1942 — Europe and the Pacific
The war was still spreading like an oil fire—across continents, through cities, into homes and minds. Though the calendar said 1942, it felt like the world had been at war for a century. And Maxwell Marvelo—clad in red and gold and blue—was being pulled in every direction.
The Allies deployed him sparingly now. Not because they doubted his effectiveness, but because of what followed in his wake: fear, confusion, awe, and rumors that made ordinary men feel smaller in their uniforms.
His missions had changed. No longer just fighting soldiers. Now, he was a living scalpel sent to carve out Axis terror before it could metastasize.
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The Puppet Battalion — Warsaw Outskirts
They were not human.
Once, they were. But the German engineers—those obsessed with automation and loyalty—had found ways to insert mechanical wire into the spinal cords of prisoners. Controlled by signals broadcast from towers across occupied Poland, they moved in sickening jerks, eyes glassy, skin pale, voices muted.
American troops who faced them broke ranks. One soldier wept. "It's my cousin. That's my cousin... he was taken last year."
Maxwell landed in front of the advancing line.
Their rifles turned to him.
He charged through them, tearing cables, snapping necks with mercy. He crushed the tower with a single punch. Sparks rained from the sky.
When it was over, he stood amid twitching corpses, heart pounding. The soldiers behind him dared not speak.
He was more than man. Less than god. But still something mortal enough to weep.
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The Leviathan of the Pacific
South of Midway, reports reached Allied high command of a Japanese sea experiment gone rogue—a beast bred from deep-sea creatures and supercharged with radioactive waste.
It was miles long, dragging warships beneath the waves. A black serpent with armored ridges and glowing yellow eyes.
Marvelo arrived aboard a carrier, leaping into the ocean from 10,000 feet.
He battled the creature underwater for six hours—dragging it away from a convoy, punching through its gill plates, dodging acidic bile sprayed from its maw. When he finally forced its corpse to the surface, sailors stared from the decks in silence.
Someone whispered, "That man ain't real."
Marvelo collapsed on the deck, exhausted.
But alive.
---
Back in America
The newspapers glorified him.
"America's Brightest Star!"
"The Man Who Wrestled a God!"
But Maxwell wasn't reading the headlines. He was in a quiet hospital, visiting the burned, the broken, the boys who lost limbs and didn't get parades.
He held their hands. Told no one. And wept when he returned to his quarters.
The war wasn't over. Not yet.
But 1942 was the year he realized the world didn't just need a soldier.
It needed someone to believe in.
And he was starting to wonder if he could survive being that man.