PANEL 1

CAPTION: The Emperor’s chambers are massive—the anti-chamber alone stretching more than sixty thousand square feet. The colossal marble columns and statues of ancient gods and heroes from a thousand different worlds made the place a veritable maze . . . in which one could easily lose themselves if they did not know where to go.

CAPTION: But the black ooze knew just where to go.

CAPTION: It had been here before.

PANEL 2

CAPTION: Finding its way easily across the room, the ooze quietly squeezed itself under another set of massive wooden doors.

PANEL 3

CAPTION: There, beneath a massive painting of himself, in a massive grav-bed, slumbered the man the ooze had come to see.

PANEL 4

The ooze sqelches over toward the bed

Ooze (thought): This is going to be fun.

PAGE TWENTY-FOUR

PANEL 1

(Dream Sequence 2)

CAPTION: He was now sitting on a stiff, tall golden throne, perched atop an ivory tower which rose a thousand miles into the heavens.

PANEL 2

CAPTION: The broad, sweeping arm of the Galaxy was spread out before him, every star seeming to gleam up at him as if looking for guidance.

PANEL 3

CAPTION: Scepter in hand, and with an iron voice which shook Creation, he sat passing judgments on the worlds of his Empire.

PANEL 4

CAPTION: He was supreme.

CAPTION: He was in control.

CAPTION: He was God.

PANEL 5

CAPTION: But something was wrong.