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.