Endtown by Aaron Neathery for October 06, 2011

Oh no! My face just made the same expression as Wally and Holly’s. D: Flask looks tormented about it, too – it feels like she genuinely believes that this is the best she can do for the child monster. Somehow I don’t think anyone is going to be able to stop Flask from finishing the deed.

I’ll say it here now so that no one else will feel the need to. “Shoot me now.”

Oh Boy …Well yes it is called Mercy Killing.hello her Decinagrator is not like the Others that the Doc Built… No Idea where she got that one as you saw Topsiders have there blasters AI guarded

Why am I not surprised? And why do I think, if Flask pulls that trigger, that she’s going to end up in a very nasty catfight?

According to what I can piece together,Flask was a topsider. I think she may have been betrayed by them.

A mercy killing may be the ending of a terminally ill or terminally injured person’s suffering; but not for want of a touch, for want of not being alone. Who is the real monster? Those from whom we hide our eyes or we who choose not to see the needs of others? Quick fixes never solve real problems.

There are mangled clichés And I’ll dare to offer one “All mercy flows From the barrel of a gun” Flask might think that her choice Is necessary and right Though the pair will give voice Will they challenge her outright? =|====/ Level Head Vote for Endtown 2.0 And for Doc Rat, too The Endtown Forum

Holly said back in July that to “avoid an uncessary death” was “one of the things that separate us from the Topsiders.” Several things occur to me: First, it is evidence, not that we needed more, of Holly’s good heart. Her next comment, though, I was reminded of by these events: “It’s what we have to do to avoid becoming monsters…” She used that word in a very human, pre-End sense — for “monsters” are quite real in their world, and are a constant risk when they are above. Yet here, Holly is clearly compassionate toward an unfortunate that is a real monster in the physical sense. Imagine a baby at the moment mutagenic plague took hold. The little girl might have been sick, and her mother had just given her a strong dose of codeine; the child was drugged in just the way that Cooper was when the change took her. And her mind was preserved, by being partly disconnected from the process (as it evidently is during sleep). That would explain “Sandy” or “Viney” six years later. I am thinking much about Flask and her evident conflicts, but perhaps that’s for another time. =|====/ Level Head Vote for Endtown 2.0 And for Doc Rat, too The Endtown Forum

I audibly gasped at this one, but is the thing communicating something to Flask? Asking her to put her out of her misery? Flask is obviously moved emotionally (which perhaps the others can’t see) but is also easily capable of pulling a trigger that nobody else could or would. This twist was something I didn’t see coming, though.

“I know you were going to shoot me, but I forgive you. And forgive me for asking you to do it. Please.”

They will never make it back to her to knock it out of her hand. I is just to late.

If nothing else, Flask better do it right the first time. Nothing worse than a wounded creature, even a former human..\\//_

You can clearly see the contemplation in Flasks face, and that the outcome of her communication with Sandy is NOT something that Flask WANTS to do. She is clearly in pain at the thought shooting Sandy. I really think that in one way or another, she won’t pull the trigger.

What a surprise! This is one of the best strips of modern times!

I’m with Logan, I think the child is asking, communicating through touch. But why would she hear it, while Wally couldn’t hear anything when it was touching him? So much to think about.

what is that double window device. is it a gun.

Once again I am amazed at the amount of communication that can flow from a strip that has no dialogue.

So Flask hasn’t quite the icy heart her actions heretofore have led us to think. Aaron, I can’t help appreciating the three-dimensionality of your characters. Thank you.

Hard, efficient person who does what has to be done. Need more people like her in the real world.

It was a child, it communicates with mothers and could be mothers, which he will never be.

Aaron, you continuously outdo yourself. . . . I love this strip.

I can see a lot of back-to-back swearing from Holly and Flask(perhaps Wally too) over this starting either tomorrow ornext week.

Flask is an experienced soldier. No doubt she has killed a lot of people for a lot of reasons. The others won’t like it, but this may be the most difficult decision she’s ever had to make..Heaven help her if she has to make this type of decision again in future missions…

Eyes closed, face turned, as she aims at the unfortunate child…“If you tell anyone I didn’t pull the trigger, you’re dead.”

Wow. Totally unexpected. Maybe Flask was thinking of what might happen to the child if a topsider got to it. There just HAD to be a better way of dealing with it. :(

Reminds me of a sad story I heard (don’t know if it’s true or not). During the Vietnam war, soldiers were trying to save members of a village. While hiding out, the soldiers continued to hear a cat meowing. They kept telling the villagers to keep it quiet. The cat kept meowing and they were getting nervous about the noise and told the villagers to shut it up. Silence. They were safe from the enemy. Later they found out that the cat was not a cat at all – it was a newborn baby. The cries of a newborn sound just like a cat’s meowing. The baby had been “silenced” to keep them all safe. :(

That story was part of the last MASH episode..\\//_

Dr. Mallard wouldn’t have to remove an A.I. chip if the gun had been issued to flask at some time in the past. The good doctor did accuse her of only wanting revenge against the topsiders to which she explained that the safety of endtown was her revenge. I think there is a lot to her and Petey’s story and at least part of it takes place above.

why isn’t endtown in the sunday comics

I don’t know what’s worse of being sad about this or just finding out that Steve Jobs just past away.

We don’t know exactly how much the child is communicating to Flask. If she’s sending emotion as well as direct communication and I’m right about the mental state of a human trapped inside the monster and being fully aware of it, it’s no wonder at all that Blackie can’t take it with a heart of stone.

’Mercy Killing?"

LIFE is a mercy. The only mercy given to all of us and often the only one we have left. To destroy what you cannot possibly have the power to give is not an act of the merciful.

♪♫ ♯ Requiem Aeternam ♪♫ ♯

I really feel sorry for Flask…look at her face!Great drawing, Aaron!

KUTGW,

Noreen

True. But Topsider blasters, aside from having AI, also have tracking devices and broadcast on open Topsider frequencies. The second Flask looted the body, the blaster would start shouting back to home base. Also, Aaron has said that Mallard won’t reverse engineer Topsider technology just on principle, which may extend to simply destroying a blaster rather than stripping out the AI. No, Aaron is doing more foreshadowing for us here.

The child may not be asking Flask to kill her necessarily, as much as she may just be reaching out to her for comfort and Flask simply knows that this child is tortured in the state that she’s in right now. In the second panel it looks like the mutated little kid his ‘holding hands’ with Flask. Of course, she could have just as easily have reached out to Holly (and, in most cases, Holly would be the better candidate). However, Holly had also took her teddy bear, and the child had just struggled with her and Wally. It’s hard to tell whether the child was aware that Flask had intended to shoot her (there were quite a bit of ‘eyes’ above the ground but I think about all of them were looking at Wally and his backpack at the time.)

Of course, it could also be kinship. Maybe the child senses something in Flask that made her more approachable.

And, finally, it could what the others predicted – that the child wants Flask to kill her. We’ll find out in the upcoming panels.

Whichever it is, it seems at this point like it will come to a very sad end. :(

Fantastic expressions, Aaron. Endtown has definitely become my favorite comic, and one I come back to frequently not just for the story (though the story is a big factor), but also for the insightful comments and reactions I read from everyone else.

Flask has to know more about this than what is assumed. If that is not what her expressions are saying…I don’t know. She knows. That is my guess, as I am not Aaron.I think that somehow, in some way, this little child and Flask have an interconnected storyline. Mother and child? Maybe.

I don’t think the intelligence in the Topsider guns is artificial.

I don’t think the child is Flask’s, just because I don’t think Flask would know this soon without a dramatic reaction (I mean, look at her reaction when she realized she knew Petey – http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2010/12/21 ). I think, if she was just finding out that the mutant was her child, her reaction would be so stark that we’d know. I think Flask just feels very sorry for her and intends to put her out of her misery. Now, as for Flask having any children at all, that we’ll just have to find out.

The shot occurs between panels 3 & 4. Panel 4 is their turned-head response to hearing it. Note backs to Flask in panel 1.

@memo & 3stepssee spamster’s comment above. Though I think she was not so much betrayed as got caught in a bind if she mutated, so she escaped with her old (pre-peacebonding tech) blaster. Or perhaps she exposed herself on purpose if she felt betrayed when her lover got made into a transport…