Mike needs friends to cover for him when he finally acts out on his masterplan. To Mike’s understanding, “friends” are people that you have secured a number of favors from
It’s possible that Ethan and Amber are mere assets to him, sure, but I think this seems a little earnest for him. I think he’s going to get broken, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Maybe the teacher is going to tell him that it’s the grade Amber deserves, or something like that, and he’ll become acquainted with the unfairness of life?
I mean, the moment of his birth was heralded by a thousand crows encircling the hospital and cawing a dirge, while an inexplicable eclipse blackened the sun and every doctor present was struck blind and mad.
But lots of babies are born every day, so that can’t be a unique occurrence.
It is said Temujin was born holding a blood clot. I assume Mike was born holding a nickel, and it’s just that at this point he is still too young to understand the omen.
Same thing happened to me, but to be fair the family next door were also wearing hooded robes and had a bloody goat, but that may have just been a coincidence.
Mike isn’t evil, he’s a sociopath. He doesn’t experience empathy the way that other people do, and he has a tendency to reduce interpersonal interactions to equation-like analysis. That doesn’t mean he’s evil, though, he just seems that way a lot of the time because he doesn’t care if others react badly to him. He’s always been capable of doing something nice if it suits him, it’s just that his priorities are way different from those of more prosocial humans.
Like what, a strip in which he is diagnosed or states a diagnosis? I think explanations for Mike at this point are pretty clearly theories, which may have varying levels of support…asking for “hard proof” for something like this seems strange.
From so much lurk’s framing of sociopathy, he could be both.
Just Karen
I think Mikeās an otherwise normal individual that is sick of the lies and bs that typically hold society together. Heās brutally honest far more than he is mean. Perhaps heās noted that people tend to actually deal with things theyāre told with brutal honesty? Or maybe heās just sick of the drama his friends (Ethan and Amber) create?
scoob
Nah, he’s just mean (see strips involving getting Walky’s stuff back, and recording him crying at night). And most people who say they’re “brutally honest” tend to just be jerks.
BBCC
Diagnosis is unlikely anyways since it’s no longer in use. It’s called Anti Social Personality Disorder. And the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes does not equal the ability to like people, want them to be happy and not want them to be mistreated (compassion). Mike’s a terrible person, regardless of motivation, but it’s probably not sociopathy.
Mr D phone posting
It just bothers me a lot about the comment section that a lot of peeps seems to have decided that Mike is evil, period. No deeper meaning, nothing else, he was born evil and every evidence to the contrary is just misdirection, that he is incapable of empathy, and that his Evil is just in his nature. I’ve always thought that true evil comes from choice. Seeing both paths in front of you, and choosing the one that causes harm.
I’d say to wait until the flashbacks show us the entire thing. It’ll take a few months but we got time, because when the flashbacks end, I guess something will have happened that will have Mike with both paths in front of him, willingly diving into the one that causes harm.
My personal theory about Mike is that he doesn’t lack empathy, but the opposite, that he feels too strongly, and he acts like he does to reject that. After all, drunk Mike, Mike with no inhibitions was the nicest character in the walkyverse.
BBCC
I agree that nobody is born evil but every time we see Mike he chooses evil. That’s pretty hard to sympathize with. I’m interested to see why he’s like this but I don’t believe he’s coming from this out of some sort of ‘asshole sage’ type thing (as some have suggested). I don’t know what his motives are but I suspect we’ll soon find out.
Annonymouse
With any statement put forth as an absolute, especially when concerning humans, there are numerous examples that prove the opposite.
I remember a neighbor who switched to bottle feeding despite very strong, heavy handed, familial pressure not to do so – the damage the hellspawn was doing to her before it even started teething was shrugged off as just another burden to bear – almost losing her vision was the tipping point – she still wears heavy foundation and high necked clothing to hide the scarring to this day.
NelC
I find it hard to characterise Mike as ‘evil’ in a strip that includes Blaine, Toedad, and Grandpa. Not to mention Joyce’s would-be rapist, whose name escapes me right now. Mike’s an asshole, but has he actually harmed or cheated anyone?
BBCC
Annonymouse – Seriously? They were a baby. I guarantee they didn’t know what they were doing.
NelC – *shrugs* Using the same words as the OP to make a point. Feel free to substitute whatever ‘value of dickishness’ you want. Though I’d argue that at least a few of the things he’s done are emotional abuse.
Pizzasgood
Annonymouse wasn’t calling the baby evil. They were giving an example of how absolute statements are not always true. In this case, the absolute in question was the notion that anyone who doesn’t breastfeed their baby is a horrible monster who shouldn’t be a parent, no excuses.
Inahc
I’m just confused about how breastfeeding could cause scars on the *neck* :/ I’m not sure I actually want to know.
BBCC
That’s true, and breastfeeding benefits are honestly really overblown in industrialized societies. I still don’t feel like anybody is born evil and can never ever do anything better ever.
If Annonymouse wasn’t calling the baby evil, “hellspawn” probably wasn’t the best word choice in the context of this conversation. If they were implying the baby was born bad or such, it–and the comment as a whole–makes more sense.
Just to reiterate a point above, with how you responded to the theory that he’s a sociopath, ASPD=/= evil, with so much lurk starting out their comment with that.
Regalli
Agreed. Low-empathy people are perfectly capable of being good, and empathetic people are absolutely able to be awful. (Empathy has limits, for one thing, and once you start shutting it off it becomes easier to say āwell MY experiences arenāt like that, so it canāt be that bad!ā and other such dreck.) Thereās a time and place for armchair diagnosing and Mike aināt it. Heās probably the same White Edgelord Dude you see all over the internet SWATing people and harassing Kelly Marie Tran. Most of them donāt have any underlying pathology, they just decide to be awful.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Personally, I’ve never considered Mike to be evil in the slightest.
To borrow from the D&D alignment grid, I’d put Mike squarely on the “Chaotic Good” corner, possibly bordering into “Asshole Good” at times – everything he’s ever done genuinely is for good reasons, but often causes collateral damage, seems to just come out of nowhere like some giant space-flea (sorry, random Star Trek reference), or even appear as though he’s trying to hurt the people he’s actually helping. Sometimes it looks more like he’s trying to cause pain and helping them is merely an incidental (or accidental) by-product.
But yeah, I really truly think that he is trying to help his friends – he just doesn’t care how, as long as it’s the quickest and most effective way.
thejeff
It’s not an uncommon opinion. Frankly, I don’t see it at all.
His occasional stated motivations aren’t good. The outcomes are rarely good. His closest “friends” don’t trust him.
Mike has actually helped someone maybe three times if you include today.
Even if we naively assumed his intentions were ALWAYS good, good intentions and even good results do not justify incredibly shitty, harmful methods. Meaning well and even ACTUALLY HELPING does not excuse his complete disregard for the distress and harm he causes for the recipients of his “help”
Even if he magically KNEW that his actions would end up benefiting his target in the end, it wouldn’t give him the right to pull the kind of shit that he does. People aren’t toys to be played with like that
Proxiehunter
I think we can at least agree that we have hard proof that he’s a massive prick most of the time.
seashells
I dunno, I have a sibling who is an actual sociopath, and I can enjoy Mike storylines, whereas any fictional character who ACTUALLY reminds me of my brother causes me intense stress. Obviously not hard scientific proof this, but I’m just not seeing enough similarities in behavior.
In my experience, sociopaths often don’t think about the consequences of their actions (we know Mike carefully calculates each move and generally correctly predicts the outcome) and it’s not that they don’t care what others think/don’t care about hurting others, often they really DO care that others think highly of them (something we know Mike doesn’t care about) but are generally incapable of even seeing how their actions negatively affect others (Mike seems pretty aware of how his actions affect others, he just doesn’t seem to care if it affects them negatively).
Granted, I am no psychologist, just someone who grew up affected by the consequences if these behaviors within the family, and my experience is only one person’s.
I think he enjoyed the chance of confronting the teacher and humiliating her that she got schooled by a 8 year old. Amber is a non-entity by Mike since she’s too easy of a prey.
No, sadly, unlike real predators–Mike goes for the strong and healthy.
I can maybe see that, though they look pretty middle school to me. In previous flashback strips from this arc, Amber mentions babysitting and the teacher refers to the class as homeroom. Homeroom (and also lockers) are definitely more common once you reach middle school, but depending on the school, that can vary. But babysitting would be really out of place for someone that young.
Inahc
not really; I vaguely remember getting volunteered to babysit when I was… probably 8 or 9 tops.
yeah, they’re lucky nothing bad happened, I had none of the relevant skills… and still didn’t at 16, really š
It does happen. It’s still really out of place and not a good idea.
Inahc
right. it probably says more about my parents really š
Needfuldoer
They’re in Cartoon School, which always has a high school structure no matter how old the characters are or what grade they’re in. Just look at Doug and Big Nate.
I’m so tired that upon reading your first sentence, I thought you were trying to correct my spelling of the word “neighbor.”
Anyway, yeah, the neighbor boys were neighbours. His parents being nearby doesn’t really make it that much more reasonable, though, since it’s not like they were in the same house. I think, anyway. If the twins had come over to Arthur’s house and he was in charge of watching them while his parents were around, I could accept that more.
BBCC
I have no idea. IIRC, D.W. mentions she babysat them sometimes and she’s 4, the same age they are. Though, in her case, I imagine she’s overstating things because she also says she has to be in charge of Arthur.
D.W. is a nightmarish fleshghast sent to torment Elwood City. Don’t trust a goddamned word out of her venom-withered mouth.
Unusually Angry Hippie
Honestly, using two differnt spellings of the same word in a sentence bother me more than just misspelling any one word. My OCD insists one be picked and stuck with.
No Name
@DeliciousTaffy My siblings and I were actually banned from watching Arthur because of all the stuff DW got away with. The one time DW got in trouble with her parents (on screen at least, and that’s all that matters to viewers) was when she unknowingly swore at them. She’s a spoiled little brat.
My theory is that Mr. and Mrs. Read are eternally apologizing for calling her “Dora Winifred”.
BBCC
? I can definitely recall more than one time she got in trouble. I dunno, she never struck me as really worse than the average four year old.
I wonder if arguing with the teacher and encouraging Amber to deceive people is actually nice or Mike already being a corrupter. I wouldn’t be surprised if we won’t get a horrifying Keyser Soze moment where Mike reveals he created Amber’s mental health problems by encouraging her to divide herself.
I… think that would be going a little too far. Mike is a kid here and Amber already has her anxiety issues because of her father at minimum. This could just be a genuine friend moment between kids because I did know kids who probably would have done this for their friends and it is a typical kid solution to suggest just lying to avoid trouble. While we know he does become much more vile at some point, this could be like the flashbacks of Marcie which are to make us think ‘what happened to you?’
Which is an interesting question considering we know Mike had pretty loving, slightly overbearing but generally sweet parents. Which means he likely learned his more vicious tactics from someone else around him in his life, possibly even from observing Blaine as kids tend to parrot things they see/experience and we have seen that Blaine was still abusive towards Amber in Ethan’s presence. If he did the same thing around Mike too… it could explain how his morality and values became warped as you are more likely become an abuser yourself if you SEE abuse without being a target of it.
I…feel like that’s not what was meant, but now I can’t actually be sure…
BBCC
…I’m not sure I want to know what you’re thinking. I was just thinking Mike’s so young anything that could ‘shoe drop’ him into being a jerk all the time would be incredibly sad. I had no specifics in mind.
FWIW, I think that Willis deliberately drew young!Amber to resemble the character’s appearance in Shortpacked! Mostly because, in personality terms, they’re very similar.
SPIDER MIKE, SPIDER MIKE
DOES WHATEVER A SPIDER MIKE DOES
CAN HE SWING FROM A WEB?
NO HE CAN’T, WHAT KIND OF STUPID-ASS QUESTION IS THAT
LOOK OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT HERE COMES THE SPIDER MIKE
166 thoughts on “Battles”
Ana Chronistic
OH NO I CAN’T LOOK
*covers eyes with hands*
*giant cartoon eyeball peeks out through fingers*
*popcorn.gif*
AnvilPro
Mike needs friends to cover for him when he finally acts out on his masterplan. To Mike’s understanding, “friends” are people that you have secured a number of favors from
DailyBrad
It’s possible that Ethan and Amber are mere assets to him, sure, but I think this seems a little earnest for him. I think he’s going to get broken, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Nep
Iād not bet against you.
Clif
The most logical explanation would be that Mike has discovered alcohol at a young age, however my money would be on Mike finding a way to be Mike.
DailyBrad
Oh wow, that’s… sadly quite possible.
Twitcher
Maybe the teacher is going to tell him that it’s the grade Amber deserves, or something like that, and he’ll become acquainted with the unfairness of life?
Mr D
oh hey look, he WASN’T BORN EVIL.
Will the wonders ever cease.
Doctor_Who
I mean, the moment of his birth was heralded by a thousand crows encircling the hospital and cawing a dirge, while an inexplicable eclipse blackened the sun and every doctor present was struck blind and mad.
But lots of babies are born every day, so that can’t be a unique occurrence.
3oranges
It is said Temujin was born holding a blood clot. I assume Mike was born holding a nickel, and it’s just that at this point he is still too young to understand the omen.
FacelessDeviant
That sounds super cool. I’m jealous :C
Mr. Random
Same thing happened to me, but to be fair the family next door were also wearing hooded robes and had a bloody goat, but that may have just been a coincidence.
so much lurk
Mike isn’t evil, he’s a sociopath. He doesn’t experience empathy the way that other people do, and he has a tendency to reduce interpersonal interactions to equation-like analysis. That doesn’t mean he’s evil, though, he just seems that way a lot of the time because he doesn’t care if others react badly to him. He’s always been capable of doing something nice if it suits him, it’s just that his priorities are way different from those of more prosocial humans.
Mr D
DO ya have any hard proof that he’s a sociopath tho?
Yumi
Like what, a strip in which he is diagnosed or states a diagnosis? I think explanations for Mike at this point are pretty clearly theories, which may have varying levels of support…asking for “hard proof” for something like this seems strange.
C.T Phipps
I agree, I don’t think Mike is a sociopath. I think he’s a willing misanthrope, bully, and sadist.
Yumi
From so much lurk’s framing of sociopathy, he could be both.
Just Karen
I think Mikeās an otherwise normal individual that is sick of the lies and bs that typically hold society together. Heās brutally honest far more than he is mean. Perhaps heās noted that people tend to actually deal with things theyāre told with brutal honesty? Or maybe heās just sick of the drama his friends (Ethan and Amber) create?
scoob
Nah, he’s just mean (see strips involving getting Walky’s stuff back, and recording him crying at night). And most people who say they’re “brutally honest” tend to just be jerks.
BBCC
Diagnosis is unlikely anyways since it’s no longer in use. It’s called Anti Social Personality Disorder. And the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes does not equal the ability to like people, want them to be happy and not want them to be mistreated (compassion). Mike’s a terrible person, regardless of motivation, but it’s probably not sociopathy.
Mr D phone posting
It just bothers me a lot about the comment section that a lot of peeps seems to have decided that Mike is evil, period. No deeper meaning, nothing else, he was born evil and every evidence to the contrary is just misdirection, that he is incapable of empathy, and that his Evil is just in his nature. I’ve always thought that true evil comes from choice. Seeing both paths in front of you, and choosing the one that causes harm.
I’d say to wait until the flashbacks show us the entire thing. It’ll take a few months but we got time, because when the flashbacks end, I guess something will have happened that will have Mike with both paths in front of him, willingly diving into the one that causes harm.
My personal theory about Mike is that he doesn’t lack empathy, but the opposite, that he feels too strongly, and he acts like he does to reject that. After all, drunk Mike, Mike with no inhibitions was the nicest character in the walkyverse.
BBCC
I agree that nobody is born evil but every time we see Mike he chooses evil. That’s pretty hard to sympathize with. I’m interested to see why he’s like this but I don’t believe he’s coming from this out of some sort of ‘asshole sage’ type thing (as some have suggested). I don’t know what his motives are but I suspect we’ll soon find out.
Annonymouse
With any statement put forth as an absolute, especially when concerning humans, there are numerous examples that prove the opposite.
I remember a neighbor who switched to bottle feeding despite very strong, heavy handed, familial pressure not to do so – the damage the hellspawn was doing to her before it even started teething was shrugged off as just another burden to bear – almost losing her vision was the tipping point – she still wears heavy foundation and high necked clothing to hide the scarring to this day.
NelC
I find it hard to characterise Mike as ‘evil’ in a strip that includes Blaine, Toedad, and Grandpa. Not to mention Joyce’s would-be rapist, whose name escapes me right now. Mike’s an asshole, but has he actually harmed or cheated anyone?
BBCC
Annonymouse – Seriously? They were a baby. I guarantee they didn’t know what they were doing.
NelC – *shrugs* Using the same words as the OP to make a point. Feel free to substitute whatever ‘value of dickishness’ you want. Though I’d argue that at least a few of the things he’s done are emotional abuse.
Pizzasgood
Annonymouse wasn’t calling the baby evil. They were giving an example of how absolute statements are not always true. In this case, the absolute in question was the notion that anyone who doesn’t breastfeed their baby is a horrible monster who shouldn’t be a parent, no excuses.
Inahc
I’m just confused about how breastfeeding could cause scars on the *neck* :/ I’m not sure I actually want to know.
BBCC
That’s true, and breastfeeding benefits are honestly really overblown in industrialized societies. I still don’t feel like anybody is born evil and can never ever do anything better ever.
Yumi
If Annonymouse wasn’t calling the baby evil, “hellspawn” probably wasn’t the best word choice in the context of this conversation. If they were implying the baby was born bad or such, it–and the comment as a whole–makes more sense.
Yumi
Just to reiterate a point above, with how you responded to the theory that he’s a sociopath, ASPD=/= evil, with so much lurk starting out their comment with that.
Regalli
Agreed. Low-empathy people are perfectly capable of being good, and empathetic people are absolutely able to be awful. (Empathy has limits, for one thing, and once you start shutting it off it becomes easier to say āwell MY experiences arenāt like that, so it canāt be that bad!ā and other such dreck.) Thereās a time and place for armchair diagnosing and Mike aināt it. Heās probably the same White Edgelord Dude you see all over the internet SWATing people and harassing Kelly Marie Tran. Most of them donāt have any underlying pathology, they just decide to be awful.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Personally, I’ve never considered Mike to be evil in the slightest.
To borrow from the D&D alignment grid, I’d put Mike squarely on the “Chaotic Good” corner, possibly bordering into “Asshole Good” at times – everything he’s ever done genuinely is for good reasons, but often causes collateral damage, seems to just come out of nowhere like some giant space-flea (sorry, random Star Trek reference), or even appear as though he’s trying to hurt the people he’s actually helping. Sometimes it looks more like he’s trying to cause pain and helping them is merely an incidental (or accidental) by-product.
But yeah, I really truly think that he is trying to help his friends – he just doesn’t care how, as long as it’s the quickest and most effective way.
thejeff
It’s not an uncommon opinion. Frankly, I don’t see it at all.
His occasional stated motivations aren’t good. The outcomes are rarely good. His closest “friends” don’t trust him.
Fart Captor
Mike has actually helped someone maybe three times if you include today.
Even if we naively assumed his intentions were ALWAYS good, good intentions and even good results do not justify incredibly shitty, harmful methods. Meaning well and even ACTUALLY HELPING does not excuse his complete disregard for the distress and harm he causes for the recipients of his “help”
Even if he magically KNEW that his actions would end up benefiting his target in the end, it wouldn’t give him the right to pull the kind of shit that he does. People aren’t toys to be played with like that
Proxiehunter
I think we can at least agree that we have hard proof that he’s a massive prick most of the time.
seashells
I dunno, I have a sibling who is an actual sociopath, and I can enjoy Mike storylines, whereas any fictional character who ACTUALLY reminds me of my brother causes me intense stress. Obviously not hard scientific proof this, but I’m just not seeing enough similarities in behavior.
In my experience, sociopaths often don’t think about the consequences of their actions (we know Mike carefully calculates each move and generally correctly predicts the outcome) and it’s not that they don’t care what others think/don’t care about hurting others, often they really DO care that others think highly of them (something we know Mike doesn’t care about) but are generally incapable of even seeing how their actions negatively affect others (Mike seems pretty aware of how his actions affect others, he just doesn’t seem to care if it affects them negatively).
Granted, I am no psychologist, just someone who grew up affected by the consequences if these behaviors within the family, and my experience is only one person’s.
tim gueguen
And hence began Mike’s path to ultimate asshole power.
Architex
Not a hint of ulterior motive, what a Mike
C.T Phipps
I think he enjoyed the chance of confronting the teacher and humiliating her that she got schooled by a 8 year old. Amber is a non-entity by Mike since she’s too easy of a prey.
No, sadly, unlike real predators–Mike goes for the strong and healthy.
Yumi
They’re not eight in this strip, or in elementary school. They seem to be in middle school, probably at least twelve.
C.T Phipps
Alas the art style confuses me.
Yumi
I can maybe see that, though they look pretty middle school to me. In previous flashback strips from this arc, Amber mentions babysitting and the teacher refers to the class as homeroom. Homeroom (and also lockers) are definitely more common once you reach middle school, but depending on the school, that can vary. But babysitting would be really out of place for someone that young.
Inahc
not really; I vaguely remember getting volunteered to babysit when I was… probably 8 or 9 tops.
yeah, they’re lucky nothing bad happened, I had none of the relevant skills… and still didn’t at 16, really š
Yumi
It does happen. It’s still really out of place and not a good idea.
Inahc
right. it probably says more about my parents really š
Needfuldoer
They’re in Cartoon School, which always has a high school structure no matter how old the characters are or what grade they’re in. Just look at Doug and Big Nate.
Yumi
I remember an episode of Arthur when he was babysitting the neighbor boys. I was watching like, “This bongo is in the third grade.”
BBCC
TBF, weren’t they neighbours? His parents were nearby to help.
Now why their grandmother didn’t just ask his PARENTS to babysit I have no idea.
Yumi
I’m so tired that upon reading your first sentence, I thought you were trying to correct my spelling of the word “neighbor.”
Anyway, yeah, the neighbor boys were neighbours. His parents being nearby doesn’t really make it that much more reasonable, though, since it’s not like they were in the same house. I think, anyway. If the twins had come over to Arthur’s house and he was in charge of watching them while his parents were around, I could accept that more.
BBCC
I have no idea. IIRC, D.W. mentions she babysat them sometimes and she’s 4, the same age they are. Though, in her case, I imagine she’s overstating things because she also says she has to be in charge of Arthur.
Delicious Taffy
D.W. is a nightmarish fleshghast sent to torment Elwood City. Don’t trust a goddamned word out of her venom-withered mouth.
Unusually Angry Hippie
Honestly, using two differnt spellings of the same word in a sentence bother me more than just misspelling any one word. My OCD insists one be picked and stuck with.
No Name
@DeliciousTaffy My siblings and I were actually banned from watching Arthur because of all the stuff DW got away with. The one time DW got in trouble with her parents (on screen at least, and that’s all that matters to viewers) was when she unknowingly swore at them. She’s a spoiled little brat.
My theory is that Mr. and Mrs. Read are eternally apologizing for calling her “Dora Winifred”.
BBCC
? I can definitely recall more than one time she got in trouble. I dunno, she never struck me as really worse than the average four year old.
Chronos
So what you’re saying is that Mike is a humanoid form of the Zika Virus
I dig it.
Shiro
Suspiciously Helpful Mike
What’s that whistling sound, and where did my other shoe go?
Doctor_Who
That Michael Warner is such a good egg.
insomniac
…what
Sam
Mike being genuinely nice? Have I literally died?
C.T Phipps
I wonder if arguing with the teacher and encouraging Amber to deceive people is actually nice or Mike already being a corrupter. I wouldn’t be surprised if we won’t get a horrifying Keyser Soze moment where Mike reveals he created Amber’s mental health problems by encouraging her to divide herself.
Sam
I… think that would be going a little too far. Mike is a kid here and Amber already has her anxiety issues because of her father at minimum. This could just be a genuine friend moment between kids because I did know kids who probably would have done this for their friends and it is a typical kid solution to suggest just lying to avoid trouble. While we know he does become much more vile at some point, this could be like the flashbacks of Marcie which are to make us think ‘what happened to you?’
Which is an interesting question considering we know Mike had pretty loving, slightly overbearing but generally sweet parents. Which means he likely learned his more vicious tactics from someone else around him in his life, possibly even from observing Blaine as kids tend to parrot things they see/experience and we have seen that Blaine was still abusive towards Amber in Ethan’s presence. If he did the same thing around Mike too… it could explain how his morality and values became warped as you are more likely become an abuser yourself if you SEE abuse without being a target of it.
Joner
i……………love him??
BBCC
This is so cute! <3
I'm nervous. Willis is infamous for other shoes dropping…
Also, did anyone else get Shortpacked! feels?
Clif
I think the other shoe dropped with Mike a long time ago.
I suspect Mike is going to enjoy this and that Amber would be horrified by his tactics.
BBCC
Considering he looks like 12 here, I’d hope not. That would just be extremely sad.
Yumi
I…feel like that’s not what was meant, but now I can’t actually be sure…
BBCC
…I’m not sure I want to know what you’re thinking. I was just thinking Mike’s so young anything that could ‘shoe drop’ him into being a jerk all the time would be incredibly sad. I had no specifics in mind.
Yumi
WELP.
3-I
Personally, I think this IS the other shoe. Turns out Mike isn’t a complete asshole! SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS!
BenRG
FWIW, I think that Willis deliberately drew young!Amber to resemble the character’s appearance in Shortpacked! Mostly because, in personality terms, they’re very similar.
shadowcell
SPIDER MIKE, SPIDER MIKE
DOES WHATEVER A SPIDER MIKE DOES
CAN HE SWING FROM A WEB?
NO HE CAN’T, WHAT KIND OF STUPID-ASS QUESTION IS THAT
LOOK OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT HERE COMES THE SPIDER MIKE
3oranges
The Shortpacked! version of Mike could do it pretty well, though.
Passchendaele
Panel 5: Mike deploys the eyebrows
Danni
mike….actually being friendly? in what universe????
Darkoneko