Marko Virtanen

"A job? Hah!! Automation, artificial intelligence and robots will soon make most of humans' work redundant. Not only of manual workers but precisely everyone's! You'll only need a few engineers and mechanics. Only a small, rich elite and their assistants. The rest are worthless mass. The masses are shared bread and circus. Brainless entertainment and genetically-altered mash that has been designed to keep the overpopulation passive and boring. If it doesn't succeed, then there will be famine, migrations of people and wars. But hey, there may be jobs on the safety field! The elite needs protectors of their properties and body guards. And mercenaries to keep the riots of ordinary people away from their magnificent neighbourhoods. I think I'll go now to numb myself by playing a senselessly violent shooting game. It is an investment to my future!"

- Marko Virtanen about mankind's future to his father.

Marko Virtanen is a recurring character in the comic strip B. Virtanen by Ilkka Heilä and its stage adaptation.

Biography
Marko is the son and only child of B. Virtanen the upbringing of whom Virtanen and his wife Armi have not succeeded very well in. He shoplifts and commits petty crimes, messes walls of public buildings with graffitis, plays truant from school and goes to the mall to hang out with his friends. Marko has also tried to make the family extra money by secretly selling his parents' stuff (i.e. the family's car) and pitching online-vacuumed videos. One strip also revealed that he has connections to black market. He also seems to hold very pessimistic views about mankind's future as indicated by his above rant.

Skills and abilities

 * Salesmanship: Marko has been shown to have some talent in salesmanship when trying to make the family extra money.
 * Dissolution: In some strips Marko is shown or mentioned to have the ability to dissolve his body. The source of this ability is currently unknown, however.

Trivia

 * Most strips featuring Marko depict him as a 13-year-old. Despite this, one strip featured in the third album showed him as being about 2-3 years old in terms of age.
 * Marko shares his name with a real-life retired ice hockey captain and ice hockey player.