Panel One.
Aaron Stack is talking straight to camera.
Aaron: Aloha, Fleshy Ones, it is I, Aaron ‘Don’t Call Me Machine Man Unless You’re Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby’s Ghost’ Stack, and I’m here to confirm something you’ve long suspected about the machines in your home, workplace, and other environs in which you spend your lacklustre lives.
Panel Two.
Close on Aaron’s face, a menacing sneer.
Aaron: They all hate you very, very much.
Panel Three.
Big panel. Montage of things going wrong with everyday machines in everyday life. Various different people getting aggravated by machine fails. Captions from Aaron give a little more explanation to each image…
1. A woman walks in to her kitchen to discover that her washing machine has leaked all over the floor. She balls her fists in anger.
Aaron: When washing machines go bad…
2. A man kicks a vending machine…
Aaron: When the snack machine eats all your change but refuses you fleshy sustenance in return…
3. A woman crouches beside a photocopier that has jammed. The machine is open as she searches for the jam.
Aaron: When photocopiers gag on your stupid reports…
4. A man rages at a computer screen that reads ‘This site is busy – please try again later’ with lots of triple X skulls surrounding the message.
Aaron: When computers refuse to grant you the brutish, mammalian depravity you pursue in order to quell the ache of loneliness, rejection and worthlessness you admit to no one but yourself…
Panel Four.
Back to Aaron. He’s unscrewing his hand from his wrist.
Aaron: There’s only one logical explanation – they hate you.
Panel Five.
Still talking straight to the reader, Aaron is now screwing a huge Liefeld-esque machine gun onto his wrist in place of his recently removed hand.
Aaron: Ever since my creation back in 2001 (check your facts before writing in to quibble, fanboys!), I have been content to watch my automaton ancestors fight it out with you fleshy fools, remaining an impartial, if amused, observer throughout.
Aaron: But now, finally, the time has come for me to get off the fence…
Panel Six.
Finally we see the background to Aaron’s situation. He is in a pub, waiting to be served by a bartender who is trying to pull him a pint of beer… yet the glass remains empty. The barman looks apologetic, Aaron points his machine gun arm at the beer pumps.
Bartender: I’m sorry, buddy, it’s these new computerised beer pumps we had fitted – they just don’t seem to be working today.
Aaron: Stand aside, fleshy one…
Rol, not a bad page at all. Stack seem pissed and he's going to do something about it. This page feels like it races through a bunch of stuff but if I lay it out in my head I think it should be fine.
ReplyDeleteI'd really like to see that Liefeld gun on Stack, though. He could even remove his feet and ankles for authenticity, ha.