Hoo-boy! Mark’s septuagenarian dad is trying to date a 28-year old woman and Mark is more concerned about the environmental effects of AI-generated portraits. Well, sure, that’s important, but there is such a thing as priorities, something that Mark seems to not have grasped. But why would Jules Rivera make Dreama a 28 year old fraud? Why does Rivera want to make Happy Trail look like a desperate letch?

Wait a minute. I think I have an idea about this May-December relationship. Perhaps it is because Dreama is not really a 28-year old woman. So, in Rivera’s mind, the age-difference thing is not an issue so much as just part of the stereotypical catfishing camouflage. But maybe I’m off base about this whole thing. What do you think?

But let’s consider Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, who is dating a 25-year old beauty queen. We live in a society today where consenting adults have much more social freedom than they did back in the 1950s. Maybe I’m just being prudish. At least Mark is not saying “Way to go, Tiger! You’ve still got your stripes! GROWLLLL!”

Getting back to the AI plot device, it’s already getting old. AI has featured in at least four earlier stories so far, excluding this one. There are plenty of other environmental issues (large and small) that Rivera could be writing stories about. The least work Rivera can do is repurpose one of the earlier Mark Trail adventures, just like Jack Elrod used to do. I mean, who would know, save for a select handful of comic strip historians.