Out the window
on March 27, 2014 at 12:01 amChapter: The Power Booster Rod
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
It’s a tree branch! Seriously, at the time I thought we’d never see this thing again.
It’s a tree branch! Seriously, at the time I thought we’d never see this thing again.
Loading ...
Wait, is the Power Booster Rod actually aware?
That’s not a Power Booster Rod.
It’s clearly an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
Where’s the Earth shattering kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.
It’s funny. Knowing what we do now, their reaction is totally understandable, and not really overblown at all. If anything, they’re underreacting.
Seriously. If I were in a room with that thing I wouldn’t be ducking, I’d be running for the next state.
No point. You just die tired.
Not if the next state has a spaceship I can steal to get the hell out of there I don’t! (And to get out of the universe, because. Power Booster Rod. GODDAMN.)
Can’t only someone with Martian DNA use it?
Yes. Someone such as Sal, who was holding it the whole time until Jason took it.
But Joyce also used it.
Wasn’t martian DNA spliced into the abductees?
…The point is, I guess, that Jason’s one of few SEMME agents who CAN’T use it, so they’d WANT him to be the one holding it. So I guess their reaction is illogical again…
To be fair, the rank-and-fili grunt aliens probably don’t remember every single abductee – they might not realize that Jason can’t use it.
So how did we get from “one-off gag” to “the most important inanimate object in the series”? I’m honestly curious.
He needed a McGuffin, and there one was, all sitting nice and pretty.
One of my favorite things about this series was just HOW MANY innocuous one-off gags would pop up later as a major plot point or item of super importance – I always liked seeing everything tie together.
The only exception I can think of is Joyce’s giant calculator – which we only see later in a few panels of Shortpacked! if I recall correctly.
I guess you could argue that Walky’s giant mug references it. Like they’re meant for each other because they each had giant… handheld… Items?
The Power Booster Rod gets put in a room with the Roadblock Poster. What happens?
… Roadblock probably reigns supreme, but the Power Booster Rod is still displeased.
“I don’t need no rod
to smite you like a god!”
Shoulda kept the stupid question in your head! You would get a Roadblock that’s Power Boosted!
“You’re tryin’ too hard, your rhymes are reachin’.
Go back to school, you need more teachin’.”
Roadblock grabs the PBR.
All else is rendered meaningless.
“Stupid bit of tree!
I’ll break you on my knee!”
I remember re-reading this after finishing It’s Walky and being impressed by how far ahead you had planned all these little details.
It’s … a little disappointing to find out there was no planning whatsoever. But also interesting from a story telling perspective how you were able to take something meant as a one off gag and turn it into a really powerful, interesting arc later on.
If you want to know a trade secret, most great writing happens this way. I don’t think anyone actually plans these sorts of details, but good writers unconsciously plant seeds for themselves and they’re good at recognizing them later when opportunities to use them arise. Personally, I think that’s more impressive than having a fully-formed script pre-prepared and then never deviating from it, but to each their own.
Love the last 3 strips. Very neat farce into bad jokes into great deadpan humor.
And then: The Power Booster Rod….dum dum dum…..dum
HIT THE DECK!
Shouldn’t Jason know… arrgh, don’t want to spoil things for people who haven’t read this stuff yet!
I don’t know if they ever actually had it, or if the HA had to locate it himself (possibly removing it from the original tree with a set of very long hedge clippers). If they did have it, I imagine they probably just stashed it in a box labeled “PLZ DON’T LOSE LOL”.
Nah, he’s just the disappointment. No one tells him anything. He has to investigate it himself.
Joebo, that’s what I was wondering, too.
Sadly, darknessdescends.jpg is gone from the internet. It showed the Power Booster Rod in the hands of a Canadian. Canada is a strange and terrifying place.
Wait, no, I found it. (I wonder if Packy minds that we’re still using his bandwidth for all this.)
Nancy, the Japanese-Canadian, bearing Martian DNA? Maybe The Martians are where Japan’s tentacle fixation came from…
……
It’s a stick.
THAT caused an explosion.
It’ll make sense much, MUCH later.
So you took an insignificant one-off joke from earlier and turned it plot-crucial…
…Is Andrew Hussie secretly a clone of Willis or something?
Originally posted:
September 3, 1999