Aww, damnit. The streak of XKCDs-That-Are-Good (XTAG) has come to an end. Once again, I must raise the ritual dagger and send the stillborn comic up to the great webpage in the sky.
When was the last time we had a multi-row comic? I feel like it's been a while, the only one I can recall off the top of my head is #1337. I really feel like this one would have been a lot stronger if the dramatic shootout had just been a bit more protracted.
The shootout definitely could have used more detail though, in the first panel the guy (let's tall him "Top") looks like he's being hit, a quick depth job would have fixed that right up. And in the fourth panel, it looks weird with the other guy (let's call him "Bottom") splayed out on the ground when Top is still 'flat'.
Although the punchline isn't as bad as it could have been, since you do get a vague idea of what the apollo retroreflectors are from how the beam comes back (it's some kind of space mirror, obviously). On the other hand, it would have been pretty awkward to cram an explanation about them into a gun battle.
I feel like this is something that would need a whole action movie of setup to pay off properly, like this is the final climatic face off between Top and Bottom, all their friends are dead, Top is about to win, when suddenly Bottom remembers the moon mirros that Scientist had briefly mentioned at the begining of the film and fires upward, letting him win the fight.
To be honest, what we've got here is just too dramatic. The punchline really can't be made funny without a completely different setup, like if the above hypothetical scene was being parodied by another movie and the two spies ran into a carnival house of mirrors.
I want it to be noted that I'd actually learned about the Apollo Retroreflectors before reading this comic, but I didn't make the connection until I read the comic a second time. It's obviously my own issue, but I suspect I'm not the only person who files that information under "those mirrors on the moon" rather than "Apollo Retroreflectors".
Also, didn't Mulan do this, but with a firework and an avalanche?
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