Cherry Trail has studied her TV sitcom history well. Her closing comment yesterday provided us with the required irony for today’s switch to Peligroso Cave and the explorers who are soon to be trapped

Sorry, Diana. Poor Diana Daggers. She seems to have gotten stuck playing backup for one second-rate bozo after another, her early fire having fizzled. Like Cherry, Diana Daggers is another woman in this strip who started out with an aggressive, in-your-face personality, but soon softened up to became just a “go along to get along” supporting cast member. I have written before about Cherry’s path to docility. I’ll put Violet Cheshire here, as well. Given who writes and draws this strip, I’m flummoxed. Tess Tigress seems to have kept her personality largely intact. Go figure. I could be wrong and we’ll wind up seeing Diana take a much stronger part in this story. I hope so, anyway.

For some reason, Cricket Bro (life-long rival of Mark Trail) feels the need to inform his brother, Crypto Bro, and Diana what they are about to do (panel 1), even though they are already outfitted for spelunking and already on site. If this is Rivera’s method for revealing what the plot is about, she could have had Cricket Bro say something less embarrassingly stupid, such as “Hey, fellow web goons! Are we ready to hit Peligroso Cave today!?”

Nobody should be surprised at this surprising plotline. It wasn’t the Grungey Boys, but I wasn’t too far off the mark. It’s a small world in the Trailverse. However, creating comic strip characters takes a lot of work and if you aren’t hauling in the big bucks, then you go with what you already have.

We used to call Mark Trail “Captain Obvious”, but I think we may have to reassign that nickname to Jules Rivera for a storyline that looks to be as predictable as any episode of Gilligan’s Island. I still hope to be surprised and corrected.

Note: The term “web goons” is apparently popular Internet slang. In this context, it refers to people obsessed with Internet projects, such as web comics and online humor. There is another popular definition for “goon” referring to individual sexual activities, often centered around online fictional images. It’s a fluid term, I reckon.