ax striking the vampire. The Goo was actually an automoton, and we didn't see Adrian shooting the boar. Speaking of Alita, waiting for The Last Jedi to finally begin, in the previews I learned there really is a Battle Angel Alita movie coming out after all.

Hanma swiped them.

A valid argument if Big Mouth has some smarts and actually has a magic detection spell. But if BM has smarts, he's done a pretty good job of hiding them. And speaking of hiding, we haven't seen Big Mouth again, have we? Is he part of the Elf Death Squadron, or does he have some assignment elsewhere? Say, as an inhuman voyeur? Can't get much more inhuman.

I'm saying Voltaire might be disguised as Scarf Guy. He's established himself as using the same appearance in every panel he's been seen clearly, which would make for a great gotcha later on. All Scarf Guy has done so far is talk, and that certainly falls into the "guiding" part of the Immortal strike zone. And Voltaire is the one who actually set up the targeting of Adrian, so I think that could be a very important part of Plan CM and maybe even a part of Plan A, which Voltaire did say was still surprisingly on course. And Voltaire's plans seem more important to him than simply relieving his boredom. If Voltaire is Scarf Guy, he probably doesn't want to kill Adrian since he's not allowed to himself. But playing Scarf Guy allows him to influence the vampires right on the scene without revealing himself as Floating Elf Jesus. The Wednesday flashback where Scarf Guy tells Kangaroo/Koala Guy to "leave him to me" gives Scarf Guy an opening to opt out--which is just what Voltaire would want if he's Scarf Guy.

Maybe realism isn't a huge priority in Dan's Moperverse, what with flying snakes with bowties and giant koalas wearing tiny hats (his hat got smaller). But, realistically, while training and practice is important, it's not as important as combat experience. I don't think Adrian has really had very much. I think it's the best explanation why Abraham was able to defeat him. Adrian has to have had more accumulated training, wider knowledge, more spells, and more sheer magical power than Abraham, who has spent most of the same centuries locked in stone between fights. Adrian would have fought every Aberration he encountered, but he's had little or even no experience in combat beyond that. His last combat was probably decades ago, and I suspect he used a boar spear to kill his next-to-last boar. Abraham has literally done nothing but hunt and kill monsters for most of those same centuries, and since he "sleeps in stone" between these incidents, all of his combat experience is recent. Aberrations and Vampires The first Aberration in EGS was Sirleck, although we didn't know exactly what he was until later. He appeared just before the beginning of Hammerchlorians. However, we saw enough to guess he was probably going to be a nasty piece of work. Vampires made their first appearance in the Moperverse in Hammerchlorians in 2010, eight years after EGS began. Since Dan put Susan's trip to France into canon much earlier, he could have gotten them mostly designed that long ago, but I suspect that, Aberrations and Vampires are really a later and evolving creation. There was nothing comic at all about the French Vampire. Hammerchlorians was packed with lots and lots of humor (beating up Rich and Larry with a plastic toy hammer; Man Engulfs Food; the return of the Demonic Duck) but the meat in this comedy sandwich was the darkest sequence in the series so far. The Spider Vampire didn't appear for six more years, and the only time I can remember vampires even being mentioned in the interval was when Susan blurted out she'd killed one to Matt Cohen. Not a lot of funny in hi Next up, Big Mouth. He had a funny lunch, but, again, no visible humor in his appearance or behavior. No humor in Scarf Guy either, but more menace, I think. Then came Kangeroo Guy, alias Koala Guy. He's funny in either form. Possibly deadly if he gets the drop on his victim, but definitely designed to be funny. And then, Snake-with-a-Bowtie. This one should have driven to the mall in a clown car; maybe we'll find one in the parking lot later. Jokes aside, my message here is that there's a real chance Adrian won't survive. Dan has just sent Adrian into combat with questionable support, an unreliable weapon, and incomplete intelligence on his opposition. Especially Scarf Guy. Pandora doesn't seem to know about him yet. I say "seem" because Dan may have squeezed the dialog to get in that last question from Susan. Pandora should have given at least short descriptions of the other vampires to Adrian. Maybe she'd been about to do that before Adrian went charging off. Just Another Thought This doesn't really have anything to do with my long-winded blathering about Adrian's possible future or lack thereof, but here it is: Do we really know if Scarf Guy is an Aberration? Couldn't he be Voltaire in disguise? That would explain why despite his bold talk, he hasn't really done anything.

I'm presuming Adrian is on his way toward a vampire he can see. Too bad he didn't stick around long enough to learn that Susan can use her fairies to scout ahead. It's the vampires he doesn't see that will be the real problem. Yeah, definitely related.

I'm still hoping Rhoda's at the mall so we can see at least one vampire get downsized.

Susan already has four self-critical voices. Any more and she'll need a second head like Zaphod Beeblebrox.

So, Part 23, Yet Another Dunkel? Adrian did live as a German for awhile...

Quite realistic, actually, but it's been long established that Susan has an incredible memory for details and incredible aptitude for putting them together to deduce things (something she shares with Sherlock Diane). Think about how little time it took her to figure out Bad Tom. It could turn out to be a case of Dan deciding to go another way years later. But having Susan's Dad and the Other Woman With Susan's Face both being descendants of Adrian seems to be about the least icky alternative while still being plausible. As for appearance carrying over many generations, well, because magic. Nanase's family has been choosing spouses with an eye to preserving their magical powers. Adrian is very old. All of the human magic-using human characters we've seen in EGS could be his descendants if Dan decides they are.

Are you implying Susan's father had sex with woman who was ALSO Adrian's descendant? Um, yes, if they both look like Susan. Adrian lived in at least three different countries before he came to the United States. He could well have fathered several children over several generations.

I'd prefer that Adrian not know he's a father at all. And there is still the other woman with Susan's face. If Susan's memory of how she looked was correct, I hope there is at least one great in there.

g ≥ 0

I've found yet another small point to obsess about, and I'm sure the rest of you are celebrating to hear the good news. The point is why Susan is on the upper level now. Until I looked up the Fox Valley mall in Aurora IL last night, I was picturing the Moperville Mall more or less like the mall right across the street from me. It even has a Round 1 next to the Sears. But it isn't built on flat ground, and it finally occurred to me that there aren't an awful lot of hills between between Cincinnatti (which prides itself on being built on seven hills) and western Colorado. All the ground level entrances in the Fox Creek Mall are on the same level inside. They aren't in the Eastridge Mall across the street from me, and they aren't in quite a few malls I've visited over my four or five accumulated decades in California. Anyway, whether or not Dan has put some hills in Moperville, it appears that Diane and Susan entered the mall on the lower level, were still on the lower level when they met Adrian Raven, and no railings indicating an upper level appeared until this Monday's comic. So which level is the food court on? That is, did Susan have to go to the upper level to get to the first vampire? Did Adrian have to go to the upper level? And, if vampires have been sighted on the upper level, why are people running on the lower level? Possibly Scarf Guy remained on the lower level where Adrian was while Koala Guy, Snake Guy, and three vampires to be named later went to the upper level to occupy the vampire hunters and create a distraction. But Scarf Guy may not have seen Pandora with Adrian, and instead of finding Adrian on the lower level as he expected, Adrian was already on the upper level headed for the food court. This could work out in several ways. Scarf Guy may still be able to get to Adrian while he's occupied slaying the other four vampires, in which case he either succeeds, or fails. If he fails, he dies, of course; if he succeeds, he dies a very short time later. Or, the option which his Wednesday flashback implied: Running away if it looks like the other vampires didn't give him enough chance to survive and collect his reward. That's the key to financial transactions between vampires.