Monday, August 10, 2015

Fantastic Four - Family Echoes - Shaun Richens

PAGE ONE - 6 PANELS.

1.1
Close up on REED RICHARDS hand. He holds a whiskey glass, a splash of high class whisky left at the bottom, ice slowly melting around it.

CAPTION REED:
Science was my first love but I’d always vowed that my family mattered most.

1.2
Close up on Reed. His head down as he rubs at his temples with his other hand.

CAPTION REED:
Then I lost them, I forced the space mission, I didn’t want to wait.

CAPTION REED:
I was a damn fool.

1.3
Cut to deep space. JOHNNY STORM in a sci-fi, high tech space suit. He falls through space towards a distant sun. Wreckage of a damaged spacecraft floats around him.

CAPTION REED:
Poor, brave Johnny. He tried to save us. How did I repay him, I just left him up there to burn.

1.4
Cut to. A panel filled with the emptiness of space. A few stars fight against the darkness in a few small areas. More wreckage from the doomed spacecraft litter the scene.

CAPTION REED:
My dear sweet Susan. She, she just vanished without a trace. I had no time to search. The ship was a wreck, breaking apart more with every second.

1.5
Cut to. Interior an intensive care ward. We on focusing on a patient lying in bed. His entire body wrapped in bandages. An oxygen tent around him. Amazing, medical tech all connects to him via cables and tubes.

CAPTION REED:
I got Ben home at least. But at what cost? He’ll never be the same. The man I knew as Ben Grimm died in the stars with the others.

1.6
Cut back to Reed. Wide panel. Reed stands in his lab, go full kirby with this, but a modern twist. Reed is in full lab gear. His back to us. In front of him is a large circular metal portal, it’s made from copper and gold with tints of silver and black iron. This is a door to another dimension - to all other dimensions. A swirling, flowing blue vortex breaths into life at the heart of the portal - it looks almost like liquid.

Reed’s empty whisky glass rests on a worktop near by.

CAPTION REED:
Somewhere out there my friends, my family. They’re alive.

CAPTION REED:

And I will make us whole again.  

3 comments:

  1. Really delightful. One of my favorite things about these characters, especially now that I'm married, is figuring out how they're a family, and that's what I like about this.

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  2. This came completely out of left field, and I love it all the more for it. There's a certain amount of dread, and the last panel seals the deal, what unknown horror awaits now, as Reed tries to get it all back. And based on your imagery, especially the recurring glass of Dutch courage, that search may be a downward spiral at best. Solid page.

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  3. Just love it, Shaun. You set up these haunting scenes extremely well within the confines of our single page, with some dark echoes to how things "should have been", leading to that final moment where you can't help but feel that the best intentions will lead us down the darkest path.

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