The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

It’s been a long time now. I wrote a four issue comic mini series titled Fate. It detailed the tale of Ben Schultz who wakes in a hospital with no idea who he is. He sees the stupid red costume that is tattered on his body and worries.

Ben is Fate, the nastiest villain that has ever been. He can control other people with his scent, his pheromones, and he’s used this for some time to mess with people’s heads and generally sate his every wicked desire. I envisaged him as a bit of a Purple Man type, especially the way Bendis wrote him in Alias. He’s creepy and evil and proof about absolute power. However, this power is shut down as is his evil personality.

This all ends when Prometheus punches him into amnesia (which I’m sure can happen). Prometheus died once, and when he came back he inexplicably had Superman level powers, however his outlook was more like the Punisher. He protects his city but people get hurt along the way. Many people.

Throughout the four issues Ben is chased by various people who want to get their hands on him for a number of reason.

Prometheus wants to finish the job. He’s got a personal vested interest in the case, as we find out later.

Gravedigger, Fate’s right hand man, sees the opportunity to stage a coup and so grabs the whole gang and goes after Ben’s life.

Stinger, Justin Frank a hero who inflicts pain through skin contact (I modeled him as a bit of a Danny Rand type) chases Ben because if one man’s power can be turned off then maybe another’s can as well. This would allow Justin to finally touch and kiss wife. (And, why would a woman marry a man she could never love through touch? Funnily enough that’s covered and secretly has something to do with Fate, which Justin does not know)

Detective Mills hates all supers, a bunch of property destroyers all of them, but he’s tasked with watching over Ben, and chases him as he runs.

Salem is a master of the mystic arts who is brought into the fray by Justin who needs a hand to understand it all. He’s a very cool surfer looking dude, or so he appears to us, he’s actually been alive for well over a hundred years, perhaps even hundreds, and he’s getting bored with his existence.

As the chase continues everyone tries to figure out how Fate’s little son plays into things, and what they can use him for.

In this series one man gets torn in half from the neck to the waist, another has his complete jaw torn off to prevent certain words being spoken, a man reflects on a life he doesn’t know yet still disgusts him, and the town is torn apart while every side takes their turn to take a shot at the title.

Ben eventually gets his powers back. And he decides how things will ultimately end. But is it Ben’s choice or Fate’s?

I really liked this series, and I loved working with Justin Greenwood on it. He is a fantastic artist, and I’m loving his current work on Resurrection with Marc Guggenheim, and to collaborate with him was very easy and enlightening. Justin brought a lot of ideas to the table and he managed to draw things a lot better than I imagined them in my head.

I’ve mentioned this all before, so why again. And again. Well, my series proposal passed in front of my eyes again the other day and I thought it looked cool, so I thought I would share it. Click the picture to see a much larger version!

To view any of the pages up close, or even read some sample script pages, click the Fate links to be found on the toolbar to the right.

Can you believe they passed on this? I know, but I’ll always have the experience and that was pretty cool too. I’ll also have this document to keep me warm, if I were to print it and burn it in the inevitable gas shortages we’ll experience as time goes by.

Enjoy.

Posted on January 21st, 2010 by ryan
Filed under: comics