Looks like today’s SciFi Day for Tangents. Schlock Mercenary is another of my recent acquisitions, and due entirely to Eric Burns and Websnark. Fortunately, Eric’s got good taste in comics, and I’ve not regretted any of the webcomic suggestions he’s given.

Schlock Mercenary is in the middle of an epic storyline (what comic isn’t, these days?) to save the galaxy from an experiment that ended up recreating the Big Bang within the galactic core, and he’s using one of the oldest traditions in Science Fiction to do so: Time Travel. What’s more, Howard is ignoring several concepts of time travel and has done away with paradoxes entirely. If a time traveler goes into the past, he is part of the past and thus even if he alters the future so that he wouldn’t have gone into the past, that doesn’t change the fact he’s in the past. I can see eyes glazing over already, so I’ll just point you to the strip in question.

The time travel isn’t what led up to this tangent, however. One of the things Kevyn was trying to change in the past was the death of a dear friend of his. Unfortunately due to a stowaway altering his ship’s mass, he missed the window to stop his friend by three hours. What’s more, future Kevyn still needs to save the Galaxy… and that’s a little more important than a friend’s life.

But past Kevyn is still available. Howard shows his sense of whimsy and humor as (with help) a plan is hatched to save a man’s life… by hiring out the very mercenaries that killed him, using information on the future stock market to raise the money needed.

Any other series would have had a commando team insertion sent to warn their friend of the trap, with fighting, losses, and perhaps even failing in their mission. Schlock Mercenary ignores this tradition and is blazing new ground. I mean… who ever heard of using the stock market to save the day?