Sneak Peek Sundays #4
Added 2015-02-08 22:26:00 +0000 UTCIt's no secret that I love a complicated villain and The Platinum Priestess is no exception. She's lived for 6000 years and it's been a very full life. What you're seeing here is artist Gabriel Mayorga's inked page for The Platinum Priestess's Origin Card, which shows one of the first use of her powers. Gabriel has created much of the linework for the Kickstarter's Trading Cards and this was my note to him for this one: "The image should be of The Platinum Priestess fighting a horde of demons using her glowing staff with martial arts skill and dexterity. "She is the same age she was when you created The Platinum Priestess First-Time Card art (so early twenties), but here she is in battle. She is fighting 7 large, fierce demons. And even though she is using magic – her staff blazes with power – she is engaging them directly, using her staff as a slashing weapon. She moves like a skilled warrior and she is winning against the demons. Behind her, her fellow villagers cower. She is saving them but they are afraid of her power. "She is fierce and dangerous and a bit frightening. This is the birth of a warrior goddess. "The overall vibe of the scene should be about her newfound power. No demon can defeat her. She should be killing a demon here and we should see two of the demons already dead." OK, so there wasn't room for seven demons, but I think Gabriel did a great job of capturing what I was going for. :) The Platinum Priestess's motivations are complex, and they've changed throughout her life. She was born at a time when demons ruled our world, and she started out not as a villain, but as a champion for human-kind. One of my favorite tropes is when the heroes of a story run into one of their arch-enemies, but because of time travel or whatever, it's early in that character's life, before they became enemies, and perhaps even before that character became evil. I could see creating a story someday where Spooky has to team up with the pre-historic Priestess and they discover a real friendship with each other. That would be a fun one to write. (Oh, and a hat tip to anyone who can find that particular trope for me on TV Tropes. There has to be one...) Anyway, I wanted to capture The Platinum Priestess in a truly heroic moment of her life, and I'm very pleased with how this came out. I hope you like seeing this different side of The Platinum Priestess too!
Comments
Thank you, Chris! Yes, The Platinum Priestess does indeed have amazing hair days. And maybe we'll just have to make that fantasy team up happen some day. :D
Alex Woolfson
2015-03-05 05:36:29 +0000 UTCI love that with each thing we learn about her she becomes more complex and her motivations, while seeming villainous to us, become more intriguing. A product of a long and complex life. Oh, and Syllibub is correct, damn good hair days... seemingly 6,000 years of them. However, I'd be willing to brave the combined snark just for the fun of the fireworks. Not to be a gutter-fan, but if they are both bi-sexual... a historic team up with an adult Spooky and a young adult Sircea might be veddy interesting (strokes Blofelt's white cat). All silliness aside, Gabriel Mayorga's work is just pure excitement. Can't wait to see it evolve.
Chris Dangerfield
2015-03-05 05:28:23 +0000 UTCYep, I could see how both of those would apply. I'm just surprised there isn't a single trope name for what I have in mind...
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-12 04:23:42 +0000 UTCBit late, but I think the trope you're looking for is a combo of Heel-Face Turn and Future Me Scares Me.
Foelhe
2015-02-12 02:45:40 +0000 UTCInteresting. Yes, I remember that now. I think there's also an example with the Young Avengers where they are working with Kang the Conquerer as a boy. And I'm sure there must be others...
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-09 19:35:20 +0000 UTCIndeed she can. :)
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-09 19:33:41 +0000 UTCIt's not exactly the trope you're looking for, but Eobard Thawne -- a.k.a. the Reverse Flash -- started out as a huge fan of the Flash, Barry Allen, going so far as to spend a fortune on copying his powers and appearance, and time-travelling back to the 20th century to meet his idol (Thawne was born in the 25th century). He misses his target by several years, arriving at a time when Wally West has inherited the mantle of the Flash. As a side effect of the journey through time, Thawne suffers from amnesia. Believing himself to be Barry Allen, returned from the dead, he works alongside West and the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick for a while. When his memory returns, and he finds out that he is destined to become the Flash's greatest enemy, he snaps and sets out to destroy everything the Flash stood for. Thawne is eventually sent back to his native time, again suffering from amnesia, but retaining his hatred of the Flash, thus setting the stage for the Reverse Flash's future (within his personal timeline) battles with Barry Allen.
Arthur
2015-02-09 15:11:08 +0000 UTCAwesome artwork. The Platinum Priestess sure can kick arse.
Ilona Fenton
2015-02-09 08:31:50 +0000 UTCThank you, Veronika! Yep, choosing to costume The Platinum Priestess the way I did was a bit of a high-wire act: by placing a clearly older woman into the cliché revealing outfits that young female characters are outfitted with in comics, I was hoping to comment on sexism. But there's a fine line between commenting on something and participating in something and I've gone back and forth about how well I've navigated that line. That said, any choice I make for my characters has to be fully grounded in who they are, and so I'm pleased that you feel this works for her. She absolutely would use her body as well as her magic, cunning, and every other resource at her disposal to achieve something she wants. And she very seldom fails. :)
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-09 07:32:21 +0000 UTCFantastic art! There is such a shortage of complex female villains, I can't get enough of her. First time her character was introduced, her outfit had me a little worried - too much alike the nipple-pasties costume/armor I see on female characters all the time, complete with impractical high-heels. However, as time passed, I became convinced that for her, it really works. She would absolutely use her body as well as her magic and cunning to achieve something she wants. Great Job in fleshing out her character :)
2015-02-09 07:01:12 +0000 UTCA wonderfully thoughtful analysis, syllibub! Very fun for me to read. :) And yes, 1) "Fantastic hair even in the midst of battle" is one of the first arcane tricks she learned. and 2) Such combined power of snark might very well end the universe as we know it.
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-09 06:10:44 +0000 UTCThis is beautifully done! And good to see that she hand the "fantastic hair even in the midst of battle" skill locked down this early on. Ever since the two-page spread that included the image of Sircea fighting a demon/dragon, I've suspected that she might have been a heroic rather than villainous figure at some point in her past. It adds another, intriguing dimension to her character -- at what point did she become power-obsessed and turn to the dark side of the force? Was her moral turnaround entirely her own doing, or was she nudged that direction because of a fearful, mistrustful response of other people to her power? I get the sense that she's pretty disillusioned with and contemptuous of humanity at this point. Not that it would be surprising -- if the TYP world is anything like ours, by now she'll have witnessed countless demonstrations of human cruelty on large and small scales...and if she's held herself apart from other people due to her immortality, then she wouldn't have been exposed to equal demonstrations of goodness to balance out her worldview. So you have that, her sense of superiority and mad thirst for power -- add an alliterative moniker and a flashy costume and you've got quite a supervillain on your hands! A Spooky-and-Sircea team up would be a sight to see, but I worry that the combined power of their snark would level a small city.
2015-02-09 04:33:50 +0000 UTCThank you, Nadin! (And I'm glad you like that story idea. Maybe someday... :) )
Alex Woolfson
2015-02-09 03:07:43 +0000 UTCit's really a great scene and I like the fierce look in her eyes! as you said the birth of a warrior goddess :D and I love to check out backgrounds of villains! Noone is born evil there are always reasons for why they turned out to be who they are! (and I'm totally digging the idea of Spooky meeting young PP, that would make an awesome sidestory!)
Nadin Brokop
2015-02-08 23:56:21 +0000 UTCTwo movies come to mind - - Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" (the ending of that movie I still believe to be one of the most blasphemous sequences ever put to film, a truly chilling bit of horror) . . . Or Julia Roberts in "My Best Friend's Wedding" who starts out wonderful and cheery and just a delight and turns into the Wedding Party guest from hell (I'm thinking of words that rhyme with witch. I won't put that word to print. Too impolite.) But then the movie is a ROM/COM and we can't have the movie end with the wonderful Julia Roberts breaking up true love (oh just roll your eyes, would ya) so she turns herself around and becomes the hero (right before those very same eyes). I always wonder why her only friend was the poor bride and a gay man unless Rupert Everett was hungry those years and wanted to play opposite such a wicked, wicked, jealous (there is that word again!). . . The Trope might be "protagonist journey to villain."
Dave
2015-02-08 23:44:20 +0000 UTC
