Next page. Morty is lying in a pool of blood, desperately hoping his regeneration will patch him up before he dies.

Burk: Are you going to surrender now?
Morty: I really didn't want to do this. Look what you made me do!
Burk: What?
Morty: POWER WORD: KILL

Burk drops dead.

Morty: I can't believe that worked.
READERS: Neither can we! Burk can't be dead. Let's see what the next page brings. Wait, are those the dreaded chapter change rectangles in the final panel???

(Yes, I'm bored, but not of the comic. Rather curious at where this Morty-pummeling is going. Bring it on.)

I'm starting to wonder if Morty literally *can't* surrender. Like, if he surrenders, he somehow loses his powers, so he has to either convince his opponent that he's not worth fighting and goes away or has to win every time.

Because Burk himself has said, all Morty had to do was say, "I give up, I surrender and promise not to fight you" and Burk might have let him go.

Oh I don’t think he’s gonna be walking away from this punch. The man got same day delivery by that punch.

Burk does seem to be playing with his food a bit here, either he's enjoying this more than he lets on or he's trying to do something according to what Corkscrew (Insect dude: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_3115 ) informed him of. After all, Evyle did make sure Morty would be there for his pummeling with the letter ploy.

@Bailoroc. Burk was never going to let him go. Burk is trying to capture him. Surrender would be way less painful and humiliating though. Unfortunately everything Morty has done has been attempting to win, escape or by time with subterfuge. In addition I'm pretty sure Burk recognizes that Mirty has caused significant harm even if not through direct action, he's basically admitted to being complicit and unlike Morty, Burk's not dumb enough to think that's ok.

@Bailoroc I don't think Morty has any hidden reason to not surrender. Only that if he genuinely surrenders, he'll then be a captive, which isn't great for him.

...or at least, isn't great for him if he's honest about it. I don't think he's yet thought of the idea of "fake surrendering" but waiting a day or two before breaking the truce.

Interesting theory, Bailoroc. It would mirror the mask guy from Tobi's story, who got caught in a death paradox because he wasn't allowed to reveal any info about himself and got voted off the planet.

Hey, it's the banner image! I figured it had to be coming up soon.

@Bailoroc Interesting idea. Somehow I doubt there's a bomb in his head, but there could certainly be something in the contracts about it.

On the other hand, Burk explicitly stated on page 3137 that he will NOT let Morty go. And Morty probably figures that if Burk captures him, he'll end up imprisoned, depowered, and/or dead. So he's backed into a corner either way.

Yup! But sit there being ineffective, and you get what you get! You made yourself a target when you got into this! He he he.

I'm slightly confused : Was Morty smashed so hard thta broke the sound barrier, or did he use a power to escape ?

I'm not particularly confused as to why Morty doesn't surrender: If he does, then he's going to suffer consequences for what he's done, and if there's one thing we've established by now, it's that Morty doesn't think that whatever he's done warrants punishment, because he hasn't done anything actually wrong in his own eyes.

Me, I more-so wonder if we have actually reached the point where Morty has faked surrender so many times that Burk no longer would accept a (hypothetical) serious surrender, even were Morty to ever actually throw in the towel for real.

Perhaps Burk decided to helpfully deliver Morty directly to Vonesperda. At high speed.

@Deliverance: Won't happen, Power Word: Kill requires the HP of the target to be lower than a treshold (100?) and Burk is not injured right now ;)

Burk is giving him a fly around the city block in his private jet. The jet-stream of his fist that is.

@Strannik

Pretty sure the big, bold "SMASH!!" is an indication of the former, though that doesn't strictly preclude the latter ALSO happening.

I am assuming it's just the former though. If Morty had a good escape option, he'd probably have used it already? Though considering he has sonething like a hundred different powers, and I doubt he's practiced much with any of them, maybe he DOES have good escape options that he just doesn't know how to implement.

Or maybe he's still trying to achieve something that can be called a victory, based on a set of goals still not fully clear to us and in the most pathetic way conceivable.

We'll probably find out very soon, considering Burk seems to be holding back a bit less now. I think that's fair - Morty has proven to be moderately durable, despite his whining. He wouldn't survive an actual fight with most people, let alone Burk, but Burk can probably afford to use a bit more force to get Morty to collapse into a whiny pile.

damn, he punched the vonesperda right out of him

@KsCoPe that's why we'd all be so surprised. Imagine Burk having 100HP or less maxHP - none of us foresaw that! But his focus on avoiding attacks at all costs becomes a lot more clear. ;-)

For the people concocting reasons for this worm not givbng up pages ago: never underestimate bad old pettiness

The comment you left is a lie Neo. At this point he's not "trying" to beat him up. Burk is beating him up lol

He keeps calling Burke dumb with no real evidence to back that up. Hit him a few more times.