Say it once, say it twice, third time’s the charm!

Ohhh, that wily witch. Morgan (of course) knows all about how our titular heroine got her super powers, and she isn’t afraid to play upon Ronni’s fears to manipulate her.

Now, for those of you who’ve read the end of the story, you know that Morgan’s actually bluffing here- playing it broadly with the ‘say the name three times’ bit. Jhor’dhunn isn’t mad at Ronni at all, but Ronni is terrified of him and what he might do if he got loose. Which is why Morgan uses this tactic to motivate our heroine, even though she knows the truth of the matter.

Fun fact? She’s lying about Stanley, too. His powers would work just fine on Urth. But having him there would mean that Ronni wouldn’t be as isolated, and that she’d have the familiar fallback of letting 64 Bit bail her out of trouble, as he so often does. So she just flat out lies about his powers not working, to prevent him from accompanying Ali and Ronni.

Thus Ronni will lean on Ali, and Morgan’s plan may proceed apace.

One more fun note of this page is that I subconsciously write Ali as a born follower. He’s often just repeating the last thing said rather than forming a thought, opinion or plan of his own. So even here, Stanley nobly steps up to accompany Ronni, and Ali jumps on the bandwagon. It’s a consistent character trait with him that tickles me to see, even in the earliest draft of the script.

DEE’S NOTES

I love when we get a chance to play with things like the Hitchcockian slow zoom with the insets of Morgan at the top. In ALL of these scenes, I try to use the framing and composition to emphasize claustrophobia. The panels, and even Morgan’s silhouette are TIGHT on Ronni throughout the scene. She’s feeling trapped, and I want the page to tell that, even without words.

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