We have all seen incredible things in our lives, things that boggle the mind, things that defy reason itself, things that are, in fact, so absolutely friggin’ sweet that they simply go beyond all explanation, like the time I saw Gorbachev driving a bus in DC.  This is better though, because it’s about Mark Trail.  Now Mark Trail, if you recall, is this guy in the comics who, in addition to being a good-natured park ranger and all around wilderness guy, is also an absolute superhero.  He has, on previous occasions, brought down a plane full of terrorists by throwing a petrified tree at them, single handedly punched out a veritable plethora of possum thieves by hanging out outside their camp and making chicken sounds and then, when they came out to see what could possibly be making chicken noises, punching them all in the face.  One time, he even caught up to a speedboat by rowing down the river on a log.  So yeah, Mark Trail’s credentials are already well in order.

            Today though, he did something so unspeakably cool, that I don’t even know where to begin with describing it.  I mean, it’s really impressive, but also kinda scary, like if I was one of Mark Trail’s friends, I’d start getting worried about what might happen f he ever got mad at me.  It’s so cool in fact, that I’m not gonna get into it until the very end of the blog, because if I showed you now, everything else in your life would become that much less awesome by comparison (go ahead and scroll down if you must, you’ll only get more wrath when Mark finds out, and when you realize the awesometude of his godlike powers, you’ll wish you hadn’t).

            Anyways, to briefly recapitulate the recent story arc, a plane carrying Hillary Duff (who, of course, looks just like Mark’s girlfriend/mail order skank from Slobovia) and her tiny yippy little annoying pillow dog crashed in the mountains, near the Hundred Acre Woods of Mark (authorities now believe that the plane was struck by a piece of flying petrified wood).  Hillary Duff remains trapped in the plane but is eventually rescued and survives, unfortunately.  Her dog however, is thrown free from the flaming wreckage before it can devour its wounded owner, and if hurled some fifty miles from the actual crash site.  It’s stalked by some wolves for a while, but eventually they just give up due to a plague of ennui that’s been sweeping through the forest like Andre the Giant through a basketball court full of pygmies (it’s not just an idle simile, Mr. The Giant actually did this all the time).  Also, there was a blizzard.  Finally the dog find the one tiny run-down shack in the entire wilderness where, dwells a kindly old troll-geezer, who just looks like a balding version of Mark Trail from far off, but who grows increasingly hideous the closer you get to him.  To make a long story short, it turns out that the dog (who is eventually eaten by Mark’s much larger and less annoying dog) was wearing a diamond collar worth a bajillion dollars, and so the insurance company sends Ten Years Older With Grey Hair Mark to find the collar.  Now, TYOWGH Mark unbelievably obnoxious to regular Mark.  Like, Mark might say “I think I’ll go and cook us both a delicious succulent ham.” And TYOWGH Mark would say, “That sounds just like something you would do, you bumbling, retarded sack of wolverine buttocks!”  But Mark Trail is cool, he just takes it.

            So anyway, eventually Mark comes up with an ingenious tin foil-related plan to find the collar, but he foolishly let’s Evil Mark actually look for it.  So, it is at last revealed that Evil Mark actually was planning to steal the collar for himself, but Real Mark catches him and tells the insurance company on him.  Now, this might not seem like much of a penalty to pay, since he was, after all, thinking of stealing umpteen squintillion dollars in diamonds. 

Remember that show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”  You know how there’d be like, an evil wizard, or some kid who meddled in the affairs of higher powers, and at the end someone would be like, “Oh, don’t worry about little Osama, I don’t think he’ll be troubling us any time soon,” and then they’d show you like, a statue, or possibly a painting, and it’s eyes would be moving and you’d be all like “Crap dude! They turned him into a statue, or possibly a painting!”  Well look at what Mark Trail did today:

Yes.  Mark Trail turned Evil Insurance Claims Agent Mark into a beaver.  Mark Trail is the freakin’ Harry Potter of park rangers.  Granted, being turned into a beaver might not sound as bad as being turned into something like a painting, or Ted Kennedy, but think again, ‘cause this is a cursed beaver!  Yeah, just look at the expression on his face; this is a beaver doomed to wander the Earth for all the countless and unholy aeons until the diamonds in that collar turn back into coal.  I’ll bet he has to like, gnaw down a petrified tree every day, and then it grows back overnight, like he’s in some weird ancient Greek beaver Hell (Ancient Greek Beaver Hell, by the way, would be a totally sweet name for a band, by the way).  So remember, whether you love him or hate him, respect Mark Trail, he can turn you into an overgrown aquarat with a big floppity tail and an eternity of suffering.