-For Whom The Bell Tolls-

This is the 2nd western story I have written in fan-fic. And the name came about by hearing the Metallica song (which is based on a movie) on the radio. I had already opted, for a long while, to call the other Episode; The Bad And The Ugly. And I thought For Whom The Bell Tolls would be a great title.

It really wasn’t to late to change my other story’s title, but that just didn’t seem right, thus a 2nd western was born, and Peter needed one extra story for season 2, so I jumped in, pen in hand, and saved the day.

As you might have realized, I am a big fan of Angel. Which I won’t go into, but I think the show concept is great. An early episode of Angel called “Have You Now Or Ever Been” (the 2nd episode of the 2nd season), is what inspired this type of story line. A story with flash backs mainly consist of 2 stories, A & B. A is present day, what is really happening. B is something that happened in the past that is similar to or leads up to what is happening in the present day.

This type of story is different, as it is really one story line. Cutting from past to present, and back, is a great way of keeping a mystery going. Why does Logan get all uncomfortable when he returns to the town? Well, we don’t find out why till much later.

What I did, was write it in a linear order. 1st I wrote the past, then I wrote the present. then came the hard part; putting it all together. Having to edit short scenes together, so that there were more scene’s in the present, cause it begins and ends in modern day. And if you really look it over, you can really tell there is more detail to what takes place in the past.

The fighting was a bit hard to do. How does one fight an unphysical entity? So, I made it corporeal. 1st step was make it a demon, not a ghost. And big props to Pete, for not minding me altering his name for that (ammoung other things), lol. Even then I had to think a while at how Logan was to go about perminantly dispossing this thing. so I stuck to the basics, fire and silver. When in doubt, go with the basics.

Some of the other problems with this particular story was, getting Logan out to the west, he couldn’t just wake up there. Or walk there one day, just to fix one past mistake. Another thing, which isn’t so much a problem, but an enigmatic detail, is the age factor. This story takes place, or has scenes that take place, in a time long ago. So Logan’s age is changed in the Xtreme story line. I don’t think it causes a problem, but seems odd making him at least 100 years old. However, if it works for Ultimate X-Men to make him younger, then it will work to go a bit older too. And I never specify just how old he is, we just have to assume it has to be 1920 or earlier, and it’s a safe bet to say he’s about 20 years old here.

The part that might intrest you about this is that “Jaynesville” was an actual town in Kansas, and I worked in a bit of real history. The town apparently was attacked by a rival town.

For referece, see: ghosttowns.com

-W68

Peter Gilmour's comments:

hey fans this is Peter Gimour. Just wanted to add a few comments on W68's epic story. I have to give W68 credit for this. I was in a bind (as all great writers are) and needed a story to try and lead up to the season finale. So I went to W68's lair (id call it a house but it's dark lol) and we discussed what to do. He had no ideas as of yet but we were listenign to METALLICA's RIDE THE LIGHTNING album and FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS was on so I was like hey why not name it that. (W68 may give u a differnt version but hey what can i do lol)

Anyways, I think this is one of my favorite episodes of the season (next to MOB RULES of course) I can see where W68 got the idea from and lets face facts, he is a better writer than me. He has watched ANGEL and BRIMSTONE longer than me so he has some fresh ideas ready at his disposal. But I give him mad props for writing this episode and I know all you great fans will love his stories in season 3 (from the opening to later stories).

Thanx again,
-- Peter G