Ever have one of those dreams that seems to last all night?  Even upon waking and returning to sleep you pick up where you left off?  That’s what this “story line” is reminding me of…  At least now the grass is green and the lava is flowing red, unlike in previous scenes where the lava has been gray…  And now it looks as though Abbey has regained the lead in the race to get off the island…

…in time to cash in on the always-available trope: Abbey is a woman and therefore clumsy and prone to tripping over things…  of course she’s been without glasses since the Boar/Tree incident, and we’re pretty sure she needs them to see with clarity.

It would appear that the entire island exploded in the second panel.  Maybe James Allen is trying to tell us something… like he’s sick and tired of Mark Trail and it’s “time to move on here, people…  nothing more to see…”

To think it all started with a wealthy, white yacht-owner and his penchant for fires made with real logs.  Not caring a lick about his “footprint,” ecological or otherwise, he set in motion a chain of events that would lure the likes of a millennial do-gooder and a sucker for anything that would take him to his next “story.”

…or at least the alarms have gone off… One would suppose.

I appreciate the comments!  Yes, that damned Finch has no doubt taken flight, the Ants are going to be toast, the lost civilization will be lost for real, and the last installment made it look like Mark’s back was erupting…  reminding me of the movie Gremlins, and how they reproduced…  if you got one of them wet, baby gremlins would erupt off its back.

Now it appears as though they will have to leap across a fiery chasm in order to make it out…  despite the fact that they are mere strides away, this should resolve by Friday…

Forgive me for getting sucked into this protracted and only moderately interesting story arc, but when Mark utters his now familiar UUUNNNGGH!, you know he’s in trouble.  Our intrepid USDA agent seems to have found the way out and Mark has been slowed to a crawl (or a coughing crouch…)

The silhouette in panel one is reminiscent of Christ on the cross, which is also reminiscent of the Willem Dafoe character in the 1986 movie Platoon… Panel three could be taken from any one of the many Bruce Willis Die Hard(er) vehicles…

Like Jeff Spicoli in Fast times at Ridgemont High?  Or “Whoa” as in “Stop?” Speaking of “Whoa,” I recall that I started  club in one of my old neighborhoods when the kids were young and all parents would tend to gather on a Saturday night while the kids played capture the flag or jailbreak or some other backyard game… The club was called “WHOA” which stood for “Worthless Husbands of America…” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that Husbands/Fathers never do quite enough in this world… We thought it was funny, but the wives didn’t appreciate the joke, as I recall…

As Abby completes her transformation into a dude and exhibits broad jumping over fire skills, Mark is left for dead in the fiery mess.  But it’s about time that Mark started taking direction from someone else…

While many of the other strips are leaning on the holiday for content, Mark Trail remains timeless, oblivious even, to what’s happening in th real world.  So despite the goodwill that generates as people gather to celebrate and renew family ties and invite new friends into the fold, we are left to witness the cruel forces of nature at work as new crust is formed from the molten contents of our geothermally active planet.  Oblivious to current events, that is unless all this KABOOMING is a long, drawn-out metaphor for the recent Presidential election, but I digress…

So here’s to you all, all residents of the Trailverse, on this Thanksgiving Day 2016.  May your blessings be many and your day spent well.  BOOM!

…the island.  Remember that iconic line from the series Lost? Uttered by would-be-strong-man Benjamin Linus?  I think it was two winters ago I needed a binge-worthy series to make it through the cold, dark northern winter.   And Lost it was…  I had totally avoided the show in real time, when it was the subject of so much water-cooler speculation and morning-after  palaver…  But to consume an entire season in one weekend… to not have to wait a week between episodes, suffer through commercials, get teased by the scenes from an upcoming season… well, I was totally Lost myself…

So it appears that Mother Nature is having Linus-like thoughts about the “unstable atoll” overrun by Red-imported-fire-ants.  This is one way to reset the clock and take care of an unwanted infestation.  But much like the Cave-saga that (supposedly) centered around White-nose Bat Syndrome, the reason for going to the atoll has been quickly forgotten as terror and doom befall our main characters.

Bets on whether there will be another explosion in tomorrow’s installment?

As Abbey Powell, Peace Corp Vet, Anthropology Major, Adventurer, begins to break down for lack of breathable air, it’s Mark Trail that falls in behind her and gives her that last push to “get to the beach” where salvation awaits… or so they think.  Must.  Keep. Moving.

As Hell-fire continues to rain down upon them, I am reminded of another reference I heard on the radio…  what’s it raining?  It’s raining tacos!  You’re welcome.

Really.  I am on pins and needles.  not.

The Tedium-Meter® is back in full…

No use being an idiot.  This strip ain’t named for you.  Mark has survived worse scrapes, and well, you have visions of the ‘Nam coming back to you.  You saw too many of your brothers get taken out in the searing heat of a firefight to know that running toward the danger only gets you kilt…

So as Cal continues to channel Jim Brown, head down arms and legs pumping (thanks, George A…) he heads for the boat… of which wee have only seen the bow… I mean, what’s it packing in the back?  a motor?  will Cal be rowing?  sailing?

And what about that random reference to the movie The Fog?  The wreck of the Elizabeth Dane?  Was that just a head fake?  That was, of course, months ago in real time, when Abbey was awaiting Mark’s arrival.  For those living in the Trail Matrix, though, mere hours…

As Abbey assumes a ‘duck and cover’ posture, what exactly is Mark doing?  Heaven only knows…

Ever wonder where the expression “heads up!” originated?  I have always thought that funny, especially when applied to, say, a baseball diamond.  A foul tip goes high in the sky, some unsuspecting person is about to get beaned, and someone yells, “heads up!”  The person looks up, and instead of catching the blow on the top of their head or shoulder, the ball crushes their nose or eye socket…  clearly not a better outcome.

So as Mark leads the way with his skinny jeans and flexing gluts, let’s hope Abbey can find her way, as she seems to be overwhelmed by the raining ash and cinder…

Give it a rest, Abbey.  Seriously.  And by now do you know to NOT call Mark Trail unless you want hellfire raining down on you?

Color palette continues to be very curious… lava has turned from ash gray to black now, which is a bit disorienting.  But at least in the third panel, Mark and Abbey are in synch as far as pumping their arms and moving their legs…  How surprised they will be to find that the Chopper, Cal, and Abbey’s boat are all gone!!  Ha!!  Too bad Mark had a witness at the Island Hoppers Charter service, otherwise, Cal could just forget about the whole thing… but of course he’ll need to bring the insurance company out to the atoll to make his own claim…  why do all these stories involve destruction of property and insurance claims??

The lava flow has taken out the already damaged fire ant mound…

And this is important because, well, we’d probably all be sitting up at night wondering whether the ants survived the eruption…  I can tell you I would have been.  But really?  Installments past suggested that the volcano and resulting caldera were miles away- off on the horizon.  It wasn’t like Mark and Abbey were at the foot of the mountain that just blew its top.  Well, I guess that lava flows quickly, much more quickly than any story line in the Trailverse…

…while running at full tilt is impressive.  Even to the point that he can hearken back to the past (well for us, anyway, it’s been weeks…) and recall the incident involving the Wild Boar…  and now realize that the boar meant them no harm, it was simply escaping with its life… damn the singular of boar that was left to incinerate… true- that’s what a group of wild  boar is apparently called…

So… Boar smarter than Trail.  Not surprising.  If Mark had an ounce of brains left in him, he wouldn’t constantly be placing himself in mortal danger…

…but not in the Trailverse…  it flows gray.

Not to mention the plume.  Lava Orange and not gray.  This is more than my ‘half a cup-o-coffee’ brain can handle at this point…  sort of like red is blue and blue is red these days…  Not even sure what I meant by that… maybe up is down and down is up?  Or maybe how can a tiny little atoll suddenly become Krakatoa?

And as was pointed out in earlier comments, the lava flow is the least of Mark and Abbey’s concerns as the suffocating gasses (at least in real life) would have consumed and asphyxiated them by now…

So as Mother burps, choppers are destroyed, and people run…

FWOOSH goes the “Flaming Debris”as Mark calls it…  And Mark, I think Abbey is well aware of what is going on, or should I say coming down, around her…  Yes!  back to the beach!  Capital idea!!  Where you will find that Cal has already made off with the ocean going dinghy…

Mark, that is one weird expression on your face, not to mention the running stance you are assuming…  At least Abbey appears to be pumping her arms in a way that will increase the rate at which she is moving away from the flaming hot rocks… Mark looks like he is running away from a swarm or locust or something… “Ewww! Get away from me!” he would seem to be saying with his body language…  Not to mention the Lululemon yoga pants he has slipped into just for this occasion…

…makes us stronger, and can even completely change one’s looks and physique…  Other than the blue polo shirt and hat there is nothing recognizable about the guy showing up in today’s installment.

I don’t know… you be the judge…

Anyway…  a point was made in the comments yesterday that short of Matrix-like maneuvers and special effects, Cal’s innards would surely have been liquefied by such a blast in such close proximity… but of course not.  He needs to survive in order to take Abbey’s boat!    This is actually pretty funny.  I can almost imagine Mark having a thought or two about said boat as one of the options available to get to safety… but now it would seem that Cal has his eye on it… is it to save Mark and Abbey, or to pull a George Costanza and run over kids and grandmothers on his way to the door??

And what about Cherry?  Is she even remotely wondering what Mark is going through?  Perhaps concerned and wondering about the developing new world order?  Doubtful.

With a SWOOSH, a BLANG, a BROMPH and a KA-BOOM we say goodbye to Cal’s Chopper and probably even Cal.  Sorry to have skipped yesterday, but clearly I did not miss anything.  Why not accomplish in three days what it would otherwise take a single strip to convey?

And thanks for the explanation in today’s installment, as I’m not sure that any of the (who the hell knows why) faithful readership couldn’t figure out what was going on…

So as we brace for the next chapter, and yes, I am referring to our own, real lives, perhaps we can draw strength from the highly predictable…  that in every story forthwith, Mark Trail will be exposed to every manner of natural peril combined with the explosive release of carbon based fuels and accelerants…  because apparently that’s what the writer assumes we want to see.  So KA-BOOM, everyone, welcome to the rest of your life…

…because the Hughes is toast.  And it’s also fortunate that Cal pulled his fishing gear out of the Hughes.  At least they can fish for food as they drift aimlessly in the south pacific.  It’s as if the gods (and writers) have something against Mark, and Helicopters, for that matter…

Certainly there is a blast radius regarding the helicopter and the large, fiery volcanic projectile that has taken out Cal’s Pride and Joy… and Cal isn’t that far away.  But as with most crashes and explosions in the Trailverse, the characters, even bit ones, will escape relatively unharmed, especially Mark and Abbey who, by all rights, should be asphyxiated by now.

As silly as this is, I have to admit that this has set us up for a tense sequence… and opened up the possibility for lots of bad dialogue… bring it on!

…because correct me if I’m wrong, but any respectable volcano eruption would have taken everything out by now… there wouldn’t be any time “to get Abbey and Mark.”  Oh, I’m sorry, that’s “Mark and Abbey…”  let’s not forget who the strip is named after…

At least Cal’s hat stayed on his head this time and didn’t get all animated and airborne…  Which is more than I can say for what’s bout to happen to the Hughes… anyone knows that volcanic ash and engines of any kind are not a great combination…  Nice to know you Cal.