Run, Snuka, Run! – Chapter 9, Act 1, Strip 49

The idea of having robot vampire dinosaurs from the future in this chapter wasn’t mine, but I liked it so much that I was determined to make it happen in some form. Even if just as a mascot. =P

And right from the start, the Professor knows exactly what it is. Admittedly, any kid the age he appears to be would have been able to correctly assess the ‘dinosaur’ bit, but ‘robot’, ‘vampire’ and ‘from the future’ aren’t really in ready evidence…but the Professor is, at heart, a B-movie scientist – and that means he has an unlimited font of scientific knowledge and expertise at his disposal when necessary to provide the largest amount of exposition in the shortest time. The various examinations and tests that would normally have been necessary to determine those hidden traits would have been pretty boring to show, so the Professor simply takes it all in at a glance, with his academic title providing cover. Of course, that magic font of knowledge of expertise has a bad habit of running dry spontaneously whenever the plot requires a B-movie scientist not to be able to identify everything at a glance. Them’s the breaks.

Naturally, nobody shows the appropriate level of concern at those various features (especially the ‘vampire’ part should have given them pause) and instead concentrates on the newest team member’s suitability for the mascot role. Shortcomings are noticed, and outside help is brought in form of another cameo to address them.

I pared down Hiruma Youichi’s cameo appearance to the bare minimum – he is, after all, the sort of character you can identify by his beautiful smile alone. Plus a catchphrase or two. Hiruma’s involvement causes Sena to make an appearance, as well…he cares for others, so he would feel compelled to offer up some warnings or other sage advice to anybody who gets into contact with Hiruma. Arriving on the scene, he is immediately able to identify the buttmonkey…despite the fact that our team’s buttmonkey doesn’t even look like a monkey at all, unlike his own team’s buttmonkey. I would assume that Snuka was standing off to one side, pale and shaken from his recent experiences, while everyone else was milling around the chibi-raptor enthusiastically, and that tipped Sena off regarding his status.

Sena’s advice was solid, of course. There was a lot of running. A lot of running.

More on Monday.