Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie is a film, book, and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through email, which means he doesn't have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new genie-powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle should look like. Which, due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show, turned him into a busty blonde woman.
A junior engineer working for a small engineering firm in Cocoa Beach. The firm focuses mostly on NASA projects.
Neil is Jean’s best friend. When Jean was turned into a genie, Neil became Jeanie’s master.
It’s funny that Teen Natalie is basically still wearing a suit. I’m sure Jeanie will change what their wearing into prom dresses soon enough, or give Natalie something more appropriate for a teenager.
It’s possible that the Genii are related to, or have some characteristics in common with, the Fae of Footloose (http://footloosecomic.com/), who make a science of…, well, everything you’d find in TVTropes. They call it “Generics”, from “Genre”. ^_^
Genies are “born” with a fixed amount of magic. When it’s exhausted, they “die”. Die totally since, by tradition, they have no souls. This applies to Jeannie though she has more mana than most, on account of the Blue Djinn’s “thefts”.
Do genies have a “gas guage”, a way of knowing their remaining resources?
In particular, does Jean know, since she couldn’t be bothered to Read The F***ing Manual?
Going backwards in time is equivalent to traveling faster than light. https://youtu.be/HUMGc8hEkpc
Now, you can’t do this by continuously accelerating.
But there have been numerous, reasonably rigorous, proposals to achieve FTL with a “warp drive”.
Details vary, but they all require expending incredible amounts of energy; the mass-equivalent of an asteroid, a major planet, or even more!
There are other technical difficulties besides the requisite energy. We can ignore those because “hey, it’s magic!”
But energy is energy, be it kinetic, potential, or magical.
How will Jeannie react when she learns this little “jaunt” to get a hamberger has knocked about 6000 years off of her expected lifespan?
The best way I describe a Genie’s Magic-Life is by equating it to a rechargeable battery.
Genie’s Magic is finite. The older and more used they get, the less powerful and weaker their magic is. Till they get to the point they exceed their magical abilities (and run out).
Kazom no longer has his bottle, he pretty much used up almost all his remaining magical power.
His cat form is basically a permanent state of being that allows him to remain alive. He has to sleep in order to keep his physical form intact.
If you recall the chapter when he provided the chaos magic for Jeanie after she lost her genie form to the Blue Djinn, he said that getting ahold of it nearly exhausted what little lifespan he has left.
From what little we see of Kazom, his totem is likely no longer in existence or was sacrificed which leaves him no other option then to sleep as the Cat he now is.
@SageM So, the fun thing is that you got some things right, but not all of them… starting for the fact that Kazom’s Totem is still out there, somewhere. But wherever it is, Melvin is it’s owner (MC-52, though a line in MC.51 helps to put the scene together). It has been already stated, however, that somehow he managed to blowup half of his body/core (MC-93), and his new body has a lot of limitations.
I highly doubt you can apply theoretical science to a comic about magical genies. I highly doubt that Jeanie is ever going to run out of magic while the series is still running. I kind of feel that was one of the big points of the Blue Djinn arc, to superpower Jeanie so that she can do crazier stuff without worrying about shortening her life.
You don’t have to go faster than the sped of light. Doc Brown proved that 88 miles per hour is fast enough. Seriously, this is a comic strip, and the laws of physics don’t apply to its characters.
Well, Jeanie a Blond, so Jeanie could end up being jean date and that unassuming that Jean didn’t already have a date that is. Or possibly Jean did have a date and he screwed thing up and it was Jeanie to the rescue and masquerading as a foreign exchange student too. So both Neil and Jeanie could end up being part of the past in there immediate future now.
That would make an interesting twist in the Genie Bottle series.
As laid back as both Neil and Natalie are, I can see both Jean and Jeanie laying a devious plot on both Neil and Natalie to get them to kiss the opposet sex and failing that, they choose to trade partners and plant big sloppy kiss on the other one at the end of the Prom and before they separate never to meet again.
Because, at this point neither Jeanie or Neil know that they are the future date of the younger Neil or Jean yet. It will happen, because, Jeanie shoot her mouth off and pull Neil in as Natalie. After Jeanie shoot her mouth off, is when both Jeanie Neil/Natalie figure out that there both part of the past too now, before they can go back home to the future where they belong. Both Jean and Jeanie will enjoy the Prom and both the younger Neil and Neil/Natalie are being drug into the Prom by there heals by Jean and Jeanie.
I got the impression that Neil was going to the prom with Zoey. Natalie just might be an unwilling spectator to whatever is about to happen, and not a participant. This might create other interesting scenarios.
I think it has been theorized that Neil and Jean were in high school 6 or 7 years ago, so that would put it early-mid 2010’s? A quick google search based on that era revealed several ensembles with ties, both bow and straight. The blouse and slacks certainly fit the time frame.
I agree with Robert on this one. Puberty start for girl about 12 and generally end about 15 or 16 and the teen girls that we are probably talking about are about 17 or possibly 18 years old and would be out of puberty or close to the end of it. So they would be pretty much fully developed girls and the guys would be pretty much fully developed too. A boy voice start to crack 13 or 14 as they go through puberty too. So yes, both the girls and guy should look like what the adult version of themselves, but, a younger version.
That why Jeanie had to change Neil form so that people would not be able to make the connection between the younger Neil and older Neil. They would look like and older twin and a younger twin and people would see the age difference and start asking those embarrassing questions.
@Mike
“Besides, what fun would it be if Jeanie turned Neil into anything except Natalie?”
Perhaps she could have been dressed as slutty Natalie, here’s hoping for that Prom dress 🙂
I wonder if Jeanie will realize how much of a jerk they used to be and still are, or something like that. Some kind of taste of your own medicine scenario except even more literal. Might be too dense and self centered for that kinda perspective, but just a possibility ^^’.
Could be similar mischief with how she acted around Melvin & co., finding their past self similarly annoying – which could lead into a mind wipe.
Like you said, there is a big difference to being a jerk and throwing it out to everyone else, it doesn’t look that bad or at least as bad as it really is, because you have a tendency to sugar coat things and make things look good to yourself, at least in you eye anyway.
But, now Jeanie is sitting in the same seat that everybody else is sitting in when it come to the crap that Jean been pulling on everyone else all these years. Jean is going to see Jeanie as just another person and he not going to see why he should treat her any different than he treat’s anyone else. Forget about the part of Jeanie being his future self and a Genie to boot.
Jean could piss Jeanie off and there nothing that Jeanie could do about it or should do about it either, except grin and bear it until it over with. If Jeanie does do something to Jean, it will be like this inventor of a time machine telling his three friends about it and one of the three friend hated his grandfather so much because he was a bad guy that he decided to go back and kill him. But, he killed him before he had children and meanwhile the inventor or the time machine was telling his two friend about the time machine.
I just had a horrible thought…
Jeanie’s bottle is in “the present” while she and Neil are exploring their past. What happens if one of Neil’s roommates wanders into his room and rubs it out of curiosity? After all, it is a conversation piece. Wouldn’t Jeanie be summoned back into “the present” leaving Neil stuck in the past as a teenage Natalie on prom night?
Then again, what if a Genie Lord summons her for some reason? She is Lord Guano’s wife after all, and I’m sure they still have a few questions to ask.
Neil would be stuck in the past until Jeanie can free herself from herself from prior commitment’s to go back and get teenage Neil/Natalie and it may be a few days too, before Jeanie could get free to go get him or her.
The question would be, where would she stay and what would she be doing for a few days until Jeanie can get free to go back and get her?
Well, Natalie could possibly find herself a friend to stay with. Zoey comes to mind as a first guess… after all, they are sure to have some interaction in the near future (at school or at prom), and she can make up some BS story about being abused and needing a place to stay for a while. Prom indicates an end to the school year, so a part-time job at The Cheesecake Factory in a cute waitress outfit would be in order (although Hooters would probably appeal more to this audience).
Knowing Jeannie, if she were pulled into the present, she’d probably take the lazy way out. Just meet Natalie in the present (after Neil has had to live as Natalie for years) and poof her back into Neil, rather than go back in time again to retrieve Neil/Nat.
Depending on the accuracy of Jeanie’s time jumping ability, she might miss the point that she’s summoned into the *present* by anywhere from a few hours to a few days or even weeks.
The possibilities for entertaining mishaps are endless if that happens. I don’t think Neil has ever been Natalie long enough to experience cramps and everything that comes with them. Does Natalie know what size pad she needs? She didn’t know her bra size back on page 458 and needed help. More than a few weeks as Natalie and those emotions she felt at the conclusion of I Dream of an Escape might begin to manifest again (going from 100% testosterone to 100% estrogen with no time to acclimate), surrounded by teenaged boys with their own hormones.
Did Neil and rodge go to different schools?
If not, is the alterations that jean made to make him like rogde in effect again? Would that alter the future?
Or Rodge even in the same town or even in the same state even. I think I remember Neil telling Rodge where both he and Jean grew up at and about them being long time friends from Cincinnati. So I doubt that there going to run into Rodge there. As much as t would be interesting to see it, it not likely to happen unless there is an alternate past, which isn’t likely to happen. The only place that Rodge and Neil are known to have met each other or be in the same city or even state is in Co Co Beach, Florida.
Here is a FanFic way for it to happen
Rodge is visiting his aunt and uncle and ends up being his cousin’s prom date.
He ditches her to hook up with Natalie
Hey, Robert, when some people get an obsession with an idea and won’t let it go of it, they will clime up a tree backward rather than let go of there idea even when it not logical or viable either.
Jean and Natalie in high school this is gonna be a fun adventure.
Yeah! I’m looking forward to the shenanigans they get up to!
Jeanie has so much magic in herself that she already feels the thoughts of the fans.
personally i’d knock some sense into Jeannie, then FORCE her to change Neil back to normal.
Yup that will work, NOT
You and what army?
Nice fan service!
Teenage Natalie? That’s going to make things awkward later, especially with the fact teenage female hormones have a much stronger effect on the body.
I wonder if she will fall for the teenage Rodge.
There’s been nothing to suggest that Neil and Rodge went to the same school.
It’s funny that Teen Natalie is basically still wearing a suit. I’m sure Jeanie will change what their wearing into prom dresses soon enough, or give Natalie something more appropriate for a teenager.
Sorry Neil, but this outfit is much cuter than your suit.
It’s the same outfit, just modified to fit the new body
Still, cuter.
There’s been quite a lot of speculation about that on the Discord. And fanart of it, too. 🙂
It’s possible that the Genii are related to, or have some characteristics in common with, the Fae of Footloose (http://footloosecomic.com/), who make a science of…, well, everything you’d find in TVTropes. They call it “Generics”, from “Genre”. ^_^
I get the feeling Jeanie is trying to set up her teenage male self with the both of them to make Neil look better in highschool
Genies are “born” with a fixed amount of magic. When it’s exhausted, they “die”. Die totally since, by tradition, they have no souls. This applies to Jeannie though she has more mana than most, on account of the Blue Djinn’s “thefts”.
Do genies have a “gas guage”, a way of knowing their remaining resources?
In particular, does Jean know, since she couldn’t be bothered to Read The F***ing Manual?
Going backwards in time is equivalent to traveling faster than light.
https://youtu.be/HUMGc8hEkpc
Now, you can’t do this by continuously accelerating.
But there have been numerous, reasonably rigorous, proposals to achieve FTL with a “warp drive”.
Details vary, but they all require expending incredible amounts of energy; the mass-equivalent of an asteroid, a major planet, or even more!
There are other technical difficulties besides the requisite energy. We can ignore those because “hey, it’s magic!”
But energy is energy, be it kinetic, potential, or magical.
How will Jeannie react when she learns this little “jaunt” to get a hamberger has knocked about 6000 years off of her expected lifespan?
The best way I describe a Genie’s Magic-Life is by equating it to a rechargeable battery.
Genie’s Magic is finite. The older and more used they get, the less powerful and weaker their magic is. Till they get to the point they exceed their magical abilities (and run out).
Ah, yes, batteries can be recharged. Which begs the question: other than destroying totems and sucking up the loose magic, how does a genie recharge?
I believe they recharge by sleeping in their bottles/totems.
Since we always see Kazom sleeping to conserve what little magical energy he has left
Conserve, yes, recharge, maybe. Note that Kazom is never seen sleeping inside his bottle unlike Jeanie who had done so a few times.
Kazom no longer has his bottle, he pretty much used up almost all his remaining magical power.
His cat form is basically a permanent state of being that allows him to remain alive. He has to sleep in order to keep his physical form intact.
If you recall the chapter when he provided the chaos magic for Jeanie after she lost her genie form to the Blue Djinn, he said that getting ahold of it nearly exhausted what little lifespan he has left.
From what little we see of Kazom, his totem is likely no longer in existence or was sacrificed which leaves him no other option then to sleep as the Cat he now is.
@SageM So, the fun thing is that you got some things right, but not all of them… starting for the fact that Kazom’s Totem is still out there, somewhere. But wherever it is, Melvin is it’s owner (MC-52, though a line in MC.51 helps to put the scene together). It has been already stated, however, that somehow he managed to blowup half of his body/core (MC-93), and his new body has a lot of limitations.
Kazom’s a special case. He’s very old, wise, and has some unique things going on (like being a cat)
I highly doubt you can apply theoretical science to a comic about magical genies. I highly doubt that Jeanie is ever going to run out of magic while the series is still running. I kind of feel that was one of the big points of the Blue Djinn arc, to superpower Jeanie so that she can do crazier stuff without worrying about shortening her life.
You don’t have to go faster than the sped of light. Doc Brown proved that 88 miles per hour is fast enough. Seriously, this is a comic strip, and the laws of physics don’t apply to its characters.
Anybody want to lay odds on which one of them is going to be the “foreign exchange student”?
I’m betting Neil.
In panel 625 Jeannie said she went with the blonde transfer student.
Young Nat is a brunette
Well, Jeanie a Blond, so Jeanie could end up being jean date and that unassuming that Jean didn’t already have a date that is. Or possibly Jean did have a date and he screwed thing up and it was Jeanie to the rescue and masquerading as a foreign exchange student too. So both Neil and Jeanie could end up being part of the past in there immediate future now.
That would make an interesting twist in the Genie Bottle series.
I can see Jean dating Jeanie and Neil dating Natalie, a most interesting double date.
As laid back as both Neil and Natalie are, I can see both Jean and Jeanie laying a devious plot on both Neil and Natalie to get them to kiss the opposet sex and failing that, they choose to trade partners and plant big sloppy kiss on the other one at the end of the Prom and before they separate never to meet again.
Because, at this point neither Jeanie or Neil know that they are the future date of the younger Neil or Jean yet. It will happen, because, Jeanie shoot her mouth off and pull Neil in as Natalie. After Jeanie shoot her mouth off, is when both Jeanie Neil/Natalie figure out that there both part of the past too now, before they can go back home to the future where they belong. Both Jean and Jeanie will enjoy the Prom and both the younger Neil and Neil/Natalie are being drug into the Prom by there heals by Jean and Jeanie.
I got the impression that Neil was going to the prom with Zoey. Natalie just might be an unwilling spectator to whatever is about to happen, and not a participant. This might create other interesting scenarios.
Ooookay….young horney Jean meeting older hottie Jeannie. Hahah, how weird is this gonna get?
At this point, Jeanie is physically a teenager too.
Young Natalie’s looks reminds me of Sailor Jupiter.
Not sure if young Natalie has the talent necessary to pull that off, yet. Though we know she will be talented enough it due time.
That is a horrible joke reference, and you know it. lol
Did kids in their day wear that shirt-and-tie look? ‘Cause they didn’t in mine, and I’m not sure just when it came in…
I think it has been theorized that Neil and Jean were in high school 6 or 7 years ago, so that would put it early-mid 2010’s? A quick google search based on that era revealed several ensembles with ties, both bow and straight. The blouse and slacks certainly fit the time frame.
Girls have been wearing that shirt-and-tie look since Diane Keaton made it fashionable decades ago in ANNIE HALL.
Alas, came out around the time I was finishing high school. Have not seen it anywhere else much.
She’s about to do something that will get her and her bottle stuck in the center of the Earth, isn’t she.
That’s a cute pout in the last panel.
And here is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.
Not just a girl, but a TEEN girl, in the midst of puberty. …yeah, that won’t go well at all. Chaos incoming, in some form or fashion.
Hmm, not necessarily. They are most likely either juniors or seniors in high school. Well past puberty, I’d say.
I agree with Robert on this one. Puberty start for girl about 12 and generally end about 15 or 16 and the teen girls that we are probably talking about are about 17 or possibly 18 years old and would be out of puberty or close to the end of it. So they would be pretty much fully developed girls and the guys would be pretty much fully developed too. A boy voice start to crack 13 or 14 as they go through puberty too. So yes, both the girls and guy should look like what the adult version of themselves, but, a younger version.
That why Jeanie had to change Neil form so that people would not be able to make the connection between the younger Neil and older Neil. They would look like and older twin and a younger twin and people would see the age difference and start asking those embarrassing questions.
Besides, what fun would it be if Jeanie turned Neil into anything except Natalie?
@Mike
“Besides, what fun would it be if Jeanie turned Neil into anything except Natalie?”
Perhaps she could have been dressed as slutty Natalie, here’s hoping for that Prom dress 🙂
I wonder if Jeanie will realize how much of a jerk they used to be and still are, or something like that. Some kind of taste of your own medicine scenario except even more literal. Might be too dense and self centered for that kinda perspective, but just a possibility ^^’.
Could be similar mischief with how she acted around Melvin & co., finding their past self similarly annoying – which could lead into a mind wipe.
Like you said, there is a big difference to being a jerk and throwing it out to everyone else, it doesn’t look that bad or at least as bad as it really is, because you have a tendency to sugar coat things and make things look good to yourself, at least in you eye anyway.
But, now Jeanie is sitting in the same seat that everybody else is sitting in when it come to the crap that Jean been pulling on everyone else all these years. Jean is going to see Jeanie as just another person and he not going to see why he should treat her any different than he treat’s anyone else. Forget about the part of Jeanie being his future self and a Genie to boot.
Jean could piss Jeanie off and there nothing that Jeanie could do about it or should do about it either, except grin and bear it until it over with. If Jeanie does do something to Jean, it will be like this inventor of a time machine telling his three friends about it and one of the three friend hated his grandfather so much because he was a bad guy that he decided to go back and kill him. But, he killed him before he had children and meanwhile the inventor or the time machine was telling his two friend about the time machine.
Hopefully Jean realizes how much of a jackass she was when she’s on the receiving end.
Poor teen Neil/Natalie. If teen Jean hooks up with teen Jeanie and teen Neil has a date with Zoey will teen Neil end up the poor wall flower at prom.
And we appreciate it Jean!
I just had a horrible thought…
Jeanie’s bottle is in “the present” while she and Neil are exploring their past. What happens if one of Neil’s roommates wanders into his room and rubs it out of curiosity? After all, it is a conversation piece. Wouldn’t Jeanie be summoned back into “the present” leaving Neil stuck in the past as a teenage Natalie on prom night?
Then again, what if a Genie Lord summons her for some reason? She is Lord Guano’s wife after all, and I’m sure they still have a few questions to ask.
Neil would be stuck in the past until Jeanie can free herself from herself from prior commitment’s to go back and get teenage Neil/Natalie and it may be a few days too, before Jeanie could get free to go get him or her.
The question would be, where would she stay and what would she be doing for a few days until Jeanie can get free to go back and get her?
Well, Natalie could possibly find herself a friend to stay with. Zoey comes to mind as a first guess… after all, they are sure to have some interaction in the near future (at school or at prom), and she can make up some BS story about being abused and needing a place to stay for a while. Prom indicates an end to the school year, so a part-time job at The Cheesecake Factory in a cute waitress outfit would be in order (although Hooters would probably appeal more to this audience).
Knowing Jeannie, if she were pulled into the present, she’d probably take the lazy way out. Just meet Natalie in the present (after Neil has had to live as Natalie for years) and poof her back into Neil, rather than go back in time again to retrieve Neil/Nat.
Wow, that *is* a scary thought.
Depending on the accuracy of Jeanie’s time jumping ability, she might miss the point that she’s summoned into the *present* by anywhere from a few hours to a few days or even weeks.
The possibilities for entertaining mishaps are endless if that happens. I don’t think Neil has ever been Natalie long enough to experience cramps and everything that comes with them. Does Natalie know what size pad she needs? She didn’t know her bra size back on page 458 and needed help. More than a few weeks as Natalie and those emotions she felt at the conclusion of I Dream of an Escape might begin to manifest again (going from 100% testosterone to 100% estrogen with no time to acclimate), surrounded by teenaged boys with their own hormones.
No one caught The Cheesecake Factory reference?
I had assumed that it was either “cheesecake” as in sexy fan service, or a reference to Penny from the Big Bang Theory.
Bingo! Big Bang Theory it is.
as if one remember exactly where one is standing all those years ago
I think she’s referring to the location or Jean’s locker.
The first time we se Natalie in a very long time…
Did Neil and rodge go to different schools?
If not, is the alterations that jean made to make him like rogde in effect again? Would that alter the future?
There’s been nothing to suggest that Neil and Rodge went to the same school.
Or Rodge even in the same town or even in the same state even. I think I remember Neil telling Rodge where both he and Jean grew up at and about them being long time friends from Cincinnati. So I doubt that there going to run into Rodge there. As much as t would be interesting to see it, it not likely to happen unless there is an alternate past, which isn’t likely to happen. The only place that Rodge and Neil are known to have met each other or be in the same city or even state is in Co Co Beach, Florida.
Here is a FanFic way for it to happen
Rodge is visiting his aunt and uncle and ends up being his cousin’s prom date.
He ditches her to hook up with Natalie
Neil and Jean grew up in the same town. Rodge is someone Neil presumably met in Cocoa Beach.
Hey, Robert, when some people get an obsession with an idea and won’t let it go of it, they will clime up a tree backward rather than let go of there idea even when it not logical or viable either.