Oh... (Updated with questions.)

[Bushipunk]

Well, that makes an awful lot of sense. I thought that was an unusual hat for a trucker. I guess now we know what happened to Knucklehead.

I guess when an unaging person starts aging again, they make up for lost time pretty quick.

Very interesting... This comic raises two questions:

1. Why exactly did Knucklehead start aging again? I suppose we never questioned why he was unaging in the first place, of course...

2. What's the significance of him, in particular, picking up Morrigan (if speculation is correct)? So far there's been no such thing as a simple coincidence connected to the events in Florida.

Bushi

[Seafog the 3rd]

Wow, I completely missed that. Good spotting Bushi. <starts humming 'It's a small world'>
As for question #1, Matt answered that one a while ago, basically the pacts the cult had entered were keeping them young, and they were running out. When they did the cult members would start aging rapidly.
Does make me wonder about the girl cultist. She was killed and then reanimated (she may have been 'fresh' enough to be brought back to life, but we don't actually know from the comic) by our beloved Incarnate of Death. I wonder if she is aging as well? Or even vertical at all, if Hel only did something temporary.

[Acolyte]

Maybe Hel can't really restore full life to a corpse, but can only make a kind of zombie. If that's the case there are two possibilities as I see it. Either the zombie can only do Hel's will, which means the girl cultist was only behaving as Hel wanted her to; or whatever memories might be chemically retained by the brain are still operative and she retained a fragment of her old personality and acted as a free agent. I don't see that it's necessarily true that such a zombie is permanently reanimated.

The case of the grays isn't much help since with the exception of the Jack copy they didn't have individual personalities.

[Bushipunk]

Wow, I completely missed that. :o Good spotting Bushi. <starts humming 'It's a small world'>
As for question #1, Matt answered that one a while ago, basically the pacts the cult had entered were keeping them young, and they were running out. When they did the cult members would start aging rapidly.
Does make me wonder about the girl cultist. She was killed and then reanimated (she may have been 'fresh' enough to be brought back to life, but we don't actually know from the comic) by our beloved Incarnate of Death. I wonder if she is aging as well? Or even vertical at all, if Hel only did something temporary.

Huh, I don't remember that... I'll have to go back over my files, they need updating anyway.

I think it was only temporary. My impression was always that she had become the flesh golem assigned to team... Whatever they were, the one led by the self-styled "El Diablo." Who as I recall was called Graves, which of course is Knucklehead's (AKA Kevin's) last name.

Which makes me wonder about Question #2. El-Diablo-Graves worked for Morrigan, and right now it seems Knucklehead-Graves is in a truck with Morrigan pre-Incarnate-awareness. Perhaps we're going to learn how he got that job in spite of being totally incompetent?

[Seafog the 3rd]

Dude, you keep files?
.............
Are they good ones? Can I have a copy? I'm doing this all from memory!
I was asking lots of questions a while ago and one of them revolved around 'El Diablo', and how he turned into a wierd, dead body, cyborg. The answer explained the pact stuff.
I think the flesh golem is something else, a sex slave or assigned support thing, its WAY to dipsy to be miss. cultist.

[Acolyte]

Wait a minute, wasn't "El Diablo" originally the dead body from the beach the cult was trying to bind the chains to? And then the book was left with it, his eyes lit up, and he showed up back at the Gladius Dei house, drank Sirius, and then with Sirius running the body made Knucklehead-Graves (who was being held there) into his lackey? (This was circa February 2001.) And it was the Sirius-possessed corpse that got made into the techno-magico cyborg that tried to get the Book from Kali? (Knucklehead-Graves being blond and El Diablo-Graves being dark haired, right?)

What I'm unclear on -- and this may have already been said -- is how the Sirius-inhabited corpse fell into the hands of -- um -- I think it's the True World Order and got made into the cyborg in the first place. Whatever happened to Knucklehead must have happened then since he seems to be nowhere around. I'm also unclear about what exactly happened to the cyborg after the fight with Kali and how he reverted to a more human-looking form to take up the job of "Great One"/"El Diablo".

I have to admit I'm starting to get a bit confused with all the players and factions. A more up-to-date and comprehensive cast page would be a big help...

[Seafog the 3rd]

Are you volunteering your time?
You've got the string of events right, however we don't have the details for most of your questions. The only one we do have info on is the TWO 'kidnapping'. I had to go back and reread the comics in question, because it wasn't very blatant what was happening, but that was many moons ago. All I remember is that they do take him (thinking he knows something about the situation), then there's one where he is being operated on (but you don't see him), then he is mentioned as part of the Kali strike force, then he kills the strike force and attacks Kali.
Maybe I'll look up the comics tomorrow, too tired now.

[Acolyte]

Are you volunteering your time?

If I could do it myself I wouldn't need to ask for it!

[Mirober]

And this confusion is exactly why I'm doing this storyline, which will explain what happened between the time that Sirrus took over the sacrificial body and the assault on Kali. Afterwards, I'm planning to upload these strips into September 2000, and use it as a prelude.

[Orion]

....My brain is imploding!!

[Bushipunk]

And this confusion is exactly why I'm doing this storyline, which will explain what happened between the time that Sirrus took over the sacrificial body and the assault on Kali. Afterwards, I'm planning to upload these strips into September 2000, and use it as a prelude.

Wait, wait... So this is all getting inserted into the archives in chronological order? That's going to be a little weird...

At any rate, I look forward to the answers ahead!

(In response to that question on my 'files': They're not good or organized enough to be worth sharing right now. Let's just say following real conspiracies got a little too scary, so I decided obsessing about Strange Daze would be healthier.)

Bushi

[Seafog the 3rd]

You know, the more I think about it, the less I can disagree with you Bushi.

Wouldn't it make more sense to leave it as a flashback?.... Then again the connection was pretty weak at the time, and it would probably help dramatic tension during the attempted diacide (sp?)(Kalicide?). Is there even enough room in the archive for this story?

[Acolyte]

Wouldn't it make more sense to leave it as a flashback?.... Then again the connection was pretty weak at the time, and it would probably help dramatic tension during the attempted diacide (sp?)(Kalicide?). Is there even enough room in the archive for this story?

Matt said he'll be uploading it into September 2000. The comic started in October 2000. So there can be as much room as necessary. "Prelude" here must mean a prelude to the whole comic, not a particular storyline. Since Matt's writing it specifically to serve that purpose, it ought to work just fine.

So no, this won't be in chronological order. It'll be inserted at a point before anything else ever happens, but we've already been told it takes place between the first two arcs.

[Seafog the 3rd]

OK, I see how it'll work now.
New readers are going to be somewhat shocked when they hit October!

[Bushipunk]

OK, I see how it'll work now.
New readers are going to be somewhat shocked when they hit October! :)

That's pretty much what I meant.

It's also weird to think about the fact that said new readers will go through the comic with this background that we're just getting now; I guess that means we're technically reading the comic out of order now?

And yeah, Seafog, you are one-hundred perfect correct. Not any healthier at all...

Bushi

[Seafog the 3rd]

Hey, Bushi (Bushipunk just doesn't roll off the keyboard), where in Canada are you?

[Bushipunk]

Hey, Bushi (Bushipunk just doesn't roll off the keyboard), where in Canada are you?

Montreal, as of late, and probably for the next several months at least. Most recently before that, Ottawa. I've been moving around a bit for school, and looking for work. I'm hoping to stay in Montreal if at all possible, but we'll see where the winds of employment take me.

Bushi