Retrovision

Retrovision

By: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis

Summary: This is a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits meets Super Speed Superhero story. It is about Accelero, a hero endowed with the ability of super-speed. He is fighting one if his lesser villains, Devlos, a weak character with the ability to create distorted reflections of the people he fights against, a C-Lister that isn’t threatening enough to warrant more than one encounter to fully decommission. His suit is mostly white, simple, with red lenses spread about his upper body. He stands as a white canvas, to be filled with misleading imagery that confuses the opponent as to the real identity of the man he is facing. It’s a one-trick pony show, really. Metaphorically, he is a revolver loaded with a single bullet...until his power surprises both him and Accelero by provoking an end of the world-type scenario, brought about unintentionally.

In a fight with Accelero, Devlos produces a distorted reflection of our hero, a reflection Accelero meets head-on as he runs towards his enemy in high velocity. The reflection confuses Accelero into thinking a new villain has come to his city, one that dismisses the traditional introduction, monologue, and dives straight into the fight, fists first. What Accelero doesn’t know is that he is actually fighting his own reflection, the one Devlos created. Accelero is going so fast he’s basically just run into his own distorted reflection and started fighting with it, like a record skipping on the same beat only to start the same song all over again. In fact, Accelero reaches such high velocities that he’s producing his own light source, one that secures his other version’s presence.

As the fight rages on, Accelero speeds up. And as he speeds up, we see reality begins to deteriorate, to slowly begin to tear. Accelero’s fight is ripping at the fabric of reality by dragging reality’s color with him as he runs. He is slowly erasing parts of existence with every lap, with every punch he lands on a reflection that is truly himself. Devlos realizes what he’s done, the thing he has accidently provoked by underestimating the extent of a simple power well used. The whole thing is a lesson in untapped potential, in the destructiveness of inventiveness when met with a power that doesn’t respond to the traditional BOOMs and ZAPs that we expect from more threatening villains.

It is with reality shifting to a simply-drawn black and white image of itself that Devlos begins to understand that his latest attempt at crime might be his last, regardless of his simpler, less sinister intentions. Devlos must reconsider his identity, if only momentarily. He must come to terms with the possibility life has forced him into a position that caters to a degree of action unexpected of him: that of saving a superhero from himself, from ending it all in as definite a way as they come.

Script: Retrovision

Page 1 (Eight panels, paired in twos—2 up top, 2 in the upper middle, 2 in the lower middle, and 2 in the bottom)

Page 1, first draft. By Ramón Serrano.

Panel 1: This is a side-shot of our main character, Accelero, running at high speeds (leaving a trail of afterimages of him running behind him—this always accompany the character, trails of his actions). He’s running so fast the background is a blur. Accelero is also blurred, not fully focused (this is to account for the fact of his high speed). We’re in downtown, New Liberty City. The scene is set to around the biggest building in the city which stands in its center, Aurora Tower. It looks like something taken straight out of Metropolis. It stands in the middles of a large square, surrounded by smaller buildings. There’s a main road that comes up to it and runs around it (think of Times Square but with a single building in its center). It is has various HD screens running up the building, very much like the One Times Square Building in Times Square. It is very flashy and our hero is running around it in circles, fighting against something. Accelero is dressed in a full blue and red body suit (more blue than red), fully covered except for his eyes and lower face area. His suit has black lines running through it. They look like circuitry, making Accelero look like a stylized science experiment. He is a Flash-like character, super speed being his power. He is fighting a black and yellow version of himself (more black than yellow) that he’s confused with a new supervillain, a rising challenger who must be brought to justice. What will be revealed later on is that he is really fighting himself, a bad reflection of himself made by a supervillain with a lame superpower: that of projecting distorted reflections of the people he confronts (like a mirror that purposefully shows the other person’s potential for ugliness). The supervillain’s name is Dan Devlos and he has just broken a superhero.

Devlos VO: What would you like to see if you ever got to witness the end of the world?

Panel 2: Black panel.

Devlos VO: I’ve always preferred to imagine it as something opposed to the biblical. No horsemen. No fallen angels. The Apocalypse is a taste I was never interested in acquiring. It tries too hard.

Panel 3: Black panel.

Devlos VO: Science never did it for me either. I could never truly appreciate the totality of a comet’s destruction or the vindictive feel of an earthquake ripping everything apart from the inside. Too clichéd.

Panel 4: Same as panel 1 but with Accelero’s black version running in the opposite direction, as if in direction of the original Accelero. He is also out of focus, blurred (and he also leaves a trail of afterimages behind). This is the state both Acceleros will be in, blurred. The point is they are running so fast that we can’t ever really get a good glimpse of them. Think of Flash in Kingdom Come. We only get a good look of them should they ever come to a full stop. Only then.

Devlos VO: I guess I hoped for something more original.

Panel 5: Close-up of the original Accelero’s punch. It is blurred, not fully there. It is obviously directed at his reflection.

Devlos VO: Something that didn’t quite look like it had come out of a movie.

Panel 6: Black panel.

Devlos VO: I wanted to watch the world erase itself, doing away with its existence like a snake shedding its skin for the last time…

Panel 7: Black panel.

Devlos VO: …or a superhero tearing at the fabric of reality by mistake.

Panel 8: Close-up of Accelero’s (black version) punch. It is also blurred, an after image of a punch. The punch, in this case is directed towards the real Accelero, in the opposite direction.

Devlos VO: To watch reality break. To watch it all truly begin to disappear, well…

Page 2

Single-page shot: This is a big shot of the Accelero’s, both a blur (an after image of themselves), punching each other at the same time. We see the impact of the hit is so great that glass is breaking around them, the screens showing advertisements from the Aurora building are all shattering. We see trailing lines behind them, after images of where they were moments ago, fractions of a second ago.

Devlos VO: …that would be a sight to behold.

Page 3

Panel 1: We’re behind Devlos as he looks at the immensity of the speed streaks left in the wake of Accelero’s fight against himself. We see policemen pointing their guns at Devlos as he looks on, indifferent to their presence there. One of the policemen will talk to Devlos. He is tall but fat, a man past his prime yet still imposing. The speed trails take up a lot of the scenery in front of Devlos. Accelero is running so fast that trails almost resemble an unstable wall colored red, blue, black, and yellow (to account for the colors Accelero is shifting through). Devlos is dressed in a full white bodysuit that covers everything except his lower face area. There is no definition to the suit, just a black outline accounting for the character’s bodily dimensions. Devlos’ power is to produce distorted reflections of the people he goes up against. He confuses his enemies by projecting distorted reflections of themselves on his suit (this is why the suit is white and devoid of any kind of definition, just a white canvas reserved for distortions). The reflections come from a big red circular chest piece that he straps around his torso (double strapped). There is an additional red lens attached to each hand, right in their palms (dead center). The reflection, then, is projected over his body, like an additional thin layer of skin superimposed on him. He has black circular-rimmed goggles with red lenses on them as well, to balance the costume out and to account for his ability to produce full body projections. Devlos comes across as a weak character given his ability, a C-list villain. His power can be seen as very ineffective and not entirely threatening. But that is precisely the point. This non-threatening villain produced a distorted reflection of a superhero that confused him enough to think his own reflection was actually a new villain that needed to be stopped. In other words, Devlos’ ability proved to be enough to confuse Accelero into fighting against himself, producing a chain reaction of events that can result in our superhero tearing reality apart and thus erasing existence.

Devlos VO: I never expected to co-write the whole thing. I’m still hoping I can prevent being credited for that.

Fat Policeman: Hands up, asshole!

Panel 2: Front-shot of Devlos as he looks at what he’s done slack-jawed. He can’t believe he broke his nemesis and that he might actually have to save him to keep reality from falling apart.

Devlos VO: Then again, preventing that might mean I would have to save a man that very much deserves to remain in the state he’s in.

Panel 3: Shot of the police officer that spoke pistol-whipping Devlos across his face.

Devlos VO: Useless.

Devlos: No, please. You don’t---

Panel 4: Over the shoulder shot of the policeman pointing his gun at Devlos who is on the ground. The shot is from the policeman’s perspective, so we’re looking down at Devlos. Devlos has his hand raised (which means we see the red lens on the palm of his hand), as if to prevent the police officer from shooting him or hitting him again. He looks scared. Blood is coming out of his mouth and dripping onto the ground.

Devlos: Stop! Please…

Panel 5: Close-up on Devlos eyes. He’s pleading, negotiating. He’s about to inform the police officer they need him to fix Accelero, to un-break him.

Devlos: You need me.

Page 4 (we can flip this page sideways, so it reads horizontally)

Single page shot: This is a top-down shot of Accelero running in circles around the Aurora building, focusing more on the actual speed streaks produced by his running (which resembles a small tornado forming around the building). The point of this shot is to visually explain the dynamics of Acccelero’s fight against himself. As stated earlier, this part of the fight is taking place around the Aurora building. Accelero is running circles around it, changing into the other version of himself halfway. In terms of the fight’s logic, Accelero’s original version throws a punch that he then runs back to receive on the other end as his alternate version. The same goes the other way around, Evil Accelero throws a punch he runs back to receive as Good Accelero, changing versions halfway. It will be explained that Accelero is running so fast he is creating his own light source. This means that what Accelero is ultimately fighting is an illusion of himself, one that is created by the high levels of velocity he reaches by act of running. Of course, this illusion was instigated by Devlos, who created a distorted version of our hero whilst in a battle that should’ve ended quite differently. This will have reality-threatening consequences and will be explained later on.

Back to our scene. Given we have a big establishing shot of Accelero running circles around the aurora building (focusing more on the speed streaks), lets extract four small panels from Accelero’s run that slow the fight down so we can get a good look at what’s happening amidst the impossibly fast sequence of events. They will be organized in circular motion so as to account for the run's trajectory (to keep it somewhat symmetrical). Our first panel will show both versions of Accelero punching each other (both still much of a blur). Our second panel will show Good Accelero running back, in the opposite direction of the fight. Our third panel will show Good Accelero hallway turning into Evil Accelero (make this image stand out). And our last panel will show Evil Accelero running towards the panel where both versions are fighting.

Devlos VO: There’s a reason Greek gods only had one true, definitive power. It kept them in check, their limits well defined. Sure, Zeus could shape-shift into animals or other people, but lightning was his true power, the thing that defined both his strengths and his weaknesses. Dionysus could turn water into wine, a formidable kind of power if we take the aphrodisiac to be a symbol of influence and politics. But there is something else about the god of wine, a reversal. He was also the god of madness. You see, there is something oddly peculiar that comes with bearing that title: a commanding force over reality. I never expected Accelero to be one for the classics. Super speed was power enough. But it seems he has found, thanks to me, that he shares more of a resemblance with Dionysus than he does with the other gods. I mean what else is a superhero who is fighting against a reflection of himself if not mad?