Hidden Details: The Plant With a Plan

I JUST missed Piranha Plant's release last week. I didn't think Piranha Plant would be playable in the 2.0 update, I just thought they were adding his data and he'd become available somewhere in February. Turned out the plant was released early! So I didn't make a comic about him, instead focusing on Pokémon/Jigglypuff. Luckily, Jigglypuff was buffed in the 2.0 update so the comic was still somewhat relevant. But for this week, I decided to give the newest Smash character his rightful place in the spotlight!

Also, lots of memes referenced in this week's comic! Let's dive in!

First of all: the conference hall this comic is taking place in is the same one as the one in the Super Smash Bias comic! I tried to copy as many elements from the room in that comic as I could, but my style is evolving a bit, so it looks a bit different nonetheless.

The banner behind Piranha Plant reads "PLANT GANG RISE UP". I can't remember if I've actually read that slogan while dicking around on the internet. I might be mixing up two things: Gamers Rise Up and Piranha Plant Gang. In any case, it's a reference to both those memes.

Also, there's an ever-so subtle nod to a great Key & Peele sketch in the first panel. Piranha Plant announces that he's "royally pissed", just like Key & Peele do in their Black Republicans sketch.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that there are some hidden jokes going on in the graph in the second panel. Samus is raised by a bird-like alien race called the Chozo. She even has some Chozo and Metroid DNA, which is why I consider her half animal. Ganondorf is often depicted as a boar, or can turn into one. The Inkling is pretty obvious (half kid, half squid) and since Captain Falcon can summon a flaming falcon by punching, I thought he deserved to be there as well.

Villager is among the monsters since he's a an axe-murdering maniac, as we all know.

Corrin can turn into a dragon, so I'd say he's half monster. Bayonetta is literally a witch, which kinda counts as being part monster as well in my opinion. Jigglypuff is a BALLOON Pokémon, which is why I put her in the "objects" category. I have literally no clue what Kirby and Meta Knight are supposed to be and Pac-Man and Mr. Game & Watch are WAY too abstract to be called humans, so they got a "???" category of their own.

We can have endless discussions about how truthful these placements are, but hey, it's made by a freaking plant. There's bound to be a few inconsistencies and errors.

And while this panel is an essential part of the joke in this comic, it's also the only characters that can be considered plants in all of Smash. For comedic reasons, I decided to make the other two Pikmin not even show up. I didn't forget them.

In the last panel, on Sakurai's table, you can see a fancy wax stamping set and a bunch of sheets of paper and envelopes. Apparently, Sakurai is planning on writing LOTS of invitations to possible newcomers. Maybe he invites a lot of characters, but only a few accept his offer?

The plant in Sakurai's room apparently supports Piranha Plant's cause and is holding a little Plant Gang flag. Also, that plant is based on a plant that's in my actual living room! It's an Alocacia and it might be my favorite plant in my house (but don't tell the other plants I said that!):

I was at home while drawing this comic and my workspace is right next to this bad boy, so I just had to look to the left for a great example of a plant I could copy into the comic.

Whenever I draw Sakurai's office, I can't keep myself from drawing a whiteboard or bulletin board with a bunch of references. In this case, I hung up a whiteboard on which Sakurai has been brainstorming about possible DLC candidates. He has created three categories: YES, MAYBE and NO. Among the YES-characters are Steve (Minecraft), Default Fortnite Skin, Young Toon Link and James Bond. Maybe this would be a good time to clarify that I don't think those characters should be DLC. I'm just messing around. In the MAYBE category are "Banjo Kazooie (call Phil)", Geno, Leon (Kennedy? Belmont? Powalski?). The characters Sakurai apparently doesn't want in Smash are Waluigi and Goku. And that might actually be the harsh reality.

And that's it! Ever meme, reference, joke and detail in this week's comic. Hope you've enjoyed it! See you all next week!

Cheers!

- Abel