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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s).

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth?

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914).

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.”

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.”

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day.

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth.

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm.

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC.

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course.

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.

#replies tag #marvel comics #marvel #dc comics #dc #pulp heroes #pulp villains #martian manhunter #plastic man #kraven the hunter #two-face #shuma-gorath #marvel vs capcom

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histrionic-dragon · 5 years

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Google Says WHAT?! --A mini-fic

I’ve been reading the Hundred-Year Playlist series by the amazing @girlbookwrm and also creeping on other people’s comments on the story, because that’s something I do with stories I like. @girlbookwrm mentioned, in one of the comments-conversations, that if you Google “queer 1930s Brooklyn” you get Steve Rogers fan research on the first page of results. I may have swooped in to say that Tony’s reaction if he accidentally saw that, in-universe, would be hilarious, and then-- this happened.

It’s a bit more serious than I originally intended it to be, but still has some levity to it.

Story below the cut and maybe eventually on Ao3. Takes place a few days after CA:TWS, because who better than Tony to sift through the SHIELD/Hydra data dump?

“Really, sir,” said JARVIS, “I must strongly advise you to go to bed.”

“Great,” Tony said absently. “You’ve given me the advice. Now you can feel good about it.”

“Sir . . . .”

Tony pushed his chair back from the table, spinning a little as it drifted smoothly across the lab until he was juuuust within reach of the countertop where he’d left his coffee. He picked it up and took a sip. Not too cold, yet.

Almost, but not quite.

“Look, JARVIS,” he said out loud, “I’m not working with fire, I’m not operating heavy machinery, I’m not actually making anything. I’ve even slept in the last 24 hours. Why are you on my case?”

“It is the total amount of sleep you’ve had in the past five days that concerns me, sir.”

Tony snorted.

“. . . and your reactions to some of the information uncovered by the Black Widow’s information dump at the beginning of that time.”

Tony put his mug down on the counter. It made a sharp clack sound. Not like the normal ting or click-thump of putting down a drink--this was loud, attention-grabbing, the sound of ceramic hitting on granite countertop just barely not hard enough to break.

Great. Now his coffee was a drama queen.

“Look,” he said. “It is entirely in character for Obie to have been paid off by someone to do what he did, and he needed sketchier contacts than Stark Industries has to get in with the Ten Rings. Might as well have been Hydra. I honestly could have put that together if I’d had time to stop and think before everybody I know called me up and asked me to start going through those files, it just rattled me that I didn’t and then that came up, okay? Honestly, I’m kind of surprised Rhodey didn’t think of it first and warn me when he called,” he added thoughtfully, “except I’m pretty sure Rhodey hasn’t slept in a lot longer than I haven’t. --Shouldn’t you be bugging him?”

“Colonel Rhodes is not my priority,” JARVIS said mildly. “And I believe he would agree with my assessment of your needs in this situation--as would Ms. Potts, who has repeatedly contacted me from the construction site in Malibu to inquire as to your well-being. I would hate to tell her you’re neglecting yourself.”

Tony stopped scowling at his lukewarm coffee and its noisy mug and moved the scowl to the ceiling. Technically JARVIS’s sensors were at least as dense at mid-wall and in the baseboards, but JARVIS would know what he meant. “You,” he said, “are a cheating cheater who cheats.”

“You did build me, sir.” JARVIS’ voice was extra-bland. He only did that when he was very pleased with himself. Tony sure as hell hadn’t made that part of him.

Artificial intelligences. They grew up so fast.

“Fine,” Tony said after a moment. “I won’t go down that particular rabbit hole anymore tonight, alright? No more looking to see how long Obie was working for Hydra, no more sniffing around what happened when—” His hands clenched tight enough to hurt and he made himself relax.

“I won’t follow up on the ‘was Obadiah Stane involved in the car crash’ angle until tomorrow. In fact, I won’t look at the secret files anymore. Just give me a few more minutes to finish up a couple trains of thought about other things from them, and then I’ll call Pepper myself, okay?”

“If you must, sir.”

Tony really was being good, dammit. He didn’t follow up on anything he thought could be related to Obie or his parents’ death. He didn’t go looking for anything new and unpleasant. He didn’t do anything but follow the money, because Hydra couldn’t have come out of nowhere. Once they got into the US government, sure, money wouldn’t be an issue, but how do you get your secret little evil organization off the ground? Couldn’t exactly ask around for angel investors.

No, all he was doing now was hunting for cash. He was going to figure out just how far down the rabbit holes went (the hydra-holes? Something something Hercules burying the immortal head under a rock and the other heads grew two more unless you torched them and arson would cover up a lot of records of failed operations but not all of them and THAT was interesting funding-wise, because to extend the Greek monster metaphor and borrow from that one D&D comic, you actually would get lightheaded and pass out if you had too many heads and too little blood supply to deliver oxygen and so they needed some stable sources of income in this heads-are-evil-operations-blood-is-money metaphor and again, once you were embedded in a government organization, you could totally just use that funding, but they weren’t like that to begin with and if you were going to get started as mostly outside a government operation in the US but needed the ties to get in, you needed money, and leverage, and that meant organized crime, and that meant—)

Long story short, he was looking up the history of various criminal organizations in the US and trying to figure out which ones might have been started by Hydra, or which other, older organizations they might have taken over or just steered in the ways they wanted. That meant reading about, among other things, the Mafia and their various sources of revenue going back to--based on what he knew about business and networking and family ties and inheritance and seriously, fuck you, Obie--about a generation and a half before the official, formal rise of Hydra as a Nazi science organization, to see if that would connect up with ties made even later when Hydra people came over in the fifties. So basically, large-scale criminal enterprises from the early 1900s on.

Maybe it took a little more than a few minutes.

On the other hand, it was a particularly fascinating more-than-a-few-minutes. People had gotten homicidal over really weird shit in the dark ages. Street gangs beating up people until they sold a different newspaper--now that was aggressive marketing. Tony still hated pop-up ads--Stark Ad Annihilator was the best adblock software on the market for a reason, that reason being that Tony had been bored and hopped up on decongestants one day and--anyway. Still better than getting stabbed to death. And then of course there were the hilariously inventive ways people had come up with of making, smuggling, and secretly serving booze during Prohibition, and that was probably where he really ought to be looking if he was going to follow the money. But there were all these interesting little spinoffs, like—

“The mob owned a lot of gay bars?” Tony said out loud, frowning. “What, like—’da boss says love is love. Dis is an equal-opportunity institution’?” He snickered. (It was not a giggle.) “That’s probably too funny to be accurate.”

“Indeed, sir,” JARVIS said. “The article you are about to click on reports, in summary, that the mafia had a great deal of expertise in running illegal nightclubs. When Prohibition ended, some mob bosses saw an opportunity to maintain this revenue stream.”

“That makes a decent amount of sense. Not very funny, but—” He waggled his hand. “Could see da business sense.” He snickered again.

“Quite,” JARVIS replied. “Sir, I must remind you—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just a few more minutes, J.” Tony glanced up briefly. “Promise.”

“I will hold you to it, sir.”

Tony nodded absently— “sure, whatever”--already looking through a few other databases. The proto-SHIELD organization had been based in New York City for a while--with other offices elsewhere--before its official rebranding and move to DC, which meant he was looking for people with behind-the-scenes pull in NYC in the fifties.

“JARVIS, if you’re mother-henning, help me out and open up a few Google searches.”

“Sir?” JARVIS sounded marginally offended.

“I need crappy, surface-level information. Broad strokes. Your searches are too good. Give me anything they’ve got for searches on banking, politics, real estate, whatever pseudoscience or spiritualism was big at the time, and hell, why not, the LGBT community--all of those--in the twenties, the thirties, and the forties, and then take those results and show me anything that cross-references with our SHIELD people of interest in the fifties or later.”

A pause.

“Done, sir.”

“Anything good?”

“A few more data points to cross-reference with other sources. We may have the beginnings of a paper trail on the history and extent of Mr. Stane’s involvement with the organization, related to his business ties before Stark Industries, but—”

“Skip that,” Tony ordered. He wasn’t going to go into that. Not tonight. Not until he had everything he needed to chart out the whole festering shit-show and deal with it all at once.

“As you wish, sir. Two, perhaps three, of the prominent city council members at the time may have had ties to Hydra, most likely unknowingly. A housekeeper’s murder may have been precipitated by something she overheard rather than her affair with her employer, although the perpetrator may be the same woman as originally suspected. There may be more behind the apparent suicide of a SSR agent and a deadly riot at a movie theater than was originally suspected as well--though in those cases the revelation is the extent of the foul play, not its presence. There are also a few cases I have flagged as false positives. Would you like to review those?”

Tony stood up and stretched, his spine popping. Ow. “Sure,” he said, yawning, “they’ll be funny. And then I’ll call Pepper and go to bed,” he added, rolling his eyes, “so don’t say anything.”

“That is wonderful news, sir.”

The false-positive Google searches appeared as holographic screens around him. The first one was about a shady real estate deal that Hydra clearly hadn’t had a hand in, because the fact they didn’t own a particular piece of land later was a real hindrance to them, so that was good. The triumph of run-of-the-mill white-collar crime over evil. Or something.

The next few were restaurant reviews, for some reason. About all they proved was that foody talk from seventy years ago was just as weird as foody talk today, except people back then had really really liked preservatives as much as they really really hated them now.

Another search result was a Buzzfeed article: “17 of Howard Stark’s most hilarious parking tickets.” Apparently his dad had had a bad habit of just leaving cars lying around once he’d modified them with anti-theft mechanisms. One had sprayed a cloud of skunk musk at the officer leaving the ticket. Judging by the comments, people thought this was hilarious. They were all missing the point of the collateral stink-damage to bystanders and nearby cars. Tony could do it better than his dad ever had. Tony could do better in his sleep.

That left a sour taste in his mouth. --His brain? His mouth tasted awful, come to think of it, like the stale coffee now gone stone-cold at his elbow and too long without sleep, but that wasn’t the point. He needed mind Mentos, was the point. Next false positive.

(this is the actual search result!)

Tony started cackling.

“Are you alright, sir?” JARVIS asked.

“Yeah,” Tony said, clicking on the flagged article. “Yeah, I’m fine. What, this came up because of—?”

“Confluence of a known Hydra target and the search term ‘queer 1930s Brooklyn.’”

“Like the rainbow mafia, that makes sense when you think about it.” Tony shook his head. “Oh man, I’m gonna tell Cap that someone’s turned their history project on him into the history of Grindr.”

“Sir?”

“He blushes like a lobster. This’ll be the best. Thank you for this, J, you’ve made my night.”

“Are you going to leave the laboratory at any point in the near future, sir?”

“Yes, Mom, as soon as I read this actual article because even though it’s probably not really about Grindr, I’m sure there’ll be plenty in there I can embarrass Steve with. . . . --Oooh, excellent subtitle. ‘Mr. Rogers’ Gayborhood,’ I’ll have to . . . .”

He trailed off absently as he realized what he was reading. “Huh. --JARVIS, how deep in the search results was this buried?”

“About halfway up the first page, sir.”’

“Huh.”

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Fine, it’s just--really good historical research, kind of light tone, but actually . . . probably not a horny undergrad messing with a history prof on a paper assignment. And the comments are . . . people are agreeing with . . . There are historical documents here. --OK, real search engine time, JARVIS: is there some sort of, like, scholarly and/or Internet message board consensus that Captain America is gay and I missed it?!”

“It appears to be a topic of heated debate, actually,” JARVIS replied, “the foremost proponents of which are adamant about it not being a joke.”

“Okay,” Tony said, “I know about the clone conspiracy theorists and the Russian conspiracy theorists and the weird cultists and the Reagan administration snake-people conspiracy theorists, and I know he does too. How does Steve not know about this already?”

“He does, sir.”

Tony made a wheezing, squeaking noise, torn between hilarity and incredulity.

“The Captain has apparently been approached on occasion--in person, informally, and inconspicuously, most often by people who have written scholarly articles on the subject—”

“He has?”

“--and has refused to give any meaningful reply one way or another, other than that it’s not really anyone else’s business.”

Tony blinked. He was familiar with that bland kind of shutdown. It did not go well with the picture of flustered, wrong-footed Cap that his head kept trying to give him. He got flustered when he didn’t know what was going on. He got calm and blank and authoritative when he did.

“His refusal to answer questions has been especially marked when asked about his relationship with James Barnes.”

Tony blinked again, reached out on autopilot, and took a gulp of his now definitely too cold and ugh ugh ugh awful coffee.

Once he’d finished gagging and had acknowledged that, yes, his mouth absolutely hated him and this was possibly worse than waking up hungover and tasting stale vomit because he had been sober and in control of his own behavior when he slugged that down, there were no excuses--once he was done with that little ritual of disgust, he frowned, then firmly swiped the article’s display off to one side. “Save that for tomorrow, J,” he said. “And start a new file. I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?”

“‘Is Cap into guys’ is a more fun mystery than ‘did a terrorist organization recruit my dad’s best friend to spike his drink or cut his brakes the night he died so he’d be out of their way,’ JARVIS,” Tony said heavily. “Let me have my fun.”

He might be imagining it, but he thought JARVIS sounded almost gentle when he said, “Of course, sir.”

***

CODA.

Tony had been asleep.

He knew he’d been asleep, and he knew he was awake now, and he wasn’t sure when he’d transitioned from sleeping to thinking or if he’d just woken up abruptly. It hadn’t been a nightmare. He was lying perfectly still, his heartbeat was regular, and he wasn’t sweating or anything. He was just lying in bed, awake, aware that he was awake, eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“JARVIS,” Tony said.

“Yes, sir?”

“The guy Steve wouldn’t tell the Internet people about. That’s the same guy--that really weird message from Natasha . . . . ?”

“So it would appear.”

Tony thought for a minute.

“Well shit.”

“Aptly put, sir.”

Tony look at the ceiling some more.

“Merge the new folder I told you to make with the other one, the—”

“The folder entitled ‘Soviet Winter Reunion Tour or Something, Romanoff is Being Cryptic, Get Steve to Explain When He’s Conscious,’ sir?”

“Yeah, that one. Merge ‘em. Rename, uh, ‘Ancient History, Search and Rescue Edition.’ Mark it high priority.”

“Done, sir.”

“And JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Send Pepper a bunch of flowers and see if you can maybe find an earlier flight for her to come home.”

#meta #sort of #my writing #fanfic #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #JARVIS #Hundred Year Playlist

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thewadapan · 5 years

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I rewrote an obscure Transformers comic from the 1980s.

Creator’s Commentary

It’s 1984. Marvel’s four-issue Transformers miniseries has been a smash hit, and they’re already expanding it into a full monthly ongoing. Marvel’s UK branch is looking to import the book, but they have a problem - the newsagents want weekly issues, and there simply isn’t enough comic to fill those pages.

To meet demand, they bring on Simon Furman to write extra comics weaving into the US material. Because he’s the only one with any idea what's going on, he continues to churn out Transformers stories for almost ten years - with only occasional contributions from other authors.

“Peace” is one such interloper.

Written by letterer/editor Richard Starkings under his “Richard Alan” pseudonym for the 1989 Transformers Annual (which was actually published in 1988), it presents one of Cybertron’s alternate futures. Its exact placement in continuity was contentious - even within the comics’ own letters pages, where the editors (writing in-character as Transformers) gave several contradictory answers to questions regarding its canonicity.

The comic opens when the final Decepticon is killed by the Wreckers - an elite group of Autobot shock-troopers. With the war over, the very-very-tired Autobot leader Rodimus Prime announces that he’s going to step down - letting the Wreckers’ leader, Springer, take his place.

Unbeknownst to the Autobots, not all of the Decepticons are dead after all - the double agent Triton still hides amongst their ranks. In an attempt to incite conflict, Triton suggests that Ultra Magnus would make a better leader. The Technobot combiner team agrees, and an argument breaks out between them and the Wreckers. Whirl argues with Triton, Triton punches Whirl, Roadbuster pulls a gun on Triton, Scattorshot shoots Roadbuster, Sandstorm shoots Triton, and the war begins again.

It’s a grimly interesting story, one forever doomed to remain a footnote in Transformers history. Fittingly for a bot of subterfuge, Triton’s alternate mode was a submarine - at least according to Dreadwind in the letters pages. Marvel UK fanboy-turned-creator Nick Roche much later reinvented him as a member of Squadron X - sworn enemies of the Wreckers in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity.

In its most recent reprint as part of the twenty-second volume of The Definitive G1 Collection, “Peace” was left stranded as an afterthought alongside Regeneration One - with the rest of the UK strips being collected across the first twenty volumes alongside their contemporary US material. That partwork was curated by Simon Furman, who still writes Transformers stories to this day - despite pleas from some corners of the fandom for him to just call it quits already.

Richard Starkings, meanwhile, went on to found Comicraft - bringing lettering into the 21st century by pioneering the use of digital fonts in comic books.

I wasn’t alive when most of that happened. My first brush with Transformers - at least, as far as I remember - came when I saw Transformers: Armada’s Land Military Mini-Con Team on the shelves of my local Woolworths (a much-loved now-defunct chain of British department stores). I didn’t get it at the time, but when our birthdays rolled around (or maybe Christmas? I was young; I barely remember any of this and neither do my parents) my brother and I got a bunch of Mini-Cons. Our first brush with Generation 1 would come much later, when we found a knackered Strafe at a car boot sale.

For a long time, my only experience with Transformers fiction came in the form of the cartoons - they didn’t show Armada on Freeview so I missed most of that, but Energon and Cybertron both aired in their entirety on CITV. I had the pack-in comics, and the Armada and Energon annuals - which basically just collected random Dreamwave comics without context. All of which is to say that, at the time, I felt pretty starved for good Transformers stories.

Finding the 1989 Annual in a secondhand bookshop, then, was like finding the holy grail.

I won’t lie. I had basically no idea who any of these characters were, or what was going on. But damn if I didn’t pore over every inch of those pages trying to work it out. And I sure as hell was gonna sign the thing, lest those abominable Firecons paid me a visit to finally incinerate what was presumably the only Annual they’d missed back in 1988.

Years passed. Some movies came out. I drifted away from Transformers for a while after my parents said “aren’t you a little too old for these” one time too many. Well, it was either that or the hordes of overpriced Bumblebees clogging the shelves at the time.

Eventually, though, I was drawn back to the franchise. A Humble Bundle of IDW’s comics and Thrilling 30 Sandstorm was all it took.

For some reason, at some point I decided to start a meme page. I don’t know why. Please don’t look at it. I don’t want to talk about it. Most of the edits I made were atrocious, although I’ll admit there’s a few I still find pretty funny. I actually referenced Transformers a bunch of times. There was this whole thing where I tried to work in a plot, so really the whole thing was much closer to a terrible webcomic than an actual meme page.

Perhaps the most involved reference to the franchise came in the form of a relettering of “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”, a 4-page comic originally published in a 1985 issue of Women’s Day. Why did I make that thing? I don’t know. Maybe a little more context would help.

Y’see, waaay back when the first Armada toys hit shelves, fans weren’t too impressed - to say the least. They’d seen pictures of highly-articulated prototypes, only to find that articulation completely absent in the finalised figures. To make matters worse, the first pack-in comic was pretty lacklustre - thanks to the trilingual dialogue squeezed into its speech bubbles.

One enterprising fan (Yartek, now better known as Blueshift) expressed their dissatisfaction by completely rewriting that pack-in comic’s dialogue - reimagining Hot Shot as a deranged, jam-obsessed cannibal. It was an idle joke, but one that tapped into the collective consciousness of the fandom at the time. Its popularity grew to the point where it was even referenced on the license plate of a later Hot Shot figure.

By Blueshift’s own admission, the comic isn’t all that great. Nowadays, the atmosphere surrounding Armada’s launch is but a hazy memory for most of the fandom - leaving the comic’s depiction of Hot Shot looking more like an uncomfortably ableist caricature than anything approximating a real parody.

But I digress. I was barely aware of Transformers when all of this happened. My point is that JaAm was like an abridged series, only presented as a comic, and I thought that was a neat idea. I was looking to make a post that was a little bit different for Christmas Day, and remembered the existence of that old Women’s Day comic. Thus was born “its christmas... so what??”

My process for that one was pretty straightforward. After reading the comic once to get a broad sense of its plot, I went through it again panel-by-panel - blocking out each narration box with an autoshape and adding my own text. Mustard features pretty heavily in it... I guess as a reference to jam? Honestly, I was writing this thing entirely by the seat of my pants and - with the exception of the choice panels I’m including here - it’s pretty unfunny as a result. I’m not proud of it. Even at the time, I felt like I could’ve done better. So, half a year later, I did.

When the mood eventually took me, there was only one option in my head - Richard Starkings’ “Peace”. This time, I took a moment to plan the whole thing out in my head before diving in.

I think my idea for the plot came about simply as a result of Rodimus’ body language and expressions on the second page. I reckon I looked at them and thought, “man, he looks like he’s just caught a whiff of something pretty nasty.” From there, my mind jumped to Triton... the culprit, naturally.

When you go back and read some of the early Marvel stuff, there’s a bit of dissonance between the Furman-esque galaxy-spanning conflicts and the more offbeat “the Transformers crash a wrestling match / concert / car wash” stories written by US author Bob Budiansky. At times, the Transformers could be figures of real gravitas - and at others, they were almost like children.

For both “its christmas” and “PASS” I tried to lean into the latter interpretation as much as possible. As a reflection of that, the dialogue and narration - both written in Times New Roman - are completely devoid of punctuation, capital letters, or special formatting. Well, mostly...

There’s a few instances in “its christmas” where capital letters are used for emphasis.

Roadbuster’s dialogue gets to keep its punctuation, and is written in (I think) Arial, because he’s supposed to be more mature than the rest.

Each comic had one panel which retained some of its original dialogue - the fourth on the first page of “its christmas”, and the fourth on the fourth page of “PASS”.

There’s a couple of instances in the comic where characters use swear words, only the wrong letter’s censored - “sh*t” became “*hit”, “f*ck” became “*uck”. That’s simply an artefact of the comic’s origins in my old meme page, where that was a running joke.

In addition to changing the text, I also made a few visual edits...

I changed the comic’s title from “PEACE” to “PASS” (as in, to pass gas) by chopping up and rotating bits of it.

I changed the credits for “RICHARD ALAN” (writer) and “GLIB” (letterer) to “ME” and “ME AGAIN”.

On the fifth page, I rotated Springer’s, Ultra Magnus’ and Sandstorm’s mouths by 180 degrees - changing them from horrified grimaces to jaunty smirks. That’s why they’re kind of lopsided relative to the rest of their expressions! Honestly, the original version looks pretty strange to me now.

I likewise modified Sandstorm’s and Ultra Magnus’ expressions in the first panel of the final page, and Nosecone’s in the second panel.

I scribbled out the question mark in the little “THE END?” box on the final page. This is the definitely the end; no need to beat around the bush.

The idea to make Roadbuster a butt monkey stemmed from the fact that he was the only non-triple-changer to appear on the first page. I saw that panel with the four of them together and thought “one of these guys is not like the others.” And of course, I knew that he’d be dead in a few more pages.

Once I’d established Springer as a bully, I started to get a sense for what life was like amongst the Autobots - but there were still things I wanted to leave open to interpretation...

Why does Roadbuster hang around with the other Autobots so persistently, when all he receives is abuse?

Is Triton’s fixation on “cred” overblown, or is it the only reason he’s survived as long as he has?

Is Rodimus really past his Prime?

Who’s really the coolest Autobot?

Are the Autobots inherently bad people, or simply products of their environment?

If they’re the latter, does that excuse their actions?

If these are the Autobots... then what were the Decepticons like?

Here’s some other miscellaneous notes...

There’s a single speech bubble on the fourth page where the speaker’s off-panel. In the original comic it belonged to Triton, shouting “HEY!” Here, I like to think it’s Whirl speaking.

In the narration of the second panel, I refer to the Transformers as “car robots” - a nod to the Japanese name of the Transformers: Robots in Disguise series.

Rodimus’ “light their darkest hour” line is, of course, a quote from the 1986 animated Transformers movie. Yes, I’m as tired of those references as you are, but no, I couldn’t resist.

I can’t remember if it was deliberate, but I’m pretty sure “if you catch my drift” was a nod to The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye - where original character Drift stars as Rodimus’ third-in-command.

Speaking of More than Meets the Eye - when it was relaunched as Lost Light, Rodimus got a brand new purple colour scheme. In “Pass”, Rodimus agonises over whether or not to get that same paint job.

“Mucho cred” is kind of a memetic phrase amongst readers of the superhero web serial Worm. I feel like “cred” is one of those inherently funny words (along with “cahoots”), so that was enough to justify its inclusion here. If you’ve somehow made it this far into this post, trust me when I say that Worm is a rabbit hole well worth tumbling down.

“Peace” has a very strong atmosphere. It’s about a group of individuals - who’ve known nothing but conflict for thousands of years - suddenly finding themselves with nobody to point their guns at. That exact same scenario played out decades later in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity, where it was explored in much greater depth - but in just six standalone pages, “Peace” presents its broad themes with impressive clarity.

I think we’re very much invited to root for Triton - he’s a real worm, but he’s also an underdog. When characters are created whole cloth in Transformers stories, they’re marked for death.

“Pass”, on the other hand, is about a group of kids who’ve lost all sense of perspective. The most important thing to each of the group’s members is how they are perceived by the rest. They’ve been living under ever-increasing social pressure, and things are finally reaching a boiling point - and people die as a result.

And I say “kids”, but the truth is that I still see these dynamics amongst grown adults today - admittedly without the death. For any given subculture, you’re going to find ingroups, outgroups, and the awkward middle ground between them. If I thought there was a clear-cut solution, I would’ve put it in the comic. But oftentimes - like I said in the closing panels - there isn’t really anyone at fault.

If you fart in public, don’t stress about it too much. Nobody really minds. Just own up. And whatever you do, don’t try to pass the blame - or else...

As one final nod to Marvel UK’s Transformers comics... here are some short AtoZ profiles for the entire cast!

You can follow me on twitter if you want to see more of my Transformers ramblings. The rest of my writing can be found right here on this blog - I recommend starting with Everything Is Red Now, a dumb comic about Spider-Man.

#Transformers #Marvel #comics #The Wadapan #31/02/2019

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mysterioustransmissions · 5 years

Text

My favorite comics of 2017

Keeping with my new tradition of posting this list super late, here, on the last day of 2018, is my best comics of 2017 list. I can offer excuses -- my wife and I remodeled our house and welcomed our first child into the world this year, and I’m also unfailingly lazy -- but 2017 was also a killer year for comics, making this a bit larger of an undertaking than usual. Both Koyama Press and co-publishers Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics had absolutely stacked lineups. You’ll see them listed as publisher for many entries below.

I always struggle with how to order this list. I got serious about organizing my comics collection in 2018, and am running into the same problem. There, I’m thinking of dividing it into two -- a single-author section organized by author name (which ends up being mostly minicomics and graphic novels), and a multiple-author section organized by title (which ends up being mostly traditional-sized comics). Here, I’m essentially doing that same thing, but mixing them together; some entries are by title, and some author name.

Comics I especially enjoyed are marked with an *.

Allison, Matthew; Cankor: Calamity of Challenge #2 and #3 (self-published).

Berserker 1, edited by edited by Tom Oldham and Jamie Sutcliffe (Breakdown Press). There was a lot of anticipation and very specific expectations placed on this book ahead of its release, but no one seemed to walk away from the finished product satisfied. But it’s got a killer cover, great production design, and strips by some of the best cartoonists going. I hope Breakdown does another one.

* Booth, Tara; How to be Alive (Retrofit Comics & Big Planet Comics). One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Booth’s drawings are a riot to look at, that the gags are also great is pure gravy. About as big as crossover hits get in my house. (I.e., my wife also loved it.)

Cardini, William; Tales From the Hyperverse (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics). Cardini’s sci-fi world is made bigger and more engaging by the rapid-fire pace of this short story collection. His wild experimentation with color is always an inspiration.

Corben, Richard; Shadows on the Grave #1 - #8 (Dark Horse Comics). Not my favorite of Corben’s late-period Dark Horse horror books, but there’s plenty to enjoy. I was stunned by the sheer efficiency of the storytelling -- there are entire stories told with a single image and a few word balloons. A lot of these books sport great covers, issue #1 here, seen at the link for this entry, is one of the best.

Darrow, Geoff; The Shaolin Cowboy: Who’ll Stop the Reign? #1 - #4 with Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics). I was so bowled over by the experience of buying Shemp Buffet monthly that I initially scoffed at Cowboy’s return to more traditional narrative, but it turned out to be no less wild and no loss at all.

Davis, Eleanor; Libby’s Dad (Retrofit Comics & Big Planet Comics) and You & a Bike & a Road (Koyama Press). You & a Bike & a Road does something that’s often attempted and rarely successful -- it beats the audience down so it can then lift them up higher. Its success is due in no small part from its origin as a real-life journal. The visceral and emotional pain Davis feels on her journey is sincerely felt, and the lack of cynicism the storytelling choices are made with allow the reader to feel it whole cloth. And listen; it certainly doesn’t hurt that Davis is an amazing narrative storyteller besides -- Libby’s Dad is no less affecting.

DeForge, Michael; mini kuš! #43 'Meat Locker' (kuš!). I sleep on DeForge. I take him for granted. I feel like I’m not the only one? I see some excitement when his books come out, but no discussion. Blame it on the high volume and opaque nature of his work, the dearth of comics reviewers, and me, obviously. Also obviously, whenever something of his does find its way to my hands, I’m never sorry.

Estrada, Inés; Alienation #3 - #6 (self-published). The bundled version of this series, seen at the link for this entry, has the coolest book packaging I’ve ever seen in my life.

Expansion by Matt Sheean and Malachi Ward (AdHouse Books). I didn’t like this nearly as much as this same team’s previous Ancestor (due no doubt to its earlier and improvised creation), but damn, what a cover.

* Forsman, Chuck; Slasher #1 - #4 (Floating World Comics). I’d say the majority of my interest in Forsman’s work is in seeing how he presents his it and steers his career -- he’s among the best there is at that. Slasher is his first work I strongly connected with. It digs deep and gets wilder and wilder.

Ferrick, Margot; Yours (2dcloud). I’m a simpleton, so I was surprised at how deeply I was able to be moved by something this abstract. As always, grabbing 2dcloud’s whole line on Kickstarter expands my horizons and makes me a better reader.

Foster-Dimino, Sophia; Sex Fantasy (Koyama Press). I’ve actually only read the minis of this. This collection has the one I’m missing, plus some new material, but I love Sex Fantasy. It’s like a perpetual motion machine for thought -- you can just think about it forever.

Fricas, Katie; Art Fan (self-published). One of those things you dream of happening at a show -- picked this up at MICE not knowing anything about it, and was delighted by the artwork and knocked out by the “reviews of trippy art events”; particularly the first, about Duke Riley’s Fly by Night.

* Friebert, Noel; WEIRD6 (self-published), SPINE: I’ll Still Watch (Bred Press), Old Ground (Koyama Press). Sometimes when I have a fever, I can’t break loose of a single, circular thought -- I have the same thought over and over, only to realize once the fever’s broken that it was barely coherent. Friebert’s newer, decompressed work is like that. You turn page after page, and nothing happens. It’s the same characters still doing and saying the same things, again and again. You turn the pages faster and faster, almost in a panic, hoping to break the cycle and resolve the unease before you. But it’s no use.

* gg; I’m Not Here (Koyama Press), Valley (kuš!). I’m Not Here is one of a few books I recommended to people who were enjoying season 3 of Twin Peaks at the time. It doesn’t convey information so much as emotion, and rewards as much thought as you want to put into it.

* Hankiewicz, John; Education (Fantagraphics Books). I loved this so much I only read a few pages a night to make it last. Michael DeForge once called Noel Freibert an “astronaut” -- that applies to Hankiewicz also. No one’s ever done anything like this before, and if we didn’t have Hankiewicz I don’t think anyone ever would. Bringing poetry and modern dance (!!) into the language of comics, this was another book I recommended to watchers of season 3 of Twin Peaks -- you don’t understand the story by connecting facts, you understand it by connecting emotions.

* Hanselmann, Simon; Portrait, XMP-165 (self-published). XMP-165 was the first big payoff of the longform nature of Megg and Mogg, and it destroyed me. Also released this year was Doujinshi, Cold Cube Press’ gorgeous re-release of a Japanese Megg and Mogg fan comic.

Harkam, Sammy; Crickets #6 (The Commonwealth Comics Company). People talk about how good this book is, and I agree, but I’m not sure I could tell you why.

Haven, Eric; Vague Tales (Fantagraphics Books).

Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime ; Love & Rockets Vol. IV #2, #3 (Fantagraphics). I made the terrible error after Love Bunglers to trade wait Locas, and for whatever reason they haven’t released one since. So I was way behind when this started coming out, but I bought and read it anyway. I initially found the story to be light, but I eventually realized I had a free ComiXology trial and caught up. It’s as great as ever.

Ito, Junji; Dissolving Classroom (Vertical, Inc.), Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories, and Tomie: Complete Deluxe Edition (Viz Media). Tomie may have come out in 2016 actually? I describe it to people as being about a beautiful woman who stands around until some total lech of a man inevitably murders her, then she comes back and annihilates him in the most unpleasant manner possible. Repeat ad infinitum. I don’t think the text 100% supports my reading, but that’s what it means to me.

Landry, Tyler; Shit and Piss (Retrofit Comics). The ephemeral, disjointed nature the single issue format served this story better, but it’s still extremely rad.

Loup, Celine; The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs (self-published).

Marcus, Ben; Crisis Zone 3rd Edition (Bred Press).

Mignolaverse and John Arcudi; Dead Inside #3 by Arcudi, Toni Fejzula, and Andre May, Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost #1 - #3 by Arcudi and Tonci Zonjic, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea by Gary Gianni, Mike Mignola, and Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics). Ignoring a few years in college when I was a lapsed comics reader, I’ve bought every Mignolaverse comic since I was about 13. That loyalty has slowly eroded over the last half decade about. I’m not alone in thinking the Arcudi-Davis run is one of the greatest of all time, and that the books started to go downhill after Guy Davis left. Beyond the departure of Davis, there are a few reasons for that, in my view.

First was the decision soon after to expand the line’s offerings. Doubling the line’s output and bringing in (inevitably) inferior creative teams was a no-win proposition for readers. Who wants more of something not as good?

Second, I think that Arcudi, a great writer, has shifted his focus from tightly-plotted five issue arcs to series-spanning character arcs. While I’m guessing this reads great in big chunks, it doesn’t spread out month to month, some months out of the year. I’m looking forward to a big re-read of everything after B.P.R.D. wraps in a few months, to see if this theory holds. Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost came close to standing on its own, but was still rife with moments that I can only assume were big character payoffs because I didn’t remember enough to know. (Especially cool covers by Zonjic on these issues.) However, the non-Mignolaverse title Dead Inside offered the type of visceral, plot-based payoff his B.P.R.D. run with Davis hooked me with. I hadn’t been this thrilled by an Arcudi book since Killing Ground.

But third, and worst of all, has been the addition of writer Chris Roberson, whose books read like updates to the Mignolaverse Wiki. (The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed was okay, but pretty much solely due to Paul Grist’s fun art and layouts.)

I’m staying aboard the main B.P.R.D. book as it races to the finish line, and will continue to buy anything Arcudi writes, which seems to be mostly these Lobster Johnson comics. (Although even that’s looking increasingly, and sadly, unlikely to continue: https://twitter.com/ArcudiJohn/status/1075086925436874753) And I’ll certainly buy any more of these very sporadically-released Hellboy OGNs, like Into the Silent Sea, they decide to release -- the only real non-Mignola drawn Hellboy books anymore.

* Milburn, Lane; CORRIDORS (self-published). Sits comfortably next to Inflated Head Zone by Zach Hazard Vaupen, one of my favorite comics. They both forsake straightforward narrative in favor of theme-driven emotional impressionism, and do it with horror. This is catnip to me, and something I aspire to (although I’m far too boring to achieve it).

* Mirror Mirror II, edited by Sean T. Collins and Julia Gfrörer (2dcloud).

Now: The New Comics Anthology #1, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics Books).

* Providence #12 by Jacen Burrows, Juan Rodriguez, and Alan Moore (Avatar Press). It came out months after, but it’s a safe bet Moore wrote this before Trump got elected, right? A more accurate depiction of the shell-shock of being thrust into a post-facts world I haven’t seen.

Roberts, Keiler; Sunburning (Koyama Press). Another big crossover hit in my house.

* Shiga, Jason; Demon Volumes 2, 3, and 4 (First Second). Demon became a book I wouldn’t stop showing to anyone who would listen. Like Gina Wynbrandt’s Someone Please Have Sex With Me, its hook transcends the normal comics reading audience -- you can show it to anyone and they get it right away. Specifically I would show people this amazing video https://youtu.be/NRxCTeM5pyU, which would clue them into what Shiga does enough to get them to read Demon. Demon has a story, but it’s more about rules -- establishing them and playfully subverting them with a level of inventiveness that regularly leaves you in awe.

* Terrell, Jake; Extended Play (2dcloud). This delightful book took me completely by surprise, an experience made possible by 2dcloud’s subscription model.

Tomasso, Rich; She Wolf: Black Baptism #1 - #4, Spy Seal: The Corten-Steel Phoenix #1 - #4 (Image Comics). The end of this second series of She Wolf approached the same hostile disregard for what came before as the end of Tomasso’s previous series, Dark Corridor. But where Dark Corridor acted on that impulse by simply burning it all down, She Wolf has enough respect at least to replace what came before by pivoting into a completely different comic. The freedom this affords the plot to dart in unpredictable directions is exhilarating. And it’s fun and beautifully laid out and designed, as always with Tomasso.

Tran, Thu; Dust Pam (Peow). Gorgeous!

Vaupen, Zach Hazard; Combed Clap of Thunder (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics).

* Willumsen, Connor; Anti-Gone (Koyama Press). The part where the protagonists drive their boat past a window with a dog in it rewired my comics-making brain forever. This was another comic I only read a few pages of a night to make it last longer, and also recommended to friends of mine who were enjoying season three of Twin Peaks -- the plot is obfuscated in a similar way.

Yanow, Sophie; What is a Glacier? (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics).

Yokoyama, Yuichi; Iceland (Retrofit Comics). Another comic I recommended to Twin Peaks season three fans. Similar to the residents of the Red Room, the characters seem truly of another world, their motivations and actions incomprehensible to us.

#best of the year

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eddycurrents · 5 years

Photo

For the week of 19 November 2018

Quick Bits:

Aquaman #42 is a tie-in to the “Drowned Earth” event, following on his skewering at the hands of Poseidon in Justice League #11. Navigating his way through a dead realm is kind of a weird way for Dan Abnett to close out his run on the series, but it’s still a satisfying issue. Great art from Lan Medina, Vicente Cifuentes, and Gabe Eltaeb.

| Published by DC Comics

Batman #59 continues the “Tyrant Wing” arc with Batman acting a little unhinged on Penguin’s tip that Bane is running Arkham from the shadows, continuing his criminal empire to kill throughout Gotham. It’s interesting to see Batman alienate his allies again in his pursuit for vengeance.

| Published by DC Comics

Bettie Page #1 begins a new volume setting up an alien adventure in Britain, building upon the previous series but not requiring it as reading, from David Avallone, Julius Ohta, Ellie Wright, and Taylor Esposito. Bettie Page, paranormal investigator, is still a weird but entertaining remit and this opening issue does a good job of continuing in that vein as Bettie travels to England to investigate the Queen having been abducted by aliens. Ohta’s art also just keeps getting better and better.

| Published by Dynamite

Black Badge #4 employs a unique approach to flashbacks, with a solid spot colour in otherwise black and white image from Tyler and Hilary Jenkins. It’s a neat technique that really makes the scenes stand out.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Bloodborne #7 continues to question the realities and relationship of religion and science, even as the city’s fate becomes bleaker and the disease threatens more and more citizens. While I think I preferred the existential terror of the first arc more, this is still highly enjoyable.

| Published by Titan

Cold Spots #4 delivers a little bit of explanation as to what Grace has been brought to the island to do. I say a little bit, since there’s still a lot left unanswered in this penultimate issue. Gorgeous artwork from Mark Torres. You can almost feel the coldness coming off the pages.

| Published by Image

Cover #3 is some amazing storytelling. Somehow Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, Zu Orzu, and Carlos M. Mangual are layering more and more into the narrative with each subsequent issue in such a brilliant way that you barely notice how many disparate pieces are being presented. It’s like an intricate tapestry being woven before us. This issue even has a special sequence illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz of a fantasy story I desperately want to read the rest of.

| Published by DC Comics / Jinxworld

Crimson Lotus #1 begins a new series from John Arcudi, Mindy Lee, Michelle Madsen, and Clem Robins giving an origin story to Yumiko Daimio, one of Lobster Johnson’s enemies and grandmother to the BPRD’s favourite jaguar. It’s good, and an appearance early on from Rasputin just further shows some of the intricacies of the Hellboy universe.

| Published by Dark Horse

Devil Within #2 keeps the creepy factor up as Samantha and Michelle try to get help for Michelle’s possible possession. Excellent moody atmosphere provided by the art from Maan House and Dee Cunniffe.

| Published by Black Mask

Doctor Strange #8 begins “The Price” but it’s really just a continuation of the “Two Doctors” arc, building off the corruption of Strange’s former student. Mark Waid gives us some very interesting developments here regarding who is targeting him, along with Kamma finding out something Stephen wishes she wouldn’t, and the revelation of the location of one of the other gems from Cyttorak that were revealed to exist in X-Men Black.

| Published by Marvel

Evolution #12 ends the second arc with some lies, half-truths, and compelling confessions. The theme of change and mutation that has been evident since the first issue really comes to the fore this issue as some huge changes occur for the cast.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Exorsisters #2 gives more background to how the sisters came about through a deal with infernal powers by their mother. The art from Gisèle Lagacé and Pete Pantazis really is a huge draw.

| Published by Image

High Heaven #3 spends some time with Heather as she deals, kind of, with the loss of both David and Ben. Very weird things continue to go on in heaven with the usual great art from Greg Scott and Andy Troy. The Hashtag: Danger back-up remains funny with the lengths that the team goes to in order to save one of their own, only to have her kill herself again. And the prose pieces nicely round out the entire package.

| Published by Ahoy

Hot Lunch Special #4 delivers the penultimate chapter to not just one of the best crime stories I’ve read in years, but also just one of the best stories I’ve read in years period. Eliot Rahal, Jorge Fornés, and Taylor Esposito have really got something special here, with intriguing characters, an ever twisting plot, and some incredible visual. The layouts for this issue, breaking down the pacing, are just wonderful.

| Published by AfterShock

Immortal Hulk #9 is another staggeringly good issue, with a change for the Absorbing Man as he’s tapped to go up against the Hulk. While I am a little sad he didn’t stay legitimate following his redemption arc in Black Bolt, his development here from Al Ewing is pretty intriguing. Also love the art as the regular team of Joe Bennett, Ruy José, and Paul Mounts trade off pages with guest artist Martin Simmonds. The former illustrating the Hulk and the latter Creel before alternating in the battle between the two.

| Published by Marvel

Infinity 8 #7 begins the third loop “The Gospel According to Emma” from Lewis Trondheim, Fabien Vehlmann, and Olivier Balez. This reboot of the timeline starts off incredibly wrong as the Marshal approached to assist this time turns on the crew and effectively strands them in this timeline. There’s some interesting bits of grave robbers stealing treasure and overtones of the Marshal’s religion.

| Published by Lion Forge / Magnetic Collection

Infinity Wars: Ghost Panther #1 begins the final of these two-issue “Infinity Warps” mash-ups. Like the rest, it is incredibly well done. Jed MacKay, Jefte Palo, Jim Campbell, and Joe Sabino craft a tale merging Ghost Rider and Black Panther, seamlessly blending the two into something magical. The art from Palo and Campbell may well be the best of any of these minis and the art on all of them has been very impressive. Love the design for Zarathos.

| Published by Marvel

Judge Dredd: Toxic #2 has the violence and toxicity spillover as the explosion at one of the waste facilities causes increased fear and tension amongst the scrubbers hired to keep Mega-City One functioning. Paul Jenkins is crafting a tale full of the problems that come with xenophobia and the art from Marco Castiello, Vincenzo Acunzo, and Jason Millet just makes it visceral.

| Published by IDW

Justice League #12 has some really nice art from Frazer Irving for this penultimate chapter of the “Drowned Earth” event. Also, a very interesting revelation from Poseidon when it comes to the invading sea gods.

| Published by DC Comics

Justice League Dark #5 kicks off a new arc dealing with the ramifications of the first one, “The Witching Hour” crossover, and previous unrevealed tales of what happened with Detective Chimp after inheriting the Oblivion Bar. James Tynion IV gives some nice nods to the original Shadowpact series aided by beautiful art from Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran, and Adriano Lucas.

| Published by DC Comics

The Last Space Race #2 introduces us to another member of the team, giving us a bit of his backstory, and largely making us want to drop him into a deep dark hole and forget that he’s there. Peter Calloway does a wonderful job of making Roger Freeman thoroughly unlikable, it’s kind of astonishing.

| Published by AfterShock

Lightstep #1 is a very different kind of sci-fi tale, mixing almost the feel of the decadence of Rome under Nero or Caligula and the high concept science fiction of a society that measures the class of its citizens by genetic similarity to their progenitor, and thereby assigns how “fast” they live. As I say, different from Miloš Slavković, Mirko Topalski, and Andrej Bunjac. Slavković’s art reminds me a bit Pasqual Ferry mixed with John Watkiss. The story itself somewhat reminds me of Watkiss’ work on John Jakes’ Mulkon Empire. On top of that, it’s part of a broader video game/media franchise from Eipix Entertainment, of which this looks like only the first volley (a novel and video game are forthcoming).

| Published by Dark Horse

The Lollipop Kids #2 continues to be a fantastic and fabulous comic from Adam & Aidan Glass, Diego Yapur, DC Alonso, and Sal Cipriano. The art alone from Yapur and Alonso would be worth the price of admission, but the characters, setting, and overall plot just elevate this beyond a typical kids fantasy type deal.

| Published by AfterShock

Low Road West #3 gets significantly stranger and much more surreal as reality seems to be growing thinner. We’re still not any closer to really understanding what’s truly going on, but it doesn’t really matter. Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Flaviano, Miquel Muerto, and Jim Campbell are telling one hell of a compelling story.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Mae #10 has Mae deal with some stuff in our world before stocking up and returning back to Cimrterén to resume her search for her father. Gorgeous artwork as always from Gene Ha and Wes Hartman.

| Published by Lion Forge / Roar

Marvel Knights #2 sees Matthew Rosenberg and Nico Henrichon join Donny Cates for this chapter, giving a bit of back story on how Banner roped in Castle into searching out the various heroes and leads to a confrontation with Elektra. Still no closer to understanding what happened here, but it does get weirder with a hallucinatory Karen Page. Henrichon’s art is just perfect for telling this story.

| Published by Marvel

Middlewest #1 is a magical debut of this new series from Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos. It’s a fantasy grounded in the reality of growing up hard in Middle America, with Abel dealing with an abusive father, while just trying to be a kid. But there’s a talking fox and devastating sentient storms. Rather inventive stuff all around. I’m also getting the impression that Jorge Corona should really be a household name. Between No. 1 with a Bullet, Old Man Jack, and now this, he’s been killing it recently.

| Published by Image

Night Moves #1 is a pretty great debut from VJ Boyd, Jordan Boyd, Clay McCormack, Mike Spicer, and Shawn DePasquale. It’s a gritty crime drama with occult overtones, but most of the weirdness is just simmering under the surface so far as the protagonists work to find out what kind of mess they’re in. McCormack and Spicer’s art really capture the feel of the seediness of the story well.

| Published by IDW

Optimus Prime #25 brings it all to a close, with a flashback through Optimus’ life and little vignettes of the various Transformers from John Barber, Kei Zama, Josh Burcham, and Tom B. Long. I’m really going to miss this world.

| Published by IDW

Pearl #4 is probably the most stereotypical Bendis issue to date, but the dialogue doesn’t tip over into the ridiculous territory. Most of this issue is a conversation between Pearl and tattoo boy, but at least it’s interesting conversation and not random pop culture references repeated as questions.

| Published by DC Comics / Jinxworld

Pestilence: A Story of Satan #5 gives a bittersweet end to this story, filled with loss and sacrifice. It’s kind of fitting considering how bleak both this and the first series have been. Wonderful art from Oleg Okunev, Guy Major, Michael Garland, and Marko Lesko.

| Published by AfterShock

The Punisher #4 may well be one of the bloodiest, most violent mainline 616 Marvel Universe Punisher issues yet as Jigsaw and an assortment of Hydra goons attempt to kidnap Frank from prison. Matthew Rosenberg and Szymon Kudranski are continuing to keep this book moving at a breakneck pace, like an action movie that barely takes any moments to breathe.

| Published by Marvel

Quantum & Woody! #12 brings this volume to a close, with an interesting character study of the brothers at the hands of GATE and X-O Manowar.

| Published by Valiant

Rumble #9 brings “Things Remote” to an end with an epic battle between the Esu and Rathraq’s friends, leading to an interesting realization for Rathraq and what he wants out of life. Stunningly beautiful art from David Rubín and Dave Stewart.

| Published by Image

Shadowman #9 continues the “Rag and Bone” arc as Alyssa and Jack confront Sandria Darque. Gorgeous artwork from Renato Guedes, Eric Battle, and Ulises Arreola.

| Published by Valiant

Shuri #2 continues the search for Black Panther, while back on Earth the women of Wakanda form a council to figure out how to maintain and administer the nation while he’s missing. Definitely some interesting concepts and character points from Nnedi Okorafor. Phenomenal artwork and layouts from Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Spider-Force #2 is probably one of the bleakest, mean-spirited stories I’ve read in a while. This isn’t a bad thing, but the story’s a bit of a downer as the nature of an irradiated world without hope seems to permeate everything, including characters like Jessica Drew who are normally at least a bit more level-headed. Priest is writing a very dark story, with some complicated characters like Peter’s granddaughter who grew up in the Old Man Logan universe and a Peter Parker who looks like he was abused by Uncle Ben.

| Published by Marvel

Spider-Geddon #4 kind of spoils the need to read Spider-Force #3 out in three weeks, which just kind of adds to the downer feel of that series. This issue turns darker itself with a bevy of betrayals. Christos Gage has kind of stacked the deck against the spiders, I wonder how they’re going to get out of it in the finale.

| Published by Marvel

Stellar #6 concludes the series and it is incredibly messed up. The conflict between Zenith and Stellar is bizarre and perverse, but I don’t really want to go into it more because spoilers would ruin its impact. Joe Keatinge, Bret Blevins, and Rus Wooton have done an amazing job with this series. Highly recommended.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Sukeban Turbo #1 is another series originally published by Glénat Editions in France, translated into English for North American markets. It’s a mix of teenage rebellion, crime, and following a boy band from Sylvain Runberg, Victor Santos, and Shawn Lee. The art from Santos is worth it on its own, very impressive layouts and storytelling.

| Published by IDW

Summit #10 kicks off the third arc for the series and like most of the Catalyst Prime series recently it undergoes a bit of a change in status quo. Val finds out that she hasn’t been hallucinating, but hearing the voice of another of her team that was essentially vaporized during the event, before having her life turned upside down as the government starts hunting her. Amy Chu continues writing the series, while she’s joined by Marika Cresta fully for the art here.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Tony Stark: Iron Man #6 begins “Stark Realities” and the launch of Tony’s eScape virtual reality game. Dan Slott, with a script assist from Jeremy Whitley, does a great job of making it feel chaotic at launch, with some ordinary and extraordinary problems occurring. The pissed off griefer is hilarious.

| Published by Marvel

Web of Venom: Carnage Born #1 is an interesting reinterpretation of Carnage’s origin to fit within the new mythology being crafted in the current Venom series, also building off the recent two-part arc there with the Maker, from Donny Cates, Danilo S. Beyruth, Cris Peter, and Clayton Cowles. This is more very entertaining outgrowth of the Marvel Universe from Cates and gives us a quite possibly deadlier Carnage.

| Published by Marvel

West Coast Avengers #4 concludes the first arc in fairly straightforward fashion as the team deals with BRODOK and the women transformed into giant monsters. Some nice little character moments from Kelly Thompson and great art from Stefano Caselli and Tríona Farrell.

| Published by Marvel

The Whispering Dark #2 continues its existential and moral crisis as the squad commits war crimes as they struggle to survive. There’s something off about how everything is happening, in how Christofer Emgård is writing the narration, but I’m not sure if it’s just the in-story reason of the go-pills. It feels like the squad is already in Hell and being judged.

| Published by Dark Horse

Other Highlights: American Carnage #1, Archie #700, Black AF: Widows & Orphans #4, Black Hammer: Age of Doom #7, Burnouts #3, Days of Hate #10, Dejah Thoris #10, Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive #2, East of West #40, Encounter #8, GI Joe: A Real American Hero - Silent Option #2, Go-Bots #1, Jughead: The Hunger #10, The Long Con #5, Love & Rockets #6, Lucifer #2, Lumberjanes #56, Mars Attacks #2, The New World #5, Olivia Twist #3, Project Superpowers #4, Rick & Morty Presents Pickle Rick #1, Smooth Criminals #1, Star Wars #57, Star Wars: Solo #2, TMNT: Urban Legends #7, Underwinter: Queen of Spirits, Xena: Warrior Princess #10

Recommended Collections: 24 Panels, Accell - Volume 3: Turf Battles, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows - Volume 4: Are You Okay, Annie?, Crude - Volume 1, Dark Souls Omnibus, Delta 13, Dungeons & Dragons: Evil at Baldur’s Gate, Flavor, Immortal Hulk - Volume 1: Or is he Both?, Justice League - Volume 1: The Totality, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man - Volume 4: Coming Home, Resident Alien - Volume 5: An Alien in New York, Spidey: School’s Out, Stray Bullets: Sunshine & Roses - Volume 3, Unnatural - Volume 1: Awakening, Venom - Volume 1: Rex, The X-Files: Case Files - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy wonders if there’s going to be any light in our real darkest hour.

#This Week in Comics

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davidmann95 · 6 years

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A big-’ol Superman comic script!

Well, I’ve been saying the whole time I’ve been here that I want to write comics, almost as long as I’ve been implying I’m some kind of expert when it comes to Superman. So I’m trying to put my money where my mouth is for a change on both counts - as a belated birthday present to @theazureesper - right below!

Some necessary background first: I actually came up with the idea for this story almost two years ago, and got the first several pages of it done back then. It was at the height of people being just absolutely hopping-mad furious about the New 52 Superman over seemingly everything - this is when people were seriously complaining about him charging into a base to beat up a gaggle of cyborg Neo-Nazis experimenting on kidnapped runaways because they screamed “No, you fool!”, because Superman wouldn’t be that BRASH, you guys, and he should have immediately guessed they meant the runaways were mutants with dangerous superpowers, as opposed to just regular old “waah, waah, we’re Nazis, please don’t beat the hell out of us Superman, waah”. I had an idea for how to address that discontent with a plot idea I particularly wanted to see, only for the comics to do a vaguely-related take on the same idea soon anyway; I decided to write this up as an alternative. And given this story was spiritually dependent on being about this version of Superman at this moment in time, and he’s since been killed, replaced, and merged/retconned, I don’t feel particularly worried that I’m ‘giving away’ a perfectly good plot idea.

For reference’s sake, this is supposed to be the New 52 Superman, returned to some kind of recognizable status quo; Lois & Clark never happened and Truth tidied itself up in a way that’s left him with his powers and identity intact, and the relationship with Diana is a thing of the (recent) past; basically, take this as what Superman Rebirth #1 would be if they’d stayed the course with this guy instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And he’s got the current Reborn-era outfit so he doesn’t look like a total doof; maybe visualize that he still has the diamond-shaped end to the cape and those red highlights on the sleeve and neck though for the sake of some visual distinction for the purposes of what I’m doing here. And as far as visualizing goes, while I originally pictured this in an ideal world as being drawn by Chris Sprouse, the way the script actually shook out I’m kind of seeing Jon-Davis Hunt.

Cover: A classic 14-step “infinite staircase” carved out of rock, of this basic design:

A landscape of rock is visible behind it, with a black sky filled with stars on the horizon. On the step closest to the reader are two versions of Superman, one wearing the ‘classic’ uniform on the left, one wearing the current outfit on the right; they are talking, the New 52/Rebirth Superman turning his head as he walks up to talk to the classic version behind him. On the next step to the right is Superman during his t-shirt and jeans period (he, along with all subsequent Supermen except for the previous two mentioned, are walking ‘up’ the steps). Going clockwise from there on each step until circling back around are the Superman of Red Son, the Electric Blue Superman, the Flashpoint Superman, the Injustice Superman, Superboy Prime, the Kingdom Come Superman, the Superman of Batman Beyond, the old-school “Earth-Two” Superman by the time of Crisis On Infinite Earths/Infinite Crisis (grey hair around the temples), the original Golden Age Superman of Action Comics #1, the Superman of the Fleischer serials, President Superman from Multiversity, and the golden Superman Prime of DC One Million, looping back around to ‘classic’ Superman and completing the circle.

PAGE 1 Four horizontal panels.

Panel 1: Deep space, a pattern of stars across the blackness. A single thin streak of blue light is cutting through the center of it.

CLARK (narration): On the other side of the lightspeed barrier as I head back towards Earth through the Oort Cloud, there’s not typically much that can grab my attention.

CLARK (narration) (2): Usually all that stands out from there are black holes – little pockmarks of dead space, old lights in the sky collapsing in on themselves to keep holding on.

Panel 2: Zooming in closer on the streak of light, we can now see that it’s an ice comet.

CLARK (narration): But on the furthest edges of my awareness, a tinny rasping carried through the molecules floating in an endless vacuum, that nothing else could even register…

CLARK (narration) (2): …a heartbeat.

Panel 3: Pretty close to the comet now. We can make out the vague impressions of hills and shining, beautiful ice landscapes.

CLARK (narration): The temperatures out here are under -200°C on the dark side. There’s no air. The radiation would cook a human from the inside out. This isn’t the most popular rest stop.

Panel 4: Close on the comet now. Streaking down is a transparent red blur with the faint imprint of a yellow shape in it.

CLARK (narration): Usually when I see something like this, it’s some younger race taking its first steps into the universe and stumbling, or maybe a lost traveler with a clunker for a hyperdrive.

CLARK (narration) (2): Whatever it is, someone’s out here alone, on the edge of nothingness…

PAGE 2: One big panel in the upper left corner (Panel 1), with two to the right of it (2, 3), and two under those 3 panels (4, 5).

Panel 1: BIG shot of Superman landing forcefully, his cape flapping up above him as he comes down with his knees bent, arms out at either side to brace for trouble if any should come. His face is calm, serious if there’s a problem but not wanting to alarm anyone.

TITLE CAPTION: Rocked from the doomed planet Krypton, he developed fantastic powers on Earth far beyond those of humankind! Raised as Clark Kent to stand for truth and justice, he is SUPERMAN…

CLARK (narration): …and maybe I can help.

Panel 2: Facing him from his left side, he’s squinting a bit, bemused and a touch annoyed. Teeny-tiny inset panel around where his line of vision would meet the end of the panel, of a small red dot on the ground, glowing.

CLARK (small text): Atmosphere…

CLARK (2): Is there someone here? I’m not seeing a ship anywhere. Are you safe? Please, if you can’t speak, move, I’ll hear you.

Panel 3: Closer on his face, suddenly wide-eyed with realization. His pupils are very, very lightly glowing, so lightly you’d have to be paying close attention to notice – right eye green, left eye red. Same small inset panel, but the red point is starting to glow brightly, and this inset panel is vibrating a bit.

CLARK: I’m…

CLARK (narration): And it less time than it takes to think, I see the point that the oxygen and heartbeat are spiraling out of, and I there’s a burning behind my eyes as I pick up another frequency extending out of it through planes even I don’t have names for –

Panel 4: We’re behind him as his cape starts to blow back, setting one foot back to brace himself. Red light starts to pour out of the point in front of him; flecks of other colors extend out of the center point like a prism, particularly a whitish gold. The whole panel has the vibrating/blur effect, though only slightly.

CLARK (narration): - Bleed. The medium separating universes from one another, pouring out of a puncture wound on existence.

CLARK (narration) (2): This is an entry point…

CLARK (narration) (3): This is a breach from another reality!

Panel 5: The light is blinding now; we’re just barely seeing Superman through this from the waist up from his right side, his arms raised in front of him to try and block out the light, eyes closed, teeth gritted. The panel’s vibrating pretty harshly.

CLARK: LISTEN TO ME! WHATEVER THIS IS, I’M NOT LETTING YOU THROUGH TO HURT ANYONE!

CLARK (2): BUT I’M NOT HERE TO FIGHT! I TOLD YOU, I’M HERE TO HELP! JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!

PAGE 3: 3 panels; two small panels up top, one taking up the rest of what’s essentially a splash page.

Panel 1: Superman’s in the same position as in the last panel, though now we’re in front of him, close on his face. The light and vibrations, while still present, are starting to die down.

CLARK: JUST TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!

Panel 2: Same view, but he’s lowering his arms and opening his eyes, still tensed up but starting to realize he’s not under attack. The vibrations are gone, the light is all but.

CLARK: Who are…

Panel 3: Clark’s in the background of the shot, arms lowering further. He’s hunkered down, one foot still behind the other, eyes wide and mouth hanging open a bit – he’s all but in a state of shock. Standing in front of him in the foreground of the panel, in a mini-crater like half a globe’s been cleanly cut from the ground, steam coming from it and the new arrival…is Superman. The classic Superman. Trunks, belt, cape blowing in just the right direction that you can see the S symbol on his back, built like a Greek god sculpted from marble rather than the lean but wiry Clark (in the McGuiness/Quitely beefy country boy tradition), and Superman’s a few inches taller to boot. He’s hovering a couple inches above the crater (though his feet aren’t dipping down, they’re firmly planted on the air), standing in a perfectly neutral pose, looking slightly up into the sky, his expression neutral, inscrutable.

CLARK: …you?

Title: IT’S SUPERMAN

Creator credits

PAGE 4: 5 panels. Size as needed.

Panel 1: Zoomed out a bit as Clark (the New 52/Rebirth Superman) reaches towards Superman (the other; the Clark and Superman designations will mean this throughout the issue script-wise, even if they refer to themselves otherwise), his expression only slightly changed as his eyes narrow and his brows furrow, incredulous but still shocked. Superman hasn’t moved in the slightest.

CLARK (narration): This isn’t real. Everything I’m seeing is screaming at me that he isn’t real.

CAPTION 2: I’ve met Kryptonians from other universes before, but even if they were radically different, they were still recognizable.

Panel 2: Medium shot of Superman, turning his head, slowly becoming aware and alert that he’s being addressed.

CLARK (narration): He’s not from Krypton. The fabric of his uniform isn’t from there, or Earth, or anywhere else I’ve come across. His skin is a slightly different texture, electricity is going through his brain in patterns I’ve never seen before. His DNA code is completely wrong.

CLARK (Off-panel): Ha-La.

Panel 3: Both of them in profile, Clark on the left, Superman on the right. Clark’s looking almost hopefully at his counterpart, Superman confused and probing, probably scanning Clark the same way he’s being looked at.

CLARK (narration): But it’s the symbol. The way he carries himself. His eyes.

CLARK: El…El-Krypton?

Panel 4: Over Clark’s shoulder, looking at Superman, he’s staring off a bit into space again. His previous expression is starting to fade away. He looks almost sad.

CLARK (narration): And the stitching…

CLARK: Don El?

CLARK (narration) (2) Ma’s.

SUPERMAN: Yes. Krypton. I’m from Krypton.

SUPERMAN (2): I was Kal-El.

Panel 5: Close on Clark’s face, looking at him with a mixture of wonderment and curiosity and sadness – he knows in his heart what the man’s about to say next.

SUPERMAN (Off-panel): I was Superman.

SUPERMAN (2) (Off-panel): But I don’t remember which Superman I was, anymore.

SUPERMAN (3): Are you Superman too? Can you help me?

PAGE 5: 6 panels. 1-4 are horizontal panels, 5-6 are side-by-side on the bottom.

Panel 1: Clark and Superman a ways off in the distance, walking towards the reader across the ice; for this page, until the last two panels, the angle of the shot won’t change, they’ll just be getting closer. Superman’s massaging his temple a bit here with his eyes closed, his thoughts coming back to him and with a headache in tow. While it shouldn’t be immediately obvious unless you’re looking for it, his appearance has changed very slightly. His hair is a little messier; he’s a little taller, a little slimmer; the colors of his suit are a touch darker; his belt buckle is now in the s-shield shape; more in the mode of Pete Woods’ Superman in Up, Up and Away! than the guy we saw on the last page. Clark has his hand behind his head, looking apologetic. Clark’s on the left side of the panel, Superman on the right.

CLARK: –feel I should apologize about yelling before. I’ve met other…versions of myself before. It didn’t always go well. Like Bizarro, if you’ve ever met him.

SUPERMAN: Or Ultraman. I remember them.

SUPERMAN (2): I remember my parents, too. And Smallville, and the way the air tasted different in Metropolis when I first moved there.

SUPERMAN (3): I remember a life.

Panel 2: Closer now, Superman’s got his head on visibly straighter as his thoughts are collected properly, he’s got that “I know better than you do, but I’m not judging you for it, and I’m gonna let you in on the joke” Superman smile on his face as he looks at Clark, striding forward with a more purposeful gait now. Clark in turn is looking at him with wide eyes and an open-mouthed smile, as if a buddy’s reaching the best part of a truly wild story. They’re at ease with one another.

SUPERMAN: …so the singularity opened up, and I managed to ride the shockwave when it all came apart halfway back to Earth.

CLARK: I can’t…I believe you, but really fought a Sun-Eater? Even Brainy and the rest of the Legion’d only heard tall tales about them.

SUPERMAN (2): Heh. Tell me, have you met Solaris?

Panel 3: Closer again, their heights pretty much taking us from the top to the bottom of the panel now; Clark’s looking at Superman a bit credulously, as if he thinks he’s being kind of a wiseass for taking what he’s saying like this. Superman meanwhile has his hand partially over his mouth, but between the corner of his grin and the narrowing of his eyes we can tell it’s hard for him to keep a straight face here.

SUPERMAN: All the same I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I have to admit the thought of me and Diana…

CLARK: It should be alright, but yeah. Life’s been chaotic lately; I think Lois can tell something’s going on. I wish I could just talk with her about it, but–

CLARK (2): …what?

Panel 4: Closer, a medium shot of the two of them at this point; Superman’s turned towards Clark with the reassuring Superman smile, Clark’s looking off into the distance a bit as he ponders the situation.

SUPERMAN: Well, you certainly seem to have a straighter head on your shoulders than I did at your age. For what it’s worth, it sounds to me like you’re doing just fine.

CLARK: Thanks; that means a lot coming from you.

CLARK (2): And it sounds like your own head’s gotten pretty straightened out, so I do have to ask again:

Panel 5: A close-up shot on Clark’s face; he’s looking down (eyeline’s glancing a little above the bottom-left corner of the panel) with his mouth just open enough to show some teeth, his eyes somewhat narrowed. Lost in thought a bit, almost worried about whatever the answer could bring. On the right side of the panel, flecks of whitish gold light (the same that we saw in the Bleed earlier) are gently floating in from where Superman is off-panel; they’re actually emanating from Superman ala Miracleman’s ‘twinkle effect’, but rather than looking like stars or fireflies, I’m sort of thinking of a vibe reminiscent of the “shattered light” effect you get in stuff like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy (I’m sure I can dig up some reference if you’re not familiar).

CLARK: Do you know who you are? What’s going on?

SUPERMAN (Off-panel): Yes.

Panel 6: Same shot, but Clark’s whipping his head around to look to the left, startled as he realizes something incredible is happening.

SUPERMAN (Off-panel): Yes, I remember just fine now.

PAGE 6: The 4-panel page is sliced vertically into thirds – 1 and 4 each take up a third, the middle third is split horizontally between 2 and 3.

Panel 1: Clark on the left side stands shocked and agape, back angled towards us (though we can still see part of his face) as he takes in the baffling sight of Superman on the right…who has become the golden Prime Superman of DC One million, shedding light and serenely addressing his other self, even as he continues walking towards the right.

SUPERMAN: I’m afraid I have to apologize; there’s been a bit of a mistake, and I’m going to need your help.

SUPERMAN (2): In my incarnation circa 85,289 AD, I help protect the local dimensional curve of the hypertimestream from my solar Fortress of Solitude alongside my wife and the other inhabitants of New Krypton. Today, that never-ending battle took me to your reality.

Panel 2: A sudden shift in styles for this panel; from naturalism to a hieroglyphic vibe, as if we’re seeing a centuries-after-the-fact storybook retelling of an ancient mythological epic. We’re amidst a field of stars, and in the lower-left corner of the panel is Superman Prime, residing in a golden circle standing in for the sun, angling as if to fly out of it with his outstretched fingers almost grazing the edge of it, a neutral expression on his face. In the upper-right corner, mirroring him, is the Time Monster. What exactly it looks like is something we can figure out together, but what I’m picturing is a nude (though conveniently flat as a Ken doll) man of sorts, about as tall as Superman, that ages as you progress up its body. It has disproportionately oversized baby feet that fade up into hairless juvenile legs, a hairy adult midsection, a wrinkled and sunken chest, a necrotic neck and upper jaw, and from its upper-lip to the top of its head is all skull; from its belly-button extends an umbilical cord that turns into a scythe held aloft. I recognize a screaming skull-faced man with baby feet and an umbilical scythe could at least as easily be the stuff of comedy as well as nightmares, but executed right I think there could be a sort of primal discomfort to this thing, residing right at the uncanny valley of horror where it’s difficult to even process this thing and its absurdly vile existence; in any case, as I said we’ll figure it out together. The Time Monster is screaming in agony and rage, extending its free hand in the direction of Superman with its fingers splayed out, residing at the center of a black circle that represents the rotting dark star it dwells within. Outside their respective suns, primitive glyphs of lightning bolts colored the whitish-gold of Prime’s starshine emanate just past where their fingers and sun-circles end, crashing into one another amidst the starscape.

SUPERMAN (narration): It was…complex, but I managed to rescue your continuum just in time.

Panel 3: Back to our normal style, as we see Superman Prime lost in the Bleed, writhing in agony; superimposed on top of him are as many other Supermen and Superwomen as you feel like shoving in on top (this can even be old art, just so long as it fits the image and they’re in clear pain).

SUPERMAN (narration): Unfortunately – and you know this as well as anyone – lashing out with our powers can be dangerous if even the slightest miscalculation is made.

SUPERMAN (narration) (2): In banishing the threat, I cracked through local spacetime into the Bleed.

Panel 4: A direct continuation of panel 1, both Supermen are walking to the right with purpose as the mission becomes clear; Clark is facing towards him to the extent that we can no longer see his face, while Superman Prime has progressed from putting out light to actively shedding his golden exterior; bits of starshine are flecking off of him, to reveal weathered pink skin on his face, his suit revealed in chunks under the gold to be black and white.

CLARK (small text): Cracked?

SUPERMAN: It threw me across the universe from the source fracture, where you found me.

SUPERMAN (2): Left unmoored from hypertime, I’m drawing in other versions of us from the expanse of the multiverse; unabated, the fracture will tear through your universe. It’s hard to put it in 3D terms, but I need to return to it, reintegrate, and put everything back where it belongs.

PAGE 7: 4 panels, panel 1 on the left is the same size as panel 1 of the previous page to keep the momentum going.

Panel 1: The last of the sunskin is blowing off of him like a dandelion in a breeze; we can see that Superman has become the version of Batman Beyond’s future in “The Call”. He continues Prime’s forward stride, no longer even looking back at Clark, all business; Clark for that matter just looks utterly gobsmacked as he follows right behind him.

SUPERMAN: We’re all receiving the same basic input, so you should be able to work with us so long as you stay on top of the shifts.

SUPERMAN (2): I don’t know how familiar you are with this kind of situation, but I’m gonna need you on your A-game if we’re going to get out of this situation with your universe intact.

Panel 2: A somewhat distant shot of the two Supermen, though one is left alone; Superman Beyond has already rocketed upwards, a black and white speed streak the only thing left of him with some dirt and rubble kicked up by the force of take-off.

SUPERMAN (off-panel): You’ll have to keep up, kid.

Panel 3: The same shot, with our ‘native’ Superman left looking upwards, processing everything presented to him.

Panel 4: The same shot again, but now our Superman rockets up after him in the same fashion, leaving behind his own trail of red and blue.

CLARK (narration): Well.

PAGE 8: 6 panels

Panel 1: Twin streaks of light exit our galaxy.

CLARK (narration): “The local dimensional curve of the hypertimestream.” What the hell am I doing here?

Panel 2: Fairly close on Clark in the classic Superman-flying-with-both-his-arms-out-balled-up-in-fists pose, with the stars stretching in the background as he’s left lightspeed far behind.

CLARK (narration): I’m going to have to trust that he’s as certain as he seems, because for all I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve been a part of something on a scale quite like this before.

Panel 3: We’re right in front of the Supermen skipping across the universe; Superman Beyond’s on the right in the forefront, his brow knit up in grim determination. Behind him to the left is Clark, same pose as before.

CLARK (narration): Is this going to be my life someday, like theirs? The fate of all that is just another Wednesday team-up? Am I going to measure up to that?

Panel 4: The same shot, but closer on Clark now; while his expression is mostly unchanged, one of his eyebrows is arched just a touch upwards.

CLARK (narration): ...still though. “Kid?”

SUPERMAN (off-panel) (this word balloon is actually slightly covering the very end of Clark’s caption box, though we can still tell it’s a question mark finishing off “kid”): We’re here.

Panel 5: A ways in front of the pair, Superman Beyond has already come to a stop, floating casually in the abyss as he looks, in an expression of cold examination that could be mistaken for boredom, at an unseen sight a ways in front of and below him. Right behind him, Clark comes to a much more sudden stop, his cape flapping up behind him, his arms and legs tucked in a bit.

SUPERMAN: Your Justice League communicator should be picking me up through the vacuum; do you have them yet on your Earth?

CLARK: Reading you loud and clear, but what are you seeing?

Panel 6: Close on Clark’s face, wide-eyed with realization. Those eyes, incidentally, are altered as they were when looking into the Bleed; not red-and-green glowing this time, but a faint gold.

SUPERMAN (off-panel): Fracture’s not on any of the normal frequencies, so you’re going to have to stretch yourself. You saw the Bleed before, you should be able to –

CLARK: I see it.

CLARK (2): God…

PAGE 9: 4 panels, with the first one being a near-splash that’s going to take up most of the page and having two small inset panels.

Panel 1: A titanic, outside-view of a solar system, all but perhaps a gas giant or two invisibly miniscule this far out. At its center is recognizably the black star that the Time Monster lived in the heart of, all too real now, a thin white glow denoting its borders. Cascading out from the center of the sun are lightning bolts of Prime’s distinctive whitish-gold, firing off wildly into space in a few different directions. The Supermen hang suspended in nothingness in the foreground, small figure facing the immensity.

CLARK (narration): I have to believe he’s just not letting the shock of it reach his face.

CLARK (narration) (2): And even if I really do become like them someday…lord, I hope I let it, if I keep seeing sights like this.

CLARK (narration) (3): Molten bolts of foreign timestuff, firing from the heart of a black star at the speed of light, out into…

CLARK (narration) (4): …no.

Inset Panel 1: Just next to the last caption, extremely tight on Clark’s eyes, widened with horror. This panel is surrounded by red borders, and the right and left sides of it actually trail off underneath, down and to the right a ways, landing below one of the lightning bolts and turning into another rectangle, forming…

Inset Panel 2: The panel encloses a chunk of space, but within that chunk is a Venn diagram shape to indicate we’re seeing through Clark’s telescopic vision; that shape is its own image of a purple-tinted planet soon to be in the path of the bolt.

Panel 2: Medium on the two Supermen at a slight angle. Superman Beyond has his serious face on to the right, thinking through his options. Clark’s got his fists balled up and his mouth hanging open, he’s ready to go go GO.

CLARK: 4 billion people.

SUPERMAN: Just saw, glad you caught it. We only have minutes, so any ideas are welcome.

CLARK (2): We have to move it out of the path.

Panel 3: Further out and down, Clark while not much changing his posture is tilting his orientation downwards, in the direction of the planet. Superman, who’s remained in the same spot, is looking down at him, calmly but sternly barking an order at him like an annoyed parent.

SUPERMAN: No. Any mistake and you’d kill them just as easily that way. We need a safer option.

CLARK: Like you said, we have minutes, and even this we’d barely be able to pull off in time.

SUPERMAN (2): There’s no time to argue this, Clark.

CLARK (2): You’re right.

Panel 4: Behind Superman as Clark blitzes downwards towards the planet in an arc; Superman’s slightly taken aback, and none too pleased that he seems to now have another problem on his plate.

CLARK: They need us right now, Superman.

PAGE 10: 6 panels

Panel 1: Down on the surface of the alien world, looking up. The alien design and architecture I’ll leave up to you (with the latter I’m picturing something organic-looking, with green ‘pods’ growing out of the sides that shadows indicate people dwell within; for the aliens themselves I imagine some sort of anteater-like tube on their faces for drawing moisture from the ground, since the planet’s solid purple with no bodies of water visible from space), but one of the creatures is gesturing upwards as it looks up in the pastel yellow sky at the red-blue slice across the sky.

CLARK (narration): You were thinking about scale before? Here’s one you know just fine:

CLARK (narration) (2): Get this right or everyone dies.

Panel 2: Out in the purple desert, a firey alien comet smashes into the ground and burrows.

CLARK (narration): Back up that big talk, Kent. Keep it in the goldilocks zone, don’t move it so fast you ignite the atmosphere…

Panel 3: Underground with Clark, he looks to be in near-total darkness, with only a faint red glow to the right of him from the planet’s core providing illumination as he pushes against the mantle. His back is to it, shoving with his hands braced on either side of him, his eyes closed and his lips pulled inward as he sweats: this is essentially lifting and backing a huge loaded box into the back of a truck, except it’s several sextillion tons and if he cocks it up billions die by lighting or fire or vacuum.

CLARK (narration): Don’t jostle it, don’t tear it apart, don’t…

CLARK (narration) (2): Please don’t…

Panel 4: Basically the same angle, closer in towards Clark as he opens an eye in surprise when a black-gloved in the foreground jams itself into the mantle.

Panel 5: As if we could stand in front of them and see through the rock (though both their hands are off-panel so as not to spoil the illusion), Clark and Superman push as one. Clark’s pretty much the same as before, though his head’s tilted enough that we can see his face. Superman Beyond’s flying at it straight-on and pushing entirely with his hands, one of his knees bent up. He’s not straining as hard as Clark, but his jaw’s drawn so tight it looks like it’s about to crack.

CLARK (narration): Thanks.

Panel 6: A view of the planet, occupying only about a marble’s worth of space; there’s no visible sign that it’s moving, but a few planetary widths away the lightning passes by harmlessly.

PAGE 11: 7 panels, arrange however works

Panel 1: The pair emerge from the tunnel Clark drilled, both drenched in a coat of magma and steaming; Clark lands on the ground, recovering from the exertion. Superman – now become the Earth-Two version (circa COIE/Infinite Crisis, with the gray temples and the more defined border on the S-shield) – shoots out with his arms extending from his sides, in a fury and looking every inch an avenging angel.

SUPERMAN: The HELL were you thinking, son?!

CLARK: I’ll >kaff

Panel 2: An over-the-shoulder shot of Grandpa Superman, pointing down accusingly at Clark, who’s now floating up towards him indignantly, sloughing off the magma.

SUPERMAN: You wear that shield, you don’t go tear-assing around without a thought! People can’t afford for you to be reckless!

CLARK: From what I understand the golden future one was the one who made a mistake.

Panel 3: They’re level now, Clark crossing his arms, with that one Superman “I’m not mad, but I am disappointed” face. Grandpa’s continuing the accusation; we’re at a slight angle to them, looking up from underneath.

CLARK: And I still trusted him more than the last couple of you. If I didn’t go when I did…

SUPERMAN: And if you make the mistake next time, and another Superman isn’t here to help you?

Panel 4: We’re level with them now, looking at them in profile; Clark hasn’t changed, Superman’s pulled his hand back to his side but his face has moved from yelling to cutting annoyance.

CLARK: Then I’ll try, and I’ll do what I can.

SUPERMAN: Don’t just “try”. They need your best.

CLARK (2): I thought you had to go?

Panel 5: The exact same shot.

Panel 6: Superman’s turned around, about to fly back up into space, peeved that he apparently hasn’t gotten through to this stupid kid. Clark meanwhile is floating up towards him with an unreadably neutral expression.

SUPERMAN (small text): Ff

SUPERMAN (small text) (2): Young people.

Panel 7: Very, very close on Clark’s hand as he grabs Superman’s shoulder.

CLARK (off-panel): Look,

PAGE 12: 5 panels, the first and last are horizontal

Panel 1: Space; on the leftmost side of the panel, there’s a barely visible purple dot. A sliver of a red-blue line extends across the panel to the rightmost side, where there’s an equally small green dot it connects with.

Panel 2: Clark’s in a sinkhole, and he is goddamn wrecked from that hit; suit’s torn up, bleeding, eye swelling shut as he might have an orbital fracture.

CLARK (small text): aaahh~*

SUPERMAN (off-panel): I’m sorry. You caught me off-guard.

Panel 3: Looking up from around Clark’s perspective, we now see floating above him the Kingdom Come Superman, looking down at him with a mix of pity and a schoolteacher imparting a lesson to a difficult pupil. We now see trees peeking their foliage above the rim of the impact crater, the sky an aqua blue with the stars showing. Clark’s forcing himself up onto his hands, facing the ground and us, eyes not glowing but the irises solidly red and teeth clenched in frustration.

SUPERMAN: But frankly, I’m wondering if I’m not still needed here.

SUPERMAN (2): You need to listen to me, young man: you have responsibilities, and I’m not sure you can live up to them if the worst comes.

Panel 4: Above Grandpa-est Superman, as Clark suddenly charges up towards him, not an abstract red-blue comet like before but still himself, albeit rendered fuzzy by his velocity.

SUPERMAN: They need heroes, not dangerous children.

Panel 5: Superman and Clark are mere stick figures on the horizon, colliding with one another; the compression wave visibly ripples through the air, uprooting nearby trees and blowing others to a 45-degree angle as if in the midst of a hurricane.

PAGE 13: 9 panel grid

Panel 1: We’re right behind Superman’s hand, which simply caught Clark’s blow. Clark’s mouth is hanging a bit open, disbelieving.

Panel 2: A long shot of the two of them, Superman looking at Clark as if he’s insulted by his failure as he maintains his grip.

SUPERMAN: That was very foolish.

Panel 3: Still held in place, Clark goes for broke and just punches Superman square in the jaw with his free hand, doing absolutely nothing.

CLARK: – out of your mind –

Panel 4: Clark pulls his hand back; we can see he’s skinned his knuckles badly with that punch. Superman, meanwhile, is pulling his own free hand back, his open palm clearly aimed to land in Clark’s chest when he shoves it forward.

Panel 5: A view from the upper-atmosphere, with the planet (mostly green, a few scattered oceans) taking up the bottom half of the panel and extending well past it. There’s a tiny visible impact at one point, with a red line arcing slightly upwards away from it before landing several thousand miles away.

Panel 6: Same shot, but our view of the planet has been rotated significantly clockwise; the end of the original arc is still visible on the leftmost side, but the red line has bounced, forming another arc – closer to the ground this time – before landing again on the right.

Panel 7: We’re pulling back our view further, just about into space proper now (though we still aren’t seeing the entirety of the planet) and rotated further; the line hasn’t bounced again, but is now skidding across the circumference of the planet with an aura at the front of it like a ship going through reentry, leaving a scar across the surface as Clark finally slows down on the other side of the planet.

Panel 8: We’re back with Clark, seeing him from several yards away as he skids across the surface face-first, weakly holding an arm in front of him to try and take some of the impact.

Panel 9: Same basic shot (even if he’s probably gone a few hundred more miles), but he’s no longer on the ground, instead shooting upwards with the same sort of blur we saw on the last page as he charged towards Superman, his arms and legs positioned so that we can tell he used his momentum to leapfrog in the direction of the sky.

PAGE 14: A splash page with three inset panels.

Panel 1: In space, a wide, wide shot of the planet. At the top of the planet, the red line of Clark is bounding upwards into space, and circles around the planet three times (actually countless times forming three major blurry circles; we can tell he’s spinning around far more, but it amounts to three) arcing ever downwards before making impact on the opposite side of the world at the bottom of the panel.

CLARK (narration) (on the top of the page, just above his point of takeoff): Twenty times lightspeed.

CLARK (narration) (on the left side of the middle of the page, just under the first circle) (2): Five hundred thousand.

CLARK (narration) (the equivalent to the last caption, on the opposite side of the page) (3): More more more more more…

CLARK (narration) (at the bottom of the page, right above the second circle and under his point of impact) (4): Good enough.

Inset Panel 1: This is the start of three panels stacked on top of one another, overlaid across the planet. Superman’s lecturing at the sky, red ribbons visible among the stars as Clark builds up momentum.

SUPERMAN: I know you can hear me. You can’t run away from this.

SUPERMAN (2): You described your life before as chaotic, and I can’t say I’m surprised.

Inset Panel 2: Closer on Superman as he turns, continuing his spiel.

SUPERMAN: When the Bleed opened up, your first thought was the possibility that you’d get in a fight. That tells me all I need to know.

SUPERMAN (2): I’ve seen what happens when boys and girls with power they haven’t earned run wild, even if they think they mean well.

Inset Panel 3: Close on Superman’s disapproving face, as a living comet speeds towards him from behind.

SUPERMAN: That won’t happen here on my watch. I’m going to find a better way.

SUPERMAN (2): Now come out. Don’t be a coward.

PAGE 15: 4 panels

Panel 1: Clark and Superman are in space now, Clark ramming into his midsection, Superman actually feeling that hit, leaving the planet well behind them.

Panel 2: Superman’s hand is on Clark’s face, trying to push him off; with his uncovered eye, Clark blasts Superman straight in the shield with heat vision. Superman’s phasing a bit, halfway between steaming and speed-blurring.

SUPERMAN: knew it, out of control

CLARK: hypocrite

Panel 3: They arc downwards, spiraling around and around, smacking directly into the side of a passing comet.

Panel 4: They’re both forcing themselves up and getting their bearings – the surroundings are strangely beautiful, the surface of the comet solid shining ice, the stars twinkling, the black sun shining in the background. Notably, Superman seems to be half-shifted, the blurring intensifying; we can tell he’s back to some version of ‘classic’ based on the color scheme, but everything else is too fuzzy to make out.

CLARK: You’re leaving this world right now.

SUPERMAN: Not to you.

PAGE 16: 5 panels, first 4 on a grid, the fifth horizontal underneath.

Panel 1: The pair shoot upwards, colliding just above the surface, Clark getting a damn good shot to the jaw against Superman, who’s become the black-shielded 40s man of Fleischer/New Frontier.

CLARK (narration): He’s breaking down faster now…seems weaker now, but I think this is going to come down to luck and which one of them I get…

Panel 2: Clark follows up, kneeing him in the stomach, but Superman – who’s now shifted to the aged days of Red Son – is simultaneously reaching for his throat, his eyes ablaze with heat vision about to be unleashed.

CLARK (narration): I can see the bleed pouring out of him on every frequency, but no matter how hard I try he just won’t let go…

Panel 3: Close on their faces, as Superman pulls Clark in by the neck. Superman’s now the Black Lantern Earth-2 guy, an empty-eyed zombie howling right in Clark’s angry face with a savage hunger.

CLARK (narration): And I find myself thinking of black holes.

Panel 4: Firing downwards like a meteor towards the surface of the comet, Clark’s letting out his last gust of freeze breath even as Superman continues to choke them. They both leave speed trails behind them, but while Clark’s a solid blur, Superman’s leaving a couple afterimages of the Electric Blue dude, Injustice, and at the bottom where Clark is an approximation again of classic.

Panel 5: And they smack right into the side of it, kicking up ice.

PAGE 17: 6 panels.

Panel 1: Clark’s getting up, brushing ice and dust out of his hair, ready to get right back into it.

SUPERMAN (off-panel): I’m sorry…

Panel 2: Superman’s completely breaking apart – while the classic take is standing there, he’s surrounded and overlapped with phantoms of Supermen of all stripes, each having eyes set afire with Bleed energy.

SUPERMAN: That was u-unreasonable of me…

Panel 3: A distant profile shot of the two. Superman’s holding position, Clark is visibly concerned, hovering towards him with an arm outreached.

CLARK (small text): Rao.

SUPERMAN: It’s just…we can’t make mistakes, and you’re going to have to carry it yourself…

Panel 4: A similar shot, Superman’s floating backwards a bit now, himself becoming a phantom, Supermen faintly trailing behind him towards the stars like a breeze is blowing away his every self.

SUPERMAN: Can you do that?

CLARK: For god’s sake, it doesn’t matter right now!

Panel 5: Clark flies up after him, desperate, hand outstretched.

CLARK: Please, just let me help you!

Panel 6: A close up as Clark grabs Superman’s hand…and that hand is solid now, and we can see the blue sleeve of his costume has a lightly ridged cuff.

SUPERMAN (off-panel): That’s the ticket!

PAGE 18: 4 panels

Panel 1: We’re right behind Clark, still holding on to Superman’s hand as they set down gently on the ground, though they’ve both come to a stop now, the black sun shining in the background among the stars, lightning still shooting out of it. Superman himself has stabilized completely; he’s finally the Golden Age Superman, not the Earth-Two elder we saw before, but the full-on Shuster figure with the police-badge S-shield, the lace-up boots, and the seemingly-closed eyes. He’s looking at a surprised Superman with a beaming toothy smile, his free arm at his side balled up in a fist not as a threat, but as a part of his perpetual Supermanly pose with his legs wide and his chest broadened.

SUPERMAN: Thanks, friend!

SUPERMAN (2): It was touch-and-go there for a minute, but it seems pulling people out of jams in the nick of time is just what we do!

Panel 2: It’s a profile shot again as Clark’s backed off a bit. Superman’s got his fists at his hips now, in Full Superman Pose, keeping up the smile with none of the condescension some of the others had undercutting his sincerity.

SUPERMAN: Well! The other fellows had a lot to say, but what do you think of all this?

SUPERMAN (2): Think there’s a future in this business for you?

Panel 3: Close on Clark as he tries to get it all right in his head once and for all; he looks a bit self-doubting, even as he’s sincere in the conviction he’s expressing.

CLARK: …I don’t know if I can be all people need. That I can never fail. I don’t know that anyone I saw today can, either.

CLARK (2): But I’ll try and do my best. I’ll always try.

Panel 4: Close on Superman’s face. Same expression as before, but his mouth while still smiling is closed now.

CLARK (off-panel): Is that enough, Clark?

PAGE 19: 6 panels

Panel 1: Superman’s starting to turn around; his legs and lower torso are facing in the direction of the sun, but he’s tilting his chest around to keep on facing Clark. His expression back to all-out beaming, he raises a single hand in salute towards him.

SUPERMAN: Of course it is, Superman.

SUPERMAN (2): That’s all anyone can ever do!

Panel 2: We’re behind Clark, watching as he looks with awe as Superman leaps, not flies, up, up, and away in the direction of the star, which cascades with lightning at its heart more intensely than ever.

Panel 3: The entire panel is now suffused with the whitish-gold light of the lightning; there’s the very vaguest silhouette of Clark, in the exact same position and angle as the last panel.

Panel 4: Identical to panel 2, but now Superman and the lightning are gone; the universe is safe.

Panel 5: A close, profile shot on Clark, looking up, smiling serenely.

Panel 6: The same shot, but Clark’s gone now; no speed effect this time from his departure, but some flecks of ice are kicked up off the ground, hanging in mid-air.

PAGE 20: A gorgeous, full-page splash. Superman’s arcing down from the planet and then back up towards us, a single arm outstretched with his knee bent and a smile on his face, the iconic Superman Flying pose with the black sun shining on the right. Behind him, as spirits, fly as many Supermen from this story and any others you can think of, smiling with pride, a procession honoring their own.

I sincerely hope you got as much of a kick out of reading it as I did writing it! Please do let me know how you think I did, especially any constructive criticism and especially you have some experience yourself; I know I often went above the unofficial 26-words-per-panel rule (though not many comics seem to hold to that these days), and not every surprise shot was on an even-numbered page to maximize the page turn reveal (hopefully the ad placement could mitigate that), but given this is only my third full 20-page script I think it turned out pretty well. And again, happy birthday @theazureesper!

#Superman #New 52 #Me #fanfic

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