MGA Study Hall: Issue #23

Hello and welcome back to Morning Glory Academy Study Hall! In this column, MC contributor (and FuckYeahLost’s head honcho) Crit Obara and I sit down and analyze the latest issue of Morning Glories.

Before we begin, a reiteration: we have updated the bandwidth and space being used to house the MGA Study Hall Commentary Podcasts, so if you have not yet checked them out, you can find all them on Podomatic as well as on iTunes. For those unaware of its purpose, it’s a podcast that I do with Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma in which we discuss each individual at length, offering up commentary tracks to go alongside your reads. It’s pretty much the tops.

Just like last month’s issue, we will be doing MGA Study Hall a bit differently from the norm. Crit has sent me all his notes and I will solo-write laboriously for you about the in’s and out’s of the issue via our mutual findings. Please send me Reese’s Pieces in the mail if you enjoy the write-up, as writing makes me hungry for a very specific kind of candy.

So join me as I discuss the issue, its story and the possible hidden secrets that we may or may not be picking up on. We should also note: this discussion contains massive spoilers for the issue. Colossal. Ginormous, even. The issue is out today, so make sure to read it first before you read our thoughts. It helps to give the issue a few read throughs before coming to us, but consider this your warning about impending spoilers.

As always, our very lovely/supremely awesome column header was designed by the graphic designer for the actual book, Tim Daniel! For more of Tim’s work, please visit his site Hidden Robot and be on the lookout for Tim’s comic debut, Enormous, now in stores! Many thanks to Tim for being fantastically awesome and providing it to us.

One more thing before we begin, as I’d like to throw out a short plug:

Every night that a new Morning Glories issue comes out, fans of the book go on TinyChat to discuss it with one another and try and figure out if they can draw meaning from the insanity, just about to the same extent that Crit and I do times twenty. So if you’re in the mood for chatting instead of just reading theories and then musing on them in a comment section, you can join the chat and throw out ideas to a live group of people who are just as excited to talk about the book as you are. I have nothing to do with it’s creation, but I usually quietly lurk with a goofy username, and both Nick and Joe are known to pop in and offer up teases while dodging questions (what, you didn’t think they’d actually answer anything, did you?). It’s a fun time. If you enjoy reading this column, you just might enjoy the TinyChat.

For more details, click the image above. As for myself, I’ve got theorizing to do. Let’s kick it off:

Oh, Right. Akiko Was Missing, Too

Last time on Study Hall, a big stink was made about Fortunato not being around during the present day action… and at no point did I remember to mention that, hey, we didn’t know where Akiko was either. Whoops! My bad. Not only that, but when I made that remark to Joe, he noted that a lot of people seemed to miss that aspect — probably because we were all too busy hounding Google Translate for the answers to that one crazy sequence, am I right? I mean, she was around in all those flashbacks! We can’t catch every detail!

It’s one of two details that I’m (un)happy to admit I missed, that I honestly should’ve caught. So, retroactively, I’d like to point out that Akiko was missing from the last issue. Which brings us to the next point…

Where Akiko and Fortunato Were

We’re going to skip the introduction sequence temporarily, and for good reason. This issue plays with the timeline of things, so we’re going to play with the timeline of discussions.

As the issue begins, we see Fortunato running through the basement at Morning Glory Academy that we’d seen before, one that we’d once hypothesized was full of clones of some variety. As it turns out, it seems less to be filled with clones and more just crazy and/or broken people in general, assumedly victims of the school’s actions, which sheds additional light on the discussion of who the man from issue #20 was. And, as it turns out, Akiko is down here, having apparently been hanging out down in the basement for almost a month.

Now, when do you suppose that happened? If I had to venture a guess — and I believe that I do — I would wager that it was after being caught in the sequence from the beginning of issue #1. Remember that? It’s probably safe to assume that after her little Breaking Bad-esque stunt, she was dragged downstairs by security, drugged by Nurse Nine and thrown in a cell as the ultimate form of punishment/detention — which would in turn potentially align with a line of dialogue from the beginning of this issue that we skipped about punishment, which features Fortunato being brought down to the nurse’s after the Truants’ detention scenario. As if their detention isn’t bad enough! Makes you wonder what could’ve happened to Jade if she hadn’t been rescued.

This also offers up a clearer timeline events of the book so far, putting the opening sequence of issue #1 nearly a month before the Glories arrive at the school, if you’re into continuity. At some point, possibly at the end of issue #25, I may just create a theoretical timeline of events as an infographic for fans to use for the first season, given that it’s crazy bananas.

Of course, the cells in the basement are an odd thing in general. They’re padded, which would imply that they’re for psychiatric patients of a high-risk variety, but none of the inmates are in straitjackets, which is curious. Not only that, but the lighting of it all doesn’t seem to quite make sense. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind it is, but when we see the one room with Megan peeking out, having apparently not been shot after her murderous rampage in issue #3 and somehow getting transported along with the school (which is a curious event in and of itself, given that no one at the school moved through time — so we assumed, anyway), the room is lit up; in the next panel, it isn’t. Similar is true albeit reversed for the room that Akiko is revealed to be in. Does this mean anything? Potentially. Everything could mean something. I’m not entirely sure what, though.

An even more curious aspect of it all is one line of dialogue, seemingly just thrown in there: “Hey, my room… looks a lot smaller from out here…” As is usually the case with this book, we like to over-analyze things a bit, including things that may not mean anything, so lets point out that Akiko is on drugs and is probably hallucinating to some extent. Still, “bigger on the inside” isn’t exactly a strange notion to fans of the general nerd pop culture world. While your first thought may just be of TARDISes (TARDISi?) dolled up like padded cells, given all the whacky, crazy and astounding things that happened at this academy is it perhaps a possibility that what happens in these cells is greater than just quiet time for introspective thought? We don’t actually see Akiko in the cell, after all; just a dark cell — and when the light comes on, we see nothing until the door is opening. Look, guys, I don’t want to say torture pocket dimension, but I’m thinking it.

Either way, Fortunato doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary — and if he does, he’s apparently not surprised. Take that as you will.

There are also some easter eggs in there for you as well, ones you probably won’t find anywhere but this column: the doors that Fortunato goes past are 1978, 1996 and 2002. All significant dates! Why? 1978 is the year Joe Eisma was born, 1996 when he graduated highschool and 2002 when he graduated college. No need to read too deep into this one

… Or is there?

Onwards and Upwards

Here’s the second important thing that I neglected to mention last time as well: this marks the second time we really see people going up stairs instead of down them. It’s an odd yet consistent detail, and one I’ve mentioned to Nick on our podcast before, but it seemed noteworthy in the past that everyone always seems to be going down, never up. With the last issue, our time travelers traveled up to get into the temple; with this issue, Fortunato and Akiko go up stairs in order to do something that turns out to be in tandem with the other group, as we learn that the flare fired last issue was indeed Fortunato.

Too much over-thinking on the stair thing? Potentially, but stranger things have wound up meaning things before. Or Nick is just messing with me at this point.

The office with the blank pages seems familiar as well, doesn’t it? Which begs the question of how Fortunato knew to go into Miss Hodge’s office to find a flare, but we’ll leave the speculation on this aspect aside for now because frankly, after issue #20, I don’t even know where to begin with her anymore. She’s shifty.

The Ceremony, Part 1: Holding Hands and Hazy Eyes

The big selling point of this issue s that we finally get to see the Ceremony, which first appeared in issue #2. Or, well, what we assume is the Ceremony anyway. It gets a bit crazy.

However, before we can get to the Ceremony, we have some set up to do, which is split between Fortunato/Akiko and the rest of the Truants. Fortunato and Akiko’s role seems to be small — they pray and hold hands. However, what’s important to remember here is the connection between these two holding hands for a mystical event to occur here and Jade and Ike holding hands back in issue #17 as well. It’s a recurring element, and while it may seem small right now, there is certainly an aspect to think of in terms of the necessary connection of people.

The bigger story lies with the Truants, who have left the temple and have gone back to the future (I couldn’t resist). This scene deals with Irina trying to explain to Junisao in vain that the strange action taken against his brother (literal brother, not war camp Brother) in the last issue had a purpose and was necessary. They’ve done something – a something we don’t quite understand – but to do so, a sacrifice was necessary, and The Real Jun drew the short straw simply because he isn’t a Truant. However, Irina claims that this action was done in order to save Abraham, their Father, and all that is worth saving; it’s clear that she’s got it in her head that what she’s doing will save the world. Or maybe not. More on all this soon.

Now — things are beginning to get a tiny bit convoluted here. We know the Truants were sent to the school for a purpose, and we have also since learned that what they are currently doing is to save Abraham from captivity. However, given that they were sent to the school so long ago, the question then becomes: did they get sent as children to go to the school so that they could one day save Abraham (assumedly not, based on later flashbacks in this issue, although there is a line of dialogue at the end that could support this idea), or are they just doing their current time traveling assassins shtick to clean up a mess, possibly one they’ve made that resulted in Abraham’s imprisonment? I’d guess the latter, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the former now that time travel has been introduced as an element.

Whatever the case may be, Junisao attempting to change anything doesn’t matter, because it’s too late. The wheels are turning, the dominos are falling. Time is running out.

Oh, and the scene begins with the hazy POV shot, which we’ve been told has importance. Still not sure what the importance is, but I’d wager that the introduction of Plato’s Cave theory and the perception of reality could have something to do with it.

Alright, so before we get into the big finale, lets backtrack and talk about what we skipped. Specifically, Irina and her fantastic flashbacks.

Two Years Ago, Part 1: Hurting the Headmaster

The book opens up with a sequence that features Irina shooting at the Headmaster in the greenhouse we’d seen recently back in issue #20, which we can now safely assume is his hangout space. She’s firing off that gun of hers, blam blam blam, and before you know it she winds up flying out of the greenhouse covered in blood and cuts. The cuts make sense; we’d seen Daramount come out of that greenhouse covered in what looked to be lashes of a similar variety after losing the kids, although the force of which Irina comes flying out is very confusing indeed. Given everything we’ve learned about how formidable she is, it would assumedly take quite a great force to do such a task.

This brings up the eternal question — who, or what, is the Headmaster? Is he just some guy? Some ridiculously powerful guy? Or is he something more? He’s refered to as Father to the same extent that Abraham is, but that doesn’t really nail it down much.

You know, I’m kind of reminded of this one recurring trope that we’ve seen in various fictional stories elsewhere. For the sake of argument, I’ll go with Fallout 3, so consider this spoilers for a 4-year-old videogame. For a large part of the game, you come across radio transmissions from President John Henry Eden, played by Malcolm McDowell, but it’s not until the end that you meet the character, who turns out to be a giant super computer. Eden isn’t a person, but rather an artificial intelligence; or more specifically, he’s an idea. Given that, and we’ve said as much before, but it’s possible that the Headmaster isn’t strictly a person, but rather a similar idea — a thing of sorts, put in place by someone else for an unknown reason. Sure, he’s referenced as “Father,” and I think Nick has stated that we’ve met the Headmaster before (so go looking through back issues for pictures of computers), but it never the less remains a possibility that there is no Headmaster in the personal terms that we’re thinking.

Needless to say, things get tricky as the implication of the scene is that she killed him – but that’s impossible, because in the present day the Headmaster is referred to as alive and well. Irina herself will mention later that she failed, and we’ll talk about that soon, but it seems interesting to note that apparently she couldn’t kill him. If we’re going off the AI theory (or some variation of it), certain aspects seem to match in that you can’t exactly just kill a computer. That, or she just brutally crippled him in some form or fashion. I’d wager that anything is a possibility at this point, to the extent that it kind of hurts to guess anymore.

Heck, if the Headmaster is a computer of some kind, then that would theoretically strengthen the Hunter Is The Headmaster theory after his fantastic binary escapade last issue. They have the technology. They can make him better than he was: better, stronger, faster. Irina was clearly manipulating Hunter before, and if he’s actually the Headmaster then her actions would potentially become lightly clearer, considering the inclusion of long cons in the book.

But wait. There’s more.

Two Years Ago, Part 2: Why Being Joe Eisma’s Friend Is A Terrible Idea

For the second flashback, we see a team of security guards heading out into the woods to find Irina. Brian pointed this out in his seventh Multiveristy Projections article that this is part of the least likely crossover comics has ever seen, as Joe and his artist friends are putting each other in their comics for giggles. From left to right, that team is comprised of Nick Pitarra (“Manhattan Projects”), Charles Paul Wilson III (“Stuff of Legend”), Ryan Stegman (“Superior Spider-Man”), Tommy Patterson (“Game of Thrones”) and Riley Rossmo (“Bedlam”).

So what happens to them? They get blown up. Ouch.

Oh, I do hope that handsome teacher from #14 makes out OK.

Two Years Ago, Part 3: The Devil and his Lies

As the flashback sequence wraps, we see Fortunato and Irina meeting in the woods to discuss what just happened to her. She notes her failure and says that he (assumedly the Headmaster in this context) is too powerful and deceived her. We can question what Fortunato was doing running out in the woods, but for now lets just think of issue #22 and our knowledge that he and Irina are in secret cahoots and temporarily forget about it.

Of course, it’s the things Irina says here that truly make a difference. The first aspect to consider is the Devil/Headmaster/Abraham aspect. She says that the Devil lied to her, but for all intents and purposes this doesn’t have to be the Headmaster. It makes sense as to why it would be (and I’ll tell you why in the next section), but it could just as well be Abraham. Crit and I have both been suspect of Abraham’s actions for a while now, and he’s the one who taught Irina everything she knows (we assume based on issue #21, anyway). Perhaps in all of his lies, when she finally confronted the Headmaster – whatever he is – something new arose that gave Irina a sense of true purpose in what she needs to do.

This in turn leads to the second and more important element, which is that she mentions they need to kill the Son of Abraham. We’ll get into this very shortly, but this line begs the question: if that’s the case, why all the dramatics in killing Junisao’s brother? I suppose there is the potential that Abraham is literally their father, but that seems like a red herring more than anything else. Rather, turning the page and revealing Ike seems to be the implication here. But since Ike is very clearly not Jun or Hisao, why does one of them need to die?

It’s not the first time we’ve thought it, but Irina seems to be doing her own variant of subterfuge in this situation. I don’t necessarily think she wants to work against Abraham, as I think it’s rather clear that she also wants to destroy the school (assuming that’s what he wants). At the very least, they have potentially similar goals. Yet what’s clear here is that Irina is running off the Truants’ shared script. Whatever it was they were raised to do, she’s now attempting to accomplish it in her own fashion by any means necessary, and that means lots of collateral damage. With that aspect in mind, going back and reading all of her scenes before this one come off in a different context, because she appears to be lying to literally everyone but Fortunato.

Truth be told, you almost get the sense that everything Irina is doing right now to save Abraham could just be so she can put a bullet in his head herself. (I hope I didn’t just ruin the end of issue #24.)

The Son of Abraham

Pedaling backwards a bit now. As soon as the Son of Abraham is mentioned, we flash over to Ike and Jade, who are discussing his father Abraham. I would wager that this is not exactly an accident, and is very much a clear indication of whom Irina was referring to. So what are the chances that the Headmaster is actually Ike?

Hear me out on yet another nutjob theory (one I don’t particularly subscribe to, but want to discuss in order to cover all my bases just in case it is right in the future):

The book deal a lot with the tenuous relationship between parents and children, and from issue #1 we’ve known Ike is a bit of a bastard who claims he killed his father and is referred to as the next unibomber, Hitler, and possibly the anti-Christ. Abraham and Ike, from the little we’ve seen, seem to have a weird and rocky relationship with one another, to the extent that their being adversaries of a kind wouldn’t be too surprising.

Given that we know time travel is an aspect of the book, there’s at least a slight potential that the Truants are sent to the school to stop Ike before he rises to power, having himself – as an adult – escaped into the past in order to create the school, which would create a never-ending loop of sorts (to an extent, anyway, given our Twelve Monkeys -> Primer -> Back to the Future understanding of time travel). It’s like having to kill Hitler before he rises to power, where Hitler is also a time travler. Crazy stuff.

It would explain a lot, really: why Abraham is at war with the school in the first place, why Ike gets odd special treatment over the other students, the inclusion of Abraham and Isaac in the slideshow from issue #1, the heavy foreshadowing that Ike is destined to be awful (even if he doesn’t want to be), and the strange thing Ike keeps trying to bring up about his father being at the school in scenes we never get to see the end of.

Ike’s subsequent dialogue with Jade doesn’t seem to hurt the theory, either. His line “I don’t think I’ve actually known anyone happy to see me…” certainly leaves a bit of a sinister aspect attached to him, and he also makes reference to his father not really regarding Ike’s existence until Ike got to the Academy. One line particularly helps this theory, in how Ike refers to Abraham being interested in other children as investments (which I slightly alluded to earlier in the whole “Why are the Truants at the Academy?” bit), and this seems to imply that Ike was aware of the war camp and that our previous notion — that Abraham was doing a long con with all of their lives — is true. Is it at all possible that Abraham is just not brave enough to kill his own son before it’s too late?

But that all seems a bit crackpot to me. I still think the Headmaster is Hunter, a computer, or that Hunter is a computer.

And I’ll admit: I don’t quite get the Harry Chapin reference, even with Google at my side.

Edit: macinator in the comments notes, “the harry chapin reference- he wrote cats in the cradle, aka The Daddy Issues Song. quite appropriate.” Makes sense to me!

All that time travel mumbo jumbo aside, it seems important to note that there is already a very well known connection between Abraham’s son and a sacrifice — one involving a boy named Isaac (Ike), and how his sacrifice was needed to show devotion between Abraham and God. It’s a rather famous story, and given that we’ve seen the reference to it back in issue #1 (during the slide show), there’s probably something there to that. This would in turn seem to imply that the devil is Abraham, and not the Headmaster — or that the Headmaster is the devil, but Abraham is just as bad and Irina needs to take them both down, because she’s a bad ass female version of Rambo and doesn’t play anyone’s side but her own!

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that there are “two sons” of Abraham, and David does play a large part in the issue. We also know that David was brought to visit Abraham in a cliffhanger we seemingly won’t revisit until the next issue (based on the cover alone). Still, the evidence against Ike now “needing to die” is pretty compelling. We don’t really know what David’s deal is, or if David is actually Abraham’s son (hence the quotation marks around two sons).

Oof. That’s a lot to digest over just a few lines of dialogue.

With all of this in mind, lets look back at the Ceremony.

The Ceremony, Part 2: Hello, David!

As the Ceremony takes place and Akiko and Fortunato hold hands, a challenger approaches: David, the friendly ghost. Or, well, whatever he is. Four-dimensional spectre, perhaps. What’s surprising is that he ignores their presence and marches right on past everyone to Junisao’s twin brother, who is in the middle of pledging a sacrifice to some unknown deity, perhaps even Enki. Here’s one possibility of what all this means: The Real Jun sacrifices himself in order to bring the Academy and the students back to the present day, because such a great action would require a great sacrifice and that is God’s will — or A god’s will, anyway. That could be what this is.

But, I don’t think that’s what happened at all.

As we noted, Irina mentions when Junisao leaves that he’s too late, that the plan is already in action — a plan they started by going back in time to Babel and dealing with the Sumerian priest. Because of this and what we see in this issue, it seems highly likely that rather than my obscure “bullet through time” idea, the Truants traveled through time and used Hunter’s weird binary possession to arrange for David to take Junisao’s brother as a sacrifice, as is demanded. This is why all the theatrics with time displacement in the first place; they needed to create a scenario which would ensure Junisao’s brother could be separated from the staff and would be in the middle of his Ceremony, so they could disrupt it accordingly for their own means by having their own Ceremony — and Fortunato’s prayer, potentially given extra power by his connection with Akiko, calls to David like a beacon. It seems to follow the principals of Newton’s third law of motion, but with a more deliberate and specific use: for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction at the same time (as opposed to their simply being an equal and opposite reaction in concurrence); because they need X to happen, they need to arrange for Y to happen, with David being the final catalyst. This is also further supported by none of the other members of the ceremony being OK with David’s arrival.

The sad aspect about this scene is that the death of his brother potentially seems to hurt Junisao in real time on two levels. This could be me reading into things once again, but the juxtaposition of Junisao running alongside the sequence of his brother’s death coupled with the hurt faces Joe gives Junisao seems to imply that he can partially feel it. After all, there is a rather popular urban legend that twins can feel the pain of one another, and that would appear to be the case here. On top of that, given all that Junisao has done to save his brother, you can’t help but feel bad when you look at the larger scope; one twin sacrifices his life as a young boy so that his brother isn’t stolen away to an evil academy, and later that same twin is murdered as a pawn in a greater scheme for being at the wrong place in the wrong time. It’s a bit tragic. I do suppose with one brother dead, we can start referring to the one who survived as just Hisao now, however.

The only problem with the sacrifice, though, is it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work for potentially three reasons. One, it’s the wrong brother. Wouldn’t be the first time the wrong brother was taken by the Academy, right? Two, he’s fodder. Remember all that jazz about Irina saying they needed to kill the Son of Abraham?  It could be unrelated, but it seems like Irina set him up to die just as a distraction for a bigger plan, one that she hasn’t revealed to the other members of her troupe. Three, and this is the one I like based on what happens next, he’s not one of the Truants.

(Or: four, something I have not mentioned because I could just be wrong about everything.)

What Happens Next

Earlier in the issue, Irina mentions that the reason Hisao’s brother had to die was that he wasn’t one of them. Looking beyond all the potential angles for Irina lying to everyone, lets take that thought into consideration. The Real Jun had to die because he was not a Truant, but when he did die nothing special happened; his body slumped to the floor while blood seeps out from fresh holes in his face. But Akiko’s “sacrifice”? Well, that’s apparently just right.

Keep in mind that this is kinda sorta the second time David has gone after someone that we’ve identified as a Truant, with the first being Brendan in issue #1. No, Brendan wasn’t a Truant in the sense that we know the characters now, and sure, he was definitely an add-on to the group as we’ve seen from #21, but its noteworthy that David killed him and that it did nothing. I mention this only to show that historically killing non-Truants is pointless, and I’d wager Irina knows that. That’s why her hair is the way it is – it’s full of secrets.

(Not my best reference, I know.)

So Akiko sacrifices herself, and things get crazy. How crazy? Giant flashes of light, earth-shattering crazy! But why?

Let’s subscribe to the idea that not all of the kids are special. Yes, they all share the same birthday, but clearly there are some kids who are worth more than others, and both Daramont and Gribbs have said as much (think back to issue #5 where Gribbs strangled a kid he likes just because). To that extent, Abraham having certain kids as investments seems to indicate that those children — the Glories and the Truants — are special, and Akiko’s sacrifice in this instance adds to that idea. Key things to note about with this is that not only does Akiko seem to know what David is (implying special knowledge), she also knows his name, which is something that seemed odd back when Zoe somehow knew it. Not only that – and this is the big point here – but when he touches her, his hand doesn’t go through her. That’s a first: both iterations of David’s existence touch Akiko on the forehead, and it doesn’t appear to kill her.

That’s HUGE, and it changes everything we thought we knew about David. We assumed he was a ghost, floating through the halls and murdering kids. Maybe he was some kind of security system. Now, however, he appears to be an entity that can be summoned and potentially used as a weapon, but he doesn’t have to be a weapon. David was assumedly somebody real at some point, and it’s now clear that he can connect with people in the real world as more than just a killing machine — to the extent that apparently something absolutely magical happens.

What that magic is, we’ll probably see more of next issue. Or maybe never, because Nick and Joe are cruel. (But maybe not that cruel.)

As a random aside, I’d like to mention that Joe absolutely kills it with the visuals here. I love it when David appears just because it’s always insanely creative how he’s used with the dueling existences, and this issue is no exception. Very great stuff.

This Bright Flash

You know. Like that song.

It’s hard to divine what has happened here beyond what I’ve said so far, really. Akiko doesn’t appear to be dead, although she refers to herself as a sacrifice (her being alive seemingly tenuous given the ground she’s standing on, although the lack of blood is noteworthy) and a wild flash of light shoots out of the school with an unknown purpose. Is it a rip in time and space? Does this mean that Akiko fulfilled the first Ceremony’s purpose? Or did Irina and the Truants mess it all up with their own Ceremony and the trip to Babel? Whose side is Irina on, and why does Ike need to die? And whose side is Abraham on? Or the Headmaster? Or even Miss Hodge, who potentially supplied Fortunato with the flare at the beginning of the issue (assuming he didn’t just steal it)?

With most issues, Crit and I are able to do a pretty good job of coming up with a lot of theories built in a solid foundation, yet not so much with this issue — if only because the cliffhanger is so chaotic. That page featuring Fortunato and Akiko’s reactions to the burst of light alongside Jun viewing it honestly leaves many more questions than answers, greater than the cliffhanger, and it’s a situation where any theory we present here could theoretically be killed in the next panel to contain a follow-up to this scene.

With that in mind, I’d expect something rather huge in #24 if I were you. Maybe not season finale huge since that seems reserved for issue #25, but something along those lines. Think of the first arc — five issues following a single plot, with the sixth issue offering a game-changing twist. Given this issue, which feels like a penultimate piece, I’d imagine that the next issue could close this story out and reveal something twisted about Abraham, while the twenty-fifth issue could be akin to the sixth issue and show us who or what the Headmaster is. Possibly. Maybe. It’d be a shorter arc than normal, but PE did run a bit long. This could balance things out a bit.

We’ll see.

If you made it this far and your head doesn’t hurt just a little bit, congratulations. The rest of you, sound off in the comments and get the discussion going.

If you’d like to contact contact Crit or I directly with thoughts or comments, shoot us an e-mail at mgastudyhall@multiversitycomics.com.

Previous Issues: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19,#20, #21, #22

Previous audio podcasts: second arc interviews, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, second arc wrap-up, NSRFQR, third arc interviews, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, third arc wrap-up