StevenForbes
Friday, February 20, 2009, 04:39 PM
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Proving Grounds.
This week, we have Jason Shayer who's decided to see what he's made of.
Just as a note of full disclosure, this script came with a cover sheet of contact information, which is good. However, I'm not posting it here. You don't need to know his exact address and phone number.
Okay, with that done, let's begin!
Persuasion by Jason Shayer (I added this just for identification sake. This is not part of the script, and it is not an error.)
PAGE 1
1- MEDIUM SHOT of ELECTRO and two run-of-the-mill thugs in a bank vault. ELECTRO is wearing his classic costume, not his lame revamped one. This shot might work best if seen from just outside the vault doors. The vault doors have been blown off and are scared with black marks. Safety deposit boxes line all the walls inside.
CAPTION
Manhattan Stock Transfer and Trust Building
2- WIDE SHOT centered on a frustrated ELECTRO, seen from the point of view of a safety deposit box at eye-level. In behind him in the background, the thugs are standing around waiting, one each side of him.
ELECTRO
Goddammit, it’s gotta be here! (If you’re working for Marvel, generally, there’s a no-cursing clause. If this is meant for MAX, disregard.)
3- Same WIDE SHOT. In the background, SPIDER-MAN bounces from one side to the other and takes out both of the thugs.
NO DIALOGUE
4- CLOSE-UP of ELECTRO who turns around to see SPIDER-MAN’s fist headed his way.
ELECTRO
Oh, shitsh-. (it sounds better if he doesn’t complete the sentence.)
5- Black panel.
SPX
RINNNGGG! RINNNGGG!
TELEPHONE VOICE #1
Hello.
TELEPHONE VOICE #2
Mr. McPhearson?
TELEPHONE VOICE #1
Yes.
TELEPHONE VOICE #2
I was told to call you if I got into trouble. (No. This panel throws off your pacing. Finish the scene on the page.)
PAGE 2-3
1- A two-page spread of a courtroom in session. (See this spread? This spread is a waste of space. This is padding. This scene could be done in two panels, max, not two pages. This spread is a crime.)
A WIDE SHOT from the side that includes a judge, a bailiff, a twelve-member jury, a court stenographer, and a defendant at the defendant’s table.
The JUDGE is a middle-aged African American woman.
The jury is composed of a multicultural group of people varying in age from their early twenties to late fifties.
At the defendant’s table is MAX DILLON, also known as ELECTRO. Check out THE HOOD #1 for a good drawing reference without his costume. He’s wearing a set of oversized handcuffs that block his power.
LEONARD MCPHEARSON is standing before the jury in front of the defendant’s table.
MCPHEARSON should be the center of this two-page spread. MCPHEARSON stands about 5 foot 10 inches with dark hair, dark eyes, and a really nice tailored suit. He looks tired as he’s been kept awake at night by his worries.
CAPTION
New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term 1st Judicial District, New York County – Manhattan
CAPTION
Four months later.
JUDGE
Mr. McPhearson. Your closing statements please?
MCPHEARSON
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury . . .
CAPTION
I do my best to play along even though I already know the jury will find my client innocent.
CREDITS
(…)
TITLE
Trials and Tribulations
PAGE 4
The following captions are a voice over during his closing arguments. This narrative runs as MCPHEARSON is addressing the jury. What he’s saying really isn’t important; it will become clear by the end of the story.
1- MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is facing the jury.
CAPTION
Super villains are stupid.
CAPTION
They’re ego-driven, overconfident, and greedy. Let’s put this in perspective.
CAPTION
They’re adults who feel the need to wear masks and brightly colored spandex tights when they commit crimes.
CAPTION
Do I really need to say anything else?
2- MEDIUM SHOT of the public/press seating area. It’s full of people and there’s even people standing in the back row.
CAPTION
The toughest thing to do, when you’re dealing with super villains, is to get them to shut the hell up.
CAPTION
If they’ve been turned over to the authorities after being beaten up by a super hero heavy-weight like an Avenger, they wear it as a badge of honor. They want everyone to know about it.
CAPTION
They’ll talk your ear off telling you how close they came to winning. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
CAPTION
But it’s a different story if they were taken down by the likes of Speedball or a super hero sidekick, or even worse-- a beat cop who got lucky. (Wordy.)
3- MEDIUM SHOT of MCPHEARSON from the jury’s point of view.
CAPTION
After years of dealing with a variety of super villains, you get used to them. They don’t start off all that different from you or me.
CAPTION
At their core, they’re just like your average thug. They just got lucky somewhere down the line. Maybe they were exposed to some kind of radioactivity, or got their hands on some ability-enhancing device. (Wordy.)
4- BUST SHOT on MAX DILLON.
CAPTION
Take Max Dillon here. As Electro, he uses his powers over electricity to commit crimes. Without his powers, he’s just your average career criminal. Why isn’t he generating electricity for the New York Power Authority? Because it’s too much like work. (Wordy. And if you want to drive your point home, put the last sentence in its own caption.)
CAPTION
Is that it? No. Super villains also crave the attention.
5- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON.
CAPTION
There are two parts to my job.
CAPTION
Keep them quiet and get them off. (I like this page. You have a nice flow of dialogue, you just have too much of it. Shave 50 words from this page, and it’ll be great. There are over two hundred sixy word here. Yes, I counted them. 50 words cut is a nice block of text. The page won’t be cramped then. Nice amount of panels here, though.)
PAGE 5
1- MEDIUM SHOT with MCPHEARSON at the side still addressing the jury. (If he’s in the shot, then these aren’t captions.)
CAPTION
Consider this.
CAPTION
Spider-Man’s responsibility ends when he turns over my client to the authorities. Spider-Man’s not going to be called in by the district attorney to testify, as he’d be forced to reveal his secret identity. (Wordy.)
CAPTION
Even if he could testify, would the jury be swayed by the testimony of a costumed vigilante?
2- MEDIUM SHOT of the jury listening attentively to MCPHEARSON’s closing arguments.
CAPTION
In most cases, witnesses are usually too scared to come forward, fearing retribution from the accused. This gives me a lot of room to maneuver. (Comma. Otherwise, it reads like a run-on sentence.)
CAPTION
All I have to do is plant a seed of doubt in the mind of the jury.
CAPTION
Take Daredevil, who’s more of an urban myth than a super hero. It’s pretty easy to push all the right buttons and discredit Daredevil’s actions to portray my client as the victim. (and here’s where you start to get wordy. Four captions here? Not only that, but it’s now P5. You started off with some action, but have now reversed that by having a defense attorney go on and on, in love with his own voice. You don’t have the space to talk as much as I do in a script.)
CAPTION
If I’m really on my game, I can get the jury so incensed that they’re almost willing to press charges against the super hero themselves.
3- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON standing in front of the jury, letting his words sink in. He’s looking sincere.
CAPTION
But, there’s the odd time when I actually have to work to earn my fees.
4- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON. His eyes are glowing, radiating waves of energy. This energy can’t really be seen by anyone in the story, but it should give the readers a hint that there much more to Lenny McPhearson. (No. If the readers can see his powers, then the jury has to be able to see it. It cannot be any other way. Readers are going to assume the jury can see the display of power, too.)
MCPHEARSON
Ladies and gentlemen, if you return with a guilty verdict in this case, you will be making a terrible mistake. Thank you. (And this can be taken as a threat, when coupled with the power display.)
5- MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON walks back to the defendant’s table.
NO DIALOGUE.
PAGE 6
1- ESTABLISHING SHOT of the exterior of the courthouse. MCPHEARSON is making his way down the stairs and the media swarms around him.
REPORTER #1
Mr. McPhearson!
REPORTER #2 (from the other side of the panel)
Leonard!
REPORTER #3 (from another side of the panel)
Mr. McPhearson!
2- CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT centered on MCPHEARSON with microphones jammed all around him.
REPORTER #2
How is Mr. Dillon doing?
MCPHEARSON
My client is fine. He’s patiently waiting to hear the jury’s verdict of innocent.
3- Same CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT.
REPORTER #3
You really believe that the jury will return a verdict in favor of your client?
MCPHEARSON
Absolutely. My client is innocent. The jury has been well informed and I believe they will make the correct assessment and exonerate my client. (You see this? This is P6, and you’ve successfully lost your audience. They are now feeling ripped off that they had to wade through 5 pages of nothing, and still have more pages to go through. I will call this bad pacing, and stop at the end of the page.)
4- Similar CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is looking in the direction of REPORTER #3.
REPORTER #3
What about your client’s alleged ties to the Kingpin?
MCPHEARSON
My client has no ties to organized crime. Anything else you might have heard was fabricated by your fellow reporters.
5- Same CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is fighting his way through the crowd of reporters.
MCPHEARSON
That’s it for now. No more questions.
REPORTER #1
What about all the property damage?
MCPHEARSON
You might want to take that up with Spider-Man. My client was only defending himself from that costumed vigilante.
MCPHEARSON
No more questions.
And here we are. This wasn’t that bad, really. There are some things to go over, though.
First and foremost, this is not paced well. You have the “fight” as a setup, but that could have been cut off without hurting the story. It wasn’t even an introduction. You could have started the story without that first page, and kept on going without hurting the integrity of the story. Sure, there's a minor mystery at the end of P1, but it's not strong enough to make me want to turn the page.
The double-page spread was useless. I’m not seeing it as powerful. It could have been a single panel, or maybe a splash with a couple of insets, but it didn’t deserve a double-page splash. That was a criminal waste of space. You may need McPhearson yourself because of it.
Five pages of basically one guy speaking. Not good at all. It would have been different if it was interesting. You can have five pages of a boardroom meeting if those pages are interesting. But this wasn’t it. After three pages, you were pushing it. With five, you effectively killed it.
You could cut two pages from that, starting late in that scene, and still not harm the integrity of the story. This speaks to two things: you need to learn to cut the fluff, but you also constructed a decently sturdy scene. The latter is a great thing! Just learn the former.
I’ll talk about the best part of this in a little bit.
The panel where Lenny does his “power check” is something that should be seen by the jury, simply because it’s a power display and he’s not alone. The reader is going to expect it. It’s not like it was telepathy or a non-physical display. It’s not like he was alone. So, the power display outs him in public. There isn’t a nook in that room where he, as a lawyer, could do that and not be seen. Then, his words in that panel read as a threat, especially coupled with the silent panel afterward. Basically, you cannot have this panel and keep his powers a secret to the courtroom, no matter your wishes. (It's possible you could have gotten away with something like that in the early 80s, but that was 20 years ago.)
Your panel construction is nice and solid, from what I can see. There wasn’t anything about it that I would change. Not much action, granted, but nothing that was impossible, such as someone doing three actions at once. I’ve seen impossible on the first page. This is nowhere near that. Good job.
Your pacing is off. Too wordy, for too long, with no sign of letup. Let’s take a peek real quick.
Nope. No other action that I can see, which means this is a talking book. Talking books are fine if the story moves. Powers is a talking book. Some action, sure, but it’s mostly talking. However, the story moves. This one doesn’t. You stalled it by waxing poetic for too long. Pick up the pace, or have something interesting to say. Preferably both.
Your strongest suit is your dialogue. Again, remember whom you’re writing for. Marvel isn’t going to allow cursing in anything other than a MAX title. The sooner you get comfortable with that, the better off you’ll be. Like I said before, if this is intended as a MAX title, forget this part because it doesn’t apply.
The only problem with your dialogue is that there’s too much of it. This is not tight. You’re on a great path, you just need to make it more direct. Remember the formula Alan Moore was given: 25 words per balloon, 35 per panel. (Yes, I know that the bigger named writers ignore that. They've shown they know when and where to use it. You haven't.) Go back and do a count of your per caption/balloon to panel ratio, and you’ll see you’re way above that. It’s not horrible, and you’re not trying to cram 275 words on a 9 panel grid (I’ve seen that, too), but you’re still overpowering your story with massive amounts of text. Cut that down, correct your pacing, make it interesting, carry that over 22 pages, and I’d say you’re ready.
One last thing, and this goes towards story. Be sure to start with something interesting to draw the reader in. Sure, they picked it up because it's a Marvel book, but as an unknown quantity, you have to reward their dollars with a stronger opening. This opening is not strong. Five pages of a lawyer trying to be clever doesn't make for a strong opening. Give them something of that mystery you hinted at, and they'll be drawn in nicely (as long as it's interesting).
Jason, you go near the head of the class. This is good work.
This, ladies and gents, is very close to how it should be done. As you can see, there isn’t a lot of red on here. Minor tweaks here and there, but nothing too major. The formating was excellent, and the dialogue was very good. Some pacing issues to work out, but really, this is solidly done.
Next week gives us Neal Holman, and after him comes Joey Cruz.
And that’s it. Let’s discuss it.
This week, we have Jason Shayer who's decided to see what he's made of.
Just as a note of full disclosure, this script came with a cover sheet of contact information, which is good. However, I'm not posting it here. You don't need to know his exact address and phone number.
Okay, with that done, let's begin!
Persuasion by Jason Shayer (I added this just for identification sake. This is not part of the script, and it is not an error.)
PAGE 1
1- MEDIUM SHOT of ELECTRO and two run-of-the-mill thugs in a bank vault. ELECTRO is wearing his classic costume, not his lame revamped one. This shot might work best if seen from just outside the vault doors. The vault doors have been blown off and are scared with black marks. Safety deposit boxes line all the walls inside.
CAPTION
Manhattan Stock Transfer and Trust Building
2- WIDE SHOT centered on a frustrated ELECTRO, seen from the point of view of a safety deposit box at eye-level. In behind him in the background, the thugs are standing around waiting, one each side of him.
ELECTRO
Goddammit, it’s gotta be here! (If you’re working for Marvel, generally, there’s a no-cursing clause. If this is meant for MAX, disregard.)
3- Same WIDE SHOT. In the background, SPIDER-MAN bounces from one side to the other and takes out both of the thugs.
NO DIALOGUE
4- CLOSE-UP of ELECTRO who turns around to see SPIDER-MAN’s fist headed his way.
ELECTRO
Oh, shitsh-. (it sounds better if he doesn’t complete the sentence.)
5- Black panel.
SPX
RINNNGGG! RINNNGGG!
TELEPHONE VOICE #1
Hello.
TELEPHONE VOICE #2
Mr. McPhearson?
TELEPHONE VOICE #1
Yes.
TELEPHONE VOICE #2
I was told to call you if I got into trouble. (No. This panel throws off your pacing. Finish the scene on the page.)
PAGE 2-3
1- A two-page spread of a courtroom in session. (See this spread? This spread is a waste of space. This is padding. This scene could be done in two panels, max, not two pages. This spread is a crime.)
A WIDE SHOT from the side that includes a judge, a bailiff, a twelve-member jury, a court stenographer, and a defendant at the defendant’s table.
The JUDGE is a middle-aged African American woman.
The jury is composed of a multicultural group of people varying in age from their early twenties to late fifties.
At the defendant’s table is MAX DILLON, also known as ELECTRO. Check out THE HOOD #1 for a good drawing reference without his costume. He’s wearing a set of oversized handcuffs that block his power.
LEONARD MCPHEARSON is standing before the jury in front of the defendant’s table.
MCPHEARSON should be the center of this two-page spread. MCPHEARSON stands about 5 foot 10 inches with dark hair, dark eyes, and a really nice tailored suit. He looks tired as he’s been kept awake at night by his worries.
CAPTION
New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term 1st Judicial District, New York County – Manhattan
CAPTION
Four months later.
JUDGE
Mr. McPhearson. Your closing statements please?
MCPHEARSON
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury . . .
CAPTION
I do my best to play along even though I already know the jury will find my client innocent.
CREDITS
(…)
TITLE
Trials and Tribulations
PAGE 4
The following captions are a voice over during his closing arguments. This narrative runs as MCPHEARSON is addressing the jury. What he’s saying really isn’t important; it will become clear by the end of the story.
1- MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is facing the jury.
CAPTION
Super villains are stupid.
CAPTION
They’re ego-driven, overconfident, and greedy. Let’s put this in perspective.
CAPTION
They’re adults who feel the need to wear masks and brightly colored spandex tights when they commit crimes.
CAPTION
Do I really need to say anything else?
2- MEDIUM SHOT of the public/press seating area. It’s full of people and there’s even people standing in the back row.
CAPTION
The toughest thing to do, when you’re dealing with super villains, is to get them to shut the hell up.
CAPTION
If they’ve been turned over to the authorities after being beaten up by a super hero heavy-weight like an Avenger, they wear it as a badge of honor. They want everyone to know about it.
CAPTION
They’ll talk your ear off telling you how close they came to winning. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
CAPTION
But it’s a different story if they were taken down by the likes of Speedball or a super hero sidekick, or even worse-- a beat cop who got lucky. (Wordy.)
3- MEDIUM SHOT of MCPHEARSON from the jury’s point of view.
CAPTION
After years of dealing with a variety of super villains, you get used to them. They don’t start off all that different from you or me.
CAPTION
At their core, they’re just like your average thug. They just got lucky somewhere down the line. Maybe they were exposed to some kind of radioactivity, or got their hands on some ability-enhancing device. (Wordy.)
4- BUST SHOT on MAX DILLON.
CAPTION
Take Max Dillon here. As Electro, he uses his powers over electricity to commit crimes. Without his powers, he’s just your average career criminal. Why isn’t he generating electricity for the New York Power Authority? Because it’s too much like work. (Wordy. And if you want to drive your point home, put the last sentence in its own caption.)
CAPTION
Is that it? No. Super villains also crave the attention.
5- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON.
CAPTION
There are two parts to my job.
CAPTION
Keep them quiet and get them off. (I like this page. You have a nice flow of dialogue, you just have too much of it. Shave 50 words from this page, and it’ll be great. There are over two hundred sixy word here. Yes, I counted them. 50 words cut is a nice block of text. The page won’t be cramped then. Nice amount of panels here, though.)
PAGE 5
1- MEDIUM SHOT with MCPHEARSON at the side still addressing the jury. (If he’s in the shot, then these aren’t captions.)
CAPTION
Consider this.
CAPTION
Spider-Man’s responsibility ends when he turns over my client to the authorities. Spider-Man’s not going to be called in by the district attorney to testify, as he’d be forced to reveal his secret identity. (Wordy.)
CAPTION
Even if he could testify, would the jury be swayed by the testimony of a costumed vigilante?
2- MEDIUM SHOT of the jury listening attentively to MCPHEARSON’s closing arguments.
CAPTION
In most cases, witnesses are usually too scared to come forward, fearing retribution from the accused. This gives me a lot of room to maneuver. (Comma. Otherwise, it reads like a run-on sentence.)
CAPTION
All I have to do is plant a seed of doubt in the mind of the jury.
CAPTION
Take Daredevil, who’s more of an urban myth than a super hero. It’s pretty easy to push all the right buttons and discredit Daredevil’s actions to portray my client as the victim. (and here’s where you start to get wordy. Four captions here? Not only that, but it’s now P5. You started off with some action, but have now reversed that by having a defense attorney go on and on, in love with his own voice. You don’t have the space to talk as much as I do in a script.)
CAPTION
If I’m really on my game, I can get the jury so incensed that they’re almost willing to press charges against the super hero themselves.
3- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON standing in front of the jury, letting his words sink in. He’s looking sincere.
CAPTION
But, there’s the odd time when I actually have to work to earn my fees.
4- CLOSE-UP on MCPHEARSON. His eyes are glowing, radiating waves of energy. This energy can’t really be seen by anyone in the story, but it should give the readers a hint that there much more to Lenny McPhearson. (No. If the readers can see his powers, then the jury has to be able to see it. It cannot be any other way. Readers are going to assume the jury can see the display of power, too.)
MCPHEARSON
Ladies and gentlemen, if you return with a guilty verdict in this case, you will be making a terrible mistake. Thank you. (And this can be taken as a threat, when coupled with the power display.)
5- MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON walks back to the defendant’s table.
NO DIALOGUE.
PAGE 6
1- ESTABLISHING SHOT of the exterior of the courthouse. MCPHEARSON is making his way down the stairs and the media swarms around him.
REPORTER #1
Mr. McPhearson!
REPORTER #2 (from the other side of the panel)
Leonard!
REPORTER #3 (from another side of the panel)
Mr. McPhearson!
2- CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT centered on MCPHEARSON with microphones jammed all around him.
REPORTER #2
How is Mr. Dillon doing?
MCPHEARSON
My client is fine. He’s patiently waiting to hear the jury’s verdict of innocent.
3- Same CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT.
REPORTER #3
You really believe that the jury will return a verdict in favor of your client?
MCPHEARSON
Absolutely. My client is innocent. The jury has been well informed and I believe they will make the correct assessment and exonerate my client. (You see this? This is P6, and you’ve successfully lost your audience. They are now feeling ripped off that they had to wade through 5 pages of nothing, and still have more pages to go through. I will call this bad pacing, and stop at the end of the page.)
4- Similar CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is looking in the direction of REPORTER #3.
REPORTER #3
What about your client’s alleged ties to the Kingpin?
MCPHEARSON
My client has no ties to organized crime. Anything else you might have heard was fabricated by your fellow reporters.
5- Same CLOSE MEDIUM SHOT. MCPHEARSON is fighting his way through the crowd of reporters.
MCPHEARSON
That’s it for now. No more questions.
REPORTER #1
What about all the property damage?
MCPHEARSON
You might want to take that up with Spider-Man. My client was only defending himself from that costumed vigilante.
MCPHEARSON
No more questions.
And here we are. This wasn’t that bad, really. There are some things to go over, though.
First and foremost, this is not paced well. You have the “fight” as a setup, but that could have been cut off without hurting the story. It wasn’t even an introduction. You could have started the story without that first page, and kept on going without hurting the integrity of the story. Sure, there's a minor mystery at the end of P1, but it's not strong enough to make me want to turn the page.
The double-page spread was useless. I’m not seeing it as powerful. It could have been a single panel, or maybe a splash with a couple of insets, but it didn’t deserve a double-page splash. That was a criminal waste of space. You may need McPhearson yourself because of it.
Five pages of basically one guy speaking. Not good at all. It would have been different if it was interesting. You can have five pages of a boardroom meeting if those pages are interesting. But this wasn’t it. After three pages, you were pushing it. With five, you effectively killed it.
You could cut two pages from that, starting late in that scene, and still not harm the integrity of the story. This speaks to two things: you need to learn to cut the fluff, but you also constructed a decently sturdy scene. The latter is a great thing! Just learn the former.
I’ll talk about the best part of this in a little bit.
The panel where Lenny does his “power check” is something that should be seen by the jury, simply because it’s a power display and he’s not alone. The reader is going to expect it. It’s not like it was telepathy or a non-physical display. It’s not like he was alone. So, the power display outs him in public. There isn’t a nook in that room where he, as a lawyer, could do that and not be seen. Then, his words in that panel read as a threat, especially coupled with the silent panel afterward. Basically, you cannot have this panel and keep his powers a secret to the courtroom, no matter your wishes. (It's possible you could have gotten away with something like that in the early 80s, but that was 20 years ago.)
Your panel construction is nice and solid, from what I can see. There wasn’t anything about it that I would change. Not much action, granted, but nothing that was impossible, such as someone doing three actions at once. I’ve seen impossible on the first page. This is nowhere near that. Good job.
Your pacing is off. Too wordy, for too long, with no sign of letup. Let’s take a peek real quick.
Nope. No other action that I can see, which means this is a talking book. Talking books are fine if the story moves. Powers is a talking book. Some action, sure, but it’s mostly talking. However, the story moves. This one doesn’t. You stalled it by waxing poetic for too long. Pick up the pace, or have something interesting to say. Preferably both.
Your strongest suit is your dialogue. Again, remember whom you’re writing for. Marvel isn’t going to allow cursing in anything other than a MAX title. The sooner you get comfortable with that, the better off you’ll be. Like I said before, if this is intended as a MAX title, forget this part because it doesn’t apply.
The only problem with your dialogue is that there’s too much of it. This is not tight. You’re on a great path, you just need to make it more direct. Remember the formula Alan Moore was given: 25 words per balloon, 35 per panel. (Yes, I know that the bigger named writers ignore that. They've shown they know when and where to use it. You haven't.) Go back and do a count of your per caption/balloon to panel ratio, and you’ll see you’re way above that. It’s not horrible, and you’re not trying to cram 275 words on a 9 panel grid (I’ve seen that, too), but you’re still overpowering your story with massive amounts of text. Cut that down, correct your pacing, make it interesting, carry that over 22 pages, and I’d say you’re ready.
One last thing, and this goes towards story. Be sure to start with something interesting to draw the reader in. Sure, they picked it up because it's a Marvel book, but as an unknown quantity, you have to reward their dollars with a stronger opening. This opening is not strong. Five pages of a lawyer trying to be clever doesn't make for a strong opening. Give them something of that mystery you hinted at, and they'll be drawn in nicely (as long as it's interesting).
Jason, you go near the head of the class. This is good work.
This, ladies and gents, is very close to how it should be done. As you can see, there isn’t a lot of red on here. Minor tweaks here and there, but nothing too major. The formating was excellent, and the dialogue was very good. Some pacing issues to work out, but really, this is solidly done.
Next week gives us Neal Holman, and after him comes Joey Cruz.
And that’s it. Let’s discuss it.