It's what I've said before, usually in the context of arguing against "X is Y" speculation: if someone is someone "else" we've seen before (and not masked or the like), the assumption is that we can trivially see that they're the same. The art itself "says" that explicitly. So you can't have a surprise that two characters are the same if we can see both clearly.

Holy crap - demonstration time! So who's taking the over-under on the emissary surviving the next page without being blasted into timeless space?


[edit] An observation about Shankraft/Shanklin - if these two people are one-in-the-same, then the current images of Dr. Shankraft suggest that his time in the OU happened prior to now. Because he looks in his thirties in the OU storyline, and he appears to be in his late forties in this one. Before today's comic, it might have been possible that the face on the TV was a stand-in, but now that Crushestro has recognized him, that's not possible. So, he got out of Timeless Space somehow, and must've perfected a device to send others there. (oooor, just perfected a device. Who knows)

That was a weak suggestion to begin with, and if the looks don't fit, it's hardly worth thinking about. Granted, they aren't different enough to completely rule it out on that basis at once. But the original idea was also that maybe more than one person ended up in Timeless Space from this point in time, and to assume people going different ways to be present here you'd have to assume a lot of more complicated stuff happening that there's no evidence of.

I believe Shanklin died in timeless space. Lady Noga used his ship as a suicide ram, which would release a cloud of smoke from smoke grenades when shot, which would then be carried to the bloody bun by her trained crows so that the bloody bun couldn't see anything while her skiffs snuck up to snap their sails.

Bun-bun and Flipp made it out by falling into the ocean... maybe Shanklin fell in as well. The explosion may not have killed him, maybe it threw him clear, or maybe he dove for it.

Considering that similarity of name seems to be pretty much the only basis for the Shankraft = Shanklin spec, I'd say that it's much more likely that they're not the same person.

Name similarity, possible uniform similarity, potential for something called a "Displacement Drive" to send someone to Timeless Space, and the fact that one character we've only seen in Timeless space before has just shown up again... circumstantial evidence, but a lot of it. I wouldn't write off the possibility yet.

Okay, that was clearly not what we expected. Who had the "under"? Anyone? Lookin good for you guys so far..

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that the squirrel seen next to Gennaro here could very well be Nutbrown from here.

Of course it could just be Pasquirlio representing Donald Trump too...

One should Never begin a sentence this way.

Ah, my faith in SRC to cover most everything is restored (although I'm still surprised it wasn't mentioned in this thread). I shall return to perma-lurking.

Okay, you just KNOW that Sam is going to come ramming in through one of the walls on the Displacement Drive, thus disrupting the fight and giving them (Team Sluggy) a chance to escape. Poor guy probably won't even realizing that he missed the fight or that there was a half-naked chick and almost half-naked chick fighting in the first place.....

So... is that it for the displacement drive? I thought it was going to be an important story element, such as a component for Sasha's plan to track Riff & Zöe.

Well, as we discussed in another thread, the displacement drive is unlikely to actually do any serious damage -- other than maybe some small earthquakes. Moreover, even if it works by some technology that makes it near impossible to run out of gas, the speed that it was going when it hit the water suggests that it may take an incredibly long time to get anywhere. So Pete could be saving it as a gag -- like the next time our gang gets an all expenses paid trip to China (oh wait, that was Japan). After we've all forgotten about the displacement vehicle, it will pop out at either an incredibly opportune or an incredibly inopportune time -- no doubt for a good laugh... Yeah, Pete is good at doing stuff with those "lost" details -- so one way or another, no we are not done with the displacement drive.

Disclaimer: I suck at spec -- pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain...

Yeah. To assume Pete is ever done with anything is foolhardy :p