Guilded Age

So with this, we conclude the real point of this chapter’s B’ial Vezk scenes: laying out why some people are going on this mission and why some are staying behind. See, it’s not just because we’re maneuvering to get the team back down to the original Five again. It’s not, shut up!

Kidding aside, I think we explain the presences and absences fairly well…except maybe Sundar’s. I think the text implies that he knows E-Merl needs someone to stand with him as he wrestles with his pain, and Sundar can fill that need a lot better than he can help with the winter elves. Big questions about the nature of the universe? That’s more Rendar’s department than his. But we could’ve made all that more explicit than we did.

A team of three members feels like it’s just barely a team, but it is nice to be able to show all the party members having separate interactions in a single panel like this.

Hollister’s closing line is probably the high-water mark for his character, overall. It explains a lot about his and Clair’s role in the story, including their stubborn persistence (they will disobey Syr’Nj’s order here). As we saw in their intro scene, they’re not just rebels without a cause. They are activists who believe their generation stands for something, and the olds will never get that.

FB: “Wait a second, now Jughead is the guitarist and he’s best buds with Big Moose? GUILDED AGE can’t keep up with all these Archie reboots.”