Kyle Baker is, in my opinion, just about the most underrecognized talents in comics.
I first became aware of his work because I loved the Shadow pulp novels as a kid, and picked up the Helfer & Sienkiewicz (another tragically underrecognized talent) Shadow series from DC when it started up. When Baker took over the title, I was initially put off — what the hell were all these people with giant weird mouths doing yelling all over my creepy gritty Shadow comic? But it only took to the end of the first arc to be firmly in love with Kyle Baker, and ever since then I’ve been a huge fan of everything he’s put out. His Plastic Man series a few years back was pure genius; his one-shots and personal projects are all some of the best things in the industry.
So I’m wondering how to prevent Ellard from releasing his crazy virus and killing all the Returners on the planet, and I think of Kyle Baker and The Cowboy Wally Show, and “Sands of Blood”, the French Foreign Legion epic film within the comic.
And I realize that, as Wally would say, the answer is remarkably simple.
“It’s a fort!
Close the door!”
PANEL ONE
ELLARD
Think, John. Undying billionaires in Arctic mansions, issuing orders to every continent. Returner soldiers fighting wars that never end.
PANEL TWO
ELLARD
Media dominated by people that never sleep, never eat, never get sick. A dead world.
JOHN (phone)
Or just another phase of life, Ellard.
PANEL THREE
JOHN (phone)
You can't just kill us all.
ELLARD
Yes I can. I like you, John. Really, I do. But you're just a memory of a man. A dead psychologist. Synapses firing, reflex actions.
PANEL FOUR
ELLARD holds up a vial: open, uncorked.
ELLARD
You're not alive. You just think you are. But I'm going to fix that.
PANEL FIVE
ELLARD
I've released a virus, one Fulci developed. You've lost. It's over.
JOHN (phone)
So there is a virus.
ELLARD
Oh yes. And you can't stop it now.
PANEL SIX
JOHN, in the hall, takes his glasses off. His cataract eye is totally blank.
JOHN
Yes I can.
