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Two heads are better than one?
 (From Schlock Mercenary. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure of what to think of the ending of the Dark Matter Entities story. I mean, let's be honest here. It was pretty much a Deus Ex Machina; the good guys are overwhelmed and don't have a way to prevail. The bad guys are mysterious, almost invisible (except for gravitic sensors), and quite powerful. And then the F'Sherl-Ganni show up and kill all of the bad guys in a quick, decisive, and unseen blow.
In fact, the entire "war" with the Paan'uri (Dark Matter Entities) boiled down to seven panels. The first one is here, seven months ago. (Yes, technically I consider this a declaration of war on the part of the Paan'uri. The second was when the Fleetmind started "skirmishing" with weapons believed to be able to hurt the Paan'uri.
As an aside here, I do have to applaud Howard here. We honestly don't know what dark matter is, or what form it takes. It could just be clumps of cold matter that we can't see, swarms of micro-singularities (black holes), or even a basic misunderstanding on the fundamental underpinnings of the universe itself. But rather than stick to what's "safe" and known, he's gone and turned dark matter into its own parasitic dimension attached to our own universe, with beings that exist there. What's more, he's not shown what the Paan'uri look like.
Howard could have had a mirror-universe aspect to the Paan'uri or shown them in the same way he did here. Well, not quite as cute and cartoony, but still, you know what I mean. But instead of giving us a glimpse into the mindset of the Paan'uri or a glimpse at their form, he's kept them a total mystery.
Indeed, the third panel of Sunday's comic shows is chilling in the silence of death. There are no lasers or missiles going out. Instead, a ship explodes. And then another. And another. And then a bunch together. The dread that fans felt waaay back in Return of the Jedi, when the new Death Star activates and blows away one of the Alliance frigates? Nothing compared to the chills I had seeing a Terran Battleplate just... explode, with no sign of what triggered the explosion. I mean, Death Star... big huge honking battle station just sitting there, but it's obvious! You have a target! You can run from it.
But the Paan'uri? You have to rely on gravitic sensors. You have no idea of what they can do, how they can sense you, what traps they may have laid. The enemy has no face, has no form. It's an old form of storytelling: keep your horrors off-screen, barely described, to increase the tension and dread of the reader or viewer. Alien did this: we only saw bare glimpses of the full-grown Alien until the very end of the movie. Until then we have but a glimpse here, a flash there. Lovecraft did it with his horror stories. And Howard Tayler worked on these same foundations to create a dread foe that is, even now, a complete mystery.
It seems a shame then to just have them all die off in one panel. Not with a bang, not even with a whimper.
Fortunately, Howard isn't sitting on his laurels here. The Paan'uri story will have a sequel. Petey and the Fleetmind don't pretend that this is the end; that with the Paan'uri plot foiled that they won't strike again. They're not that foolish. (I suppose it's human nature to think that just because you've driven back a foe that they'll give up. But even humans don't necessarily work that way. Maybe it's just overly optimistic and perhaps a bit foolish humans who think that way? *chuckle*)
No doubt the Paan'uri will find a way to react to the recent attack. The galaxy is a big place; it can't all be protected. And the Fleetmind (and indeed the galaxy itself) needs to find a way to sense the Paan'uri and fight them more effectively, and perhaps create defenses against the gravitic attacks that the Paan'uri specialize in.
But while this is going on, I suspect we'll be returning to Tagon's Toughs, and their own mercenary endeavors. They need a new ship now, and to deal with the consequences of future Kevyn saving Tagon from an untimely death. (Though I kind of suspect the ship problem will be solved by future-Schlock. *evil chuckle* Salvage rights indeed!)
Oh, one more aside: As many of you know, Howard recently sprained his shoulder. He believes that he can work through the pain (though his insurance is refusing to pay for physical therapy, in the deluded belief that if you ignore problems they go away) and that his artwork won't suffer for it. Thus he does not see the need to have a guest comic week.
Which I suppose is a little bit of a shame. I know that Schlock Mercenary has gone awhile without a break, but it would have been fun to see how other people see SM through their own artistic venues.
Good luck, Howard. Deus Ex Machina aside... you're doing good.
Robert A. Howard
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