Annotated 48-19
We hadn’t intended to include this faction in the chapter until its final pages, but Flo saw an opportunity to link our two main plots and went with it.
In line with what I said earlier about HR The Inevitable Eyeball and his purplezerker ex-Cultists, you could read this sequence as the end of a nearly static period for them. Seems like maybe they’d just consumed everything sentient nearby and HR thought he was done, but then he saw the mushroom cloud and was like “Oh, right, there’s still sentience out there that isn’t me, can’t have that” and sicced his crew on it. But that doesn’t really line up with Ulak’s appearance later, so I think we have to treat HR’s last scene as a bit of a flash-forward.
FB: If you thought the Ultimate Engine was impressive tech hardware, you’ll be really excited about the debut of the new eyeDrones.
I like how on some of the Zerkercreatures you can tell what species they used to be – like the foremost one in the last panel was clearly a troll, the one just to the left of HR’s eye was a goblin, and the one two behind that one gives gnoll vibes.
EYE… NEED… EYE SCREAM
…FOR EYES CREAM!
Mine…? Mine, mine, mine, Mine, Mine, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE…!!!
So, I still wonder if canonically, HR is still following the plan he had when he entered Arkerra, or whether he has just become a lot more monster than he meant to and thus incapable of doing anything but consume until there’s nothing left to consume — I had assumed that his plan was to get rid of the five (since they might be the only people able to counter him), establish himself as a god, and then rule Arkerra (in whatever way … he would probably see himself as a very benevolent god-king, but everyone likely would decidedly not). But although what we see here might be the logical consequence of his plan, I’d be surprised if he meant to end up simply devouring everything (and then what?).
HR knew that he’d need to shed some aspects of who he was when he and Ulak were talking outside the portal to Cyberia. He didn’t know exactly what shape that would take, but he was willing to give up a lot of his personality for power. As we’ll see later, some part of him thinks that this is fine because his higher self is still inside him for when he really needs it. But the truth is that this primal hunger has always been at HR’s core. He wouldn’t be willing to become this if he weren’t, in some sense, already this.