I'm just not even surprised any more. I am confused though. Nothing really bothers Sasha, but Kusari was bothered by Schlock trying to replace her with Oasis. Kusari and Sasha's personalities don't seem to match up at all and Sasha never seemed like a skilled fighter like Kusari, so what the what, man?

That defiantly caught me by surprise.

The funny thing is that I've been highly suspicious of the "Kusary = Sasha" spec. But now that it's confirmed in the comic, it suddenly makes so much sense.

If Kusari is a clone-based operation, which the reveal from Oasis' lair points to, then there is no reason hC should have kept to a single Kusari.
They chose to have one masked Kusari at all times, known for her battle skills, and at least one undercover Kusari under the name of Sasha.

I guess it was my assumption that Kusari would have a singular, non-shareable consciousness that held me from figuring it out.

But she was deep undercover, trying to pass as a normal person, not a super-healing, combat-able assassin.

Figured as much.... partly from people's detective work in the spec forum.

but mostly because the last few times Pete has drawn both Sasha and Kusari, their 'assets' have increased dramatically in size since the early days.

Also, spec: {you're right. That was SPEC! -G}

Well, that was not how I was expecting that reveal to go! Good job Pete! And it probably would have totally caught me off guard if not for the spec forums. Or maybe not; that last conversation between Kusari and Schlock might have made me wonder, possibly...



That's been bothering me too! I think the answer might be *spec spec spec*. Or not.

It's past tense (the full version of the sentence would be: [implied possessive pronoun] mind [past tense to be verb] blown). The trick here is the implied pronoun is "your" (Riff's) but Kusari doesn't use that kind of familiarity; that would be "Your mind has been blown". She answers drily and without emotion. So I think it's "My." i.e, "My mind was blown." And it's a simple description of her rebirth.

I think.

Actually, every time Kusari has been speaking, she has put in front of her mouth a carboard tube with a paper in front of it so he voice wouldn't be recognised. We never see it because she remove it very quickly.

They never did, at least not over time. There have been many Kusaris. E.g. Chen talked about getting a "replacement Kusari," Oasis cut off her head in Fire and Rain, the vamps lopped off her head and she came back, etc.

This.

Up until she shot at Riff, she didn't show any level of skill. From that point on, Sasha was a highly skilled agent; brass knuckles notwithstanding, she took Gwynn out with a vicious punch:

http://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?cha ... 2017-04-21

Gods of mercy, that's a ton of work. It must have taken forever to go through the archive and count the days for each story.

Ok that's neat. People are focusing on if Sasha and Kusari are the same, but the discussion sparked an idea that I'm much more concerned about.

Did Sasha die when stabbed by clone Aylee? Is the Sasha we saw after already a replacement?

http://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?cha ... 2002-07-25

Well... Kusari always has been rather uniquely qualified when it comes to fitting in as the job demands.

The thing is, I didn't go through the Archive counting each individual strip per chapter. Just needed the start and end date of a chapter. It was pretty quick to figure out the number of days then. Making the chart took most of the time.

It was most definitely worth it though.