Back in 2003, during the days when David Michelinie and I were still publishing the Future Comics line, we were approached by our rep in Hollywood about adapting an original screenplay to comics form.  The project, entitled "QB-1" was the brain child of Patrick Massett and John Zinman ("Deep Blue Sea" & "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider").  Pat and John thought that it would be a nifty idea to have the property developed as a graphic novel before pitching it to the studios--insuring that the project would come with a built-in audience when it was presented to the powers-that-be in Tinseltown.

David and I work for many months to retool the premise to fit the comics medium.  And , both of us were very pleased with the final outcome.  A  plethora  of pre-production art was created during the development stages by myself, Dick Giordano, Ron Lim and Brad D. Nault (including the actual cover to the trade paperback).  Unfortunately, as many of you know, our beloved little comics company ran into financial problems that led to us suspending all publishing and, eventually, closing our doors for good.

QB-1 GRAPHIC NOVEL COVER BY BOB LAYTON & BRAD D. NAULT

However, QB-1 was an entertaining story and I thought it would be fun to present it to my readers this month.  My thanks go out to Pat, John and David for giving me permission to publish the project here.

Enjoy!

QB-1

A Future Comics Graphic Novel by

David Michelinie and Bob Layton

(Revision)

December, 2003

PURPOSE: 

Time changes everything--except, perhaps, basic truth. In this tale of the near future, such truth is embodied in the courage, strength and determination that are the defining traits of the human spirit. Set against a backdrop of corporate power, sinister conspiracy and extreme sports, “QB1” is an action drama that pits man against man, man against machine, and man against himself. It is an explosive celebration of that rare individual who stands up for all of us, who risks his very survival on a thankless journey to an ethereal goal: Doing What’s Right.

PLOT: 

We begin in the year 2047 with a montage sequence narrated by MARILYN DAUL, a reporter for the Pro-Sports Network, as she dictates voice-over material for her weekly television show. It’s an historical/editorial piece detailing how the game of football has changed over the last half-century, going from sport to business to corporation-manipulated profit windfall. She explains how fans had begun to leave the game when salary demands skyrocketed, when players abandoned all vestiges of team loyalty in their quest for The Deal. Ratings plummeted and it looked like dark days ahead for the National Football League. Then one night, a quarterback died on the field in prime time, his neck snapped in a tackle by an adrenaline-pumped linebacker. Public interest revived. And when the League discovered that the cause hadn’t been simple adrenaline, but a seven inch titanium rod grafted to the linebacker’s forearm to bolster a shattered bone, football morphed into something new.

Instead of banning such physical alterations, the League embraced them, instituting The Eleven Percent Rule, which allowed a player to artificially enhance his body up to eleven percent. Thus cybernetic augmentation became common; electronically boosted muscles could run faster, throw farther, hit harder. Computerized retinas allowed instant pinpoint analysis of distance and intersection arcs. Synthetic adrenal reserves dampened pain and reduced performance-dulling fatigue.

Peripherals changed to match the game: the field was lengthened from 100 to 150 yards, and widened by half to allow room for the new cybernetic warriors to perform their spectacular moves; holographic referees replaced humans on the field, removing physical and visual obstacles; artificial grass became a fiber optic sensor grid, working with tiny transmitters in the ball itself to eliminate spotting errors and make instant replay unnecessary.

The most ominous modification, however, didn’t occur on the playing field, but in closed-door meetings between CEOs and their political cronies. Gambling was legalized across the board for sporting events, and profits generated by wagers on the newly restructured Global Football Organization soon made Microsoft’s best year look like chump change. These days, it’s a different game; and a different world.

Narration ends as we move to the New Jersey Meadowlands, to Ron Popeill Stadium, a massive complex of restaurants, shops, betting parlors and, oh yes, a playing field. Seven tiers of screaming fans are overshadowed by banks of plasma screens showing other games taking place around the world, along with gambling odds that change with every play. Micro-hovercams purr unobtrusively over the field, broadcasting all angles of the action. In a posh skybox we introduce TERRANCE McCAIN, EDWIN BANKS and ERIC HUNTER, respectively the president, chairman and head of operations for the GFO. They all seem more interested in gambling returns than in what’s happening on the field below.

Our attention, however, shifts to that conflict, to the last sixty seconds of a game between the New York Astrojets and the Tokyo Etronics. The home team is trailing by five points, and needs a touchdown to win. In the New York huddle we focus on JOE JACKOWSKI, the first string quarterback--QB1. In his late 20s, Joe is a natural leader, with the charisma and confidence to rally his teammates even in their darkest hour. Part of his appeal is that he’s refused to take cybernetic enhancements, a seemingly suicidal decision in this age of massively augmented athletes. But Joe believes that quick thinking and courage should be the determining factors in a contest between human beings. Enhancements may be good for ratings and revenue, but honest effort is what counts to the soul.

On the last play of the game, Joe takes the ball and hangs in the pocket, patient, eyes flicking from one player to another. At the last instant his arm snaps forward and a pass rockets to wide receiver JAM McCLUCHEN. The ball breaks the end zone plane--touchdown! But Tokyo linebacker DICK ROMAN, 11 % of the best enhancements money can buy and 89% pure motherfucker, slides in with a late hit that snaps Joe’s leg like dry pasta.

As stadium screens replay every view of the career-ending injury ad nauseum, we move back to the GFO skybox where Eric Hunter shakes his head: “Damn. He was doing excellent business...”

Later, in a private hospital room, Joe’s agent introduces him to DR. MICHAEL HAYES, medical director for the Global Football Organization. Hayes is the inventor of the C-Chip, a micro-implant that monitors player enhancements. He shows Joe designs for replacement parts that would not only make Joe whole again, but would make him the best quarterback in the game--and the highest paid athlete in the world. Joe says he’s never played for the money; his agent replies that without enhancements, he won’t play at all.

Joe is somber and ambivalent as the visitors leave, but perks up when MARCUS SHAKESPEARE walks in. Marcus is a top running back for the Berlin Blitz, and he’s also Joe’s best friend. Together with STEVE MITCHELL and SHAWN CONNELLY they were the reincarnated Four Horsemen in college, inseparable and unstoppable. Marcus’s visit reminds Joe of what’s truly important in sports: striving, reaching, overcoming odds. The triumph of the human spirit.

Days later, advances in medical technology allow Joe Jackowski--on crutches--to attend a press conference. Marilyn Daul is in the audience, and everyone expects Joe to announce that he’s getting with the program, that he’ll be taking the eleven percent. Instead, Joe surprises them by saying that he won’t be getting enhancements. Furthermore, he promises he’ll be back in the GFO--and he’ll win. Marilyn thinks he’s nuts, but finds his courage and commitment to his beliefs hugely appealing.

After the press conference, Joe is released from his Astrojets contract.

In essence, he’s fired.

We then split our narrative as we follow two concurrent plotlines: in one, Joe begins to work out, battling immense pain to try to get back in shape. In the other, Marilyn convinces her boss to let her write a human interest story contrasting Joe Jackowski with his three college teammates, all of whom took cybernetic enhancements to pursue their pro careers. Marcus joins Joe on the training field; slowly but surely, Joe gets better, healthier. Meanwhile, Marilyn’s research uncovers something disturbing: Steve Mitchell and Shawn Connelly are nowhere to be found. It’s like they’ve vanished from the face of the Earth.

Through hard work and cutting edge therapy, Joe builds himself back into the top-notch athlete he was before his leg was broken. But without enhancements, the GFO won’t take a chance on him. He can’t even get a tryout.

Marcus visits Joe to comfort him. During their conversation, Joe notices that Marcus keeps scratching his arm. Marcus reveals a rash around the enhanced limb, but says it’s just a minor infection, that Dr. Hayes tells him it’ll fade soon. But, Marcus adds with genuine concern, there are times when he has trouble feeling the arm, like it’s not even his any more. Sometimes he almost wishes he hadn’t taken the enhancements. Joe suggests that he shut them off. But Marcus can’t, or won’t; he doesn’t think he can compete without them, and then where would he be?

Days later, Marcus is playing an early season game between the Blitz and the Etronics. Tokyo is winning as the game winds down and gambling odds favor them heavily. But a last-minute sprint by Marcus Shakespeare, a headlong dash that’s phenomenal even by modern enhancement standards, puts Berlin ahead, even though he takes a crushing blow from Dick Roman in the process. Marcus celebrates in the end zone, but his victory dance turns grotesque as every muscle in his body begins to spasm. He’s carted off the field, still trembling from his seizure.

That night, a comatose Marcus is surreptitiously removed from the hospital isolation ward by Dr. Hayes and a pair of GFO security goons, STRIKER and WILKES. When Joe arrives to visit Marcus the next day, he finds his friend gone and Marcus’s records sealed. Marilyn Daul shows up in her capacity as reporter and the two compare notes. Joe is surprised to learn that both Mitchell and Connelly have also disappeared. He wonders if all this is tied in with the enhancement program. Enhancements aren’t regulated, their proprietary technology a closely guarded secret. If something were to go wrong, who would know--and how? Marilyn is taken by Joe’s loyalty to his friends, and Joe is in turn impressed with Marilyn’s intelligence and compassion. An attraction grows.

Soon after, however, Joe’s focus is compromised by a surprise event: he’s hired by the Astrojets’ owner to take the position of third-string quarterback--QB3. He doesn’t know that this offer had been orchestrated by Eric Hunter, who’d determined that Joe’s return to the game would mean a mega-boost to their gambling operations.

We once again split our narrative as Joe travels to Texas to visit Marcus’s family, and Marilyn looks into the connection between Dr. Hayes and the Global Football Organization. In Texas, Joe discovers that the Shakespeare family has suffered another tragedy: Marcus’s father has been killed by a hit and run driver. Marcus’s wife won’t talk about it--she’s obviously frightened--but Joe gets the impression that the elder Shakespeare had been asking questions about his son’s disappearance. Marcus’s own son, BILLY, says he thinks his dad disappeared because something was wrong with his enhancements, not because of his injury. And Joe’s suspicions increase even more when he encounters Striker and Wilkes at the funeral, and they suggest that the same thing could happen to him if he doesn’t back off.

Meanwhile, Marilyn discovers that Dr. Hayes had been a software designer for a company called Scynex, where he’d engineered the C-Chip that allows all of the player enhancements to work. She tries to get recordings of the games where the other two “Horsemen” were injured, but the copies her network usually keeps are gone. And since special coding in broadcast signals prevents home recording of sporting events, there seems to be no official record of those games in existence. Curiouser and curiouser. And a little scary.

Joe returns to New York and tells Marilyn what happened in Texas. Marilyn says she has something Joe needs to see: she’d used contacts to obtain bootleg copies of the games in which Mitchell and Connelly had been injured. They watch in grim silence as the recordings show Joe’s old friends jerking on the ground in seizures similar to the one that had hit Marcus. Marilyn says she’s set up an interview with Dr. Hayes; it’s time to ask some serious questions.

The next day at practice, New York’s QB1 blows out an elbow. Since he’s already at the maximum level of enhancement, he’s forced to heal naturally. And that means he’s out for the season; Joe Jackowski moves up to QB2.

Marilyn’s interview with Hayes is short and tense. All she learns is that players’ medical files are kept confidential to protect company patents. But when Marilyn leaves, Hayes reports to an unidentified “boss,” and Striker and Wilkes are dispatched to keep Marilyn under surveillance.

Marilyn calls her info to Joe, who’s in the Astrojets training room at the stadium. Joe knows that the trainer’s computer is linked to the team’s medical records, so tricks the trainer (TOMMY SINCLAIR) into accessing some performance stats so that Joe can see the password he uses. After hours, Marilyn joins him and they open the med files--only to find that the files are encrypted. Striker and Wilkes have followed Marilyn, but she’s able to e-mail the encrypted files to her home computer before the goons show up. Striker and Wilkes enter Sinclair’s office, look around, and leave. Joe and Marilyn then take off, thinking they’ve gotten away scot-free, unaware that they’ve been taped by a hidden back-up security camera.

The danger has brought Joe and Marilyn closer together, and when they get back to her apartment the tension releases itself in a bout of erotic coupling that threatens to melt the bedroom walls. Afterward, Marilyn tries to read the encrypted files from her e-mail. But all she can determine is that of fifty-five players retired by injuries in the last few years, nine of them are missing. She’s going to have to get specialized help to find out anything else.

Marilyn goes to HR YAMOTO, an uber-hacker who’d done federal time thanks to an expose Marilyn had written about him. But he doesn’t hold a grudge, and agrees to decipher the encrypted files, relishing the challenge.

Over the next weeks, Joe Jackowski’s skill and determination win him the starting position for the New York Astrojets. And he leads his team through the playoffs and into the World Bowl, the GFO equivalent of the Superbowl--and the most lucrative betting extravaganza on the planet. At a press conference after clinching a World Bowl slot, Joe states that football should be taken away from corporations and given back to the players and fans. And the first step would be to outlaw gambling. From their various homes and offices, McCain, Banks and Hunter watch the conference. They are not happy.

Things start moving fast as World Bowl Sunday approaches. Yamoto contacts Marilyn, having finally broken the med files encryption, and tells her they’re dynamite. He wants Big Bucks for this job, and won’t give her the translation until she pays. She insists on proof first, so he e-mails a sample to her. The sample is shocking: it indicates that enhanced players’ vital signs are spiking on selected plays, pushed way beyond the legally allowable maximum. She forwards the partial file to Joe’s e-mail and then heads out to see Yamoto.

Joe gets the file, but before he can reply there’s a knock on his door. It’s Tommy Sinclair; he’d always admired Joe, so he’s risking his job to give Joe a head’s-up: a periodic review of back-up security recordings had revealed Joe and some woman breaking into private company files from Tommy’s computer. Joe thanks him, and tries to call Marilyn. No answer. He rushes out; he has to warn her!

But Marilyn is on her way to Yamoto’s building, and is surprised to find cops and medical personnel swarming the place when she arrives. Yamoto has been killed, either to shut him up, or as an example for Marilyn if she keeps digging. She leaves, shaken, not noticing that Wilkes watches her every move from a nearby corner.

Meanwhile, Joe is having his own problems. He goes to Marilyn’s apartment, only to find Striker waiting for him. Joe runs and Striker pursues, bashing through doors, walls and any other obstacle that comes between him and his prey, looking for all the world like an ad for “Terminator 4.” Joe gets to his car, an old-fashioned Viper, and hauls ass. Striker hauls faster, and leaps onto the Viper’s trunk. There have obviously been a few enhancements taking place outside of pro football.

A high-speed battle follows, with Striker clinging to the car, punching his fist through the roof, ripping off strips of metal to get at Joe inside. Joe spins the wheel, slinging Striker off, but the enhanced muscleman springs back to his feet and runs after the car, forty miles an hour, fifty! Then the answer comes to Joe: “Too fast! That’s it!” Striker leaps in for the kill, but Joe executes a two-wheel turn and Striker misses, slamming into a brick wall instead. As Joe roars off, Striker gets up, shakes his head, and swears.

At Joe’s house, Marilyn and Joe go over the bootlegged game footage again, doing some calculations this time, and discover that when Dick Roman had laid his final hit on Marcus he’d been running eleven miles an hour faster than is supposed to be possible! The information isn’t enough to take to police, but maybe they can find better evidence at the source: the Scynex Building, where the enhancement-governing C-Chip was developed.

It’s now World Bowl Sunday as a pre-game party is held at Global Football Organization headquarters. Edwin Banks announces to thunderous applause that gambling revenue from this game--Astrojets vs. Etronics, a revenge match with Joe Jackowski and Dick Roman going head-to-head-- should assure their fiscal goal of one hundred billion dollars.

But Joe has other things on his mind. He arrives at Scynex HQ with Marilyn, unaware that Striker and Wilkes are close on their heals. Using a combination of boldness and stealth, Joe & Marilyn make their way to a lab deep within the complex. This is a room where the “retired” football players have been brought. They’re suspended on cables, with tubes and wires running from their wasted bodies to high-tech machines. Joe is shocked to find that Marcus Shakespeare is the display’s latest addition. Marcus is weak, but is able to explain what’s been going on. It seems there’s a glitch in the enhancement process, a defect that produces the world’s first technology-generated disease. When the condition advances to the point that it’s uncontrollable, resulting in seizures, the victims are brought here--where they’re kept alive as long as possible so they can be studied, in hopes that the defect can be eliminated.

But the most insidious secret is the C-Chip: instead of merely monitoring an athlete’s enhancements, the chip can be used to selectively boost their power, enabling outside controllers to manipulate any player’s abilities, thus guaranteeing which team will win.

However, things go from bad to worse as Striker and Wilkes show up, insisting that Joe accompany them to the stadium--there’s a literal fortune riding on his performance today. Joe refuses, and when the goons step forward to intimidate him, Marcus reaches out and wraps his enhanced right arm around Striker’s neck, yelling at Joe to make a run for it. But before Joe can move, Wilkes pulls a gun and shoots Marcus. Joe jumps the startled Wilkes, rage so intense that even the enhanced goon has trouble fighting him off. The short battle ends, however, when Striker puts a gun to Marilyn’s head and says, “You don’t play, she’s gonna pay!” Having no choice, Joe backs off, seething.

Meanwhile, the World Bowl has started and everyone wonders where Joe Jackowski is. Then a roar erupts from the massive crowd as Joe trots onto the field, looking grim, to replace the Astrojets’ back-up quarterback: QB1 is in the house.

Striker and Wilkes have taken Marilyn to a private skybox where she sees a man sitting at a console, watching the game on multiple monitors, his hand on a joystick that controls the power boosts to selected players. That man is none other than Eric Hunter, GFO head of operations--and the mastermind behind the C-Chip cheat.

On the field, New York is losing, but Joe rallies the team. He may have been ordered to win the game, but that’s what he’d risk everything to do anyway. And such will and determination inspires the Astrojets. They move the ball down the field; Joe gets hit, takes damage, but keeps going. The Astrojets score, kick a point after; they’re only seven points behind! Then the Etronics fumble the ensuing kickoff return and New York recovers. The crowd, living up to the cliche, goes wild.

In the skybox, Hunter smiles as he works the joystick, like playing a living videogame. He checks numbers, declares that fans around the world are betting 27 million dollars on Joe getting a first down the next play. “I’ll take that bet...” he chuckles.

On the field, the ball is snapped and Dick Roman goes into overdrive, brushing New York’s defensive line away like gnats, smashing into Joe before the QB can settle into the pocket. The ball rolls free but an Astrojet falls on it. Joe picks himself up, slowly and painfully. He’s bleeding from nose and mouth, nursing a broken rib, and his left shoulder is crooked. He grins at Roman: “C’mon, Dick. Stop holdin’ back.”

While in the skybox, Marilyn is relieved as Edwin Banks and Terrance McCain enter, having followed clues from the Scynex break-in. They’re ready to shut down Hunter’s illegal operation--until Hunter mentions just how much money they’ll make if they let him finish the game. Odds on the Astrojets winning have gone through the roof since Joe Jackowski came onto the field. If New York loses now, the profits will be, well...Astro-nomical. Banks and McCain hesitate, seduced by the unimaginable wealth. With a self-satisfied grin, Hunter talks into a headset microphone: “Time to pull it back, Jackowski. You’re going to lose this one. Failure to cooperate will mean death for Ms. Daul. C’mon, Joe, suck it up. It’s just a game...”

On the field, Joe hears Hunter’s words in his helmet headset. He has no choice. The Astrojets are at the ten yard line, first and goal. Joe takes the snap, hesitates too long, takes a sack and a five yard loss.

Watching from the skybox, Hunter says that the total of all bets has passed the two hundred billion dollar mark. McCain and Banks are worried: if things were to go wrong, they’d be wiped out. In their concern they forget about Marilyn, who moves closer to the console, as if caught up in the game. She reaches into a pocket for the digital recorder she’d used to dictate notes in our opening montage.

In the game, Joe throws a pass to Jam McCluchen. The ball sails high. It’s third and goal from the fifteen, thirty-seven seconds left, as Joe uses his last time out.

Back in the skybox, Marilyn pops the memory stick from her recorder and jams it into an input slot on Hunter’s control console. Speakers shriek with feedback and the console itself sparks, creating chaos that allows Marilyn to sneak out through the skybox door.

On the field, Joe takes a snap, holds the ball too long. The pocket collapses, he’s buried under half-a-ton of enhanced defensive linebackers. An injury time out is called and ten seconds are run off the clock as a New York player is carted off the field. There’s only time for one more play. Joe is miserable; this goes against everything he believes in. But what else can he do? He can’t be responsible for Marilyn being murdered!

But then a new tumult erupts, this time at the sidelines. Joe looks over to see Marilyn struggling to get past security--she’s free! Marilyn yells, “Joe! It’s Hunter! They’re controlling everything!” Joe grins through bloodied teeth: “Not any more...!”

Joe goes back to the huddle. It’s fourth and goal from the twenty, a situation that mirrors his college triumph, when the Four Horsemen had won the Rose Bowl in the final seconds on a quarterback draw with Joe running the ball in for a score.

In the skybox, Hunter sees what’s happening, pushes buttons to boost Etronics players. “He’s going to run it in, even if it kills him!”

On the field, the ball is snapped. The offensive line creates a seam and Joe darts through it. The Etronics, led by Dick Roman, rush to fill the gap, converging on Joe Jackowski like doom with cleats, unyielding and inevitable. But at the last second, Joe pitches the ball back to one of his blockers, JOHN TATUMN. Tatumn dives into the end zone as Dick Roman slams into Joe, three hundred pounds of muscle and tempered steel. Joe goes down under a mountain of Etronics players. The scoreboard flickers: Tokyo - 21, New York - 20.

Joe is helped to the sidelines. He’s on his last legs, bleeding from mouth, nose and ears, one eye blood red, limbs bent in unnatural positions. The team gathers around him as the coach tells the field goal squad to line up. Joe looks at his teammates, barely able to whisper: “You guys know what’s right. Do it.”

The team is somber, silent. Then John Tatumn reaches up to where his cybernetic eye softly glows. He presses a small, flesh-colored stud next the eye. The glow fades. One by one, other team members push buttons, twist rings, press sensors, shutting down their cybernetic enhancements. They then turn as one and walk back onto the field. The coach goes nuts: “What the hell are you doing?!” Tatumn jerks a thumb over his shoulder to send the kicking squad off, answering simply, “What we shoulda done a long time ago.”

Joe watches, fading fast, a small but genuine smile on his face as Marilyn cradles him in her arms.

On the field, the ball is snapped one last time, and the Astrojet line moves forward. The Etronics, still electronically enhanced, shove back. It looks like a stalemate--until the seemingly impossible happens: the line moves forward. Through sheer strength of will, of purpose, of belief and determination, the Astrojets push the Etronics back. Inch...by inch...by grudging inch. Until finally, those inches make a yard, the ball breaks the plane of the end zone, and the scoreboard flashes: Tokyo - 21, New York - 22.

The Astrojets have won the World Bowl!

Celebration erupts, and the team rushes back to the sidelines. But though Joe’s smile is still in place, his open eyes no longer see. Marilyn is crying, but her expression is calm, accepting. Joe had given his life for what he believed in, and had lived long enough to see that belief make a difference. In the end, he’d won--on every level that truly matters.

We then end with an epilogue, with Marilyn Daul once more narrating notes for a story. It’s five years later, as we attend an induction ceremony taking place at the Football Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Life-size holographic images of prior inductees are in evidence, with Joe Namath and Joe Montana prominent. Speaking at a podium is Marcus Shakespeare’s son, Billy, now twelve. Marilyn is in the audience, full of pride, as Billy talks of the difference one man can make, if he’s true to himself. He tells how the game has changed since The Eleven Percent Rule had been repealed, and gambling outlawed. People appreciate the players’ skills now, and the players themselves have regained respect for who they are and what they do. “And all because of one man who had the courage and belief to do the right thing,” Billy adds. “A hero, a player of the old school.”

Between the holographic images of Namath and Montana, a new hologram flickers to life: Joe Jackowski.

“A quarterback named Joe.”

END