The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

It's also closure in the sense that, y'know, he's probably gonna die, so that's one more loose thread tied up as we approach the finale.

edited 18th Jul '16 8:50:57 AM by thebandragoness

I feel like he wants Doc to be the one to kill him, but can't bring himself to submit meekly to the end because he blames Doc for creating his problems in the first place.

Not necessarily. Doc might be able to turn this around. There are a few ways. One of two things could be possible:

• He's not really dying of DCD, Rad made that up.
• He is really dying of DCD, but Doc can appeal to his better nature to triumph over his spiraling despair.

In the case of the latter, Old would be primed to make a Heroic Sacrifice later down the line. In the case of the former, Old would be in a perfect position to step into Doc's shoes when Doc dies, as many have predicted he will.

Ooo, I hadn't thought of that. Entirely possible.

edited 18th Jul '16 8:54:13 AM by TobiasDrake

Old's not a doctor, though. He has only a fraction of Doc's complete set of memories, and so could only faff about with the ninja bit while doing a bit of gardening on the side. Further, Doc's family would never accept him, so he'd make a pretty miserable substitute.

Why not get the machine that combined all the clones into one? Combine Old back into Doc.

I'm pretty sure that only Ben Franklin can operate the machine, assuming it still exists, and Ben has shuffled off into the afterlife for the last and final time.

Point of order:

Doc's family seemed pretty willing to accept Old earlier, no?

Yes, they consider Old the better ninja. Seeing as he successfully disappeared for years. So in their eyes, that compensates for him not being the "real" Patrick McNinja.

Old doesn't want to die, so I doubt he'd be placated by a different method of dying.

Or maybe Old steps into Doc's shoes to to trick Radical and dies from that.

Classic trope.

Is it too out there for Old to believe that if he kills Doc, he won't die?

No because he and Patrick are the same. They are genre savvy no matter what.

This is more likely Taking You with Me in action.

That expression of realization was made for memeing.

Love the eyes. And the Alt Text is right; this would be a great time for a distraction kill.

Now that I think about it. Why would Ben use inferior cloning tech?

There's no reason. That's Doc's point. It wasn't just that the clones would only last a few years—they were so weak that they could be torn apart by bare hands. The first clone of Ben Franklin died trying to eat a sandwhich. Using inferior tech simply would not have worked.

Now I feel silly for buying into the "Clone degeneration" thing.

But what caused Old to think he was dying in the first place? Maybe he's dying of a different, unrelated disease? (In which case, Doc can use his doctor skills to easily cure him, but still.)

Unless it's Diabetes. Which as we know, Doc has no time for their whining.

I do believe that participation in the battle against Rayner, plus a good bit of "creative" disinformation from King Rad, may have led him to that conclusion.

Does anyone remember when we saw the first cloning attempts on Franklin? The bit where he blew his head off trying to bite a sandwich? I vaguely remember it but can't seem to find it in the archive.

I believe it was in the "Final Thoughts" page from the chapter where Franz Rayner came back.

EDIT: Yep. http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p89/

edited 20th Jul '16 7:04:00 PM by MetaFour

Wait, why did Franklin age his clones into old men? Why not, I don't know, 25?

That's why I think Doc might be full of shit here, and that Ben's clones were all cloned old...because of science reasons.

What I'm thinking is that, "clone degeneration" aside, Old may just be horribly flawed regardless. Maybe it's the years of isolation and loneliness, but he did completely abandon his family without even checking to see if assassins came for them. Old is so driven by fear that I wonder if he was ready to chicken out of the merger in the first place, then decided to vanish forever when the lab blew up.

Old might be a rabid—"Cowardly"? Paranoid?—dog that Doc is about to put down.

The faulty clones with degenerative tech were old, but the successful Franklin clone aged naturally for at least a decade or two, and we don't know how long he was alive before he was Doc's mentor. Here he is with color still in his hair, but fading. It would be grayed eight years later when they reconvened.

The successful Franklin clone lived a life and only died because of an exploding car. At no point does he demonstrate concern of degenerating, nor does he even bring up such a possibility when discussing the Doc clones with Doc.

He doesn't mention it because it's not a thing he thinks is going to happen. It's not a flaw his perfected process has. The faulty clones are easily recognizable by their fragility. As Doc points out, Frans was pulling them in half. The faulty Franklin clone decapitated himself by biting a sandwich too hard. Old is not that fragile.

edited 21st Jul '16 10:43:52 AM by TobiasDrake