monster-under-the-bed
Explanation
The Joke
The comic begins with a classic childhood scene: a child tells his father there is a monster under the bed, and the father dismisses it, telling him monsters don't exist and to go to sleep. Five hours later, the father finds the child covered in blood, and the child launches into an epic, darkly poetic monologue about his battle with the monsters. He describes how they came like "storm clouds unfolding," how he pulled a carcass from under the bed and found the monsters' backs "were hard" and their "eyes were sick-ish yellow," and how he "cut them down" until "when dawn came, I stood among their dead." He concludes with "I am the monster now."
The father is left speechless, having been completely wrong about the monsters, while his young son has become a battle-hardened warrior overnight.
The Humor
The comic takes the universal childhood fear of monsters under the bed and subverts it by making the monsters real -- and then further subverts it by having the small child not only survive but triumph in graphic, over-the-top fashion. The humor comes from the jarring contrast between the innocent setup (a child's bedtime fear) and the grim, war-story narration that follows. The child's monologue is written in the style of a grizzled combat veteran recounting a harrowing battle, complete with poetic descriptions of the enemy and a declaration that the experience has fundamentally changed him. The final line, "I am the monster now," is a classic action-movie trope delivered by a small child, which makes it simultaneously absurd and hilarious.
References
"I am the monster now" echoes the famous line from the movie Captain Phillips ("I'm the captain now") and similar tropes in fiction where the hero becomes what they once feared. The child's monologue also parodies the style of gritty war narratives and dark fantasy storytelling.