The Standard

We begin our third chapter with a scene focusing on Zena Zarthos.  I love that opening image of Zena standing in between these massive monuments of the two Standards, dwarved by them.  Heavy with symbolism, nice job by Jon Rector.

One interesting thing to note about this scene is that it originally wasn’t going to be here.  Zena Zarthos originally wasn’t going to be in this issue, based on the first draft.  Originally, we opened with a bank heist set-piece, believe it or not.  It was editor Steven Forbes who came in with notes that 1) Zena and the overarching mystery about the killer targeting her and those close to her should be more visible in this chapter, and 2) That we should still be focusing more on the fallout of Alex Thomas’ death.  He was right, of course, but at the time the notes sparked a bit of controversy, as we’ll be looking at later this week…