Homelander: Origins

"Chaos!" Azu nodded. "Not bad. Cheesy enough. I like it."

"They saw your potential! They turned you into a test subject!" Screenwriter B launched into a dramatic performance. "They tortured you! They injected you with chemically synthesized drugs! They wanted to turn you into their most powerful weapon!"

"Oh..." Azu's eyes lit up.

Screenwriter C said, "But! Your spirit! Your goddamn, unbreakable American spirit! It got you through it! You pretended to surrender and learned to control your powers..."

Screenwriter D said, "Then you struck back! You fucking struck back! You destroyed their base! You ground their leader into the dirt!"

Screenwriter E said, "You rose from the flames! You flew across the Pacific Ocean! You returned to New York! You were no longer Anthony Starr..."

Everyone, Azu included, roared in unison:

"—You are Homelander!!"

"Fuck yeah!!" Azu sprang to his feet and drained his glass in one gulp. "This fucking... is exactly what I want! This is... me!" (Cheesy! So cheesy! It's fucking Disney! Whatever, audiences eat this shit up!)

"The title!" Azu swept out a hand. "It'll be called—Homelander: Origins!"

He was already imagining himself in a tuxedo, standing on the Oscar stage and taking home his first little gold statue in this goddamn Marvel Universe.

The screenwriters applauded wildly. They knew the money was in the bag.

The day after the movie was officially greenlit, Vought International's media machine began operating at full power.

Azu had only one order: maximize popularity.

First front: comics and merchandise.

"Find me the best artist in the United States!" Azu roared at the head of the comics department. "I don't care who he works for. Throw money at him! Poach him for me!"

"I want my jawline perfect! I want my muscles proportioned beyond Greek sculpture! Colors! Give me the brightest red, white, and blue! I want children's eyes to have room for nothing but those three colors!"

"Issue One! Homelander Adventures: Issue One! It has to fill comic stores across the United States before the movie trailer comes out!"

Three days later, Homelander Adventures: Issue One went up for presale.

Cover: Homelander smashed a Chaos Organization aircraft with one punch, with a blazing Stars and Stripes behind him.

Second front: tie-in products.

Vought's toy production lines went fully operational.

"We need two action figures!" Azu personally reviewed the design sketches. "One: Hampton Playboy—Anthony, with detachable sunglasses and a martini glass."

"The other: A Hero Descends—Homelander! It needs LED glowing eyes! Press the eagle emblem on his chest, and it has to say my line—You are the real hero!"

"And..." Azu pointed at the villain design. "The Chaos leader. Make him uglier. The uglier, the better! That way kids will really want to smash him around!"

Before long, supermarket shelves were flooded with "Homelander."

Homelander breakfast cereal!

Vought energy drinks—drink your way to superpowers!

The trailer for the Homelander-themed video game had been released, and preorders shot to the top.

Azu's philosophy was simple: "People don't just need to see me. They need to buy me, eat me, play as me."

"I want to fucking seep into their blood, their dreams, their goddamn DNA!"

Avengers Tower.

Steve Rogers was sketching, trying hard to adapt to the twenty-first century, while Natasha polished her Widow's Bite.

Tony Stark, the billionaire who had just finished renovating his tower, was enjoying a rare moment of leisure.

Until he saw that day's magazine headline.

"Smack!"

Tony tossed his tablet onto the lounge table.

"Can you believe this?"

"Headline: Starr's Power! Homelander: Origins officially greenlit, Anthony Starr to personally play... himself!"

Tony exaggerated a news anchor's voice. "My God! This guy's narcissism... is practically epic. He's making an origin story where he plays himself! This fucking... I have to admit, I kind of admire him."

"He turned being a hero into a business!" Tony could hardly believe it. "He started a company, made a movie about himself, and he's fucking playing himself?! JARVIS, find Vought's stock ticker. I want to short it!"

"Sir, Vought is not publicly traded. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starr Group."

"Fuck!"

Steve frowned and put down his pencil.

"Tony, is... is this appropriate? He's commercializing the word 'hero'..."

"Commercializing?" Tony laughed and poured himself a drink. "He knows the game! Look at this!"

Tony swiped the screen and switched to Vought's official website.

"Fuck, he has his own comic! Homelander's Adventures!" Tony pointed at the screen. "Steve, how long after you went to war did your Captain America comic come out? A year? Two?"

"This guy did it in a month! A month, and he's got the whole goddamn industry chain set up!"

Natasha leaned over and opened the plot synopsis leaked online.

"Wait..." she said in surprise. "Captured by a mysterious shadow organization? Subjected to inhuman torture and experiments? Persecuted, then finally awakened?"

Natasha looked up at Tony and Steve. "Isn't this... the story he told Fury?"

Tony Stark's smile froze.

Then he burst out laughing even harder.

"HAHAHAHA! Genius! This fucking guy is a shameless genius!" Tony slapped his thigh. "He couldn't even be bothered to make up a new story! He just took that sob story he fed S.H.I.E.L.D. and turned it into a movie!"

(Azu: The fucking screenwriters came up with that, not me. I'm not taking the blame!)

"Yeah, why bother telling two lies when one will do?" Tony sighed. "This guy... he isn't a hero, Steve. He's a brand! A walking United States logo!"

Steve Rogers frowned, his expression utterly grave.

"This isn't right! Heroism... shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't... become a product."

"Really?" Tony pointed to Agent Coulson's collector's item in the corner, a 1945 Captain America lunchbox. "Then you'd better have a talk with that tin box."

"Okay, Tony, uh, you know... back then, I didn't really have a choice." Steve gave an embarrassed smile.

"Listen, Captain." Tony's expression grew a little more serious. "Thor's out in space, and the Hulk's gone missing. Right now, we're the only ones in this city who can keep an eye on him."