Terminal Lance #300 “Sparta!”

Well, gay is probably the wrong word since the Ancient Greeks didn’t really have the same elementary and largely victorian view of sexuality that exists today. The Spartans were actually mostly bisexual, with sexual relationships between men commonplace but still ultimately marrying and breeding with women.

Marines fucking love Spartans.

When the movie 300 came out, there was a free screening for Marines aboard MCBH Kaneohe Bay at the base theater about a week before the movie actually released nationally. I remember watching it in the jam-packed auditorium with Marines frothing at the excitement of watching Gerard Butler’s perfect abs engage in brutal, slow motion combat on screen. For literally weeks after the movie came out, my platoon would frequently shout “SPARTA!” during moto runs, a hark to the Zack Snyder film meant to instill the badass imagery of shirtless men fighting to the death and kicking people into seemingly random bottomless pits.

Of course, the Spartans were a force to be feared by all. Marines often refer to themselves as modern-day Spartans, but conveniently ignore the somewhat odd sexual practices of the time. I suppose it’s irrelevant at this point, sans the pederasty, but I always found it ironic that the same naysayers of homosexuality today are the people that idolize the Spartans. One of the silliest arguments against homosexuals in the military is that somehow homosexuals are incapable of being “Alpha” males–to which I’m sure the ancient Spartans would protest, and then probably cut your face off with a sword.

A lot of what we know about Sparta is from artwork of the ancient time. I wonder if, 2000 years from now, people will discover the shitter graffiti of the ancient warrior race of Marines and come to the conclusion that we were all largely homosexual. ‘Wagner’ being a term of endearment that all Marines probably called each other.

Last week I asked the Facebook Fan Page what I should do for strip #300. It was a stupid question, since there’s really only one obvious answer. I suppose for me there was just no way out of it.

I had thought about doing something regarding the recent overtaking of Fallujah by al Qaeda, but I couldn’t think of anything funny about it.

In other news, January 5th marked the 4 year anniversary of Terminal Lance. People keep asking me how long am I going to keep doing this comic.

I don’t have a definite answer to that question, but I will say that if this webcomic is my body of work, then The White Donkey will be my thesis.