The "X-Furs" Sample

(Box 2, middle left) At first glance, they seem perfectly ordinary, don't they? An older man and his granddaughter, perhaps, out for a leisurely stroll. One would never guess that such a pleasant, pastoral scene contains a hidden danger ...

(Box 2 lower left) ... that these seemingly ordinary people ...

Frame 2 (Inset lower right, Frame 1)

Close up of the squirrel's head.

Narration

... are no more human than this little fellow!

Page 3 (broken into 3 horizontal strips)

Frame 1 (Inset left, Frame 2)

Close-up of XAVIER's face.

Narrator:

That this "gentlemen" ...

Frame 2

The woman pushes the man in the chair past a cage. There are shrieking silhouettes inside it.

Narrator:

... might be much more closely related to what's inside this cage ...

Frame 3 (Inset right, Frame 2)

Close-up of a chimp shrieking.

Narrator:

... than any other "man" on the planet.

Frame 4 (Inset left, Frame 5)

Close-up of ROGUE.

Narrator:

She, on the other hand ...

ROGUE, via thoughts:

Ah hope he's all right.

Frame 5

The pair is strolling past a bush with eyes staring out.

XAVIER, via thoughts:

He's fine, Rogue ...

Frame 6 (Inset right, Frame 5)

We see things from inside the bush, and find a skunk there.

Narrator:

... would be far more closely related to this little guy.

Frame 7

The pair stops in front of a large cage. It's too shadowed to see inside, but a pair of eyes glow red in the darkness.

XAVIER, via thought:

Aren't you, Remy?

Frame 8 (Inset right, Frame 7)

Close-up the red eyes, which have moved closer. A dark-brown-furred hand grabs the bar.

Page 4

Frame 1 (Splash)

We can see the face of the being behind the bars now. It's a humanoid fox, a "fur", with shaggy brown human hair on its head, and glowing red eyes. He's grinning. This is GAMBIT.

GAMBIT, aloud:

Bonjour, ma chere!

Page 5 (Broken into 2 equal horizontal stripes)

Frame 1 (whole top stripe)

Rogue lets go of the wheelchair, and moves to come closer to the cage. We can see three guys eating hot dogs in the background, your typical jock jerks.

Frame 2 (overlaps the bottom right of Frame and the top left of frame 3

Xavier puts an arm out to stop her.

Frame 3

Closeup Xavier's face, left of frame.

XAVIER, via thought:

No, not yet. Not with all these people around. We wait until nightfall, like we planned.

Voice (from off panel):

This mutie freak botherin ya, little lady?

Page 5  (2 horizontal stripes)

Frame 1 (whole top stripe)

To the left of the frame is JOCK #1, standing with his arms crossed. Behind him we can see his pals with nasty grins on their faces. JOCK #2 is throwing a tomato, which flies out of panel.

JOCK #1:

Hey freak! Didn't anyone ever tell ya that animals ain't supposed ta talk?

JOCK #2:

I'll shut him up!

Frame 2

GAMBIT catches the tomato, with his superior reflexes.

Frame 3

He holds the tomato, which glows with energy.

GAMBIT:

I don't t'ink you oughta done dat, homme.

VOICE (offpanel):

Let me get that for you, Mr. LeBeau.

Frame 4

GAMBIT steps back, startled, and drops the tomato. He's staring at the bars, which have suddenly started to bend.

GAMBIT:

Mon Dieu!

Page 6

Frame 1

Rogue turns her head towards the voice.

ROGUE:

What in tarnation are you doin' here?!

*  *  *

(This next bit I wrote as it came to me, and hadn't gotten around to intergrating it into the scene yet ...)

Mystique couldn't ever look at Rogue without thinking of the day she found her as a young skunk kit, being terrorized by a couple of teens in a Mississippi backwater. Mutant young don’t grow in the same way as other young of their species, and were often abandoned. If Mystique hadn't found her young charge, she would have died. Sometimes she wondered if that wouldn't have been a blessing.

For Rogue's part, it was always hard not to look at Mystique and see "Mother", or remember the days when she was still furry. It was hard to imagine that she had wanted so badly to be human then. Her mutant ability to absorb the life-force and attributes of another person by skin-to-skin contact had seemed a blessing at first. When she touched a human, she became a bit human herself. Not an exact copy – more like what she would have been like if she were born human herself. The more humans she touched in a small amount of time, the more human she became. It allowed her to walk among men unmolested. So what if her power hurt them? As far as she was concerned, so long as humans treated mutants like lesser beings, they deserved what they got! She saw nothing wrong with taking what she needed from them, alongside her fellows in the Brotherhood of Mutants.

All that changed the day she fought Carol Danvers, better known as Ms. Marvel.

Locked in combat with the superhero, Rogue had held on too long. She absorbed the woman's essence into herself permanently, taking on her powers and, to a lesser extent, her humanity (though she still retained a skunk's ears, tail, and teeth).

Rogue's was a sadly ironic tale. When she had been a skunk, her fur protected her, for the most part, from skin to skin contact. Unless she touched someone with her hairless palms (gloves took care of that), or her nose (or – heaven forbid – she licked them), they were safe. But few were willing to come that close to a skunk, even among mutants, so she was always a bit lonely. Now that she was mostly human, she should have been able to be intimate – except now she had no fur. Even wearing full-body suits, there was still danger of people coming in contact with her face. She was just as lonely as she'd ever been.

Well, until she'd met Gambit. Okay, so maybe the Cajun had made a career of stealing hearts, but nobody doubted for a second that she'd stolen his as well. He never let anything keep her from his side for long. If they hadn't come to the Zoo this day to rescue him, he would have found a way to come back to her.

In fact, the only reason he was there in the first place was because Xavier had asked him to undergo a secret mission.