Alternative Energy Revolution
The moment their arms spun freely in our air, they were doomed -- for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane.
The moment their arms spun freely in our air, they were doomed -- for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane.
Megan and Cueball are looking at modern "windmills" (known as wind turbines) harnessing wind energy into electrical energy. They comment that there's something creepy about the windmills. They allude to the book The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (the Jeff Wayne musical version of The War of the Worlds has paintings of the Martian tripods somewhat like these turbines) and also to John Christopher's Tripods trilogy, a young adult series of books that is also about aliens who ride in walking tripods. Suddenly the windmills' pylons split into three legs, becoming the tripods suggested.
They exclaim that Al Gore has doomed us all. Gore is a former Vice President of the United States of America, known for his environmental activism and promotion of green energy sources, relevant because wind turbines like the ones here are one of the alternative energy sources he supports.
In the final panel, the seventeenth-century literary figure Don Quixote arrives. Randall's depiction seems to be inspired by the drawing by Pablo Picasso. In the original story, Don Quixote is a wandering knight of questionable sanity who fights a windmill, which he believes to be a giant. Hence, he is the appropriate person to deal with this threat. Wind turbines also appear in later comics. In 1119: Undoing, Randall still seems to dislike them. In 1378: Turbine, the turbine is alive as it is in this comic, though its talking may simply be anthropomorphism.
The title is a joke on the phrase "Alternative Energy Revolution," which normally refers to replacing of harmful power sources with eco-friendly options. However, in this case, the Alternative Energy sources are literally rising up in a revolution against humanity, while their rotor blades are revolving. The title text is also a reference to The War of the Worlds: "But there are no bacteria in Mars... when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed... By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers." Of course, this time we are only saved because we — in spite of having evolved — still produce insane members of our species: some of them occasionally being crazy in a practical way (as Don Quixote's special powers lie in defeating windmills).