Wednesday is for tragic antiheroes
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The Phantom, 7/15/26
Ahh, it looks like the promised Nomad-Python supervillain teamup really is happening, coordinated by the mysterious “Ignis Vindicta” (JUST KIDDING HE IS NOT MYSTERIOUS HE IS CLEARLY OBVIOUS ELON MUSK STANDIN “IAN MOLLUSK” WEARING A MASK). Anyway, it’s kind of funny that freeing the Nomad involved elaborately working through a web of corruption in order to extract him from Guantanamo Bay, something only someone extremely wealthy and connected could do, whereas freeing the Python just required sending some mid-range drones to blow up the big open-air cage they keep him in. Sounds like someone could’ve done that a while ago, if they had shown any initiative!
Mark Trail, 7/15/26
Meanwhile, just as Mark’s dad is trying to get married to his scam gorilla sanctuary catfish girlfriend, Rusty’s raccoon adventure has descended into full-on folk horror. Back off, scouts! Dunno if they give out a badge for “recognizing when your friend has rabies and is beginning to succumb to madness,” but your friend has rabies and is definitely beginning to succumb to madness!
29 replies to “Wednesday is for tragic antiheroes”
More terrifying: Rusty’s apparent overlordship over rabies-carrying, garbage-feasters, or that the sky is now a gigantic Simon? DISCUSS.
I enjoy that, instead of instantly fleeing, Python opts to flex so unnecessarily, it puts Top Gun Rick Rossovich to shame.
Billionaires obsessed with creating apocalyptic bunkers in which to survive the apocalypse/revolution, always face the same problem: how do you keep servants, especially armed servants, loyal to you. They fantasise about installing explosives on their neck or mind control, but the truth is that society is the only things that make the division of labour and hierarchy on which their wealth is based possible and a society considered unfair is more brittle. Now Mollusk might believe that Python is “in our debt and our service”, but I don’t see why this criminal should care about social obligations. You can disrupt and break things and you think others won’t do the same because of their low IQ? Worry about your IQ!
Phantom. “The Python is free…and in our service!” Just when you thought a comic strip about a muscular man in purple tights and a striped speedo couldn’t get more homoerotic…
What a change for good the new Mark Trail has been! Now Rusty is deranged and interesting to read. It used to be that Rusty was less interesting than Sneaky the Raccoon (remember him?). Hell, he was less interesting than a taxidermy raccoon!
Phantom:
“But remember, Python — NO TANK TOPS!”
“New friends” implies Rusty had friends. I gotta say the writing in the new Mark Trail is unbelievable.
Between Friends : Are we supposed to take this at face value and see Simon as a valuable sweetheart? He imposed himself and forced her to let him move into her appartment! He stole her cellphone, purposefully missed her calls, and deleted said calls to jealously control her social life! Now that he has money again, he’s planning to move away forever without telling her where he’s going! He’s not a sweetheart, he’s a jerk! …Or is it just me?
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Crankshaft : I wonder if Davis knew that Batiuk was going to go for a “dramatic, silent week” when he drew these strips. Because to me it looks like those strips are MEANT to have big expository dialogue speech bubbles, like, they’re not evocative enough to stand on their own.
…. this needs to be building up to a big plot twist to justify this “artistic” choice. I’m talking “Larry Dinkle was MY father too, that’s why I kept the music sheets” big.
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Mark Trail : I admit, Rusty Trail turning into a raccoon-themed supervillain wasn’t something I expected.
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Phantom : @A Grave Mind: , yeah, what if the Python just runs away in the opposite direction, and melts into the jungle, never to be seen again
(for this storyline, he’d probably return in a subsequent one)? DoesMolluskVindicta just go, “ah, well, nevertheless!” and continue his scheme one villain short?Mark Trail:
“Our heads are squished like this because we were accidentally exposed to the gravity of Jupiter!”
MT: “Can you really make friends with a raccoon?” Narration Box lays the foundation for a future stake in the raccoon fur trade.
Mark Trail
Is it truly madness as a function of The Rabies or an inherent condition of just being a Rusty Trail which is more akin to the personification of Tetanus?
That’s a great recommendation, I’ve been meaning to read The Enthusiast. The Phantom’s still a classic, and I’m excited to see what this Nomad-Python teamup brings.
Phantom:
“Do you hear me!?”
Wow. That drone is singing the lyrics to Missing Persons’ ’80s smash hit “Words.”
Ph: Let’s see if Chatu is any faster on the uptake that Schmelon Schmusk’s little ‘mind control’ doohickey merely sends the illusion of the hybrid B@tm@n/Phantom and if you simply remind yourself that it’s all an illusion you could simply snap the doohickey in two, and then snap Schmusk’s neck in two. Anyone else sensing some wish fulfilment in the offing?
RMMD: Today’s strip made me laugh. It was an ironic laugh, but a laugh all the same.
Wary Morth:
Oh, Dawn doesn’t believe in using protection?
…Mary’s meddle sense is already muffing.
Mark Trail:
Rusty looks as if he’s just ingested whatever it was that the Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields characters took at the end of “The Blue Lagoon.”
MW: Meanwhile, Mary has invited Wilbur for BANANA MUFFINS but will serve him the day-old ZUCCHINI MUFFINS that were left over from her visit with Dawn. Let’s see if he can tell the difference…!
Mark Trail:
Now Rusty’s raccoon
Fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible.
@Anonymous: On Phantom – As we’ve already figured out, Schmusk is a ‘flamethrower to kill a fly’ kind of person. So he’d probably just start leveling the jungle like the villain in ‘Fern Gully’ until he caught Chatu again, possibly forgetting all about why he wanted Chatu in the first place.
Meanwhile the Ghost Whose Time Passed Long Ago sits in his treasure cave. ‘What’s that?’ he wonders as he reads for the umpteenth time how his ancestors ‘heroically’ protected the childlike natives from themselves before screwing his hot wife under a waterfall.
Those raccoons are just using Rusty for his pancake and syrup connections.
MT: I don’t know what I like more- the photo-bombing raccoon in P2 or the bipedal one in P4, who is growing to human size.
MW: The implication is that someone is going to fend Tommy off with a muffin gun.
RMMD: “Uncle Jimmy” is savvy, no doubt, but I don’t think he fully appreciates the fact that these two would sell his kidneys if they could get their hands on them.
MW: I am now considering it canon that Mary bakes two dozen muffins every day, on the chance someone wants to come over. Also that most evenings, Mary sits alone, eating the two dozen muffins and hoping that tomorrow someone, anyone, will drop by.
Oh, wait, she wouldn’t be completely alone, she now has a cat. Although, when did we last see the cat? If it doesn’t show up during Wilbur’s visit, should we contact the SPCA for a wellness visit?
The Familiar Mucus: “You always gotta have the BIG salad™,Mommy!”
Mark Trail:
Perhaps this is a sign of an overly-libidinous mind, but to me “sticks and leaves in a fictional character’s hair” signifies that they just had a lot of outdoor sex, which in this case is disturbing for a number of reasons, first among them being that it’s Rusty.
I fully endorse Rusty abandoning the stresses of his modern life to live free among the raccoons.
@StripEye:
Your contributions to this site and related commentary does not go unnoticed
MW Banana muffins aren’t a good contraceptive, Mary! Uh-oh, maybe the Meddler-In-Chief needs to be evaluated for Alzheimer’s. On the other hand, it’s not like the advice she gives could get much _worse_ with dementia.
PBS “Supposed to die” today, not “isn’t likely to make it till tomorrow”, yikes. The least-grim implication is that Pig doesn’t realize the guy’s out of it on life support that the family is having withdrawn.
@Maverick: Is that the official euphemism for “spambot!” now? (:
The Phantom: [Extremely Tom Servo voice] Oh, I get it: they call him “Python” because [channel abruptly changes]