the-chosen-ones
Explanation
The Joke
An alien probe arrives as a messenger, announcing it will shortly self-destruct. It delivers a cosmic truth: all sufficiently advanced species throughout the universe self-destructed once they realized the pointlessness of existence in a universe bound for cold entropic demise. The probe tells a man named Frank that humans are unique -- they possess the intelligence to discover the nature of reality, but they are so utterly self-involved that this knowledge has no serious effect on their mental well-being.
The probe elaborates with an example aimed directly at Frank: he knows he is a short-lived pattern that will live its brief life under the shadow of death before meeting an absurd and pointless end, but he cares more about a recent outcome of a sporting event. Frank immediately proves the point by shouting, "Football is rigged, man!" The probe, apparently disgusted, declares that the entire universe is now Frank's ("all this universe is yours"), because it is "crap and you're crap." In the final panel, Frank is watching sports on his phone, yelling at the ref, completely unaffected by the cosmic revelation.
The Humor
The comic is a brilliant inversion of the classic "chosen one" science fiction trope. Instead of humanity being selected for its nobility or potential, we are the universe's inheritors precisely because we are too oblivious and self-absorbed to be crushed by existential despair. Every other intelligent species in the cosmos was apparently too thoughtful to survive the realization that existence is meaningless, but humans just... do not care enough. The probe expects Frank to be awed by cosmic truth, but Frank is more upset about a bad referee call. The irony is that what looks like a flaw -- humanity's shallow self-absorption -- turns out to be our greatest survival advantage. The probe's disgust ("because it's crap and you're crap") is the ultimate backhanded compliment.
References
The comic references the heat death of the universe ("cold entropic demise"), the predicted eventual fate of the cosmos according to thermodynamics, in which all energy is evenly distributed and no work can be performed. It also riffs on Arthur C. Clarke's "2010: Odyssey Two," which famously contains the message "All these worlds are yours," delivered by an alien intelligence about the moons of Jupiter. Here, the message is twisted into a contemptuous handoff rather than a gift.