Art Dept. Did Rivera really draw panel 1? I don’t recollect seeing such a well-chiseled profile of Mark or that strong inking. It’s as if Rivera was channeling Al Capp or Jack Kirby. Or both.

Well, this story’s epilog continues to drag on. The notion of “neighbors” is interesting. I mean, the closest neighbor would probably be 10-20 miles away in any direction. This isn’t Los Angeles we’re talking about. Another point of incredulity: the “flammable data center.” Huh? It was the grass that would be the problem for the “neighbors.” Virtually any building is flammable, as is any electric company’s local power transformers. But sure, the external generators (we presume that is what they were) short-circuited when hit by the helicopter, which started the grass fire.

As if Rivera wasn’t quite sure how to make this disaster even more threatening and catastrophic, she throws in the threat of zoning laws. Oooo! Certainly a farm complex (such as would be owned by one or more of those neighbors), stocked with hay, fertilizers, other chemicals, wood, and fuel tanks would provide a much graver and greater fire threat (especially if hit by an errant helicopter!). So panel 3 with that pitchfork-carrying mob from Frankenstein in the background is pretty overstated. Just where did those American Gothic hayseeds come from, Dogpatch?

As regular reader Daniel P. commented yesterday, this story is a bit out of Mark’s traditional orbit of concerns, even though it relates to the plot in the Oregon Trails story that dealt with selling NFTs. We didn’t see server farms/data centers there, though there was a forest fire!

The (faked) story of mismanagement of wild horses would otherwise have been a theme central to Mark’s concerns for nature and wildlife. However, putting Mark into the 21^st century means giving him broader, more current environmental issues to handle. But an incidental computer server farm fire does not really qualify, especially as Mark’s own actions precipitated that crisis!