"Anton, wake up, Anton!"
Betty Brant looked at Anton, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, with a helpless expression. She couldn't believe J. Jonah Jameson had made such a mistake.
To hand over his life's work so readily to his grandson, a college dropout, a good-for-nothing rich kid?
What a blunder!
"Hmm?"
Anton groggily opened his eyes, instinctively wiping the drool from his desk. Then, he looked up in a daze at the young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed secretary in front of him, unsure if he was dreaming, or still dreaming…
"Anton, this is tomorrow's front page of the Daily Bugle. It needs your approval and signature."
Betty handed the document to Anton.
Anton subconsciously took the document, signed it, and handed it back. Betty, with her alluring figure, turned and left.
Anton watched Betty's curvaceous rear, and some information popped into his mind.
The young man couldn't help but widen his eyes.
His memory caught an English name on Betty's document, and he suddenly understood.
"Wait a minute, I didn't sign my name… Anton? I got a 70 on my college entrance English exam, and I only passed the CET-4 exam twice in college, with a maximum score of 364. How could I understand this…"
Suddenly, Anton's body stiffened.
The front page of the newspaper, which Betty had handed him, and which would be released tomorrow, inexplicably appeared in his mind.
Photographic Memory!
Having acquired this essential skill for time-travelers, Anton wasn't thrilled. Instead, he slumped in his soft boss chair, feeling like a salted fish. He ran his hand through his hair, unable to believe it.
Tony Stark!!
The newspaper he'd just seen was the Daily Bugle?
That was enough to explain everything!
Anton couldn't believe it.
It was already the twenty-first century, and he knew exactly what kind of story he'd landed in.
And with this kind of story came a cheat ability.
Of course, it couldn't just be the useless photographic memory...
"DC template?"
Anton stroked his chin, his mind sinking in.
In an instant, time seemed to stop, and he found himself in a new world.
A system space.
It looked like a laboratory, with various DC heroes' armors arranged around. There was Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Cyborg, Atom, Wonder Woman, and more.
The various armors were enveloped in a transparent glow.
Anton reached out and touched one, only to find that the transparent glow was impenetrable, like girls always wearing safety pants under their skirts, how annoying.
"Unlock method: increase hero fan value!"
Anton saw a line of text floating above the light and scratched his head. Complex information flooded his mind again, hitting him like a torrential downpour and causing a headache.
"So that's how it is."
Anton understood that these DC heroes' armors were all prepared for him by the system.
The condition for unlocking these armors was to increase the corresponding heroes' fan value, using the fan value to unlock the armor.
Of course, these armors contained all the abilities of the corresponding heroes.
In other words, once he put on the armor, Anton could become Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman... Wait, it seems there's the wrong gender in there.
But that's not important.
Anton was very excited. As a movie fan, he had been fascinated countless times by the fantasy universes created by Marvel and DC.
This time, the transmigration directly fulfilled two of his wishes.
He didn't have much to miss from his previous life anyway. His previous daze was just because he was overwhelmed by the sudden transmigration.
"This body's cheap old man is called John Jameson, an astronaut, and his grandfather is J. Jonah Jameson, a famous New York entrepreneur and the owner of the Daily Bugle."
Anton's eyes brightened.
The Daily Bugle, as a famous newspaper in New York, had a market value of billions of dollars, with its reach extending to all walks of life in New York.
Anton could be considered a second-generation rich kid. According to his memories, J. Jonah Jameson had built his empire from scratch, from a small reporter to creating the current newspaper company with a market value of billions. Now, he was a little tired and planned to retire and enjoy life.
So, he arbitrarily retained his position as the Daily Bugle's chairman and let his grandson take office, taking over his original position as editor-in-chief.
No one expressed any misunderstanding about this appointment.
The Daily Bugle was where J. Jonah Jameson's dreams began. It was controlled by the Jameson family and was J. Jonah Jameson's most cherished enterprise.
It's safest in the hands of your own people.
Who could be closer than your own grandson?
He wasn't counting on Anton. Was he supposed to count on Anton's cheapskate father, J. Jonah Jameson's cheap son, that astronaut John?
Anton's thoughts drifted.
[System will randomly select a primary hero template]
As the thought fell, the armor templates flashed before him like a revolving lantern. Finally, it settled on a dark figure with a flowing cape and two pointed ears.
"Batman!"
Anton wasn't disappointed. In the Marvel world, blindly choosing Superman was the right way to go. If he didn't get Superman, getting Batman was a top-tier choice. Besides, his favorite DC hero was Batman. Although Superman had more abilities, Batman was DC's golden child!
[Because the primary hero template is Batman, you are gifted with a special beginner's gift pack – a bone-breaking card. Originally priced at 50 million Justice Points for Batman, now only 9.98 million. 9.98 million won't leave you at a disadvantage, you deserve it!]
A pleasant chime echoed in Anton's ears.
The armor in front of Anton suddenly shone brightly, projecting a series of images.
Besides the standard-issue armor, various versions of Batman's armors appeared, including the Fenris Armor, Bunny Armor, Hulkbuster Armor, Insider Suit, Anti-Superman Armor, Kingdom Come Armor, and Hellbat Armor, among others.
Furthermore, the image of Batman kept changing in Anton's eyes.
As a fan of Batman, Anton instantly recognized the identities of these different Batmen.
They were all corrupted versions of Batman.
Red Death, Dawnbreaker, Merciless, Murder Machine, The Batman Who Laughs, Drowned, Doomsday Batman…
Anton was stunned.
The regret of not getting Superman completely vanished.
If he could exchange for these Batman armors, wouldn't he be able to run rampant?
Anton left the system space, once again feeling the flow of time, he didn't know how long it had been.
A gentle, warm breeze blew in through the open window.
At this moment, Anton was thrilled.
The disorientation of transmigrating was completely overshadowed by the immense surprise.
Of course, exchanging for the armor required Hero Fan Points.
For example, with the help of the Fracture Card, the Batman armor, originally worth 50 million Fan Points, now only cost 9.98 million.
But these special armors from the Batman template, as well as the special forms after being blackened, were not exchanged with Fan Points, but with Justice Points.
Fan value is easy to understand; it can be simply equated to popularity. The higher the popularity, the more fans one naturally has.
Justice Points, on the other hand, refer to the reward points the system awards for doing good deeds or fighting crime, measured in units of ten thousand.
Anton looked at the Justice Points required for the armors in the Batman template.
The least expensive was the Hulkbuster Armor, requiring 5 million Justice Points. Next was the Bunny Armor, valued at 8 million. The rest were all worth over ten million, with the Sixth Dimension Ultimate Armor, the most expensive, costing over a hundred million.
"This is going to be tough!"
Anton pondered for a moment, understanding the system's intentions.
Fan value indicated that the system wanted Anton to expand the fame of DC heroes in the Marvel world, even to the point of using DC to dominate Marvel.
Justice Points meant that the system didn't want Anton to use underhanded methods to increase DC's fame. Instead, it wanted him to do good deeds, or in other words, save the world, to replace the gradually growing Marvel heroes.
"Interesting!"
Anton chuckled.
A lot of comments were bringing up a question: that there are DC comics in the Marvel universe.
Let me clarify at the beginning: in this book's setting, there's no content related to the DC universe in the Marvel world.
This is just a minor detail and won't overturn anyone's understanding of Marvel. After all, it seems unlikely that Marvel and DC will have any crossover storylines in their movie universes, at most just some verbal jabs.
I wanted a unique angle to make things interesting, so I wrote it this way. I hope everyone doesn't get too hung up on it!
When in doubt, parallel universe, my apologies!
(End of Chapter)