I like how the sizes (or mass?) of the characters keep changing. And it’s very interesting that two martial artists are undone by a fisherman and a nature journalist. I reckon that makes perfect sense for somebody who possibly got their idea of fighting from watching The Three Stooges? Or maybe from fight scenes dawn by adolescent students, as I can attest. I don’t know how else to explain this. We don’t even have a clear notion of whether Tad Crass has done anything illegal or even unethical to warrant all of this, though it’s just a matter of time before Mark is again proven right.

Anyway, sending “enforcers” to track Mark and Cliff and force them to return to the Woodsman Olympics is outlandish. Still, within the absurdity of the story, maybe it’s not completely nuts. Heck, I think we all know that Jules Rivera’s version of the Trailverse is like a Bizarro-World of goofy characters and inane storylines that many Trailheads really dislike. Rivera’s Mark Trail is a refutation of Ed Dodd’s folksy world of environmental morality plays in the same way that the TV show Married With Children was a thumb put squarely in the eye of Father Knows Best.