Old Wounds
| Old Wounds | |
|---|---|
| |
| Comic Strip Info | |
| Released: | August 31, 2015 |
| Number of pages: | 79 |
| Artist: | Heather "makani" Campbell |
| Writer: | Jay Pinkerton & Erik Wolpaw |
| Colorist: | Maren "rennerei" Marmulla |
| “ | They must have stolen this toilet from the President! We're going to be heroes!
— The Soldier
|
” |
Old Wounds (also known as Team Fortress Comics #5) is a comic released on August 31, 2015. It is the fifth part of a seven-part comic series, picking up where Blood in the Water left off.
Synopsis
The story takes place on Gray Gravel Company's island. It starts with Gray Mann, who is paying the TFC Heavy for his services so far, discussing about the whereabouts of the Administrator and the Australium. TFC Heavy begins questioning Gray's intentions of world domination, since he contemplates that he won't live long enough to enjoy it. Gray remarks that he estimates that he will be around 150 years old by the moment he manages to take over the world. TFC Heavy begins asking with suspicion about the precious metal they were hired to look for. Gray refuses to divulge any information and suggests to the TFC Heavy to keep doing his job and get paid, while Gray functions as the brains of the operation. However, TFC Heavy has figured out that it's the Australium that keeps Gray alive, and has also decided to claim the Australium for him and the other TFC mercenaries, as they are likewise aging.
Meanwhile, a bloodied, chained Soldier is under interrogation by Beatrice (the TFC Pyro) for the information on the Administrator's location. Soldier, though reluctant to tell, accidentally reveals that though he really does not know where the Administrator is, Miss Pauling knows. With this information, Beatrice begins slowly killing Soldier with a drill, now that she no longer has any use for him. Zhanna, also tied up nearby, asks to be tortured instead of Soldier, but Beatrice declines and continues torturing him. TFC Heavy walks in with Gray in his hand and asks Beatrice to torture him, before ripping out his life extending machine, then leaving the room. Zhanna spots a metal shard on the floor and uses it to break free from her handcuffs. She then knocks the drill gun out of the TFC Pyro's hand and jams an incendiary grenade into her suit, also putting her mask back on before the grenade detonates, reducing Beatrice to ashes. As she is thanked by the Soldier, she shows that she actually cut her left hand off to free herself, which the Soldier praises her for. Zhanna thanks the Soldier for this and they start to leave the room, but Gray interrupts them and begs of them to take him to Miss Pauling.
Demoman is then shown chained up, revealed to be speaking to a few of his own body organs in a hallucination. As his liver leaves him, Demoman commands his heart to replace it, and his lungs to prevent his liver from coming back, since it isn't welcome anymore.
As Demo hallucinates, Pyro, Miss Pauling and Spy are shown chained up with him as well in a cell; Spy offhandedly explains that Demo is suffering an adverse reaction to the food he was given, since his body become accustomed to a heavily alcoholic lifestyle. Miss Pauling laments over how she failed her mission and got the team captured; worse still, Spy has run out of miniature gadgets in his teeth to attempt an escape. Spy attempts to comfort her, pointing out that only one team member died under her watch, though he also admits none of them will likely survive their present captivity. At this, Miss Pauling starts to weep. Spy consoles her, offering to help her commit suicide with him by means of a cyanide molar in his mouth, so that neither of them will have to suffer through torture. Miss Pauling accepts, but as Spy is about to spit half of the molar in Pauling's mouth, Heavy bursts into the room. Spy quickly spits the cyanide to the floor while Miss Pauling gets an update from Heavy, who claims that the island they're on is plagued with robots and that a full escape is impossible. He then offers to sacrifice himself to save Miss Pauling and the others with a distraction. Despite her misgivings, Miss Pauling gives Heavy the coordinates where she was supposed to meet the Administrator, and proceeds to unchain Spy.
At this moment, TFC Demoman runs into the room with a ringing telephone, and Heavy starts to fade into the TFC Spy, revealing him to be an impostor. The TFC Spy collects the call and is informed about Beatrice's fate, and passes on the information Miss Pauling inadvertently revealed. TFC Spy then orders the TFC Demoman to kill the rest of their prisoners. However, as he is leaving, he is attacked by Zhanna and Soldier. Zhanna punches the TFC Spy with her stump, which doesn't work. Soldier then steps in and snaps TFC Spy's neck with a single punch, killing him. TFC Demoman quickly grabs Miss Pauling and threatens to shoot her unless Zhanna puts the Shotgun down. Zhanna complies, lowering the Shotgun, only to suddenly punch Miss Pauling in the face with enough force to knock TFC Demoman to the ground, where he gets strangled by Spy using the chains on his ankles. Soldier checks on Miss Pauling, apparently dead from the punch, but she rouses when Soldier pokes her cheek. Soldier picks up Gray and throws him next to her as he and Zhanna investigate the cell toilet.
To Miss Pauling's surprise, Gray requests that the team stop the Administrator, declaring the latter more intelligent, hateful and having nastier plans than he. Miss Pauling defends her, giving an emotive speech mentioning how she worked for her for so long, and willingly lied and murdered on her command. Halfway, though, Spy interrupts her to point out that Gray actually perished about two minutes ago and didn't hear most of her speech, putting on an inscrutable expression at the news of Miss Pauling's skulduggery behind the team's back.
The comic cuts to the Medic standing next to an operating table where Sniper's body is, discussing with Archimedes about the task they have ahead. Sniper is then shown in Heaven with his adopted parents, who say that though they want him to stay, there's still much work on Earth that needs to be done by a professional like him. With a start, Sniper wakes back up on the operating table, with stitches all across his torso. Medic, surprised, calls it his "crowning medical achievement" before Sniper throttles him in rage for betraying the team. Medic says that he had just picked a new job with the Classic team since his previous team was dissolved and they needed a Medic; he also needed more funding for his experiments. Medic reminds Sniper that he didn't kill him, just stood next to the Classic Sniper who did, and states that he only smiled because he was happy to see him (according to himself, his smiles naturally appear evil and smug). Sniper wonders if the vision he had of his adopted parents was real. Medic states that it was a hallucination produced before brain death, but Sniper decides it means something else: since he's already experienced and survived death, this makes him most dangerous man on the island by extension, and he's going to go right back to "work". Medic begins to comment on Sniper's condition, but TFC Heavy bursts in and angrily questions the Medic on why Sniper is alive. Stuttering, Medic begins to explain about how he needed Sniper's body, while Archimedes flies and settles on TFC Heavy's shoulder. TFC Heavy then grabs Archimedes and throws him to the ground, killing him. Whilst Medic is in the process of resurrecting Archimedes, the TFC Heavy berates Medic on how he wasted his medical budget on expensive animal organs, experimenting on the TFC mercs with said organs, and bringing the Sniper back to life.
Suddenly, an alarm is set off, and TFC Heavy gets a call informing him that the team has killed Classic Pyro, Demoman and Spy. TFC Heavy turns round to the Medic and informs that the remaining Classic team is going to find them. Although Medic offers to join (for "field work"), TFC Heavy declines the offer and demands that Medic kill Sniper, but notices that Sniper has already escaped. Enraged, TFC Heavy tears off and throws the Medic's Medi Gun to the ground, and commands him not to leave the room. A resurrected Archimedes coos at Medic, who simply picks up his Bonesaw with a sinister expression, responding, "I couldn't agree more".
As the team escapes from the base, the TFC Heavy speaks to them via screens around the site. He tells them about Gray's plan to invade Australia, but also points out that he initially couldn't understand the reason for the invasion, given that the Administrator had already taken all the Australium out of the country. The team regroups with Spy, who confirms that he's located a way out - albeit behind a horde of robots armed with leech-like tentacles. The TFC Heavy reveals that the robots were designed to drain the Australium out of the bodies of Australians, but he's ordered this horde to attack the team out of revenge for killing his friends. The comic ends as the robots descend on Pyro, Zhanna, Soldier, Miss Pauling, Spy and Demo, and begin to drain their blood out, with some of them already appearing pale and corpse-like.
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Notes
- In this comic, the Classic Pyro is revealed to be a woman named Beatrice. The ambiguity about the current Pyro's gender is an ongoing mystery.
- Page 41
- The coordinates given by Miss Pauling point to a location in New Mexico called the Organ Needle.
Trivia
- Cover
- The title page is a reference to the first issue of Watchmen.
- Page 28
- Soldier tells Zhanna that he "did not know that they stacked ravishing that high!" This is a reference to the instructor's scolding "I didn’t know they stacked **** that high!" in opening scenes of Full Metal Jacket.
- Page 63
- There's nothing wrong with playing God, so long as you are good at [it.] In keeping with the Medic's story arc of reanimation/creation of life, the espression "playing God" is a trope commonly thought to originate with the 1931 movie Frankenstein, as the phrase did not exist in Shelley's original novel.
- Page 70
- Medic shouts at Archimedes that TFC Heavy's shoulder "is fil-". This is a reference to Meet the Medic, in which Medic yelled "It's filthy in there." when Archimedes emerges from TF2 Heavy's ribcage.
See also
External links
- Old Wounds on the TF2 Official Website.
