Looks like we have more questions.... but I side with Torg on this one because.... there are no bodies.

That being said..... you can tell Torg's hurting. Look at his face on the first panel. He's badly hurt.

Or perhaps he's being truly oblivious... but even so, he's now focused on getting Oasis. Since he can't get Riff and Zoe now, he has to place his focus elsewhere. There's no way he'll let someone like Oasis keep him down.

SO, whether he's hurtin', or if he's back to focus.... Torg's kinda strong in this strip. A reason why I like I still like him after all these years.

Oh, I'm not complaining. At this rate Pete will never be able to end the strip, since most of the revelations that Pete brings up to answer some plot point, tends to create two more plot threads in its place...

Wow, not the reaction I was expecting from Mr. Torg Wonderbread Reflux.

I've got one nitpick. Where was Chekhov's gun? Last we heard Torg and Riff talking about using the DFA as an escape mechanism, the word was impossible. Did I miss a ref?

Other than the nitpick, it's nifties all the way down.

It's kinda good Pete has not shown any bodies so far..... it keeps the suspense, and leaves room for some good [SPEC]

Since Schlock helped design the schematics of the Mark-19 (and indeed adapted them for HC's own REA-1 exoskeletons), he must've known of the D-F-A emergency escape device, so must've accounted for the likelihood that Riff would use it.

So the question is whether he was planning on this, or whether locking the D-F-A outward "like a weapon" making it "impossible" to use as an escape device was intentional sabotage-by-design . . .

. . . and maybe this is what his scans were for?

I keep reading D-F-A as Deterministic Finite Automaton rather than Dimensional Flux Agitator for some reason.

Oasis was pulled away by Kasari in the last panel of yesterday's strip and, at that point, is already standing behind and tree behind where Torg and Gwen are standing.



I wondered the exact same thing. It looks like she is putting on her glasses in the last panel to get a closer look...

Kusari pulled Oasis away from the wreckage while Torg and Gwynn were distracted by the explosion. Check out the lower-right corner of yesterday's comic. (EDIT: Argh! Ninja'd)



But that was nearly a year ago. Riff has had plenty of time to make changes since then. Plenty of reason for Torg to have hope.

Not really. But Pete's made it fairly evident that Riff modified the design for the Mark 19 from what we saw in the comic you referenced. He moved the DFA's emitter to point into the cabin of the mech. Perhaps he even built a new return-remote. Let's hope.

--tll

I've got one nitpick. Where was Chekhov's gun? Last we heard Torg and Riff talking about using the DFA as an escape mechanism, the word was impossible. Did I miss a ref?

Yes, but he also said that he improved the return-remote. What would be the point of improving it if the DFA was locked outwards?

Torg looks incredibly mature in that 3rd-to-last panel. So much unlike the goofy, eternally-adolescent post-grad who first suggested we sell our soul over the internet.

The design with the DFA pointing outwards like a weapon was Schlock's design. This design was impossible to use as an escape. Thus Riff turned the DFA to point inwards to use as an emergency escape. As he did this after Schlock's influence on the mk 19, Schlock may not know about the DFA's ability to be used as an emergency escape.

You can actually see the DFA’s nozzle (cone? Thingy™?) pointing at Riff in the panel where he’s reaching for the button in yesterday’s comic, by the way.

OT EDIT: やったぁ！ I'm not stuck with ASCII anymore!

No, SHUT UP Gwynn, SHUT UP. You don't see ANYTHING to contradict what Torg just said. Riff and Zoë are FINE.

We all had alot of guesses about what we were going to find when the clock slipped past midnight tonight... or perhaps an utter despair so deep we could not imagine how Torg and Gwynn could even get up after this. Out of all possible turns, however Pete has thrown us the one factor we did not expect... and, perhaps THE Dynamic that is the Heart and Soul of Sluggy.

Torg's complete, undying FAITH in his Best Friend.

Since day one they've been inseparable- indeed, seemingly broken without each other. Closer than brothers, though I've always wondered who needs who more. My hunch is Riff always seems to be the one doing the rescuing, half the time after his inventions make the mess, and in the most ridiculous ways possible. But, though it all their friendship has been THE central dynamic of the strip. Taken to every possible limit- from the ultimate betrayal in Dangerous Days to that fateful ballfield, one year ago--- to alternate dimensions where we see character's flaws taken to whimsical extemes.

Sluggy's done a good job over the years of resisting the "don't-touch issues," politics and, lord knows the characters don't have much to do with religion. But this strip shows something so profound, I think it fits the mark.

If Torg has a greatest "flaw" most would say it his naivity- that unthinking, blind impulse to do what seems right, no matter how stupid.... yet which, increasingly we see as a heroic... something. What?

Here, we see something baffling. Torg and Gwynn saw the same thing indeed, masterfully on Pete's part KNOW exactly what we know, we are in their shoes. Zoe burning, Riff reaching for a button we' can't know he reached in time. Many, like Gwynn have complete despair. Some of us have a desparate hunch, or at least HOPE that one of them pulled through... but that's all it is.

But Torg has something else. Naivety, one might think if one had not seen how he's grown over 12 years. No, not naivety, but, I believe what the Christian Bible teaches one can ONLY find in what seems utter foolishness- an undying, absolute trust one might call FAITH. Torg knows all we know, but he does not doubt the one thing that has carried him, and this comic for its entire lifespan. Complete, perfect Faith in the one person he knows he can trust the woman he loves to.

Torg's seen a Zoe die before, at his failure. But now when it comes to THE Zoe, his true love, he doesn't look back. He doesn't even BLINK. Because on THIS mountain, as THIS building fell, she was with the person he more than himself trusts most of all people in the universe, in all possible universes.

Riff has seemed, in so many ways a failure. He can't get or hold a job that doesn't include evil or vampires, he is utterly abysmal with women, he's spent his whole life trying to invent away his mommy issues. Without Torg, of the two he seems the most desparate, despite his aloofness, as proven in the crazy lengths he goes to find him. Compared to Alt-Riff, as Torg observed, his inventions don't even work that often.

But, somehow, every time push comes to shove, no matter how flaws his inventions or ions or love life, THIS Riff always comes through where it matters most. Be it with a band-aid an a paper-clip, THIS Riff saves his friends. No matter what.

Just like us, Torg can't see past that last panel. Even the FATE spiders cannot see where all threads lead. But he has FAITH, that Riff kept the promise he could not, and that Zoe is not lost. He has complete trust to face what lies ahead.

The Christian tradition, from which I happen to speak* teaches that "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Heb 11:1) Here, in sluggy's darkest moment, Faith gives Torg the solid ground to make a leap most would never have imagined possible for him. And walk straight on, when Fate itself has betrayed him.

A time for heroes indeed.

*(seminarian I am, though I'm respectfully curious how other religions recieve this.)

Sluggy Hydra-lance?