goblins
Explanation
This comic is addressed to "Dear Evolution" and questions why humans are so drawn to fantasy stories about elves, goblins, and trolls. The first speaker notes that humans didn't invent goblins -- these creatures appear across cultures in folklore. The comic then observes that if you look at the fossil record, our ancestors shared the planet with other hominid species (Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo floresiensis -- sometimes called "hobbits," and others). The speaker connects these two facts: fantasy stories about small, large, or strange humanoid creatures appeal to us because we evolved alongside actual other humanoid species. We may still be psychologically wired to expect and be fascinated by near-human but not-quite-human beings.
The final panel delivers the punchline with a twist. After this compelling evolutionary psychology hypothesis, the speaker asks: "Are goblins real?" and is told, "That's just you" -- implying the person asking is themselves goblin-like in appearance. The humor works both as a genuine interesting observation about why fantasy tropes resonate across cultures (the "uncanny valley" of other hominid species may be baked into our evolutionary psychology) and as a classic SMBC deflation where a grand intellectual argument gets undercut by a simple personal insult.