by Tom King
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STAR-KNIGHT: Knowing that kills you.
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PANEL 9: This is the center circle, only full static picture. It shows Pen in silhouette running toward the camera, The Blue spout in the background.
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Caption: “Where are you going, PenUltimate? Where are you running to?”
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PAGE 8
PANEL 1: Distant shot takes up most of the page: The western hemisphere seen from space, showing The Blue exploding out of the east coast of the United States.
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STAR-KNIGHT: It was at the horizon, killing thousands, threatening to kill millions more. It was taking our world. And I had to save us.
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PANEL 2: Medium shot. Star-Knight back in his office, book in his lap.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And Prophetier’s book said there was only one way to defeat it.
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PAGES 9–10
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TWO-PAGE SPREAD: Brilliant blue background. All sky. Across the sky is a small Ultimate, flying fast, leaving a trail behind him.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I went to Ultimate, confessed how I’d known about the books, how the books had given us the solution.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I told him one hero could do it, take on all our powers and stop The Blue from killing our world.
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STAR-KNIGHT: Of course, that hero would die.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And, of course, I knew he’d volunteer.
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PAGE 11
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PANEL 1: Ultimate saving Star-Knight, blocking an incoming punch from the oversized fist of The Giant of the North.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And then I told Ultimate it was all going to be fine.
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PANEL 2: Star-Knight and Ultimate fighting together against the Dreaded Empire of the Underground.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I told him that we needed to put the powers in my belt, that he needed to wear the belt and close the hole that was leaking The Blue. But once the hole was closed, the belt would remain. And we’d simply pick it up and reclaim our powers. Everyone would come back, probably even him, eventually.
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STAR-KNIGHT: But the hole needed to close. If it was open, even a fraction, the belt would be lost to all of us.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And to close the hole, he’d need just enough power, he’d need everyone. Everyone.
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PANEL 3: Ultimate saving Star-Knight after Star-Knight had been thrown into the Pit of Destruction.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I told him the book said you wouldn’t show, you’d refuse to go.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I told him we needed to get you, to tell you the stakes, to force you to come. I pleaded with him. Screamed.
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PAGE 12
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PANEL 1: Ultimate saving Star-Knight from a flame monster during The Age-of-Fire Crisis.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And he said no.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He said he knew something. He said it was the way you were built. If you came, you would die.
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PANEL 2: Star-Knight and Ultimate fighting Black Plague, both punching him at the same time.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He said you had the right to choose. You didn’t have to be a hero. You didn’t have to make this sacrifice. You could choose life.
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PANEL 3: Ultimate saving Star-Knight from The Criminals of the Crescent Moon.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He said he would do it without you. Though I screamed at him, told him it was all useless, that you had to come, had to die, he dismissed it all with a wave of his hand.
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STAR-KNIGHT: “This is mine,” he said.
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PAGE 13
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PANEL 1: Ultimate standing in the metal room, Star-Knight, kneeling in front of him, his head bent down, as if praying.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He made me swear that I wouldn’t interfere. That I wouldn’t tell you the truth. That I would let you go. That I would hide the books, hide what they said about you.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He made me swear that I would save you.
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STAR-KNIGHT: It was the first time he’d ever asked for anything. The first time he’d ever said he needed anything.
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PANEL 2: Same as above except Star-Knight is looking up, looking directly at Ultimate’s face.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And I said yes.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I swore it. I would let you make your choice. I would save you. Even if it meant losing everything. Even that. For him.
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PAGE 14
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PANEL 1: Pen back in the office, still slumped in the corner, looking down.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I made my vow.
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STAR-KNIGHT: And then I went to Soldier to see about the villains.
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PANEL 2: Mirrors the above panel with Star-Knight now, smiling.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I don’t believe in fate. But I prepare for it.
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PANEL 3: In a bathroom looking over an unidentified shoulder at Red Rapist, bleeding from a bullet to the head.
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STAR-KNIGHT: If Ultimate failed, then the powers would be gone. All the good guys gone. We had to be ready for that.
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STAR-KNIGHT: We couldn’t leave them, all those villains we’d always stopped, we couldn’t just leave them.
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STAR-KNIGHT: What was the point in saving the world to only have it left open to all of them. They weren’t going to make the sacrifice we would. They weren’t good, not like us.
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PANEL 4: Again over an unidentified shoulder: Crimeboss, dead, another bullet through his head.
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STAR-KNIGHT: You think I’m the villain, and you and your friend Soldier are the heroes? We’re all the same. We all save the day in our own way.
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PANEL 5: Close-up of Hell-Wraith in a forest, a gun to his head.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I went to Soldier, told him what was coming, told him I had deduced it from the energy or some bull#@$%, the usual bull@#$% they always believe.
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STAR-KNIGHT: I told him each of the big three had their parts to play. I had the solution. Ultimate had the sacrifice. And Soldier would have to make sure once it was over we’d all be safe.
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STAR-KNIGHT: You see, that’s what soldiers do. The killing.
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PANEL 6: Over the shoulder we see Hell-Wraith, the gun going off, blowing through Hell-Wraith’s skull.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He had a plan. Made it look like suicide, like The Blue had affected them somehow, and then I spread the rumor that it had. People believed me and dismissed it as another story. And that was that.
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STAR-KNIGHT: As always, the big three saved the day. I did my part. Ultimate did his. Soldier did his.
Devil Girl #75
DG examines the gray statue in front of her. They’ve thinned out Survivor’s face, made his skin smoother, his nose less crooked. There’s almost a gentility in the mask, a spot of grace hiding a life of torture and murder. Runt’s done a fine job picking out this grave marker for his father.
DG reaches up and strokes the granite cheek the way she used to when men like this came before her and begged in the days of judgment. How pitiful to have lived that way, how depressing to have that fixed as part of your soul. In that way, the statue
and the man buried below it are similar, she supposes, and the Devil giggles.
“What’s funny?” Soldier walks up from behind her.
DG twirls around and smiles. “Nothing.” She goes up to him, wraps her arms around him. “I don’t think you’d understand.”
“You knew I’d come here?”
“You come here a lot.” She looks up at him. “I got lucky, I guess.”
Soldier nods, then reaches down and pulls her in with one hand, and DG hugs him close. He rubs his nose in her hair, and he’s quiet for a little bit, and then he shivers, and DG holds him tighter. “It’s okay,” she says.
Soldier swallows and steps back. He turns away, wipes at his face. “I’m sorry. I killed three men tonight. Almost helped another go. I don’t mean for it to bother you.”
“It happens.” DG reaches in her bra and pulls out a cigarette. She lights one up and walks back to the gravestone. “Another battle won. Well done. Well done.”
“I never knew what that meant,” Soldier says, his back still to her.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It just rhymes.”
Soldier stays quiet, his eyes fixed on the lines of graves.
“I come here sometimes,” DG says. “I knew a lot of them, you know. More than I knew you people. I don’t know why it didn’t get me.”
Soldier turns and looks back at her. “You were better than them.”
She doesn’t say anything, she just smokes quietly in the dark as she looks at his face. It’s been so long. He was so young for so long. Eventually, she looks away from him, starts again to rub her hand over Survivor’s statue. “You know, he’s practically my father-in-law now. How freaky is that?”
Soldier licks his lips. “How is Runt?”
“You think Survivor’ll be back? When all the powers burst free, will we see this proud little monster again?”
“Yeah.” Soldier dips his toe into the dirt. “I think he’ll be back.”
“So then you guys will have to fight again all the time? Every month? Boom. Boom. Pow. Boom pow-pow. All of it again?”
“I suppose.”
“He shoots you. You shoot him. Forever.”
“As you say.”
“Yup”—DG takes a long drag—“there’s going to be some awkward moments at this wedding.”
Soldier hesitates, then laughs, and DG smiles. All these years and his laugh hasn’t changed all that much really.
“Do you want to come back?” she asks. “Do you want us all to do it again?”
Soldier catches his breath and coughs. “No. No, I don’t.”
“What about Ultimate? This thing controlling him? Don’t we kind of have to?”
Soldier looks back across the graves. “If the powers come back, and we fight this threat and we defeat it, it’ll just come back too. Like Survivor, like all of them.”
“Like you.”
Soldier shakes his head. “Maybe there’s another way to do it. Maybe I don’t know what it is. But maybe there’s some way. Just get them to go down and stay down.”
“Does that work?”
“I killed three men today. I saw another man decide to live. These things, I don’t know, they should mean something.”
DG snuffs out her cigarette and tosses it into the dark. She flicks Survivor’s head. “Runt wants it back. He misses his family. I think he still has some connection to them. All that evil. Sometimes when I touch him, I feel it sort of reach out to me. It’s pretty wicked.”
Soldier looks up. “What about you? You want it back?”
DG wrinkles her nose. “I guess I just want everyone to be happy.”
“Why would the devil want people to be happy?”
DG reaches over and takes Soldier’s hand the way she used to take all of their hands as they begged and begged. Redeem me. Cleanse me. Send me home. And she’d grin, and she’d nod, and she’d send them all on down. Down to burn. Every last one.
DG squeezes Soldier’s hand, feels his scars. “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know why.”
Soldier grunts, and DG smiles and jumps up. “C’mon!” she shouts as she runs out into the night. “I think I saw some shovels over here! We’ll dig up Survivor and take turns shooting him. It’ll be awesome, and, really, it might be our last chance.”
Ultimate, The Man With The Metal Face #580
PAGE 15
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PANEL 1: We are above Pen, looking down. Pen is looking up.
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PEN: How do I get them back? We need to fight. Tell me how to get the powers back.
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STAR-KNIGHT: It’s not hard.
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PANEL 2: Closer in on Pen.
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PEN: Well then &%$#ing tell me!
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PANEL 3: Close up. Star-Knight, weary, smiling.
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STAR-KNIGHT: It only takes the smallest of efforts.
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PAGE 16
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One shot, whole page. The Blue spitting from the ground. The Blue is only beginning to trickle out, and inside each “trickle” are stories, comic representations of their heroic lives.
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STAR-KNIGHT: As absurd as it ended, it begins the same way.
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STAR-KNIGHT: Everyone gets to come back. This story has such a happy ending.
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PAGE 17
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Four panels, equal size.
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PANEL 1: Ultimate from behind, the rip in The Blue surrounding him, he reaches his hands out and holds its edges. Pulls them in.
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STAR-KNIGHT: Using all the powers we had, Ultimate tried to end The Blue, to close the hole The Blue was leaking through.
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PANEL 2: Same as above, gate is closed a little more as Ultimate pulls it, his body ashing in The Blue.
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STAR-KNIGHT: He did well, ended the threat, he died ending the threat.
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PANEL 3: Same, gate continues to close, but more and more of Ultimate is burning away, dying.
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STAR-KNIGHT: But he didn’t close the hole, not all the way.
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PANEL 4: Ultimate slumps forward dead, the last parts of him disintegrating. The Blue is still open, a small slash remains, leaking out the stories.
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STAR-KNIGHT: A small part of it remained open.
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STAR-KNIGHT: As predicted, he needed just a little more power.
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PAGE 18
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Whole page is nine panels. All close on Star-Knight’s face. Star-Knight is crying and the tears are blue, and like The Blue, they contain stories inside them.
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PANEL 1: Star-Knight’s face, blue in his tears.