Not since USDA Agent Abbey (with an ‘e’) Powell came to rescue Wally from his Emerald Ash Borer infestation have we seen such a display of capability and might…  Let’s try to figure out how DHS got involved in this story…  My guess is that it was that Saucy Siren that sent Mark the Nuclear Dive Suit… What was her name?  Oh yea, Leslie Joyce…

Oh, and while the henchmen still lie comatose on the beach, Agent Johnson goes for a little humor… This is my brother Darryl and and my other brother Darryl…  no relation…  So with Homeland Security on the case, what could go wrong?  Does everyone get to go home now and fill out the insurance paperwork?  At least Special Agent Johnson has an automatic weapon, and I suppose that he hasn’t the inclination to fire it randomly into the jungle…

You’ve got a bad feeling about this.  Do you have another line you’d like to use??  Really, a hovercraft?  This somehow seems less menacing…  almost like a welcoming party… “You have bested my dive team and my Sea-ATV team, so you are now worthy of my hovercraft…”

In the olden-days of Trail, Mark would cock his head to discern a distant  sound and it was usually a rifle shot (poachers!) or a Rutting Buck… No doubt he truly did not know what that sound was…  Mark you must feel as though you’ve arrived in a foreign land…

A double header, ladies and gents…  Saturday action below, which shows Ken’s pugilistic prowess, not to mention the famous Mark Trail hay-maker…

I remember griping about the fact that Mark wasn’t allowed to hit anyone anymore in the Allen epoch, but we are apparently beyond that… as long as Mark is getting shot at (sort of, since the bullets all went the other way…) he is free to unleash his fists of fury.

From the Curmudgeon: (I missed the oddity in panel two…)

Just keeping you updated on the Trailian fisticuffs! Lotsa punching going on. Let’s focus on that and not Ken’s leg apparently phasing right through the solid matter of the bad guy’s arm in panel two. Very disturbing, the thought that Mississippi Ken might not be bound by the same laws of time and space as we are. Let’s not dwell on it. Ha ha, punching!

A “Lullaby machine?”  Really?  That’s actually kind of funny…  And what- is Ken into Martial Arts or something?  Second panel top might suggest as much…  OK, now what?  Do they pick up the weapons and wait for the next onslaught of Henchmen?  These guys won’t stay out for long…

…and not going to take it any more…  But I  mean really… Where did these guys go to bad guy school, anyway?  With spit, sunglasses and guns flying from the two that Ken took “by surprise,” let’s hope Mark is not holding back and is taking out the third…  Lesson here I suppose is never mess with a guy sporting a ponytail and a lavender t-shirt…  all might not be as it appears…

Well kids, we’ll see where this all goes…  Ken got the drop on these two, but I’m sure there will be days of action to follow!

And hey, wait a gosh-darned second, there, Ken… MARK owns all the obvious lines in this strip…  “They’ve run out of ammo!”  Another interesting feature of the James Allen Trail-verse:  the use of contractions-   ‘They’ve,’ ‘let’s,’ Oh dear! All stops are out now!

I like how Ken is referring to the three as “The Bad Guys..”  and the look of blood lust on his face in panel 3 is priceless…  What would Uncle Doyle think about all this?

What’s the saying?  We don’t have a GUN problem, we have a BULLET problem?  Without Ammo, guns are just fancy and expensive paperweights…

So as the goons look at their now empty weapons with dismay, they are also confronted with an eco-disaster wrought by the incendiary rounds…  this still makes no sense to me, but it is kind of funny…

Oh, Ken… like music to my ears… bad grammar and stupid questions!  Not to mention zero directional sense… didn’t the bad guys see from whence the flare came?  And they now fire aimlessly away from that general direction?  Wasting ammo like they have an unlimited supply at hand?  Or maybe they just want to put on a show for the Evil One on the Yacht?  They aren’t really down with the whole “world domination” thing?

At first I pictured the island to be the kind used in all the bad “deserted on an island what would you bring?” jokes… but it seems to be of significant size.  Enough to to get yourself gone and hid- better get a move on, boys…

Other than the guy in the foreground channeling Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo, What on earth are we doing here?  What weapon actually throws flame and bullets at the same time??

And what did those poor palm trees ever do to you?

With all the automatic weapons fire and lack of dialogue, the Creative Force behind Mark Trail must be trying to appeal to those who would have their mothers accompany them to the midnight release of the next “Call of Duty” installment, “Black Ops 3…”

So, as the world passes me by, I will sit here and yearn for a cornier, less violent past…

By the look of these henchmen, it would seem as though they were hatched from the same crucible.  Sort of like the forge that spawned all the Orcs in the Lord of the rings trilogy, or what produced the Grand Army of the Republic in second (first?) Star Wars series…

So, without mothers to worry about them or the ability to love, they go off into the bush at the command of the Great One (can’t wait to meet him (or her) and see who is behind all this craziness…)

…if I were to imagine anyone saying, “Gosh, what’s with The Daily Trail?  I certainly hope nothing has happened to that witty guy who riffs on Mark Trail every morning except Sunday…”

Fear not dear readers, I am well.  Which is more than I can say for the strip that I have loved and snarked at for decades now…

As Mark takes cover behind a rock with bullets magically missing him and ken, there’s just not much to say about it all.  And I don’t think it’s because I have grown weary of keeping up this blog, it’s more likely that I have no interest in this story line…

So sure, Mark, let’s keep up the chase.  This can last another couple of weeks, which would be seriously unfortunate.  There’s no real tension here, as there is no chance of any harm coming to you.  Without tension and suspense, or even the opportunity to learn something new, we will pace along with you a few days at a time until something interesting happens…

And you are taking all the fun out of blowing stuff up! But you are right- you and Mark are toast.  While it’s not clear in the last panel whether the bad guys are on land or riding a tidal surge, yes indeed, here they come…

So what else you got, Trail?  Better think fast…

So much for the boat, and so much, presumably, for the men chasing Mark and Ken…  Although I really doubt that a small fuel leak combined with a signal flare would create such a conflagration…

So again, as Mark Trail channels the A-Team, I guess we’ll have to get used to a lot of pyrotechnics…

Perspective and a closed aperture creates a deeper depth of field and makes mark look really burly in panel two, as he points the flare gun at the boat with the fuel leak…  stand by for another BOOOM, ladies and gentlemen… This is starting to remind me of “The A-Team” from the 80’s…  Stuff was always getting blowed-up in that show…

As Mark is about to go all-in on destroying yet another rental boat, we are now left to wonder what the next move will be… which of course will keep us tuning in.  See you tomorrow everyone!

With the Yacht off in the distance, the Sea-ATV’s take over!  Oh, things don’t look good for Mark now!!  With a resounding CLICK the wheels come down… Onomatopoeia is a useful device in comics… given that the reader has to imagine the sounds and the voices, it’s helpful to be guided…

But BLDDDK? What on earth is that?

An observation:  the dialogue in the Trail-past was awful, often times stilted and cringe-worthy… but now the lack of it takes all the air of the room…  perhaps Mr. Allen should enlist the help of a writer to go along with his (in)estimable artistic talent…

Wasn’t that the infraction that landed Anthony Michael Hall’s character in all-day detention?  He brought a flare gun to school to shoot himself (or the teacher?) because he was getting something less than an ‘A’ in Shop Class?  You mess with the bull, son, you get the horns…

As Ken checks on Mark’s welfare, (and why not a simple, “What in God’s name are you thinking?!?”) Mark returns it with a mere “I’m good – You?” As if they were meeting on a street corner some random Saturday afternoon…  So off they go, away from the boat that is quickly becoming an eco-hazard, hoping to not get caught by the bad guys…

Well, no WAY Mark is getting his damage deposit back now, and no way Editor Bill Ellis is going to let him rent another boat!!  Do boats have airbags?  Probably not, which means that Mark and Ken will be properly concussed, if in fact they can walk away from this.  What exactly is the strategy here??  We prefer to be marooned and surrounded by bad guys?  As compared to high-tailing it out of there??  Oh well, we shall see where the story goes now.

Chin up, boys and girls.  Mark has crashed before.  I am suddenly reminded that a plane making a hard landing on Slumber Mountain makes roughly the same sound… or at least calls for the same large font…

…that’s because it is… We were introduced to Ken and Kelly In June.  It’s nearly the end of October without an end in sight…

So as Mark rams the hull of the rental boat up on the (hopefully sandy) beach, it’s clear that he won’t be getting his damage deposit back…

How do you figure, Mark?  You stand a better chance trapped on a small island surrounded by gun wielding bad guys than you do in a boat that offers you at least a little cover?  What exactly do you expect to find there?

Leaking fuel into the ocean?  That’s criminal!  Very un-Trail!  Of course it’s NOT his fault… remember??

“Looks like the boat’s been hit?”  You think??  It’s a miracle YOU haven’t been hit, Ken…

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish, isn’t it?  Mark, for all your hot-dogging around, you have now put yourself in a real bind… but that’s OK, we need to move this along and find out who the real baddies are…  Considering Mark is used to dealing with occasional poachers, turtle egg stealers, two bit larcenists, and capitalists ready to repent, this is going to be a brand new challenge- pure, megalomaniacal, out-for-world-domination evil!   Takes on a whole new dimension- James Bond, where are you?  I can see it now- “The name is Trail… MARK Trail…”