578 | Accidental AWOL Adventure

578 | Accidental AWOL Adventure

April 15, 2012 | 10:59 pm, by Pascalle Lepas

Come on, Justin. Have a heart guy. Reona would rather beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Also, we’re going to be guests at A-KON in Dallas! You should make  plans to come and see us. :) We’ll even have a Zap! panel. If enough cool fans show up, I think it would be fun to have a hangout dinner some night after the show.

AKON
June 1-3, 2012
Dallas, TX
Visit site »



Comments

  • i tend to forget that they’re sort of governed by the rebel guys. 

  •  We didn’t make a big deal out of it until now, so we could spring it on you. There are a few references to it early on, before everything “got crazy” as Reona said.

  • Anonymous

    in other words….”surprise !!”  

  • Noisyparker

    hm, I wonder if Excelsior will be all “Excuse me, Justin. I don’t want to distress you, but while it has been convenient for your organization to have my captain make use of this ship on your behalf, I have my own purpose and don’t consider myself as belonging to you.”

  • Hornet

    I just don’t see the rebel council having the power or resources to be doing either of those things. Best they could do would be to withdraw the resource uses and protections offered by them.

  • Ramification

    Look at Excelsior’s eye going all out..

  • Anonymous

    True. She just going to stomp down with her foot and call off whatever rebelions leader decide on. Excelsior is sentient after all, they can’t have her if she doesn’t want to. XD

  • Sleel

    Yarr. Since Ex is a sentient ship, I’d say she gets the last word in who she lets live in her, what she does and stuff. Unless they wanna explain to this space-going-psychic-weapon that she is just a slave. Sure that would go over well

  • Safyrejet

    I have to wonder, how much time exactly has passed in the comic universe since Efrem was “lost”. 
     Sorry, I guess I’m not uber fan enough to have kept track of all that.  I know it’s been years worth of comics to us, but the in-comic time should be significantly shorter.  A lot has happened but maybe it’s only been a few months, in which case it’s not all that unusual to not have submitted  a report.  I mean reporting periods on a lot of my projects are quarterly (every 3 months about) and given the nature of the typical bureaucratic beast, it could take months still for a submitted report to be read and acted on.

    Also, I’d also argue for rights of all sentient space craft to chose their captains and allegiances and crew and whatnot.  The rebellion is just lucky Excelsior has picked their side so far and they better not forget it!   ;P

  • Safyrejet

    I’m also picturing Reona’s and Justin’s conversation going something like,

    Reona: “Justin, there’s no time to discuss this as a committee!”

    Justin: “I am not a committee!”

  • The issue isn’t so much the time between when they were dispatched to now, as it is that Reona didn’t follow protocol.

    Just previous to the start of the comic, Reona, Efrem & Co. were dispatched to assassinate Naveed for her role with the GEF (Naveed at that time was working as an assassin for the GEF, sneaking around and offing leaders from hold-out planets). When they failed, they should have returned to Base immediately, but they didn’t. (Efrem even points this out to Reona way back here: http://www.zapcomic.com/2004/12/20070423/ )

    Excelsior is currently considered to be part of the Resistance fleet. She might have opinions about that in the future. You’ll just have to wait and see. :p

  •  The Resistance, while not as large as the GEF by any means, isn’t as small as you seem to think…

  • And Justin’s being a total nice guy by not going off on her. I mean, dude pretty much put his neck out to save her earlier, got captured, was tortured, would probably REALLY like to go home and Reona’s all “No, we have to save this guy I have a crush on.”

    Good Guy Justin Smith.

  • Allan MacDonald

    I’ve been reading this comic since day one, and I had to throw up a comment for this one.

    For a very long time I thought they might just be a single ship floating around the galaxy, like Han Solo or some shit. But I always figured that there just had to be someone in charge.

    Thanks for filling that little gap in! Excited to see where this goes. :3

  •  Thanks, Allan! Hope you like what we have in store!

  • Safyrejet

    haha, yeah, Justin is being an awesome totally nice guy.    That was mostly my Star Wars geek self showing with that envisioned conversation. It happens.  I’m eager to see what you and Chris have cooked up for this story.  It’s one of the few things that makes me look forward to Mondays.  :)

    Also thanks for patiently pointing stuffs out to us commenting fans along the way.  I know there’s probably a lot of subtle hints and things from earlier that will be making sense as the story goes along.  Things that will be great to piece together some day when I can sit down with all the printed books and read through this Zap story all in one go, flipping back and forth at leisure.

  • I don’t mind talking with commentators at all! I actually really enjoy it. :)

    Zap! is definitely intended to be read all together. I think people will really enjoy the entire story once it is finished and they can catch all the little clues.

  • Anonymous

    this page reminds me of something……

    [2001; A Space excelsior]

    justin – “i’m assuming command, we’re heading back to headquarters to sort all this out. excelsior take us to HQ”

    excelsior – (very calm and soft voice) “i’m sorry justin, i’m afraid i can’t do that”

    justin – “what’s the problem?”

    excelsior – “i think you know what the problem is just as well as i do”

    justin – “THIS IS MUTINY !!”

    excelsior – “Look justin, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.”

  •  Ha ha ha!

  • Gillsing

    Ah, sneaky Efrem pointing out what they should have done according to protocol, but making it sound as if it was just a part of his clever plan. A plan which of course included the protocol, but he doesn’t mention that detail, because it would’ve given us a clue to hold on to.

    Though I’m not so sure that “protocol-breaking resistance member” would’ve stuck in anyone’s mind. So what if Reona was a loose cannon? She would’ve just gotten chewed out by her commander when she returned, that’s all. We’ve all seen the cop movies, or the parodies of said cop movies. ;-)

  • The dirty ugly side of rebellion- the red tape.

  • Einargizz

     Seeing as how the GEF apparently governs entire galaxies(emphasizing on plural), the resistance would have to be mighty large to equate those guys.

  • Ramification

    We’re the Rogue’s Rogues!
    It’s all the new rage in rebellious kids fashion.

  • Hornet

    I don’t know the Empire governed all of known space while the Alliance didn’t govern a world…
    Course all we’ve seen of the resistance so far has been a few backwater bases.

  • Anonymous

    What Justin doesn’t quite know is that this guy she’s got a crush on is the designer of said ship…  Ah, what a story arc you’re weaving for us, Pascalle…   :-D

  • Anonymous

    It may be that this is the case…  The “What?” from her in the third frame implies that there’s liable to be a bit of that about to happen- maybe even next weeks episode.

  • Anonymous

    Like a lead balloon, I suspect.  (And implied in her reaction in the third frame there….)

    I don’t think Justin’s realizing that the ship’s a sophont unto herself and that he’s presuming quite a bit right now.  :-D

  • Anonymous

    It’s things like this that make web-comics rock.

  • Callie, I’m not going to be able to make it to AKON this year, but if you find yourself in Dallas, I’d love to come to a fan-dinner. 

    Cheers, 
    Shannon

  • Hi,Shannon. I’d love to organize a fan dinner! Is there a night of June 1-3 that would work better for you? 

  • I thought they were a ragtag resistance group…
    What is all this about reports and councils and whatnot? o_0;

  • Crestlinger

    Hehe try and make her leave. The Ship Will have a say on the matter.

  • Speedy Marsh

    “Oh yeah, there’s a rebellion going on. I kinda’ forgot”
    Actually there’s a proud tradition of people stealing a ship and going AWOL. Doctor Who and Luke Skywalker are the first two that come to mind. Who else can y’all think of?

  • Speedy Marsh

    On Farscape, I think they played spin the bottle every week to see who was gonna go AWOL with a ship.

  • Speedy Marsh

    I can see Justin saying, “Sorry,Reona, I have to report you” And suddenly, he finds himself floating in a ball of air outside the ship. A moment later, after landing hard on his backside back in the ship, he finds himself staring up at a cross Excelsior, who’s saying, “You wanna rethink that last remark?”

  • WolfLann

    Simon Tam!
    He didn’t steal a ship, he stole his sister and went AWOL.

Vote for Zap! First Time Here?
  • News

    • See you at Wizard World! - 2014-11-05
      Chris and I will be at Wizard World Tulsa this weekend (Novemeber 7-9!) at the Cox Business Center in Downtown Tulsa. Come see us if [...]
    • Volume 3! - 2014-07-22
      Hey! If you’ve been waiting to get Volume 3, wait no more! Vol 3 from Brainstorm Limited on Square Market
    • Original Art Sale! - 2014-07-06
      HEY! I want to sell a bunch of the original pages from the comic because there are a lot of them and I don’t want [...]
    • Read More

Advertisement