Double Cross Scene Compilation - CH1 Pgs 8-14 (Patreon)

Thank you very much for all the great feedback on my first scene compilation (which you can read here.) And the message you sent is loud and clear: you do like these Scene Compilations, and especially my "DVD commentary." All right then. I'll make this into an official $5+ Patron benefit!

I'm getting this second compilation post out quickly while I have a bit of momentum, but then I think we'll settle into a twice-a-month schedule because it does take me quite a bit of time to write my commentary.

But I will say I'm having fun with it, and all the feedback is a huge morale booster. Please continue to let me know what you think in the comments below!

(One pro tip: I believe Patreon is including the high-res images in-line inside these posts, so if you want to see the pages bigger, you can just zoom in or view this post on a bigger monitor.)

Onwards with Scene #2!

Why so serious, Spooky Jones?

So, that's the 2nd scene of the Double Cross story arc of The Young Protectors. Here's what I was thinking while writing it and collaborating with Adam and Vero on the art::

I wanted new readers to be able to start with this comic

By the time I started posting Double Cross, I had already published hundreds of pages in The Young Protectors world. And I knew the way I started Engaging the Enemy, with an older supervillain both blackmailing and hitting on a teen superhero, was off-putting for some readers who would then not continue reading past the Prologue of that arc.

For both those reasons, I wanted readers to be able to start with Double Cross without needing to read anything previous. So, that's why we have two full pages of exposition here (along with various asides that also add in information important to the story, like that Spooky is allowed to work without government supervision because he is the only hero who can use magic and not go insane.)

But while the dreaded "infodump" is dreaded for good reason, that doesn't mean that it can't be handled with style.

I knew I had a good way to make this exposition visually interesting

By this point, I had already developed a technique with Adam and Vero for making these flashbacks visually interesting: showing images of action in the background that are both color-washed and desaturated.

If you want to show a brief flashback, a simple panel of art works just fine. But it's part of my style for the characters to fully narrate the dramatic moments from their past, and in those cases, I want to show both the past action (so we aren't just watching someone talking) and also see that person talking (so we can see their current emotions regarding these memories.)

It is a tricky ask, but way back in Engaging the Enemy, my co-creators and I discovered how effective and attractive it would be to shade that past action with a single color wash. It's an effect that has given me the confidence to include (brief) flashback scenes like this in pretty much all my comics since.

More than that, this exposition gave me the opportunity to include a comics publishing trope that I loved

The Young Protectors was originally inspired by the comics I read as a teenager, so it's always fun for me to reference back to the tropes of those comics. (For example, by using graphic superhero logos in dialogue when introducing a character.)

Back in the day (and maybe even now), whenever a bunch of action from another comic was mentioned in dialogue, there would be an asterisk and a dialogue box, something along the lines of "* As seen in Teen Titans #15! -- Ed."

That little bit of breaking the 4th wall where the "Editor" spoke directly to me made me feel like I was part of the experience. Maybe no one else felt this way, but it gave a sense of connection between myself and the creators, often because the tone of these short missives was light-hearted, even cheeky at times. So I was looking forward to adding in those little asides. :)

I wanted to show how Adult Spooky views Flyboy

Here again we get to see how much Flyboy looks up to Spooky, but now I get to show that Adult Spooky returns that respect. He definitely feels protective of Flyboy, but unlike Tsunami (or even Commander), he sees Mitch as a full-fledged hero.

And that informs a lot of what Spooky does here. Flyboy has told him that he broke the law and  team rules by superheroing on his own, and Spooky has kept that secret. (A confidence that not even Paul or Kyle would likely keep.) He doesn't browbeat Flyboy over his mistakes, instead he chooses to step into an active mentoring role, even offering Flyboy and his friend the opportunity of a "ride-along."

Spooky sees a lot of himself in Flyboy. And he sees the chance for Flyboy to be the young hero he needs to be while avoiding the suffering Spooky, himself, went through because he was essentially doing it all on his own. (That also informs his willingness to bring Cory along, too.)

I establish that Mitch and Cory aren't currently seeing each other

I made that choice for a couple of reasons.

The out-of-universe reason is that I wanted both of them to be available for romance in their respective arcs. In most of TYP, romance has been very much secondary to the overall action/thriller/superhero plot. And I've discovered, many years into this, that I miss focusing more on love. Yes, I've always wanted to see gay men depicted as "real heroes," but I've discovered that what's just as important to me is to show two guys happily loving each other. Because these story arcs are plotted out years in advance, it takes some time for me to organically make a change of tone like that. But I wanted to at least lay out the groundwork here, so one or both of these guys could be with someone else without crossing a moral event horizon.

In-universe, Flyboy says they decided to just be friends because Cory is living with him (and he implies it's also because of all the things on Cory's plate.) But we don't get Cory's side of that story. What we do get is Cory being curious about whether two superheroes dating could work, and Mitch's reaction to that. It might not be as clear in the art, but per the script, Flyboy is supposed to look "a little awkward and conflicted" in that panel. Ideally, what I had hoped to show here is that there is more to this story than Flyboy lets on (which we'll get to explore in Fallen), and that the decision wasn't entirely mutual.

Was I successful in laying that groundwork ? To be honest, I don't think so. At this point, it feels too subtle for even our eagle-eyed readers to pick up on.  I still think my plans for Fallen will work, but if I had to do it over again, I'd probably add in another panel where we get to hear a bit more of Cory's perspective on the failure-to-launch of their romance.

I get to re-introduce Cory

It had literally been years since the last time readers saw Cory Alvarado, and he was going to not only play a huge role in this chapter, but also in his own story arc. My goal was to catch us up on him after the events of the Flyboy Bonus Comic—in particular that he hasn't dared to use his powers—and also, ideally, present him as a sympathetic and likable (if troubled) guy.

I see him as a lot more down to Earth than the other heroes on the TYP team, who all have buckets of confidence. And showing that here helps set him up for his own growth arc in Fallen.

I also touch on Spooky's impact on the world and who gets to be a hero

Cory's dialogue also provided an opportunity to highlight the impact Spooky Jones has had in-universe in terms of representation. Spooky isn't tall, thin, or white and yet, in-universe, he's considered one of the most handsome and capable heroes on Earth. He's a role model for lot of people in the TYP world who in our universe haven't been depicted as as heroes—at least not when I was growing up.

As you know, part of the reason I create these stories is to change that. To show that we all can be heroes, and we all are worthy of love, including romantic and sexual love. Cory's interaction with Spooky here was an opportunity for me to show how I'd like our world to be different. And it is also a way to acknowledge all the readers in our own world who have written me with similar feelings.

And I get a small moment of showing him with no filter

In paranormal investigator mode or not, Spooky is still Spooky, especially around members of his team. He wouldn't think twice about casually sharing some sexual escapade if it were relevant to the conversation, even around young people. This gave me the opportunity for a very quick catch-up on his and Kyle's relationship status since Past Sins, while also having a small moment of levity before things get dark. The way Adam drew poor Cory's reaction to unfiltered Spooky in that panel is IMHO priceless.

So that's the DVD commentary for this scene!

I hope you found it interesting. Please let me know if you did, and please share your own thoughts about this scene in the comments below. It's really your commentary that gives me the fuel to keep creating these, so if you have some thoughts, please add them below!

I should have the next one up in a couple weeks. Happy New Year, y'all! :)