Before my brain totally shuts down for the night. That Captain is propped up very strangely. I can’t tell if he’s facing frontwards and his arms are lashed to the machinery behind him. Arms being in a very awkward and uncomfortable angle Or if he’s facing backwards, arms lashed to the machinery, and his head positioned in a very awkward and unnatural angle.
he should be on the ground with the heavy tud of the final rest when stinky put them there. Well Most part of him at least xD but that would not be an similar impressiv picture
Le Sigh! He should be disolved by now but what kinda story would that tell. Hard enough to tell the tale of chaos in the cabin without psychic flashbacks or something let alone without skellies.
I don’t think that cross is of any important value. it looks like a valve attached to that large piece of machinery- oh hello there! i bet you’re feeling peck-ish, care for some BRRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINSSSSSSSS?
Operation Deadlight
Main article: Operation Deadlight
Operation Deadlight was the code name for the scuttling of U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of the war. Of the 154 U-boats surrendered, 121 were scuttled in deep water off Lisahally, Northern Ireland or Loch Ryan, Scotland in late 1945 and early 1946. Wikipedia
That last image reminds me strongly of a scene from Das Boot where the engine man, keeping things running as the sub is shaken by depth charges, looks like a dying man possessed… http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1315931136/tt0082096
My know-all-boyfriend is quite sure, that these are WWI-german-submariners-uniforms… And now he is brabbeling about the sailors hat looks like a WWI infantery hat.
For me, I don’t know the difference. It just kind of creeps me out, that Budd is alone in the abandoned submarine…
Major U-boat nerd and long-time Wapsi lurker here. The skeleton in the first group of bodies wears the standard enlisted dress cap minus the adler (eagle and swastika) and the title Kriegsmarine. The captain wears the officer’s white summer cap, which most U-boat commanders wore year-round. This is a dead giveaway that the boat is Nazi vintage, because WWI Kaiserliche Marine commanders wore a very different dark blue cap. I think what is throwing your boyfriend off is the omission of the adler on the caps. I won’t speculate why Paul omitted this detail, perhaps it will come out in the story. The boat is definitely a WWII Type VIIC. The only oddity that I’ll point out is that the stern damage is outside the pressure hull in an inaccessible watertight compartment. There is a massive structural member separating this compartment from the pressure hull (literally the backbone of the ship). But maybe that is part of the story, too.
If indeed what the Captain is entwined with is some awesomely dangerous artifact and not a stray piece of plumbing, it stands to reason that it somehow tried to escape from this aforementioned watertight compartment that is outside the pressure hull.
If Paul did not make a mistake, that rip in the outer hull was not made by any normal explosion because there would also be a whacking great bulge around the rip.
I can just imagine the crew watching the steel of the compartment they just sealed being slowly ripped apart.
Incidentally, none of the three are visibly wearing the U-296 insignia. That doesn’t really tell us anything, but given Pablo’s depth of research, it’s worth mentioning and I’ve been keeping an eye out for the design. It did exist as a pin, some of which survive.
Well if this ship is so well preserved i would guess brandi schould be able to find the log-books and messages still intact. I gladly help with the translation.
I wonder if that torpedos are still there and intact too. Could be pretty handy to have a small arsenal to plow shit up like say some neonazis or something.
The last week got me thinking thought. Could it be that our beloved artist draws ideas from comments to fill a plot-hole?
Yep. The Captain is/was standing turned facing away, his right arm hooked around the vertical pipe/stanchion (which is what’s holding him erect), his head turned to look back over his shoulder.
As to that thing in front of him – despite being highlighted by its lack of shading – is apparently part of the sub’s plumbing.
OTOH, it looks as if part of it has been ripped away…
That fancy doo-dad on the chain looks like it might plug into something. See the four prongs at the base?
And it looks to me like the captain has his chest to the pipes and has his arm wrapped aound them to support himself. Maybe something took over herr Kapitan? Or he was trying to keep that widget from something or the crew. OOoooohhh, I like this!!
Hmm.. It could be, indeed, some sub-part from a bigger artefact that got ripped in two by that which made the captain hold on to the piping, and produced that big hole in the fuselage.
Oh yeah, I agree – they’re on the road for Ireland!
If the lower portion weren’t so short, I’d say that thing looks like the hilt of a sword. And that, of course, would lead me to Excaliber. Now THAT would be interesting.
About the head position of the captain – maybe his neck had been broken? By twisting? Or it just slid into that position as his flesh decayed? Whatever the reason – I can’t wait to see what gonna happen!!!
(I wonder what the squidish is for “Rut ro!” a la Scooby-doo).
Oooo, that’s an interesting idea. The wrong person can’t extract the sword, but, with secret knowledge of just the correct way to grip the hilt, it comes apart. The hilt containing all the magic. From a technical POV, it makes sense, since the blade could break. Just plug in a new blade to the hilt.
Maybe it’s just me, but the captain appears to be shackled to the pipe.
Also, once the flesh and tendons decay off the body, the head would loll to the side in an awkward way as Bud sees (well, technically it would just fall off the spinal column, but still). That doesn’t detract from the eeriness of it looking at her, though.
Look at the angle of the captain’s pelvis, and the legs. The way I see it, he’s facing forward, having been chained to the pipe with his arms behind him. Humans aren’t owls, and can’t rotate their heads 180.
For what it’s worth, that cross-shaped piece of equipment, ripped from its moorings, reminds me very much of a submarine compass. Whatever the case, this is becoming most interesting.
I’m pretty sure everything that prevents humans from rotating their heads that far has rotted away by this point. His head wasn’t necessarily in that position when he died.
Oh, I HOPE Bud has sense enough not to touch the whatever-it-is, but instead to get out, go get help, and have safeguards and protections in place before trying to recover it. She hasn’t shown much sense so far, not doing any of that before entering the sub; but maybe she’ll get smarter before taking the next step…
She is incredibly observant to notice that there are more bullet holes coming from a specific direction in a wrecked submarine without any source of light except her own chimeric one. Submarines are visually complicated places! Also really impressive that the guns were able to pierce even the interior walls of a submarine, if there are holes in things other than corpses that she’s walking by. Or I suppose it could be just a lot of shots through glass, but then it would just have shattered and not left a ‘hole’.
The shootout is interesting. Under normal circumstances, the only small arm permitted inside the pressure hull was the commander’s pistol (for obvious reasons). This gun was itself usually kept under lock and key in the captan’s cabin. Other small arms were stored in watertight boxes in the conning tower and under the deck. It’s easy to viualize a scenaro where something scary went down inside the sub while it was surfaced and the crew were forced to carry guns inside to deal with the menace.
Good point! But that limits the total number of bullets fired. Herr Kaleu would have normally had access to 2 eight-round magazines and possibly a 17th round in the chamber (assuming in all cases that his pistol was a P08 or P38).
Fairportfan: That’s an interesting point about the snail drum magazine. I had forgotten about those. As for the P38, I’ve got one on my desk as I write this. It has an 8-round box magazine. I believe you are thinking of the P640(b), better known as the Browning Hi-Power. That pistol has a 13-round magazine. It was issued to a few elite Waffen-SS units. A naval officer might have acquired on through a private purchase.
For a sub to sink, they only need to fill the ballast tanks with sea water, to surface they blow it out with compressed air. It can sink and still have a dry interior. Of course the bottom has to be above the level the sub gets crushed at. Come to think of it, the sub could have been buoyant at some level in the water all these years.
I’m surprised this theory hasn’t come up yet.
I’m guessing Captain Skelly realized the problem with ANYONE having the relic. He probably chained himself to the controlls, taking the ship to the bottom of the ocean way off planned course. The crew seemed to have objected with bullets.
from what others have said, it could be the subs compass….but i like the idea of a sword hilt, and with a hilt that big, there is only one *human* that can wield the blade that would be attached…. *cough* Shelly *cough*
mmh, ‘scuse me.
…a possible (just barely) position for most people, and more than possible with … assistance.
(OTOH, Anthony Boucher could reach around behind him and touch his back directly between his shoulder blades; while the ability to do so is not common, it’s not uncommon. He used this as part of the solution in his mystery …)
Was the Captain trying to jettison the artifact? Perhaps it had an affeect on the crew around him (rather than driving him insane, and the bullet holes were the result of self-defense?
Lol…stray dog of the gods. In the Lovecraft universe, I guess he could be considered “foul offspring of the Other gods”. Those entities can be literally anything. Gotta love Lovecraft.
In panel 5, there appear to be bullet holes above the captain’s right eye (entrance wound?) and at his left temple (larger, maybe an exit wound). That would imply that either the captain wasn’t the shootist at all, or his arm was jarred as he was busy blowing his own brains out. We haven’t seen any guns aboard the sub yet.
“Willkommen to hell’s botique frauline. Ve only haf von item und it’s free. But know zis … vonce hung on your neck … YOU CAN NEFER TAKE IT OFF VHILE ALIVE!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! *clonk* Oh … vould you mind picking my jaw off der floor? Danke.”
I shall now explain the mysterious position of the captain.
After beginning his murderous rampage to secure the precious artifact, the crew chased him away from the hole that HE had made in the side of the sub. He ran with the artifact in his right hand. As he reached the dead-end, the last two remaining crewmen shot him. With his dying breath he looped his arm over that pipe, turned his head over his right shoulder, and shot across his body with his left hand under his right arm. He killed the two crewmen and then died there himself. His uniform’s sleeve caught on an exposed bolt and there he remains, held upright, to this very day.
*switches flashlight off face* Or something like that.
I with you, Uncle. I was worrying that we were going to have to stare at a menacing silhouette all weekend. Now I’m worried we’re going to have to worry about Bud touching the Lanthan Van De Graaff generator…
This reminds me of the Die RUckkkehr des Adlers storyline from the Black Lagoon manga. Nazis, U-Boats, and Hitler’s obsession with mystical artifacts just make good plot hooks.
What’s Bud so afraid of? I do Nazi anything wrong with this picture.
Maybe she doesn’t like that the captain’s clothes are so out of fascist now?
You were saving that one, weren’t you?
It was Reich there. Someone had to say it.
Wehrmacht book of Nazi jokes?
Hsss! Hsss! Booo!
(carefully taking notes for use later…)
SS no time for bad puns!
You kidding? SA GREAT time for bad puns!
Hello artifact!
Look out, Bud! It’s a MacGuffin!
“and the Captain…” is dead and standing next to pristine vaguely cross like object. Hrm,,, This is way too much to be just a coincidence.
Before my brain totally shuts down for the night. That Captain is propped up very strangely. I can’t tell if he’s facing frontwards and his arms are lashed to the machinery behind him. Arms being in a very awkward and uncomfortable angle Or if he’s facing backwards, arms lashed to the machinery, and his head positioned in a very awkward and unnatural angle.
It does look weird. At first I thought it looked like the skeleton of a child because it was so oddly positioned
well.. it looks like he is holding onto that pipe, could it be that something was pulling him, and he is looking back at it??
the artifact looks like it is hanging from the pipe, was he putting/ taking it there???
Is that a bullet hole over the last skellies right eye?
(his right our left)
Oooh, look, a shiney on a chain around the NECK OF THE ZOMBIE CAPTAIN.
Those prone to panic, smoke if ya got ’em.
Creepy Nazi is really creepy, Oh and dead too, not Undead.
The dead captain looks a wee bit too happy to see her.
That’s just a Luger in his pocket.
But really the whole “dropped jaw stare” thing is a bit cliche. You’d think he hasn’t seen a girl in 70 years or something.
…must…not…make…boner…joke…
I got it. Right now he’s thinking “Hey, lady? I’d like my rib back”!
Creepy Nazi Captain is hugging that artifact thingy.
“Noooo, you can’t touch it!!! It’s mine!!!”
It’s the Precious.
Shouldn’t his hat be covering half his face? What with the missing hair and uh skin.
he should be on the ground with the heavy tud of the final rest when stinky put them there. Well Most part of him at least xD but that would not be an similar impressiv picture
Le Sigh! He should be disolved by now but what kinda story would that tell. Hard enough to tell the tale of chaos in the cabin without psychic flashbacks or something let alone without skellies.
Only dissolved if her were immersed in water, the interior of the sub stayed dry.
Woot! Called it yesterday! 😀
I don’t think that cross is of any important value. it looks like a valve attached to that large piece of machinery- oh hello there! i bet you’re feeling peck-ish, care for some BRRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINSSSSSSSS?
also, NAZI- sounds like nachos and Yahtzee….
Better than ‘rat’ and ‘patootie’. You could actually have nachos and Yahtzee at the same time….
RATATOUILLE! I like it!
Kramegame: if it were not ‘important’ it would be dull grey like the rest, not ‘spookily’ clean and bright…. 😮
Yea i just looked at it again, i thought it was attached…. now i see that it’s hanging from his neck….
significance +100
…I see a chain going up around the pipe…
Nayahtzee! The spelling game of world domination!
And genocide of certain vowels? (I tried, I got nuthing.)
You guys realize Yahtzee is a game of dice right?
Which is interesting becaue a portion of their national anthem went:
“Yahtzee Yahtzee Uber alles, UUUUBER alles in den Welt!”
Which of course translates to Yahtzee! We pwn you with our mad dice skillz.
Oh ya, sorry — I flashed on Boggle for some reason…
So what is holding him (and the others) up???
The Throoom was so violent when Stinky dropped the sub that it sent Bud flying. Yet the crew skeletons and the captain are still upright.
Not the physics I learned in school!
good point, but i guess the material of his uniform and other pipes in the way may have helped…
Two words: Comic Physics.
Impervious to nit-picking and physics-geeks.
Gyaaah! I’m glad SOMEONE said it! It was driving me crazy!
The two crew members were laying on the sub’s floor.
Like any Stabskapitänleutnant, he’s held up by his good stiff (ubermench) backbone!
this is actually the first time I have been scarred reading this comic
Good job Paul
Well then step away from the sharp objects. Now i’m scared of being scarred.
Is it just me, or is there a head behind and to the left of the captain’s body?
I don’t see a toilet…
Operation Deadlight
Main article: Operation Deadlight
Operation Deadlight was the code name for the scuttling of U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of the war. Of the 154 U-boats surrendered, 121 were scuttled in deep water off Lisahally, Northern Ireland or Loch Ryan, Scotland in late 1945 and early 1946. Wikipedia
Mutiny!?
Suicide!?
That last image reminds me strongly of a scene from Das Boot where the engine man, keeping things running as the sub is shaken by depth charges, looks like a dying man possessed…
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1315931136/tt0082096
I thought this week was going to be light!
so did bud.
Am I the only one who thinks the skeletons look cute?
The captain makes me go “aww..”
My know-all-boyfriend is quite sure, that these are WWI-german-submariners-uniforms… And now he is brabbeling about the sailors hat looks like a WWI infantery hat.
For me, I don’t know the difference. It just kind of creeps me out, that Budd is alone in the abandoned submarine…
Major U-boat nerd and long-time Wapsi lurker here. The skeleton in the first group of bodies wears the standard enlisted dress cap minus the adler (eagle and swastika) and the title Kriegsmarine. The captain wears the officer’s white summer cap, which most U-boat commanders wore year-round. This is a dead giveaway that the boat is Nazi vintage, because WWI Kaiserliche Marine commanders wore a very different dark blue cap. I think what is throwing your boyfriend off is the omission of the adler on the caps. I won’t speculate why Paul omitted this detail, perhaps it will come out in the story. The boat is definitely a WWII Type VIIC. The only oddity that I’ll point out is that the stern damage is outside the pressure hull in an inaccessible watertight compartment. There is a massive structural member separating this compartment from the pressure hull (literally the backbone of the ship). But maybe that is part of the story, too.
Thanks Jeff, that will shut his mouth 😀
If indeed what the Captain is entwined with is some awesomely dangerous artifact and not a stray piece of plumbing, it stands to reason that it somehow tried to escape from this aforementioned watertight compartment that is outside the pressure hull.
If Paul did not make a mistake, that rip in the outer hull was not made by any normal explosion because there would also be a whacking great bulge around the rip.
I can just imagine the crew watching the steel of the compartment they just sealed being slowly ripped apart.
Interesting idea. I give Paul a pass anyway on the WTC. I don’t expect anyone other than me to have a full set of plans for a Type VIIC U-boat. 😉
Incidentally, none of the three are visibly wearing the U-296 insignia. That doesn’t really tell us anything, but given Pablo’s depth of research, it’s worth mentioning and I’ve been keeping an eye out for the design. It did exist as a pin, some of which survive.
Isn’t that the Captain’s back facing Budd?
it’s the 180 degree stare.
Perhaps he had an “Exorcist” head swivel moment.
…or something moved his head around the wrong way..?
…like maybe the impact of the kraken-tossed u-boat landing? Oh, wait, cartoon physics is immune to nitpicking 😉
Well if this ship is so well preserved i would guess brandi schould be able to find the log-books and messages still intact. I gladly help with the translation.
I wonder if that torpedos are still there and intact too. Could be pretty handy to have a small arsenal to plow shit up like say some neonazis or something.
The last week got me thinking thought. Could it be that our beloved artist draws ideas from comments to fill a plot-hole?
Neh.. Don’t think so.
I think Geeks and Nerds follow the same thinking patterns, when geeking-out about stuff like subs and WW2 history..
Well, hellooooo.
Yep. The Captain is/was standing turned facing away, his right arm hooked around the vertical pipe/stanchion (which is what’s holding him erect), his head turned to look back over his shoulder.
As to that thing in front of him – despite being highlighted by its lack of shading – is apparently part of the sub’s plumbing.
OTOH, it looks as if part of it has been ripped away…
So, if Bud is moving “[away] from the engine room”, it would appear that this is the torpedo room.
That fancy doo-dad on the chain looks like it might plug into something. See the four prongs at the base?
And it looks to me like the captain has his chest to the pipes and has his arm wrapped aound them to support himself. Maybe something took over herr Kapitan? Or he was trying to keep that widget from something or the crew. OOoooohhh, I like this!!
Hmm.. It could be, indeed, some sub-part from a bigger artefact that got ripped in two by that which made the captain hold on to the piping, and produced that big hole in the fuselage.
So, they’ll still be going to Ireland me thinks..
They still have to get to the Bonsai of Life.
Maybe the cross is the key to unlock the …. bigger cross
Oh yeah, I agree – they’re on the road for Ireland!
If the lower portion weren’t so short, I’d say that thing looks like the hilt of a sword. And that, of course, would lead me to Excaliber. Now THAT would be interesting.
About the head position of the captain – maybe his neck had been broken? By twisting? Or it just slid into that position as his flesh decayed? Whatever the reason – I can’t wait to see what gonna happen!!!
(I wonder what the squidish is for “Rut ro!” a la Scooby-doo).
Oooo, that’s an interesting idea. The wrong person can’t extract the sword, but, with secret knowledge of just the correct way to grip the hilt, it comes apart. The hilt containing all the magic. From a technical POV, it makes sense, since the blade could break. Just plug in a new blade to the hilt.
Looking at it again it looks like those dangly things might not be “teeth.” It looks a bit like there is something tied at the bottom of the cross.
That widget is also, we might notice, in the shape of a celtic cross.
Y Hallo thar, have you come to see my mystical artifact of doom? Let me show you.
Maybe it’s just me, but the captain appears to be shackled to the pipe.
Also, once the flesh and tendons decay off the body, the head would loll to the side in an awkward way as Bud sees (well, technically it would just fall off the spinal column, but still). That doesn’t detract from the eeriness of it looking at her, though.
Well done, Paul.
Look at the angle of the captain’s pelvis, and the legs. The way I see it, he’s facing forward, having been chained to the pipe with his arms behind him. Humans aren’t owls, and can’t rotate their heads 180.
For what it’s worth, that cross-shaped piece of equipment, ripped from its moorings, reminds me very much of a submarine compass. Whatever the case, this is becoming most interesting.
I’m pretty sure everything that prevents humans from rotating their heads that far has rotted away by this point. His head wasn’t necessarily in that position when he died.
Oh, I HOPE Bud has sense enough not to touch the whatever-it-is, but instead to get out, go get help, and have safeguards and protections in place before trying to recover it. She hasn’t shown much sense so far, not doing any of that before entering the sub; but maybe she’ll get smarter before taking the next step…
She is incredibly observant to notice that there are more bullet holes coming from a specific direction in a wrecked submarine without any source of light except her own chimeric one. Submarines are visually complicated places! Also really impressive that the guns were able to pierce even the interior walls of a submarine, if there are holes in things other than corpses that she’s walking by. Or I suppose it could be just a lot of shots through glass, but then it would just have shattered and not left a ‘hole’.
What are You trying to say..That all of this comic isn’t a true-to-life report of real happenings?? O_o 😛
The shootout is interesting. Under normal circumstances, the only small arm permitted inside the pressure hull was the commander’s pistol (for obvious reasons). This gun was itself usually kept under lock and key in the captan’s cabin. Other small arms were stored in watertight boxes in the conning tower and under the deck. It’s easy to viualize a scenaro where something scary went down inside the sub while it was surfaced and the crew were forced to carry guns inside to deal with the menace.
That or the cap’n was the shootist.
Good point! But that limits the total number of bullets fired. Herr Kaleu would have normally had access to 2 eight-round magazines and possibly a 17th round in the chamber (assuming in all cases that his pistol was a P08 or P38).
/wargeek
I just have to say–this week (and especially today) is sure bringing out the nerds…
There was a 32-round snail drum for the Navy version. (Or was it the artillery version?)
Also, he might possibly have had a P38, which has a 14-round box magazine…
(All the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, set in 1936, had P38s…)
Fairportfan: That’s an interesting point about the snail drum magazine. I had forgotten about those. As for the P38, I’ve got one on my desk as I write this. It has an 8-round box magazine. I believe you are thinking of the P640(b), better known as the Browning Hi-Power. That pistol has a 13-round magazine. It was issued to a few elite Waffen-SS units. A naval officer might have acquired on through a private purchase.
Herr Rasch, if that’s the captain.
Good job of shading and lack thereof on the cross thing. It so white compared to the rest of the image in the panel, that it really sticks out.
Congratulations. That last image made me so creeped out I actually am having trouble looking at it. O_o
Dry? Could this not have been a sunken sub, but washed up on an island somewhere? (within Stinky range)
For a sub to sink, they only need to fill the ballast tanks with sea water, to surface they blow it out with compressed air. It can sink and still have a dry interior. Of course the bottom has to be above the level the sub gets crushed at. Come to think of it, the sub could have been buoyant at some level in the water all these years.
The captain’s expression seems to be “‘Sup, fraulein?”
Are those connection points on the bottom of the artifact? A part of a bigger device perhaps?
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer?
Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I’m surprised this theory hasn’t come up yet.
I’m guessing Captain Skelly realized the problem with ANYONE having the relic. He probably chained himself to the controlls, taking the ship to the bottom of the ocean way off planned course. The crew seemed to have objected with bullets.
OK, is it me, or does the “widget” also look a bit like a Paul-ified sword hilt? Just asking…
That was my first reaction to it too…
Or, on second thought, the top half of the 3-D joystick of doom?
from what others have said, it could be the subs compass….but i like the idea of a sword hilt, and with a hilt that big, there is only one *human* that can wield the blade that would be attached…. *cough* Shelly *cough*
mmh, ‘scuse me.
Actually, the more i look – the more it looks as if he’s facing us, with his left arm twisted up behind him…
…a possible (just barely) position for most people, and more than possible with … assistance.
(OTOH, Anthony Boucher could reach around behind him and touch his back directly between his shoulder blades; while the ability to do so is not common, it’s not uncommon. He used this as part of the solution in his mystery …)
Haaahhhh.
Tah should have said “… his mystery, Rocket to the Morgue …”
I’m so getting that zombie captain tattooed on me. That is SWEET.
Was the Captain trying to jettison the artifact? Perhaps it had an affeect on the crew around him (rather than driving him insane, and the bullet holes were the result of self-defense?
I’m getting a distinct Lovecraft vibe here. Gotta re-read “the Temple” tonight.
Aha, I’d forgotten that one! I’ll check it out again, if I can find my copy.
D’ya think Stinky is a relative of Cthulhu or maybe just a stray puppy-dog of the gods??
This is coming from Lovecraft country too. Not more than 1/4 mile from his old homestead on College Hill!
Lol…stray dog of the gods. In the Lovecraft universe, I guess he could be considered “foul offspring of the Other gods”. Those entities can be literally anything. Gotta love Lovecraft.
Has she not seen Raiders of The Lost Ark? Natzis (dead or alive) plus artifact looking thingies equal major bad juju!
In panel 5, there appear to be bullet holes above the captain’s right eye (entrance wound?) and at his left temple (larger, maybe an exit wound). That would imply that either the captain wasn’t the shootist at all, or his arm was jarred as he was busy blowing his own brains out. We haven’t seen any guns aboard the sub yet.
“Willkommen to hell’s botique frauline. Ve only haf von item und it’s free. But know zis … vonce hung on your neck … YOU CAN NEFER TAKE IT OFF VHILE ALIVE!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! *clonk* Oh … vould you mind picking my jaw off der floor? Danke.”
Very well drawn, Paul.
I shall now explain the mysterious position of the captain.
After beginning his murderous rampage to secure the precious artifact, the crew chased him away from the hole that HE had made in the side of the sub. He ran with the artifact in his right hand. As he reached the dead-end, the last two remaining crewmen shot him. With his dying breath he looped his arm over that pipe, turned his head over his right shoulder, and shot across his body with his left hand under his right arm. He killed the two crewmen and then died there himself. His uniform’s sleeve caught on an exposed bolt and there he remains, held upright, to this very day.
*switches flashlight off face* Or something like that.
I think this is the point where I decide to just wait to see what tomorrow shows us.
I with you, Uncle. I was worrying that we were going to have to stare at a menacing silhouette all weekend. Now I’m worried we’re going to have to worry about Bud touching the Lanthan Van De Graaff generator…
I’m feeling so sorry for those poor Nazi skellys, all alone there in that sub with Bud, they must be scared to death…
….. just whose side are you on?
Ooooh boy. I like where this story is going, but I also am a wee bit frightened.
Grandpa?
Hey! That looks like an ancient machine thingy!
“Hey, baby! Gimme a kiss! A gah gah gah gah gah gah!”
That is what skeletons say.
It’s the key to wind up the calendar machine!
Oh wait…. No. I suppose it isn’t.
It looks like it plugs into something.
Flash drive of the gods?
This reminds me of the Die RUckkkehr des Adlers storyline from the Black Lagoon manga. Nazis, U-Boats, and Hitler’s obsession with mystical artifacts just make good plot hooks.