ANT-MAN'S AMAZING FANTASY part five


Part Five of Six

What I’m doing in this week’s blogs is bringing you a page-by-page
look at an Ant-Man story I wrote for The Amazing Spider-Man Annual
#24 [Marvel; 1990].  I’ll be showing you my index card breakdowns
for the story, my plot, my script, and my placement of the script
copy on reduced photocopies of Steve Ditko’s pencils for the tale.
This story is © 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. and is being
presented here for educational purposes.

A question asked: “Why this story?”

A question answered: “Because I had the complete script package for
it and thought it might entertain and inform my readers.

My goal for this Ant-Man adventure was to tell a satisfying story
within the limited page count I’d been allotted.  Every reader will
have to decide for themselves if I accomplished that goal.  I think
I did, but I’m hardly an unbiased reader in this case.

Above is the published fourth page of my Ant-Man story and below is
my index card breakdown for that page:

In case my tiny printing on this scan is difficult to read clearly,
here’s what I wrote:

PAGE FOUR

Ant-Man gets his first look at Scarlet Beetle

Close-up of Scarlet Beetle holding helmet

Symbolic shot of humans bringing food offerings to Scarlet Beetle
on throne

Ant-Man breaks free of insects...

...and grabs the helmet

From the plot that was sent to editor Jim Salicrup and then Ditko,
here’s what I wrote for this fourth page:

PAGE FOUR: Wide-angle symbolic scene of humans bringing food to a
now human-size Scarlet Beetle.  If it doesn’t look too silly, the
Beetle can be sitting on some sort of throne. (Now a big with a
crown, that would be too silly.) A voice over caption here wraps up
the Beetle’s grandiose plans for world conquest.

Ant-Man, no longer dazed and realizing the seriousness of the
situation, grabs the helmet from the Scarlet Beetle.
The Beetle slashes the front of Ant-Man’s uniform with one of his
front arms.

The wounded Ant-Man uses the helmet to command the insects in the
chamber to attack the Scarlet Beetle.

The insects are confused by the conflicting commands they are
receiving.  It’s pure chaos as they attack each other.

With apologies for the quality of the scan, here’s Ditko’s pencils
and my copy placements:

And here’s the script for that page:

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of the story.

© 2011 Tony Isabella