Here's some fun early Dick Giordano that has the future head of DC channeling both Wally Wood and Johnny Craig from EC. The drawback to this particular story is that ends on a cliffhanger with the solution to be supplied by the readers. Apparent;y there weren't many as this was the final issue.
Had the story been written by Stan Lee, then it would be the triplet, Robert, who appeared.
ReplyDeleteThere was probably a default ending already imagined for this story, to be preëmpted were a more clever idea submitted. And my guess is that the default was that it would be Quentin who came through the door; because the person entering declares “Didn't expect to see me, did you?”, whereas Crome had told Quentin to expect him, and there's no other specific character in the story at this point. (Be kinda cool if it were, say, Maurice Chevalier.)
While the removal of Quentin's body blocks Paul from showing it to Crome, and allows for the possibility that, after all, it is Quentin who comes through the door, the timing of the removal is not well motivated. From the sign in the background of 2:3, one sees that the body didn't even go down a ventilator shaft; it's just basically in an alley or on the sidewalk, potentially found by a passer-by while Paul looks for the money.