Here we go again, kids.

But rather than just whine about it, let’s think about what’s working and what’s not.  Working:  Artistic form.  Not working: story and character development.  I have said this before but it bears repeating.  Even if we knew, in the old days, that the entities threatening the environment would either be vanquished or be ultimately convinced that their world view is flawed and would soon be redeemed, we got to know them as characters.  Rod Bassy, Big Mike, The crooked senator’s aid Johnny Walker, the dude who poached turtle eggs, Dirty Dyer with the (What th—) Rhino Horns.  Mark himself is boring.  Like Oatmeal without any brown sugar.  Think wallpaper paste.  There’s nothing you are going to do to turn him into Indiana Jones.  He needs a foil, someone to vanquish through his own vapidness and low-on-the-spectrum emotional intelligence.  I have a theory- that James Allen inherited the franchise with a few story lines already sketched out.  Allen took over in May of 2014.  Good Lord that was a while ago, wasn’t it?  And we are still here…  Anyway, we had an initial glimpse of what was to come, with Mark getting “in trouble” on his own and having to sleep in a tree to avoid the cranky black bear.  Then came the African Odyssey, The adventure in the Great Dismal Swamp, Wally’s adventures with the the invasive Emerald Ash Borer, (where we first met Abbey Powell and learned of the considerable resources of the USDA,) then Mississippi Ken and the sick shark, followed by our deep descent into the cave system (both literally and figuratively,) and now here we are in Hawaii.  There are hints of Jack Elrod in the early Allen era, but as we move forward, there is damn little.  More story lines involving Mark’s daring-do, and battling the effects of invasives, but really nothing else to sink our teeth into.  I’m not suggesting that any of this is easy… but don’t take for granted that the Trail-verse can be maintained, or even flourish, without it.

On the other hand, why on earth do I care??

HA   HA   HA … says Mark in a most annoying android kind of way…  all at the way Abbey is reflecting on her current circumstance…  And not without reason either, recalling that she has already slid down a rock face, and even in Wally’s forest, she tripped over a log (darned things always getting in the way) and needing Mark’s help…

But Mark, always game and of good cheer, and remembering his immortal status, offers to “go first”  and test the log’s integrity.  This is a little different, though, than the time in the cave (sorry to keep dragging us back there…) when Carina stood Mark down and went first across that rickety rock bridge…

…especially as he’s about to do something that would give mere mortal men pause…  “Hey!  Let’s risk everything for no particular reason!”

Abbey is letting her inner desk jockey take over (not a bad thing, I might add…) as Mark is about to lead the way.  Faithful readers will know that Mark doesn’t always employ the best judgment when it comes to these kinds of decisions, (hey- let’s go into the cave!)  but then considering he is immortal, it makes perfect sense.  He will always live to write another day, risk another fall, blow to the head, etc., since he has a Franchise bearing his name… Abbey, despite her re-occurring character status, might not be so lucky.  The real Abbey Powell might be lobbying James Allen to to have her character killed off, sort of like the actors from Downtown Abbey…  Matthew and Sybil wanted out and the only way to do so was to have the angel of death visit.  Funny how we haven’t since seen either of them in anything of note…

Abbey Powell is throwing numbers around like a presidential candidate… $5 Billion?  With a B??  Who keeps track of that number?  This paper, which appears to be written by smart people from the Nature Conservancy doing actual research, puts the annual costs @ $1 Billion… so not insignificant.  The paper also describes the sting and it also sounds significant…  So Mark and Abbey best be careful about where they step…

The silhouette of Mark in Panel one makes him appear to be spastic, or at least reacting to the cost of the RIFA in modern society…   or perhaps he stepped on a mound and is too stoic to admit it…

…or rather it appears that Mark is reacting to yet another natural obstackle– a ravine that looks like he could jump across in his sleep… <<yawn>>

C’mon, man, don’t you know anything??

It’s kind of funny.  Neither of them know what the heck they are talking about.  At least Professor Gabriel could position himself as an expert on the White Nose Bat Syndrome situation (fat lot of good that did him, though, especially with the ladies…)  and here we have a writer and a desk-jockey out tromping through the jungle (again, from where or how did that emerge…) thinking they know the first thing about Imported Red Fire Ants…

We appear to be moving past the ruins, as if there were no particular reason for us to have even found them… sort of like the bi-plane in the giant sinkhole during the cave mis-adventure…  another distraction that leads nowhere.  I won’t be head-faked, this time, nor will our heroes.  They stay firmly focused on finding those ants!

…About Honey and Darling’s fate… Now she’s nothing but questions…  Oh, Mark, who built this wall?  What happened to the people who built it?  Why would they flee the island??  By the third panel, Mark is shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “How the hell should I know, lady?  What? do I look like Wikipedia??”

No entries on the internets about lost Hawaiian civilizations…  But it’s early and there is no doubt more to reveal.  I feel a history lesson coming on.  I’m thinking that the spider in the third Panel is random, much like it was in the cave system…

Sort of like a trial judge (on TV at least) warning counsel that they may be treading on thin ice and that they had better prove the relevance of their line of questioning fast or the whole thing is going to get struck from the record…  here we are again…  I’d like to think (again) that Mr. Allen has a plan, a storyboard if you will, that will make sure that we don’t just meander for the next few weeks (or months…)

An ape?  Really Mark?  Unless you have stumbled onto the Honolulu Zoo, your chances of finding an ape are pretty thin… but oh, I get it… humor.  You are going for a laugh here.  A little bit of “I play a Naturalist in a comic strip” humor, which immediately works for anyone who knows that there are no Wild Primates in Hawaii.

So, drawn to the “other side,” much like a moth to a flame, Mark will certainly go and find out what’s there.  Flash to Cherry by the pool who is, by now, thinking that shirtless doorman is looking pretty good…

Well, Well. What do you know?  As we go deeper into the rain forest, we stumble upon a lost civilization!   One that could never have been spotted from the sky!!  But it took Abbey and Mark on a wild-ant-chase to make its acquaintance…  the only thing missing now is a band of bad guys wielding AK-47’s…

Yes, and apparently the people who inhabited the island had stone cutting tools and cranes?  A case for Ancient Aliens?? I have to admit I have found compelling such arguments that the ancient, prehistoric and semi-prehistoric civilizations could not have possibly built structures on the scale that they did without “help.”  Like the ongoing debate regarding the Egyptian Pyramids?  So many questions!  And perhaps some answers!!

Mark has the look on his face that suggests that he has been here before- told about something only to not have it materialize- remember the bats with the White Nose Syndrome?  Mark never saw a single bat in all the time (months to the poor readers) spent in the cave system… and yet he still wrote a story on it?

Yup, because that what ants will do… right Abbey?  The move in, take over and, well, there goes the neighborhood…  But again, I thought this was a rocky little atoll.  It now appears that we have stumbled into a full-fledged rain forest…  Yeah, I’m scratching my head too, Mark.  I wonder how many Blue Hawaiians Cherry has ordered up by now… She had the right idea.

Wow, I could have sworn I posted something yesterday… but I guess not… a draft post awaited me this morning with nary a comment.  Just the strip.  I’m sure I stared at it a few times and nothing came… which is not unusual these days…

But today there is, ummm, intimacy?  Awkwardness?  Why, a woman hasn’t used the Trail as a “landing spot” since the cave adventure…

So as Mark Billy-goats his way along the rocky outcropping and with that strange bit of touching, we are all left to feel just slightly uncomfortable…  and to wonder what Abbey’s true motives are…

As  Abbey, ummm, mounts the boulder, Mark looks on with curiosity and wonder,  wishing he had brought his rock climbing gear, but alas, he lost it in the cave adventure…

Nice list, Abbey.  Reminds me of how many ways, according to Benjamin Buford  “Bubba” Blue, one can prepare shrimp…

We had almost forgotten you buddy!  And it would seem that you are the only one that has any common sense… but then you made it out of the ‘Nam in one piece, so you can be assumed to have good instincts…  and following a Nature Writer and an “Agent” of the USDA (hey, she can pretend, right??) into the Hawaiian wilderness is probably something you should avoid…

So with Cal’s ears growing, and Abbey’s face changing by the day…

Or simply the deft use and re-use of the same unrecognizable face…

…but at least in Mark’s case, the little forelock hairs are slightly different… sort of like the Slylock Fox Comic that asks the reader to point of what is different between to seemingly identical pictures…

And with that, the longest sentence fragment ever in the history of the blogosphere, I leave you all to wonder what will happen once Mark and Abbey hit the “Trail…”  Ha!  See what I did there??

As opposed to the the Domestic variety?  They must have hailed from somewhere at some point- had to be indigenous before they became invasive… Looks like they came from South America originally…   Lest I appear to any readers as being cavalier about invasives, let me assure you I am not.  But we really can be our own worst enemy sometimes…  the “Bighead” or “Asian” Carp that is knocking on the door of the Great Lakes system is a real threat and brought to us courtesy of the catfish farmers down south… who started introducing this species into their catfish ponds to help keep them clean.  One flood later and poof, the genie’s out of the bottle and there’s  only so much we can do to stop them.  Another example is the Buckthorn Plant… deemed a noxious weed in Minnesota by our own DNR, various versions can still be purchased over the counter at you local nursery or home center…

But, but, but… I thought Abbey already retrieved a specimen?  I’m so confused.  Whatever.  And hey… I have an idea.  Why don’t you both board the Helicopter and have Cal fly you up there?  I’m sure he could hover precariously as you both execute a tetherless rappel (I just made that one up…) which to the uninformed would look like two people leaping out of a helicopter onto a small outcropping.  No risk there…

It just occurred to me, looking at the pained and manufactured expressions on the faces of Mark and Abbey, that they are styled after Kabuki…

While Mark maintains the Trailian visage (seen in panel one) more that anything else, we have also seen him, through facial expressions, go for other emotive states- irony, sheepishness, cluelessness, anger, all the way to ‘hey I just made a joke here…’ But that’s nothing compared to Abbey’s transformation in both emotion and facial shape between panels two and three…  Anger to sadness and resignation almost in mid sentence.

So as it becomes apparent that the ants have taken the high ground, and therefore have strategic placement advantage, I’m guessing that Mark and Abbey will be climbing the same precarious slopes that Abbey earlier slipped and fell down.  Good luck with that!

…seems that you have done all the research…  and it seems as though the USDA database is replete with details…  about the comings and goings of every American (we assume they are American, heck, they looked American…)  Is anyone else concerned?  So with finger wagging, Abbey recounts all the details of the “mystery…” which leaves us to wonder, “what’s next?”

And are we to believe that every ship that puts into a given harbor is given a thorough inspection for invasive species?  Drugs, I understand, but invasive species??  What with all the fresh fruit loaded onto cruise ships throughout the world, are they inspected?  I suppose so.  But it appears that in the U.S. we more concerned with human trafficking than invasives…  but depending on what side of the immigration argument you are on, invasives can come in different shapes and sizes…

But a quick check of the procedure in New Zealand suggests that the inspection is quite thorough… including a six-step biosecurity inspection and clearance…  So it’s conceivable that the ants were discovered upon reaching New Zealand and a complete history of their travels documented!  How could I ever have doubted!!  But how on earth do you live on a boat, no matter how big, with ant colony??  ick.

And I’m sure… a picnic lunch…  we all know what they really did on those white sand beaches…

Geez, Mark you really are full of yourself, aren’t you…  Are you just trying to impress Abbey, or what?  Your pilot?  Please. In the span of an afternoon, Cal has not become yours…  Abbey Powell, breathless in the presence of The Trail, isn’t helping with all this…

And what’s with all the sudden vegetation?  Fully grown palm trees and flowers?  This was a rocky, volcanic outcropping until you showed up and then poof!  Cue the Palms!

With various forms of wildlife enjoying cameo roles (hearkening back to the Trailverse of old) we see the long-shot approach and the eager anticipation that is meant to create a modicum of expectation for this story.

With the island not shaking anymore, and Abbey back on her feet with her glasses on, Mark makes his grand entrance (with Cal’s help, of course…)

I will say it again- what’s missing in all this is the bad guy (or gal) that threatens to lay waste to fragile ecosystems, to poach rapaciously the innocent fauna that might be hanging by a thread.  While I should probably care about invasive species and man’s role in spreading them around, there’s no story line in it.  At least not for me.  Bring back Big Mike, or the corrupt Senator’s aid, or Dirty Dyer the Rhino Horn trafficker,  or that skinny milquetoast who wanted to mine titanium oxide from the Great Dismal Swamp…    anything… please…

OK, kids,  we’ve seen this before…  Abbey Powell taking a bad step, and a random earthquake RRRUUUUMMMMMBBBBBLLLLLEEEE…  at least this is more plausible here than in the cave story.  Appears that Earthquakes are a daily thing in Hawaii, although registering only 1.0 – 2.0  on the Richter scale…

Abbey Powell needs to have a word with James Allen.  If he going to feature her (a real person with a life, presumably with ambitions,) she can’t allow him to continue to portray her as a stumbling oaf…  Hey, I mean, I have daughter, probably about Abbey’s age, trying to make her way in the world of science, and this kind of portrayal helps no one…

So pick yourself up and dust yourself off, Abbey… blow the coral dust out of your nose and pretend this never happened, right??

According to TC, I mean Cal, this is an unstable volcanic formation… shows what Abbey might know… or the Narrator for that matter.  And Abbey, to whom exactly are you speaking?  The Horseshoe Crab in the foreground?  But it’s comforting in its own way to have her talking aloud to herself, in time-honored Mark Trail fashion…

So as Abbey waits patiently for Mark to arrive, apparently leaving the details to take care of themselves, (Today?  Does that mean morning, afternoon, or evening? Did Abbey stay there guarding the island in the meantime?) we are left to wonder how she made a positive ID on the type of ant they are dealing with… and whether, ultimately, this is going to call for the inestimable resources of the USDA to mount an offensive against it…

And by “scour the island” you mean what?  Oh, OK, probably just what it sounds like…  in my search for meaning and inspiration I will grab at any possible double-entendre that might appear…

Or the shark to bite.  Something.  Some mornings I am immediately struck by what I want to comment on, but other mornings it’s a struggle…

As we wait to get to the island, we are left to pull out the Ol’ Tedium-Meter® … last seen in the Bio-Luminescent cave system…