Crisis Weekly #3

PAGE ONE          

Panel 1

Exterior of Wesley Dodds High School.

CAPTION: The end of the world begins with a bang.

Panel 2

Exterior of Wesley Dodds High School, this time with flashes coming from one of the windows.

SFX: Bang! Bang! Bang!

TITLE: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)”

WRITER: Tony Laplume

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

This is of course a school shooting, and now we’re in the interior of WDHS, in the classroom with the shooter, with students trying to find cover all around him.  We see bodies already fallen.

CAPTION: Even if you’ve heard about this a thousand times, it doesn’t prepare you to experience it personally.  It just can’t.  How could it?

Panel 2

Panning around the room we see that it is a science room, and that the teacher is Ray Palmer, the erstwhile Atom.  He has a little pin on his tie with the Atom symbol on it.  He’s as pinned down as anyone.  No heroics from a superhero today.  He’s clearly traumatized by what’s happening, but still trying to shield some students from the bullets.

CAPTION: That’s Mister Palmer.  We’re not supposed to know anything about it, but he’s Ray Palmer, the Atom.

Panel 3

Panning further around the room, our as-yet unidentified narrator has now drawn our focus to Marty Kirby, one of the students.  He’s a slightly overweight youth who’s as terrified as anyone else in the situation.

CAPTION: That’s Marty.  Marty Kirby.  We’re not friends, but I-I know his name.  After today, Marty’s going to be living a very different life.  He’s going to be curious for the first time ever about the namesake of Wesley Dodds High School.  He’s going to become the new Sandman, and he’ll investigate why this happened.

Panel 4

Finally we see the narrator as the pan around the room.  We see a girl more or less in front of the shooter.  She’s got freckles and out-of-control red hair.  Her name is Rachel Rogerson. 

CAPTION: That’s me, Rachel Rogerson. 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Exterior of WDHS again as the same window flashes again.

SFX: Bang! Bang! Bang!

Panel 2

Exterior with the same window flashing.  One final shot.

SFX: Bang!

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

Police have entered the school, and the students are scattering.  We see Marty among them.  Ray Palmer is talking with a cop.

CAPTION: The normal thing to say here would be, “It happened so fast.”

Panel 2

Down a corridor where everyone is streaming in the opposite direction except the police.

CAPTION: Except it wasn’t fast.  Everything happened in slow motion.

CAPTION: I can remember all of it, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

Panel 3

We follow the cops back into the room. 

CAPTION: How can I forget?

Panel 4

Now we’re back in the room, and we see nothing but dead bodies, and Rachel.  We see bullet holes in her clothes, but no blood.  She’s in complete shock.

CAPTION: But there are no words that can describe any of it, and there never will be.

 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1
Ray Palmer has helped escort Rachel from the room, and there are emergency workers ready to attend to her.  Ray looks remarkably calm.

CAPTION: It’s everything that happens after that’s a blur.  Meaningless.

Panel 2

As the EMTs check Rachel out, Ray Palmer remains at her side.  His face is full of grief now that he doesn’t have to remain strong for her.

CAPTION: They want me to call it “survivor’s guilt,” what I’m feeling, as if that will make it better.

Panel 3

The EMTs are leaving, and Ray Palmer remains with Rachel, holding her.  She’s crying.

CAPTION: I’m crying and I don’t know why.

Panel 4

Rachel’s parents have arrived, and Ray Palmer is letting her go.

CAPTION: I don’t feel anything.

 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

Rachel is sitting in her room.  It’s filled with the typical accoutrements of a teenage girl’s interests.  Apparently the big boy band phenomenon of the moment is BTS, so there’s lots of posters of them on the wall.  We see that Rachel is wearing different clothes, but holding the old ones in her hands, though she’s not looking at them.  She’s not looking at anything in particular, in fact.

CAPTION: I don’t mean that figuratively.

Panel 2

Rachel continues to sit in her room.

CAPTION: I don’t feel anything at all, emotionally.  Physically.

Panel 3

Rachel continues to sit in her room.

CAPTION: And suddenly I have no idea when that started.

Panel 4

Rachel continues to sit in her room.

CAPTION: And that scares me the most of all.

 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Rachel’s parents are at the door of her room, trying to coax her out.

CAPTION: I’m like that guy in the movie, who found out he was invincible, and tried to remember if he’d ever been sick.

Panel 2

Rachel’s parents continue to try.

CAPTION: I look back, and try to remember if I ever felt anything.  Surely someone would’ve noticed?  Someone would’ve cared?

Panel 3

Rachel’s parents continue to try.

CAPTION: I don’t mean to suggest my parents are monsters or anything, but it’s easy to get caught up in life, if nothing ever makes you stop and pay attention.  That can happen to anyone.

Panel 4

Rachel is reluctantly getting up.

CAPTION: Sometimes the most obvious thing in hindsight is impossible to see beforehand.
 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Rachel is morosely seated at the dinner table.  Her parents are once again trying to encourage her.

CAPTION: The EMTs examined all the bullet holes in my clothes. 

Panel 2

Rachel continues to pretend she’s interested in sitting at the table.

CAPTION: There were no wounds behind the holes.  There were fifty-two holes.

Panel 3

Rachel is still at the table.

CAPTION: The shooter killed everyone else he hit. 

Panel 4

Rachel is getting up.  Her parents look on sadly.

CAPTION: So, I’m bulletproof.  Yay.