SW10/WWW: Powernaut 1995 #21: Then My Work Here is Done! (tm)

[Scott Eiler]

... Well, sort of, Powernaut.  But you're about to get a Quest!  For 
everyone else in the episode, the time has come for the three little 
words every character loves to hear:  TO BE CONCLUDED!  (Probably next 
week!)

http://eilertech.com/stories/powernaut/1995b.htm#21

This week...  Powernaut Comics used to be simpler, when Powernauts got 
to beat up Adolf Hitler instead of Saddam Hussein.  So for this one, 
we're trying panel-level commentary!

...

Bonus Section: 2005 Reprint Commentary from Wyatt Ferguson! Panel by Panel!

People often critique later-period Powernaut Comics as being difficult 
to understand because they're so dense with artistic clues instead of 
explanatory dialogue. So as the episode finally nears its end, let's try 
a strip's worth of commentary - panel by panel!

1.    Megaphone just slugged the Powernaut, who is lying on the ground. 
Megaphone is of course gloating. The Powernaut is of course having 
nothing more to do with this fight. (If they did continue, it would be 
on roughly equal terms, only Megaphone is a much better boxer.)

2.    Sorting things out.
         Upper: Crusher Joe escorts Megaphone away, almost tenderly. 
Megaphone literally has no place to go except back to Total Conversion 
HQ in the Bahamas.
         Lower: The Powernaut is thinking, "I don't let people get hurt 
- especially not myself!" He's shown a healing touch before, in 1987. 
And Leo reveals the existence of a Time Police force, from whose far 
future Megaphone came from, in search of 1990s adventure. Megaphone 
never admitted *how* far his future is, but it's at least well beyond 2005.

3.    Cleanup. Apparently Total Conversion is taking custody of the 
junior alien of the invaders! The other aliens have either died or fled. 
And the guy from Hypergaard is proud to be helping, and even taking 
charge. (Note how he has actual color to his skin when the rest of us 
don't. It's an effect of his being 4-dimensional.)

4.    "Then My Work Here is Done!" TM - It seems Powernaut Comics is 
trying to trademark that phrase from the 1988 comic! Total Conversion 
(the superhero team on premises) is saying Yeesh. But Leo is such a 
fanboy as he starts his career, that he's impressed.

5.    Racer Girl is impatient that the Powernaut has been interfering 
with our mission to rescue the Powernaut. Go figure. The Mad Axeman from 
Shenandoah and I were still waiting there to watch. (Racer Girl is from 
4-dimensional Hypergaard and has actual color to her skin.)

6.    The Powernaut had been recreated from fragments of himself. He has 
sensed that his ladyfriend Paula Page will have to be recreated likewise.

7.    As the Hypernaut comes back from the flooding platform, Racer Girl 
tells the Powernaut that recreating Paula will not be that easy.

-- 
-- (signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> ------ http://www.eilertech.com/ -------

"Your Royal Highness, instead of devoting yourself exclusively
to Minerva, should, instead, rather offer sacrifice at the altars
of Bacchus, Orpheus, Venus, and Morpheus."

- Advice to Prince Duarte of Portugal.  From "The golden age of
Prince Henry the Navigator", by Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins.
Coming soon to Project Gutenberg.