A Blast from the Past - M.A.S.K. The Beginning!

So, I was going through my e-mails yesterday and put "M.A.S.K." in the search bar as I was looking for a specific e-mail that I sent.  The first e-mail in my Hotmail account was one that I'd e-mailed myself with a basic outline for my script.

Crazy thing is, I didn't start writing my script until Sept 2009, but this e-mail was dated 

the 7th of February 2006.

If I'm honest, I completely forgot all about this and it's hard to imagine I was working on ideas three and half years before I started writing my script.

To the left is the list of characters I was going to include in my script.

Working through it, you'll notice a "Joe Trakker".  Those of you familiar with M.A.S.K. will know that Matt's brother was called Andy.  However, in the UK Comics he was called Joe - at this point I was using my knowledge of the Comics as my guide to aid me in writing my script.

In the end, I decided to use the name "Adam" instead.  

You'll also notice "Miles (Surname)".  My thought process was that the name "Mayhem" would be a bit strange and I was going to give him a pseudonym until he betrays Matt Trakker then his real name would be used!  Another idea that crossed my mind was to maybe have his name as being say French or something and not pronounced as Mayhem.

In the end, he goes by his real name throughout my script!

In the UK Comics "The Beginning" story was published firstly in the Preview Comic, then again in Issue 1 - with the addition of some colour to some of the pages.

As you will see from the screenshot on the left taken from my 2006 e-mail, much of my story line was based on "The Beginning" story.

The Cartoons never had a beginning - they started with "The Deathstone" episode and both M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. were already established.  Although the cover for the DVD does give some insight into a back story and mentions Matt's little brother - no mention of his name, though.

"While investigating the mysterious death of his brother, MATT TRAKKER uncovers an international organization known as VENOM"

I've redacted one line so as not to give you a spoiler to my script and I've highlighted a blooper on my part - I wrote "Dagger" Mask instead of "Torch".

When I came to writing my script, I decided to go down a different route.  There were a few reasons for this.

1. I didn't know who owned the rights to the story line in the comic - if making a movie using that as a basis, we would need their permission to use their ideas.  Seemed simpler to write a new story.

2. The Terms Peaceful Nations Alliance and Contraworld - again, who owns these names?  Instead, I created the Anti Terrorist Alliance and the V.E.N.O.M. agents work in cahoots with a well known terrorist organisation!

3. Part of the story involves Matt Trakker making a Landsurfer out of spare parts to rescue himself.  After watching the great movie "Sahara" with Matthew McConaughey, I realised that this has already been seen in a movie - again I didn't want a conflict of interests!

You'll notice in my e-mail that I mention that Joe Trakker's Body isn't recovered.  Part of my story was that in the next installment of M.A.S.K., we would find out that Joe wasn't killed and was found with amnesia by some Nomads - however one of his arms was amputated due to being too damaged.

I had an idea for a Mask called "Armament" that Joe would then use that would replace his missing arm with various different weapons!  "Man-At-Arms" was one of my favourite He-Man Characters - and to have a character who could change his arms and truly become a "Man-At-Arms" (or perhaps "Man-OF-Arms" might be a better description) seemed neat to me.

I decided against this idea!

Looking at it now, there are still some similarities between my finished script and the notes in my e-mail.

I hope that you enjoyed this little insight I hope that you will leave your comments below and over on my M.A.S.K. Comics Facebook Page!

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