Crisis Weekly #5

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

We see Eduardo Dorado, El Dorado, at night, standing looking up at the moon.  He has a dufflebag slung on his shoulder.  He is dressed in civilian clothes.

EDUARDO DORADO: Give me the strength…

Panel 2

As Eduardo reaches into the dufflebag, and looking down at it, we see bats fluttering across the night sky.

Panel 3

His hand still in the dufflebag, Eduardo is once again looking up at the moon, at the bats.

EDUARDO DORADO: They come again.

Panel 4

Eduardo has now pulled free a cape from the dufflebag.  Unlike the simple one he wore in Super Friends, El Dorado’s cape in Crisis Weekly is ornately designed, evocative of the ancient Aztecs.

EDUARDO DORADO: Let them come.

TITLE: “Desperado”

WRITER: Tony Laplume
 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Eduardo has begun running, securing the cape around his neck as he does so.  The cape flaps around him dramatically, because that’s always a cool visual.  The bats are descending from the skies behind him.  We become aware that the landscape around Eduardo is barren, on the border between Mexico and the US.

CAPTION: I don’t know why they meddle in these affairs, but the bats always appear to harass the migrants.

Panel 2

We see Eduardo approaching a group of huddled migrants.  He holds the sides of his cape flared outward.  The bats are hovering just around them.

CAPTION: They can try.

EDUARDO DORADO: It’s okay.  I’m here to help.

Panel 3

Eduardo throws the cape around the migrants, closing it as he does so.

EDUARDO DORADO: They can’t follow us where we’re going.

Panel 4

There’s a blank space where Eduardo and the migrants had been.

Panel 5

Eduardo and the migrants have reappeared, under the mass of the cape.
 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Eduardo is lifting his cape, and the migrants have astonished looks on their faces.

CAPTION: The cape allows me to help.  It has been in the family for generations.  My father liked to say it went all the way back to the old days, before the conquistadors, when it served a more ceremonial purpose. 

Panel 2

Eduardo is once again reaching into the dufflebag.  The migrants are standing a little ways off, watching him curiously.

CAPTION: There are days I would like to know what purpose, exactly, it served, in those days.  I honestly can’t imagine a better one than it serves now.

Panel 3

Eduardo is handing a package to the migrants.

EDUARDO DORADO: Take it.  It contains food, money.  Enough to get you started, anyway.

Panel 4

The migrants are bodily expressing gratitude to Eduardo now.

CAPTION: I knew Chavo as a boy.  The rest of them, they’re strangers.  But they don’t need to thank me for what I’ve done tonight.  Sometimes I wish they didn’t.  It would make it easier.

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

The migrants have begun walking away.  Eduardo watches.

EDUARDO DORADO: Would you believe there was a time when the great “El Dorado” worked alongside the Justice League?

Panel 2

Alone now, Eduardo’s expression falls.

CAPTION: But that was a long time ago.  A lifetime.  It doesn’t seem real anymore.

Panel 3

In fact, Eduardo is now collapsing entirely.

CAPTION: Sometimes I doubt they even remember.  If anyone does.

 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

Eduardo is in a hospital bed.

CAPTION: The one drawback of using the cape is that it drains me physically.

Panel 2

A doctor, a woman, is looking at his chart.

DOCTOR: You’re going to have to take it easy for a few days, Eduardo.

Panel 3

The doctor is now looking at Eduardo directly.

DOCTOR: Don’t think I don’t know who you are, what you do. 

DOCTOR: Everyone knows, Eduardo.

Panel 4

The doctor continues to talk.

DOCTOR: You’re doing a great thing.

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

Eduardo is walking out of the hospital.  The dufflebag, with the cape inside is, is once again slung over his shoulder.

CAPTION: It’s humiliating, the “superhero” needing to be rescued from the effects of his own heroics.

Panel 2

Eduardo walks the streets.  There are people loitering about.

CAPTION: Sometimes I wonder if I’m truly accomplishing anything at all, if it’s really just my vanity.

Panel 3

Eduardo continues walking.  We see Bloodwynd in the panel, loitering like everyone else, dressed like everyone else, identifiable by his distinctive white eyes, which he is not trying to hide here in Mexico.

CAPTION: People say I’m doing good, and I guess I am, but it never seems to be enough.

Panel 4

Eduardo continues to walk.  He’s passed where Bloodwynd was standing.

CAPTION: After all, the migrants are always there.  Always wanting to go there.  Am I really helping them?

 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Eduardo is walking into his house, placing the dufflebag down by the door as he does so.  Contrary to the poverty we’ve seen around him, Eduardo’s home is actually nicely furnished.

CAPTION: Fortunately, like a lot of superheroes, El Dorado’s secret identity is capable of doing things, too.  “Eduardo Dorado” might have a less flourish sound to it, but there are benefits.

Panel 2

Eduardo is walking to his bedroom now.  A servant has appeared behind him, holding the dufflebag.

SERVANT: Should I put in the usual place, sir?

EDUARDO: The cape?  Thanks, yes.

Panel 3

The servant is holding the cape and opening a secret closet, next to the one Eduardo himself is opening, which is filled with suits.

Panel 4

The servant is closing the secret closet again, as Eduardo looks at a suit.  He looks less than excited.

EDUARDO DORADO: Time to save the day.
 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Exterior of Los Pinos, the Mexican equivalent of the White House.

CAPTION: This is where “Eduardo Dorado” works.  Los Pinos.  Home of the Mexican president.

Panel 2

Eduardo, now dressed in formal wear, is walking the corridors of Los Pinos, filled with staffers wandering about.

CAPTION: Mexico hasn’t had a vice president in a hundred years.  The dubious means by which our current president took office, I thought I owed my country service, regardless of who I’m serving under.

Panel 3

We’re entering the office of the president, whom we met at the beginning of Crisis Weekly: the Caballero, who is standing to greet Eduardo.  Caballero still wears his luchador mask, but a different one, more ornate, though it is still fashioned to look like a bat.

CAPTION: He calls himself the Caballero.  I have other names for him, but none of them are polite.  One of them sums them all up: El Dorado’s archnemesis.

EDUARDO DORADO: Mister President…