LAYOUTS FROM AN OLD SF-ADJACENT PROJECT: Chapter 5, pt. 4!

[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:

 Onward to the aftermath, as Absynthe presses her attack within Tony 2.0's memories:

Gotta like the image of the (virtual) Iron Man armor intruding into Tony's "mnemosphere."

Hawt chicas ranting maniacally whilst unleashing ultraviolence is indeed a recurring motif in mon oeuvre, folks.

Yeahp, Absynthe is indeed preparing some absinthe.

One of very few times I've ever used five panels across a tier, gotta say.

Uh oh! A plot twist approaches! (BTW, that wee image of Absynthe in panel 4 is one of my favorites from all her appearances.) In our next installment in a few weeks, this chapter reaches its own climax before we hurtle off into the miniseries' true climax in Hypervelocity issue #6, okay?

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?