New Chick Tract: "Fatal Decision"

Fatal Decision

At first, this one seems like the stereotypical “guy who is dying thinks Jesus is hooey and pays for it once he dies” plot, but I think this one is an allegory. Some guy in the jungle gets a really bad disease which could affect all those who get near him and has to be injected with the cure. The doctor lost his son on the way to give the man the power to live. You get it? Because God sacrificed his son to give us the cure for sin, which affects us all, and live forever. Yeah, it’s a pretty big stretch for an allegory.

What’s the deal with the angry janitor, though? Who does he represent in this allegory? Satan? Pontius Pilate? (His name is “Brutus,” the same as the one who betrayed Ceasar, so I’m guessing he’s Pilate.) How did he get even with the doctor? Did he crash his car into the doctor’s to kill him? This allegory is really stretched. Which is to say that Chick (or whoever’s doing these nowadays) is back to his old self.

The diseased man looks like a stereotypical Chinese man with buck teeth in the panel where he’s saying “What are you implying?” And the shot of him with the caption “3 days later” is just disturbing.

Clearly, at least if one of the last panels is to be believed, sinners look like cretins or racial stereotypes. Therefore, attractive white people are without sin.

That’s a relief.

That’s the suckiest thing to ever suck. Chick hasn’t merely lost his edge, he’s filed it down to a smooth, nearly frictionless curve that couldn’t even cut melted butter.

I just realized I confused Pontius Pilate with Judas. I still don’t know how the janitor fits into the allegory, though.

I think the janitor is Satan, tempting poor humanity/John.

Is it me or does it bug anyone else that John is cool with his son dying for the most part???

Its like that Borne Identity concept where Bourne’s all “I WON’T kill any more!!! And then spends the rest of the movie killing everyone who tries to stop him.”

Never understood why its just a given that killing a bunch of other people is OK as long as the hero survives.

Why didn’t they just amputate John’s leg wherever is was he was bitten?

Why does the doctor go to get the vaccine? A courier service would have been much faster.

I know, I know logic and Chick don’t mix.

I don’t get it at all, at all.

I laughed out loud when John completely and violently lost his sh^t based on a couple of subtle words from the elaborately tatted up Janitor. That really struck me as [unintentionally] very funny.

So, according to the Jackster, a guy who destroys his own medicine because he’s out of his mind from disease is an “ungrateful wretch” and deserves to die horribly? Man, that is seriously messed up.

You will know them by the hovering fruit flies, apparently.

The doctor is apparently supposed to be God, who apparently didn’t mind: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…” (John 3:16)

But yeah, a non-omnipotent person would probably be more affected by his son’s death.

He’s a smelly Mexican stealing a janitorial job from Real God-Fearing Amurrikins!

Apparently the disease that guy had turns you into the guy in Robocop who gets thrown into toxic waste.

Also there’s only one vial of the cure in the world? What exactly were they planning on doing once they used it on this guy?

I do have to say that I love the sound effect when they guy chucks it against the wall. “splat”

Did God have sons who weren’t begotten? How? Did they spring full-fledged from his head like Athena? How does Jesus rank in the family pecking order if he’s the only begotten son? Were there any daughters?*

*95% of the time, I’m pretty normal. The other 5%, the weird thoughts go straight from brain to mouth/fingers, because the filter doesn’t work.

The first portion of this is uncannily like the movie Outbreak, right down to the specific model of hazmat suit that Dr. Bowers wears and the examination of the two (almost identical) strains of the virus under the microscope, and even the shape of the viruses themselves. I think Chick must have been watching that movie before he wrote this shitty comic.

The rest of it just makes no sense and gets a D- for effort. Also, some of Chick’s tracts are drawn by really good artists, and others (like this one) are drawn by either him or someone else who has been trained to copy his style. The latter tracts are always the shittiest.

Is the Swiss guy in panel 14 supposed to look like House? Because he does, sort of.

Why does the doctor have to pay for the medication? If the disease is so bad, shouldn’t the CDC pick up the tab? Also, how does a janitor get into a room that’s supposed to be isolated without wearing some kind of suit?

Nobody notices the Sweeper.

By that time, they knew the patient had the noncontagious type 2 strain.

See? It all fits!

As an afterthought, the janitor’s “Oh, NO!!” when hearing about the doctor’s son’s death show way more concern than the doctor did, and the janitor hated the doctor.

I’d say the janitor is the hero of this tract.