Bet you thought we were done with the Bubbles of Light, didn’t you? Nope. Nuh uh. No way. Longtime readers know that a Swifty from some point in the future has been bouncing around since at Chapter 4, but keeping track of how things look from his perspective can be tricky. Time travelers are annoying in that they experience events in a different order than the rest of us.
Still… a fun game to play would be to try to fit Future Swifty’s appearance here in with his other appearances. Trust me, it does work. Bonus points to whoever can figure it out. (If I were you, I’d start by clicking on the “bubbles of light” tag and see what comes up–but that’s me.)
This must come before several other BoL appearances since he has his headpiece on in this one. However, what I’ve never been able to figure out is how he loses said headpiece. At one time, I thought he got switched with Standard Time Swifty, but I think I threw up that hypothesis at some point.
I think it was in the SFO comic “The Society of Heroes” that Swifty appeared during the fight, along with Mega Matt, and for one reason or another he took off his mask. Check it: http://superfogeys.webcomicsonline.com/2009/05/19/sf-origins-the-society-of-heroes-pg-14-save-him-dirtlicker/
213 is the connected comic. wonder if he is trying to warn about the robot, but why would he only warn star maiden and not himself?
I’m still trying to figure that out, too. My guess says it happened when the Money Man was killed.
I think page 2 of Swifty’s First Words needs to be tagged as well, as it precedes comic 282.
Done. Thanks for that!
My pleasure. Just trying to make it easier for smarter people than me to put together this oceans-deep story you’ve made š
Swifty definitely removes his head garb during the fight where the Money Man is killed.
I guess this means that when we see Swifty during the Rhonda and Gordon arc that it takes place shortly after the events of Chapter 7 (Visiting Day).
I’ll say straight off that the Rhonda and Gordon story has no relation to the Bubbles of Light stuff. All SFO stories take place BEFORE Chapter 1.
Nuts!
Can’t fault a guy for speculating, eh? It’s been fun trying to put the story together!
i’m going to go out on a limb and put my guess in around comic 107…it’s obvious from his statement he JUST started his time hopping in this comic due to his question in panel #2 “Am I-Time Traveling”
Plus comic 107 show’s him popping into a conversation with spy gal and jerry and screaming (had this been the CURRENT later form of swifty when time travelling he would have made use of those 3 seconds and warned spygal of jerry’s connection to the 3rd man.
THEN i’m gonna say his next appearance will be around 182 since his facial expression is almost identical to what he showed when he was screaming in 107.
That’s JUST my guess.
Drew beat me to it while I was typing this up and doublechecking old strips. Judging from his dialogue, I’m fairly confident that this appearance by Future Swifty occurs immediately after his first Bubbles of Light appearance in strip #107. Seems to me that it makes perfect sense for him to yell in surprise and/or confusion when it first starts happening and then to start realizing what is going on. But I will go even further and theorize that his appearance at the funeral in strip #182 might occur right before the one in strip #107, which would make it Future Swifty’s first experience with the Bubbles of Light (that we’ve seen, at least). He could have appeared and disappeared at the funeral before he had a chance to react to it. If not, then strip #182 occurs in between strip #107 and strip #355, from Future Swifty’s perspective. In all the other tagged Bubbles of Light strips he seems already used to the idea that he’s “being #@$% ping ponged through time”.
(This may be my first ever time to comment. Great story and characters! Love the artwork too, of both Brock and now Marc. Keep up the good work, both of you!)
well it’s good to know that someone was on the same page as i was in my terms of thinking i was checking facts and strips like crazy making sure i didn’t goof up with my theory
I agree with Artisan…I think this strip was preceded by 213, wherein Swifty bumps into Mega Matt as he jumps, sending MM back to 1955, where Swifty leaves his headpiece prior to strip 219, where he starts to tell Spy Gal that the Third Man is going to kill Tom. This jump sends him to meet his baby self (Baby Swifty’s First Words), and the last word he’s saying (“Jerry Bad”) leads me to believe his next jump lands him in strip 282.
In short, I’m pretty sure those strips are linked in that order, but where they fall in the timeline of Swifty’s jumps, I’m not sure.
redeemed jedi, thanks for the great comment and for letting us know you’re out there!
No Swifty… Roulette. Not Craps. Geez and I thought Star Maiden was supposed to be the batty one. š
Right… here is the order. from my count we SHOULD have 3 more bubbles of light minimum showing up, each placing themselves Before bubbles of light 6.
Bubbles of light 1 (screaming)
A bubbles of light should go here. He will lose his walker (he will aslo calm down from the shock of timetravel)
Bubbles of light 3 standing
Bubble of light should go here. he will be jumping at someone shoulditng something that ends with a screaming YOU
bubbles of light 2 (falling on the third man) The you i will assume is from the previous bubbles, as it is shouted during transport
Bubble of light should go here. He would have teleported on the ground in a prone position.
Bubbles of Light 6 -(Star….)
Bubbles of Light 4 – (…Maiden, No wait)
SFO: TSOH pg 13 – (what are you doing here)
As a note, between here and next bubble, Swifty loses his hat
SFO: TSOH pg 21 – Saianora sucker
Bubbles of light 5 (he is going to kill…)
SFO: Pg 1 (…Tom)
SFO BSFW pg 2 (Jerry….)
C.10 pg 282 (Bad)
C.10 pg 309 Sending back to whence they came
I think you have that order right, particularly BOL 6 and BOL4. I think I have them backward now that I look at it again.
Man, Valeros got exactly what I was going to say. Darn.
#107, #158, and #182 are definitely the first three stops Time Traveling Swifty makes, though you could make an argument for just about any order of these three — unlike a lot of the strips, there’re no indisputable dialouge links. But this strip is definitely Stop Number 4, and the order after that is pretty clear.
Dang, you guys are doing some serious sleuthing. This is one plot thread that’s taking FOREVER to pay off fully, but I’m glad you’re having as much fun with it as I am!
So are you going to award bonus points to anybody? š Or are none of us completely correct?
Ah, I did promise bonus points, didn’t I? Let’s see… I’m not sure that anyone got it totally right. Some of the comments are confusing to me and I’m not sure what order they are actually proposing.
I say this definitively: if you were putting this strip in order from Future Swifty’s perspective, it would come third.