After so many years, the Doc and Raider Universe is getting almost as dense as a Russian novel, with characters whose backstories are intricate and complex. Take these two. Aiko is a fully-transitioned FTM transsexual, but someone whose transition was provided by… well, divine intervention… while Louis is a young Italian who died during WW1, spent decades in the Afterlife, and was revived… by divine intervention… to become Aiko’s main squeeze.

Now, sure, normally such things would be out of place in a strip as more or less grounded as this one. Sure, strange things happen around here on a pretty regular basis, but they all carry at least the patina of being plausible… to a certain degree anyway. Then these two come along and completely upend that, just by merely being. Aiko’s aware of it: he knows his post-transition life sometimes comes into conflict with the memory of his pre-transition one, but Louis hasnt a clue. If Ignorance is Bliss, he’s the happiest guy in the village: living with a hot man, owning his own business, and not really caring that the woman he thinks of as his grandmother is actually… someone else. Entirely.

So how do these two fit into things as a whole? As a reminder, I guess, that with sufficient faith in yourself, anything is more or less possible… even if you’re not aware that it’s happening… when it does…..