VeeFriends Issue 19 Explained: Identity, Deception, and the Monkey Who Refused to Become a Monster

VeeFriends Issue 19 is about Moral Monkey, which immediately makes me think of my friend Ross Brown, better known as @Rossmonkey95 on X. Ross is one of the biggest Moral Monkey collectors in VeeFriends, and he also works for Gary at VaynerX, the holding company that includes VaynerMedia. The comic team already knew him from streams and conventions when they started developing this story, and at one point, Gary’s idea was to turn Ross himself into Moral Monkey.

You can actually watch Gary work through the idea at the comic offsite. He imagines a Scotland Yard spy who gets shot and needs a heart transplant, but the only heart that fits is a monkey’s. That transplant would eventually turn him into Moral Monkey. Then Gary asks, “What if the detective’s name is Ross Brown?” and starts describing what happens to “Detective Ross Brown.” My friend’s full name is right there in the original conversation about how this character comes into existence.

The team wanted to surprise Ross, so they kept the idea from him while they worked on it. As D.J. Coffman explains in the Issue 19 discussion, Ross Brown eventually became Benjamin Browne, with the name remaining “an ode to our friend Ross.” His Detective of the Year plaque gives his full name as Benjamin R. Browne, and I read that R as a stand-in for Ross, keeping another piece of his name alongside the surname. The story developed beyond that first joke, and Benjamin became his own character, but Browne stayed as a nod to the collector who helped inspire him.

My own reasons for wanting to give Ross some recognition go back much further than this comic. Ross has helped me through times when I was struggling, reminded me that I’m loved, and encouraged me to keep being myself while also helping me grow. I can talk to him about what I’m going through, and his perspective often helps me see past whatever hurt or frustration I’m caught up in. He has helped me recognize my own progress and move forward instead of letting those feelings keep deciding how I respond to the world.

Having that support makes it easier to look honestly at myself. I can recognize a response I want to change without turning it into another reason to tear myself down. Ross encourages me to keep being who I am, and he also celebrates it when I handle something better than I would have before. Those things work together. His friendship gives me room to keep growing while still feeling loved and appreciated as the person I am today.

A lot of the joy I’ve found in my life has come from surrounding myself with people who make me feel loved and appreciated, and Ross is one of those people. I’m thankful for the conversations that have helped me heal, but also for the time we spend together and the memories we’re still making. Those good times matter just as much to me as the harder conversations, because they give us something to build on beyond whatever I was going through. I get to enjoy my life with him in it, and he makes sure I know that having me in his life brings him joy too.

I love him, and I’m grateful that VeeFriends brought him into my life. When I talk about what this community has given me, friendships like this are a huge part of what I mean. Ross has helped make my life better, and seeing his name become part of Moral Monkey’s story gives me a chance to tell you what the person behind that name means to me.

VeeFriends Issue 19 opens with Benjamin R. Browne, Scotland Yard's top detective, lying in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by newspapers and bananas. Above his left hand rests an award he received for being Detective of the Year, but clearly not skilled enough to have foreseen this attempt on his life. Being good at catching criminals hasn't kept someone from nearly killing him.

Luckily for him, the newspapers scattered around Ben are announcing a “Monkey Miracle”: monkey hearts now work in transplants. With the VeeFriends character Moral Monkey on the cover of this issue, that newspaper headline gives us a pretty good idea of how Ben will survive. That said, who shot him, and why, are another story.

Ben is rushed toward the hospital in an ambulance that nearly runs over a woman along the way. Ideally, saving London's best detective doesn't require sacrificing a pedestrian. Will we see her again? Does she have some significance beyond this near miss, or is she simply there to show how urgently the ambulance is moving?

“Stay with us, Ben!” comes the call from the ambulance. He’s stable, but they don’t have much time. Inside, the medic urges him to stay awake and asks whether he saw who shot him. “I... I don't know...” is all Ben can offer before his heart monitor flatlines. “Damn! We’re losing him!” The detective who would normally be investigating the shooting is now the victim, and he can't even give them a suspect.

“London's best detective isn't dying on my watch!” the medic declares as he readies the defibrillator paddles. “CLEAR!!!” Ben’s body jolts as the paddles deliver a shock. Then the heartbeat returns: “BLEEP... BLEEP...” “He’s back!” someone announces, with the emergency room standing by. Ben's reputation couldn't protect him from the bullet, but it clearly means something to the man fighting to keep him alive.

Ben lies on the operating table as a surgeon calls for a scalpel. The bullet has gone straight through, and his heart is done for. He needs a transplant, but they're losing him again. “There's always a way...” one surgeon insists before calling for the monkey heart.

“You can't use a monkey heart?!” comes one objection, followed by, “That'll never work!” Meanwhile, someone arrives carrying a container labeled “LIVE ORGAN,” complete with a picture of Moral Monkey smiling inside a heart. “Didn't you see the news on page one? It works now!” That's a direct reference to the newspapers surrounding Ben on the first page of this comic. A little corny and on the nose, but funny. At first, the Moral Monkey face reads like a cameo and an obvious bit of foreshadowing. It is not a generic monkey logo. The image uses the face from Moral Monkey's VeeFriends Series 2 artwork, placing an already established depiction of the character directly on the box holding Ben's replacement heart. The cover and opening-page setup tell us Ben is about to become Moral Monkey. But is the Series 2 image only a cameo?

What if the monkey heart being transplanted into Ben is actually Moral Monkey's heart? If the heart is his, Moral Monkey is dead. Was he killed? If so, who killed him, and why? Or did he die of natural causes before his heart was donated? If that heart belonged to Moral Monkey, then Ben is not the first Moral Monkey. He is the second.

Whoever that heart belonged to, it is not the only unexplained thing the surgeons put inside Ben. A syringe filled with yellow liquid accompanies the explanation that they need to inject a “proprietary supplement.” What exactly is in that yellow liquid? As a surgeon holds the monkey heart over Ben's open chest, another warns, “This hasn't been clinically tested! There could be wild side effects!” The response begins with “Or...” before the next panel delivers, “It worked!!!” Going from untested procedure to success in a single panel is funny, especially when “it worked” doesn't answer the concern about side effects. And with Moral Monkey on the cover, “wild” seems like an appropriate choice of words.

Two weeks later, Ben sits in his robe watching a news report about himself, with his Detective of the Year trophy still covered in blood beside him. Social media is calling his survival the “Modern Monkey Miracle,” and the reporter credits the surgeons at the Royal London Hospital with the breakthrough transplant. As she explains that the police still haven't identified a suspect in his shooting, we see Ben in the blue light of the television, teeth clenched and looking furious. He's being guarded around the clock in his apartment, with whoever tried to kill him still out there.

Outside, Detective Fuller arrives carrying a paper bag with Ben's name on it and finds himself surrounded by microphones. The reporters want to know how Ben is doing, whether he's had any side effects, and when they'll get to hear from him. Fuller won't comment on the investigation, but he assures them that Ben is feeling great. He just needs some time, and then Fuller is sure he'll be happy to talk to the press.

That sounds considerably more cheerful than the man we've just seen scowling in his robe, his surgical scar visible on his chest. “Not bloody likely,” Ben responds as he switches off the television. Fuller might want to check with Ben before promising the press an interview.

Fuller greets Ben at the door with lunch, urging his old friend to eat and get his strength back. Ben insists he's feeling great, maybe even better than ever, and is ready to return to work. Fuller takes one look at him and offers a less flattering assessment: “Aye, but you look like arse! You need to shave!” Ben says he shaved that morning, which earns an understandably doubtful “Are you sure??” If this is what he looks like after shaving, that hair is coming back awfully quickly.

Over lunch, Ben keeps pressing to return to Scotland Yard, only to learn that the doctors want him under observation for at least another eight weeks. “That is absurd!” he protests before asking for the latest on the investigation. Fuller won't share any details, giving Ben much the same answer he gave the reporters outside. “You got nothing. That's what you're really saying?” Ben asks. Being shut out of the investigation into his own shooting clearly isn't making the prospect of eight more weeks at home any easier.

Fuller urges him to rest and let the others worry about the bad guys, but he's also concerned about Ben's eyes. They're yellow, and Ben knows it. He insists he's fine and says the nurses have assured him there's nothing wrong. He's quick to question whether the police have made any progress, yet much more willing to accept the reassurance about his own changing appearance.

As Fuller leaves, he reminds Ben that he has to follow protocol. “You taught me that.” “Indeed I did,” Ben replies, looking thoroughly displeased. Having his own lessons quoted back to him doesn't seem to make following those rules any more appealing.

Ben stands in front of the bathroom mirror, examining his face and deciding he'll have to investigate the shooting himself. As he shaves, his frustration starts turning into suspicion. He feels like a prisoner in his own apartment and wonders whether keeping him there is part of a bigger plan. “Does someone want me trapped here?” He tries to stop himself from becoming paranoid, then questions whether this might actually be his “uncanny intuition.” When you've built a career on noticing what other people miss, it must be difficult to decide when to trust that feeling and when you're getting carried away.

But what about the reason he's supposedly under observation: side effects? The close-ups bring us back to his yellow eyes and the scar on his chest as Ben notes that he feels stronger than ever. He insists he would have noticed anything wrong because “nothing gets by me,” with a razor in his hand and unfamiliar hair growing on his body. It's a funny claim to make when the evidence is right there in the mirror. He admits the hair is unusual, then wonders whether it might have been there before without him noticing.

As he pulls at his forehead and studies his reflection, Ben finally asks a more uncomfortable question: has he been so busy observing the outside world that he's neglected to pay attention to himself? A moment ago, he was certain nothing got by him. Now he's considering his own blind spot, which is a more useful response to what's happening in the mirror than simply insisting he's fine. The page closes with Ben dressed and holding a red book, his attention seemingly turning back toward the investigation.

Ben leans over a desk covered in papers, already using his foot to write as he reconstructs the timeline leading up to his shooting. His transformation is becoming part of the way he works, even while his attention is fixed on the case. He may still be stuck in what he calls a “cage,” but he can at least lay the groundwork for when he's allowed out, starting with anything that stood out before the shot.

The colors become muted as he remembers accepting his award and reading the lips of some unhappy junior detectives. “I can't believe this guy. Five years in a row?” one complains, while another calls him a twat and questions the way he dresses. So this wasn't just one good year for Ben. He's been winning the award for five years straight, and some of his colleagues are clearly tired of watching him collect it. He considers whether jealousy could explain the shooting, then stops himself from making that leap. “I must give the benefit of the doubt.” They may dislike him, but he doesn't think jealousy over an award is a strong enough motive for murder. Even while investigating an attempt on his own life, he's trying to be fair to people he knows have been insulting him.

His attention shifts to the criminals he's helped put behind bars, with their photographs and files spread out before him. There are plenty of potential suspects, and sorting them by who was recently released might be a start, but interviewing them would take teams of detectives. Ben is working alone and wants to move faster, so he changes the question: “Sometimes instead of who, we should think... what.”

Ben chews on a banana as he considers what kind of weapon nearly killed him. After writing with his foot, eating a banana is another step along his transformation. More monkey behavior is slipping into his routine while he's focused on the case. Around him, images of ammunition, a revolver, a rifle, and a target turn his reasoning into something we can follow visually. He didn't see the shot coming, and he judges it to have been clean and fired from long range. He rules out a “Saturday night special,” slang for a cheap, easily concealed handgun, because he thinks the bullet had too much punch.

He suspects a rifle, possibly a .308, remembering that the bullet went straight through his chest and tore apart the fruit stand on its way out. That explains the bananas and broken wood surrounding him on the opening page. The damage to the stand gives him another clue about the power of the weapon used against him.

This talk of caliber and bullet damage reminds me of Charlie Kirk’s killing, which some still regard as an unresolved mystery. One sticking point is why a powerful .30-06 round reportedly failed to exit his body. Similarly, Ben is also trying to make sense of the damage a bullet left behind, using it to work his way toward the person who fired it.

In Ben's estimation, a petty criminal couldn't get hold of a weapon like that. Whoever shot him had money, or friends who did. As we see his body falling again in silhouette, blood bursting from his chest, he concludes that someone wanted him gone and that the attempt was professional and precise. His focus has shifted from who might resent him to who could carry out a shot like that.

That's enough for him to start. His yellow eye fills the final panel as he decides it's time to use his “secret weapon.” After a page spent thinking about guns, that sounds ominous.

Ben smiles at the couch before settling down with his eyes closed and his hands folded over his chest. His secret weapon is a nap. After all that talk of rifles and a professional shooter, the reveal is wonderfully ordinary. He gathers the facts and logic, then lets them “stew and organize” while he sleeps, usually waking up with a clearer understanding of the situation. In Ben's approach to detective work, taking a break is part of solving the case.

Meanwhile, at New Scotland Yard, the chief inspector asks Fuller how Ben is really doing. “Not good, sir.” That's a very different answer from the cheerful reassurance Fuller gave the reporters outside Ben's apartment. In private, he describes the strange eyes, apparent lack of hygiene, and irritability. We know Ben has been shaving, so what Fuller reads as neglect is another sign that the transformation is moving faster than Ben can manage it.

The chief offers a “What a shame” before asking whether Ben is resting or working. Fuller suspects he's secretly investigating, explaining that it's in his nature. For Ben, that persistence is how he intends to catch whoever shot him. For the chief, it's a failure to follow orders. He grows angry, insisting Ben should be resting and saying that Ben's refusal is really forcing his hand. Fuller looks wide-eyed and uneasy as the chief says he's going to “make the call.”

The timing is funny: we've just watched Ben settle down for a nap, and now his refusal to rest is becoming a problem at work. He's finally doing what he's been told to do, even if he's doing it to help solve the case.

The ringing phone wakes Ben from his nap, still bleary-eyed with a little drool at his mouth. He answers the chief inspector and immediately asks whether there's news. There is, but the chief warns that it isn't what he wants to hear. “Give it to me straight. I can handle it,” Ben says. He's about to have that confidence tested.

The chief tells him that his conduct has left them no choice: he's being relieved of duty immediately and stripped of his warrant card, which is his police identification. Ben erupts. He just won Detective of the Year, he's the best they've got, and now they're firing him? After surviving a shot through the heart, he's losing the career he's been so desperate to return to. He leans forward, baring his teeth into the phone as he tells them they couldn't inspect their way out of a wet paper bag. The chief's eyes widen at the insult before he insists that Ben is clearly not himself, and that's the problem.

The remark has a very literal meaning here. A tail is already curling behind Ben while he's on the phone, visible to us before Ben notices it. As Ben protests that this is absurd and can't be real, he finally catches sight of it. “Goodness gracious! Do I have a tail?” The eyes, the hair, and the unusual strength have been easier for him to explain away. A tail is a much harder thing to overlook.

Ben puts a hand to his forehead and tells himself to pull it together. This must all be a bad dream, and he needs to sleep it off. His earlier nap was supposed to help him organize the facts. Now, faced with losing his job and discovering a tail, he's turning to sleep because he doesn't want to accept what those facts are telling him.

Ben sleeps on the red couch as the panels move from darkness to daylight and back again, his tail visible against the cushions. Five days later, we see a monkey's face resting on his pillow. The transformation has continued while he's been asleep, and the man who went to sleep after that phone call now looks unmistakably like Moral Monkey.

“Ben, it's time to wake up.” The call comes from a voluptuous blonde woman holding a tray of bananas, whom he immediately recognizes as Nurse Candy. Wait, who the fuck is Nurse Candy, and where did she come from? She wasn't in the scene when he went to sleep five days earlier, and we've had no introduction or explanation of her arrival. Yet her presence seems perfectly natural to Ben. He clearly knows her, but we still don't know who she is to him or how she got into his apartment.

Her reaction makes that question even stranger. Ben went to sleep with yellow eyes, rapidly growing hair, and a tail, but five days later he is fully a monkey. Candy does not gasp, call for help, or even pause. She smiles, touches his head, and offers him bananas as though this were a normal recovery check. Later on this same page, she admits that they were not expecting this level of side effects, so how and why does the sight of his completed transformation provoke no reaction from her? Has she already been checking on him during those five days and watching it happen? Whatever the explanation, Candy treats the impossible sight as routine before Ben has even had a chance to process it.

It's odd that the comic leaves her sudden appearance unexplained and Scotland Yard's greatest detective doesn't question it either. He wants to know how long he's been asleep, but apparently the woman standing in his apartment needs no explanation, even with her shirt unbuttoned below her breasts, almost to where her belly button would be. In that first view of her, the stem at the top of the banana bunch seems positioned to cover where one nipple would be, while a button lines up with the other.

Personally, I enjoy the risqué image of a hot, sexy nurse. She immediately brings to mind that enthusiastic “Hello, Nurse!” from Animaniacs. But is this suggestive imagery part of why the comic carries an age warning, alongside the violence and language? VeeFriends is also a kids' brand, and a mother whose little girl loves these characters might have a very different reaction to this introduction than I do. Some women might find the sexy-nurse cliché tiresome; others might enjoy the humor and the drawing as much as I do. That said, you can enjoy the image yourself and still question whether it's appropriate for your young daughter.

For Ben, though, the shock is in what Candy tells him. He's been asleep for five days, and she thought he'd be hungry. He's horrified by how much time has passed, but she urges him not to panic because it's not as bad as it looks. Looking at himself in the mirror, he finds that difficult to accept. “Are you kidding me? I'm a full monkey now?” Her advice is to stay calm and eat. It's funny how she already has a tray of bananas ready while he's only just realizing he's a monkey. Has Ben always loved bananas, or did Candy somehow already know about his monkey transformation?

Then Ben brightens, raising a finger as though he's cracked the case. He must still be dreaming. He even admits it's an entertaining dream, while Candy acknowledges that they weren't expecting this level of side effects. Calling an entire change of species a side effect is putting it mildly. But even as she's confirming the operation did this, he's convinced it's a dream he can wake up from.

Holding up his pocket watch, Ben tells Candy not to worry because he should be waking from this nightmare any minute now. His delighted expression gives way to an impatient look as he watches the time. The funny part is that he just woke up and found out he's a monkey, and now he thinks repeating the process will reverse the effect. But that's obviously not going to work.

Five hours later, Ben is still a monkey, sitting beside Candy with a banana in his mouth. With her shirt still open and both of their eyes closed, the pose and the banana make this wildly suggestive. This might be the most eyebrow-raising panel in the entire comic. So much for waking up from this one. He's finally willing to admit he isn't dreaming, but accepting what's happened means calling himself a monster. Candy smiles and corrects him: he's a monkey. But that distinction does nothing to make him feel better.

As Candy rests her hands on his shoulders, Ben lists everything that's happened to him: shot through the heart, fired, transformed. What could possibly come next? She reminds him that he's still alive. That's true, and without the transplant he wouldn't be here to complain. But looking at his slumped shoulders and miserable expression, it's understandable that survival alone isn't making him feel better about any of this.

Candy then strokes his head and finally gives us some context for their familiarity: they've known each other since grade school. Okay, that explains why Ben recognized her so naturally, although it still doesn't tell us when she arrived at his apartment. She assures him that he's still Ben underneath all of this and that London's greatest detective can figure it out. Coming from someone who knew him long before the awards and the transformation, that's a more personal reassurance than simply telling him to stay calm and eat a banana.

But her encouragement takes a surprising turn when she leans close to his face. She's always found his skill as a detective attractive, and now, somehow, she's even more attracted to him. His eyes widen, and his mouth opens as he asks, “You... you do?” A moment ago he was calling himself a monster, and now this hot nurse is telling him she finds him more attractive as a monkey. Is she just trying to make him feel better, or has the transformation done something neither of them understands yet? And is this comic really insinuating that the nurse wants to fuck a monkey? If that's what we're meant to take from her comment, this may be another reason for the age warning.

Ben immediately stops Candy, reminding her that she's a married woman. Her hands are clasped against her chest, with a ring visible, as she says she doesn't know what came over her. So his objection isn't that he's a monkey and she's a human. It's that acting on her attraction would be wrong because she's married. After all his fear about becoming a monster, we're seeing that his sense of right and wrong has survived the transformation.

As for why she's suddenly so attracted to him, Ben suspects another side effect. He stands with his chest out and a broad grin, wondering whether he's giving off a pheromone that makes him more attractive. Lines radiate from his body as he describes this possible animal magnetism. It's a funny change from the miserable monkey we just saw calling himself a monster. He seems considerably happier discussing the possibility that his new body makes him irresistible, although this is still his theory about what happened to Candy.

Candy has a notepad and pen out as she says this wasn't listed among the potential side effects. She's embarrassed and insists she'd never cheat on Fred, giving us a name for the husband Ben just mentioned. That makes her earlier attraction sound like more than a flattering comment. Was she genuinely considering fucking a monkey for a moment? Her concern about cheating certainly makes it seem that way. And if this wasn't a known side effect, are we seeing her own desire coming out unfiltered, or an effect of the transformation that nobody anticipated? Not being on the list doesn't settle that question. Either way, I wasn't expecting a bestiality nod in a VeeFriends comic, but here we are.

But Ben reassures her that he knows she's world class and tells her not to beat herself up. He's already told her this isn't right. He doesn't need to make her feel worse about it. Instead, his concern turns to what this could mean for everyone around him. If the side effects can change other people's behavior too, he needs to figure this out much faster.

Candy offers another cheerful reassurance: with modern medicine, anything is possible. Looking at the monkey standing in front of her, Ben's “Clearly” is a fair response. But then he pauses, a hand at his chin, sensing that something feels off. In the wide panel below, both of them are framed inside a red rifle sight. Does Moral Monkey have his own version of Spider-Man's spider-sense, warning him when danger is near? Whatever tipped him off, he needs to act fast with both of them in the crosshairs. Given the first attempt on his life at the beginning of this issue, this could easily be the same assassin coming back to finish the job.

Ben stands in front of Candy, blocking the shots with his body as he yells for her to get down. The bullets strike his chest. Whatever alerted him, his first reaction is to protect her, even if that means taking the bullets himself. Candy watches them bounce off and asks whether he's impervious to damage. For a moment, it looks like the transformation might have made him bulletproof. But with his teeth clenched and a tear at his eye, Ben tells her that hurt like hell.

And what's going on with Candy's eyes? They're suddenly blue, even though they were drawn dark before the shooting. Is that a clue that something about her has changed, or just an inconsistency in the coloring? Maybe they were blue all along and the room was too dim for us to see the color, but the sudden shift still looks weird.

Then he realizes they're rubber bullets. He calls them nonlethal and immediately questions why someone would use them. That's a very different choice from the round that tore through his heart earlier. If this is the same person coming back, why change the ammunition? And if the goal isn't to kill him this time, what does the shooter want?

With glass breaking around them, Ben asks where the armed guards are. Candy explains that his security detail was removed when he was fired, to save money. Apparently, protecting the man someone had just tried to murder stopped being worth the expense once he wasn't on the payroll. The shooter still hasn't been caught, but the Yard has already decided Ben can go without protection.

With nobody coming to help, Ben raises a magnifying glass in one hand and a bunch of bananas in the other. His tail curls behind him, and he's grinning again as he declares that it's up to him. The magnifying glass makes sense for a detective, but what exactly is he planning to do with the bananas against someone shooting at him? It's good to see him finally taking charge as a monkey instead of waiting to wake up human.

Ben holds the magnifying glass up to his eye, searching for whoever is shooting at him. Through the round lens, we get our first clear look at the attacker: a masked figure aiming a scoped rifle from behind cover. A moment ago, we were looking at Ben through the shooter's crosshairs. Now he's looking back at them through a detective's magnifying glass. “Ah-ha! I see you!” Wait, since when does a magnifying glass double as a telescope? It can help him inspect a clue up close, but it shouldn't give him a zoomed-in view of someone across the rooftops.

Another shot destroys the glass, leaving Ben gripping the broken handle. So much for that tool. He launches himself through the window, taking a bite of a banana as he shouts, “Stop! You're under arrest!” He's been fired and stripped of his police identification, but that response is so ingrained in him that it comes out anyway. Someone is shooting at him, and his instinct is still to catch them and make an arrest.

Once outside, he scrambles across the rooftop on his hands and feet, his tail raised behind him and the bananas still in his grip. He's moving like a monkey now. But the shooter keeps firing, with one impact against his body and another striking the roof near his outstretched hand. With his teeth clenched, Ben shouts that this is really getting on his nerves.

The masked shooter runs across the rooftop, their coat flaring behind them as Ben gives chase. Ben leaps forward with his mouth wide open, letting out an “Ooh-ooh! Ah-ahh!” as he flings a banana peel toward the fleeing figure.

That answers our earlier question about why he brought the bananas along. What looked like a random gag may have been part of his plan all along. Either that, or he was just hungry and thought of this on the fly. Either way, it works: the peel lands beneath the shooter's boot, sending their foot sliding out from under them with a huge “SLLLIPP!!” Of course we're getting the classic cartoon banana-peel gag in a comic about a monkey. Now that I think about it this issue really would not have been complete without it.

The shooter slips over the rooftop's edge, eyes wide with fear, but Ben catches their wrist before they fall. “I got you!” He has every reason to be furious with this person, but he still saves them. Once he's caught the suspect, though, he bares his teeth and demands to know who they are and who sent them.

The answer comes in a frightened stammer: “Sh... sh... she did!” And there stands Candy, smiling with her arms behind her back. Candy?! The woman he just stood in front of to protect from the bullets was apparently the one who arranged the shooting. She looks remarkably pleased with herself for someone whose involvement has just been exposed.

We questioned how she suddenly appeared in his apartment, and now there's a much bigger reason to question what she was doing there. Was the attack meant to get him out onto the roof? And does her involvement extend to the original attempt on his life, or just this round of rubber bullets? Ben doesn't have those answers yet. For now, the page closes on a huge close-up of his face, yellow eyes wide and fangs exposed as he confronts her: “You deceived me?!?”

Candy lifts off a blonde wig, revealing short red hair underneath. The nurse's uniform falls open around a dark blue outfit as she congratulates Ben on passing the test and introduces herself as Agent Cane of MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service. Ben's mouth drops open as he asks how he never suspected she was an agent.

But wait. Is this still the woman he grew up with, the one married to Fred, and he's only now learning she works for MI5? Or has someone else been pretending to be her? Those are very different reveals. If his old friend has been keeping her work a secret, I can believe that. But if this is an entirely different woman in a blonde wig, how the fuck did London's greatest detective fail to recognize that she wasn't someone he'd known since childhood? That would feel like a massive plot hole unless there's more to the disguise than we're being shown. The comic doesn't tell us which it is. This also calls into question the flirting from before. Was she actually attracted to him, or was that another way to take advantage of his trust?

Cane tells Ben his detective skills are top notch and that she's learned from watching him. But the compliment comes with a criticism: his trust is his weakness. That doesn't sit well with Ben, who sees nothing wrong with expecting honesty from his friends. He wouldn't lie to them, and he doesn't accept her deception either. But I think Cane has a point here, even if Ben doesn't want to hear it. Expecting honesty doesn't mean he's going to get it. Trusting someone who's lying to him leaves him at a disadvantage and can put him in danger. That's a weakness whether he wants to call it one or not. And that's where Cane challenges his view of right and wrong, telling him life isn't so black and white, although she wishes it were.

She goes further, calling deception an art and arguing that it's only wrong on the surface. What if a lie serves a greater good, saves lives, or even saves the world? Ben's answer is blunt: “It's still a lie.” But there's a real question here about whether doing the right thing always means telling the truth. That said, Cane is also asking him to accept that lying can protect people right after using his trust to put him through a painful test he never agreed to.

Ben tells her he no longer knows what to believe. She had his apartment shot up, so did she also arrange the original attempt on his life? Cane insists she didn't. They need him, she explains, and this is a job offer: he's hired. His expression shifts to bewilderment as he asks what she means and how this is happening. That's one hell of a job interview.

Cane reminds Ben that he applied to MI5 ten years ago. He wanted to use his detective skills to defend the UK from terrorism, espionage, and hostile state activity. He remembers being turned down, and his narrowed eyes and clenched hands suggest that rejection still bothers him. But now she tells him why: he was too moral. They knew he wouldn't do the dirty work. So the same principles that make him someone you'd want protecting people kept him out of an agency supposed to protect them. Ben bares his teeth as he asks what's changed.

The answer brings the VeeFriends directly into the case. Someone is targeting them, trying to take them out one by one, and MI5 suspects a connection to Ben's shooting. Cane holds up a phone showing an antlered VeeFriend with a red “MISSING” label beneath its face.

At first, Dinner Deer seems like the obvious answer. Looking through the original Series 1 characters, who else could it really be? My friend Dirtdog365, a fellow VeeFriends community member and artist, suggested him when we discussed the panel. But then we compared the picture with Dinner Deer's Series 2 art on the VeeFriends Character Comfort Collection. Dinner Deer is blue, while this character is brown. That's a pretty big difference.

Then we found VeeFriends' social media posts naming Elegant Elk, a character outside that original Series 1 lineup. His brown coloring, pale muzzle, and antlers look much closer to the face on Cane's phone. The posts also seem to be hinting at his involvement in Issue 20, which is still upcoming as I write this. With that comparison in mind, I'd put a pretty strong wager on this being Elegant Elk. If it is, could his missing picture be setting up a connection between Issues 19 and 20? Are we about to find out what happened to him, or how he became a target?

But if that is Elegant Elk, Cane's wording raises another question. She says VeeFriends are being targeted, yet, to our knowledge, Elegant Elk isn't a VeeFriend. Is the brand adding a new character to the VeeFriends roster for the first time? Or could referring to him as a VeeFriend be an oversight here?

While we're trying to identify the face on the phone, Ben wants to know why anyone would target VeeFriends at all when they're so kind. His expression softens into concern. Cane tells him that's what they need his help finding out. But the connection to his shooting needs some explanation too. We recognize him as Moral Monkey, yet nothing in the story has established that he's joined the VeeFriends, and he was still human when he was shot. So why would someone targeting VeeFriends have picked him? Cane only says the cases may be connected, which could mean he was shot for a different reason. If he was targeted as a VeeFriend, though, did the shooter know something about his future that Ben himself didn't?

That possibility has some precedent in these comics. In Issue 1, the disastrous outcome we watch unfold for Mikey turns out to be a possible future that hasn't happened yet. Persistent Penguin, Balanced Beetle, and Rare Robot discuss intervening while the Supercomputer-5000 is right there in the scene. They can see events that other people haven't lived through yet and act to prevent them. Could someone be using that kind of knowledge against Ben?

That question also brings us back to Willful Wizard's glasses and what they might allow someone to see. In the Willful Wizard Playing Dead webcomic, the Fairy King picks up Willful Wizard's star-lens glasses and says he's heard they can see into other worlds. He wants to try them, but the Fairy Queen dismisses the idea as fairy tales and tells him to remember their mission. Seeing other worlds might mean something different from seeing the future, but another timeline of their own world could certainly fit that description. Could the glasses let someone look into alternate or parallel timelines? The Fairy King's comment leaves that possibility open.

Whether or not anyone has seen what's coming, Ben still needs to find out who's targeting VeeFriends. To do that, Cane wants him back at Scotland Yard, working undercover. Ben throws his hands up at the obvious problem: he's been fired. And even if he gets his job back, how is he supposed to handle the deception this assignment will require after everything he just said about lying? He's being offered the job he wanted ten years ago, but the reason they rejected him hasn't gone away.

Cane doesn't explain how they'll get him reinstated. Instead, the page closes on a close-up of her face as she says they have a feeling Scotland Yard will be calling him back very soon. After the staged shooting and the disguise, that sounds suspiciously confident. Are they arranging another part of his life without telling him? Or does the future knowledge we've just been considering extend to Cane and MI5? Maybe she's so sure he'll get that call because they've already seen a timeline where it happens. But who knows?

The phone rings, and Ben holds a banana to his ear, asking what he can do for the Chief Inspector. He looks completely serious, which makes it even funnier when the ringing continues and he realizes he's talking into a piece of fruit. “GAH!” We've already watched him trip the shooter with a banana peel, and now we get another classic cartoon gag with the banana phone. Ben finally grabs the actual receiver and repeats his greeting, looking considerably less amused than I am.

Sure enough, the Chief Inspector wants him back at Scotland Yard. But the reason is awful: someone has shot Fuller, the detective who was bringing Ben lunch and checking on him while he recovered. Ben's irritation immediately gives way to alarm as he asks if his friend is dead. The Chief says he's alive, but barely. With both detectives shot, are we looking at the same attacker? And after Cane was so confident that Ben would get this call, how much did she know about what was going to happen to Fuller? Could she have arranged the shooting herself to get Ben back into Scotland Yard?

With Fuller barely hanging on, there's also the question of how they'll save him. Dirtdog365 wondered whether this could lead to another monkey-heart transplant, or even a transplant using a different character's heart. After what happened to Ben, could saving Fuller turn him into another VeeFriend?

The Chief describes Fuller as their second-best lead detective. With Fuller critically injured and Ben fired, Scotland Yard has lost both of its top investigators, so it's no surprise they need Ben back. The Chief now admits they made a big mistake letting him go. With his eyes closed and a hand pressed against his face, he finally looks sorry. But Ben has every reason to be angry that it took another shooting for them to realize they needed him. His response fills the final panel in a heavy speech balloon: “YOU THINK?!”

Ben grips the receiver and bares his teeth as he demands to know how they let this happen to Fuller. They still have no leads, and he wants to know what they've been doing all day. The Chief tries to acknowledge that he's upset, but Ben cuts him off and presses for an actual answer. What exactly have they done over the past few weeks? “Uh... well, mostly it was meetings.” Oh, that's the last thing this monkey needed to hear.

“MEETINGS?!?” Ben holds the phone away from his face, furious that they've been sitting around talking about solving crimes without getting anywhere. And who could blame him? He nearly gave his life for Scotland Yard. Then, while he was recovering, they fired him and removed his security detail before his attacker had even been caught. He tells the Chief they threw him away like trash. Hearing them ask for his help now doesn't erase how they treated him when he needed theirs.

The Chief closes his eyes and apologizes again, admitting they really need his help. Ben's answer is wonderfully blunt: every ounce of his being wants to tell him to go fuck himself. The comic censors the word, but there's no mistaking the sentiment. And honestly, after that explanation about the meetings, it's hard not to feel it with him. But despite all that anger, he agrees to help. His expression settles into a stern frown as he begins to explain why: “But... alas... I will do it, because...”

Ben leans over the desk, still frowning, as he finishes his answer: “...it's the right thing to do!” Cane stands behind him giving a thumbs-up. He's going back to help investigate his friend's shooting, even though the person asking for that help is the same Chief who fired him. He has every reason to resent the Chief, but Fuller still needs him.

Cane congratulates Ben on the call: “Great work! I think he totally bought your outrage.” Ben turns toward her and sets her straight: “Oh, that was real!” She thought she was watching him put on a convincing performance. After everything he's just said, it's funny that she needs to be told he meant it.

Cane welcomes Ben aboard and tells him it's time to get to work. The devices spread across the desk immediately show what that work may involve: MI5 has images of VeeFriends I've already followed. I recognized several of the familiar pictures immediately, then discussed them with Dirtdog365 as I traced each image back through the earlier comics to find its source.

The clearest way to identify those pictures is to compare the screens with the original panels.

Two of them match perfectly. The large screen reuses a panel from Special Story Edition A showing Flex'n Fox with Practical Peacock behind him, while the smaller screen on the left reuses a close-up of Positive Porcupine from that same story. So the artwork is pulled directly from scenes I've already seen. Inside the story, MI5 has those images displayed as Ben begins his assignment, although the page never explains what kind of files they are.

The partly hidden screen on the right is harder to place. The closest visual match I found is Optimistic Otter from Issue 1, based on the large dark eye, rounded muzzle, and open mouth. However, the expressions do not match. Otter looks calm in the Issue 1 panel, while the figure on the Issue 19 screen appears frightened or in trouble. The face resembles Optimistic Otter, but it is not an exact reuse like the other two images.

That difference opens another possibility. If this really is Optimistic Otter and the image doesn't come from a scene we've already seen, could MI5 be looking at something that hasn't happened yet? The comics have already introduced the broader idea that characters can observe possible futures, beginning in Issue 1 and appearing elsewhere in the series. Could this screen be another example, with MI5 watching a future in which Otter is frightened or in trouble? The screen could instead come from a panel I have not identified or simply use a familiar face as background decoration. The evidence leaves all three possibilities open.

While the screens leave MI5's knowledge unresolved, Ben turns his attention to a more immediate part of joining the agency: “Do I get a code name or something?” Cane raises a finger as she considers it. “Why don't we try...” And the answer fills the bottom of the page in huge letters: “MORAL MONKEY!”

In Closing

Moral Monkey gets his name only after we've already watched Ben earn it. While investigating his own shooting, he gives the resentful detectives around him the benefit of the doubt instead of accusing them without evidence. He refuses Candy’s advance because she is married, shields her when the shooting starts, and saves the masked attacker from falling before learning that the attack was staged. He ultimately agrees to help Fuller even after Scotland Yard fires him and removes his protection during his recovery. Cane gives him the codename on the final page, but the moral part was visible long before the name.

The transformation changes Ben's body, but not the part of him that makes those choices. He spends much of the issue afraid that he has become a monster. Yet when danger arrives, the body that frightens him becomes the body he uses to protect other people. Becoming Moral Monkey is therefore more than a physical transformation. Ben earns that identity by remaining compassionate when fear, betrayal, and anger would all give him reasons not to be.

His new job will test that morality in a different way. Cane calls his trust a weakness and argues that deception can serve the greater good, while Ben insists that a lie is still a lie. Yet he accepts an undercover position inside Scotland Yard after Agent Cane has already used his trust, a disguise, and a staged attack to test him. He is not surrendering his belief in truth, but he is entering a role that will require him to conceal it. A detective follows evidence to expose what other people have hidden. A spy survives by controlling who is allowed to know the truth. Moral Monkey will now have to live inside that contradiction.

For all the answers this issue gives us about who Ben becomes, it does not solve the mystery that changed him. Cane admits to arranging the rubber-bullet test and denies involvement in the original shooting, but her denial does not identify who nearly killed him or why. That gunman remains at large. We also do not know who shot Fuller, whether the two attacks are connected, or how Cane was so confident that Scotland Yard would soon need Ben back. The missing VeeFriend expands the mystery further by suggesting that Ben may be only one target in a much larger campaign. Moral Monkey's origin is complete, but his first case as Moral Monkey is only beginning.

At the August 2025 comic offsite, Gary asked which existing VeeFriend could begin as a human and transform into an animal, and Moral Monkey became the answer. The earliest version was a joke about secretly turning Ross Brown, one of the character’s most prominent collectors, into the monkey. That idea developed into Ben Browne, a separate character whose surname still nods to Ross, while Steve Musgrave’s human, expression, and full-body studies gave this version of Moral Monkey a more developed personality and visual range. The image connects those new designs to the character’s earlier history through Gary’s original Series 1 drawing, the 2025 Game On card, and the Moral Monkey coin. Musgrave’s shoulder injury ultimately delayed the comic from Issue 10 to Issue 19.

Frank Cho, the award-winning creator of Liberty Meadows whose cover work includes Spider-Man and Wonder Woman, brings his blend of classic illustration and modern energy to Issue 19’s Cover B. His composition remains intact from linework through color and final production: Candy looks back above Moral Monkey as he reaches toward the viewer, while an anatomical heart and the shadowed face of Ben anchor the lower half. The color stage separates these overlapping images with bold yellow, pink, purple, and black fields, making the cover read as a fractured portrait of the conflict unfolding inside Ben. The finished version adds the VeeFriends trade dress without losing the energy of Cho’s original linework. “Heart Reborn” ties the entire montage to the issue’s central transformation, bringing Ben’s altered body, lingering human identity, and complicated connection to Candy into one image.

Official First Appearances

VeeFriends' official Issue 19 article lists Moral Monkey as the issue's first Canon Age appearance:

1. Moral Monkey

Moral Monkey also appeared in non-canon Alpha Age webcomics before this issue. Those strips form a continuing story about the stolen Vibe and already cast him as an ethical detective and crime solver.

The story actually begins with Vibe Theft! on January 8, 2024. Humble Hedgehog, Content Condor, and Vibe'n Vampire are dancing around the Vibe when it suddenly disappears. As they realize someone has stolen it, the final panel reveals Befuddled Burglar running away with the missing Vibe. Moral Monkey has not entered the story yet. The crime that will bring him into it has just happened.

Fox Tries to Get VIBE Back continues the story on January 10. Humble tells Flex'n Fox that they think Befuddled Burglar stole the Vibe and that they are calling Moral Monkey to investigate. Flex insists on trying first, but he believes the burglar's denial and comes back empty-handed. Humble notices that Flex's chain is missing too and gives him the obvious answer: “CALL THE MONKEY!”

Moral Monkey enters the story in CALL THE MONKEY! on January 16. He answers a banana phone by announcing that solving ethical dilemmas is his game, then responds to the report that the Vibe has been stolen. He confronts Befuddled Burglar, explains why taking what belongs to someone else is wrong, and tells him to call his friends. The joke is that the burglar has also stolen Moral Monkey's phone, but his role is already clear: someone reports a crime, Moral Monkey takes the case, finds the culprit, and tries to correct the wrongdoing.

Moral Monkey Brings the Vibe Back! continues the case on February 1. Moral Monkey returns the repaired Vibe and receives a hero's welcome from Humble Hedgehog and Flex'n Fox. Then Humble examines it with a magnifying glass and discovers the replacement is fake. Moral Monkey has apparently recovered the stolen object and persuaded the burglar to repair it, but he has not actually solved the whole case. The evidence reopens the mystery.

The trail continues in The Vibe Really Returns on February 23. Generous Gerbil arrives with another Vibe purchased online. Humble and Flex confirm that this one appears genuine, but Moral Monkey immediately asks who sold it. The strip ends with “To Be Continued,” leaving him with a new lead instead of a closed case. Across the five strips, the Vibe is stolen, Flex fails to recover it, Moral Monkey takes the case, the returned Vibe proves counterfeit, and a genuine replacement leads him toward an unidentified seller.

Several pieces of that earlier character carry into Issue 19. Ben follows evidence through mysteries involving deception and unidentified criminals. His morality shapes how he treats even the person attacking him, and bananas remain part of the visual language around him. Moral Monkey receives a new origin, but the earlier idea of him as a banana-filled ethical crime solver survives the transition.

After The Issue

Inspired by how VeeFriends treats character traits as forces that shape reality, I created Alien Traits: a 1-of-1 NFT series interpreting each of the 251 core traits. No repeats. Each visual piece also includes a written definition of the trait it represents in OpenSea's “About” section.

Explore the full Alien Traits collection here: https://opensea.io/collection/alien-traits

Easter Eggs

A few of these connections came out of our Alien Traits holders chat, where Dirtdog365 and I were comparing notes and pictures. Some are references hiding in plain sight, while others leave us with possibilities the story hasn't answered yet.

1. The Newspaper's Body Copy Is Lorem Ipsum

The front-page headline, “Monkey Hearts Now Work in Transplants,” matters to the story, so I checked the smaller newspaper copy beneath it for another clue. There isn't one. The columns use Lorem Ipsum, a standard form of dummy text made from altered and scrambled Latin. Designers use it as meaningless filler when they need to see how paragraphs will look on a page but do not have real copy to place there. That means the headline gives us intentional information about the transplant that saves Ben, while the article beneath it is only filling space and does not reveal anything beyond that headline.

2. Ross Brown Becomes Benjamin Browne

The comic's Building Characters section explains how Ross Brown became part of Moral Monkey's origin. Gary initially joked about turning Ross into a monkey, and Browne remained as a nod to him after the story developed into something of its own. Ben's full name is Benjamin R. Browne, and I read that R as another little piece of Ross carried into the character.

You can hear Gary suggest naming the detective Ross Brown in the original brainstorming clip and D.J. Coffman explain how that became Benjamin Browne. I love that the comic lets the character become his own person without losing the connection to the real person who helped inspire him.

3. Does Nurse Candy's Name Hide A Candy Cane Joke?

The reveal that Nurse Candy is really Agent Cane creates a joke that is easy to miss because the two halves arrive far apart. Ben calls her Nurse Candy when he wakes up. Later, she removes the blonde wig and announces, “The name is Agent Cane... MI5!” If Candy is her first name and Cane is her surname, then her name is Candy Cane. The disguise hid her job, but it also hid the second half of the pun.

That kind of conspicuously playful name feels at home in James Bond. Honor Blackman played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, another attractive woman whose name announces the joke before the spy story does. The comparison is hard to ignore. Both names bring sexuality and humor into a story built around deception, danger, and a British agent. Candy's revealing nurse disguise and sudden attraction to Ben make the Bond feeling even stronger.

Ben begins in a different British-detective tradition. He is Scotland Yard's celebrated detective, studies clues, carries a magnifying glass, and believes the truth can be found if he follows the evidence. At first, he reads much more like Sherlock Holmes.

By the end of the issue, though, the story pulls him toward James Bond. Agent Cane recruits him into MI5, deception becomes part of the job, and his next case involves hidden identities, armed attacks, missing VeeFriends, and a threat bigger than an ordinary police investigation. Bond works for MI6 rather than MI5, so Ben is not a literal 007 copy. He feels more like a hybrid: Sherlock Holmes's detective brain moved into a James Bond-style espionage role. Once he accepts the MI5 job, the Bond side becomes the direction his story is leaning.

4. Who Is The Missing Antlered VeeFriend?

The face on Cane's phone gives us antlers, brown coloring, and a red “MISSING” label, but no name. Dinner Deer was the first possibility. He is one of the original Series 1 VeeFriends, and my friend Dirtdog365 suggested him when we started comparing the panel. With antlers as the clearest clue, he was the obvious place to begin.

However, comparing the two images side by side makes that first answer less convincing.

Dinner Deer's official Series 2 artwork shows a blue character, while the face on Cane's phone is brown. The designs share the most obvious clue, the antlers, but the coloring sent me looking for another character who matched the rest of the image more closely.

That second comparison settles the identity much more clearly. The brown coloring, pale muzzle, antler shape, and red hair behind the antlers line up with Elegant Elk's artwork. Whatever his exact status within the official VeeFriends roster, the missing character on Cane's phone is Elegant Elk.

That identification made the pre-release Issue 20 football image more interesting. Dirtdog365 also shared it from VeeFriends' Instagram before the issue had been released. The yellow number seven jersey differs from the red uniform in the named Elegant Elk post, but the repeated football imagery gave us another clue before we could read the issue itself.

Trying to identify the missing VeeFriend naturally leads to the next mystery: who took him? Dirtdog365 suggested Bad Intentions, since Cane warns that someone is targeting VeeFriends one by one. If that theory is right, Ben's first MI5 assignment could connect this disappearance to the larger threat already moving through the comics.

5. Could Fuller Receive A VeeFriend Transplant?

Fuller being shot led Dirtdog365 to a theory I really liked: what if saving him requires the same kind of impossible transplant that saved Ben? Another VeeFriend heart would create the clearest parallel, but Fuller does not have to suffer Ben's exact injury. We are never told where the bullet hit him or which part of his body is failing. His operation could involve a lung, an eye, an arm, or something even stranger taken from a different VeeFriend.

That possibility makes Ben's transformation feel less like an isolated miracle and more like the beginning of a much larger idea. If a VeeFriend organ can transform a human recipient, does every body part carry some piece of that character's identity? Would a new heart cause a complete transformation while an eye changes how Fuller sees, or an arm gives him abilities connected to whoever donated it? The “proprietary supplement” used during Ben's surgery could make the result even less predictable.

The chief says Fuller is alive, but barely. That puts another wounded detective in the same desperate space Ben occupied at the beginning of the issue, with ordinary medicine possibly no longer enough. Fuller may wake up unchanged, become another established VeeFriend, or emerge as something the comics have never shown us before. His survival could reveal whether Moral Monkey was a one-time accident or the first example of humans being rebuilt with pieces of VeeFriends.

6. Familiar Pictures In MI5's Files

The pictures on MI5's desk caught my attention because they come from stories we've already followed. I recognized several of them immediately, then discussed them with Dirtdog365 as I traced the images back through the earlier comics.

The large screen reuses a panel from Special Story Edition A showing Flex'n Fox with Practical Peacock behind him. The wider original panel also includes Positive Porcupine and Bad Intentions. This is not merely a similar picture. MI5 has artwork pulled directly from a scene we've already seen.

The smaller screen on the left is another exact reuse from Special Story Edition A. It shows the same close-up of Positive Porcupine, from his upright quills and wide eyes to the shape of his open mouth.

The partly hidden screen on the right is harder to place. Optimistic Otter is the strongest character match because of the large dark eye, rounded muzzle, and open mouth. The Issue 1 panel shown above is the closest comparison I found, but the expressions do not match. Otter looks calm in Issue 1, while the figure on the Issue 19 screen appears frightened or in trouble.

That difference opens another possibility. If this really is Optimistic Otter and the image doesn't come from a scene we've already seen, could MI5 be looking at something that hasn't happened yet? The comics have already introduced the broader idea that characters can observe possible futures, beginning in Issue 1 and appearing elsewhere in the series. Could this screen be another example, with MI5 watching a future in which Otter is frightened or in trouble? The screen could instead come from a panel I have not identified or simply use a familiar face as background decoration. The evidence leaves all three possibilities open.

The two confirmed matches make these more than background cameos. MI5 has images drawn from earlier VeeFriends stories, but the issue never explains what kind of files they are. Are these older records or current surveillance? Are those events happening alongside Ben's investigation? Could some of the characters be working with MI5, or are they potential targets? Placing these familiar faces in front of Ben connects his new assignment to the wider comic world and raises a larger question about how much the agency already knows about everyone else.

7. Issue 19 Was Supposed To Be Issue 10

VeeFriends' own Building Characters page reveals that Moral Monkey was originally supposed to be the first comic released in 2026 as Issue 10. Artist Steve Musgrave was already deep into drawing it when a serious shoulder injury left his arm numb and caused intense pain. Instead of replacing him or starting over with another artist, Gary and Andy pulled the book from the schedule and waited for Steve to recover and finish it when he was ready.

That decision is why Moral Monkey arrived as Issue 19 rather than Issue 10. Rare Robot moved into the Issue 10 position and became the first release of 2026 instead. The official VeeFriends Comics episode Making Comics Now: Moral Monkey, Meet the Artist brings D.J. Coffman, Jim Rugg, and Steve together to discuss the book and how it almost did not happen.

The change leaves us with an alternate version of the release schedule to imagine. If Moral Monkey had arrived as planned, when would Rare Robot have been released? Would it have moved into a later numbered issue, traded places with Moral Monkey, or changed the order of other stories around it? Who knows how that version of the series would have unfolded. What we do know is that getting Rare Robot earlier than planned turned out to be a great surprise, even though we had no way to recognize it as an early arrival at the time. Until this backmatter revealed the switch, Issue 10 simply looked like Rare Robot's intended place in the series.

The finished Moral Monkey story still carries Steve's art, and the circumstances behind it create a hard-to-ignore contrast with Ben's story. The real creative team protected Steve's place while he recovered. The fictional Scotland Yard fired Ben and removed his protection while he was still healing. One group waited for an injured person to return, while the other treated its injured detective as disposable. The production history gives the issue an unexpected real-world reflection of its own moral question: what do we owe someone when an injury prevents them from doing the work they were chosen to do?

8. The Banana Sticker On The Package

Dirtdog365 caught this one. Admittedly, I wouldn't have noticed it. The blue-and-yellow Issue 19 label on the package reminded him of the little Chiquita stickers placed directly on bananas.

The resemblance is much easier to see with the actual Chiquita logo beside it. Chiquita's familiar Blue Sticker uses a rounded blue shape, a bright yellow border, and yellow lettering surrounding Miss Chiquita. The comic package transforms that same visual language into an Issue 19 badge. With Ben eating bananas as he turns into Moral Monkey, even the issue number becomes part of the joke.

9. Is That Nurse Candy Again?

Dirtdog365 shared this woman as another possible familiar face, and my immediate reaction was Nurse Candy. The blue eyes, black lipstick, and revealing neckline form a recognizable combination, although her hair is different and the comic never names her.

That sent me back to the woman the ambulance nearly hits at the beginning of this issue. I wondered whether Candy could have been there already, possibly undercover, given the MI5 connection. But this woman has a different skin tone and a different overall appearance, leaving black lipstick as a pretty thin connection on its own. That makes the comparison a stretch. The later woman looks much more like Candy to me.

10. Does The Battle Coin Connect Issues 19 And 20?

At about 19:27 in Is It Canon? Vol. 37, Anne pointed out that one of the five 2026 Battle Coins pairs Moral Monkey with Big Game Bandicoot. Moral Monkey leads Issue 19, while Big Game Bandicoot leads Issue 20. Anne also noticed that this was the only Battle Coin pairing whose two characters had not already appeared together in a comic. Her theory is that the coin was teasing a direct connection between these two stories before we knew what that connection would be.

The official VeeFriends coin announcement confirms the matchup, and the coin itself casts them as opponents. Even without knowing why, there is clearly some kind of rivalry or battle between Big Game Bandicoot and Moral Monkey.

The official Issue 20 promo material gives Anne's theory another piece. One of the magazine-style images puts Big Game Bandicoot and Elegant Elk on the same football field, with Elk running with the ball and Big Game reaching from the ground behind him. Before we know anything else about Issue 20, the promo is already telling us these two have some kind of history.

The missing antlered character Agent Cane shows Moral Monkey at the end of Issue 19 is Elegant Elk. Dirtdog365 first suggested Dinner Deer, but his official Series 2 design is blue while the missing face is brown. Elegant Elk's brown coloring, pale muzzle, antlers, and red hair match the figure on Cane's phone.

Elegant Elk becomes the bridge that makes Anne's theory click. Moral Monkey is recruited to investigate VeeFriends who are being targeted. The promo connects the missing character to Big Game Bandicoot. Then the Battle Coin puts Big Game directly against Moral Monkey. Those three pieces point toward the same conflict.

We still do not know what kind of conflict it will be. This could be a friendlier rivalry like Adventurous Astronaut versus Adaptable Alien, or something much more serious like Fearless Fairy versus Bad Intentions. The coin already places Moral Monkey and Big Game Bandicoot on opposing sides of something. Elegant Elk may be the reason their stories collide.

Up Next

VeeFriends Comic Book #20: Big Game Bandicoot is next in the numbered series. Until its Alien Inks Explained article is ready, you can read VeeFriends' official introduction to Big Game Bandicoot.

Read about VeeFriends Comic Book #20: Big Game Bandicoot.

Read all VeeFriends Comics Explained posts here: https://www.alieninks.com/pages/veefriends-explained?view=veefriends-explained-dynamic-v2