From the Trunk: My Thing Pitch

From the Trunk: My Thing Pitch

Nov 10

What better way to follow up the unparalleled excitement of last week’s One Con Glory release than with an old shitty thing I wrote like four years ago? Let’s do this!

Like many comics fans and bloggers, I harbor secret dreams to someday write comics. Okay, I harbor secret dreams to someday write anything that isn’t a press release or requires a “call to action” upon its conclusion.

At some point in…2005, I think?…it made sense to me that my first step toward Writing Comics was to put together a one-page pitch for a fill-in issue of the Thing series, which I think was still being published at the time. You know, the Dan Slott one.

Here it is; please be kind, as I realize my own idiocy in writing this and stealing the plot of Groundhog Day. If it helps ease the sting, I think I consciously aped Groundhog Day, so it was less a swipe and more a swipe-disguised-as-homage.

“It’s Clobberin’ Time…After Time…”

Benjamin J. Grimm wakes up in his palatial penthouse (is this where he lives? CHECK IT YO) and his day starts off awful. A giant alarm clock on the opening splash page shows us the time—8:15 a.m.—and his alarm goes off. He grumpily swats it off and sits up.

We see the minor tragedies of his awful day in a series of single panels (no more than a page here)—he steps out of bed right into a pile of Lockjaw poop, which the dog is curiously sniffing. He chips off a chunk of his back while he’s in the shower. There’s a message on his voicemail—a young lady he’s dating calling to dump him.

He steps outside into a rainy day, realizes he has no umbrella, shrugs and keeps going anyway. He goes to get a paper, only has a twenty, and the guy gives him a crabby response. He’s crossing the street and gets hit by a cab trying to blow a red light.

As if things couldn’t get worse, his FF pager goes off—a priority situation just a few blocks away. Reed fills him in quickly—a new supervillain called The Snoozer has taken the New York offices of GNN (the Global News Network, or Marvel equivalent) hostage and is threatening to stop time in New York City for a half-hour if all of America’s 24-hour news channels don’t agree to go off the air immediately.

Ben is closest, so he makes the scene first, and makes quick work of The Snoozer’s henchmen, who are just random thugs. This is another series of quick panels, another one-pager—Ben bumping two of their heads together, Ben flicking one with his finger and knocking him out, Ben simply standing there as one of the braver (read: stupider) guys just runs into his brick chest. He makes his way to the news studio where The Snoozer has taken up a post in front of the cameras. The anchors and staff cower in a corner. The Snoozer has an idiotic costume—purple maybe, with just a giant red button on his chest, beneath a digital readout of the current time.

He’s ranting about how he can’t take anymore of the 24 hour news cycle, we’re bombarded with tragedy every day, the world is too fast, we all need to slow down and take it easy.

The henchmen in the studio make a run at Ben, and he puts them out, but The Snoozer reveals his secret weapon—some strange odd-looking raygun that actually does some damage to Ben. This, of course, makes him angry, and so he makes a run at The Snoozer, announcing his catchphrase as he does so—

“It’s clobberin’…”

Only he doesn’t get to finish it, because even as he yells “Time” and hits The Snoozer, he finds himself lying back in his bed, starting his day again. He’s puzzled at first, sits up to rise, and notices the Lockjaw poop. “Aw, not again,” he says, and avoids the poop. He passes a mirror, and notices something—no missing chunk from his back. He checks the clock—it’s 8:15 a.m. Again. He picks up the phone, and sure enough, the same message is there again.

He grabs an umbrella, goes outside, and it’s morning, the same scene we saw when he was outside earlier. He opens the umbrella with a grin. The newspaper man is grumpy again, only this time he tells him to keep the change, and the guy gushes with appreciation. The cab still comes at him, only this time he steps back and grabs the cab by its bumper, yelling, “Slow down, ya jerk!” The cars and crowd at the intersection cheer him on—this is suddenly a very good day, and Ben is loving every second of being able to right the wrongs.

His beeper goes off, and he picks it up, and before Reed can launch into his info about The Snoozer, Ben cuts him off—he knows already. Reed expresses confusion, but Ben just hangs up on him, and heads to GNN.

Again Ben makes quick work of the thugs, maybe with different techniques this time, since he knows what they’re going to try to do. He makes his way to the newsroom and the same scene is being repeated—staffers cowering, thugs hovering, The Snoozer ranting. The Snoozer produces his ray again, but before he can hit Ben, Ben steps out of the way. He marches over to The Snoozer, who is stunned, and announces once again, “It’s Clobberin’ Time,” only as he does it, a thought balloon says, “Waitaminit…”

And Ben is once again in bed, and it’s once again 8:15 a.m. “Aw, nuts,” Ben says, and we hear a “Benjamin…” off-panel. It’s Reed Richards, leaning in the doorway of Ben’s bedroom. “Hey, Stretch, uh…did something happen last night that I need to know about…cause I don’t remember…”

Reed explains what Ben already sorta knows—“Punching The Snoozer created some kind of wire crossing within his temporal suspension chestplate. Instead of stopping time, you actually reversed it, in a localized area. So this is the third time this morning has happened for most of Manhattan.”

“Why, that little…!”

Ben jumps out of bed, avoids the poop again, and marches straight down to GNN, with Reed following behind by stretching his legs to walk longer distances. Ben arrives at the front entrance just as The Snoozer and his henchmen are arriving at the front entrance. “I’ve got Snoozer, Stretch—you handle the henchmen.”

As the henchmen look on with stunned faces, Reed makes quick work of tying them into a single bundle. The Snoozer watches in horror, and Ben picks him up by the back of his neck, using the clasps on the side of his armor plating to take off the chestplate. It falls to the ground, threatening to go off again—but Reed streches his arm out to catch it.

Sue and Johnny arrive to see what the commotion is about, but Reed and Ben have everything worked out. “Aw, we missed all the fun,” Johnny says. “Hey stoneface, you got time for a burger?”

“I got lots of time, hothead,” Ben says, grinning as Reed beams in the background. “I got all the time in the world!”