Joyce and Walky!

Well, here’s some fun dissonance!

One of the recurring storytelling conceits of It’s Walky! is that the mission is more important than lives.   In the very first storyline, Sal’s offin’ brainwashed agents left and right, and a bit later Squad 128 is ready to blow themselves up in order to keep the world-at-large from knowing Aliens exist.  This is how SEMME operates.  But before, this was directed towards characters the narrative didn’t consider important — or circumstances changed to allow everyone to live.  The Science Fiction Club here, though, uh, they’re here visiting.  And we as readers probably feel a bit differently with the Walkyverse’s approach (at the time) to Compassion Vs Duty when that gun’s aimed at people the narrative deems important.  So, yeah, Walky comes off as a friggin’ heartless monster, even if he’s operating in the rules already established.  Read the room!  Or, well, read other rooms from which others have traveled, I guess.

psst

hey guys

i think

i think there’s going to be a fight

Some readers were a little disappointed that we ended up doing the traditional crossover clash after all, just on an inverted schedule (team up and then fight, not the other way around). And I took that to heart for a while. Was this forced? But looking back, and knowing what followed for both series, this second-act turning point feels pretty organic.

Tony’s intensity is pivotal. Mike is the kind of guy nobody wants to follow, and Joyce, Joe, and Dina would never argue for this. But as obviously as Tony’s letting his trauma do the talking here, his math is not wrong. HA, MM, and even the Cheese are existential threats. If two civilian lives were all that stood between our military leaders and eliminating a rival nation’s entire nuclear arsenal, well, that’s why they coined the term “acceptable losses.”

More to the point, though, Joyce glimpses a very Sal-like side of Walky. The line “this is our job” was David’s addition, and it’s very much in keeping with early Sal’s ethos of duty over compassion.