MORE BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

In my view of Mike's script, Will to Power was a tragedy in which Titan/Frank never grows away from the emotional abuse he suffered as a boy, though he becomes an incredibly powerful (super-powered) man. He naturally blames his abusers for his anguish, but this anger merely serves to poison all his future perceptions and relationships. Only in his dying moments does he realize that he has been his own, most lasting enemy. This is what makes "Titan" at the end of the story, the last word in lonliness.

The main reason I favored the second layout was my wish to have an "echo" of a panel which opened the first page of this "flashback" series. In that panel, the infant Frank recognizes himself delightedly in a mirror. Mike's panel description however, was of a baby crawling excitedly along a playroom floor. The second panel on this prologue pg. 5 combines Mike's description and my echo of that first mirror shot. If I could have found places to repeat this motif later in the series it might have really resonated as I wanted it to. I like the fact that between Frank and his reflection "stands" the image of his father. In my head at least, this composition poses the question of which image is the truer reflection of Frank himself. The father is pictured as a mystery, suggested by the shaded-out eyes, just as Frank's own nature will remain a mystery to himself. Perhaps there is an ultimate mystery about ourselves and everyone around us which we can never truly penetrate.

On page 2 of the series, Mike described a panel in which three-yr-old Frank was trying on his father's Marine uniform before a mirror. Thinking back, I suppose that's what suggested the mirror becoming a motif. In that panel I had little Frank try on his father's stern demeanor as well. I figured Frank was doomed to wear his father's presence, anger and fear, inside himself for the rest of his life. I imagined he would also carry his father's opinion of his son as his sub-conscious own: self-loathing and self-fearing. So on page 5 here, the recurrance of the motif of the mirror, and his father's blanked-out eyes ("windows on the soul") were pretty neat, or so I flattered myself in thinking. My addition of the picture frame on the floor in the next panel might be gilding the lily, I don't know. What do you think?

I'm pretty respectful of a script, but I think a penciller has the right to add or adjust things if he has a good enough reason and the writer's intent is retained. For better or worse, an artist brings himself (or herself) to the material as he interprets it for the reader, like an actor or director. Sometimes the best stuff comes from a sub-conscious place inside you. It has also been suggested that you should trust your first idea, but most of the time, my first response is merely my most banal. That said, I have also intellectualized myself right out of my best ideas. Story-telling is an art, and it certainly is no less so in comics than any other medium. It is of course, the primary art of the comic book.