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Mark Trail, 9/6/04

Superman was crippled by Kryptonite. Wonder Woman lost her powers when tied up. So it makes sense that Mark Trail, too, has a weakness. But who would have thought that the passion for the environment that makes him such a great outdoorsman would also undermine his ability to ferret out evil?

As you can see, in the today’s episode, our hirsute yacht captain is charming Mark by demonstrating his environmental awareness (and yes, it’s sad that not dumping trash directly into the sea qualifies as “environmental awareness”). The respect shown for Mother Earth even moves Mark to unleash an “as you know”-prefaced chunk of exposition. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring an obvious fact: that the captain has a beard, and (in the universe of Mark Trail, anyway) is therefore obviously evil. His villainy is confirmed by the two shaggy, swarthy fellows in the final panel. Hopefully Mark will be lulled out of his eco-friendly complacency in time to deliver his knockout punch.

For the record, today is Labor Day, and there were not one but two woman-going-into-labor-on-Labor-Day jokes in today’s comics section (B.C. and Gasoline Alley).