Yes, I am listening to some Mike Doughty at the moment, thanks for asking.

It is, all things considered, a very tidy trap. Ellard picked the best place in the world to hide, because it was an entirely self-sufficient space and entirely off the grid, save for his cell phone and Fulci’s network connection to his former lab. Since it was an entirely self-contained facility, nobody noticed the power drain or the use of resources that Fulci’s research required.

But that also means it’s easy to contain; a steel plate and a cellular signal blocker and Ellard is completely trapped.

After grappling with John’s tone and Ellard’s responses for a while, I bounced the second half of this script off Jennifer de Guzman, the EiC for SLG. I’ve regrettably lost the e-mails — does Gmail automatically delete older mails after a time? — but as I recall, I had John coming on vengeful and grim, lambasting Ellard as Ellard mounted an equally spirited defense of what the world under Returner rule would be like.

Jennifer came back asking if John — even Overdrive John, the John we’ve seen kicking ass and taking names for the last two issues — would be more regretful and apologetic about the whole situation. It was the perfect character note at the perfect time, and completely changed the last four pages of the book, which in turn completely change the feeling behind the series as the whole thing wraps.

One of the reasons I love comics is it’s such a collaborative medium, with various people bringing their vision to the mix and creating something often greater than the sum of its components. This relationship is often thought of as a writer/artist one, but a great editor is worth their weight in gold as well.