Why does a guy on a chopper cut such a menacing profile?  What is it about the popular culture that puts that notion immediately in our heads?  Didn’t the Rolling Stones hire the Hells Angels to act a security at one of their shows?  OK, that little incident at the Altamont Speedway didn’t turn out so well…

Yes, it’s the biker… What’s his name…  Raul… who is hooked up with Sleepy Joe and the antiquities operation, or is undercover Federales… Who knows?

Yes, the Biker is following you!  Duh!  And it’s also good to know that Mr. Allen can draw the bike and rider from two perspectives.  Or did he just take the image and flip it?

   Yup!

Judging by the Toucan’s flap, we are now moving through the Trailverse at 16 frames per second…

And ‘Backpack Guy’ seems to have Rusty and Mara firmly in his web of deceit…

So let’s all look forward to the next ‘flap’ of this story- a single framer, no doubt, wherein our main characters continue to walk toward the camera, boring even themselves…

Another award winning single panel ‘wonder’ that moves the “story” ahead ever so slightly…

…while Mara’s proportions grow more amazonian by the day (or minute?) …

…enchanted, even.

And while Mara continues to ask herself why and how she ever got hooked up with this dolt, spiders are breakdancing!  And how does ‘Juanito’ know Mara’s name?  Super suspicious!  At least the Earth has stopped tilting!

No, Rusty, the correct response would be… ah… ‘no thanks.’

But then it’s been literally forever since Rusty has been kidnapped… If memory serves, it was when he was tied up in the back of Rod Bassey’s fishing van, after he had discovered the secret to his success…

So whether the kids take the bait and follow backpack guy (c’mon, Mara, at least you are smarter than that…) remains to be seen (tomorrow?  next week?) we can all remember what the strip used to be like, with story lines that actually moved along and a reasonable pace!

I honestly don’t know what Backpack Guy is up to in the first installment below…

…almost like he’s performing an interpretive dance, except with that, one usually doesn’t talk at the same time…  The pigeon appears to be equally confused…

Rusty snarls…  that’s not a good look for you, son… you’ll give yourself away!  Mara keeps her cool, as they are no doubt being led into a trap!

Or perhaps Señor Manos Grandes!  Good heavens!  Look at the size of those paws!  Funny how everyone speaks english… but no matter.

These kids are stone cold liars!  Not even a flinch.  We’re out exploring!   That’s it!  We got bored at the hotel!  Yea… that’s the ticket…

Don’t know about oversized Squirrels, but “Fists of Justice” is a reference from Mark Trail of Yore, when a storyline would wrap in about 60 days on average, with Mark punching the whiskers off the face of some bad guy…

Unfortunately that’s not what we do today… The stories drag on for months, seemingly without purpose or direction, and we are left to wonder WTF? I’m glad that Rusty passed up “Slime” magazine… and wonder of wonders, todo esta en inglés!

Probably so, since all the periodicals are probably in spanish!

And is “Backpack Guy” lost?  Just wandering aimlessly?  Seriously.  This is just Awful writing.  Simply awful.

…as to whether he is emotionally, intellectually and experientially challenged…

Clip art at its best comparing the center panels from yesterday and today!

Oh, Mara… You don’t realize what a rube you are hooked up with here until he opens his mouth and starts talking… Just remember that Rusty hasn’t had all the advantages that you have had, he’s not nearly as well read or aware, woke even.  He has spent his life on Lost Forest property dreaming of fishing.  That’s about it… This is his first travel-abroad opportunity, and well, he’s a little in over his head…

As we pick up the riveting dialogue, that has now endured for more than a week…

…we are again given a head-fake, suggesting that these guys are truly baddies and not undercover agents.

Almost there? You are sitting on your bike talking into a smartphone (again somehow patched through to a Citizens Band Radio…)

I am posting these dailies out of habit…  The flame is growing dim…

OK, I’ll bite… more Three Amigo references!  Amazing that this didn’t become more of an American Classic…  Chevy Chase looks like he’s pissed that he has to be in this movie at all…

And how do we “take care of” kids?  Put them in a time out?  Take them out?  we’ll see…

I am barely following this either…

Joe goes to Santa Poco, seemingly dragged by the nose by “those meddling kids,” and now he’s talking about how the kids are actually leading him to things?

And how exactly does a guy sitting on a bike in the middle of a Mexican Desert talking on a cell phone (improbable- where are the towers?) get patched through on what appears to be a CB radio (limited range and completely different technologies?)  Oh, the questions that arise!

FBI?  Customs? These guys are deep undercover, but certainly revealing themselves now…

And so now what are Rusty and the Nancy Drew inspired Mara going to do to “help?”  They were right not to trust anyone but themselves, but what do grown ups always say?  “Tell someone in authority about what you are seeing…”  “Don’t go in there alone…” Or something like that…  But boy, you could tell that Becky was a no-good-nik from the day (months ago) we laid eyes on her…

I hate to admit it, but I just wasted 15 minutes reliving this “storyline” to try to figure out who the hell “Pablo” is…

Pablo must be the guy who was watching Rusty and Mara in the temple as they were witnessing the “drop.”  I suppose now he’s of no use as the kids could ID him?  Seriously.  I need a Playbill.  And a life.

Pretty bike, but that’s a pretty bad hombre sitting on it…

Difficult not to notice the stereotypes being portrayed here…  Are all bikers bad?  I don’t think so.  But here we are.  In Mexico.  So the bad guys are Mexican.  Call me crazy, but where the heck is this going?  I doubt that James Allen even knows…

As Rusty gets caught in another male-dominated, misogynistic snare, Mara, offers up another withering look…

…and of course Joe can see everything unfolding!

Pablo doesn’t work here anymore, Joe, and neither will you if you don’t do something about those pesky kids!!

…or perhaps she watches too much television.

Let’s see whether any of Mara’s assumptions are correct, though.  Will “Backpack Guy” (love that name) succumb to cultural norms and let his guard down, simply because a female happens to be prostrate at his feet?   And what is the plan other than knowing where he is?  And I love how “wildlife” is represented in panel three- a lovely Mexican Rat!  Let’s hope they don’t mistake that for a dog and want to bring it home!

The lesson continues…

Friends?  What are those?  Rusty hasn’t had a friend for as long as he’s been alive, from what we know…  poor little guy.  His head is about to explode.  This much (teen) cultural assimilation is probably more than he can take…

What’re we doin’ again?

Oh, yea… following the guy with the backpack containing the contraband antiquity…

Rusty was given this phone when they arrived in Mexico… he literally doesn’t know what it’s used for…  But just imagine for a moment a time without smartphones.  It wasn’t that long ago.  People would literally walk around with their heads up and eyes forward, seeing what was in front of them.  Imagine you time-traveled from, say, the year 2000 to the present, and you saw all these people staring at these devices… literally everywhere… what a strange sight that would be.  Dana Carvey does a bit about John Lennon checking in with Paul McCartney about this phenomenon…