Mobile Armor – Chapter 8, Act 2, Strip 129

With the climactic battle in the offing, a moment of foreboding was practically mandatory at this point. But I didn’t really see any good way to segue from a very romantic scene to one of foreboding.*

So the obvious solution was having the Professorian ride to the rescue again!

Well, wadddle to the rescue. >_> As you can see, he and K’ip are better and better equipped as their adventures go on, which is only normal for that kind of setting. And it’s only natural to trade up when you stumble across an item that offers much better stats, disregarding other considerations. But for someone with the Barbessor’s kind of stature, those trade-ups often come with trade-offs – for some reason or other, the makers of wargear seem to concentrate on producing stuff in adult sizes. For fantasy universes based on medieval Europe (which seems to be the majority), having laws against the employment of child soldiers would actually be quite a bit out-of-character…but I guess that’s one of the aspects of medieval warfare that’s just better kept off-screen.**

But while his new suit of armor might be able to block many a blow, it obviously doesn’t block the cross-dimensional camaraderie waves which keep the Professorian emotionally attuned to the well-being of his old friends. And thus he can plausibly deliver the key message: the big fight is about to happen, and it’s going to go poorly(?)

More on Monday.

* Or, well, I didn’t see any way to do this without making me look like an old and bitter man, at least.

** And, to be fair, it seems few of those medieval child soldiers benefited from properly sized equipment and armor. All of the sub-adult sized suits of armor in existence seem to have been made for princes and other boys of highest social status, and were clearly intended only for representation, rather than actual combat use.