Explanations. This is for you. The joke in this one was thrown in there because this is the inevitable aftermath of a plot twist. I made that second panel very deliberately, as a reference to the third comic (chronologically of course) where we first meet Mort. As you probably noticed (hey where’s my stupid joke for Saturday morning?) the comic was late. My only excuse is How to Train Your Dragon. If you’ve seen the film, then I need not explain more. It was great and the ending really knocked me out. Very brave.
But on to the comic. John (the Official Writer yadda yadda) and I bounced this one back and fourth to figure out the detailed writing on that first panel. I came up with the holodeck line so we could show that the Mort we’ve been watching (and therefore the whole arc up to this point) is real. If we left that ambiguous, the whole arc falls apart. It would be all a dream, and Moriarty would just be floating off forever into a hologalaxy. I hope this sums it up nicely and I hope it’s not too heavy handed an explanation.