Wanted in several states for POACHING?  Maybe even MURDER?  And yet there he was dug in and operating with impunity at his “hunting lodge.”  Listen here kids: a life of wrong-doing will only lead to, well, cigars, whiskey, a huge closet of colorful flannel shirts, and oh, yeah, retirement to the BIG HOUSE!  I still say that there is another, more sure-fire way to put him away…  I mean where are the agents from Treasury?  Where’s the IRS?

So, with Sergeant York of the Aryan Brotherhood on the scene (c’mon, really?) and with Mark draping him arm around his newest, bestest “friend,”  Frankie and Big Mike are no longer “in business.”  I hope Mark doesn’t invite Ol’ Jason (oops, did I really just say that??) back to Lost Forest for coffee and gripping tales of life in the meat locker… that head of his is shining me!

…which apparently does not exist in the Trail-verse, Mark once again plays Judge, Jury and executioner…  Big Mike has changed his shirt three time in the last hour or so… and is seen here sorting through the collected works of??? Maybe I was being too hard on him, a man who appeared no deeper than a wading pool… perhaps there are more layers and dimensions that would have revealed if we only had the time… Big Mike, we hardly knew ye… Or maybe these are the ledger books documenting his evil empire- the set he keeps and the set he shows the IRS…  If he goes away it won’t be for Skinning Otters or Shining Deer, it will be for tax evasion, which is what brought Alphonse Gabriel “Al” “Scarface” Capone down!

Trail must’ve played some football in his youth!  Look at the form he exhibits in making Big Mike go “OOOF!”  Even though he doesn’t say it, can’t you just feel it?  Head low, legs driving, shoulder to the gut, Big Mike sure didn’t expect that one!!  We should be back at Lost Forest in no time… and will Mark acknowledge that without Jason Smith coming out to Big Mike’s to inquire about his health, he might have perished?  Let’s see if Mark possesses the awareness and magnanimity required to string that thought together…

How appropriate that Frankie is laid out on a stack of what appears to be otter pelts!  I am sure one of them is Mollie’s!  Sweet dreams, Frankie! Your life, as you knew it, is about to change!!

Nice dramatic pause, Mark… BIG MIKE MORRISON!  And what will Big Mike’s prison name be?  There has to already be a “Big Mike” or two in the pen… so he will either have to change his name or fight for the right to keep it, since there certainly can’t be any, “Which Big Mike you talkin’ ‘bout” going on amongst the inmates and their keepers…

Jean Claude Van Damme got nothin’ on you, Mark Trail!!  Nice crab-kick!  Even with those skinny little legs, with body temp hovering in the hypothermic range, you take him out with one blow!  Now this is the Trail I have been missing- no tackling, no more “it’s just us against nature,” but rather two baddies that need to be brought down the old way- with a swift punch or kick!

Love Jason Smith in the first frame- arms held “up” but not really…  more like “whatever, I’ve been held at gun point before, I am a newspaperman, remember??”

All right!! This just in (2/22/2014)  I stumbled upon this strip from 1999!  Look familiar??

Replace a Reporter with a Game Warden, and voila!  Reprise, right down to the kick, the flying gun and hat, the shirt collar, and the look of surprise!!

Who says you can’t go home again!!

I really need to cut Elrod and Co. some slack… but why would I start now?  “Insert Big Mike Head Shot, front right ¾ view…”  Recall how they have used this, and his mirror image before:

Sort of like a Slylock Fox game “tell me what’s different with these pictures…”

But enough of that, back to the story.

“Buddy?”  “Friend?”  Methinks they overstate the facts here…

“Stiff as a board?”  “Dying to see you?”  Oh my these are lines that the Joker or Penguin might have used in the original batman series!

There’s not an ounce of remorse here, ladies and gentlemen…  these are cold hearted killers!  How many other Nosey Parkers have they snuffed in the past just to keep their Trophy Poaching Empire intact?  The mind Boggles…