Tales of the Odd: Bouillabaisse, strips 22 and 23
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Strip 22: This is where the story was all heading. Penny’s been beaten down, nearly killed and humiliated in every possible way. And so, when Evil returns to her and makes his offer again, she accepts. The whole series was really supposed to be about this moment, and I’m kinda disappointed that I didn’t have the patience to see it through, because it’s kind of a cool idea at the core. Superhero comics (and pretty much all other entertainment that operates on that simplistic level) put forth this world in which two polar opposites exist: good and evil. Evil basically exists to do whatever it wants: to steal, to blow up things that it doesn’t like, to rule the world if it is so inclined. And good just exists to stop evil. I ask you: if you lived in a world like that, which one would you choose? Virtue (as represented by comics, cartoons, et. al.) is a lot of work, and it’s typically thankless. (Look at, for instance, Spider-Man. “Action is his reward.” What the hell kind of reward is that?) Evil, on the other hand, is a good time. You get power, respect and more often than not, a much cooler outfit than the good guys. Penny’s endless efforts as a superhero, her constant obstacles with absolutely no payoff, were ultimately building to the moment when she has this revelation. Evil is fun. Fort Burr works better without superheroes. And so (using a process I kinda hinted at way back in issue 3), she’s distilled down to her purest dark essence and embodied with the tantalizing powers of Bad. Yay, bad. (Oh, also Evil gives a little speech that links the origins of evil in Fort Burr to the misguided project that the Director and Loretta were working on about 10 strips ago. I bet you forgot about that. Apparently, I did too.)
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Strip 23: My notes are pretty simple on this one. They reference the “all family business is settled” sequence from The Godfather. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, apart from maybe that last little bit where it’s kinda hard to tell that she wipes out the supervillain prison/castle. I probably shoulda made that bigger, but I really wanted to end with that menacing image of her flying away.