Crisis Weekly #19

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

Henrietta is looking directly at us, in the first of a nine panel grid in the style of the confessionals from Heroes in Crisis.  She is a ten-year-old girl.  She looks sad.  She’s a blonde.

HENRIETTA: Everyone’s talking about the death of the president, but I guess I’m most sad about the little girl who died.

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Henrietta, aged ten.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Her name was Maria, she was three, I think.

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: We were both living here in D.C., (my mom calls it the suburbs), where nobody really thinks about.  I used to see her at Walton’s.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I used to go there for the comics.  I don’t think I’ll be able to read about superheroes again for a while.  One time my mom said she thought she saw Maria’s mom stealing shoes.  I didn’t care.

Panel 6

Henrietta is silent this panel.

Panel 7

Black panel with text.

TITLE: “We Didn’t Start the Fire”

WRITER: Tony Laplume

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk. Tears are beginning to form.

HENRIETTA: I mean, Maria didn’t deserve to die!  She was just a kid!  She liked to giggle and be silly and…

Panel 9

Silent panel.  Henrietta is outright crying.
 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Henrietta is older, a twenty-year-old now (every page will advance a decade for her, and will be nine panel grids).

HENRIETTA: Yeah I remember where I was when the president died.

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Henrietta, aged twenty.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA; I was just a kid.  Seems like a lifetime ago!  Was it really ten years ago?

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Now you can’t go anywhere without seeing some kind of reminder about Firehawk, about her brave sacrifice.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I mean, there’s the little souvenir statues that copy the one in Washington.  I grew up there.  Got out as soon as I could, went as far away as…

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: As far as I know, Alaska has never had any superheroes, right?  I’ve never heard of them.  Was there a Justice League in the Antarctic?  I think I heard something about that.  One mission maybe.  That was as close as they ever got.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: There were some comics, that didn’t feature superheroes, set here, taking advantage of the weird daylight.  Those are basically the only comics I’ve read…in the past decade.

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I mean, the president died defending the country against Doomsday, and she was a superhero.  You can’t really top that.

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Anyway, I don’t see why you would want to.  Time to move on, right?

 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Henrietta is now thirty, of course.

HENRIETTA: Has it really been twenty years?  I can still remember exactly where I was when it happened.

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Etta, aged thirty.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I mean, in school they used to have us write essays about it all the time.  I spent ten years writing those things.  Sometimes it seemed like that was all they really wanted us to do, right?

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: They finally made a movie about it?  I guess that was always inevitable.  In bad taste, maybe.  Younger people will probably be able to watch it, older people.  People my age, we grew up with the horror of it.  Not really escapism material for us. Not for me, anyway.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I mean, there have always been superhero movies, right?  They just keep making them.  And I guess I’ve probably seen a lot of them, the ones you kind of can’t escape.  And it’s a little weird, because you read about superheroes all the time on the internet, you can see the actual footage, and there are the comics, and then these movies.

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I guess I just don’t want the movies to talk about the realities of it.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Because when you start, you have to continue, and there’s a lot you can’t just leave out.

Panel 8

A silent panel.  Henrietta is looking thoughtful.  We can assume she’s thinking of Maria.

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: What?  Oh, nothing.  Just lost my train of thought. 

HENRIETTA: Then you have to start thinking about them as real people, and the real people around them, I guess.  It changes things.  Not what I want to see in superhero movies.

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

Henrietta is now forty.

HENRIETTA: We’re doing this again, I see. 

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Etta, aged forty.

Panel 3
Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I actually did get married, and had a kid, yeah.  She’s three now.

Panel 4

Silent panel.  Henrietta is looking thoughtful again.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: What?  Oh, nothing.  I was just thinking of someone I used to know.

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I tell her about what it was like, the day President Reilly died.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: There was so much happening, and of course that monster continued it rampage for a while longer, until it was finally stopped for good (thank goodness!).  I just try to keep it simple for my daughter.  Tell her where I was when I heard, what everyone does.

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I was maybe her age when Superman died fighting that thing, but of course he came back eventually, and so did it.  But not this time. 

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I guess some of us expected that maybe Firehawk would be as lucky as Superman.  Makes it sadder.

 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

Henrietta is fifty now.

HENRIETTA: Yes, fifty years old now.  They always say that fifty is the halfway point, when you can no longer kid yourself about getting older.

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Etta, aged fifty.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I mean, I knew a decade ago that I definitely had a lot of history at that point, but now history begins to seem like something you’ve really lived through, something that’s as much something that’s in books as it is in your memories.

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Yeah, for instance this Firehawk thing.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I feel like I’ve been talking about it forever!

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Even though I was there, in Washington, where I grew up, when it happened, I was just a kid.  A lot of the details are things I learned later.  At the time it was just sensation.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: On TV it was inescapable!  My parents had it on all the time, and I didn’t get to watch my cartoons.  (That was a big deal at the time.)

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Anyway, I found out about a lot of things, after the fact.

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: But it didn’t diminish her sacrifice.  Nothing will ever do that.

 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1
Henrietta is now sixty.

HENRIETTA: This year’s the big fifty year anniversary. 

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Etta, aged sixty.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Suddenly it’s everywhere again.  Even the little statues, exactly the way they were when they first popped up.  People!

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Now they’re making movies about her that don’t even involve the tragedy.  About time, if you ask me.  There was the “origin story” one, of course.  I remember reading about how Firehawk got her powers, but that one really affected me, I have to admit.

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Yeah, I admit it.  I kind of became obsessed.  I have shelves full of books about her.  My mom was the same way.  She was young when the last assassination happened.

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Yeah, it surprised me, too, when it began being talked about as an assassination, but that’s basically what it was.  You grow old enough, and history starts to take on new language.  Things take on new names they didn’t have at the time.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: The trial of the Mexican president, everyone remembers that, yeah.  It was controversial, at the time, that they could execute him.  A lot of people talked about the French Revolution, but the parallels weren’t really there.

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: For one thing, El Dorado was around to replace him, and that was…the beginning of a bold new era for everyone, right?

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: A lot of things would’ve been different if he had been in office from the start.

 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Henrietta is now seventy.

HENRIETTA: Oh, yes!

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Etta, aged seventy.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Lorraine Reilly, that old battlehorse, as us older folks like to call her!

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: When you think of how briefly she was actually in office…!

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: It’s been long enough now, historians have started forgetting.  Not the ones writing about her specifically, mind you, the others, the ones ranking the presidents.  She didn’t serve long enough in office to make an impact, they say.

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: The nerve of them! 

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I’d love to give them a piece of my mind!

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Maybe they have short memories, but there are plenty of us who don’t.  We know exactly the impact she made, the sacrifice…!

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: What she did for us, for all of us, can never be forgotten.  Should never be forgotten!

 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Henrietta is now eighty.

HENRIETTA: You know, as time goes by, I find myself thinking about the girl more and more.

Panel 2

Black panel with text.

TEXT: Henrietta, aged eighty.

Panel 3

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: The girl, Maria.  She was three that day.  She’ll always be three.

Panel 4

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: She was from Mexico, you know. 

Panel 5

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: Oh, I never said that?  Well, she was.

Panel 6

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: There was such an age gap between us.  Seven years is a long time when you’re young!  We weren’t friends.  She was just someone I knew from the neighborhood, someone I saw all the time.  It was a smaller world, then, or so it seemed.

Panel 7

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: What was I saying?

Panel 8

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: She died the same day, trampled by the monster, before Lorraine Reilly could reach it, before it was finally stopped.

Panel 9

Henrietta continues to talk.

HENRIETTA: I still miss her.  I still think about her, that’s all.

Crisis Weekly #18

PAGE ONE

Panel 1 (splash)

Going back to the very beginning.  This is the classic moment that Bruce Wayne, seated in his study, utters the phrase that changes everything.  Now of course its occurrence at the start of Crisis Weekly reads a lot differently!

BRUCE WAYNE: I shall become a bat!

 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Crime Alley, a burglar shooting Thomas and Martha Wayne as the boy Bruce looks on in utter horror.

CAPTION: There are early parallels, of course, moments that…had to happen.

Panel 2

Divergent color schemes begin here.  Batman’s are tinged blue, and Caballero’s will be tinged brown.  This one is a Batman panel, and so it is, of course, tinged blue.  It features the young Bruce Wayne clutching at the pearls that have scattered on the ground.

CAPTION: My first thoughts were of the incredible loss that had just occurred.

Panel 3

This panel is the Caballero’s, so it’s tinged brown.  It’s the same moment, but instead of clutching for pearls, the young Bruce Wayne is staring angrily toward the reader.

CAPTION: I can only assume his were of anger, and vengeance, right from the start.

 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  The young Bruce is seated at a table in one of Wayne Manor’s many expansive dining rooms.  He is looking up gratefully at Alfred as the faithful butler gives him a steaming cup of cocoa.

CAPTION: It’s easy to mistake the grim destiny of the boy in that alley, and what he would decide to do with the rest of his life, later, as a sudden, relentless crusade.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  The young Bruce has knocked the same cup out of Alfred’s hands.

BRUCE WAYNE: Go away!  Leave me alone!

CAPTION: But…despite my loss, I was never alone, not for a moment.  Alfred was always there, suddenly asked to carry a…terrible new burden.  My counterpart would’ve…rejected such comforts, out of necessity, out of his altered sense of survival.  I…understand how that might have felt.

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  The young Bruce is in a karate class, sparring with a fellow student.

CAPTION: Even before I knew what I would do, I channeled my rage and grief into practical concerns.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  The young Bruce is getting into a fight at school, obviously as the aggressor.

CAPTION: The same instincts, played out differently, in his case.  Unfocused, aggressive…cruel.

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Bruce is getting older.  He’s getting a tour of GCPD headquarters from Jim Gordon.

CAPTION: Gordon had been there from the start, too.  I leaned on him as much as I could, grateful that he had taken a personal interest, been there when I needed him, never made me feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, during the long years when all I wanted was to have their murders solved, indulged a boy who for all appearances still had everything, still had his parents’ millions, could’ve afforded anything.  But all he wanted was to be understood, and for the world to make sense again.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Bruce is being escorted through GCPD headquarters by Gordon, in handcuffs.

CAPTION: I can only speculate, as our paths diverged.  I don’t imagine this Bruce Wayne kept many friends, allies.  As isolated as the Batman tends to be seen, I never really have been.

 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Bruce is boarding a private plane.

CAPTION: I traveled widely, around the world, for years, trying to find myself, honing skills, creating the best version of myself with the considerable resources I had available.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Bruce is in an alley conversing with obvious hoodlums.
 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Bruce is in a ski mask rescuing a girl who was about to be mugged in an alley.

CAPTION: When I came back to Gotham, I could no longer fight the urge.  I had decided to become a vigilante.  I viewed myself as outside the system, and like all young people thought I could do things better.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Bruce is in a ski mask, running down the same alley, but he’s just robbed a bank.
 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  The same moment we’ve already seen twice in Crisis Weekly (and will see a fourth and final time momentarily): Bruce seated in the study with his sudden revelation.

BRUCE WAYNE: I shall become a bat!

CAPTION: But things didn’t, initially, turn out as I had hoped.  Something had to change.  I had to make the biggest decision of my life, become something else.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Same as above.

BRUCE WAYNE: I shall become a bat!

 

PAGE NINE

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Bruce is dressed as Batman for the first time, perched up on a gargoyle deep in the heart of Gotham.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Bruce has transformed into Man-Bat!  He’s soaring through the skies of Gotham.  The gargoyle in the above panel can be seen.

CAPTION: As near as I can tell, either this world’s Bruce Wayne stole the Man-Bat serum from Kirk Langstrom, or invented it himself.  At any rate, it doesn’t matter.  The end result remains the same. 

 

PAGE TEN

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Batman is shaking hands with Robin, the Boy Wonder, the original Dick Grayson version.

CAPTION: I continued surrounding myself with allies.  There are those who will quibble with some of my choices, and how things…sometimes turned out, but I took on partners, I had teammates.  The nature of the Batman’s crusade, though often shrouded in mystery, was never in doubt by those who knew him best.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Bruce Wayne putting on the mask of the Caballero for the first time.

CAPTION: He decided one mask wasn’t enough.  He traded one for another, and forever closed himself off, his true identity, from the rest of this world.

 

PAGE ELEVEN

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Bruce Wayne, now fully an adult, sits down at a meeting of Wayne Enterprises.  We can see Lucius Fox seated near him, just as another reminder of how this man surrounds himself with allies.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  The Caballero, at a press conference, the Mexican flag flapping behind him.

CAPTION: He had himself elected, in this new guise, as the president of Mexico.  The details of how he accomplished this would no doubt be quite interesting.  No one knew who he was, that he wasn’t even Mexican.  Perhaps he succeeded to the office by assassinating his predecessor.  Perhaps he started out in the vice presidency.  Once ensconced, he had the resources to tighten his grip, unchallenged, unquestioned.

 

PAGE TWELVE

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Batman observing a smoking Metropolis.  He is there physically, perched on a tall building.  Down below we can just barely see what he’s looking at, amid the rubble.

CAPTION: The darkest day I ever saw was the day a Superman died.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Caballero is watching on television.

CAPTION: I believe what he saw was…opportunity.

 

PAGE THIRTEEN

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Batman attending the funeral of Superman.  Among the mourners we can see Bloodwynd, Guy Gardner, and Firehawk.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Caballero is surrounded by consultants, who range from scientists to politicians to supervillains (none specifically).
 

PAGE FOURTEEN

Panel 1
Batman panel, blue.  Batman embraces Superman, returned from the grave.  (As with the original comics, Superman sports his long hair, the “super mullet.”)

CAPTION: For a lot of people, his return from the dead was so swift, it almost began to seem as if it had never happened at all.  Life returned to normal, and…our efforts began to seem routine.  Expected.  Easy to take for granted.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Caballero is again watching television, Superman soaring in the air, surrounded by the Big Seven version of the Justice League depicted by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter.

CAPTION: The White Martian crisis occurred on both our worlds.  On this one it…gave the Caballero an idea.

PAGE FIFTEEN

Panel 1

Batman panel, blue.  Batman in the Batcave, analyzing information at his massive computer banks.  I realize that, perhaps, a modern Batcave probably doesn’t need massive computer banks, but I love the imagery.

CAPTION: I became aware of what was happening here, what was going to happen, completely separately from the identity of my doppelganger.  My allies had discovered the theft of a corpse, the most famous corpse and the one everyone hoped would at last remain one forever, and I traced it here, and from there only one conclusion was possible, only one thing that would matter.

Panel 2

Caballero panel, brown.  Caballero, back in the present, repeating the last thing we heard him say.

CABALLERO: I released the beast before you ever entered this house.

CAPTION: This madman was no longer anything I recognized in myself.  He had perverted everything that Bruce Wayne had ever meant.  His world had ended, for him, in that alley, and he had determined to end it for everyone else…

 

PAGE SIXTEEN

Panel 1 (splash)

Doomsday, roaring.

TITLE: "Bat out of Hell"

WRITER: Tony Laplume 

 

Crisis Weekly #17

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

A darkened panel, but you can still glimpse Batman pulling on his cowl.

Panel 2

Pulling back now, Batman is stalking forward in a darkened corridor.  His hands are holding the sides of his cape, as if he’s fluffing it out.

BATMAN: Caballero.

Panel 3
Batman continues his march down the dark corridor, his arms now down at his sides, his cape flush against him, probably wrapped around.

BATMAN: You have successfully made yourself a target of the Batman.

Panel 4

Batman’s march continues.  One hand emerges from the envelope of his cape, clutching a batarang.

BATMAN: Congratulations are in order. 

BATMAN: You have managed to discover a novel approach.

TITLE: “Seven Nation Army”

WRITER: Tony Laplume
 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Exterior shot.  This makes it clear that we are once more at the Mexican presidential home of Los Pinos.  It is nighttime.

Panel 2

Batman has entered the executive office of the Caballero.  The Caballero waits patiently at his desk.

BATMAN: It took time, confirming what I had suspected from the start.

Panel 3

Batman continues his approach toward the Caballero, who remains immobile, inscrutable under his luchador mask.

BATMAN: I came here for a different purpose entirely, to prevent a tragedy I had…experienced…once before.

BATMAN: A tragedy I had been unable to prevent before.

BATMAN: A tragedy that has yet to occur again.

BATMAN: For the moment.

Panel 4

Batman has now placed his hands, and the batarang, on the Caballero’s desk, with his most frightful menacing look.  The Caballero has still yet to react.

BATMAN: My suspicions were unrelated, at the time unimportant.

BATMAN: Merely an intellectual curiosity.

Panel 5

Batman has removed his hands from the desk, leaving the batarang behind.  The Caballero has yet to make a move, although he now eyes the batarang.

BATMAN: As have others, I believed the true menace to be elsewhere.

BATMAN: But here you were, hiding in plain sight all along…

 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

Batman has lashed out, ripping the luchador mask from the Caballero’s head, revealing…

BATMAN: …Bruce Wayne.

Panel 2

The Caballero has stood up.  He and Batman are glaring at each other.

Panel 3

The Caballero has reached for the batarang as he walks around his desk.

Panel 4

Now Batman and the Caballero are standing face-to-face, with nothing in-between them.

Panel 5

Close-up of their faces, from the side, as Batman removes his cowl, making it perfectly clear that Bruce Wayne is standing in front of Bruce Wayne.  This whole time, Crisis Weekly has been unfolding on a parallel Earth!
 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

The Caballero is flinging the batarang away.

Panel 2

We see a close-up of the batarang sticking into a wall.

Panel 3

Batman and the Caballero continue their confrontation.

CABALLERO: Fascinating.  I always wondered how things might’ve turned out differently.

CABALLERO: I’ve no idea why you would have come all the way here to facilitate such a discovery for me, but I assure you, the thought is appreciated.

 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

The Caballero leaps at Batman, his hands reaching for Batman’s throat.

CABALLERO: Ahhh!

Panel 2

Batman has quickly placed his own hands around his throat just as the Caballero’s have reached their mark.

Panel 3

Batman tumbles backwards, the Caballero’s hands still locked in his.

Panel 4

Batman has landed on the floor and is flinging the Caballero over.

Panel 5

The Caballero lands roughly on his back as Batman twists around to get back into fighting position.

Panel 6

But the Caballero has gotten his feet up and is ramming them into Batman’s chest.
 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

The Caballero has leaped back to his feet and is swinging a fist at Batman.

Panel 2

The Caballero connects with another solid hit.  These are all body blows.

Panel 3

The Caballero connects again.

Panel 4

Batman catches one of the Caballero’s swinging fists.

Panel 5

The Batman lands one of his own hits, right in the Caballero’s face.

Panel 6

The Caballero is reaching for the imbedded batarang.

Panel 7

The Caballero swings the batarang wildly at Batman, who’s moving his finned gauntlets toward his face to protect himself.
 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Batman knocks the batarang out of the Caballero’s hand.

Panel 2

Batman hurdles himself into the Caballero.

Panel 3

They crash through the Caballero’s desk.

Panel 4

Batman struggles to his feet.  The Caballero looks out of it for a moment.
 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Batman stands staring at the Caballero, still laying amid the ruins of his own desk.

Panel 2

Batman continues to stand as the Caballero begins to stir, speaking in a shaky voice.

CABALLERO: You know, as fun as this was, it was also quite…

CABALLERO: Pointless.

Panel 3

Close-up of the battered Caballero, smiling madly.

CABALLERO: I released the beast before you ever entered this house.

Crisis Weekly #16

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

Jack Ryder is knocking on the door of a typical suburban home.

JACK RYDER: Hello?

Panel 2

Jack Ryder continues to knock.  By his emerging irritation it’s implied that he’s been knocking for a while already as we’ve caught up with him.

JACK RYDER: Hello?  Is there anyone home?

Panel 3

Jack is looking down at the door handle now.  He continues to knock while holding the handle with his other hand.

JACK RYDER: Mrs. Takai?  You promised me an exclusive!

JACK RYDER: Hello?

Panel 4

Focus on the hand that’s on the handle, as he’s apparently been turning it, and just discovered that it was unlocked and the door has opened.

JACK RYDER: Oh.

TITLE: “Viva la Vida”

WRITER: Tony Laplume
 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Pan back out as we see Jack taking a quick look around him, trying not to look suspicious.  Despite his words we don’t see anyone at the door; he’s just covering his tracks.

JACK RYDER: Thanks for letting me in.

Panel 2

Jack is entering the house now.

JACK RYDER: Right.  Okay.

Panel 3

Jack begins to look around.  This is one of those homes that looks more like a showroom than someplace where people actually live.

JACK RYDER: Hello?

Panel 4

Jack hears something and turns his head in that direction.

SFX: Creeek

JACK RYDER: Hello?  Is there anyone there?  Mrs. Takai?  You promised me an exclusive?

Panel 5

Jack hears a sound coming from another direction and looks that way.

SFX: Wooosh

JACK RYDER: I’m…beginning to think I’ve been had.

 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1 (splash)

The source of the sounds has dramatically made its presence known: the biggest Man-Bat we’ve seen yet!  And it’s swooped right in front of Jack!  And Jack is in the midst of transforming into the Creeper!

JACK RYDER: Ahh!

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

Jack has now transformed completely into the Creeper and is tussling with the Man-Bat.

Panel 2

Jack’s battle with the Man-Bat continues.  They’re banging into things, smashing all those pretty showroom features.

Panel 3

Jack’s battle with the Man-Bat continues.

Panel 4

Jack’s battle with the Man-Bat continues.
 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1

The Man-Bat suddenly stops fighting as a loud whistle sound rings through the house.

SFX: Wooo-oo

Panel 2

Two sets of feet are coming down a staircase (which has a huge gap from being smashed into at some point during the preceding fight).  There’s also an audible clicking sound.

SFX: Click!

Panel 3

We see that the feet belong to Bulletproof, Rachel Rogerson, and Ezrah.  Ezrah is holding a device in his hand that he has just used, his thumb still pressed on it.

EZRAH: That should be enough.

Panel 4

Jack, still the Creeper, is looking around all the more frantically now.

JACK RYDER: What?  What’s going on here?

Panel 5

Ezrah is pointing toward a red dot on a picture frame.

EZRAH: You just went worldwide on the internet, Jack.  How does it feel?

Panel 6

The Man-Bat, or we should say Woman-Bat as we’re about to discover, flies over to Bulletproof and Ezrah, looking suddenly like an adoring pet.

EZRAH: Let’s have some proper introductions, shall we?

EZRAH: Jack, this is my pal Betty.

Panel 7

Focus on Jack, scowling.
 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1 (splash)

Bulletproof and Ezrah are riding on the back of Betty, soaring through the sky.  Night is approaching.

EZRAH: I told you it’d work.

 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

The trio continues to fly.

BULLETPROOF: So that’s it?  That’s the end of Jack’s career as a so-called journalist?  The end of his harassing of the superhero community?

Panel 2

The trio continues to fly.

EZRAH: For now, anyway.

ERAH: Cockroaches and all.

Panel 3

The trio continues to fly.  It’s getting darker.

EZRAH: The only thing that’s for certain is that nothing’s for certain.

Panel 4

The trio continues to fly.

EZRAH: He just lost a massive amount of credibility, that’s all.  But the people that took him seriously before are still going to listen to what he has to say.  It’s everyone else, the bandwagon folk that started paying attention later, who’ll be affected.  All they’ll see is doubt now.  If this is the guy who kept warning us about White Martians, and suddenly he’s caught looking more or less like one himself…

Panel 5

The trio continues to fly.

BULLETPROOF: Yeah.  Wish it was easier.

EZRAH: Nothin’s easy, Rachel.

 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

The trio continues to fly.  It’s fully night now.  The moon is shining near them.

BULLETPROOF: I just want one thing that’s simple, one thing that doesn’t make me crazy.

Panel 2

The trio continues to fly.  A silent panel.

Panel 3

The trio continues to fly.

EZRAH: You have me, Rachel.

Panel 4

The trio continues to fly.

BULLETPROOF: The son of the Caballero.  You’ve been reading the headlines, haven’t you?  Dad’s in a lot of trouble these days.  Cornered.  Liable to start WWIII any minute.

Panel 5

The trio continues to fly.

BULLETPROOF: But you know I love you, Ezrah. 

Crisis Weekly #15

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

A foot.

Panel 2

A black panel.  Like last week we’re simulating movement in a nine-panel grid pattern.  This time we’re observing Bloodwynd’s limp.  As you will recall, last time we saw him in the spotlight (Crisis Weekly #9) we learned he has a prosthetic leg.  I indicated on the ninth page that installment that it was the left leg that was shattered and later amputated, so it’s the right foot we’re seeing every other panel.

Panel 3

A foot.

Panel 4

A black panel.

Panel 5

A foot.

Panel 6

A black panel.

TITLE: “House of the Rising Sun”

Panel 7

A foot.

Panel 8

A black panel.

WRITER: Tony Laplume

Panel 9

A foot.
 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

Now we see Bloodwynd’s complete figure, from the back.  It’s clear that he’s limping, leaning heavily on his remaining leg.  He’s walking down the sidewalk.  It’s dawn, the sky showing blood red.  (That’s, ah, some subtle symbolism right there, in two ways.  “Red skies in morn, sailors warn.”  And the red skies of Crisis on Infinite Earths.)

CAPTION: Some days, I feel the absence of my left leg more.

Panel 2

We continue to watch Bloodwynd walk, but the vantage point is rotating.  We’re going to be seeing him more from the front as we go along.  We can see his hands bracing some imaginary object as he balances on his prosthetic.

CAPTION: Some days, it’s harder to tolerate the pain.  Some days it’s harder to forget what was taken from me.

Panel 3

The image continues to rotate as we now see Bloodwynd in profile, as he lands less heavily on his good leg than before.

CAPTION: I have to remind myself to walk straighter.

Panel 4

Bloodwynd walking steadily, no apparent problem here.

CAPTION: Someone once told me a Green Lantern ring takes a great deal of pain and effort to use, even if it doesn’t look likes it.

Panel 5

Bloodwynd, still in profile, is approaching the building where Bloodwynd Investigations is housed.  As we saw in classic gumshoe fashion previously on the door leading to his offices, that name is in fact on the door he’s opening now, in modest letters.

CAPTION: There isn’t room for pity in a superhero’s life, even one who is retired.

CAPTION: Mostly.

 

PAGE THREE

Panel 1

An image of Bloodwynd walking stairs.  You can imagine that it takes a great deal of effort, but again we see him giving no indication of discomfort or pain, his steely resolve once again dominating. 

CAPTION: Recently I was visited by a girl, no older than high school age, who told me something extraordinary, and introduced me to someone equally so.

Panel 2

Bloodwynd is now walking into his offices, holding the door handle as he goes.

CAPTION: Her name, as she gave it, was Bulletproof.  A superhero.  She handed me, perhaps, the last pieces of the puzzle.

BLOODWYND: Gentlemen.

Panel 3

We’re looking at Bloodwynd’s back again.  Assembled in front of him are Guy Gardner (once again in his yellow costume), Zion, and Iron Joe. 

CAPTION: After careful consultation with the president, I mobilized the CRU, the Crisis Response Unit.

GUY GARDNER: Took you long enough, pal.

ZION: Joe.

IRON JOE: Nice place you have here.

 

PAGE FOUR

Panel 1

A shot of the group conversing.

BLOODWYND: You all know what is at stake, our objective.

GUY GARDNER: Free the wetback.

BLOODWYND: Guy.

GUY GARDNER: What?  I’m joking!  You know me.  Don’t believe what the media says.  But…believe everything else.

ZION: Believe the hype.  Yeah. 

ZION: Sometimes I just want to punch you.  Just so you know.

Panel 2

The group continues to converse.

BLOODWYND: Now, I have a limited ability to mask our appearances.

GUY GARDNER: We’re gonna look like Man-Bats.  Personally I’m sick of Man-Bats.

IRON JOE: It’s not about what you look like, Guy.  You of all people ought to understand that.

Panel 3

Focus on Iron Joe.

IRON JOE: Anyway.  There’s something you should know. 

IRON JOE: The Russians have a centaur.

Panel 4

Guy enters the frame with Iron Joe.

GUY GARDNER: Our resident Russkie.  Awesome.  Thanks for that totally relevant intel.

IRON JOE: I was in Moscow for a reason.  We’re not just here to rescue El Dorado.  We’re the team tasked with mobilizing on his captor, too.  We’re going to need all the help we can get.

Panel 5

Focus on Zion.

ZION: Iron Joe’s got a point.  Moving against the Caballero won’t be easy, regardless of what we accomplish today.

Panel 6

Focus on Guy, looking smug.

GUY GARDNER: Whatever.  Enough chitchat.

GUY GARDNER: Let’s do this.

 

PAGE FIVE

Panel 1 (splash)

Some sort of hi-tech jet cutting through the air.

CAPTION: These are dangerous times. 

CAPTION: Not every crisis is obvious.  In the past we have been confronted with enemy forces far more directly.

CAPTION: It was easier to tell who the bad guys were, the confluence of worlds more spectacular.

CAPTION: There is more happening than is apparent.

CAPTION: There is, to use a phrase from pop culture, a man behind the curtain.

 

PAGE SIX

Panel 1

Three members of the CRU are now emerging from the jet masked as Man-Bats, shrieking.

Panel 2

We see Zion in the cockpit of the jet, watching his colleagues descend.  There is still a vast expanse of sky around them.  They’ve pulled this off high above the ground.

Panel 3

Our three Man-Bats are being greeted by other Man-Bats.  They’re all shrieking.

Panel 4

The Man-Bats are all flying off together.  Clearly the ruse has worked.  The jet is nowhere to be seen.  It flew off well before the meet-up.
 

PAGE SEVEN

Panel 1

Now the Man-Bats have entered the bunker where El Dorado is being held, flying down a corridor.

Panel 2

One of the Man-Bats is shrieking again as they approach the door to the room where El Dorado is being held.

Panel 3

The door has been opened and we see El Dorado, still strapped to a chair, in a pitiable state.  We see one of the Man-Bats flying away.

Panel 4

One of the Man-Bats, obviously from the CRU, is holding El Dorado’s magic cape now, rejoining the group.

Panel 5

A Man-Bat is shredding El Dorado’s bonds while the one holding the cape is tossing it at him.

Panel 6

The Man-Bats who aren’t part of the CRU finally realize they’ve been had and are turning on them.

Panel 7

El Dorado catches his cape.

Panel 8

He’s pulling the cape around the CRU, transforming back into their original forms, as the Man-Bats shriek and attack around them.

Panel 9

The Man-Bats are now alone, with mystified expressions on their faces.
 

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Zion is looking behind him in the cockpit.  There’s nothing there yet.

Panel 2

Now the caped unit of El Dorado and the CRU has appeared in that space.

ZION: Welcome back.

Panel 3

El Dorado has collapsed.

Panel 4

Zion has turned back to the controls.

ZION: Gotta say, a lot of people would have assumed only Batman could’ve pulled this off.

Panel 5

Spotlight on Guy Gardner.

GUY GARDNER: Who the hell is Batman?