PAGE ONE

PANEL 1 - BLACK. Nothing but black.

1 CAPTION: It’s never like this in comic books.

PANEL 2 - Still black, but with a flash of brilliant white.

2 FATHER (off panel): Open your eyes!

3 GIRL (off panel, electric): OWWW!!

PANEL 3 - The black is cracking open - revealing a blurry shape somewhat reminiscent of a crouched, menacing man.

4 CAPTION: The bad guy is always the one who gets beat up.

PANEL 4 - CLOSE on a terrified LITTLE GIRL, cowering in a corner and crying her eyes out. An ominous shadow envelops her.

5 FATHER (off panel): I said open ‘em, you little brat!

6 GIRL (lowercase): p-pl-please! i-i’ll be good...

PANEL 5 - Horrible shot of HER FATHER whipping her with a big-buckled belt.

7 CAPTION: Who’s gonna fly in and save me?

8 GIRL: No, Daddy! NO!!!

9 FATHER: You ain’t been nuthin’ but eight years of heartache, missy!

PANEL 6 - The father suddenly frozen in mid-strike, his eyes bulging in shock.

10 CAPTION: Where are my super powers?

11 FATHER: You hear me, gir--?!

PANEL 1 - The father drops the belt as he seizes his head and cries out in agony.

1 FATHER: --AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

PANEL 2 - The girl rising from the corner, a look of dawning relief across her face.

2 GIRL: Daddy?

PANEL 3 - PAGE WIDE PANEL - With his eyes rolled back and drool oozing from his gaping mouth, the father cannot bear the overload of pain scrambling his circuits.

From the top of his head comes a tsunami of painful images:

His daughter in mortal terror, a hospital bed with his wife hooked up to I.V.s, his own clenched fist, his daughter’s tear-filled eyes, his arm raised with the belt. Interlaced between all these images are liquor and beer bottles and splatters of blood.

3 CAPTION: It’s like I wished he would stop and that he could feel how much this hurts and then it really happened!

PANEL 4 - The girl catches a glimpse of herself in a hall mirror. A marvelous revelation is occurring...

3 GIRL: It can‘t be--?!

4 GIRL: Oh my God!

PANEL 5 - Utter joy. Tears streaming as the girl beams in rapture. Relief has come at last...

5 GIRL (electric): I’VE GOT SUPER POWERS!!

PAGE THREE

PANEL 1 - In the background, we see her bolt into a room, while large in the foreground is the catatonic body of the father, his eyes bulged and frozen.

PANEL 2 - She’s pouring through a stack of superhero comics with an enthused smile. For obvious copyright reasons, we’ll have to make them up and be as generic as possible: “Thunder Girl”, “Captain Invincible”, “Ferret Man” and the like...

1 GIRL: I can’t believe it! This is sooo cool!

PANEL 3 - She’s hard at work at a sewing machine, tongue on her upper lip like Charlie Brown writing a letter. The table’s a mess of fabrics, shears, threads, needles.

2 CAPTION: My momma always told me, “If you sew every stitch with love then you‘ll love every stitch you sew.”

3 CAPTION: I’ll never forget that.

4 CAPTION: My daddy always said, “Giving birth to you is what wrecked her insides. It’s why she got The Big C and died.”

5 CAPTION: I’ll never forget that either.

PANEL 4 - WORM’S EYE VIEW - A pair of little kid sneakers and the bottom of a cape in the foreground. In the background, the father’s now bunched himself into the fetal position.

6 GIRL: I’m leaving, Daddy.

PANEL 5 - Still not fully revealed, we watch those sneakers and cape walk out the door, while the puddle of drool from the father’s blank face continues to spread...

7 GIRL: I’m SAD GIRL now!

8 GIRL: I’m gonna use my super powers to help other sad kids like me that have bad guys like you for daddies!

FULL PAGE SPLASH

A funny and touching shot, though meant to be “glorious”.

Our little heroine, arms akimbo, striking her cutest superhero pose. Her costume looks like what you would expect an eight-year-old who has made her own costume to look like:

Mismatched pieces, haphazard stitching, ill-fitting, etc.

There is a mask with big, crooked eye-holes and her pigtails sticking out. The aforementioned cape, and a big “SG” in badly-cut letters sewn across her chest.

1 CAPTION: Cute little booger, wasn’t I?

2 CAPTION: I marched up and down my neighborhood for hours in my costume, asking every kid I met if they needed rescuing. Eventually some neighbors called the cops.

3 CAPTION: I went to live with my Aunt Sylvia, who told me later that my father’s vegetative state was due to a stroke, not my “powers”.

4 CAPTION: I can’t say that I wasn’t a bit disappointed.

5 CAPTION: I’m a writer now, married, with two wonderful boys that I would never dream of laying a hand on...

6 CAPTION: ...but I still dream of flying.