The last seven pages of this comic got rewritten about sixteen times.

The whole comic, something felt off. And, in the first and second drafts of this script, it started around this page: I had Ellard and Fulci waiting, and even in the first draft a double-dipped betrayal where Fulci was going to release a virus that killed everybody on earth, human and Returner alike, because while he hated Returners he didn’t exactly have a shining view of humanity either. The virus would have been Fulci’s great nihilistic middle finger to the whole human and Returner race. It would have been prevented, everyone would have been saved, and Ellard, chastened by nearly committing speciescide, would vow to be a better man. Hugs all round!

Yeah, that didn’t make it past first draft. So, even before I sought advice from editor Jennifer de Guzman, I’d established that I wanted to play the Ellard/Fulci plot straight, with Fulci acting in good faith making an anti-Returner virus, and Ellard planning to release it to “save humanity.” It was clean, and even I have a point where I have to stop injecting new plot elements and twists.

But when you have a killer airborne virus and a guy that’s all ready to release it, how do you stop him?

I had to look at the problem from a couple of angles. Strangely enough, the answer came from a great comic by Kyle Baker.

This comic owes everything to The Cowboy Wally Show.

Additional note: There’s a good bit about Ellard’s phone ringing in the script below; Roy took that and improved the idea even more by having the now-intert Fulci in the foreground.