Search and Rescue

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Search and Rescue
Chapter43 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedOctober 2, 2008 (2008-10-02)
Page count28
Major charactersMike, Lucy, Paulo, David, Tess, Sue, Zachary, Lily, Yashy
Minor charactersAlec McCain, Amaya, Blur, Chirpy, Catherine
LocationsSilvershore Islands
Collected inVolume One, Omnibus 1
Chapter navigation
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A tropical hike goes very wrong when a rock bridge crumbles under Mike and Lucy. He throws her to safety and drops alone into the river below, leaving his friends hunting for a body and Lucy quietly falling to pieces.

Synopsis

The chapter opens at night in the boys’ hotel room, where Paulo and Mike pack their bags, Mike bandaged on his head and waist.[1] From there the story rewinds to that morning and the group’s hike up the tropical mountainside.[2]

The trail ends at a high natural rock bridge spanning the valley.[3][4] Mike peeks over the edge, sees the river far below, and freezes. To keep Lucy from spotting the water she fears, he bets her he can “last the longest without looking down”, and she furiously takes the bait.[4] On the span, Paulo and David’s chest-slamming game cracks the rock, and the bridge crumbles right out from under Mike and Lucy.[5]

Mike catches the ledge one-handed and swings the dangling Lucy up to grip his waist.[6] When she looks down at the river below, she faints and slips backward off him.[7] Mike grabs the ledge with both hands and springboards off the underside of the bridge. He catches her in mid-air and hurls her up to the others before plummeting alone toward the river, marked at the last only by his scarf.[8]

Up top, Lily has nearly talked everyone into composure when Yashy wails “JESUS CHRIST WE KILLED HIM!!” and restarts the crying wholesale.[9] Once Lucy comes to and asks where Mike is, McCain bluntly tells her that he fell, and she crumples, clinging to Paulo.[10] On the trail afterward she insists flatly that Mike drowned, then slides into a giggling, sobbing breakdown.[11]

Zachary arrives, hauled up the mountain by Blur and Chirpy, with mixed news. A perfectly safe rope bridge crosses the valley nearby. As for the missing Mike, he blurts out “Well he’s probably dead.” before hastily offering to help find the body.[12] He guides the group down to the riverbank.[13] There his clumsy attempt to reassure the water-shy Lucy knocks her out cold.[14]

David dives in after a large-eyebrowed fish and grabs its tail just as it bites a baited hook. The fisherman who reels him ashore is Mike, bruised and entirely alive, having calmly fished while he waited to be found.[15] Sue hurls herself onto him in tears, and the relief lasts until Paulo presents the once-again-unconscious Lucy with the announcement, “Hey guys? We lost another one.”[16]

That evening the group settles around a large campfire back in town.[17] When Lucy quietly excuses herself for the bathroom, Mike stands up with an “I’ll walk you.”[18] Heading for the same restroom a little later, Zachary hears crying, and through the window he sees Lucy sobbing into Mike’s chest while Mike holds her and looks away in resentment.[19]

Character dynamics

Silhouetted against the sky, Mike springboards off the underside of the broken bridge and catches the unconscious Lucy in mid-air.
Just a cool thing Mike did, okay.
  • Mike and Lucy: Their bond usually runs on competition, and the bridge shows the protective streak underneath it — the no-looking-down “game” exists only so Lucy never sees the water.[4] Back in Troubled Waters, Mike promised her he never wanted her risking herself for him again, and falling alone is that promise kept to the letter.[20][8] Believing him drowned breaks Lucy so thoroughly that Lily sums the whole spectacle up for a baffled Zachary as “Oh, young love~”.[14] By nightfall Mike walks her to the bathroom and lets her cry into his chest, but the look on his face leaves the two of them closer and more strained at once.[18][19]
  • Sue and Mike: Their friendship doesn’t change here, but its depth is hard to miss. Sue takes his apparent death harder than almost anyone, sobbing at the bridge, and when he turns up alive she’s the one who hurls herself onto him in tears.[9][16]
  • Zachary and the group: Zachary is a near-stranger the group leans on and mocks in the same breath. He only met these kids the previous chapter,[21] yet he lets the birds drag him up a mountain and guides the whole search while being branded “Pedo” and “Creep” for his trouble.[12][22] By nightfall he’s awkwardly folded into their circle, sitting at the campfire with Catherine, and he alone sees Lucy sobbing into Mike’s chest while Mike looks away in resentment.[17][19]

Trivia & observations

Seen through the restroom window, Lucy clings to Mike's waist and cries into his chest while Mike looks off to the side.
Lucy finally gets her reunion. Mike’s face says how much he’s enjoying it.
  • Mike’s scarf is missing in the opening hotel scene. Veronica’s canonical explanation is that he took it off while getting ready for bed, though she admits she still missed the error while revising the Omnibus.[1]
  • Mike and Lucy literally break through the panel borders as they fall. Oliver notes the Summer Vacation arc is when Veronica began experimenting with panel layouts for narrative effect, and that straightening those unruled lines in later production was “a nightmare”.[23]
  • Veronica calls the mid-air rescue one of the toughest pages she’d made, and answered complaints about its physics with “THIS IS JUST A COOL THING MIKE DID, OKAY. BADASS!!!!!”[8]
  • The beast in the bushes is never identified and never appears again. Veronica’s commentary wonders whether it was a bear before concluding “THE LESS WE KNOW, THE BETTER.”[13]
  • After the cliff tumble, all the cats land neatly on their feet, while David and McCain, the group’s two dogs, land flat on their backs.[22]

Related chapters

  • Intervention: The next chapter opens on this exact alley scene, with Lucy sobbing that she didn’t want Mike to die trying and Zachary still watching from the window. The rest of the night unpacks what he saw.[24]
  • Arrival: The previous chapter brings the group to the Silvershore Islands and introduces both Zachary and Catherine. Lucy’s panic in the surf also sets up her fear of the water.[21][25]
  • Troubled Waters: This is what Mike remembers when he refuses David’s rescue offer at the ledge. David’s last heroic leap cost Mike his handhold and nearly drowned everyone involved. It’s also where Mike made the promise about Lucy never risking herself for him, a promise he makes good on in the bridge fall.[26][20]
  • Return: The arc’s closing chapter, where Zachary carries what he learned into a beach-side talk confronting Lucy about her attachment to Mike.[27]
  • Another Rescue (side story): An alternate-timeline replay of this chapter’s bridge collapse, right down to the KAPOW game and the spreading crack. This time it’s Paulo, not Mike, who falls.[28]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 1
  2. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 2
  3. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 3
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 4
  5. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 5
  6. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 8
  7. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 9
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 10
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 11
  10. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 14
  11. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 15
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 16
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 17
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 20
  15. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 21
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 22
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 24
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 26
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 28
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 30: Troubled Waters, page 11
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 18
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 19
  23. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 7
  24. ↑ Chapter 44: Intervention, page 1
  25. ↑ Chapter 42: Arrival, page 26
  26. ↑ Chapter 30: Troubled Waters, page 5
  27. ↑ Chapter 45: Return, page 2
  28. ↑
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