It’s one thing to re-use artwork from prior days and prior story arcs, but this is just blatant…  Check out Mark’s face from panel one to panel two…  at least they had the dignity to change where the water droplets are located…  And the “Officer” is none other than the random changeling who knocked on Doc’s Motel door…  only now he looks familiar since there is a blatant “copy- paste- apply different colors” thing going on here…

And Mark!  Your hair!!  It’s all wet and mussed up!  Oh well, at least every now and then we get to see your more human side, the one that doesn’t say “camera ready” all the time…  Of course Mark has a list of his contacts, since Mr. “I don’t know what private information looks like” coughed up all the names and addresses of where Marlin Ethan Fauscett ships his illegal, ill-gotten booty…

Let’s all hope that that the plot machine that spins back at Lost Forest can come up with something other than poaching…  <<yawn…>>

You will see images like the one in the first panel… Though this effort will garner fairly low scores given the rough entry and the resulting splash… and considering the shallows into which they dived, it’s a miracle at least one of them isn’t paralyzed…

One more punch for good measure, and the Chopper arrives on cue…  But how do they know which ONE is Mark Trail??  Do they assume that right makes might, that the man left standing is the one who is on their side?  Hell, a general description of either man would result in having both of them called into a line-up…

And I repeat- that is one heckuva helicopter… what is the hourly cost to run that baby?  No matter, resources are unlimited in the Trail-verse, especially when turtle eggs are on the line!!

There’s no boat in the frame, he was running out onto the dock to do what?  Swim?  Your brand of vigilante justice… it’s all about putting another notch on your hiking boots, isn’t it Mark?  This “writing articles” and “taking pictures” thing is really just a means to an end, isn’t it?

But there’s really nothing like a good tussle in the shallows, is there?  And now that we know that the chopper is on its way, and there hasn’t been a gun drawn, it’s really just a matter of time…

To Jessica’s Question “Marlin, WHERE are you going?”  The answer is obvious, Marlin is going to take a long run off a short pier…  and Mark is going to help him get there.  Marlin turns to look at Jessica with those inky-black, soulless eyes that can only be owned by a Poacher… realizing that he has gone wrong, that he has been dragging his girlfriend down with him, and that his comeuppance is nigh…  Ah, Justice!

We’ve got Air Force II at our disposal…  we can be out at Pelican Point in minutes!  And by the way… If it’s an island, why is it called Pelican Point?  Is it a point that juts out from the island??  Must be a pretty big island…

And of course a POACHER is the most dangerous criminal that a person might try to challenge!  And Mark, a mere citizen of Mother Earth, is certainly in over his head… Or so the local authorities think.  Apparently Mark’s reputation for playing all roles in fighting crime has not reached Florida…  Why, he has no use for Police, District Attorneys, Prosecutors, Judges, Juries or Jailers…

And Let’s also think for a moment about the last time Jason smith was involved- remember where that was?  Why, it was in Mark’s (or Doc’s) back yard-  there was poachin’ goin’ on right in LOST FOREST… It would seem that THE JOURNAL has quite the geographic span and regional following…

Well, it would seem that Jason smith, Newspaper Man, was good on his word… even if the instructions WERE terribly vague, something about if Mark didn’t get back to him SOON, he should call in the authorities.  Well, here he is.  Knocking on the Motel Room Door of one Doc Davis.  Of course Rusty is bound and gagged and in the closet, because that’s what he likes… but for now let’s study the changing face of the Florida Mountie…

From panel one to panel two, it doesn’t even look like the same person, and from the back he indistinguishable from the other two people…  Even Doc’s face seems to be slipping off his skull in the last frame, having worked so hard to generate even a modicum of enthusiasm for his unexpected visitor…

And by the way, what is the policy regarding facial hair for this particular Police Force?  Typically it’s mustache only and then not more than an inch on either side…

Jessica will soon say… Thanks a lot, Mark, you just drove Marlin from the island, and now Jessica’s bed will be cold and uninviting…  Not that you’d know anything about THAT…  And of course the last guy that “ran off” met an untimely end getting shoved off a cliff at the points of an Elk-Rack…

I love the rattled look on Ethan’s face…  at least he is capable of private thought, at least he doesn’t have to utter every word that occurs to him… But he knows that he is looking at hard time… turtle egg poaching.  Is there anything lower?  What brought you to this lowly state, Ethan?  What made you wake up one morning and say, “You know, I’m gonna go dig me up some tasty turtle eggs…”  Or did your dear old dad teach you?  Who Knows…

Well, it was high time we reached crescendo on this story arc… With Doc and Rusty moldering in the motel room, Cherry at home doing who knows what other than picking up after Andy, it was time for ALL of us to get the heck off this island.  Islands can be confining, can’t they?