It just occurred to me, looking at the pained and manufactured expressions on the faces of Mark and Abbey, that they are styled after Kabuki…

While Mark maintains the Trailian visage (seen in panel one) more that anything else, we have also seen him, through facial expressions, go for other emotive states- irony, sheepishness, cluelessness, anger, all the way to ‘hey I just made a joke here…’ But that’s nothing compared to Abbey’s transformation in both emotion and facial shape between panels two and three…  Anger to sadness and resignation almost in mid sentence.

So as it becomes apparent that the ants have taken the high ground, and therefore have strategic placement advantage, I’m guessing that Mark and Abbey will be climbing the same precarious slopes that Abbey earlier slipped and fell down.  Good luck with that!