The newest protagonist in the spy thriller Bang! does not yet know that she is just the mere creation of writers Matt Kindt (MIND MGMT) and Wilfredo Torres (Jupiter's Circle) in their mind-bending comic book series, Death Note.
Death Note tells the story of Light Yagami, an incredibly smart high school student suffering from a severe case of a messiah complex. This protagonist/antagonist unfortunately discovers the existence of supernatural notebooks, one of which almost literally falls into his lap. Light soon learns, much to his twisted delight, that he can use the so-called Death Note to kill anyone he so desires by simply writing down the name of the unfortunate victim upon its pages. This deadly power can even be expounded upon, he finds out, by choosing the way in which that person shall perish by, again, writing it down. No matter how convoluted or complex this narrative might be, the victim’s death will come to exactly how it is written by the notebook’s murderous author.
In the case of Bang!, writers Kindt and Torres have essentially taken on the role of Light. But there's a minuscule difference. Their story created an interdimensional rift between reality and fiction, whereas in Death Note, creator Tsugumi Ohbano causes no such breach to connect both readers and his characters, nor does he take an actual role in his own story.
In Bang! #3, Dr. Queen is already undergoing a rather unique and mind-bending mission of her own before hearing the news that she is a character in a book who will die. Ostensibly at the behest of her billionaire boss who is in fact Dr. Queen herself (long story), Dr. Queen takes on a Yakuza gangster who might as well be called “Lens Man” or “Dr. Goggles” since he has created glasses that, when used correctly, fact-checks everything in real-time that the wearer hears (and sees) by accessing every database on Earth.
As it turns out, these glasses only access the personal database of our so-named Dr. Goggles who has also been redacting facts instead of lies, an unfortunate occurrence that has led to “an epidemic of suicides.” Similar to Bang!'s readers, Dr. Queen gets her own mind bent when the gangster makes her put on a different pair of glasses that forcibly projects disturbing images into the wearer’s vision even if their eyes are shut. All of this takes place before the Death Note-esque story begins.
