USSR - Wolf Hunt - P. A. Nolte

1/ A team of three or four men on horses plow through heavy snow in a forest thick with sickly little winter trees.  Behind them is another man on a sled being pulled by two horses.

Caption: Russia. 1910.

2/ A wolf hauls ass through a gorge, kicking up a large cloud of the powdery snow that blankets everything.

Caption: With every sinew strained, he hurtles.

3/ The wolf comes to the edge of the forest and out onto a white plain.  Behind him is a pack of dogs.  The wolf is only several lengths ahead and losing.

Caption: The hunt for wolves is on.

4/ The hunters.  They watch unconcerned.  This is not their first hunt.

Hunter: Легкая работа.

5/ An aerial shot of the unfolding event and the surrounding landscape.  The outline of the forest mimics the outline of Russia.

Caption: The hounds bark themselves sick // As the beaters break and run // And the snow turns red with flags and blood. // - Vladimir Vysotsky, 1968

USSR--"Back in the..."--David Press.

USSR 001—“Back In The…”—7 Pages

David Press / February 3, 2016 / Draft 0.3

PAGE ONE.

1.1: We’re going to open in the grand ballroom of some early NINETEENTH CENTURY Russian palace. There are grand costumes and all sorts of eclectic faces. There is a band playing in the far right corner of the room. The band has a guitarist, a drummer, and a singer—kind of out of place for the time period.

1. CAPTION [TIME/LOCATION]:    St. Petersburg, Russia. 1917.

1.2: We’re getting closer to the BAND who are dressed up in period-Amadeus-like outfits. The LYRICS from the band will float over the panel.

2. DISPLAY:          OH WE’RE BACK IN THE…!

1.3: Cutting away to the downstairs of the palace where butlers, servers, and tailors bustle around in suits, tuxedos and black and white dresses. One server calls after another who is walking off panel.

3. SERVER:           NAZHMITE! NAZHMITE.

1.4: SERVER 1 catches up to the TAILOR who is holding a piece of dress over his arm.

4. SERVER 1:         Nazhmite! Press—is your hearing silent?

5. TAILOR:           What do you want Nik?

6. SERVER 1:         You’d better hurry up…the princess is expecting it for her wedding tomorrow.

1.5: Upstairs a BUTLER crashes through the door into the ballroom. The doors are wide and he’s shouting at the top of his lungs.

7. BUTLER:           The CZAR AND HIS FAMILY ARE DEAD!

7B. Butchered by the Leninists! 

The USSR - To Victory on Stranger Wings - Perry Kent

Panel One:

An old soviet space rocket is blasting off.

CAPTION: Soviet Union. November 16, 1965.

Panel Two:

The front of the rocket separates away from a larger fuselage as the planet Earth drops away in the background.

Panel Three:

Two elderly Russian men in uniforms lift their glasses filled with dark liquor as they toast the rocket from their lavish offices. Nik is bald with a gray mustache, while Dmitri has salt and pepper hair and mustache.

NIK: To the pursuit of science, with the heavens laid open before us!

DMITRI: Made possible by our foreign friend.

Panel Four:

A small space probe flies through space toward Venus.

NIK (OP): "It was not altruism. He would have done it for anyone."

DMITRI (OP): "He did say the German's were too distracted to get it right."

Panel Five:

The probe descends through a bright but clouded atmosphere, a parachute fully deployed.

DMITRI (OP): "The quid pro quo was most favorable. Lucky we found him before the Americans."

NIK (OP): "It would seem they have at least one of their own."

DMITRI (OP): "Do you think going to Venus will tip them off?"

Panel Six:

The probe has set on the planets surface and a small door-like hatch cracks open.

NIK (OP): " I don't see how. This will look like a crash. A complete accident."

Panel Seven:

An alien creature with thick skin and a large head walks away from the probe.

NIK (OP): "We'll have our rockets and glory."

DMITRI (OP): "And the little bastard will be home."

- END -

USSR – The Super President Action Force Team: “Back Down, You USSR!” – MK Stangeland Jr.

(Oh hey, look, they’re back! It only took about three and a half years to get around to it.)

(5 Panels)

Panel 1: A Soviet command base – it’s a classic-style villain command center, complete with a big table map that commands the center of the room. JOSEPH STALIN stands next to the map, and is joined by STALIN-BOTS.

STALIN: <Let them come! Once my master weapon - the COMMU-RAY OF COMMAND – fires, nothing will be able to stop us!>

STALIN-BOT: <So sure of that, are you?>

Panel 2: Stalin turns in surprise to look at the nearby STALIN-BOT that spoke back to him.

STALIN: <What?! My own robot dares to question me?>

Panel 3: The STALIN-BOT pulls its head away – actually a mask – to reveal that the robot is actually WINSTON CHURCHILL – an ally of the SPAFT - in disguise. He points a gun at STALIN.

CHURCHILL (1): Hardly!

CHURCHILL (2): Surrender, Stalin! The jig is up!

Panel 4: STALIN looks defiant, ready to laugh off this particular turn of events. Other STALIN-BOTs move in.

STALIN (1): <CHURCHILL?!>

STALIN (2): <You fool, you dare to face me alone!?>

Panel 5: Other STALIN-BOTS remove their masks to reveal that RONALD REAGAN, HARRY TRUMAN, and a small team of GROVER CLEVELANDS were also disguised the way that CHURCHILL was. Also present is RICHARD NIXON, who looks like he just appeared out of nowhere. Those remaining STALIN-BOTS which are real confused by this turn of events.

RONALD REAGAN: Hardly, you emperor of evil!

HARRY TRUMAN: This plot stops here!

RICHARD NIXON: You won’t be kickin’ anyone around anymore!

(END PAGE)

The USSR - Echo Location - Grant McLaughlin

1 - Establishing shot of present-day Pripyat, forest abounding and the reactor in the background (not unlike the image here).  Let's say it's winter, approaching sundown (if not a little bit beyond).  Birds fly in the sky above the city.

CAPTION: Echoes of the Soviet Union are by no means hard to come by.

2 - On the (in?)famous Ferris wheel.  An elk stands nearby, looking up towards a sound off-panel.

CAPTION: But nowhere are they louder than under the shadow of Reactor 4.

3 - A pack of wolves run through the bumper cars towards the Ferris wheel (visible in the background, not unlike this photo).

CAPTION: For while ghosts can be found most anywhere one dares to look.

4 - The wolves have downed the elk and ear tearing at its carcass.  One wolf looks up towards the reader, its eyes bright in the night.

CAPTION: It is only here that they glow.

The USSR - Red Square - Ray Wonsowski

Panel 1- establishing shot, Saint Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, night. It's lit by klieg lights and police cars in one corner.

CAPTION: 1965.

CAPTION (Ursa Major): She is the third in the last year.

Panel 2- Zoom in, the entrance to the Cathedral, barricaded by police cars and military. Towering over them is the hulking form of the original Crimson Dynamo, standing guard.

CAPTION (Ursa Major): Nadia Toralova, 19 years of age. Her father herds sheep in the Ural Mountains.

Panel 3- inside the entrance to the Cathedral, lies the covered body of the young woman. The sheet is bloodied. RED GUARDIAN examines the scene on his haunches, while URSA MAJOR reads a report from his clipboard.

URSA MAJOR: Multiple stab wounds to the lower abdomen. Discovered naked from waist down, she still seems...intact.

RED GUARDIAN: Why?

Panel 4- POV from behind URSA MAJOR, over his shoulder, facing a furious RED GUARDIAN, the body visible behind him on the floor. We see URSA MAJOR passing him the clipboard in his paw.

RED GUARDIAN: Why would someone do this to a shepherd's daughter?

URSA MAJOR: My apologies, comrade. I had thought you were informed...

Panel 5- reverse POV, URSA MAJOR looking down at us as we see the top page of a classified document on the clipboard, red ink Cyrillic stating top secret KGB covert operational details within.

URSA MAJOR: She is the third Red Room operative to be murdered by an unknown person with knowledge of the programme.

URSA MAJOR: Someone is hunting Black Widows.

Sorry to leave on a cliffhanger, folks. I hope to be back someday and tie up all my loose ends...Spasibo.

Why the USSR?

Because everything eventually must fade out...

For almost 70 years, the Soviet Union was a grand political and economic experiment gone horribly wrong, and a Cold War military superpower that fed our American fears of nuclear Armageddon. For those of us that lived on our side of the Iron Curtain, they were the embodiment of Aldous Huxley's "Player on the Other Side". In reality, they were our closest neighbor in a slow decline.

They had their share of heroes, to be sure. Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Author Boris Pasternak. Composer Sergei Prokoviev. They had their villains and boogeymen as well. Stalin. Kruschev. The KGB and Spetznaz. Good and evil, just like us.

I remember when the Berlin Wall came down. A lot of Americans cheered that day, like we won some long game of Risk. It was my first peek at our ideological opposites, and I couldn't find a reason to hate anyone who was so eager to embrace us.

Fiction has done a great job giving us Soviets to fear. James Bond fighting SMERSH. Batman fought both the NKVDemon and the KGBeast. But there was that Russian honor and pride in characters like Teen Titan Red Star and the Avenger, Black Widow. Even Captain America found his opposite in Red Guardian.

But it had its time, and Gorbachev knew when it was time to let it all go. And in much the same way, it's time for me to do so as well. I'll be walking away from the site for now, but I know Grant, MK, and the rest will have something up their sleeves to get the band back together soon.

Thank you, Thoughtballoons, for the most unique writing experience I've ever been part of. You are all blessed beyond words. Za zdorov'ya.