There were two ways I knew to make such an image stronger without destroying the effect I wanted. One was to adjust the colors to be more complimentary, creating tension. The other  was to imbalance the composition, throwing more weight to one side. The image above is the result, working from the original below:

 

 

The figures from this photo were inverted, composited into the previous image, and the whole thing color adjusted to use the palette in this original. The final image seemed to work well, and it continued to work well in the layout.

 

After tweaking a few things, I sent all three drafts off to Scott to get feedback from the guys.