Source: https://twitter.com/HIGHzurrer/status/993541139071287296

Eric Heisserer: All right gang, it's long overdue so let me deliver on that promise to dive into the construction of that Secret Weapons zero issue: Owen's Story. Feel free to mute: #OwenStory

Eric Heisserer: One of the more valuable tools in storytelling is setup and callback. You establish a bit of information early, and use it later. It starts early, on page two: A panel showing a bike with a flat tire.

Eric Heisserer: Also, Owen notices the pool riddled with leaves on his way to his cousin's apartment. The page establishes the low-rent world. If he were to listen to his environment, it would ask for help.

Eric Heisserer: The people of the complex are quirky characters. More setup. Owen doesn't actively pay attention to them, but our subconscious works in mysterious ways, and his conjuring power is rooted there.

Eric Heisserer: The motif to get Owen to learn how his powers work: Tarot. Another recurring theme. One or two Valiant podcasts have done a deep dive of their own on the symbolism of the cards here.

Eric Heisserer: This panel early on is a big clue to Owen's state of mind. He's reflecting on where he'd been before activation, before Harada. Dreaming of the past.

Eric Heisserer: Because of that, when he approaches the kids to help them get their frisbee out of a tree, he conjures something he could've used yesterday for that flat tire on the bike. But he doesn't realize it.

Eric Heisserer: Owen's conjuring powers operate akin to neurolinguistic programming. He's manifesting objects he doesn't realize he wanted/will want.

The next day, when he's chased by a Corgi and conjures a pool net, it's because his brain is stuck in the past; frisbee catcher.

Eric Heisserer: The next card tells him this much. The Four of Cups tends to relate to nostalgia and daydreaming and wish fulfillment. Agatha, the medium, tries her best to teach him this.

Eric Heisserer: Owen doesn't get it. Every object he conjures feels completely random to him, despite Agatha pointing out the obvious: That dogs are easily scared of vacuum cleaners -- yesterday's challenge.

Eric Heisserer: Meanwhile, he's walking through a world where everyone around him needs something. Consciously, he doesn't notice. But his conjuring mind is like Derren Brown.

Eric Heisserer: In the middle of the issue, Owen changes. Nikki arrives at The Willows and suddenly his mind is focused on here-and-now. He likes this girl. It's the one time he makes something "timeless." And it becomes part of her costume in future issues.

Eric Heisserer: But the next day, in a training session, Owen can't seem to conjure what his trainer wants. It's because a key word has infected his brain, right there on the wall. "FUTURE." He's manifesting objects he WILL need, later.

Eric Heisserer: Along with the jacket and guitar and mannequin, he makes a poor first impression with Lucia by popping a gas mask.

Eric Heisserer: Agatha tries to educate him that he's now plugged into his intuition -- a forward-dreaming mind. More than that, he's tapping into a collective subconscious now. It's not just what Owen needs, it's what others will need.

Eric Heisserer: That includes the lonely man practicing the waltz in his apartment without a partner, glimpsed as Owen returns to see his cousin.

Eric Heisserer: When Lucia starts a fire in her room, Owen's subconscious is still forward-thinking and pops not an extinguisher but a pair of headphones.

Eric Heisserer: But then he realizes he has just the thing to salvage stuff from the smoke-filled room; the thing he made yesterday.

Eric Heisserer: The next night, in his sleep, I make it glaringly obvious that his power is linked to dreaming and the subconscious by having him conjure up a new object.

(We also establish where Martin got his headphones, seen in issue 1.)

Eric Heisserer: All of this culminates in a beat where, during a midnight raid of The Willows, a trigger-happy spec ops gunman shoots who he thinks is Owen, but is actually Owen's collection of future-needs objects he'd created in the last week.

Eric Heisserer: This brings us back to the garage sale, where Owen is homeless after that Willows raid and hoping to sell this junk to get rent money. And Owen discovers objects sometimes have multiple uses. The residents find what they're looking for... and Owen finds purpose.

Eric Heisserer: To wrap up: My aim was to try and tell a series of two-page stories in each spread of the book, and tie them together to a larger narrative about Owen's relationship with his powers. It was a weird little experiment but Dinesh and Warren let me try it, and I'm grateful for them.

Source: https://twitter.com/HIGHzurrer/status/993541139071287296