One storytelling trick that comics manage quite slickly is parallel narratives. This is when the reader is presented with scenes that are happening concurrently in the story, usually on the same page. A celebrated early example of this is in the "Two Lives" story from The Spirit by Will Eisner. The two protagonists, Carboy Gretch and Cranfranz Qwayle - both in unhappy lives - solve their problems by switching roles. A more exciting application of the technique was by comics maestro Neal Adams in the classic Skrull-Kree war epsiodes of The Avengers, scripted by Roy Thomas which teamed the supergroup with Captain Marvel and the FF.
     
The Spirit - Two Lives (1948)



The entire story is presented in this format, similar scenes with identical dialogue laid out side by side across the full eight pages of the story. This brilliant example is well worth searching out to be savoured in full. You'll find it in both Spirit 9 (Warren) and Spirit 1 (Harvey).
   Avengers 94 (1971)



Adams uses every trick available to separate the two sequences. One scene occupying the top half of the page and one scene on the bottom isn't enough. The colour schemes contrast too. 		  Avengers 94 (1971)



Then, to crank up the tension, Adams has included a numerical countdown running across the central gutter of the pages, resulting in a classic of storytelling. 		 
           
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