Quake - The Scalpel or the Sword - Travis M. Holyfield

Panel One - Rooftop, exterior, night. Daisy Johnson, QUAKE, is looking down the scope of a sophisticated sniper rifle. She is dressed in her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.

QUAKE (CAPTION): It was one of Fury's first lessons...


Panel Two - Daisy's POV through the scope. The scope is giving her a thermal Head's-Up-Display of a conference room. Five men sit around the conference table. They are highlighted in yellow. Text in the HUD gives Daisy (and us) important information. One line reads "x1000". A second line reads "Hostiles: 5". A third line reads "Rifle mode: Semi-Auto".

QUAKE (CAPTION): Sometimes you need to use a scalpel...


Panel Three - Continuation of previous. She is zooming out to give herself a view of the entire floor. We can now see that outside of the conference room there are dozens of armed soldiers. spread out throughout the floor. All are highlighted in yellow. One line of text reads "x500". A second line reads "Hostiles: 30". The third line continues to read "Rifle mode: Semi-Auto".

QUAKE (CAPTION): Sometimes you need to use a sword.


Panel Four - Closeup of Daisy's finger flicking a switch on the rifle.

SFX: CLACK


Panel Five -  A return to the HUD. Daisy is zooming out even further, and now we can see the entire building. It is filled with yellow dots, each representing a bad guy. One line of text reads "x250". A second line reads "Hostiles: 275". The third line reads "Rifle mode: Full-Auto".


Panel Six - Daisy leans away from the rifle. She looks annoyed.

QUAKE (CAPTION): And then, sometimes, every once in a while...


Panel Seven - Daisy has put the rifle down and stands, arms outstretched, hands open towards the building. She has her eyes closed in concentration. The building is showing signs of starting to shake under the effects of a highly localized earthquake.

QUAKE (CAPTION): You need to use a %$#@%$ SLEDGEHAMMER.

Quake - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Past - Ray Wonsowski

The following takes place in the universe of the TV show, so I'll be using Skye as Quake, as she starts to get used to her Inhuman abilities.

The Set-up: A mysterious assassin has been picking off powered criminals, the whisper-stream calling him the "Scourge". Agent Coulson's team tracked the Scourge down, only to find out the Scourge is a Deathlok unit. While the rest of the team hunts the Deathlok/Scourge on the ground, Agent May leaves SKYE on a supermarket roof with Fitz's drone controls and a sniper scope. One drone has spotted the target just down the street from her position...

Panel 1- SKYE excitedly looks over the ledge of the supermarket roof, scope to her eye. Reflected in the glass, a figure in a duster coat can be seen, collar up, showing only a burnt scalp...

SKYE: (mumbling) cmon, cmon, turn around, you ugly...

Panel 2- Panel should look like the crosshairs of the scope. Close in on the shoulders and upturned collar, but one red eye peeks around or over the collar, straight at us.

SKYE: (small print) uh oh

Panel 3- Same panel design, but all we can see are two jackbooted feet, as the figure has leapt up into the sky.

SKYE: ...uh, guys, I think he...

Panel 4- Foreground, the figure has landed in a crouch, one arm out, a futuristic heavy military revolver in hand. Background, SKYE shows total fear at the enemy's sudden landing; she's dropped the scope, and looks like she's about to go over the edge...

DEATHLOK/SCOURGE: Target designate Daisy Skye Johnson. Terrigen confirmation. Codename "Quake".

SKYE: ...ohmygod...

Panel 5- Reveal that this Deathlok template has been fused with an older version of SKYE (roughly 40 years of age). The hair is all burned away, leaving nothing but a scarred scalp. Under the white duster coat, blowing to the side in the wind, we can tell she is wearing the classic Demolisher armour. She is pointing her weapon at us, in a crouch. Her free hand is touching the rooftop, and there is the slight hint of a tremor starting beneath her palm.

DEATHLOK/SCOURGE/SKYE: I'm sorry. Colonel Manning's orders.

Quake - Dyed in the Wool - Grant McLaughlin

Panel 1 is big and takes up maybe a little over a third of the page.  The rest of the panels focus in on different aspects of the scene set in the first panel.  Row two is made up of panels 2 - 4 (all same size) and row three is made up of panels 5 and 6 (6 being maybe twice as wide as 5).

1 - Daisy is at a laundromat, waiting on her washing.  She leans against the washing machine, wearing some appropriate "laundry day" attire.  There are a number of other patrons throughout the room, a couple folding clothing, some watching their drying, a guy getting a drink from one of the TARGET-Cola machines, and so forth.  There's also the old geezer who presumably owns the establishment sitting behind the counter - it looks like he's sleeping in his seat (although hard to tell for sure with his old person sunglasses).

CAPTION (DAISY): You pick up a thing or two when you have the world's best spy as your teacher.

2 - Close-up on the couple folding laundry.  If you feel the need, their wash could be primarily green, but that isn't important.  Maybe coloured so the world around them is a little faded / greyed out to emphasize that they are the focus of the panel.

CAPTION (DAISY): For instance, it didn't take long to make these two as Hydra.

3 - Focus on the TARGET Cola machines in the back.  While someone stands near them trying to get his cola out (maybe hitting the machine a bit), it's the machines that are coloured, while the rest of the panel is faded / greyed.

CAPTION (DAISY): It wasn't hard to recognize these as A.I.M.'s new Death-o-Matic Devices.

4 - Focus on the old (apparently) sleeping geezer.  He looks about as dangerous as a tired kitten.  As before, the world around should be faded / greyed.

CAPTION (DAISY): And although I've yet to figure out who this guy's with, I know that he will be trouble.

5 - Return to Daisy.  She's taking out her wash, holding a bright red shirt in her hands.  The rest of the world can be regular coloured.

CAPTION (DAISY): For all that, we occasionally skipped over some of the more basic stuff.

6 - Daisy's still taking out her laundry - maybe some of it is already in the basket by this point.  The important thing is that the rest of the load was white clothing, which has now all been dyed pink.  Daisy has a look of annoyance / exasperation on her face.

DAISY: Aw, not again!

Quake – Shake It Up – MK Stangeland Jr.

(7 Panels)

Panel 1: NICK FURY is sitting on a park bench in front of a bush reading a newspaper. An unopened pop can is on the bench next to him.

Panel 2: QUAKE pops her head out of the bush. She has a sneaky grin on her face.

SFX: *Rustle*

Panel 3: QUAKE carefully grabs the pop can from where it sits on the park bench.

Panel 4: QUAKE holds the pop can in front of her. She has a mischievous grin on her face. She doesn’t look like she’s doing much, but there should be lines of some kind around the pop can to indicate she’s using her powers to shake up the contents of the can.

SFX: (Minimized) bzzz

Panel 5: QUAKE carefully tries to set the pop can back down next to NICK FURY.

Panel 6: QUAKE stops short as she hears a noise from behind her. Her voice reads of a sudden ‘Uh oh’ as she’s been caught, and she knows it.

NICK FURY: (Off-Panel) A-HEM.

Panel 7: NICK FURY – the real NICK FURY, as the first one was actually an LMD – stands behind QUAKE, arms crossed in front of him and looking at QUAKE with a face that asks ‘What do you think YOU’RE doing?’, but in a manner that comes with a half-cocked grin.

(END PAGE)

Why Quake?

What a difference a year and a half makes.

Back when Agents of SHIELD was first rolling, there was a lot of talk about, among other things, how rather lackluster the show was. It wasn’t a terrible show, but it certainly wasn’t what people were hoping for. Then came Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and everything changed for the better. And then, as the show hit its second season mid-year finale, it dropped another couple of bombshells.

Among them was the matter surrounding the character of “Skye”, a woman who when she was introduced didn’t get a whole lot of love, with some people going so far as to call her out as a Mary Sue. And while she certainly got better post-Winter Soldier, it still took everyone by surprised when it was revealed that “Oh, hey, guess what Marvel fans! You already know this character!”

Turns out that Skye was, in fact, Daisy Johnson, AKA Quake. An earthquake generating superhero who served as Nick Fury’s right hand woman during his exile leading up to Secret Invasion and during the Secret Warriors series. A woman who’s got the power to take out Magneto and training from THE spymaster himself to operate on the more clandestine side of the coin.

She’s also very much the kind of element fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were asking for from Agents of SHIELD from the get go. And if their post-Winter Soldier record is anything to go on, it’s a payoff we can expect to see some great things from.