Issue 20, Page 2
Transcript
1: Xijo is slammed against a wall by the whip of a thick, thorned tentacle.
2: From the Sedjet Creature’s view of him, he slumps down badly injured and bleeding. He looks knocked out as purple blood runs down the thorns of the retracted tentacle.
Sedjet (narrating): What do we do with… this outsider?
Julia (narrating): We should ignore him.
3: The mutated Sedjet stands on two muscular legs; his thick, worm-like body opens into a circular maw of long teeth, he roars and hisses. Forelimbs, shaped almost like wings, extend each into three thick, slimy tentacles, covered in sharp thorns. A row of eyes lead down each side of his body. This is not the writhing, bubbling Black Mass – this is a controlled, thought out being.
Julia (narrating): You need to find me.
Sedjet (narrating): But… HER…
4: Through a crack in a door, the Sedjet Creature prowls down the hallway.
Julia (narrating): Leave her for now…
5: Lit only by a thin crack of light, Vidali hides in a supply closet: cramped against a wall, covering her panting mouth. Julia and Sedjet’s voices overlap and mingle in narration.
Julia (narrating): We need…
Sedjet (narrating): We need it…
Julia/Sedjet (narrating together): We need to be ONE again.
Really, that’s very scary. *Shivers*
Now, what do they mean?
Do Sedjet + Julia mean that…they have two parts of a monster in them, and want to combine + be one person?
Or do these two mean…that the [monster] wants to combine with ALL of the animals of earth, which would destroy all the people on the earth?
This is a fantastic story! Very good show! I can’t wait to see how this chapter ends. 😀
They’re all a part of the same creature. All anthros in this universe are! There’s just that damned … what was it, Sedjit radiation? That’s what keeps them all apart, keeps them deaf. Now that Sedjet and Julia are no longer bound by such limitations, they can finally be free! Be one!
Shankar radiation.
I’m not sure what exactly we’re meant to take away from the Idol not being interested in our Martian friend whose name I can’t recall, but it seems that he is not part of the Idol.
Implication being it’s *specifically* Earth life (or anthro life on Earth) that is the Idol, dreaming.
Not least because I’m fairly sure every single other time the God that Crawls has touched someone that we’ve seen, it absorbed them.
Either immediately or post-humously, anyway.
Xijo Tephalis, the martian, said back in… issue 18, I think, that there isn’t nearly as much Shankar Radiation on Mars.
And if the martians can live with little Shankar Radiation without turning into monsters…
And Sedjet just called Xijo an “outsider”….
That means that martians are not part of the black idol!! Hooray!!!
They get to keep their individuality and go to the horrible afterlife featured in issue 3 when they die! 😀
I’m sure it’s looking for Melissa. Both because Julia wants to be with her again, and because “the other part” could be talking about when she got attacked in the beginning like Sedjet did. It’s likely still inside her.
I do agree that Julia’s goal is to get free, combine with Sedjet, and look for Melissa, so they can also be one. That said, the piece of the Black Idol stuck in Melissa was removed in Issue 6, page 13 (link sharing isn’t allowed in this comment section).
Not scary at all. It just adds more bullshit. I’d ask one question and ruin everything: If everyone IS TOWC, how did the black dog CLEARED Mel from it and didn’t just swallow her whole?
It’s true. I do sometimes get scared by things, that don’t scare other people, but that’s cool.
On another topic, you do raise a good question- how does the TOWC monster work,
and [has it always worked that way], in this comic?
It’s been fairly consistent. It seeks out other instances of itself, compelling anthros to “feed” it so it can be mobile. There’s some sort of silvery object which renders it inert, but that has not been brought up again in the comments for some time. The Idol, or whatever you call it, seems most interested in “reuniting” with other parts, though we don’t know enough about why.
We are told it existed long before life as currently understood developed, and it is potentially something which has been an interstellar threat. (Potentially through the portals.) But most of what we are told comes from sources which . . . may not be fully reliable.
(Standard Mythos-style thread – the ones doing the explaining often have their own agendas, or preconceptions which are incorrect. In this case, the people talking in the past about the Idol’s presence seem to revere it… not a good recipe for getting to the truth. Similarly, Julia – or the thing using Julia’s body as a host – shouldn’t be trusted as a reliable source of information. The Idle *has* shown itself capable of – and willing to use – deception.)
my 2 theories:
1. The Black Dog hunts only the awoken form (e.g. all of Sedjet)
2. The Black Dog hunts pieces of TOWC’s original mind (not Sedjet no matter how “tuned in”)
Things are quickly escalating! I kind of want to punch Sedjet for what he’s done and how his recklessness has led up to this moment. He was supposed to be looking for answers about the Black Idol as a scientist. Now he’s part of the thing, and because that he’s killed/disabled Dr. Xijo, and Dr. Dara has to worry about being absorbed. The discovery that Shankar radiation or a lack of it causes people to turn into the idol may never be known (unless there’s security footage). Basically that huge secret may die with these scientists.
Who knows what happens if Sedjet combines with Julia and they break out. Will they go on a rampage trying to find Melissa?
Anyway, I’m excited. We know Martins are not part of the idol and won’t be absorbed. We now that Shankar radiation does keep the idol in check and that without it people on Earth would turn into/revert back to the idol. The dinosaur’s disgust with the people of Earth suddenly makes sense. He wasn’t disgusted because they weren’t as technologically advanced, he know that they were once part of the Black Idol. No wonder his words to describe them were “sick” and “crawling upon this rock.” I guess THIS is what he whispered to the bug scientist that made him give up on finding more pieces of the Idol.
I can’t wait to see more answers revealed!
We’ve also seen those possessed by the Idol’s consciousness kill other people, not absorbing them. So . . . your mileage may vary on how true the whole matter is.
Good point. 😀
Thinking back to the start of this series, the Idol didn’t absorb Sedjet and Melissa when it infected them. It didn’t absorb the guards either. Perhaps this issue will reveal why some are absorbed and others are just killed.
Well, take it apart.
First of all, despite the claims of “it didn’t infect us, it was always there” coming from something wearing part of Julia’s form? It’s pretty clear this can happen without having the shankar radiation blocked – we’ve seen it happen before this was ever discussed as an option, after all. Even taking it at face value doesn’t work since it seems to require contact with a fragment of the Idol itself (and not merely another who is possessed by its will) to be altered this way.
Secondly, if you go back Sedjet was acting strange ever since the incident – the Idol’s physical form left them much the same as it left Melissa. But Issue 5 shows at some deep point Sedjet and Melissa were sharing at least some likes – Tidechaser and fried crickets. Similarly, at the end of Issue 6, Sedjet gets flashes of something from one of the other victims.
One last thing – I tried thinking real hard, but I don’t recall Julia being infected before the portal trip. I do recall Melissa having an infection stuck in her until Issue 6 – one which the Black Dog removed. This said, it is possible it was transmitted through contact with Melissa during the one ghost hunt.
All in all, I just find the conclusion the Idol *only* absorbs anthro flesh wrong. We’ve seen it kill without absorbing, mostly absorbing as a means of acquiring mass before going active. Once active, though . . . it does kill, and will kill if you get in the way. It also has been shown to be capable of hallucinogenic effects of considerable strength on individuals, seemingly chosen for their potential to help it . . . escape.
I’m mostly certain the shankar radiation is a red herring, or at least a branch which isn’t being considered by a healthy mind inside the storyline.
The implication (or determined fact, IF what we’ve seen and been told so far is accurate) is that being on that alien planet with its limited Shankar radiation allowed the part of Julia that was the Idol to flourish. Allowed the Idol to begin reasserting itself on her form, whichever.
Returning home arrested (more or less) that transformation, thanks to the previously-noted-in-story high levels of the radiation on Earth.
I have to go back and check on the idol’s kill-to-absorption count. But destroying parts of itself wouldn’t matter much to a creature that seems to view typical notions of death as a minor inconvenience. And requiring contact with a ‘pure’ form of itself to begin transforming others makes sense if the Shankar radiation does actually do what is being claimed. It’s like playing a tone underneath a louder one. Add amperage to the lower tone, and it will begin to creep through the louder. Lessen or take away the louder, and…
That said, I kind of *want* your supposition to be right. Not least because I adore Unreliable Narrator as a premise.
And it suggests the best result for our heroes.
He was always part of the block idol they all are. Julia and Sedjet hace simply woke up to this reality.
I doubt this, very strongly.
I made a comment a while back showing all the scenes that telegraphed the anthros-are-the-idol reveal, but it never actually showed up. (I’m guessing that it got caught by the spam filter because I had a lot of links in there.) Anyway, before that, we already knew that:
(a) Shankar radiation is more common on and near the Earth than elsewhere in the solar system (and possibly the universe at large).
(b) An acute “blast” of too much Shankar radiation affects the black idol, often causing it to both mutate to take on attributes of other organisms, and go into some kind of “dormant” or immobile state.
(c) Shankar radiation also is generated by neurological activity (and ghosts), leading to the hypothesis that the idol uses Shankar radiation itself as some kind of communication/control mechanism without bothering with a normal nervous system (and hence exposure to too much external Shankar radiation would both cause out-of-control mutation and loss of consciousness).
(d) Anthropoids (from Earth at least) begin to suffer “space sickness” from spending too much time far away from Earth.
(e) The idol only *absorbs* anthropoid flesh (though it can *digest* other types).
(f) The idol can also “drive” anthropoid bodies without immediately absorbing them.
(g) Anthropoids develop a strong desire to touch the idol when presented with relatively pure/large samples, apparently manifesting most often as a sexual urge (though not all are equally susceptible).
(h) The dinosaur guy found the other anthropoids of Earth to be repulsive, for reasons he was somewhat reluctant to share.
(i) The same guy told his alien companion some kind of incredible secret about some way that he could study the Black Star/Idol without digging through the ruins for a sample.
(j) Despite the apparently bizarre biology of the Idol, Vidali was able to do some kind of genetic study of it, and was shocked by something that she found.
All of this, combined with the last 10 pages or so, makes me pretty willing to believe the whole Black Idol = anthropoid Earthling theory, with Shankar radiation being the factor that pushes the Idol into mutating specialized tissues and generally acting more normal Earth life, and the lack of Shankar being the factor that causes anthropoids to revert back into the amorphous black mass of the idol.
The main question to date is, why does the Idol sometimes just “possess” or remain merged with some people, rather than just consuming everyone completely and indiscriminately? Maybe one answer is that it just tries to keep some people partially anthropoid as a form of camouflage or a way to create “spies” among the anthropoids. Maybe another answer is that, in the high-Shankar environment of the Earth, it’s actually a difficult/slow process for it to fully convert an anthropoid unless the mass of Idol is much larger than the mass of the being it’s absorbing. This page suggests a third answer, which is that samples of more “pure” Idol on Earth, due to their telepathic connection have a stronger desire to merge with each other than to convert anthropoids.
Who knows?
All that said, that doesn’t mean that I entirely believe in everything that the Julia-idol has said (either talking to Sedjet as Julia, or talking to the Sedjet-idol on this page). It’s entirely possible that what she said to Sedjet earlier was mostly true, but trying to manipulate him into doing some kind of experiment that would create more of the idol. On the other hand, it’s also possible that her idol-self is still enough like Julia to have an ulterior motive, e.g. she’s deliberately trying to lure him towards her and away from the other scientists so that the scientists can get to safety.
(OK, probably not, but one can hope.)
I’m inclined to think it’s less ‘on the other hand’ and more ‘both of your ideas are correct’.
Or at least, like you said, one can hope.
So I’ve been mulling this over in my head about some possibilities. Thought I’d share:
I’ve began to try and actually think of the BI like a cancer (it was described to be like such by Jocelyn, but it wasn’t really elaborated upon). I’ve come to realize some interesting similarities.
Like cancer cells, the BI has a limitless amount of cell divisibility, it’s growth and division aren’t being regulated to stop after a certain point, and doesn’t appear to have cellular death. And like cancer cells, they are simply a mutated iteration of somatic cells (or rather the BI is considered the natural state and the anthropoid state are is the mutation. But for the sake of drawing medical parallels, let’s just have the BI identify as the role of the cancer)
I’ve been wondering if it’s possible that Melissa transferred the BI to Julia when they kissed. If we’re to believe anthropoid and the BI are the same organism in different forms, then the Black Dog can’t actually purge a person of the Idol, but maybe it can force it back into a latent state.
The ‘idol state’ may additionally function like the real world virus Epstein-Barr (which can actually cause the development of certain cancers); once the idol variant has been introduced, it can never be voided out of the system. It remains in a dormant state but can still be transmitted even if the infected person is showing little or no symptoms. It then has an opportunity become active again in the new body.
With Julia being on the alien planet with potentially very little amounts of Shankar radiation to act like as a suppressant, it allowed the BI ‘virus’ to grow and invade into Julia’s cells. However, Julia’s re-exposure to the Shankar radiation back on Earth forced the BI cells to suddenly stop their growth within her body.
We’ve seen Anthony merge via smooches with presumably a purer form of the Idol. We’d have to assume Melissa’s repressed version of it can’t invade cells (within a Shankar free environment) at such a rapid rate.
The theory isn’t perfect and there’s definitely some holes in it, especially since I’m only going by real world comparisons. It was interesting to think over, regardless 🙂
Oh. Hey.
Fun question that just struck me, amidst all the conjecture about the God That Crawls and whether what we’ve been shown these last few pages is or is not accurate.
The Idol has been trapped, on Earth and the moon. Trapped and held dormant for a long, long time.
Who did that? And isn’t it interesting that the place that would serve as the prison of the God that Crawls just happens to have a significant enough amount of the radiation that is antithetical to it to KEEP it contained?
One wonders if that was by convenience, or by design. And one thusly wonders to *whose* convenience. Or by whose design?
I’ve had the same thought. Why is it that the Earth and its moon are full of Black Idol statues and shard of the Silver Mass?
Perhaps it was trapped there because the properties drew it there, making it the perfect place to set a trap up . . .
Maybe the other gods trapped it, jealousy of it being the only god
born of flesh.