Oh, what a queer person this Dave has become! Now only a mere babe of seven days old, and carried not by his own mother’s womb but by the naughty Helen’s contraptions! Golly, gee, how magical this must all be!

Today a character was literally reborn, good as new. This is, of course, a terrible, horrible violation, not just of the bleak future but of heaven, hell, sane medical science, natural selection, the Dave replacement characters that never were, the insurance industry, and the bittersweet beauty of a brief and fleeting existence. Tut, tut, Helen.

P.S: Think this over – Dave’s brain, even in its new casing, remains a zombie brain. Therefore, from now on he will carry with him a preternatural resistance to braindeath. It’s an unexpected perk of such a horrendous experience.

P.P.S: Today’s punchline points out that now was an opportunity to cure Dave of the cigarette’s vice, but it was not to be. Because, of course, it was always destined to be removed later in a much more astounding fashion. This, of course, doesn’t prevent new readers from interpreting today as one of the standard comedy series rebuffs to character design continuity…

(Hi Shaenon! Thanks for my book and sketch and gerbil! :D)

I think that he can be a pretty okay guy, is what I’m saying. We see some of this later when he hires Dave, I think. Other than his Mad Science persona, he;s just another introverted geek.

I mean, frankly? I KNOW this guy. I see him at DnD night at the game shop. Hell, If I wasn’t a pushover sweet guy (yeah, yeah) I would *be* him. The only difference is that MY mom is really supportive, really.

But Ed, Helen? Oh, yeah. She’s just so. . . so sweet. 

Helen, without her madness, would be … well, let’s just say I’m glad my wife doesn’t know about her.

I once ineffectually compared pink-heart-evil (or “e❤il” for short) to chocolate and milk, but it’s really more like Nutella and bread.

…I mean, the important thing is that Helen and Lupin’s evil genius is merely a thick brown coating through which their ‘original’ personalities shine through. Helen is really just a chirpy schoolgirl grown up, which is why she specialises in cuddly rodents, and Madblood explores such schoolboy dreams as Transformers and moon bases because, as per today’s episode, he’s really just an overempowered electronics geek.

One gets the impression that these mad gods do evil only because they must, and without that hazelnut-flavoured cogntive taint, they’d be much nicer individuals than they are now.