Walky’s doing a heck of a lot of exposition for a DEAD GUY.
Anyway.
Here’s the Secret Origin of The Cheese! A mysterious machine from thousands of years ago! ….thousands, not millions, because i guess we’re not going to completely kneecap joyce’s current ongoing crises of faith too much… But, yeah. That’s what The Cheese. And just enough open-ended that I could choose to expand on it later, if I wanted to. (I did not.) Look, there’s an ancient soul-catching machine from galaxies away, buddy, that’s it.
Man, effin’ parents, you guys. Always gettin’ all up in our fries.
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I kind of love the ballsiness of making the Cheese’s secret identity a throwaway character who only showed up in like, two strips. As a flashback.
I’m confused, who’s the man imprisoned in circuitry?
David Powers, ex-boyfriend of Linda Walkerton. Not much to him in the story – 4 appearances so far
Remember that Linda believed that she herself had killed all the Martians on Earth in a fit of rage after she found her boyfriend apparently killed by them? It’s that boyfriend.
What is the order to read those captions, they’re all over the place
Follow the panels.
Panel 1: ” Well, huh.” “David?” “Some guy…”
Panel 2: “In a storm…”
Panel 3: “She…”
Panel 4: “Jason’s dad…” “David’s machine…”
Panel 5 (black panel): “His soul…” “Into a…” “A Machine…”
Panel 6: “But David’s…” “–so he…”
Panel 7: “gradually eroded…”
So, is David Powers supposed to look like Willis, or is that just me projecting?
At first, I thought Willis was saying he was the Cheese. Maybe because we’d only seen Powers’ face once, and that was in a different art style.
Not to mention that he’s got the same first name.
The Walkyverse is chock full of Davids.
In fairness, the real world seems to have plenty of them, too.
And it thus has a theme song.
IIRC Willis got his glasses between his initial concepting of David’s look and this point so it’s unintentional but really funny.
So… so explanation of why the machine is made of cheese?
You know, mold and stuff?
Milk tends to change its purpose if left unattended for too long.
I never figured how David would have worked that one out, being with Linda while being stuck in the new mascot body of the Sci-Fi Green Bay Packers.
I won’t deny, I’m still confused as why his -DNA- was mentioned as the reason why his -SOUL- was compatible. XD
I think the implication is that the machine is of Martian design. They are already shown to have machines that can capture “souls” and it must not be coincidence that a malfunctioning of a Martian resurrection machine sent David’s soul to that other machine.
Gotta say this is a pretty cool backstory for The Cheese. Too bad he didn’t have more appearances after this arc.
To be fair, I’m pretty sure Head Alien basically overwrote him.
But yeah, I do really love the explanation that he was trying to set all of the factions up to thread the needle and give himself a happy future, but it all just got worn away over millenia and he forgot even as he passed the point when it happened.
The real question is: Is the Cheese in the other universes also David? I tend to think it’s not because Walkyverse’s cheese did not exist upon Jason’s dad’s arrival, even though he himself would indirectly create this Cheese shortly after. But if not David, who? It would not make sense for him to be in Earth if the original soul was not that of an Earthling.
It actually does make sense. The Cheese, in every universe, is created by the presence of something that doesn’t belong. Even if it were an alien’s soul inside the body he’d still find his way to where the disturbance was (which is Earth).
OTOH, since the disturbance was always on Earth probably the Cheese ends up being human anyway.
yeah, that sounds pretty good.
In some universes he could be a youth pastor.
The Cold Equations
So The Cheese can only support so many souls before having to kick one out?
I feel like there’s a bunch of inexplicable stuff the Cheese did that this makes even more confusing (like anything he did to help Team Alien)?
Don’t think The Cheese took any sides, he was just keeping the balance between the factions so none of them gain the advantage over the other.
That’s the “balance” part – for whatever reason he decided that, rather than just keeping his past self and Linda Walkerton safe, he had to keep the “right balance of powers on Earth” so they could be a Cool Alien Fighting Force forever. Except that he spent so long waiting for that point, the original purpose eroded until it was just “keep things balanced for Balance’s sake”.
Hence, if the aliens get too strong, take away some of their stuff. If the aliens get too weak, upgrade their stuff.
I… find this unsatisfying.
Mary would have been pretty funny.
I mean, technically, “thousands” of years isn’t wrong like, if you stack enough thousands together you’ll get the right number. But it’s just many more thousands than one usually imagines when they hear the word “thousands” lol.
Some day, in the far distant future, we’ll find out the Cheese was created by Carla in DoA.
I love how even Walky seems underwhelmed by the revelation of the Cheese’s identity.
I have always wondered if Willis had read the Many Coloured Land series by Julian May when he wrote this. The parallels between those books and this storyline are striking.