I'll try and keep this in chronological order as much as possible, but I'm not promising anything. I'll try and give vague areas where these would have gone.
The Charge-up
The original charge up art I did looked pretty....well...stupid. In the end I ended up replacing it entirely with panel 2. There was more to the joke, but I forget what it was now.
Hands
All good action comics and cartoons need hands to be drawn well, and dbz is no exception. These are various stages of hands which I laboured over then realised weren't suitable for my needs. Counting (vertically), hands 1, 5, 6 and 7 were all attempts for this comic, while the uncoloured punch with lots of blood was for comic 225, before I decided to tone it down. Plus it just wouldn't fit into the panel
Rejected
The original raelian art was only a temporary thing, because I was planning to get rid of it quickly (I'll elaborate later). When the whole cloned baby thing broke out, I decided to go with a kid buu joke rather than a cell/absorbing joke, but wasn't ready to draw a small raelian instead of a bulked up one. This was the first result, and it looked pretty damn stupid actually. He ended up looking more like some sort of elf or something
Obscured Poses
In comics 223 and 224, there were certain poses that got obscured by the glare or panel restrictions that I spent a good deal of time on. You can see the regular colouring and the later "lit up" version of the kamehameha, after I realised that when they're doing energy attacks it actually changes the lighting for the entire area. Also, oohoo's fusion pose which got cut off at the waist because of panel restrictions. I tried shrinking it down, but then it just looked like a normal sized drawing, not a closeup, so I had to comprimise. Also, I wanted to make fun of his gay pose. Hahaha. sucka. And his feet are too small.
Outright copying
While I tried to keep copying to a minimum, there were times when just straight judging with my eyes wasn't enough, and I traced the odd thing (the dragon, the kamehameha pose (above), etc. But usually changed things so I had enough feeling that I'd at least I didn't need to copy/paste the picture directly into a comic. This pic however was for comic 225, not as a panel 1 replacement, but a guide to the fusion pose and costume. After I'd used it as reference art, it seemed a shame to just delete it, so I kept it in the stock art file.
This section will be a bit large depending on how good my memory is, and whether I can read my notes which I scribbled down. I'd show you the "storyboard" I made, but it's completely incomprehensible for anyone except me. Again, mostly chronological order.
Stall For TimeThe stall for time strip originally had thanatos getting the upper hand by walking up to the raelian and going "Hey, your shoelace is untied", followed by the raelian answering 'But I'm not wearing shoes, these are what my feet natually loo-OOF'. The OOF was because he'd just been kicked in the balls, see. But then it was really hard to draw with him being all armour, and trying to get the pose right, and in the end I just gave up and went with the cheap gimmic. Plus I think I've run the ball kicking jokes into the ground.
Missing Characters
Now we all know that Woodrow sneaked off in 211 to fix Sancho, but I actually never said that Jesusman was going to go with him, as an escort and also to tell Nat than Thanatos was extremely outmatched at that point (thus, the old man). Duke went to get the dragon's balls to fix up the damage that the raelian caused from the "earth shattering" explosion in 212. Yeah, I also never showed him fragmenting the planet and giving them only 5 short minites to save everyone. (below).
The Time Limit
The time limit was a stupid running joke idea I had because in the Frieza saga of dbz, he blew a hole in Planet Namek and said they had only 5 minutes before the whole planet went boom, taking Goku with it. What they failed to mention was that these were five DRAGONBALL Z minutes, which translated into roughly two weeks, excluding their 10 minute long speeches each episode. Likewise, I was going to say that because the earth had now been split in two, they only had 24 short seconds to live before the atmosphere was sucked into space and they all could do their own total recall impressions. Throughout the storyline, they'd make witty comments about how 24 seconds sure seemed to be taking a while, and then at the very end they'd say "hurry! we only have 20 seconds to go!". But then I realised I'd have to actually outright mention it every comic (not enough space), and also have to do up flashy, ever doomy backgrounds each comic (in case you haven't realised by now, I can't draw backgrounds). So instead of shattering the planet, the blast only levelled everything, removing the mountains and allowing me to use the panels better. Speech bubbles and backgrounds take up space, and backgrounds especially make the text much harder to read. In any case, another joke I abandoned.
Magnetic brass knuckles
Along with gifting him with immortality and a cure for cancer and all sorts of other wonderful magnetic goodies, Alex Chiu was supposed to give thanatos some brass knuckles. Later on in the story there would be an argument with the last part of it being "Oh yeah?! Well my MAGNETIC BRASS KNUCKLES disagree!" "That's stupid! Brass isn't even a magnetic subs*WHACK*OW! Hey! My fillings are magnetised to your brass knuckles" It was too shitty a joke to justify an entire comic, and required too much planning for a throwaway gag in one panel later on. I scrapped it.
King Kai
At some point between comics 217 and 218, there was going to be a joke where Thanatos goes to the afterlife and finds himself in king kai's planet. However, after reading Buttlord recently, the only jokes I could think for king kai were already there, and/or involving 'bleah!'. Gratuitous ripoff aside, Thanatos would comment on the pink sky (not shown), before king kai showed up and told him to find his inner power and blah blah blah. Thanatos (somehow) goes back to the real world every second panel and gets killed in amusing fashions, returning to the dead with holes punched in his torso, or holding his decapitated head in his arm like a basketball. The punchline was "Christ boy, I should start charging you rent for the amount of time you spend here" . Actually I think that might have taken 2, maybe 3 comics and was pretty weak overall, so I dropped it. He was also at first going to learn fusion from king kai, but only a little bit before he was pulled back to life by the senzu beans and/or magnets, so later had to return by shooting himself in the head to learn the rest. It was a pretty weak joke and would have taken too long, so I dropped the whole thing in favour of mysterious jumps in logic.
An absorbing plot
As stated in 210, the original plan was for the Raelian to absorb Jesusman, and yadda yadda yadda, they had to go fight against the combined powers of a ufo cult and the combined religious history of THE WORLD. Of course, with the whole cloned baby thing hitting the fan just as I was warming up in the storyline, there was still sortof enough time to change tactics, and do a kid buu kinda thing. Of course I never actually explicitly said it, so the "joke" fell flat on its face. Guess that's what happens when I don't plan ahead. Anyhoo, the raelian was supposed to sneak up and absorb Jesusman while thanatos and oohoo were absorbed on something else. Probably around the superfetus thing. The way I'd storyboarded, it gave enough flexibility to change and swap things at the last second, so the joke got lost, but the overall plot went the same. Actually, that's why there was the repressed homosexuality attack, since he was supposedly joined with the catholic church. And now you know.
The camera crew
I was going to suddenly show the camera crew in this comic, with the raelian pointing out that they'd been filmed the entire time, and oohoo getting distracted because of all the cameras. I think the dialogue vaguely went along the lines of the ralian pointing out the camera and saying something along the lines of "There's a camera crew broadcasting you across the entire planet. No pressure or anything. Oh, and you've got some parsley in your teeth" then oohoo gets distracted and gets his ass kicked, then a cut to the camera crew acting all excited and hercule going "HAHA I am so strong, I can lift thirty, no, FORTY tanks over my head! I choose not to beat the bad guy right now because eerrrr my tummy hurts", but it just seemed too long and stupid, and ended up cut before I ever got around to drawing him. In the end I just made a passing mention of them running off in 227, with hercule naturally declaring himself the winner and the actual figters being portrayed as pussies.
Focus your anger!
The old man originally had another lesson before this one on how to "build your power the easy way(tm)!" Basically it was something about pretending you were really really constipated, then focusing on something that really enraged you. The last panel would be the old guy demonstrating, with the two students in the same position, with sim-esque thought bubbles with little pictures of death, war, and Jerry Falwell. But I couldn't really think of how to convey death and war. A skull and crossbones just looked like a poison warning label. Or pirates. And nobody can hate pirates.
Dragon Fist Explosion
In dbz movie 13, there was a technique called the 'dragon fist explosion'. Basically a giant dragon zoomed out of goku's fist and exploded on the enemy. I was going to my own version, with the basic punchline being 'A DRAGON just shot out of his FIST and EXPLODED. Aren't you worried?!', 'well considering it's called a dragon fist explosion, I'd be more worried if a dragon DIDN'T come out of his fist and explode". Pretty weak, huh?
Even more bizarre attacks
This second stupid joke was called the 'Grow hair longy' attack, which basically caused the user's hair to grow to crazy mad lengths. Because in dbz, more hair means more power. That's why krillin is the bitch and why super saiyan 3 goku kicks the shit out of everything in existance. Until dbgt, but I'll ignore that. But then I realised buttlord had already done a similar joke. In one panel no less, so I scrapped the whole thing. It's buttlord episode 30 if you're really interested.
Wang toss!
At some random point, Wang was supposed to show up with a bag of senzu beans to keep everyone all healthy and stuff because they were suffering such a beating. Then he'd offer to help fight the raelian just as the raelian was actually showing up. Thanatos would ask something like "You'd like to fight?" Wang would reply "Anything at all that I could do" Thanatos would go "Good", pick up wang and hurl him full force at the raelian. This being dbz, wang naturally shatters and there's 'AH!'-ing all round. Thus the dragon's wish would bring him back to life. Yadda yadda yadda. It wasn't too important and would have taken another strip to do, so I dropped it
There were probably a lot more jokes than that, but I can't remember any more right now. Well, just to show you that a lot of actual forethought went into the storyline, even if it didn't actually show too well.
