Because of Xykon’s order in Start of Darkness? First of all, all we know is that the MitD’s eyes glowed in response; we don’t know if Xykon’s compulsion actually worked. Second of all, he’s in a diminished state, which may leave him vulnerable to influence.
Besides, Burlew has homebrewed mentally impaired characters before. What D&D rules covered Haley’s temporary inability to speak Common?
No, I’m summarising 11 threads totalling many thousands of posts into a few lines. If you want chapter and verse, the thread to which I linked above is the place to go.
Are you saying that people on some *other *board are smarter than we are?
It’s a rust monster… a very unusual rust monster.
In with a reference to Strip 308, since Durkon is certainly getting a damned good view of it now.
A brain-damaged Zeus would work narratively a lot better than a monster from an obscure sourcebook, but I still think that his personality is completely wrong for Zeus.
That’s a very valid point.
I don’t know. Maybe we’ll see how whatever he went through affected his personality. Or maybe the Zeus of the Stickworld is different from the one we’re familiar with. A lot will depend, in fact, on the next few strips, where I assume we’ll get to spend some time with Thor, and learn how closely Burlew’s gods adhere to their mythological counterparts.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and the MitD is some other divine being, or an amalgam of a more than one of them (as** Jonathan Chance** suggested).
You are a bad man. A very bad man. 
Holy crap. Olentzero.
How’s things?
At least he didn’t link to strip #948.
Actually, I think Roy is a better bet as Zeus. His sword-throwing is now very like Zeus throwing thunderbolts, isn’t it? It was very telling that Zeus was not depicted as dead but the Monster Hunters recognised the Monster as a monster and Oona recognised him too.
I’m not 100% sure that last bit means what it seems to: to the extent that Zeus (or, for that matter, a hagunemnon) is a shapeshifter, then being recognized as a monster is like having folks opine that it’s a little unusual for such a creature to be fluent in Common: they’d have good reason to think they know what they’re talking about, but they’d in fact just be making the mistake of reading a book by its cover.
Well, there’s a few of the same people on both boards.
I dunno. There’s allegedly a monster in the dark. Ok, say the umbrella falls and out steps… a monster. Something that looks like a monster. Something the reader has never seen before, but it looks like a monster.
That seems to fit. I don’t think there would be a lot of problems with that.
Yes, I say on this topic that their hive mind beats our hive mind. But it’s more fun here, what with less dross to wade through and a higher gem ratio. Compare a diamond pipe to a mountain sized coal mine. More value in the latter, greater concentration in the former.
The best guide to the identity of MitD, IMHO, is in the circus arc of Start of Darkness. MitD is depicted as susceptible to mind control, childish, disgusting looking, but at the same time fascinating to watch to those of certain tastes, such as One-Eye’s kids. Also with a strength of greater than 18. He has a backstory: he’s an extremely powerful but also child-like monster captured in the swamp by big game hunters and kept as a pet by the bad guys. He’s reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster in some ways; the template is flexible.
The problem is, Rich said that the MitD isn’t something he made up. Otherwise, I’d be cheerleading Team MitD-Is-A-Mini-Snarl-Thing.
More focused.
If we’re looking at gods, make it the reincarnation of Baldur and OOTS can do American Gods crossovers. But I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t a monster.
Sure, but all of the main candidates listed on the Oots board look like monsters, though some are more monstrous than others. (Most of them have only a handful of artistic depictions. I wasn’t clear: what I meant to say was that Rich’s depiction of the monster should be new and fresh to his readers. That won’t stop them from recognizing the monster as “A monster”.)
So that rules out Acid-Breathing Shark, then.
And he said that the mystery’s resolution is satisfying. It’s not satisfying if it’s just some monster we’ve never seen before.
Tying in with the death of gods makes sense. And he never said that it was definitely in the Monster Manual, so the Greek gods are on the table. He didn’t make them up.
I’m going to add some quotes from the OOts thread. On satisfaction: [INDENT] Originally Posted by Rich Burlew, in War and XPs (PDF, R4-B) - After the War: Looking Back from 2016
A lot of people have asked me whether there is any actual answer to the mystery of the Monster in the Darkness that could possibly satisfy after so many years of wondering and guessing and weighing characteristics against existing monsters and otherwise just generally thinking about it.
The answer to that question is yes. Yes, there is. [/INDENT] Well, you can’t satisfy everyone Rich.
On whether we would have see them before, Grey_Wolf_c sez: [INDENT] “someone will figure it out”: related to the above, it specifies that what Rich means by “guess” is not “throwing darts while blindfolded” type of guess, but a rational, follow the clues to a conclusion process. “A potted plant that was eaten and spat out by the Snarl, giving it eyes, a horrible appearance, great strength and the ability to teleport, and look, it can be guessed- I just did!” might fit the first meaning, but not the second. [/INDENT] So yes, a supercharged home brewed gelatinous cube wouldn’t qualify, but methinks anything from eg the set of (official) D&D Monster Manuals is fair game. Not so sure if it came from an obscure 1994 article in Dragon magazine.