As Usual, Muir Turns Against Oppression When He Thinks It Might Be Turned On Him, Personally.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Wolves of the North.

The fascinating thing about Muir's "uniparty" bullshit is that you get scenarios like this. When the people he supports do something that annoys him, he just rewrites reality so it isn't actually his side doing things--things that he supported in their initial phases, mind you--no, no it's that evil conspiracy that runs thing in the shadows doing it. Muir may be a fascist, but he's largely ruled by the impulses that created the Italian Regency of Carnaro, the unrecognized interwar microstate where the militias that had taken over wound up doing things like having mock battles with live grenades, because, hey why not, they're full of vital energy after all. He loves oppression in the abstract and when he thinks it's happening to his enemies, but eventually, he runs headlong into the fact that his dreamed of dictatorship is going to have build a general state capacity for oppression that could be used against him. And whenever that happens, he grows irate, because he is fundamentally a child demanding his vague and contradictory wishes be granted instantaneously and with no negative consequences for himself.

These moments are always true 'stopped clock' scenarios, Muir reaching the right conclusion for once, but based on premises that are completely self-indulgent and hypocritical. And now that I've said all that, let's enjoy Day 2 of Muir on the war path against the Administration, even if he's clearly loading his attitude with qualifiers.

"And Then HE WOULD CRY!"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Steel Trail.

And here is Muir at his most pathetic, ignoring the blatant efforts to subvert the Constitution the man he's presently following, shrieking that reforms to correct institutions that he and his have thoroughly corrupted and turned into threats are betraying the government and writing a sad little cartoon where the target subjected to this imbecilic harangue just quivers and gives up, for who can resist this transcendent truth?

Again, simply pathetic.

War And Sexism! It's What Made The Country Great!

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Social Buccaneer.

He treats this as such a stirring lesson and statement of values, instead of yet another display of his crudity, his racism, and of course, his tendency to try and use static panels as an artistic crutch.

Muir Once Again Declares Nobody Is Racist Enough For Him.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Under the Crescent.

And we move from pretending that Trump is mostly great to pretending that everybody is plotting against Muir again.

Always fun to see Muir spiraling.

A Desperate Attempt To Will Success Into Existence...

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Graft.

This manages to be as pathetic as it is vile, an illustration of just how much Muir has warped himself. He's told himself that being a cowardly bigot is being a brave patriot so long that he doesn't know what bravery and patriotism actually are anymore, and so as he applauds awfulness while he can, as the failures inevitably happen, he winds up muttering pathetic rationalizations to avoid the simple fact that he's awful person putting his trust in worse people, trying to extract joy from misery and failure.

Even Muir Is A Little Astonished How Antisemitic He's Getting.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Broken Coin.

Obviously, at least part of the reason Sam is the one muttering this swill is to give Muir cover. "Oh, no, no, it's not me, Sam, you know, she's feisty, she's a redhead, her ladyparts, they get in a twist sometimes..."

Even Muir Has To Admit The Hoped For Purge Probably Isn't Coming.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Trey O' Hearts.

There's something so quietly pathetic in the inner lives of people who essentially pay so Muir can draw them--badly--visiting his redneck Legion of Doom, sucking up to the cast, getting to fire imaginary hi-tech guns, and fantasize about essentially being SS guards at a concentration camp.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 19: Don't Mess With Naomi. Or Bother Having A Coherent Storyline.

 Naomi first appears as a past military comrade of Zed's, an Israeli military contractor who simply pops up to reaffirm Zed's badass credentials. and join in the general abuse of Jan during this storyline. But then, after a week, Muir decides to use her for some cheap sentimental drama and ALSO decides that she's been hired by Jan's dad to keep an eye on her daughter. (So either the military are just letting an unaffiliated mercenary stroll around because, hey, she's cool, she's from an ally, or they're letting a contractor take a side job from a private citizen, neither of which are great.) While this is yet another display of Muir's growing fascination of using Don Portago as an Instant Plot Coupon Dispenser, the more interesting thing is Naomi herself. Somehow, even though she truthfully doesn't seem too distinguishable from the various other soldiers Muir bespecks this storyline with, she tickles Muir's fancy and just keeps showing up throughout. 

Because, that's the other thing about this story--it's long. While the original plan appears to have had this go on for a month--Muir has Zed toss that time out early on--things just dragged on so that Jan and Zed wound up spending most of 2007 in Iraq. And Muir was no more skilled at crafting storylines then as he is now--the entire sojourn is repetitive, formless, and dull. Jan gets taught the same jingoistic, racist messages over and over, all while the real Iraq burned, and Muir struggles to ignore it alongside the rest of reality.

And through it all, Naomi just... hangs around. It's clear that she'd tickled Muir's fancy somehow, likely by his own twisted counterfeit philosemitism which saw Israelis as admirable because they were so good at dealing with those evil Muslims. She likewise gave a window in what was going to be Zed's ever-expanding badass past, which Muir must have found convenient. Still, a casual reader from this era would probably be shocked to learn this incidental character was going to become a major supporting character and at times a member of the main cast. Indeed, Naomi was a good indicator of the future of DbD, a future that was more bizarre, more insane and more unpleasant than its present.

And that present was quite unpleasant indeed.

They Must Protect Their Imaginary Wives From This Incredible Imaginary Threat.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Queen of the Jungle.

As we take in this pathetic racist swill, a reminder that the population of the US is nearly 350 million, making Muir's impressive sounding number look... well, small.

Especially when you realize that our mighty Murican is quaking in his boots about women and children.

Apparently, Muir Just Wanted To Draw Some Planes.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Jungle Goddess.

As we look at this lazy little cartoon, let's all savor the fact that these days you don't even have to wait a comic or two for Muir's declaration of how very much Nazis the Democrats are to be ironically undercut by him using Nazi-style rhetoric. 

These days, it usually follows in a panel or two.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 18: Captain Mitty Does His Duty, And The Feckless Liberal Learns A Lesson.

Zed's Iraq tour was the first true Captain Mitty storyline, but it must be pointed out that he is largely out of focus for it--an important background detail of the storyline, one who allows the entire thing to happen, but not the main character. No, that is Jan, filling the old propaganda role of the skeptical liberal journalist who comes to realize just how vital this war is, how evil our opponents are, and how dedicated our troops are. 

I noted last time that this was accomplished with a  handwave--Jan's father just fixes it, because he can, that's what he does--but I really should zoom in on how forced all this is. While a weak explanation is made of Jan doing this to support Zed, there's very little explanation of how this does this, precisely, and again, once they're over there, Jan largely winds up doing her own thing and having troops tell her that everything she knows is wrong. It's quite clear from a textual standpoint that Jan is in Iraq because she's the sort of character you need over there, and Muir's explanations of the hows and whys are flimsy. For that matter, Jan's storyline is fairly bland. She meets interchangeable troops who are all happy to be there, and annoyed at the perfidious liberals insisting that they aren't. She sees it demonstrated that the native Iraqis are being treated well by them, and in no danger from them. She discovers that local insurgents are vile scum not worthy of her regard. And she discovers the United States press are nakedly biased and laughably incompetent. In essence, everything that Muir had been stating was the case prior to the storyline is confirmed to be exactly correct during it.

Saying this was a tone-deaf and deluded take doesn't cover it. After all, even Muir seems to regard his Iraq War boosterism with a certain level of embarrassment these days, even if it's with the usual qualifiers and avoidance of any real introspection that you'd expect from him. But remember, Muir was writing this in 2007, the year where the occupation truly unraveled.  Muir wrote of a deluded press misleading the American public about what was a massive success just as that press began to produce stories that showed that things were going worse than all but the most skeptical of critics had imagined.

And so, by itself, the main storyline was just a dull, mendacious propaganda piece that was flimsily constructed and monumentally ill-timed. Even Jan's move rightwards was simply Muir doing what he'd been doing prior. No, the importance here lies largely in two areas. One obviously is Zed's continuing move towards becoming the Captain Mitty he is today, which we do see throughout the tale. But more importantly, Muir was about to add a new character, one who would stick and be a significant part of the Transition Era and the early portions of the Compound Era. The exceptionally odd figure who is... Naomi.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 17: Captain Mitty Gets A Wife.

Zed and Sam's relationship had been in sort of a holding pattern since around 2005, when he started treating them as an actual couple, and frankly had been approaching it earlier, as the period of de facto coupleship prior to that wasn't too different. Just now, it was clear that they were dating and sleeping with each other, where previously, you sort of thought they were, but weren't sure. Muir seems to have toyed with shaking the dynamic up when he introduced a young intern named Suzi with a thing for Zed, but this rudimentary storyline died after two strips, and Suzi only ranked a horrible offscreen death years later that was mentioned in passing to allow Muir to indulge even more of his now overwhelming misogyny, racism and Islamophobia. Skye's arrival just added her being, well, awful while keeping the overall relationship the same. So, Muir finally did something that shook things up--he had Sam wind up pregnant just as Zed got called back into service.

Now, Sam previously had shown little interest in or proclivity for motherhood--indeed, she'd even been fairly dismissive of it--but that was the Early Period, where Muir just wanted her and Zed to be a couple of snarky urban professionals. Now that they were ever more Muir's vision of an ideal American couple, well, she and Zed just took it as given that they'd have kids now, which meant marriage. Interestingly, neither of them seemed particularly worried about the fact that Sam was a woman in her forties going through her first pregnancy.

Put a pin in this, there's bullshit coming.

The pair hurried off to Vegas, tied the knot--they had an Elvis wedding--and just like that, there'd been a profound change in the status quo. And Muir having quietly just retconned Sam's entire attitude towards parenthood was, well, going to retcon a lot more in the future. Oh, were changes coming. Indeed, without realizing he'd done it, Muir had just quietly set a charge under what had been the core premise of the strip so far, but that was lurking in the background. 

Soon, Zed would be heading overseas with Jan somehow getting to play journalist because... look, her dad is ultrarich magic, all right? For Sam though, this meant lots of "jokes" playing up her being Zed's loyal, pregnant wife waiting for him to get back as he risked his life.

This isn't particularly subtle propaganda. But then it hardly has been at this point.

Like A Kind Of Third Rate Patriotic Burlesque Show...

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Fight for Millions.

Ahh, we're really entering the sleaziest part of the Begging Bowl period...

It's become something of a tradition at this point.

The 'Need More Money' Refrains Get Extra-Whiny This Year.

 It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Vengeance and the Woman.

Once again...

Every.

Frickin'.

Year.

The Mystery Business(TM) Era; Part 16: Captain Mitty Gets The Call.

 The transformational storyline of the Late Period wouldn't have happened without a Dubya program that I'm going to have to discuss, the embedded journalist program. Throughout the Iraq War, journalists were 'embedded' in various combat units for lengths of time. While supposedly this was about superior access to allow for more in-depth reporting, critics argued it destroyed any pretense of objectivity, encouraging the journalists to identify with the units they were embedded with. Obviously, results varied--the classic Generation Kill, after all, was produced by just such an embedded reporter. And then...

Muir's selection as an 'embedded reporter' came very late in the day for the program, and was undeniably politically motivated. His qualifications were negligible--he was, after all, a syndicated cartoonist whose strip was appearing in a mere four papers. But he did have some connections to the GOP's pet bloggers--we'll discuss this when we wrap up this era--and that's likely most of what got him in. And of course, Muir was motivated. To his mind, the people, manipulated by the lying press, had betrayed the righteous government that had done so much good, and brought the treacherous Democrats back into power. People needed to see the truth, to be brought back into the right way of thinking. And so Muir was off to Iraq.

For five days.

As should be obvious, this wasn't enough time for any sort of in depth "reporting", but it was enough time for a man who was quite interested in producing propaganda to get the material for it, especially if he was simply going to reinforce his priors. (Which, as we will see, is precisely what he did.) And so, Muir came back to produce his story. There were many ways he could have written it.

But it was Muir, so we naturally got his self-insert being recalled to active duty, because he was so badass. It was the sort of choice that a more reasonable person might have realized was a mistake, tone-deaf, insensitive, hell, down right pathetic, but, well, this is Muir. He didn't realize how this might look to someone less... sympathetic. Hell, he was going to give Captain Mitty even more of the life he wished he had.

Zed was going to get married before shipping off, with a family on the way. As I said, the transformational storyline of the Late Period, and oh boy, do we have a lot to talk about in the next installment...

The Self-Fluffing Of The Ego.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Adventures of Kathlyn.

Ahh, yes. The Constitution that exists in Muir's head that puts counties above the federal government, lets them overthrow the government whenever they lose, and also is supposed to establish a white ethnostate.

Again, this is all as pathetic as it is reprehensible.

He Thinks This Shows How Insightful He Is.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Blazing the Overland Trail.

Has he mentioned he thinks letting non-whites live here is treason? Because he thinks that.

"We Need To Tell The Founding Fathers To Be MORE Racist!"

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Perils of the Wilderness.

Did I call it, or did I call it?

This whiny, pathetic, hateful little screed is Muir imagining himself to be so, SO patriotic.

Because he hates this country, and he hates everything that's decent. But he has to pretend to himself that he doesn't.

Urrr... Whut? HWHUT?

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Adventures of Captain Africa.

At the time of this writing, in strip Muir has mistakenly placed the signing of the Declaration twenty-six years after the Boston Massacre. It was, in fact, six years and four months, the Massacre occurring March 5th, 1770. (I put this down because Muir isn't above re-editing boo-boos like this out afterwards, so I'm attempting to immortalize the error.) And that clumsy mistake typifies this whole storyline, such as it is. Muir is, as he has in fact been doing from almost the beginning of the strip, trying to appropriate the Founding Fathers for his own politics. But Muir doesn't understand them, barely engages with them. He doesn't really want to learn things because he wants myth, which is why you get things like the clumsy misdating, Muir not getting the facts right because he didn't even learn them to begin with. 

But Muir's bad at myth too. As we see with this entire storyline. And his inability to notice that Crispus Attucks puts the lie to the 'White Men' bullshit he's been pushing with ever-increasing force over the last decade. Hell, I'm fully expecting him to explain that this shows how extra right he is soon. He keeps to his pattern.

They Did Not, In Fact, Know Their History.

It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Riding with Buffalo Bill.

As Muir pulls out one of his most tired running gags in this baffling attempt at a storyline, I should mention this underlines the vast ignorance under his pose of learned patriot. Franklin, obviously wasn't in Boston during the Massacre--aside from this being well after he'd largely moved to Philadelphia, it was when he was the Colonial Postmaster, and in fact, living in England.

But then, Muir is stuck in the Kiddies' Own version of history.