TITLE The Bastich By Hart
PANEL 1 (A giant swarm of UFOs surrounds Earth.) CAPTION: This just in: Martian Ships have surrounded the Earth..!
PANEL 2 (A MARTIAN from the MARS ATTACKS franchise emerges from a UFO and approaches BASTICH.) BASTICH: Hey there, Jar-Head... Whats up? MARTIAN: Ack Aack Ack!
PANEL 3 (HACKER-LAD holds a tricorder up to a large boxy machine labeled MR. TRANSLATE.) HACKER-LAD: Hold on, 'Stich... I think I've finally got this thing working! BASTICH: Go for it, Hacker-Lad!
PANEL 4 (The MARTIAN speaks as the machine translates.) MARTIAN: Ack Aack Ack! TRANSLATOR: We are tired of waiting, Earthlings. If you do not reveal the ending to the Babylon 5 series within five of your minutes we will reduce your planet to space mulch!
PANEL 5 (BASTICH holds his hand up in response.) BASTICH: Sorry, Greenie, no can do. You will just have to wait until the end of season 5 like the rest of us!
PANEL 6 (BASTICH consoles the weeping MARTIAN.) BASTICH: That's right, cry it all out. I know it's frustrating, but you can't just go running around firing your death-rays whenever you don't get your way.
CREDITS Bastich (c) 1996 Joshua Adam Hart
Commentary
We close out the Fall 1996 semester with a reference to Mars Attacks! which was set to hit theaters a few days later. I forget how, but I caught a sneak preview of the film and this was sort of an endorsement.
As for Babylon 5, we eventually did get to see how it all ended after a bumpy ride. The series was crafted to be a 5-year epic with an ending in mind, which was quite rare at the time. We fans were on the edge of our seat after each season, never knowing if it would be renewed until the 11th hour. Then JMS would send out the good news and the fans would let out a joyous sigh of relief.
The prospect of a fifth season was so dire that the storyline was accelerated to squeeze more events into the fourth season, including the big series finale. Then the TNT network swooped in, the finale was swapped for a new episode, and we got the full five seasons and a proper conclusion. That last season was a bit uneven thanks to so much story being shifted to the previous season, but it was still great TV.
This was all an early taste of the kind of stress fans now feel for every slow-burn streaming show that gets cancelled before it has a chance to make its point.
Process note: The armada in the first panel was created in CorelDRAW along with the usual panel layout and text.