Well, as predicted last time, I’m off on holiday adventures, and not really available to pound out a typical installment of this Newsletter for you. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve left you emptyhanded. So think of this edition as a little piece of coal in your stocking for this Christmas—and remember that coal can be used to heat your home.

Behind the Curtain

I’m going to dedicate a bunch of my space this week to sharing this next bit with you, because it’s going to require it. And as this wasn’t my project, I really don’t know the specifics of how this all happened. But what I’m about to show you is a series of pages created by two different artists from the same script.

The project in question was an X-FORCE/DEADPOOL project titled TIME TO DIE, written by Duane Swierczynski in 2014. At one point, it was going to be illustrated by Rob Liefeld. Rob seems to have drawn a good chunk of the first issue before whatever happened happened. I have five such pages in my possession: Pages 3, 12-14 and 16. Here they are now:

For whatever reason, the series got re-assigned to Pepe Larraz, who had to draw his own version of the same material. And here are Pepe’s versions of Pages 3, 12-14, 16:

And just for the sake of completeness, so you can see just what each artist was working from, here’s Duane’s script for Pages 3, 12-14 and 16 as well:

PAGE THREE

1/ Cut to Deadpool running across the lawn, twisting his body around to avoid every single musket ball that's whizzing by.

1 DEADPOOL

Somehow, the strange rebel is able to dodge hundreds of musket balls!

2/ New angle as Deadpool leaps into the air, legs spread like an upside-down V as a cannonball goes whizzing right past his junk.

2 DEADPOOL

Cannon balls!

3 DEADPOOL

Oh, this rebel must have such big...

3/ Deadpool smashes through the front door of the mansion as the row of Redcoats scatter in fear.

4 REDCOATS

AAAIIIIIEEEEEEEE

5 DEADPOOL

Sorry. I know that's low-hanging fruit, even for me.

PAGES TWELVE AND THIRTEEN

1/ Double-page spread: Cable, along with WARPATH, BOOM-BOOM, CANNONBALL and DOMINO, sliding through time. What I have in mind is one of those old-school pages where our armored-up heroes are literally falling through the air, ready to kick ass. The only new element: the prototype time machines strapped to their backs. All of them are wearing them (except for Cable, of course, who has his own time machine).

1 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

Someday, these mutants will form the core of Cable's paramilitary team known as...

2 CAP (NARRATOR)

(stylized text)

X-FORCE!

3 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

But today they are merely the toughest, most resourceful mutants Cable can gather at a moment's notice.

4 CAP

James Proudstar, a.k.a. Warpath. Able to snap you in half.

5 CAP

Tabitha Smith, a.k.a. Boom-Boom. Blows stuff up.

6 CAP

Sam Guthrie, a.k.a. Cannonball. Flies like a jet.

7 CAP

Neena Thurman, a.k.a. Domino. Makes her own odds.

8 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

Cable warned them all of the risks of waging war in the past.

9 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

Not only must they repair the damange to the past... and survive... but their memories of the very battle itself must be purged, lest it disrupt the timestream itself.

10 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

None of the team flinched.

PAGE FOURTEEN

1/ We cut back to 1777. Deadpool is positioned near a window, sniper rifle in his hand, on the top floor of the mansion. Also in the room is another British general -- hogtied and gagged and struggling.

1 TIME CAP

(Colonial font)

1777

2 DEADPOOL

Ah, quit yer flinchin', me old mucker.

3 DEADPOOL

I'm not after you. It's your British Army buddies, and they should be here soon.

2/ New angle as a nervous DP consults his marble-patterned copybook -- while still holding on to the sniper rifle.

4 DEADPOOL

Least I think so. All of these friggin' names and dates to keep straight!

5 DEADPOOL

Kill this one, don't kill that one... it's like I'm back in 6th grade again.

6 SFX

THWONGGGG!

3/ Tight on Deadpool's face as it whips to full attention. We can see him smiling under the mask.

7 DEADPOOL

Finally! My tripwire's a-trippin'!

4/ Deadpool assumes a sniper position, waiting for his party to arrive. He's pointing the gun straight at us. A bad-ass image.

8 DEADPOOL

Remember, Wade...

9 DEADPOOL

Don't fire until you see the whites of their thighs.

PAGE SIXTEEN

1/ Warpath yells at the rest of the team as he breaks cover.

1 WARPATH

Take him out! Now!

2/ Cannonball aims his speeding body straight at us (aiming for Deadpool).

2 CANNONBALL

Ah'm on him!

3 SFX

VRRRRMMMMMMMMMMM

4 V/O CAP (NARRATOR)

Though their leader is hit, the team knows what to do: take out the shooter, rescue any hostages.

3/ Deadpool, marble notebook tucked under his arm, shoots the wooden floor beneath his feet.

5 SFX

BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA

6 DEADPOOL

Hey, that's a future historical site you're destroying! The state of Pennsylvania is going to be P.O.'d!

7 DEADPOOL

They're especially not going to be happy about the--

4/ DP drops out of the way just as Cannonball comes blasting into the room, smashing it to smithereens.

8 DEADPOOL

(with descending speech as he falls)

--suuuuuuuun roooooooof!!!

So if nothing else, this gives you the opportunity to see just how two very different artists approach the exact same material . There’s likely a couple of things to be learned here.

Pimp My Wednesday

I may be gone, but the books my office puts out just keep on coming. Doubt you’ll be able to get your hands on these on Wednesday given the holiday, so think of them as a little Boxing Day treat:

EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #4 by Eve L. Ewing and Carmen Carnero. The kinder, gentler X-Men title. And this time out, we’ve got the arrival of new cast member Bobby Drake, Iceman!

X-MEN #9 by Jed MacKay, Ryan Stegman and Federico Vicentini continues our short-but-sweet “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover with UNCANNY. There’s action and fighting aplenty in this one, but also some cool revelations and also some on-point characterization. Guaranteed to set you up for the conclusion in UNCANNY X-MEN #8 in a short while.

ULTRAMAN X AVENGERS #3 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom and Francesco Manna. Now admit it, that’s a cover image that you never thought you’d see and pretty much have to buy, right?

And finally, TIMESLIDE #1 from Steve Foxe and Ivan Fiorelli, which contains a great time-trippy adventure starring Cable and Bishop as well as some looks ahead to events coming down the pike across the Marvel Universe in 2025 and beyond!

A Comic I Worked On That Came Out On This Date

I’m really just spotlighting CAPTAIN MARVEL #2, which came out on December 22 1999, for two reasons. The first of which is that the cover copy made me laugh when I saw it again after all this time. So I’m happy with it, and it sums up the tone of teh series pretty perfectly. And the second is that this is the issue in which I allowed writer Peter David to have lead character Rick Jones openly laugh at the recounting of the origin of the Hulk featured in a 1998 Annual that I had edited that attempted to retcon certain aspects of it whole cloth. I honestly probably shouldn’t have done this, and I’d smack an editor under my command who did right in the head today. But at the time, i was sympathetic to Peter’s strong feeling about having his work dismissed, and was happy to have him back working at Marvel, so i gave him more latitude in this area. Nothing bad really ever came of it, but I still don’t feel great about having done it. Live and learn.

Posted at TomBrevoort.com

Yesterday, I wrote nothing new. I said that at the start, weren’t you paying attention?

And five years ago, I wrote about the Mystery of FANTASTIC FOUR #6

We’re going to have another makeshift Newsletter next time while I deal with New Year’s, so have yourself a good set of holidays, and I’ll check in with you again before too long!

Hat’s All, Folks!

Tom B