Blood in the Water
| Blood in the Water | |
|---|---|
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| Comic Strip Info | |
| Released: | October 2, 2014 |
| Number of pages: | 113 |
| Artist: | makani Maren Marmulla (cover) |
| Writer: | Jay Pinkerton & Erik Wolpaw |
| Colorist: | Maren Marmulla |
| “ | You better start talking, because in five seconds I'm going to put my foot up your ass! Then we'll both have to go to a special hospital! Feet up the ass are like arrows, son. You can't just pull 'em out! They'll have to push my whole body out through your mouth!
— Saxton Hale
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” |
Blood in the Water (also known as Team Fortress Comics #4) is a comic released on October 2, 2014. It is the fourth part of a six-part comic series, picking up where A Cold Day in Hell left off.
Synopsis
The comic starts with Miss Pauling, Soldier, Demoman and Pyro just before the events of A Cold Day in Hell. Miss Pauling has located a piece of paper instructing her to be at "alley, middle of seventh and main" at noon. She rushes there to find the Administrator, heavily disguised, hiding in the alley. The Administrator explains that she has painstakingly accumulated almost all of the world's australium over the six months prior, but that there is still one last cache in existence. She hands Miss Pauling another slip of paper with the coordinates at which to meet her when she and the mercs gather this last cache.
Cut to the present day in Australia, where Scout is driving a motorcycle through the outback, Heavy riding in back. They are traveling to this final cache, but Heavy believes that there really is no Australium, and is very suspicious of what methods the Administrator used in order to gather all the other caches, whereas Scout could care less. Scout brings up the fact that Heavy's father is dead, and Heavy cracks a joke about Scout's father "disappearing often." Scout calls him out on this, and says that his dad has passed as well.
Meanwhile, Demoman and Miss Pauling have arrived at Sniper's parents' house. They are surprised to find the house messy and boarded up as if it had been abandoned long ago. When they go in to investigate, Sniper slinks out of the hallway and stabs Demoman in the neck with a syringe.
Outside an Australian naval base, Soldier and Zhanna are drawing an attack plan in the dirt. Soldier, believing they will almost certainly die against the Australians, gives Zhanna a necklace with a pair of human ears, at which point she begins making out with him. Spy arrives, claiming that he has been scouting ahead and is ready to go. Shoving aside their "plan" and calling them morons, Soldier instructs Zhanna to "be racist" at Spy. After a series of blocked-out obscenities, Spy leads the pair into the base. Not seeing any opposition inside, Soldier accuses Spy of stealing all the kills and taking the keys before he and Zhanna ever got a chance. Spy clarifies that the naval men, who are standing in a crowd at the end of the corridor, gave him the key with no fighting whatsoever. Screaming that they have fallen into a trap, Zhanna and Soldier snap the first naval neck they can get their hands on, together. Spy shoves them aside, and asks one of the men to give up their submarine. He gladly complies, and Soldier laments over the fact that he snapped a neck unjustly. Zhanna, mad about the lack of excitement, orders a man to fight her and he pathetically fails, doing no damage at all. Spy notes that the base's australium supply ran dry long ago, and the men are therefore powerless. The snapped-neck naval man confirms this, and Soldier unsnaps his neck, much as it defies everything he believes.
Heavy and Scout have since arrived at their destination - Ayer's Rock, deep in the outback. Heavy informs Scout that, despite outward appearances, the rock is truly made of australium. Scout, thinking Heavy an idiot, punches the rock, and it slides immediately without protest. Scout jumps back and announces that he has suddenly become superhumanly strong, but Heavy crushes his fantasy by opening the hidden entrance and revealing that it's made of balsa wood and styrofoam. Inside is a giant abandoned australium mine, and the pair notice footsteps leading down the scaffolding. As Scout leans over the railing, a rope swings up and grabs him by the neck, pulling him downwards. Heavy struggles to pull him back up, and they go over the edge into a slightly deeper section of the shaft. There, Saxton Hale and Mags reveal themselves. Mags instantly cries out to free Scout, referring to him as a "little boy." Scout corrects her upon being released, but the duo seem to ignore him. Saxton plans to fight the two, but they reveal that they are the mercenaries who have worked under his company before. Saxton asks if the Administrator had sent them, and Heavy lies and confirms Saxton's suspicion. He reveals that the mine has been stripped dry, and announces that he will team up with Scout and Heavy to find the thief.
Back at Sniper's parents' house, Demoman and Miss Pauling are tied to dining-room chairs, just having woken up from the injection they had received earlier. Sniper jumps from the shadows, sticks Demo again, and begins to vent to Miss Pauling. He revealed that his parents had passed away shortly after Mann Co. was taken over, and had learned soon afterward that they were not actually his real parents. He has no idea who his true parents are, but believes Miss Pauling, with her extensive personal files on the team, must know. He plans to interrogate her, but Miss Pauling explains that they came specifically to get him to come along to visit his real parents. While leaving the house, Pauling notes the graves in which Sniper had planned to bury them, and the pair discuss body disposal methods on the way out.
Meanwhile, Engineer is performing a medical procedure on the Administrator. He removes the previous australium life-extender that was imbedded in the Adminstrator's wrists, and replaces it with what he calls the "mark five." This new device supposedly uses far less power, far extending the usefulness of a full tank of australium. He somberly reveals that, since the australium supply has gone belly-up, the Adminstrator will invariably die when this life-extender dries out. The Adminstrator explains that she only needs a little while longer, to "settle an old debt."
Cut to Miss Pauling and the rest of the team, traveling through the deep in the submarine that Spy had taken earlier. Pauling explains to Soldier that Zhanna simply isn't trustworthy, citing the ear necklace that Soldier had given her earlier. To the team, she explains that New Zealand, similarly to Atlantis, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, but for the sake of isolation rather than by coincidence. She goes on to confirm that this is the dwelling of Sniper's parents, and the sub travels through a port and into the lost nation. As soon as the team empties out of the port, Sniper in the front, Sniper's dad makes his appearance.
Flash back to many years ago, where Sniper's dad, far younger, talks to a council of New Zealand leaders. He says that he urged them to listen to him and move the country underseas, but that they ignored him. The council corrects saying that they did listen and are underwater right now. They explained that nothing was changed in the slightest, and Sniper's father says that this was the point, and that he is as right now as he was then. His new plan is to send the country into space. The council, referring to him as "Bill-Bel," reject his plan and empty him from the council room. Bill-Bel flees back to his home and explains to his wife, holding an infant Sniper, that the council rejected him, and reveals a one-seat rocket with which to travel to space. He announces to his family that he will leave them behind and live amongst the stars, and Bill-Bell and his wife begin fighting over the rocket. While they are distracted, Sniper crawls into the shuttle and launches it, breaking a hole in the dome of the city and crash-landing in Australia, where his new parents discovered him. Meanwhile, the nation of New Zealand drowns thanks to the break in the waterproof dome.
Back in the present, Sniper's mother goes on about Bill-Bel's responsibility for everyone else in the country dying a horrible death, and Bill-Bel, referring to her as "Lar-Nah," complains about the nature of their relationship. Miss Pauling interrupts the reunion to ask about the australium, and Bill-Bel reveals that he used it to paint his new rocket, and all the rest to paint the since-destroyed prototypes. Sniper explains to his father that he never made it to space and instead crash-landed on Earth, explaining that the earth has not, as Bill-Bel believed, flooded in lava. Sniper's mother has meanwhile climbed into the only working rocket and flown to space, rendering the last australium on earth impossible to be recovered. This breaks a hole in the dome once again, and the team rushes to the submarine; However, Bill-Bel has taken the submarine and fled the country, leaving everyone within to die. Just as it seems like things can't get any worse, Medic and the Team Fortress Classic team fly in, and the TFC Sniper shoots Sniper several times in the chest. Thinking that he has killed Sniper, the TFC Heavy demands answers from a planned interrogation. The comic, as per tradition, ends on a "To Be Continued" cliffhanger instantly.
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Trivia
- On page 73 the Demoman is shown with his eyepatch on the right eye instead of the left, and on page 97 the Demoman is shown with two eyes.
- Sniper's original mother calls Sniper "Mun-dee". This is a reference to how the Sniper is called "Mr. Mundy" throughout the storyline.
- On page 41, Scout says "Ayer's Rock", but the correct spelling of the name is Ayers Rock.
- On page 22, Demoman holds up a photo of the Sniper's house, and it has two windows on the side. However, in Meet the Director, there were no windows on the side of the house.
- Sniper's origin is a reference to the "Superman" franchise.
- New Zealand being underwater may be a reference to the city of Rapture from the Bioshock video game series. This is because, in both series, a city was built underwater to escape from the rest of the world and their laws, instead aiming for their own paradise. However, both fell in a rapid turn of events.
- Heavy's line on page 17 ("Yes, your father disappears often") may be a reference to Spy, which in turn is a reference to the popular fan theory that Spy is Scout's father.
- On page 87, Sniper's father is seen sporting a thick moustache. However, in Meet the Director, he didn't have one.
External links
See also
