GI Joe: VS: Story2: Beach Head vs Zandar. Thoughts

As I start to enter the hand-written story into the computer, a lot of old writing lessons filtered back into my head from decades ago. Stuff like, "write an outline", "write it all out and go back and fill in the details later", "it's just a rough/1st draft, make it fast. That's what revisions, edits, and rewrites are for," and a few other random things. When one starts to think in those terms, it really feels more like work than just a process or something fun to do. Frankly, that stinks. I think to when I was doing my diostories. I did most of it on the fly but at the same time, I spent a lot of time thinking of the scenes. I didn't go so far as to draw a storyboard or write a script. That's just too much. Don't tell me that once it's ingrained, it's just part of the process. Man, if I do something with that many steps, I better get paid for it!

When I got Classified Zandar, whom I didn't have as a kid but did get a smaller version at one point as an adult (Dreadnok 7-pack), I was totally checking him out. I knew who he was per cartoon and filecard, but I don't remember him having much of a role in the comic. The live-action movie version, he just stood around for the most part. His pink hair also got shaved (the theme of GI Joe Retaliation was about bald people, if you really think about it) and had no indication he was Zandar (cept for a casual name call by Zartan). 

Zandar, in my universe, though it was never quite written into the stories, had taken Zartan's spot. I played on the Devils Due Publishing aspect where Zartan was going crazy from all the personalities he had taken on over the decades. Zartan never played a big role in my stories (the Dreadnoks, in general, didn't) but they had some short scenarios made for 'em. Only Zarana and later, Zanya knew that Zandar had take Zartan's spot to run the 'empire'. That element never resolved storywise. When Zartan did show up, he acted more like Yoda on Dagobah. Living a solitary life; even the 'noks didn't know where he holed up. But he still had some of mental faculties, enough to deal with GI Joe. 

This was my chance to bring Zandar to life in the Zedd Universe way. I think his file card has him listed as an Assassin. I chose to make him a hunter. A predatorial-like hunter. The beginning of the first draft for Vs #2, it was going too much into him. There wasn't enough story, more of a wiki article about him. I wrote 1 page before starting over. 

I talked to a few people about the story. It's a hunting story; how do I make it so it doesn't feel like a Predator-knock off? (We're talking 1st Predator movie!) I never had a good answer. Change the details, setting, mission, etc? It's still Zandar hunting Beach Head. The Vs reasoning is already in place but not revealed until the very end why Zandar has a beef against Beach Head. The story itself is a bit like Predator. I had a friend at work walk me through some of the psychological stuff that occurs (he served but found out recently, not in a combat role). 

The random thoughts that popped up as I wrote the draft (story's not quite done; there's an end scene to wrap it up but I'll do it after the main chunk is taken care of):

-Zandar taunts Beach Head throughout the entire story. My mind referenced General Chang from Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country where he's spouting Shakespeare. That's very much how I saw Zandar.

*IMDB*

-Zandar has the same abilities as Zartan in that he can blend into the environment/cloak via nanos in his body. However, he's not a master of disguise. 

-Zandar has no formal military training. I purposely wrote it that he had alternative training that could have put him on par skillwise with Beach Head. In the end, as an assassin, his job isn't to beat someone to death. It's to kill in a quick fashion; particularly in 1 strike. Zandar doesn't quite follow that usual reasoning in this story because he wants to mess with Beach Head. There's a reason for that which is revealed at the very end of the story, in the epilogue. 

-The mission the Joes are on is very straight forward. Hardest part was what some of these people represented. If one looks at Predator and compares it to, let's say Aliens or other light-military shows and movies, just what are the specialties of Dutch's crew in Predator? Dutch, Dillion, Blaine, and Billy are pretty straight forward. Hawkins was 'the kid' which left Poncho which I'm not sure what he purpose he served. Grenade Launcher Dude doesn't tell me much. In my story, Andrea Gonzalez was the hardest to come up with a decent skill set but yet, easiest to write.

-Had a lot of fun with the analog technology. Well, sort of. 

-Supposed to have been a short story! Significantly longer and deeper than Vs #1: Storm Shadow Vs Helix!

-The VS project was supposed to be a visual story. But I ran into multiple issues when photographing. Namely, these Classified figures have stiff/locked joints. Hot water can only get me so far, at home. Outside, I'd have to carry a thermos and dip the body parts in to bend? Not gonna happen. Therefore, the fight scenes were clunky and I would have had to do a lot of creative editing. Both stories have fight scenes photographed but they feel lame.

-The visual version, I had a really hard time coming up with a story. Originally, it was Beach Head hunting Zandar; playing on BH's file card that he'll sit around for weeks on an ambush where an enemy might not even show up! My issue was, why would Zandar just be strolling around wherever he's at? I had nothing for Zandar's side. What? He's coming back from the grocery store? A whole new story was created.

This post is early in the writing process. Through the rewrites, who knows how it'll come out.

Raw image. Not quite forest-y?