Monday's comic!

[murgatroyd_666]

https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20211122

"Then my father showed up." Note that she conveniently doesn't say who her father is.

And I wonder why her mother tried to kill him?

Comments

[spectrum_09]

Is Zantabraxus a Spark?
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070709#.YZtvSNDMLIU
Plus, Lucrezia didn't try to kill him, per se.

[marieldraconis]

Lucrezia didn't try to kill him on-panel, but she WAS one of the Heterodyne Boys' recurring antagonists before she joined their team. Presumably Klaus was counting one or more incidents from that stretch--and possibly he's also counting being drugged and sent to Skifander, given the political mess that we now learn Skifander was dealing with when Klaus arrived.

Zantabraxus might have tried to kill Klaus right away--again, strange powerful Spark (who she may or may not have met before when the Heterodyne Boys were there) suddenly showing up, likely out of a supposedly long-defunct Mirror, in a major political-religious upheaval? She might have originally assumed he was on that High Priestess' side.

[kelkyag]

Zantabraxus might also have tried to kill Klaus when he kept Gil alive, whatever that involved.

[kognar]

Indeed it very much looks like he's fighting for his and his son's life when he emerges from the gate.

[murgatroyd_666]

Hmmm. Y'know, I had always just sort of assumed that Klaus had somehow walked all the way back home. But from the looks of that panel, he escaped Skifander via Queen's gate ... and emerged where?

[turbobeholder]

My theory still is that the Mirror where those two Dreen met him likely to be in Red Cathedral. A good match of the frame and reliefs above "dials".
Of course, it's quite possible that he had to retry it a few times.

[spectrum_09]

Klaus could not have emerged in Europa. I know, I've done this time line rant before but Klaus was gone for a bit over 6 years. He leaves Skifander when Gil is one month old. Gil, according to canon is 4 years older than Agatha as the story opens. Agatha is born after the attack on Castle Heterodyne. Bill and Barry fight the Other and minions for 3 years then disappear. Klaus shows up in Transylvania after that.
The Foglios own printed numbers - Klaus disappearing 2 years and 3 months before the birth of Klaus Barry Heterodyne who lives 407 days (roughly 1 year and 1 month) - Klaus was sent to Skifander 3 years and 4 months before the attack. that places Gil's ( and Zeetha's) birth around a year after his arrival.
If he emerged from the Red Cathedral in Mechanicsburg, I think someone, particularly Carson von Mecchan, would have noticed.

Just to note, the mirror in the British museum was found in the Alps. There are others besides in the Red Cathedral. Even Albia had a long journey home when she was thrown through one.

The Dreen "are tangental to time as we know it" and showed up where ever it was Klaus emerged.

The mirror in the Red Cathedral is most likely related to the shine to a battle Goddess that house the spring that became the Dyne.

[turbobeholder]

No one explicitly said Zantabraxus herself tried to do something.
It's very likely that the mess with local temple politics including a coup and counter-coup was too big to just evaporate the moment Zantabraxus retakes her throne.
Could be a bunch of priestesses (possibly, but not necessarily from Team Eshkigax) or someone high-ranked working with them. Who could intentionally misrepresent their authorization, or maybe Klaus simply jumped to a conclusion.

[kelkyag]

Klaus told Gil "every single woman I've ever known who had the spark has tried to kill me". This presumably includes Lucrezia, Zantabraxus, and Albia -- and Agatha, given the fight with the battle circus.

[mindstalk]

She was 'Spark' in The Works card game. Granted, so was Lord Selnikov, who hasn't shown sign of it in the main story, other than perhaps not being wasped.

[kognar]

Well she only knows her father was called Chump and he was from Europa. He left when she was one month old so she won't remember what he looked like.

[bunsen_h]

It would be a bit odd if Zantabraxus didn't have some kind of image made of her then-partner. An urge to destroy such images after the end of the relationship would be balanced against wanting to have something to show the hypothetical assassination teams.

[mneme]

But despite Klaus's often-justified paranoia, there is no evidence that there are any such assassination teams. If there were, Zeetha could use them to find out where home was.

[turbobeholder]

There isn't. It looks like he just heard a report about someone apparently from Skifander and jumped straight to this conclusion. Which, of course, casts doubt on exactly how adequate his assessment of the situation was back there.

But even if hit squads sent specifically after him never existed, there still could be a non-negligible threat. If that cheesed-off opposition did try to go for round #2 (in which case it makes a perfect sense to start with removal of their Queen's unexpected ally) or just plain vengeance (if they were after lil Gil), and as a result wound up exiled or running away (via mirrors, one-way ticket), some might still feel bitter enough for pointless vengeance.

[spectrum_09]

When she encounter Klaus - the one and only time she has - he spoke Skiff. The wasp cut him off while he was saying Zanta(braxus).
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20061201#.YZw0adDMLIU
Later, Gil tells her his father told him someone like her might have been sent to kill him. At that point, Zeetha starts to put thing together.

If she has guessed Gil is her long lost brother, then I think she has guessed that Klaus is Chump.

[murgatroyd_666]

She knows more than that. She knows that Klaus speaks Skif and that he taught Gil the technique -- which she also uses -- that enables Gil to go without sleep for several days. From her "Oh reeeeeeally ... in a conversation with Gil, I'm certain that she's figured out who Klaus and Gil are.

[jbwoodford]

So, what's the over/under on the exiled high priestess of Eshkigax being Bang's mother?

[pikkugen]

It would certainly explain many things, but... does everybody HAVE to be related?

[jbwoodford]

It's a law of narrative conservation, and that particular Chekhov's Gun has been on the mantelpiece since we found out Zeetha's history and compared it to Bang's backstory in the Secret Blueprints.

That said, it could be unrelated--Bang's backstory talked about her mother being the exiled Queen [1] of an island city, not a high priestess, and Skifander's not (AFAWK) an island.

[1] Don't go there, OK? If Zantabraxus had a fling with a pirate before she found Chump, that would make Bang and Gil half-sibs, and that's just too weird.

[murgatroyd_666]

Wasn't Bang's mother on an island in the Baltic Sea? And Bang doesn't have four arms ...

*IF* there's any more hidden ancestry in the story, I'd expect it to hinge on Klaus having an affair with Bang's mother on his way back from Skifander ... making Bang the half-sister of both Gil and Zeetha. And Klaus being Bang's father might explain why Klaus tolerated Bang's ... eccentricities.

UPDATE: Was Bang's brother Deathwish her twin? Or was he her half-brother? If the answer is "no" to both questions, then I'd *strongly* doubt that Klaus is her father.

[jbwoodford]

Well, heredity can be a strange thing, but you're right about the island--I'd forgotten that from the novels.

Just as well.