By authorial intent? Probably not, no. But we’ve had two stories running now (with a tiny interlude) where, in the first case, all the meaty action was apparently a drug-induced hallucination. In the second case, there’s a lot of retcon-inducing time shenanigans going on. So in principle it’s been a long time since we could trust that what’s happening in Jonathan Lemon and Joey Alison Sayers’s Alley Oop is the for-real actual events of things happening to the Alley Oop of Universe 2. (The classic, pre-Lemon/Sayers character, is Universe 1.)
So this should catch you up to whatever things can be said to happen in Alley Oop as of mid-December 2023. I should have another essay up by about March 2024, if you’re reading after then and want a more current plot update. Or if you’re looking for news about the strip, in case there is any.
Alley Oop.
17 September – 9 December 2023.
Last time you’ll recall, Alley Oop, Ooola, and Doc Wonmug were stranded on a remote island that might hold on it the moss that grants immortality. After Doc Wonmug’s experience — making him live five years in an hour — Ooola spent an hour on some strange space filled with Platonic solids and boredom. Now it’s Alley Oop’s turn.
His experience is very different. He wakes to find he’s late for work. Also married. And apparently named “Allward”. He drives aimlessly through empty streets to find what the heck he does. He casually wishes he worked at that hot dog stand and the stand owner hollers over that he’s late for work. Alley Oop then says how it would be more interesting being a rich person working in that building, and the hot dog guy says to get out of here and go to his fancy-pants office job.
You see how this is going. Everything Alley Oop expresses a desire for comes true, however ludicrous, down to being boss, making his assistant a kid, making his wife a dinosaur (briefly), and then, what the heck, being immortal. He pretty soon outlasts centuries, then humanity, then the Earth, and floats in space forever, at least until a mysterious void slurps him up and spits him out … seconds later, stuck back on the island. Doc Wonmug speculates the mushroom Alley Oop ate gave him a very vivid hallucination and tries it himself … and, yeah, has Alley Oop’s hallucination for himself.
Well, they’ve had enough of this, so use the helicopter Doc Wonmug built out of coconuts and all to leave. They ignore once again the walking pig who knows where the everlasting moss is, which, that’ll happen.
From the 30th of October started a weeklong interlude. Doc Wonmug takes the three of them to Frank’s Spa, on discount. It’s a very disappointing experience.
And then the 6th of November started the current story. It starts with camping, but Doc Wonmug has a bigger idea in mind. All know, of course, of the butterfly effect, the notion that there can be effects too tiny to be detected but which make radical changes in the future of a system. Doc Wonmug has determined that it can’t be butterflies causing these great changes. It’s dragonflies.
Worse, it’s not just that dragonflies are changing the future. He believes one has evolved that’s changing the past. It’s even hitting Our Heroes, changing their outfits and Doc Wonmug’s hair color. Turns out it’s a giant dragonfly, one capable of capturing Doc Wonmug in its grasp. And trapping Ooola and Alley Oop in its lair. And calling itself Lord Odon.
Lord Odon has big plans, jailing Doc Wonmug and Ooola and turning Alley Oop inside a ball. Yes, just like in that one Underdog adventure with the aliens who are magic flying-saucers who want cake. This can’t stop Our Heroes, though. And Doc Wonmug determines by … eh, you know, reasons … that this can’t be just the dragonfly’s powers. There has to be something more. It’s this little control gadget that sure looks like it. Doc Wonmug mashes the buttons and gets things back to normal for them. He’s about to destroy the timeline shifter when Lord Odon flies in, whacks everything, and next thing you know Doc Wonmug, Alley Oop, and Ooola are trees.
And that’s my cliffhanger for this one! How will they get back to being animate? And how long will that take? … Probably something ridiculous and not too long now. I would also not be surprised if Allen Cooper, the analogue of Alley Oop from the all-villain Universe 4 has something to do with all this. That’s if the timeline-changing machine gets an explanation; it might just come and go as these things will. You know how it is.
Next Week!
The Phantom has escaped Gravelines Prison with Savarna, and hasn’t been near-mortally wounded! That whole Wrack and Ruin thing has come to nothing, right? Right? … So what could I have to say about Tony DePaul and Mike Manley’s The Phantom (Weekday continuity) next week? We’ll see!
Another Blog, Meanwhile 