LAYOUTS FROM AN OLD SF-ADJACENT PROJECT: Chapter 5, pt. 3!

[Here's a link to our previous installment in this series.]

So, yeahp, I'm serializing my insanely tight layout pages for the 2005 Marvel miniseries Iron Man: Hypervelocity, the first issue of which I wrote and laid out long before an artist had been chosen;  of course, the great Brian Denham wound up tackling the art for the project, but I had already rolled with these time-consuming roughs out of, I dunno, sheer perfectionism and unhinged micro-managing.

Either that, or these layouts represented the sum total of artwork I actually wanted to produce for this project. As I've noted here before, cranking out finished artwork is the bane of my g-d existence as an artist; I like (or even occasionally love) drawing loose, relatively spontaneous comic pages like this, but bog down toute suite upon having to painstakingly render my usual tight and precise completed artwork.

Even though we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of Hypervelocity's creation, I am loath to publicly acknowledge to non-Patrons that I'm serializing these layouts here, hence the "Old SF-Adjacent Project" monicker.

Anyhoo, here's the Hypervelocity #5 page we left off with, as the Iron Man armor was under attack out in the real world and Tony Stark 2.0 was under virtual attack by cybervillainess "Absynthe" in digital space:

 (As noted earlier, Absynthe's published line above ended with the less edgy "Tonyghost.")

And now, back to the real-world technomayhem, as the Ansynthe-controlled Iron Man armor battles SHIELD assets:

Exit "SuperSpooky," folks! (Note also that the term "hypervelocity" in reference to the Mach 5+ Gungnir missiles was the source of the miniseries' title; the original title, and the one listed on my Marvel invoices, was Iron Man: Corrupted.)

 Onward!

 Yeahp, this scene is where the issue's cover illo was derived from. Here's said cover again:

Back to our layouts:

Oh, no, not the Hellcloud salvo--!

Stand by, BTW, for one of my favorite moments from the issue.

Gotta love the neologism "wishvomit," which I do  believe I reused years later in the similarly vicious dialogue for the almost-as-acerbic Soldier of Love from her eponymous Empowered miniseries.

4 kilotons seems a tad excessive of an explosive yield, must admit. Anyhoo, did the armor (and the digital constructs within its processors) survive, dear Patrons? Well, you'll find out next month when serialization of Iron Man Hypervelocity continues!

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?

UPDATE: Ehh, probably gonna put up the Exclusive Monthly Bonus Post for the $10 & $20 tiers over the weekend, then finish off September with a bold and daring (and desperate) new post relating to The Chaste and the Chained on Monday, folks!