This is the true story that Captain Qwark hoped you would never see. The unauthorized, uncensored and utterly unbelievable missing chapter of the Qwark comic series. Viewer discretion is advised.
Slim Cognito's opening narration
The Shaming of the Q is the secret fifth Qwark vid-comic in Up Your Arsenal. The story takes place shortly after Deja Q All Over Again, which was interrupted as the script was missing a few pages, and depicts Captain Qwark escaping Dr. Nefarious' secret ice planet.
The vid-comic was found by Big Al in Qwark's quarters on the Starship Phoenix, and was obtained by Ratchet shortly after recovering the datadisk from the Leviathan crash site and handing it to Al, who points out the fact that the four prior issues were the only ones in the Dr. Nefarious series that were ever published. To further emphasize its unauthorized status, it is narrated by Slim Cognito. After playing this vid-comic, Ratchet realized that Qwark had retreated to his secret hideout in the Thran Asteroid Belt and was determined to head there to find out why Qwark bailed out of the fight against Nefarious, to the point of suspecting that the two had formed an alliance.
Story[]
Qwark attempting to escape.
Picking up where the ending of Deja Q All Over Again left off, after dumping Dr. Nefarious' head in a trash can, Captain Qwark was then incapacitated from behind by Lawrence with a mallet. After Lawrence retrieved Nefarious' head from the trash can, Nefarious had Qwark locked up in a secret prison. Qwark fantasized about Courtney Gears before waking up to find himself in a suspended cage, learning that he would soon face punishment. Qwark used his antenna as a lockpick to open the cage door, triggering the alarm.[1] Upon Qwark's escape, at Lawrence's suggestion, Nefarious had the entire base flooded with boiling acid, leaving Qwark in a race against time to escape from the lab. Nefarious additionally offered a free lube job to any robot that brought him Qwark's head.[2]
Lawrence attaching Nefarious' head.
After Qwark escaped, he hid from the public eye and fled to his hideout in the Thran Asteroid Belt out of fear of backlash from Nefarious. As Nefarious seemingly never resurfaced, Qwark returned to the spotlight, believing he was gone for good. At the end of the comic, Lawrence was seen repairing Nefarious, but "accidentally" placed his head on backwards. Nefarious then yelled in rage, causing him to short-circuit and play an episode of the soap opera, Lance and Janice. Lawrence remarked that it should be fixed "one of these days".[3]
Setting[]
Henchman.
The Shaming of the Q takes place in a facility on an unnamed icy location. The facility is mostly made of stone, and is located in an ice cave, with ice crystals seen from the windows, and icicles hanging from the ceiling and from the floating platforms. A few metal tanks are seen on the walls, along with many large pipes. The facility is patrolled by robot henchmen with pistols that fire slow-moving missiles, though Qwark picks up a similar pistol himself. During the mission, the facility is flooded with boiling acid that rises over time, which will kill Qwark instantly if he makes contact with it.
Walkthrough[]
Qwark fighting with a henchman.
This vid-comic is a race against time, as Qwark must escape the facility before the acid below him rises high enough to kill him. As it starts, a pistol is obtained which fires fast-moving rockets. Immediately jump up and fire it to destroy the robot henchman that fires his own, slow-moving missiles, which can be more easily dodged, and head right, jumping over the moving purple clouds and spikes. After passing through a few rooms, you will eventually reach several blocks of ice blocking your path. Simply fire the missile at it to destroy them and carry on forward. Past this, jump across the platform right and, instead of continuing right, jump onto the ledge on the left, and then wall-jump from the wall to land on a platform at the top where you can obtain a red token, and head right. You should now have 24 tokens.
Jump across to the right and climb the ladder. Hop over the platforms, but do not jump on a platform until there is no purple cloud, as this can cause you to fall into the acid. Fire missiles at all the robot henchmen, as they can slow you down. Proceed upwards obtaining all tokens, and above this in the next room, make sure you obtain the red token before heading right. The path mostly continues upwards until it reaches a fork, by which point you should have 43 tokens.
Qwark using ice platforms to escape the acid.
Heading left along the fork will allow you to obtain a health upgrade, but heading right along the fork is required to obtain all 100 tokens and thus the titanium bolt. The path left is mostly straightforward. For the path right, make sure to pick up all tokens including the red token along the ladder, then at the top of the ladder, head left and destroy the blocks of ice and go through to continue upwards. Jump up a few platforms and then climb a ladder upwards. Through the narrow corridor, jump over the purple clouds, and after it, obtain the red token found in between the large boxes before jumping up and continuing. Through the next narrow corridor, destroy the blocks of ice on the way, but instead of destroying the large blocks of ice in the next room, jump on the first set of blocks to obtain a token, jump left to obtain a red token, then jump right to obtain the next tokens. You should have 92 tokens, meaning you are able to obtain all 100 tokens by the end.
From this point onwards, the rest of the path is linear with the same structure as before. Destroy the henchmen along the way and avoid spikes and purple clouds as usual. At the very end, there are a few platforms to jump on top of to reach the top, where the vid-comic ends. You should obtain the titanium bolt by picking up the last token before the end goal is reached.