trojan
Explanation
The comic reimagines the classic Trojan Horse story from Homer's account of the Trojan War. In the original myth, the Greeks built a giant wooden horse, hid soldiers inside it, and left it at the gates of Troy as a supposed gift. The Trojans brought the horse inside their walls, and the Greek soldiers emerged at night to open the gates and conquer the city.
In this version, the Trojans open the gates to find the giant wooden statue of a Greek warrior. But instead of being hollow and full of hidden soldiers, it is "filled with horrified nude models." One Trojan asks "Friends?" and another responds "Best friends!" The Greeks and Trojans then celebrate together.
The humor works on multiple levels. First, it subverts the well-known historical/mythological narrative by imagining an absurdly innocent alternative outcome. Instead of a military deception, the horse contains nude art models -- people who would typically pose for artists and sculptors. This is a play on the fact that the Greeks are sending a giant statue, connecting sculpture as an art form with the people who model for sculptures. The joke imagines that rather than the Trojan Horse being a devious weapon of war, it was actually just a very large, very awkward art project, and the "reveal" of naked people inside leads not to slaughter but to instant friendship and celebration between the two warring sides.
The punchline also plays on the absurd logic that finding a bunch of naked people inside a gift would somehow be a bonding experience rather than deeply alarming, satirizing how easily conflict could theoretically be resolved if both sides just decided to get along.