'Cause When I'm Bad
From Walkypedia!
| "'Cause When I'm Bad" |
| Strip: It's Walky! |
| Start Date: May 13, 2004 |
| Suspended: May 23, 2004 |
| Resumed: May 31, 2004. |
| End Date: July 4, 2004 |
Walky and Joyce arrive in time to tip the scales in SEMME's favor, but are thwarted by unexpected treason. It is revealed that they all have been nothing but pawns and tools all along, which leads everyone to question their motives and loyalties.
Contents |
Story
Arrival
We learn that Joe has built giant flying mechs (including two custom-built for Walky and Joyce) to be used against the Martian invasion. When SEMME was shut down, all the mechs were stowed and shipped elsewhere. Joe wanted Walky and Joyce to be able to use their mechs, and to that end had them shipped to New York. This meant they were in range for Walky's and Joyce's telepathic ability to control alien technology, and now Walky and Joyce are using them to fly to Denver.
Walky also has another trick up his sleeve: he is in contact with Mayberry Melonpool. At Walky's request, Mayberry fires the G.R.A.I.S.E. cannon at the britjas outside the SEMME Complex. This clears the way into the building, as well as providing a distraction for Penny and the britjas inside. Grace, who was shot in the Consummation storyline but only wounded in the shoulder, uses this distraction to get the SEMME agents around her to rush the britjas and brainwashed traitors. As Penny tries to get on top of this, Walky jumps in and punches her, destroying her left eye ([1]).
Mike and another agent grapple with Daisy, but she still manages to fire her handgun at Walky. Grace throws herself in the bullet's path and takes a lethal hit. In the confusion, Penny escapes. Grace tells them that Beef and Jim (who are likely to be brainwashed, as they are members of Daisy's squad) are with Guns and Big Boss 2. She then crawls to Mandy's side to die.
In the labs
Meanwhile, Big Boss 2 and her task force reach Professor Doc. Before he can provide them with the brainwash antidote, Beef picks him up and snaps his neck ([2]).
Cut to Danny, who is getting a phone call from a frantic Billie. She has infiltrated the SEMME Complex and found herself in the middle of "f@#%ing world war 3" ([3]). Danny tells her he'll come over to help her and starts running.
Back to the SEMME labs, where the agents (Sal, Jason, Tony, and Guns) try to overpower Beef without killing him. His toughness and strength make this a nearly impossible task: even the formidable Sal is flung across the room when Beef trips her. She lands next to Billie, and learns that Danny is supposed to be on his way there. Sal tells Billie about the antidote, and Billie starts searching for it.
Outside, Robin makes a bit of a show (with the soldiers she saved in Consummation as audience) of deciding whether to stay in safety or to risk her life to fight alongside her friends.
While Sal, Tony, and Guns fight Beef, Jason tries to make Jim surrender. Jim activates his abductee power, turning into a small whirlwind.
Linda ponders the loss of Doc. Without Dina, Joe, and the science team, "it may now be up to Marcie and Rachel" ([4]: it's not clear what exactly she is referring to here). Billie is still trying to find the antidote, while Beef has been briefly restrained. Jason finally manages to knock Jim out.
Sal is talking to Beef, seemingly to try to make him calmer. Instead, he's enraged and the melee starts again. Billie fires the antidote dart gun, hitting Jim. To increase the chance of getting a good hit, Billie throws the dart gun to Guns. Guns faces a painful dilemma as she realizes that she needs to let go of one of her own handguns ([5]). As Jim recovers, Guns hits Beef with an antidote dart.
Betrayal
To everyone's surprise, Beef smashes his fist down on Guns, who is crushed. Someone wearing an eyepatch explains to the agents that Beef never was brainwashed. "The neglected Walkerton boy was just disgruntled." ([6], one wonders whether this is also a pun on Beef's grunting). As Joyce and Walky reach the room, it is revealed to us that the eyepatch (which belonged to Dargon Chesterfield) is now worn by Penny to cover her lost eye. Penny tells the agents that Beef isn't quite the traitor they think, as SEMME's real founder is the JFO. In one way or another, every SEMME agent has been a tool for Dargon Chesterfield, and later Penny.
Penny describes how the JFO wanted the Martians out of the way, and to that end killed Linda's boyfriend David. This provoked Linda to attack the Martian Embassy, getting killed and then recreated. As she now had Martian DNA, which meant she could use the Power Booster Rod, the JFO could make her destroy the Martians. Knowing that Martians in other star systems would retaliate, they made Linda go to Head Alien to help her create hundreds of superpowered children by replicating DNA taken from Walky and Sal (who were born with Martian DNA) into children that the Aliens had abducted. Dargon Chesterfield then created SEMME to collect and train the abductees. The JFO had even funded SEMME, and it was Dargon Chesterfield's manipulations that made Linda into Big Boss 2 ([7]).
With this, Penny calls Linda the real traitor, and urges the agents to join her side.
The individual agents now have to decide how they stand.
- Joyce only thinks for a moment before declaring that she won't surrender ([8]). She (futilely) attacks Beef.
- Walky is stunned by finding out that his own mother is a traitor, but the visions he had seen help him to choose to resist ([9]). He tries to reason with Beef rather than fight him.
- Tony: "I'm a soldier. Our choices are made for us." ([10])
- Sal, who has betrayed both SEMME and the JFO in the past, chooses to fight for Walky's and Joyce's sake ([11]).
Meanwhile, Penny disarms Jason. Gloating, she points his own gun at him. He calmly notes that her eyepatch used to be his father's, and asks Penny if she killed him. As Sal gets into the fight again, she challenges Penny and tells her to leave Jason alone. Jason does not seem to want to be rescued from Penny, however.
Tony pauses, realizing that while his choice seems simple, he can't be sure that he is in the right. He is convinced that Beef is a traitor and a murderer, but many years ago he killed his own mother when he believed her to be a traitor. That time, his belief was false, created by Head Alien's mind programming. Beef gets up and is about to strike Tony when Daisy, who's apparently been treated with the antidote since we last saw her, shoots him ([12]). Daisy, tears of rage and grief running down her cheeks, continues to fire her handgun at Beef's head until the clip runs out.
Penny is distracted by Beef's being shot. Sal knocks her down and takes Jason's pistol from her. Even though she usually prefers to fight using fists and feet, she loathes Penny enough to use the firearm to dispose of her. Jason tries to warn her, but she pulls the trigger, to no effect. Penny pulls out a knife and cuts up Sal's arm, while Jason pulls another handgun from his trenchcoat and kills Penny with a single bullet to the head. In the background, Daisy is still pulling the trigger on Beef, even as she's out of ammo ([13]).
Jason tries to tell Sal that he let Penny take the empty gun from him to trick her into giving him information. They quarrel over not telling each other enough, leading Jason to angrily yell "I love you" at her. Sal is overwhelmed by emotion and joins a group hug around Daisy (with Robin and Tony). Walky and Joyce hug a fuming Jason ([14]).
Linda is devastated by the recent events, with a single thought going through her mind: "I - just wanted - to save the world" ([15]). As Sal tries to calm Daisy down, Alan appears, asking "Where is The Cheese?"
Alan informs them that the Martian fleet is nearing Earth orbit, and that he expects them to search for stolen Martian technology to find the individuals responsible for killing thousands of their people. SEMME equipment had been shipped (by Penny's orders) to different cities all over the world to disperse the Martian forces as much as possible. SEMME HQ would not have been a target if it weren't for the mechs that Walky and Joyce have left parked over the building.
Intermission - Roomies!: Comiconference 1998
- Main article: Comiconference 1998
A flashback story about Ruth, Howard, and Billie at Comiconference. It runs from May 23, 2004 to May 30, 2004.
Trivia
- The storyline has 17 regular daily strips, 5 sunday pages, and 23 extra full color pages, not counting the flashback story.
- Joe has programmed the mechs to respond only to an exaggerated version of their users' diction. Walky's mech won't take the command "Initiate sequence eject 95, autopilot mark perimeter hover-oval" but understands the wording "Crap me out, fly around". Joyce's mech ignores all commands that do not contain the word "pony".
- This storyline possibly has the record for tiniest crossover comic. It spans two It's Walky! pages and three Melonpool strips [16] [17] [18], and the characters only interact via radio.
| Previous storyline | This storyline | Next storyline |
|---|---|---|
| Consummation | 'Cause When I'm Bad | King of the Road |
