You are glad this fishing trip is over?  Not as much as the people who had to labor through it with you…

Radiation exposure is nothing to trifle with, though.  The movies teach us that it can have a seriously deleterious effect on one’s overall appearance…

With the camera pulled back to reveal the “island,” we can see that it’s not much of an island after all…  and where is the boat?  It would still be smoldering..  The Rocks upon which they ran it aground?  Nothing.  Squat. Zilch…

And Oh brother… What exposure?  Probably get more exposure at the dentist’s office from an annual check-up… I don’t think they even drape that lead vest over me anymore…

Anyway, the pelican is slack-jawed at the news that Mark, Ken and Kelly are “contaminated…”  I think this is funny that Ken is going to call Kelly… “Don’t worry sweetheart, a couple of guys wearing haz-mat suits are going to ‘schwing by’ and pick you up… Nothing at all to worry about… Nothing at all…

The look on Mark’s face in panel one is right out of the Mark Trail clip-art library… The comment classic, blowing the smoke off the barrel of his proverbial six-shooter, he’s ready to move on…

“Yes, since I blew up our water-borne conveyance, we sure could use a ride, uniformed, official looking man…”  But wait! There seems to be a rub, Mark!  It would seem that there is more that needs to be taken into account before you and Mississippi Ken get to do “a little fishing…”  Why are the Feds always so humorless?  So un-trusting?

Well, Mark… look at you.  Arms folded, demanding answers.  “What about the Cobalt-60 we found?  Huh?” Now I think Agent Christie is improvising a bit.  Pretty sure it’s not DHS that corrals and cleans up nuclear material…  I think that would be DOE?  It’s probably difficult to be on the Federal payroll… to know where one’s jurisdiction and authority begins and ends…  And unless Jorge was silly enough to cross the line into terrestrial waters, the US has no jurisdiction over him…  Guessing he probably high-tailed it out of range once he saw the Authorities.  And good luck getting that hover-craft back into the water now that it’s thoroughly beached…

Well, hello, Mr. Bird.  Are you finding this all entertaining?  Enjoying the banquet of… what?  Clams? Not rocks, given the symmetry…  But what would have caused a mass beaching of clams?  Mark!  Your work is not done here- it’s not just about the apex predator, it’s also about the lowly bivalve…  get busy!!

By the time the Feds showed up, Mark and Ken had things well in hand… and they could have taken the sea-ATV’s back to the mainland and been safe as kittens… so for all the pomp and hardware the Coast Guard brought, I’d say it was sort of unnecessary…  Other than to fill us in on the sea-borne terrorist ring that threatened our hero…

Glad to see a little wildlife back in the picture… literally.  A hallmark of Trail’s-past, every strip had some form of fauna in it… As the random sea-birds make themselves known, we can be confident that the Cobalt-60 is in custody and Mark and Ken have a ride back home…

Nice head-fake… Here we were made to think (or at least I was…) that the guy at the dive shop was a Baddie, simply because he had a scowl… but I suppose that’s part of “Operative Training…”  But clearly Profiling isn’t on the syllabus…  What on earth would lead anyone to think that Mark looked “suspicious?” Why, he’s the very embodiment of “good” and “right…”

Drones?  Domestic surveillance?  Warrantless searches?  Where is the ACLU when you need them?  What’s even more annoying is the smug look on Cousin Christie’s face…

I swear the Agent in today’s installment is the spitting image of the New Jersey Governor and Presidential hopeful…

At least Evil has a name- Jorge!  But doesn’t Perro mean ‘dog’ en Español?  Jorge the Dog??  And how does one retire from being a “Military Strong-man?”  Other than by being on the wrong side of a revolution or a coup?  Or maybe he invoked the “Dread Pirate Roberts” Model… hand picking and installing a successor while making off with the treasury in order to pursue other passions…

So… deus ex machina… and we are out of this story…

…could not have said it any better myself…

Oh good heavens…  Mark, let me remind you- you were never attacked underwater… you assumed ill intent and you were the aggressor.  Three people are dead because of you…

I can hear their voices going up at the end of every sentence, just like kids telling parents a huge fib as to why they were late in coming home for dinner…

Ken still looks a little rattled, but Mark has regained his equanimity… Ain’ no big thang, y’all… All in a day’s “work” for a Nature Writer…

As Mark spills his guts to the authorities, whom he might have called in the first place, is this the end of our story?  Trail 6, Evil Hench-men zip?  Dr. Evil still at large, able to plot for another day? Or perhaps he has gone down and retrieved the Cobalt-60 by now, since there isn’t anyone to stop him…

The guy from DHS is no doubt listening to Mark’s story and thinking, “Really?  OK, buddy, that’s a great story.  You can tell it to the judge…”  And make sure that they get Ken’s last name so that he can be fully implicated too…  Mark, you better get a copy of the report they are going to write up in order to include that with your story to the insurance company, unless you’ve got an extra 60-80 large lying around to pay for the boat you destroyed…  But then insurance policies typically exclude acts of war and terror…

Not since USDA Agent Abbey (with an ‘e’) Powell came to rescue Wally from his Emerald Ash Borer infestation have we seen such a display of capability and might…  Let’s try to figure out how DHS got involved in this story…  My guess is that it was that Saucy Siren that sent Mark the Nuclear Dive Suit… What was her name?  Oh yea, Leslie Joyce…

Oh, and while the henchmen still lie comatose on the beach, Agent Johnson goes for a little humor… This is my brother Darryl and and my other brother Darryl…  no relation…  So with Homeland Security on the case, what could go wrong?  Does everyone get to go home now and fill out the insurance paperwork?  At least Special Agent Johnson has an automatic weapon, and I suppose that he hasn’t the inclination to fire it randomly into the jungle…

You’ve got a bad feeling about this.  Do you have another line you’d like to use??  Really, a hovercraft?  This somehow seems less menacing…  almost like a welcoming party… “You have bested my dive team and my Sea-ATV team, so you are now worthy of my hovercraft…”

In the olden-days of Trail, Mark would cock his head to discern a distant  sound and it was usually a rifle shot (poachers!) or a Rutting Buck… No doubt he truly did not know what that sound was…  Mark you must feel as though you’ve arrived in a foreign land…

A double header, ladies and gents…  Saturday action below, which shows Ken’s pugilistic prowess, not to mention the famous Mark Trail hay-maker…

I remember griping about the fact that Mark wasn’t allowed to hit anyone anymore in the Allen epoch, but we are apparently beyond that… as long as Mark is getting shot at (sort of, since the bullets all went the other way…) he is free to unleash his fists of fury.

From the Curmudgeon: (I missed the oddity in panel two…)

Just keeping you updated on the Trailian fisticuffs! Lotsa punching going on. Let’s focus on that and not Ken’s leg apparently phasing right through the solid matter of the bad guy’s arm in panel two. Very disturbing, the thought that Mississippi Ken might not be bound by the same laws of time and space as we are. Let’s not dwell on it. Ha ha, punching!

A “Lullaby machine?”  Really?  That’s actually kind of funny…  And what- is Ken into Martial Arts or something?  Second panel top might suggest as much…  OK, now what?  Do they pick up the weapons and wait for the next onslaught of Henchmen?  These guys won’t stay out for long…

…and not going to take it any more…  But I  mean really… Where did these guys go to bad guy school, anyway?  With spit, sunglasses and guns flying from the two that Ken took “by surprise,” let’s hope Mark is not holding back and is taking out the third…  Lesson here I suppose is never mess with a guy sporting a ponytail and a lavender t-shirt…  all might not be as it appears…

Well kids, we’ll see where this all goes…  Ken got the drop on these two, but I’m sure there will be days of action to follow!

And hey, wait a gosh-darned second, there, Ken… MARK owns all the obvious lines in this strip…  “They’ve run out of ammo!”  Another interesting feature of the James Allen Trail-verse:  the use of contractions-   ‘They’ve,’ ‘let’s,’ Oh dear! All stops are out now!

I like how Ken is referring to the three as “The Bad Guys..”  and the look of blood lust on his face in panel 3 is priceless…  What would Uncle Doyle think about all this?

What’s the saying?  We don’t have a GUN problem, we have a BULLET problem?  Without Ammo, guns are just fancy and expensive paperweights…

So as the goons look at their now empty weapons with dismay, they are also confronted with an eco-disaster wrought by the incendiary rounds…  this still makes no sense to me, but it is kind of funny…

Oh, Ken… like music to my ears… bad grammar and stupid questions!  Not to mention zero directional sense… didn’t the bad guys see from whence the flare came?  And they now fire aimlessly away from that general direction?  Wasting ammo like they have an unlimited supply at hand?  Or maybe they just want to put on a show for the Evil One on the Yacht?  They aren’t really down with the whole “world domination” thing?

At first I pictured the island to be the kind used in all the bad “deserted on an island what would you bring?” jokes… but it seems to be of significant size.  Enough to to get yourself gone and hid- better get a move on, boys…

Other than the guy in the foreground channeling Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo, What on earth are we doing here?  What weapon actually throws flame and bullets at the same time??

And what did those poor palm trees ever do to you?

With all the automatic weapons fire and lack of dialogue, the Creative Force behind Mark Trail must be trying to appeal to those who would have their mothers accompany them to the midnight release of the next “Call of Duty” installment, “Black Ops 3…”

So, as the world passes me by, I will sit here and yearn for a cornier, less violent past…

By the look of these henchmen, it would seem as though they were hatched from the same crucible.  Sort of like the forge that spawned all the Orcs in the Lord of the rings trilogy, or what produced the Grand Army of the Republic in second (first?) Star Wars series…

So, without mothers to worry about them or the ability to love, they go off into the bush at the command of the Great One (can’t wait to meet him (or her) and see who is behind all this craziness…)

…if I were to imagine anyone saying, “Gosh, what’s with The Daily Trail?  I certainly hope nothing has happened to that witty guy who riffs on Mark Trail every morning except Sunday…”

Fear not dear readers, I am well.  Which is more than I can say for the strip that I have loved and snarked at for decades now…

As Mark takes cover behind a rock with bullets magically missing him and ken, there’s just not much to say about it all.  And I don’t think it’s because I have grown weary of keeping up this blog, it’s more likely that I have no interest in this story line…

So sure, Mark, let’s keep up the chase.  This can last another couple of weeks, which would be seriously unfortunate.  There’s no real tension here, as there is no chance of any harm coming to you.  Without tension and suspense, or even the opportunity to learn something new, we will pace along with you a few days at a time until something interesting happens…