“The entire universe has 3,483 superpowered individuals.” That seems low.
“an entire planet full of… ” Wait, is it universe or the planet? COME ON MY GUY. I DIDN’T EVEN ASK FOR THIS INFO
the switch to the comic is jarring. Have to backtrack.
Sam is here to kill Superman. Just show Superman. don’t need a retro comic.
TWO WEEKS LATER… bruh… not this again
So it’s like The Boys. Heroes exist and they have comics and stuff.
“Golden Age” “American comics used to be dark and edgy” “Now it’s all gay fan fiction” Is this the theme? This isa return to “dark and edgy”?
“you sure? You sure? You sure?” This scene has gone on way too long. Cut Dmitri. Totally generic SNL character not specific to this setting or plot.
“Wizard Jew Albert Einstein”? Cut all of this. He wants to fuck a stripper. Cut it.
The “editor’s note” is for a universe we don’t live in? That makes no sense. Was Albert Einstein literally a wizard in this universe? That would be a joke that depends on this universe.
More stuff about Beck’s cooking. CUT ALL OF THIS.
“Tiny oriental womb”? Cut
The owner is correct. This bitch shouldn’t be reading comics at work.
Flashback to why Beck cannot stop reading comicbooks.
I don’t understand this backstory. She was disillusioned because superheroes are creeps or because the idea of becoming a superhero is literally retarded? But it’s not in this universe?
Two pages should be two panels
Superkiller enters on page 12…
Why is there an establishing shot of the place we are currently in? Tell me it’s not for this lulz random “orgy in progress” sign. Cut it
Use Beck as her name. Not her full name. It’s distracting.
I think she would have assumed it’s because of the internal bleeding and not her cooking.
This guy is bleeing all over the place and she made a cheeseburger? Uh… it’s just not alarming to have a stranger’s blood everywhere?
“Just call me Sam”, not this paragraph.
“I have no idea what those are”. Bro YOU ARE IN A SUPER SUIT. YOU ARE HERE TO KILL SUPERMAN. How do you not know what a list of super teams are? HOW ARE YOU DUMBER THAN THE READER???
cut these panels. not needed. Everyone knows what super teams are.
“horrifying trail of blood.” But she’s quippy and sarcastic about it.
“don’t mistake me for one of those lame supervillain types though.”
That’s exactly what a lame supervilliain type would say
Sam reveals his gun and it’s a traced shot of an old toy. DON’T TRACE THE DEFINING WEAPON OF THE CHARACTER. Why is it even that specific toy? Redraw it so it is in the correct perspective at least.
Sam weilds a 3 shot gun to kill supers. Got it.
Cut this. This is so much exposition. Yeah, no shit it would be hard to shoot superheroes. Reader knows this.
“You need WHAT?!” Why is she surprised he needs hostages. He’s a bad guy trying to kill superman.
funny bank sponsorship. Sam’s quip detracts from the joke. Is he from our universe with the FDIC? Is he from a different universe with an FDIC?
“What do you mean my universe?” Pretty self-evident statement considering the world is full of superheroes and she has wasted her life reading comics. Make a statement about Beck’s character. All of her lines are just prompts for the villain Sam to give more exposition.
Wait.. he can’t take his mask off, okay.. “For some reason” SAY THE REASON
cut this manager shit
allahu akbar is funny.
cut all this bag stuff. 2/3 of the page on dialog that doesn’t advance the plot. It’s not specific to the universe.
okay, heroes are showy. got it.
The whole universe “isn’t big on background checks”? Wow!
I forgot that this was about hostages. Why is he telling this story?
the taking bullets thing is funny.
This is confusing. Cut the jokes and shorten it.
Cut most of these words. This is action. Make it pithy and fast.
Oh I thought the gun was talking. Why isn’t the robot here?
“Some bitch waitress”? Huh. So it’s not Superman? Is it Homelander? It’s a jerk who doesn’t care about people? Convenient for someone who kills superheroes to never have a moral dillema about it. Dealing with moral dillemas is what makes a plot and defines a character just fyi
Cut these jokes. They slow everything to a crawl.
Oh he’s a gay superman?
So many jokes, but I don’t know who this meteorman character is. He’s a gay superman with musicals? Why? MAKE IT ABOUT SUPERMAN. I KNOW SUPERMAN. I LIKE SUPERMAN.
Eh.. so he secretly snuck into this diner beforehand and put kryptonite in the soup. Like Bill & Ted 2? And then he ricocheted a bullet of superman’s face and put a hole in the kryptonite soup? To cover superman with kryptonite. After throwing a mug at him? I feel like a villain would have tried that in 80 years.
“Ah that’s why the chowder turned green.” cut this third. It’s jokes about a restaurant that doesn’t matter.
Wait so the kryptonite hurt him because it was in the soup and the soup got on his cape?
He figured out superman was gay and took kryptonite from his gay lover. Because of musicals. Okay. But Jimmy Olsen actually had kryptonite, didn’t he? I think I see what happened to this story. The correct way to do this was to make “Meteorman” as close to Superman as possible, and the real reason he gave jimmy kryptonite is because they’re gay. That’s funny beacuse it’s based on a real universe. This just reads like Super Gay Proud Boy Man Universe.
“Meterorman’s sleeping with a kid!?” Delete the fuck out of this. Makes no sense. I don’t want to think about it either. And it makes no sense.
A lot of these quips feel they only exist because the plot is too boring on its own.
Again, Beck only exists to ask “What? Why? How?”
The “real reason” he kept the kryptonite around is forced. These are things the real Superman would say. Not an angry Gay Proud Boy Man.
Meteorman’s death is too long. Cut it in half. He says it’s not personal, but doesn’t say why. SAY WHY
Cut the they call me SUPER KILLER SPEECH IN HALF IT’S WAY TOO LONG.
“Only a few hours to spare” THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD TO KNOW IN THE BEGINNING. LIKE RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING “WE HAVE TWO WEEKS TO DO THIS JOB”. HOLY SHIT A TICKING CLOCK!!
This scene where he kills meteorman and revealed the multiverse reformation initiative needs to be on page 10. We are now passed the intro scene.
“Look in a mirror” What does that mean? She’s a normal person who likes comic books and has a job.
This speech makes no sense. The entire universe is going to die. Beck couldn’t have avoided it no matter what she did. I guess it was just a gambit to get the gun back? But it’s written like a correct diagnosis of her character
Sam was shot, but that’s the fourth shot of the gun. HE SAID HIS GUN HOLDS THREE SHOTS. SO WHY THE FUCK WAS BECK ABLE TO SHOOT SAM??? HOLY SHIT, COUNT THE SHOTS IN YOUR OWN STORY
1. JIMMY OLSEN
2. METEOR MAN
3. METEOR MAN
4. SAM
It works better if he was counting his shots and knew she couldn’t kill him. Whatever
Beck is going to die in teleporting land, but she reminds Sam of someone he used to know. This story has a lot of like, “Something bad is happening! But here is something that there’s no warning of that resolves the conflict” Beck should have reminded him of someone well before this. Cut out the meaningless quips and nonsequitirs and put genuine dialog in that shows character and motivation.
I don’t think you need this flashback. The idea was communicated in one panel. This entire page is just extreneous, generic dialog about keggers and a car not essential to the plot about a car. Like manic pixie dream girl shit. WE GET IT.
Now Beck’s dead, but she’s alive again because she’s a sidekick now.
and that’s the end
Oh here is a guy who is trying to kill the Superkillers, but we don’t know who the superkiller are or why they are doing any of this.
NOTES
It’s not funny. It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s not. Let’s try to figure out why.
CUT CUT CUT
This is 10 pages of story stretched to 70. Like the first ten minutes of Guardians of the Galaxy or Indiana Jones, but a whole movie. Half the panels need to be cut. Half of the dialog needs to be cut. An overwhelming amount of the comic is nonsequitir asides that have nothing to do with the specific plot or the characters themselves. It’s exhausting. Cut Dmitri. Cut the randos. Reduce every scene by 2/3rds. Cut all pointless banter and repetitive exposition, especially when it’s done over flashbacks or visual cut-aways of the same exposition. Show don’t tell, and show in the context of the story.
Why is there 8 pages of Beck talking to herself about comic books when it has nothing to do with the story? Cut it.
THE STORY
Where is the story? There isn’t one. There is no conflict that isn’t instantly resolved because Sam had already done something we didn’t know about. We learn nothing of his motivation and he has no setbacks or inner conflict besides being physically beaten. Similarly, Beck wants nothing and does nothing. She’s a reactive character who doesn’t react. Sam even says she does nothing! What does she want? How is she going to get it? She has an obsessive knowledge of comics. Why didn’t her obsessive knowledge of comics save Sam’s life after his generic Superman plan didn’t work? Heroes planning and failing and being rescued by their new unlikely ally is a story. This is just a linear progression of events.
The jokes in Superkiller don’t land because there is no tension to relieve. The characters go out of their way to quip about everything. Blood, villains, the end of the universe. Everything is a quip and nothing affects them. We have no reason to care about them, so we don’t care about their jokes. Random background players add their quips for no reason. It feels like a brainstorming session or a Reddit thread.
“Now I know what a TV dinner feels like,” isn’t particularly clever, but it’s funny because it eases the tension in a story with VERY HIGH STAKES. There are no stakes in this story, which is strange because the universe is being destroyed, or it isn’t being destroyed. I don’t know. I have no idea what happens if Sam doesn’t kill Superman. ISN’T THAT IMPORTANT??
PROTAGONIST
Who is in charge of this story? Is it Sam or is it Beck? Beck is more human, but she only exists to ask “How? What? You did!?”. Is Sam the villain? He acts like one. Is this supposed to be a partner story like Lethal Weapon? Leaving this confusing is not interesting, it’s bad. I need to know why Sam killed Superman and seemingly destroyed the universe. DO NOT PUT IT IN ANOTHER STORY. THIS IS THE STORY. TELL IT HERE.
Having “Meteorman” meltdown like Homelander is unearned and does not solve the core problem. “It’s my job,” to kill Superman is not good enough. It didn’t work for the Nazis and it doesn’t work here. Make Sam a real character. It would not be fun to kill Superman, but he HAS TO DO IT.
SATIRE
The satire is off. If the point of this comic is to satirize superheroes, Superman was a good choice for an introduction, but a closeted gay Superman has no contextual relevance. It’s not Superman. It’s Angry Gay Man. Why would he even hide being gay in the modern world? He would be celebrated. Is this killing the “gay fan fiction”? I don’t think that line was referring to this kind of gay fan fiction. I think it was referring to woke characters, which would have been really funny here!
What is this story about? Clearly it’s something important because Superman gives a big speech about relevence and “everyone faces the end” and Beck gives a speech about growing up and giving up childish things, but these ideas are never explored. Where is Beck’s monologue at the pivotal moment FFS? SHE IS THE MAIN CHARACTER.
PILOT EPISODE
Sitcom pilot episodes are mostly cringe and bad. They have to be because their purpose is to introduce characters in a short amount of time. This story is written as a sitcom pilot episode, BUT it’s 80 pages long. That’s a movie. Movies introduce characters quickly and take us on a whirlwind narrative before ending with a complete and satisfying arc. Characters change. This story is stuck in the middle and it seems to be aware of that. There is an effort to make the characters change toward the end, but it is uneared as though it was tacked on at the end of a sitcom pilot, because they haven’t faced any hardships or obstacles. The act structure and hero’s journey are not here. The protagonist never decides to be part of the adventure. Beck reacts at the end out of panic, but like a scared animal. Sam does his dumb plan and it basically works even though it’s retarded and the reader knows it’s retarded.
Instead of worrying about introducing characters, just tell a compelling story. Why is the story of how these characters met important? We’re given an origin story here for characters we don’t know and have no reason to care about.
OVERALL
Commit to the bit. Kill Supers. Be a “blood soaked whatever” like the title says. I know this is a good idea because Rick & Morty and Deadpool and The Boys are very successful. People like imagining this sort of thing, but this comic doesn’t do any of it.
Learn to cut. Cut everything. Write down your scenes, and then cut half them. Figure out what the theme is and start over. REALLY START OVER. Don’t just change dialog and add more explanation. Ironically, the premise of the comic, that universes need to be deleted to make room for better universes is the best advice for this story.
Figure out who the characters are beyond quips and what you are trying to say to the reader. Then put high stakes into it, real sci-fi rules like counting gun shots, and let the comedy come from their reactions to it.
This is an intro, a linear progression of events to set the tone of the universe. Now you have to tell a story in that universe.