Monday, February 18, 2019

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 

 

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