Frosty the Snowman - Prog 8 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...continuing the music-fueled adventures of Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins.

(Turn the Page will return next week. In the meantime...)

After having crash-landed on Earth during WWII, the Twins have been fighting for truth, justice, and peace on our world for decades. Now, they are returning to theirs, to free the child slaves of New Exor...

Panel 1- at the mouth of the cave chamber where the slaves are penned, ZAN peers inside as he and JAYNA bump fists with a purple flash. ZAN is holding a sparking baton in his free hand, which looks like it was "borrowed" from the guard knocked out cold at their feet.

CAPTION: Down to the village...

Panel 2- the TWINS unlocking the cages, freeing the children, JAYNA in the shape of a squid so she can open multiple cages at the same time. ZAN is scanning to the side, as something has caught his eye.

CAPTION: ...with a boomstick in his hand, running here and there, all around the square...

Panel 3- cut to another GUARD reclining on a stool against the wall, watching a ball of ice roll by.

SoundFX: thumpity-thump-thump

Panel 4- the GUARD bends down to examine the ball of ice as another rolls by, a rotund shadow cast over him.

SoundFX: thumpity-thump-thump

ZAN (off-panel): Psst.

Panel 5- from the guard's POV, looking up, ZAN, in the form of a pissed-off Frosty the Snowman, snowy fist pulled back about to come down like a hammer.

ZAN/FROSTY: Happy birthday.

Panel 6- black panel.

SoundFX: WHAM!

Next Prog: Freedom! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Concert Posters - Prog 7 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends... Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna...

Previous progs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Today's chapter is inspired by Rush's 2112. 

Panel 1- Night on a high mountain top, in front of the mouth of a cave, APACHE CHIEF, ZAN, and JAYNA sit around a campfire. All are looking into the starlit sky, the CHIEF pointing up into it, as if saying, Look.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: They left the planet long ago...Their power grows with purpose strong...

Panel 2- The CHIEF's finger traces the constellations; one is By-Tor, the fighter, the other is the Snow Dog, the protector. One star gleams brightest, the Snow Dog's eye; JAYNA's hand gestures to it (New Exor).

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: ...To claim the home where they belong. Home to tear the Temples down. Home to change!

Panel 3- one of Mongul's fighter skiffs levitates at the cave ledge; JAYNA at the stick. ZAN steps on the wing, and gratefully shakes APACHE CHIEF's hand.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: ...I have not left this cave for days now, it has become my last refuge in my total despair.

Panel 4 - POV from behind APACHE CHIEF. He looks up in the sky, the starcraft already disappearing into the starry sky. To the left, a waterfall cascades down a mountainside. The CHIEF sits cross legged, head low, silhouetted by the dying fire.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: I have only the music of the waterfall to comfort me now...

...until next time, space cowboy...

Monster Magnet - Prog 6 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, from last week's Prog, when the mad conqueror of Warworld, Mongul, had defeated Superman. The Twins, however, have rallied the Super Friends to challenge him and defend Metropolis...

This week's episode is based on Monster Magnet's "Space Lord"...

Panel 1 - MONGUL tosses an unconscious SUPERMAN from his levitating platform in victory, but something has caught his attention below.

MONGUL: Now give me the strength to split the world in two!

JAYNA (off-panel): Yeah?

Panel 2 - in an intersection, traffic light knocked over, a giant Cerberus stalks amidst the wounded alien fighters. The middle head has the face and winning grin of JAYNA, the other two heads have unconscious alien bodies clamped painfully in their jaws. JAYNA is looking straight up at us, as if taunting Mongul.

JAYNA: I ate all the rest...now I've gotta eat you...

Panel 3 - ZAN has leapt up to MONGUL's platform, his fist glows purple with power. MONGUL, furiously surprised, turns to face his challenge. In the deep background, BLACK VULCAN and SAMURAI can be seen tearing into MONGUL's alien warship.

ZAN: I lost my soul when I fell to Earth. My planets called me to the void of my birth...

Panel 4 - ZAN's arm has become a long, violet icy lance, impaling MONGUL through the middle and lifting him off the platform. ZAN's expression should be of righteous anger, while MONGUL is truly shocked.

ZAN: The time has come for me to kill this game! Now open wide and say my name!

Panel 5 - close-up of ZAN, teeth gnashing, staring up into the dying eyes of MONGUL, sweating in his dying breath.

ZAN: ...space...lord....mother - -!!

...to be continued...

Transitions - Prog 5 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna...Having escaped a Thanagarian warship, the Twins crashland in WWII Norway.  Accompanied by the Haunted Tank, they discover a Nazi death camp's mass grave, overseen by the Red Skull....

Note: Zan and Jayna should look 16 or 17 throughout, as Exorians have incredibly long lifespans. This week's page inspired by "Goodbye, Blue Sky", by Pink Floyd.

Panel 1 - Foreground, a scared, ragtag bunch of Nazi soldiers point their rifles at a strange bunch of allies coming over the top of a snow-covered bunker: ZAN, JAYNA, BUCKY BARNES (wielding a machine gun), NAMOR the Sub-Mariner, and the ghost of Gen. STUART (waving his saber).

CAPTION: Norway, 1945

CAPTION: Did you see the frightened ones?  Did you hear the falling bombs?

Panel 2 - NAMOR, ZAN, and JAYNA, their heads above the sea water, shielding their eyes with their hands or arms from the atomic bomb explosion over the distant horizon.

CAPTION: Bikini Atoll, 1957

CAPTION: Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter...

Panel 3 - JAYNA, wearing a tie-dye purple and white tank top and bell bottom jeans, and ZAN, wearing a purple Nehru jacket and small sunglasses, can be seen in a crowd of protesters marching on a beautiful sunny day, all shouting. Signs read such slogans as "Stop the Killing" "Out of Vietnam" and "End the 'Nam".

CAPTION, Washington D.C., 1968

CAPTION:  ...When the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue sky...

Panel 4 - A humongous flying saucer hangs in the sky over Metropolis. MONGUL stands on a levitating platform, holding an unconscious SUPERMAN by the throat, but something on the ground has caught his eye.

CAPTION: Metropolis, 1979

CAPTION: Goodbye, blue sky...

Panel 5 - Standing in front of the Hall of Justice, in their classic outfits, looking up defiantly, are BLACK VULCAN, ZAN, JAYNA, and SAMURAI, and behind them, standing 50 feet tall, APACHE CHIEF, all ready to take the challenge to Mongul.

CAPTION: ...goodbye...

...to be continued...

Red Skull - Prog 4 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins: having narrowly escaped a Thanagarian warship, they crash-landed in the snowy battlefields of World War II Norway. 

Today's selection is based on "The Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson. The setting: Beisfjord, Norway.

 In 1942, prison workers, mostly Yugoslavs, were massacred, allegedly in reaction to a typhus outbreak. Sick prisoners were grouped 20 at a time and shot in waves. Healthy ones were forced to run laps until they collapsed, and shot where they dropped. One day in July in particular, depending on the source, somewhere between 250 and 600 were slaughtered and dumped.

Panel 1- pov from uphill, just outside Camp No. 1. (See photo ref)

CAPTION: A gardener plants an evergreen while trampling on the flower...

Panel 2- ZAN, JAYNA, JEB STUART, and the ghost of GEN. STUART have crested a snowy ridge between iron gates and flying Nazi swastika flags waving in the breeze, the Haunted Tank can be seen in the distance behind them. The four of them are reacting in horror at what they are seeing. ZAN and JAYNA are holding each other, either in solace or to keep from passing out. JEB is drawing his sidearm, but the GENERAL just stands aghast.

CAPTION: I chased the wind of a prison ship, to taste the sweet and sour...

GEN. STUART: (small lettering) Mother o' God...

Panel 3- looking down into the pit of an open mass grave, filled with the emaciated, bloody, and lime-covered bodies of camp prisoners. Sitting in the middle of it all, on a makeshift throne made of piled-high corpses, is the RED SKULL. He is in his dress uniform, Iron Cross at his throat, his heavy coat draped over his shoulders. He holds a list cigarette in his left hand, blowing a long stream of smoke to the side. His pose should be legs crossed, reposed, as if exhausted at the amount of things to do in a day. A German automatic pistol is held lazily in his right.

RED SKULL: How disappointing. I was expecting Herr Kapitan...

CAPTION: The patterned juggler lifts his hand, the orchestra begin...

Panel 4- close up, the RED SKULL sights down the barrel of his pistol aimed straight at us, hateful purpose in his eyes.

RED SKULL: No matter. You'll do.

CAPTION: ...as slowly turns the grinding wheel, in the court of the Crimson King.

...to be continued...

Haunted Tank - Prog 3 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, having narrowly escaped a Thanagarian warcraft. Today's selection is based on "Tarkus" by (again) Emerson Lake & Palmer.

Panel 1 - The Haunted Tank is rolling over the snow-dusted Norwegian countryside, away from a decimated village, moving ahead toward the next Nazi stronghold, the Confederate flag flying in the winter wind.

(from within the Tank): ...this intel believable, Stuart? Nazi death camps?

(from within the Tank): Don't know, that's what we're on our way to find out...

Panel 2 - JEB STUART opens the hatch and pokes his head out, his breath visible in the winter cold. The ghost of GEN. STUART is foreground, pointing off panel, a look of confusion on his face.

JEB: Hey, Slim, why're you stopping?

GEN. STUART: What in tarnation...?

SLIM (from inside the Tank): You seeing this?

Panel 3 - POV from the tank turret. Standing in front of the Tank in the snow, ZAN and JAYNA standing beside the wreckage of their escape craft. They both have a "you gotta be kidding me" type smirk on their face.

ZAN: <Were you there to watch the earth be scorched? Did you stand beside the spectral torch?>

JAYNA: <Zan, please...that's a Tarkus?!?>

Panel 4 - Inset, the Twins' fists bump and spark.

ZAN: That's not a Tarkus...

Panel 5 - largest panel on page. JAYNA, panel left, has changed into a Tarkus, a bone-eating three-story tall red-eyed armadillo made from gleaming living metal and dragon scale, ready to roll on its muscled tank treads (instead of legs), its forearm cannons trained on the Haunted Tank, ready to breathe nuclear fire upon it. ZAN, tiny next to his sister's new form, gestures his arms toward her in a showman's "ta-da". The Tank, panel right, should be backing away almost cartoonishly as JEB slams the hatch shut. The Ghost, and his ghost horse, disappear in a wisp.

JAYNA/TARKUS: <THAT'S a Tarkus!!!>

GEN. STUART: Yipe!

...to be continued...

Hawkworld - Wonder Twins, Prog 2 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

Coming back to the prog-fueled adventures of Zan and Jayna, still taking inspiration from Emerson Lake and Palmer's "KarnEvil9", this time from the 3rd Impression. By the way, if you're looking for some trippy prog rock goodness, ELP is a great place to start; the whole of KarnEvil9 can be found on their masterpiece album Brain Salad Surgery...download it today!

Layout:

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444555
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Panel 1- in orbit above the planet Thanagar, the warship " Death in the Wind" shines, reflecting the light of its sun, the star Polaris. The ship looks like one of those winged scarabs found in the tombs of ancient Egypt:

CAPTION: ...the Fifth Order of All Wingmen?

Panel 2- walking to the bridge, Commander PRANA STEL, a tall Hawkwoman with Hindi-like features, carries her winged helmet in one hand, her other rests on the shoulder of her adjutant. This would be a young KATAR HOL, probably just fresh out of the Academy and on his first posting, no older than 15 or 16. He carries his helmet as well, but it has no wings.

KATAR: No man yields who flies in my ship!

PRANA: A fine officer someday...

Panel 3- close up on the faces of PRANA and KATAR, looks of unexpected surprise, bathed in red warning lights.

OFF-PANEL (from loudspeaker): DANGER!!

PRANA: Stations! Know your places!

Panel 4- PRANA, putting on her helmet, takes the conn of the bridge; it should vaguely resemble a pharaoh's throne. Various WINGMEN take their stations at their consoles.

PRANA: Let the bridge computer speak!
OFF-PANEL (from loudspeaker): STRANGER!

Panel 5- a gloved hand points at an alien version of a radar screen. The electronic markings should have a hieroglyphic look to them. One glyph is tailed by an erratic vector line.

OFF-PANEL (from loudspeaker): Load your program...

PRANA (off-panel, small lettering): By all seven hells, that best not be Rann...

PRANA (off-panel): Who dares cross our path?!?

Panel 6- screeching past the nose of the Thanagarian warship is a small, beaten spacecraft that looks like a forklift with blunt wings and a jet turbine bolted on top. In the windscreen, we can see JAYNA in the pilot's seat angrily struggling with the stick controls, ZAN standing behind white-knuckling the chair with a look of fear on his face. Lasers from the belly of the warship rain down around the Twins' escape craft

ZAN: I thought you said you could fly this thing?!?

JAYNA: Jam it, Zan!!

...to be continued...

The Wonder Twins - Warren Ellis Saturday Morning - Travis M. Holyfield

Panel 1: ZAN and JAYNA stand facing us. The artwork is typical Saturday morning cartoon, Hanna Barbera style. The Wonder Twins look extremely nervous.

ZAN: I don't know, Jayna. How we can be sure they're in there?

JAYNA: This is our only lead, Zan! What else can we do?


Panel 2: Closeup of the twins fist-bumping.

BOTH (OFF-PANEL): WONDER TWINS POWERS - ACTIVATE!


Panel 3: Zan shouts and thrusts his fist into the sky, Wavy transformation lines lead from his body to a bucket of ice, indicating his transformation.

ZAN: SHAPE OF... A BUCKET OF ICE!


Panel 4: Jayna shouts and thrusts her fist into the sky, Wavy transformation lines lead from her body to a burly, heavyset, hirsute man in "leather daddy" garb, indicating her transformation.

JAYNA: FORM OF... A BEAR!


Panel 5: We now reverse the view from the first panel so that we are behind the Wonder Twins, so that we can see past them to what they are looking at: A grotty, manky, disreputable bar. The sign above the door says "JACK HAMMER'S" This is to be the apotheosis of every gay bar from every "Police Academy" type movie from the 80s. rendered lovingly in Hanna Barbera house style.

ZAYNA: Don't worry, Batman and Robin! We'll save you!


(With apologies to my childhood)

The Wonder Twins - Prog 1 - Ray Wonsowski

Ok, so this is one of those things where it may not be "done in one" like I thought. I may skip a week or two here and there, but I kinda have this planned out as a series of 2000AD style "progs" (in my head, like 6 to 8 page backups). Anyway, I'm researching Zan and Jayna, listening to 70s prog rock on Pandora, when Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9" comes on, and all of a sudden I've come up with this for a beginning...

Prog 1 would be a new origin for the Twins. Out on the fringe-tip of the Milky Way's Sagittarian arm, there is an asteroid, traveling between the orbits of stars. Pipes, tubes, and vents crisscross and thread in and out of the asteroid. Picture Victorian England during the early Industrial Revolution meets Jules Verne's Master of the World, in space, kind of Toulouse Lautrec by way of H. R. Giger. Welcome to the mining colony of New Exor.

In one of the near-surface pockets is the entertainment crevice. It should look like part wild west traveling show, part fairground exhibition, part red light district, part prison.  It's closed for the night, a "cold and misty morning, when I heard a warning borne in the air". Black lights simulate night so the "exhibits" can sleep. Except for two...

PAGE 6 -

Panel 1 is a thin panel across the top, showing the row of cages, embedded in the rock walls, from a distance.

CAPTION: "Nightfall" on Exhibition Row.

CAPTION: ...not the time to lose your nerve, Zan...

Panel 2 - Two cages, side by side.  ZAN is on the left, hugging the wall and grasping the cage bars, unsure.  JAYNA is on the right, but she's trying to reach her brother. Her left eye is sporting a bruise and she's losing patience.  Both are in tattered and dirty purple outfits reminiscent of trapeze artists, revealing quite a bit of skin, as if to highlight their muscled physiques (keeping in mind, they both were raised as child labor in the mines; they should both have triangular "branding" scars on their breast bones as reminders of their slave days).

ZAN: I'm not! It's just...

JAYNA: Don't. Just get me to a ship, and I can pilot us anywhere. We'll never get another chance like this, the handlers this drunk.

Panel 3 - Close-up on their hands, grasping each other, as if gaining strength from one another. Their fingertips glow violet with power.

ZAN: All or nothing, sister...

JAYNA: Activate.

Panel 4 - ZAN turns to water and falls to the floor, causing whatever circuitry that was under the floor to spark and short.

ZAN: We're going to get killed...

JAYNA (off-panel): Jam it, Zan.

Panel 5 - Black.

SOUNDFX: KLNG! CLNG!

Panel 6 - Black. Tailless balloons are from two HANDLERS fumbling in the dark.

HANDLER 1: Wha'happened?

HANDLER 2: How the gleek should I know? Turn on your torch.

Panel 7 - Large panel, lower third of the page. The HANDLERS, foreground, both have handheld spheres in their left hands, shock prods in their rights, bathing the space in purple light, their fear palpable. Out of a mist that has the faint facial features of ZAN, stalks a giant manticore bearing the grinning face of JAYNA.

JAYNA: Welcome back, my friends...

CAPTION: "Next: ESCAPE!"

Wonder Twins – School’s Out – MK Stangeland Jr.

(2 Panels)

Panel 1: A city as engulfed in a massive snowstorm.

Panel 2: Outside the HALL OF JUSTICE. JAYNA is in the form of a Polar Bear, sitting and looking up at nothing in particular. GLEEK is noticeably not present, having chosen not to come out into the storm.

JAYNA: You realize you’re basically leaving pieces of yourself all over the city, right?

ZAN (1): I want a snow day, I’m taking a snow day.

ZAN (2): Just let me have this, Jayna.

(END PAGE)

Wonder Twins - The Ones You Love - Grant McLaughlin

Years after the Super Friends. Zan and Jayna have met up to have lunch at a local diner. Jayna looks like a well-adjusted woman, wearing nice clothing and the like. On the other hand, Zan looks like hell. He is thin and unhealthy, with old and disheveled clothes, scruffy hair, a few days worth of beard growth, and pretty much any other characteristic of not doing well you can think of.

1 – Sitting across from each other at their table, Zan is demolishing his meal, as if he's never eaten before. Jayna watches pensively, as if she's trying to find the right words to begin a difficulty conversation. She has not touched her food.

NO COPY

2 – Jayna gives conversing a shot. Zan pauses, looking on warily at his sister.

JAYNA (1): So...

JAYNA (2): I went by your office the other day.

JAYNA (3): A-are you living out of there again?

3 – Zan puts down his fork. He doesn't make eye contact with Jayna. That said, his words put some hope and happiness on Jayna's face.

ZAN: I'm on a big case, you know.

JAYNA: Really? That's great news!

4 – Zan looks at Jayna, vitriol and combat in his eyes. Jayna deflates, realizing what's happening.

ZAN: Yeah, I'm looking for the foppy deadbeat who stole my sister.

JAYNA (1): I wish you wouldn't talk about Marvin that way.

JAYNA (2): He cares about you as much as I do.

ZAN: Is that why he keeps you all to himself?

5 - Jayna reaches for Zan's hand across the table.

JAYNA (1): Zan, we invite you over all the time.

JAYNA (2): The kids would love to see their uncle more often.

JAYNA (3) (quieter): I'd love to see my brother...

6 - Zan pulls away, angered; Jayna is hurt by his actions and words.

JAYNA (1): Why don't you come and stay with us?

JAYNA (2): Until you can get back on your feet.

ZAN: You'd love that, wouldn't you?

7 – Zan is starting to his raise voice. Other patrons might be starting to look in their direction to see what the commotion is all about.

ZAN (1): Well, I'm sick and tired of being your charity case!

ZAN (2): This is just liked when you'd say the Super Friends valued my unique contributions.  I know they only kept me around for your sake!

ZAN (3): I'm not an idiot, Jayna!

8 - Zan is up on his feet. He's knocked his chair over and is outright yelling at this point. Everyone is obviously staring.

ZAN (1): I don't need you.

ZAN (2): I don't need anyone!

9 – Zan has stormed off and slammed the restaurant door. Jayna sits at her seat, stunned and crying.

NO COPY

Why The Wonder Twins?

The Wonder Twins are two of my all-time favourite superhero characters.

I've always found the concept of inserting teenaged sidekick characters into superhero stories as a means to better appeal to younger viewers to be inherently fascinating.  It emerged almost immediately after the creation of superheroes.  Robin was created in 1940, barely a year after Batman was introduced to the world.  Bucky Barnes was invented concurrently with Captain America.  To say nothing of Speedy, Toro, Wonder Girl, and countless others.

And then you have the Wonder Twins.

!!!

I first encountered them while watching re-runs of the Super Friends TV show, which holds the impressive feat of being incredibly boring despite the fact that it featured pretty much all of DC's most popular characters (and Aquaman).  Everyone on that show was kind of a square, but the Wonder Twins stood out for being particularly lame.  Something about their extreme levels of earnestness and predilections for being pretty much useless just made them seem extra mediocre, which is saying something when the main cast had all the personality of cardboard.

I mean, being able to turn into any animal imaginable is a pretty decent power, but being able to turn into water doesn't quite have the same ring to it.  I know that they've pushed the boundaries of what that includes, but at the end of the day, Zan still needs to be carried around in a bucket when Jayna turns into an eagle (to say nothing of the fact that they have to touch to activate said powers).  None of that exactly elicits respect, you know?

Riding a giant pelican isn't much better.

So the Zan and Jayna are perhaps the least successful attempt at creating teenaged sidekicks in all of comics (and we haven't even mentioned their pet alien monkey, Gleek), but that's also a big part of the Wonder Twins' charm (at least from my perspective).

Like pretty much everyone (including Harvey Birdman and the ), I've always found them to be extremely laughable, but they still have a special place in my heart.  It's similar to how I feel about C-list villains - they're so incredibly ridiculous and foolish and barely sensical that there's a strange perfection to them.  They couldn't be more madcap if they'd been planned that way, which is kind of wonderful.

So I hope you'll join me this week in exploring the many possibilities of what and who the Wonder Twins can be.

All together now:

"Wonder Twin powers activate!"