SFP

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  • Incendax

    Mother is revealed to be… Daffy Duck?!
    Damn subconscious never does what you want it to do.

    • trev006

      Don’t be ridiculous. The fine nose. The well-defined hair. The perfectionism, overbearing maternal instinct, self-righteousness, slim figure, and alabaster skin.

      Patrick’s mother is Elmer Fudd.

  • Tsapki

    Closure. Sort of…

    • Fluffy Dragon

      more like Opening… an old wound back up again.

      • Tsapki

        Fair, though in some cases one has to open a wound or otherwise treat it. If something is stuck inside a wound, it can fester and sicken you, eventually killing you. A physician wield a knife because they must cause some degree of harm to heal something that will cause a greater magnitude of harm.

      • tygertyger

        Not so much reopening an old wound as re-breaking a bone to set it properly.

    • Gotham

      It mostly smells of a closing of loose ends. They now who he is. They might be the only one. Who might have they told?

      And “you’ve known for quite some time”? How long did it take you to realize this was a liability to your world domination plan Pat

      • Giacomo Bandini

        Well that’s the reason why he is here. To read in their mind who they have told.

        • Weatherheight

          Wouldn’t Patrick already have access to that information? I mean, let’s assume they’re dead at Patrick’s behest. Wouldn’t it be in character for Patrick to have copied the contents of their heads beforehand?

          If they’re not dead, then anything in his head is from the last point of contact – do we know that the Conspiracy predates his last contact?

          Heck of an interesting idea, though. I like the idea that he has the information but has purposefully (but perhaps ill-advisedly) walled it away. Of course, that calls into questions the whole “Patrick needs Alison to fix him because his power is driving him mad” thing.

          Then again, it could be both as well. Hmmm…

          • Giacomo Bandini

            I meant “why he is here” in the memory, so in the past. The rational reasons why he is (was) there in person, than send an anonymous assassin. (Of course the rational behaviour would have been to stand just outside the bedroom, read their mind and then send the killers inside. Wanting to confront them personally is just plain human irrationality.)

          • Weatherheight

            Oh wow, totally didn’t get your meaning.
            Yeah, that makes a lot more sense in a lot of ways.

  • Aresius

    Templar Industries must have invested in really stealthy choppers… How can these two stay asleep with a helicopter parking in their front lawn?

    • Sterling Ericsson

      Well, they did have a super genius mechanic/engineer making all their stuff.

  • Olivier Faure

    Trying to bluff your telepathic son, Patrick’s dad? This is low on so many levels.

    • Gotham

      To be fair they just watched X-Men tonight and he conflated the mask with Magneto’s helmet in his sleepy state, changing “he can’t be mindread” to “he can’t mindread” with his brain only catching up later “wait why would he handicap himself” “Man X2 was good though”

  • Christian Clark (ChrisClark13)

    Um… No.

    I don’t think he does have to unerase her. People can be (more or less) fine without having to dig up old painful memories.

    Unless doing so will magically get rid of Lord Boy I guess.

    • Mouse

      As someone who has pushed through a fair bit of their own trauma and locked a fair bit of it away, I can get where you are coming from. Some things have to be erased, or the best we can get them to be. But, i feel like this erasure is the crux of everything that has happened since.

      Aside from the comic itself, the things I forced into dark corners and closed doors in my mind ALWAYS came back to haunt me. It takes real thought, and a decision to try and erase something to do it in a healthy way, or at least that is how it was for me, I shouldn’t speak for others. If someone has coped with it to the best of their ability (which can be pretty minimal or quick for some things, in my case an abusive asshat of a father), and then decides it is something to put away, all the more power to them. But the things put into hiding during fight or flight moments, or while actively in the trauma… I find those things have a way of coming back if i don’t deal with them… Sometimes it takes YEARS to be ready to deal with them, even if dealing is just admitting how god damn awful they were and putting them away again, and that’s fine ^_^.

      I am no one elses mental health professional (not currently anyway), so I won’t go making universal claims at how to deal with stuff, this is just my personal experience that got mirrored fairly well in my clients when i was a counselor, so all anecdotal.

      • Weatherheight

        There’s a significant difference between “erase” and “come to terms with”. Erasing is all too often just another word for avoidance, and while avoidance is a reasonable short term solution, in the long term it tends to be pretty destructive when it comes to our emotional lives.
        Some things never leave, but being able to face them as honestly as possible and being able to find balance and to be at ease with them goes a long way to mitigating negative consequences.

        Glad to hear you’re learning to be better. Same path, different road. Eternal’s blessings on you.

      • Khlovia

        Oh, yeah. Stuff comes back.

    • Teyar

      While I’m sure there are extremes…. No.

      Erasure of your traumas is never the right move outside of said extremes. You get stronger by confronting and accepting.

    • critically_damped

      You’re still assuming this is for his benefit. I’m pretty sure his mom is at the center of the conspiracy.

  • Kid Chaos

    “You don’t ask for much, do you?” 😵

    • Jordan Hiller

      She’s just asking him to confront his greatest fear. No big deal.

      • Kid Chaos

        “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that
        brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to
        pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the
        inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be
        nothing. Only I will remain.” 😔
        –from “Dune”, by Frank Herbert

    • Ganurath

      “You tried to literally take over the world. Guess how much room that gives you to complain about unreasonable demands.”

      • Olivier Faure

        Excuse me, but he tried to take over the US government. As someone who lives outside of the US, I’d like to underline that it is definitely not equivalent to “the world”.

        • Jeremy Downey

          Wasn’t the rest of the world on his to-do list?

          • Olivier Faure

            I don’t remember if they say one way or another. When Patrick justifies his actions to Allison, he says he tried to topple one of the bloodthirstiest governments in the history of ever, and then cites Hiroshima and Nagazaki. So I’m guessing mostly just the US.

            (and I know this is an american-centric comic book and all, but “taking over the world” is obviously completely impossible, because the world is a pretty big and culturally diverse place)

          • Irrevenant

            Maybe Patrick would just look on that as a challenge. 🙂

          • Jeremy Downey

            If he could take over America starting from nothing, I think he could take over the world from the position of Supreme Dictator of the United States. As much as people go on about how war mongering the US is, it’s the most peaceful super power in history excluding maybe the USSR and China. If it used its full resources for conquest, it could probably opress the rest of the world, albeit very, very bloodily.

            The only obstacle besides morals would be nukes, but I think Patrick would be able to use super powers to disarm enemy nukes.

          • Tiago Quintana

            Yeah, it’s definitely quite a peaceful superpower – when it doesn’t directly invade other countries, it just funds dictatorships and extremist groups within them.

          • Gotham

            Are you really psychologically ready to argue with someone who actually used human language to state “US is the most peaceful superpower except maybe for China and USSR”?

            Because nobody ain’t backing you up on that one you’re on your own man

          • Jeremy Downey

            Compare it to any other super power. Ancient China, Rome, Great Britain, Germany any time before 1946, and the US is far more peaceful.

          • Olivier Faure

            Yeah, but other countries have superpowers too. And the US just doesn’t have the manpower to control the entire world. A single country like China or India probably has a lot more, statistically speaking. And I feel this goes without saying, but the US has nothing near the manpower it would need to effectively occupy the rest of the world in any meaningful way.

          • Jeremy Downey

            Discussing whether Patrick could conquer the world is a bit weird because I don’t think given his explicitly stated capabilities he could do it, but given his implied capabilities I think he could. He almost conquered the US starting from nothing and seemed confident he could hold it, and I think that is comparable to conquering the world starting from dominance of the US. He seems to be able to do anything he sets his mind to in the story except track down the conspiracy and deal with emotional troubles, and admittedly if the conspiracy gets in his way then that probably would make it a lot harder to conquer the world.

          • Peter G

            The other obstacle is powers. People all over the world have gotten powers. If Patrick tried to steam roll over the rest of the world, the powers would be a serious impediment. He would have to use his power to get them on his side, but I bet that he planned to do that. I don’t think Lord Boy’s need for control would have stopped with the United States.

          • Andy Monserud

            “the most peaceful super power in history excluding (literally the only two other countries ever to receive that designation)”

          • Graeme Sutton

            Uh… Rome, the Hapsburg Empire, the British Empire, the Early Muslim Caliphate, The Achaemenid Persian Empire. Also the USSR was much more violent than the US was and China was less only if you don’t count the tens of millions they killed just securing their control over the modern borders of China.

          • Andy Monserud

            See below reply to Jeremy. And I ain’t here to bury or praise Stalin or Mao. Just objecting to the ahistorical use of the term superpower.

          • Graeme Sutton

            Fair, but most uses of the term Superpower I’ve seen include the British Empire and the Roman Empire at least. China is generally only mentioned as a potential rather than actual superpower. You could say that only the US, USSR and China have been described as Super Powers ‘in their own time’. That isn’t generally the standard we apply to international relations terms of art, if it were we wouldn’t be able to apply the term ‘great power’ to anything before the Congress of Vienna (Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands would never have been great powers and I think we can all agree that that would be unfair). If you asked any reasonably well-informed North American layman to name 5 superpowers you’d probably get The British Empire, The USA, The USSR, The Roman Empire and China. Among the 5 examples cases that always come up when someone mentions the term ‘Superpower’ It seems to me that the US has clearly been the least awful in terms of. This is not to downplay the violence of the US, whether against it’s neighbors during westward expansion or during the Cold War, but rather to point out the vast mountains of corpses on which the other examples were built. The US may not be great, but I don’t see how someone in the possession of the facts can fail to see that it’s better.

          • Jeremy Downey

            I’d count Great Britain, Rome, and Ancient China as super powers. Maybe Imperial Japan and Pre-WW1 France as well.

          • Andy Monserud

            That’s applying “superpower” retroactively. The geopolitical concept of a superpower as we know it– vying plausibly for hegemonic control of the entire globe through a combined soft-and-hard-power approach– was coined at the beginning of the cold war. Sure, the British Empire was trying for similar aims, and had a lot of success at it, but applying the term “superpower” to empires which lived outside of that context is a bit dodgy IMO

          • Graeme Sutton

            We apply foreign policy terminology retroactively all the time. The term ‘Great Power’ wasn’t coined until the conquest of Vienna but we use it to talk about the 17th and 18th centuries. ‘The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers’ starts 300 years before the terms coinage. That said even if we limit ourselves to the definition you gave I think that we could probably include Achaemenid Persia, The Roman Empire at it’s Peak, the Hapsburg Empire under Charles V, and 19th Century Britain, maybe the 16th century Ottomans as well.

          • Jeremy Downey

            Fine. Imagine instead of my comment saying “super power” it said “great power or more powerful”, a great power being defined as they dominated their region or had at significant global influence. You’re quibbling over terminology when it’s not really germane, I already provided examples of what a super power consists of for the sake of this conversation.

          • Graeme Sutton

            Uh… I’m not sure how the argument you would use to say the US is more peaceful than the USSR or China would even go. I guess China maybe if you a) limit it only to communist china and b) don’t count all the violence they used to gain control of its modern borders but the USSR? Ask anyone in Eastern Europe if you think they were a peaceful superpower.

        • Gotham

          He may have been oversimplifying that other time but when Alison asked him how to obliterate rape culture he said “it’s slightly easier when you’ve taken over the world”

  • CallMeVlad911

    It would be very dramatic if his mother is also the congresswoman who is the mother of kid with the power to enhance other powered individuals. Though I don’t think this is likely to be the case.

    • therufs

      I had previously thought that was obvious, but someone pointed out that was someone else’s awful mom (which makes it not impossible, but less likely?)

      • Weatherheight

        Practically impossible, to be honest.
        Remember that all the biodynamics were either born or conceived during the storm (which gives us a 21 month window – start of the storm to basically nine months after the storm ended). Unless Pearl somehow got pregnant and brought Max to term and Patrick and Daddy never noticed it, I just don’t see that as a thing. Pretty sure Patrick is an only child.

        Now if we take in-vitro fertilization / fertility experiments into account and Pearl donated her eggs…
        ::runs hurriedly away, dodging rotten tomatoes all the time::

        • Gotham

          I’m sorry what’s that silliness about 21 months? Did you think the storm lasted a whole damn /year/?
          No! It’s not babies born or conceived during the storm, it’s fœtuses present during the storm which to our knowledge lasted like a day.

          So it’s even more unlikely, they’d have to be twins if they have the same mother.

          • Rell

            But the storm lasted 5 and a half weeks: https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-4/page-36-3/

          • Gotham

            That’s fair. I didn’t remember this was ever said. Still, it gives Patrick’s mom a mere month and a half to get pregnant again, unless Dadtrick is /very/ potent I don’t see that happening.

    • Insanenoodlyguy

      I would have thought that was the worst possible outcome, even ignoring the logistical issues, and am very glad this turned out not to be the case.
      The entire point is that behind all this trauma, the censored figure the most feared supervillian in the world can’t bring himself to think about, is just some middle aged lady he called mom.

  • Arturo Roa

    Alison is entirely too heavy-handed and inclined to immediately tell other people what they should do, neither of which are qualities of a good therapist. That said, given what they had to go through even to get to this point, she’s not wrong. This is likely Patrick’s one chance to confront the source of his trauma–the tough part is that because of his nature there was probably no way to do this in a safe and controlled way via more conventional therapy. Still sucks for him, though. Everyone should be able to address issues like these at their own pace.

    • Weatherheight

      This.

    • Zac Caslar

      Yeah, it would be fantastic if life was so broadly accomidating that we all had as much time and energy and resources as would smooth us to our optimal recovery.

      OTOH lacking a catalyst might delay that recovery for a very long time -I speak for personal experience here. It’s a most brute and real truth is that people don’t change until they have no choice.

      Accordingly, Allison is a crisis resolution specialist. This is absolutely not “kid gloves” territory.

      • Ordinary Tree

        Zac, that truth about people changing is the most true thing about life-forms that I’ve ever read.

        • Gotham

          It’s very pompous. It loses much of its self-importance when you realize it’s a natural consequence of our tendency to see our lives as a narrative and our preference for coherent narratives.

      • Randolph Carter

        Crisis resolution by punching! 🙂

        • Zac Caslar

          Violence is sometimes the answer.

          • palmvos

            Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

          • Zac Caslar

            Amusingly some of the service-folk I’ve met interpret that to mean “the incompetent choose violence as the option of last resort while the competent shoot first.”

            Personally I prefer “war is statecraft by other means.” Or “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

          • palmvos

            it is always amusing to remember that the character who Asimov had say that was
            A. a politician
            B. holding an unloaded gun at the time.

          • Zac Caslar

            Why?

          • Gotham

            Hopefully “some” does mean “it was just the one scary dude and he later went in prison for his crimes”

      • Richard Roland

        Also…she’s inside his BRAIN.
        At that point, subtlety probably isn’t necessary or helpful.

        • Gotham

          …as we all know from official brain rules????

      • Gotham

        Brutal regimes justifiers are multiplying again people
        Kill them with fire

    • Khlovia

      Yup. Patrick’s a smart guy. He knew what he was doing when he showed up at the door of the only person who could provide him any therapy: the only “therapist” who wouldn’t be terrified of him while providing it; the only “therapist” who could survive the attempt. That the therapist is untrained, and therefore the therapy is likely to be a bit rough-and-ready, comes under the header “Life is Tough”.

      • Dave M

        Yeah, when you know your chosen therapists preferred solution to most problems is “find what needs punching, and punch it really hard”, you can’t really be surprised if the therapy is a bit rough. 🙂

      • Gotham

        You must be fun at explaining why health care is fucking stupid expensive

  • Ellie

    I really hope she isn’t anyone we know…

  • Olivier Faure

    “… But she’s naked!”

  • Gotham

    “Why are you not wearing pants?”

    I expected separated bed for the happy couple. A neat narrative feature confirming all kinds of hinted at relationship dynamics.

    • eliza

      I’d assume they’re so repressive that they can’t even be honest to each other about that dynamic.

  • Weatherheight

    There’s a lot of therapeutic compression going on here that may not be healthy in the long run. More properly, this should be Lord Boy’s issue to deal with, but I’m guessing the metaphor here is that this is the “real” or “essential” Patrick here and the others were avatars of coping mechanisms that had served their purposes and needed to end. That means that “this Patrick” is also the “other Patricks” and everyone is getting their issues addressed.

    I do find it interesting that Alison is relating better to this visualization of Patrick than she did the other avatars. Appearances and all that. Typical human behavior. 😀

    • Gotham

      What can we say? Chicks dig the long hair and scruffy morning beard. ♥️

      • Weatherheight

        Heh. Not in my experience, they don’t.
        I guess being an ass turns that into a bad thing. 😀

        • Gotham

          Wheatherheight I know this is like your online persona and all and it’s very funny ahah but come on.
          Be serious for a minute.

          We all know donkeys can’t grow beards

          • Weatherheight

            Being homogeneously fuzzy does have its downsides.
            One the other hand, long silky ears.
            ::wiggles his long silky ears::

    • Nothing here is healthy. We’re dealing with desperate methods as two people are probably on the verge of having strokes and dying. Nothing’s healthy — it’s just that NOT doing it is worse. We’re in the realm of cutting off gangrenous limbs here (although, fortunately, there’s a non-zero chance that the patient has biodynamic regenerative abilities, and will grow it back…)

      • Weatherheight

        I’m not sure a nosebleed is indicative of a stroke, but I’m also not sure you’re wrong either.

        Given that dreaming often involves extremes of time dilation/expansion, and given that what we seem to be seeing here is probably a best analogue of a shared dream, the issue of time and urgency isn’t that concrete to me.

        But yeah, assuming that it is an issue, this approach is probably the option available. Which turns the idea of “healthy” into “not so unhealthy” into a valid one.

    • Dave M

      I don’t think this is anything for “lord boy” to deal with (and I still think lord boy sounds like a failed silver age super hero name). lord boy, anima, the record keeper and menace are not so much aspects of Patrick as neuroses who are in control. They are repression, emotional deadness (or at least extreme emotional detachment), obsession, and sociopathic control. Giving them any part of the healing would have been like me asking my bowel cancer how it feels about me getting treatment.

      Or maybe I’m reading/projecting too much into the story. That works as well. 🙂

      • Weatherheight

        I was thinking they would be targets to be healed as well as participants in the healing process, but I like your analysis, too.

  • Callinectes

    “Your mother… who taped all those ducks together? Why?”

    “It’s time to tell you of the conspiracy, Alison…”

  • Gotta say, I’m flabbergasted that he’s still with her. I appreciate that it can be difficult for an abuse survivor to actually get away, but given their son was already missing and probably presumed dead by the husband due to how she left the house, he hasn’t much left to stay for. Sleeping in the same bed, as well. I’m starting to wonder whether Patrick’s father became more directly complicit over time.

    • Tylikcat

      There are a lot of different ways of being an awful person*. Being a four color villain is only one, and really, it’s one of the easier ones to deal with, as people with more nuanced and understandable problems tend to be a lot more insidious.

      * We don’t have enough information about Patrick’s father to really conclude he is one yet, but I think assuming he’s an innocent or a loving father is really pushing it.

      • Giacomo Bandini

        Be an awful person is hard, takes a lot of work. Being a weak one? Way more simplier..

        • Tylikcat

          I’m not looking at a definition of awful that is exclusive of being weak.

          a) When you become a parent, you have responsibilities. Those responsibilities don’t go away because you are weak or wrapped up in your own emotional turmoil.
          b) Being a weak person doesn’t usually lead only to passive failures.

    • Dave M

      It’s quite amazing how much you can be willing to let go, or wilfully ignore, or just not mention, in the name of “a quiet life”.

      • As per the new page it does seem more like he’s cowed into submission. Abused partner too terrified to leave. Still impressive that he’s able to actually sleep anywhere near her, though.

  • Philip Bourque

    I’m trying to decide if it “realistically” would be possible for him to just unerase her. It’s not something he did consciously (these kind of things are never done consciously) and the aspect she’s talking to is a conscious aspect (see how well defined it is? perfectly coalesced and everything). Honestly I now that he’ll naturally be able to do it for comic drama purposes, but I find I just can’t suspend my disbelief that far.

    • JeffH

      I think she’s asking him to try.

      • Philip Bourque

        Since she’s saying that he “has to”, it sounds like she expects him to do it. It would be rather out of character for her to ask him to try.

    • Giacomo Bandini

      He is just one of his personas, there is no indication that this is his conscious side more than the others.

      • Philip Bourque

        Very true. We don’t actually know how any of this works, we’re all just guessing based on what we’ve seen and our own thoughts on how it should work. Hopefully the author knows how it all works.

  • DivisionRing

    This may not be anything at all, but in all the pictures where we can see this Patrick avatar’s right hand, it is balled into a fist.

  • AdamBombTV

    Someone remind me, does Allison have the qualifications to be this level of mental-crisis operator?

    • Yes. She’s present, and if nothing happens, many people die. That puts under the legal and moral position covered by “Good Samaritan rules.”

      • Philip Bourque

        Who’s going to die?

        • Her and Patrick, for two. Maybe Feral. And, well — the world’s most powerful telepath has just become an uncontrolled projecting telepath… I’m guessing “everybody in a ten-block radius.”

          • Philip Bourque

            And what makes you think they are dying?

          • Page 73, mostly.

          • Philip Bourque

            So her being pounded into the pavement by a psychic projection which then caused her body to have a physical reaction is an indication that three people are dying?

          • Yep, basically.

    • ruhrow

      She’s qualified by virtue of being the only one around and willing when the crisis came to a head. She’s the person on the sidewalk giving the best CPR they know how, when someone collapses in front of them.

      For everyone giving her crap for pushing him into this mess…sure, she’s been heavy-handed inside his head, but it’s not like he was healthy and she forced him into this whole thing. He showed UP in crisis, unable to control his mind from projecting into others’, and basically asked her to help him (and she knows he won’t accept help from the actual authorities, either). Now, that’s not entirely why she let herself into his psyche, admittedly, but I don’t think every action since has been driven by wanting those memories. I think she’s genuinely trying to help.

      • critically_damped

        She also has a vested interest in getting whatever information Patrick locked away regarding the conspiracy. It seems pretty possible his mother is involved in that, given that Patrick himself is most certainly one of the kids they planned to kill, and she herself was going to perform the task.

        • ruhrow

          I admitted that she had some ulterior motive…not sure how much I buy into his mom being involved in the conspiracy thing. Would’ve made more sense for her to keep the telepath and control him if that was her thing. Nah, I suspect she’s just your run of the mill abusive parent. As for his blocking her out…we haven’t seen her face yet in his memories. It’s as if he simply blocked her out entirely because it’s hard to associate the face that you should be able to love with the actions/thoughts that she committed.

          But then, it’s a crisis. You don’t always get the most qualified or well planned team intervening. You don’t always get someone who is doing things for purely altruistic reasons. You get whoever is present and willing to risk themselves to change the outcome, no matter how prepared they are or why they are willing to do so.

      • Khlovia

        This right here.

    • Filthy Liar

      Does anybody? We don’t have a best practices or code of ethics for “being inside someone’s brain” and we’re not likely to need one any time soon. That said, Patrick was broken when he arrived, and if he ends up more broken then Allison can kill him. Seems like he must have thought it was worth a shot, otherwise he wouldn’t be here.

    • Happyroach

      She’s the most qualified person that Patrick can reach. She’s also the only one who could a) survive the attempt, and b) be willing to try.

      • Tylikcat

        She’s the closest thing Patrick has to a friend, and who the hell else is he going to trust with his mind? It’s fucked, but it’s pretty understandable.

  • Mechwarrior

    Plot twist: Patrick’s mother is actually Alison via time travel.

    • friendlymosquito

      Ow….

      • Dave M

        Further plot twist: Gurwara is Patricks father! (Time travel and regeneration may apply)

        • Dan Nicholson

          Or just… infidelity.

    • Olivier Faure

      Crap, you beat me to it.

      (other possible twists: Patrick’s mom is actually Gurwara somehow, Patrick’s mom is actually Bugs Bunny and/or Daffy Duck, Patrick’s mom is actually the duck for last chapter, Patrick’s mom is actually Patrick via time travel)

    • Gotham

      I didn’t expect to have to shoot down a time travel theory with hair color.
      What with Dadtrick and Alison so fair, it would be very weird for Pat to be so dark-haired.

      No clearly Patrick is Gurwara through time travel it makes so much more sense; race switch I can forgive (a well-known consequence of time travel) but hair color? Naaah

      • Mechwarrior

        Patrick’s hair color is because his dad isn’t actually his dad, he’s his own dad from the future!

        • Gotham

          Thank god because Alison married down seriously

  • JohnTomato

    Panel #2; Menace’s cape/cloak/what-ev is on the bed. The bed is centered and all the set dressing is pushed aside left or right. Lots of speculation to be had in lonely panel #2.

    • Weatherheight

      I didn’t see it that way – I saw the left side of the panel being framed by Menace’s cloak and the whatever-it-is-on-the-bed being not-related-to-Menace.

      But… I can kind of see it. Interesting

  • McFrugal

    Uhhh no he doesn’t.

  • Jace

    I can’t unhear kylo ren’s voice when he has that mask on

    • Irrevenant

      He’s actually a little Kylo-Ren-ish without it, too…

      • Jace

        As he looks now yes. The voice changes for kylo are pretty distinctive and intimidating which fits

  • Travis Staggs

    Oh man… what if his mom is Alison’s doctor?

    • Jonas

      100% what I came here to post. This is totally what’s gonna happen :P.

      • Sterling Ericsson

        That would be an amazing twist.

    • palmvos

      extremely doubtful. Remember we are dealing with Patrick here. remember that mob and the nurse at the desk that was after feral? he casually had them killed. the chances his mother is still alive is low.

    • DivisionRing

      Her name is Maria, not Claudia. Not definitive, but perhaps unlikely? (I sure hope she isn’t.)

  • Teka the Budgie

    For some reason I imagine Patrick’s mom milking the grief of losing her only child for all it’s worth and crafting an elaborate sob story about how she “Told him to stay away from the river but he was so headstrong and she couldn’t bear to punish him…”

  • You have to face the memory of your Mother.

  • Thomas S

    RealWorld Patrick as Memory is powerful, tich and masked, and is confonting his parents from this position of power. Given this memory is seriouly walled off, i woulf suspect that things do not go well. Watching on, EmoPatrick still protects against thr memory of the mother figure. Its going to be tough to fix.

    One-punch-Alison is still looking for that first punch vulnerability which makes everything right again.

    • Beroli

      How could it possibly go well? His mother certainly can’t resurrect Skipper or take back Patrick being sent to electroshock therapy. The only real question I see is whether he’s traumatized that he killed his parents, or traumatized that he didn’t go through with killing his parents.

      • Thomas S

        I never said Alison being involved would help things go well, I was implying that Alison is still looking to that moment when one single hit can solve all the things.

        • ObviousPuppetAccount

          Why is your comment awaiting moderation? As far as I can tell you said nothing that would warrant a moderation.

  • Audrey Ryer

    The shadows fade away. The figure becomes clear. Patrick’s mother…….. was Gurwara.

    • Thomas S

      You are so right, hiding the gender, race, disability, education and age so clearly, that is the only realistic interpretation. :rolleyes:

      • sagelynaive

        Twas a joke my man

  • Jagged

    I imagine he is going to look very much like his mother.

    “We all turn into our parents, eventually”

  • Darkoneko Hellsing

    Facing your inner demons.

  • Philip Petrunak

    Whoa. This is a memory. This is his memory… of killing his parents. Damn. I wonder what her reaction to this will be?

  • palmvos

    ok, this is a memory, menace does not address either Alison or loony toons Patrick. I think he’s part of the memory. the helicopter in the distance adds to this- Menace seemed to have a silly form of the dramatic. a helicopter is many things, stealthy is not in its make up. (i’d elect for the black SUV). it makes sense that this is where mom and dad die. they were the two most likely to figure out who menace is and help lead the authorities to him. they were a real danger to the supervillian stage of Patrick’s life. if i’m right I have a macabre sort of respect for the character. most people would send someone else and not tell them the significance of these two people. Patrick came to do the deed or witness the deed done in the flesh. this takes a certain nerve.

  • Gotham

    “…it’ll be much more satisfying to see it in full when you shoot her in the face in like two minutes”