Allow me to demonstrate – Chap. 4, Act 3, Strip 18

A dog lightyear is equivalent to about 7 human lightyears. That is because dogs run a lot faster than humans. ._.

Comrade Uranin has his priorities straight – not willing to run the risk of time wasted by inappropriate amounts of gloating, he unleashes the fury of his ultimate weapon, the super laser, capable of destroying an entire planet with a single shot. I assume that that’s on the “high” power setting. ._.

And he picks the closest possible target for it: Aldebaran. He couldn’t have aimed for anything closer, of course. He isn’t stupid, he knows that aiming for the Repell Alliance base, as obvious a target it might appear to the uninitiated, would have amounted to suicide. Superweapons, when they are in the hand of villains, never work when they’re aimed at something that would cause the villain to win when hit – obviously. If he had aimed for the base, his flagship would have blown up fractions of a second before firing, either due to hubris/equipment malfunction, a one-in-a-million lucky shot by a tiny enemy fighter, or explosives planted by Anthony Quinn. Uranin can’t allow this to happen, at least not until he’s got his big scene.

More on Monday.