I'm Assembling a Team

California, Burbank.

Hollywood's largest green-screen studio.

It had been transformed into the secret laboratory of the "Chaos" organization.

Homelander wore a battle-damaged prop bodysuit and was strapped to a cold metal operating table.

Around him stood vicious-looking "villain" actors in lab coats.

"Okay! Anthony!"

The director shouted through a megaphone.

"We need... pain! They're injecting you with chemically synthesized drugs! They want to destroy your will! They're laughing at you!"

"I need... rage! I need that look—that look of a beast crawling back from Hell! Got it?!"

"Action!!"

The clapperboard came down.

The actors around him began reciting menacing lines. "Take a deep breath, Starr. Dizziness is normal! You will become our strongest weapon!"

A retractable prop syringe plunged viciously into Homelander's neck.

Homelander closed his eyes.

The next second.

He suddenly opened them.

That was not Homelander's perfect smile, nor was it Anthony's playboy face.

Those were... Wu Yanzu's eyes.

He remembered his previous life.

He remembered going bankrupt, drowning himself in alcohol, standing on the rooftop of a forty-four-story building, and crazily undoing his belt at a shooting star!

He remembered the ultimate rage and unwillingness of being abandoned by the entire world, falling from the clouds into the mud...

"Urgh... ah..."

He began to growl, his muscles trembling.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH—!!!"

A primal, violent roar erupted from his chest!

His eyes were bloodshot, and veins bulged from his neck all the way to his forehead!

He frantically pretended to struggle, making the metal operating table creak beneath him!

The extras around him retreated two steps in fright, and even the actor holding the syringe had trembling hands.

The entire set fell silent.

"...Cut!!"

Even the director's voice was shaking.

He stared at the monitor, forgetting to breathe.

"My... God..." The director took off his headset and let out a breath. "This... this fucking... this is... Oscar-level acting!"

Homelander slowly calmed his breathing. That violent aura instantly withdrew, and he became the "fragile" Anthony again.

Acting... this was what he did best!

Ding! Popularity Points gained +155! (From: Director)

Ding! Popularity Points gained +88! (From: Extra A)

Ding! Popularity Points gained +120! (From: Cameraman)

Homelander was overjoyed inside.

"Sorry, Director..."

Homelander sat up, covering his face with one hand, his voice hoarse as though he had not yet left the role.

"Sorry... I... I remembered some... not-so-good memories."

He looked up, his eyes red. The "natural" pain and vulnerability he revealed brought tears to the eyes of every female staff member present.

...Their eyes.

"Did... did I overdo it? Do we need another take?"

"No! No!" The director rushed over, grabbed his shoulders, and shouted excitedly, "No need! Anthony! That was perfect! That's exactly what I wanted! We got it!"

Homelander lowered his head, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

Fuck, that little gold statue was mine for sure!

Hell's Kitchen.

Jessica Jones kicked open the door and tossed a bottle of cheap whiskey onto the table.

She turned on the old television that looked ready to start smoking.

On the screen, Homelander's handsome face was being interviewed by Time magazine.

"...Yes, I'm assembling a team. A team more efficient and more down-to-earth than the Avengers. I call them... The Seven."

Jessica spat.

"More like a super circus..."

She picked up the black card with the letter "V" on the table.

"Queen Jones..." She laughed at herself. "What a fucking stupid name."

But then she remembered the bone-deep despair she had felt that night, when that purple-clad bastard had whispered commands into her ear.

She also remembered those two cruel Heat Vision beams that had somehow given her satisfaction.

"Fuck."

She grabbed her coat and stuffed the card into her pocket.

"...I'm just going to take a look. I'm not joining that blond bastard's circus."

The Daily Bugle newsroom.

Bang!

J. Jonah Jameson slammed his fist onto the desk, making even his iconic little mustache tremble.

"A movie?! He still dared to make a movie?!"

He snatched up the phone and roared at his subordinate.

"Front page! Put it on the front page! The headline will be—Homelander Saves the World? A Two-Hundred-Million-Dollar Ego-Stroking Show!"

"What?!" Jameson's eyes nearly popped out. "Vought Media... bought up most of our newspaper's shares, and they want to hold a shareholders' meeting?!"

"When did this happen?! Yesterday?!"

"Fuck!!!"

Jameson angrily hung up and collapsed into his chair.

He looked out the window. Vought's enormous logo loomed over all of New York like a mocking smile.

He grabbed a cigar, but could not light it no matter what he did.

"Homelander... you win." He gritted his teeth, but inwardly he also felt relieved. The experience of skydiving was still vivid in his mind.

In that dejected instant, green skin flashed past.

At that moment, inside the studio, the Chaos organization's grunts were firing wildly at Homelander—with prop guns that went "pew pew."

Wu Yanzu, dressed in the brand-new Origin-version uniform, hovered in midair.

The expression on his face? Pain, struggle, rage, and finally... resolve.

"No—!!!" He howled toward the sky as though bearing the suffering of the world.

Then he opened his eyes, and blazing light shot from them.

"Cut!!!"

The director rushed out, so excited he was nearly crying.

"My god! Anthony! Did you see yourself on the monitor?! You're Jesus! You're... America!"

Ding! Popularity Points gained +120!

Wu Yanzu slowly descended. The pain vanished from his face in an instant, replaced by a smile.

"I only did what I had to do, Martin." He patted the director's shoulder. "For fucking art."

Filming for Homelander: Origins was already more than halfway complete.

Vought Media's publicity machine had already pushed anticipation into the stratosphere.

The trailer aired during the Super Bowl: thirty seconds of explosions, tears, and Wu Yanzu's handsome face blackened by the fires of war.

It directly caused presale systems at theaters across the United States to crash three times.

Ding! Popularity Points gained +150210!

Ding! Popularity Points gained +205114!

...

"Now that's more like it." Wu Yanzu draped himself in the silk robe handed over by his assistant and entered his private luxury van.

"Sir," said his chief assistant, Ashley, a shrewd-looking blonde beauty in rimless glasses, waiting for him with a tablet in hand. "The Jimmy Show and The Ellen Show are both fighting to get your first appearance during the film's promotional run."

"Let them fight." Wu Yanzu took a glass of iced soda water. "That's how hype is made."

"And..." Ashley's expression was a little strange. "There's a... woman waiting for you downstairs. She says her name is Jessica Jones."

"She has your V card."

Wu Yanzu paused.

"Oh, yes, Jones... Queen." He smiled.