goodbye
Explanation
The Joke
The comic shows a mad scientist sitting alone in what appears to be a dimly lit room, writing a note that reads "Goodbye cruel world." This initially reads as a suicide note -- the classic trope of a despairing person leaving a farewell message. But then the scientist is shown holding a remote control with a big red button, which he presses. The final panel reveals he has launched himself into space in a small spacecraft while the Earth explodes behind him with a "BOOM."
The phrase "Goodbye cruel world" was not a suicide note at all -- it was literal. He was saying goodbye to the world because he was about to destroy it and leave. He is not the one departing life; the world is. The "cruel" part is his justification for blowing it up.
The Humor
The comic executes a perfect bait-and-switch by exploiting the reader's familiarity with "Goodbye cruel world" as a stock phrase associated with suicidal despair. Every visual cue in the first row of panels -- the lonely figure, the handwritten note, the dark room -- reinforces this tragic reading. The reveal completely recontextualizes everything: the scientist was not despondent, he was methodical. He was not ending his own life, he was ending everyone else's. The dark humor comes from the sheer disproportionality of the response and the casual, almost petty tone of the note compared to the apocalyptic action it precedes. The comic also plays on the mad scientist trope -- of course a genius villain would take "goodbye cruel world" to its most literal extreme.