You have one week to write a plot contextualizing this panel:
Your synopsis must identify the hand, the foot, explicate the word balloon, and succinctly outline the plot up to and following the panel.
At the end of one week, I will reveal the actual story, which, I guarantee, is much much worse than anything you can possibly come up with.
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The year is 1982 and Universal Pictures has just greenlit the Nascar comedy Stroker Ace, hoping that by reteaming superstar Burt Reynolds and director Hal Needham, they will be able to recapture the magic the duo created with the first two Smokey and the Bandits and both of the Cannonball Runs.
Wanting to add some much needed sex appeal to the mix, the studio hires blond bombshell Loni Anderson to play Reynolds love interest and in the part of his best friend they cast--for reasons best left unimagined--the former Gomer Pyle, Jim Nabors.
This final decision proves to be an enormous mistake, as Nabors has harbored an unhealthy obsession with Anderson ever since they once met at Sammy Davis Jr's annual Hanukkah party. This obsession soon turns to rage as he is forced to watch as a romance blossoms between the busty actress and her bewigged leading man.
As the shoot enters its final week, the awkward Alabama crooner can no longer stand the strain of having his own perverse desires denied to him by the happy couple. Something has to be done. Wanting Anderson for himself, he knows he has to kill Burt Reynolds.
His mind having passed beyond the outer edges of sanity, he dons the suit of his favourite literary icon--Superman--and sneaks into Reynolds trailer, where he waits for the Floridian star to soon return.
Within a few minutes, the trailer door opens and Reynolds walks inside. With a scream of demented fury, Nabors attacks him, only to discover that years of starring in action movies has taught his prey a few tricks. The two of them wage a mighty battle inside the large portable domicile, but finally Reynolds is able mortally wound his deranged attacker, or so he thinks.
Exhausted, Reynolds collapses to the floor, unable to get up as a knock comes from his trailer door.
"Come in," he manages to horsely whisper.
Anderson--clad in the miniskirt and white boots she has been wearing in the scene they've been filming--appears through the doorway and is shocked to find her lover a beaten wreck in the middle of his trashed trailer.
"Bur--" she begins to say as she tries to comprehend the situation, but before she can complete her thought, Jim Nabors jolts back to life and grabs her ankle. She screams and manages to raise her other foot up into the air and bring it down with fatal force upon his head, killing him once and for all.
Concerned about the future of their project, the studio covers up the incident by finding the world's greatest Jim Nabors lookalike, who takes the actor's place both to finish the film and to ensure that no one ever finds out the horrible truth.
Following the completion of the movie, Anderson and Reynolds marry, but eventually the horrible guilt they both feel over what happened that violent night splits them apart and causes them both to lose their minds.
Lady Cop's "Killer in Boots" has replaced his trademark footwear for something less cospicuous (Lady Cop is on his trail!)
He sets out to kill Burt Reynolds for... Some reason... And up until that moment Superman has been cowering under the bed while under the influence of... Uh... Fear-inducing orange Kryptonite?
But as the killer is about to say "Burt Reynolds! Your time has come!" Superman remembers that he's Superman and *takes that sucker out!*
Or something...
Brainiac has broken into the Fortress and knocked out Superman with some hypno-krypto-ray or something.
As Superman is lying there on the floor, Brainiac turns away from the seemingly-dead Superman.
He looks towards a map of the US, and focuses his attention to finding where Metallo is imprisoned, which is BURlington, NJ.
He starts to talk out loud, as villains always, do, "Bur--", just as Superman wakes up, grabs Brainiac's leg, breaks off his foot at the ankle.
Then, later, the Terra Man shows up.
Oh, and between this panel and the next sequence, there's a one-page ad to sell "Grit." ("2nd page following", and all)
While doing the weekly laundry at stately Wayne Manor, Alfred accidentally puts bleach into the wash cycle, and Batman's costume comes out...white. (Yes, it WAS a lot of bleach).
Having no other option, Batman immediately drops Alfred to the floor with a well-placed kick in the face.
Stunned, Alfred reaches out to Batman's ankle, and tries desperately to call his name. Unfortunately, due to his broken jaw, "Bruce" comes out as "Bur..." before he lapses into complete unconciousness.
Superman: "While Brainiac is in the middle of a disgusting belch, initiated by Bismollian chili, I'll just tie his shoelaces together, and--Great Krypton! No shoelaces!!"
Driven mad by Mod Girl's "foot fetish ray," Superman crawls across the floor to remove her right boot and suck on her delicious feet, but as soon as it's off, she commands him to also remove her left boot (where she keeps her trickiest toes). Flexing her naked foot before the prostrate Kryptonian, Mod Girl pretends to be cold, letting out a barely audible "Burr" sound. Superman struggles to put the tantalizing image out of his head and concentrate on the removal of that final white leather boot.
The Crime Syndicate of America (the original one, not Grant Morrison's "Earth-2" revamps) stand around discussing movies, seeing as how this is the only activity they can do together in comic book limbo that doesn't end with them getting into drunken knife-fights with the Inferior Five and Mark Merlin. Superwoman holds that feminist cinema has gone steadily downhill since the popularity of "Sleepless in Seattle" and the numerous movies made in that vein have transformed what could have been an exciting and potentially lucrative genre into just another ho-hum cash cow of the movie industry with cookie cutter stories that would be considered tired and trite by five year olds.
Johnny Quick holds that cinema reached near-perfection in 1974 and has gone steadily downhill since then, because when "Jaws" became popular it started to be all about making money and pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Owlman believes both to be needlessly cynical about modern movies and holds that greatness cannot be forced about by supposed "revolutionaries" who hold one ideal above all others but that a full understanding of the philosophies they adhere to has to come through years of expressing their ideals through the craft of moviemaking, not just complaining about it by holding all movies up to single, largely unattainable set of standards.
Power Ring just goes on about how much the Tim Burton "Batman" films "rawked," so the other three sealed him in a soundproof orange room when he wasn't looking so that didn't have hear him talking about how the climax to the first "Batman" made perfect sense taken on its own merits. Also, they sealed Ultraman in there too after they saw him come home piss drunk threatening to "cut that cottontailed so-and-so" (Hoppy the Marvel Bunny) for cheating him in a game of Poker that happened seven years ago that he just won't get over.
So Power Ring just goes on and on and on and interminably on about the brilliant evocation of "The Elephant Man" Burton achieved, stating "Burton's mastery of film history andhow to subtly use it to forward modern move storytelling challenged everyone who saw that scene, it truly was a quantum leap forward in his talent" was cut short at "Bur--" when Ultraman, at last gaining sobriety, grabbed Power Ring by his ankle and forced him to fall on his face, then beat the living crap out him for twenty minutes with a bottle "Unca Cheeks' Ale Brew" that he still held in his hand, then he passed out mumbling about "rotten fanboys and cheating rabbits" in his sleep.
The year is 1986. The Justice League went missing while investigating a bizarre series of robberies, all connected by the common theme of the Siberian white tiger. A world without heroes... a world without Superman? No. Superman was doing space research on Jupiter. Government sanctioned. Lucky us. Lucky U.S.
421,700 kilometers above Jupiter, on Io a shadowy cabal of intergalactic villains and other law breakers discuss their first triumph over this Solar System's protectors. The trouble that begins with a capital "Tee". Superman was on to them. Even Superman couldn't hear in space though. Sound is waves and waves need a medium to travel through. Earth's mightiest could see them, skulls of various species as their emblems and worse their hideous various paraphernalia and could tell they had more than a hand in the League's disappearance. Before acting, he had to know their plans. So he had to eavesdrop on them. It pays to have the World's Finest Detective and Greatest Tactician to be your good friend and comrade. "If Bruce was here, he'd mutter something by Sun Tzu", he thought as his ultra-sensitive ear was about to touch the villains' ship's hull in order to begin the eavesdropping process. A light engulfed him and he passed out.
A second away Kal finds himself in the room with the bizarre villains. His hands are tied. But... what's this? The ship is powered by a miniature yellow sun... "Lucky me" Clark thinks. He easily breaks his shackles, made from a pink alloy unknown to him. The villains freeze and so does time. When times regains its flow, Superman has fallen to the ground. He's in pain.
The ogre from the 5th dimension is smiling. Maybe sneering. It is unaccustomed to everything normal and indigenous to this universe. While his cronies show their gratitude with bows, they can't help but laugh to each other. The reason is simple. He can't hear, he likes to wear extravagant white footwear and he's chosen the name "Slipper-Slopper". It is the closest his real name could be translated to our universe, without having to use imaginary numbers and genetic codes of chimera species. "Slipper-Slopper" can bend time, around him time is a slippery notion. How ironic. The solid metals and various minerals become oily too. That's why Superman, the Man of Tomorrow, fell.
Slipper-Slopper has trouble digesting anything from this world; hence burping is as natural to him as breath is to normal mammals. Bur--
At that time, the Parliament of Anti-monitors went berserk. Delta Monitor Minus was "elected" (a loose term in the society of Anti-Monitors) Anti-Monitor-Maximus-Eternal. The Eternal part was that bugged him. He had to leave his loved, who was expecting at the time. He had to convince them of his lack of sanity. Everything had been tried, but a true opera of mayhem and oozing futility. The mobs were now rampant. It was evident that he was disqualified and free to live his own life, happy with his family. The future was his and he knew it. He started laughing hysterically, but quickly sobered up, his laughter now a knowing smile. This is my face while I'm ...
THE END
After a bender at one of Bruce Wayne's infamous parties, Superman awoke to find himself on the floor of a Taco Bell in the mid-80s Marvel Universe. Shaking his head, he peered up near the counter only to see the Punisher, wearing his white gloves and boots, mid-order. Judging from the sniper rifle Frank was carrying, Clark assumed the man was robbing the place.
"Two tacos, tostada, burr--"
Superman may have been drunk, but he'd be damned if he was going to let Zatanna ruin another one of his karaoke birthday parties with her screechy backwards rendition of No Scrubs.
He regretted the last five tequila shots now, as he crawled across the stage, arm outstretched. At the time they had seemed necessary. How else could he have gotten through Oliver's brutally heartfelt Broken Arrow, sung, on bended knee, for Black Canary?
No more karaoke parties, he vowed to himself. Next year he was renting the wave pool.
DISCO FEVER!!!
And Supergirl, after doing Los Angeles, decides she'll go muslim if she's not married in 20 years.
"-What do you wear when you're a muslim?", asks her all shores girlfriend.
And the dick in blue arrives, certain that a little brainwashing and genetic experiments can do a whole new gal.
Sure you can kick superman's ass when he is under an orange sun. Who can't? But once you try to burn his Martian Manhunter friend YOU are toast. Why would you want to rule Mars II anyway? Yeesh.
Tired of getting beat by the Flash, the Rogues Gallery relocates to Metropolis. Although woried about Superman, Heatwave insists he has a foolproof plan to avoid the Man of Steel. The others just have to meet him at his new hideout in the Abandoned Warehouse district.
Mirror Master, Capt. Cold, Capt. Boomerang, & Weather Wizard assemble at Heatwave's hideout, the old Johnson's Grill & Boiler factory.
"Okay, we're 'ere ya bloody naff," says Captain Boomerang, who always talks like this, "wot the bloomin' 'eck 've ya bloody well got ta show us, ya bleedin' dingo?"
"Gentleman," says Heatwave, "we have no need to fear from the Man of Steel. You see, he can't hear our footsteps! I've covered all the floors in this warehouse with a new material!"
"What?" asks Capt. Cold, "kryptonite?"
"No," giggled Heatwave.
"Bur-" But before he can say "burbar," Superman swoops in, flies low, and grabs Heatwave's ankle. Within seconds, he makes short work of the Rogues. As he carts them off to jail, he tells them, "Heatwave was right, your footsteps were too soft for my super-hearing. My super-sense of smell, however, detected the peculiar odor of shrimp-on-the-barbie. Since it was nowhere near Auatraliatown, I figured Capt. Boomerang must be in town."
The other Rogues groan, while Boomerang looks embarassed.
"Let that be a lesson to you," says Superman with a grin, "I could crush you all like the insects you are! Bow down to me, human worms!"
Superman flies off laughing with the very pale Rogues in tow.
Previously, on "Prison Break":
Michael Scofield and his brother Lincoln Burroughs had arrived in Panama City and were about to sail away in their boat, the Christina Rose, when Michael received a text message from Sucre that he had found Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. Michael left the boat to pursue this lead, unaware that it was a ruse by Agent Mahone.
This Week: With the aid of the real Sucre, Michael manages to capture T-Bag and is about to turn him in when Bagwell stabs Sucre in the leg and escapes. Michael chases after T-Bag, and manages to follow him to a large building marked "PANAMA CITY COMIC CONVENTION", unaware that both Burrows and Mahone have also traced them to the Comicon. To elude Scofield, T-Bag grabs a spare Doctor Light costume from a nearby dressing room. Michael, in turn, has donned a Batman costume to disguise his presence from Bagwell. Both blend in on the convention floor. Later, Linc also ducks into that same dressing room to avoid Mahone and puts on a Superman costume and a domino mask, momentarily forgetting that Superman doesn't wear a mask. Lifelong comic fan Mahone spots this mistake and chases Burrows into a nearby stairwell. They struggle and Linc is knocked out. At that moment "Bat-Scofield" has seen through T-Bag's Dr. Light disguise and is chasing him toward that same stairwell. As Mahone is about to shoot Lincoln, T-Bag barges through the door, slamming it into Mahone and knocking him out cold. Just as T-Bag starts running again, he sees the recovering Linc reach out and grab his ankle. He yells out "BUR--" before tripping and falling down the stairs. Michael enters the stairwell and uses the unconscious Mahone's handcuffs to cuff T-Bag to the bannister, then makes it out of the convention with his brother.
If I don't find out what this panel was really about, I'm going to start crying.
Rachelle, it's from the Vixen/Superman story I wrote about exactly six days later; check it out!
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