If we’re not yet seeing him—well, Mr. Green of Anasigma fame comes to mind, though we did see him fairly thoroughly back in Sweetheart’s drone-and-VR adventure…
Then again, “this is our man” is a common phrase used when you ID your target — male or female. So Mell isn’t totally out of the question. She may not have become POTUS (yet), but President of the Shadow Government is more her style… President in secret, and violent assassin in public.
This reminds me of the justice league episode where the flash and lex Luther switch bodies and lex is all “at least I can finally find out the flash’s secret identity” and then he takes off the mask and looks in the mirror “I have no idea who this is”
“I’m just relieved it’s not my mom” – wasn’t there fan speculation at one point that Nera’s mom is Mel? In which case, yeah. Or was that disproven later?
I don’t think it was ever disproven, and in at least one alternate timeline Mel is the President. Thus being one of the few alternatives that could maybe be worse than the current situation.
So yeah, until otherwise proven? Her mom is Mel. I wonder who the dad was.
Note ‘was’. I assume Mel has much in common with a preying mantis.
Very technically. In the sense that only U.N.I.T.Y. might take it seriously, and start hitting up Nera for cash and spare parts. (And ignoring that her “sister” can’t afford to lose any of her factory originals like she can.)
It was never disproved, as such, but the chronology doesn’t add up. Mel was in college circa 2000, and Nera is 16 in “Choose,” which presumably takes place around 2012. Barring some temporal jiggery-pokery, which is well within the Narboniverse’s realm of possibility, she can’t be Mel’s child. But just about everything else points to that, so who knows?
Mel getting Helen to use cloning to skip over the first four years (what I’ve heard referred to as the larval stage) is definitely something I can see her doing.
Out of curiosity, how do we know Choose happens in 2012?
We don’t, hence “around.” But I haven’t seen anything that suggests otherwise, and Skin Horse seems to try to stay relatively contemporaneous. There is definitely some chronological ambiguity though, as I mentioned in my comment on Monday’s strip.
I think the first time we got a glimpse of the timeline was in Mixed-Up Files, where Imogene confirmed that the difference was in real time when she said she was 25. There have been other hints after that, but it’s usually a safe bet to assume that every chapter starts around the date when the first strip appeared.
I still feel like the comic wouldn’t have conspicuously avoided showing us Nera’s mom unless there was a decent chance some of us would recognize her.
On the other hand, they did do the same thing for Mr. Green for a long time too and none of us would have recognized him, so I suppose it could just be par for the course.
Seriously, what in the world are you even talking about?
Is this that bizarre and inexplicable alt-right notion that Clinton would have lead us to war for some unexplained imaginary reasons? Because maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but Trump has been repeatedly antagonizing the North Koreans as if daring them to start a nuclear war…
There’s always the possibility that she’s Mel’s sister. Or niece. My guess would be the former.
The other thought would be that Nera is chronologically younger than she thinks she is. The Dave clone was freshly decanted but thought he was decades old.
Doesn’t have to be a dad with Helen on the job, though I’d tend to think Caliban if she is Mel’s spawn. Nera doesn’t particularly look like Mel, so I don’t think she’d be a clone.
Just finished Narbonic few days ago.
Damn, how i miss many reference when i first reading Skin Horse (yeah, i read Skin Horse first and only started binge-reading Narbonic after catching up).
Before that i must tip my hat to Shaenon for making a sequel who managed to be mostly self-contained but still retain links to previous title.
…its been awhile but is the problem with robot strikes in earlier strips can be blamed to Artie?
I believe the hamsters just got the robots that Dave, Zeta, and Artie took to Canada. There were 15,000 originally, and only around 24 made the trip north; Artie observes at one point that a U-Haul would have been big enough to carry them.
It’s ominous that there’s something Jonah doesn’t know. Or is he lying to Nera? Or the information is not important, and he last heard about it a lifetime ago.
Well, we may not be able to see who’s in the picture, but at least we can rule out Bjork and all muppets, so that narrows it down quite a bit. (Unless our intrepid investigators have been deceived by Bjork in glasses ala Clark Kent.)
(TUNE: Theme to “The Muppet Show”, Jim Henson & Sam Pottle)
It’s time to dig up secrets!
We’ll dig and not relent!
We’ll probe the darkest reaches
Of the shadow government!
Those politicians, lying,
Won’t tell us what they meant!
We’ll be identifying
Who’s the Shadow President!
These two you cannot fool, no!
The truth they will uncork!
(It would be kinda cool, though,
If it was really Björk.)
Soon secrets we’ll be stealing!
Our task they can’t prevent!
The truth we’ll be revealing
Of conspiratorial, dictatorial,
Territorial, immemorial,
Su-per se-cret sha-dow gov-ern-ment!
If we’re not yet seeing him—well, Mr. Green of Anasigma fame comes to mind, though we did see him fairly thoroughly back in Sweetheart’s drone-and-VR adventure…
He’s *too* obvious, IMO. It’ll probably wind up being Ira, Shelby, Artie, or someone else along those lines…
Tip?
That’s my bet.
It would have to be somebody Jonah Yu doesn’t know. I suppose that lets out Echo Bravo.
I’m thinking Tremontino. His shop was creepy, plus, he uses a cigarette holder. That’s a dead give-away.
That’s another connection with the Roosevelts. And Poughkeepsie (on the board, remember?) is right next door to where they’re from.
Shovelhead
We didn’t, actually. We saw the VR form he showed Sweetheart, which is not necessarily his real form. Remember when Dr. Lee was a fat old guy?
We also saw him in disguise, talking to Nick’s superhero boss, and he was pretty clearly Dr. Ao in a green mask and jumpsuit.
We saw him at the end of it, after Sweetheart jumped into the volcano and ended it—he looked the same. Unless everybody is still in a VR world.
Dave? One of the Daves? Since Nera says he’s a man, that eliminates my first guess of Mell.
Then again, “this is our man” is a common phrase used when you ID your target — male or female. So Mell isn’t totally out of the question. She may not have become POTUS (yet), but President of the Shadow Government is more her style… President in secret, and violent assassin in public.
Of course, Dave is also a good candidate.
On the other hand, we haven’t accounted for all the Madblood robots.
This reminds me of the justice league episode where the flash and lex Luther switch bodies and lex is all “at least I can finally find out the flash’s secret identity” and then he takes off the mask and looks in the mirror “I have no idea who this is”
“I’m just relieved it’s not my mom” – wasn’t there fan speculation at one point that Nera’s mom is Mel? In which case, yeah. Or was that disproven later?
I don’t think it was ever disproven, and in at least one alternate timeline Mel is the President. Thus being one of the few alternatives that could maybe be worse than the current situation.
So yeah, until otherwise proven? Her mom is Mel. I wonder who the dad was.
Note ‘was’. I assume Mel has much in common with a preying mantis.
Probably Caliban unless I’m forgetting something?
Wait, would that make Nera and Unity technically half-sisters?
Very technically. In the sense that only U.N.I.T.Y. might take it seriously, and start hitting up Nera for cash and spare parts. (And ignoring that her “sister” can’t afford to lose any of her factory originals like she can.)
It was never disproved, as such, but the chronology doesn’t add up. Mel was in college circa 2000, and Nera is 16 in “Choose,” which presumably takes place around 2012. Barring some temporal jiggery-pokery, which is well within the Narboniverse’s realm of possibility, she can’t be Mel’s child. But just about everything else points to that, so who knows?
Mel getting Helen to use cloning to skip over the first four years (what I’ve heard referred to as the larval stage) is definitely something I can see her doing.
Out of curiosity, how do we know Choose happens in 2012?
We don’t, hence “around.” But I haven’t seen anything that suggests otherwise, and Skin Horse seems to try to stay relatively contemporaneous. There is definitely some chronological ambiguity though, as I mentioned in my comment on Monday’s strip.
I think the first time we got a glimpse of the timeline was in Mixed-Up Files, where Imogene confirmed that the difference was in real time when she said she was 25. There have been other hints after that, but it’s usually a safe bet to assume that every chapter starts around the date when the first strip appeared.
I still feel like the comic wouldn’t have conspicuously avoided showing us Nera’s mom unless there was a decent chance some of us would recognize her.
On the other hand, they did do the same thing for Mr. Green for a long time too and none of us would have recognized him, so I suppose it could just be par for the course.
So this is the episode where Ivan the Security guard’s cover gets blown! >_>
He’s not wrong, though. Björk WOULD be pretty cool
Bjork’s not a Muppet? That’s news to me.
If David Bowie can lead the Guild of Calamitous Intent, why not Bjork? You never know what those experimental-rock types will get up to.
David Bowie also ruled a group of villainous Muppets! It all adds up!
(The Muppet geek in me wishes to self-pedant and point out the goblins were technically Creatures, not Muppets.)
He IS wrong. Our current president is a Muppet, and it’s horrible.
When given the choice between horrible and Apocalyptic, we went for Door #1.
…what?
Seriously, what in the world are you even talking about?
Is this that bizarre and inexplicable alt-right notion that Clinton would have lead us to war for some unexplained imaginary reasons? Because maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but Trump has been repeatedly antagonizing the North Koreans as if daring them to start a nuclear war…
There’s always the possibility that she’s Mel’s sister. Or niece. My guess would be the former.
The other thought would be that Nera is chronologically younger than she thinks she is. The Dave clone was freshly decanted but thought he was decades old.
Doesn’t have to be a dad with Helen on the job, though I’d tend to think Caliban if she is Mel’s spawn. Nera doesn’t particularly look like Mel, so I don’t think she’d be a clone.
Doesn’t “This is our man!” eliminate Mel or Mel’s sister?
I think mrinku was speculating about the identity of Nera’s mom, not ShadPres.
Just finished Narbonic few days ago.
Damn, how i miss many reference when i first reading Skin Horse (yeah, i read Skin Horse first and only started binge-reading Narbonic after catching up).
Before that i must tip my hat to Shaenon for making a sequel who managed to be mostly self-contained but still retain links to previous title.
…its been awhile but is the problem with robot strikes in earlier strips can be blamed to Artie?
Yeah, it’s the same Machine Union Artie started, and it’s still largely run by Madblood robots.
Thank god, all this time I thought that the hamsters had taken apart ALL of the Madblood robots. A few escaped the cull!
I believe the hamsters just got the robots that Dave, Zeta, and Artie took to Canada. There were 15,000 originally, and only around 24 made the trip north; Artie observes at one point that a U-Haul would have been big enough to carry them.
It’s ominous that there’s something Jonah doesn’t know. Or is he lying to Nera? Or the information is not important, and he last heard about it a lifetime ago.
My bet’s on Dave. Not necessarily Helen’s Dave, but *a* Dave.
The Dave Conspiracy was conspicuously absent from the org chart.
They’re just that secret.
Well, we may not be able to see who’s in the picture, but at least we can rule out Bjork and all muppets, so that narrows it down quite a bit. (Unless our intrepid investigators have been deceived by Bjork in glasses ala Clark Kent.)
(TUNE: Theme to “The Muppet Show”, Jim Henson & Sam Pottle)
It’s time to dig up secrets!
We’ll dig and not relent!
We’ll probe the darkest reaches
Of the shadow government!
Those politicians, lying,
Won’t tell us what they meant!
We’ll be identifying
Who’s the Shadow President!
These two you cannot fool, no!
The truth they will uncork!
(It would be kinda cool, though,
If it was really Björk.)
Soon secrets we’ll be stealing!
Our task they can’t prevent!
The truth we’ll be revealing
Of conspiratorial, dictatorial,
Territorial, immemorial,
Su-per se-cret sha-dow gov-ern-ment!
Excellent!
applause!
Nice to see you back in fine musical fettle!
This is one of your better ones, Eddurd–which is saying something pretty impressive.
No he’s done it. Tip will appear with his puppets in hand.
The president of the Shadow Government is actually Gerald Fnord.