dead-2
Explanation
This comic plays on the concept of "the Dead Hand of the Past" -- a common metaphor in political and legal philosophy for how decisions made by previous generations continue to constrain the living.
A man sees a skeletal figure and asks, "Death? Is that you?" The figure corrects him: "No! Common mistake. I'm the Dead Hand of the Past." He explains, "I don't kill. I just cause widespread damages to the future that you don't perceive." The man then learns that he would be in a higher income bracket if his ancestors had made different choices. The Dead Hand adds, "Isn't that amazing? Some delinquents goofing off in the 1800s, and one kid who gets an Arrow... keeps an apartment near work." The man responds, "I hate you, Dead Hand of the Past," and the hand's final quip from the grave is, "Hey, you should see how YOUR grandkids feel about you."
The comic literalizes the "Dead Hand" metaphor into an actual character. The joke is that the accumulated decisions of our ancestors -- mundane, selfish, or accidental -- have enormous downstream effects on our present circumstances (income, housing, opportunities). The final punchline turns this around: the man is just as much a "Dead Hand" to his own descendants, implying that we are all making choices that will similarly constrain future generations in ways we cannot foresee.