The camera cut to the bus that had been "rescued."
"Yeah! He saved the passengers! But the bus? Totally wrecked! The insurance company must be crying their eyes out this street is doomed too!"
The camera zoomed out: Marcus Lee left two deep footprints at the rescue site, the surrounding asphalt fractured in a spiderweb of cracks.
"He doesn't care about the damage at all he only cares if his precious hair got messed up!"
"Looking back at the Battle of New York: the collateral damage caused by the Patriot was worse than those damn alien bastards!"
"He's just a muscle-bound… blonde idiot! A menace to New York!"
"I, J. Jonah Jameson of the Horn Daily, will continue to expose his crimes!"
Marcus Lee watched the tirade without expression.
Ding! Popularity -105
Ding! Popularity -98
Ding! Popularity -112
"...Hah…" He let out a quiet chuckle.
"Blowhards," he muttered under his breath. "No matter the world, they're all the same damned flies."
Had he not endured countless criticisms in his previous life as the King of Leading Men?
"J. Jonah Jameson… Horn Daily…"
Marcus's gaze turned icy.
"You're right, pal I don't care about winning or losing. The problem is, why did you have to say it out loud?"
He knew he wasn't a relative in Washington, D.C., wearing red briefs.
He had no invisible bio-field to buffer what he touched.
Saving people depended on precise control of his powers.
But physics is physics. Even if you catch someone falling at supersonic speed, they'll still turn into a pulp. You can only slow them down as much as possible.
"Looks like… founding my own media company has become a top priority in my life."
He needed a machine to guide public opinion a machine that could turn black into white, justice into business.
A cold curve formed at the corner of Marcus Lee's lips.
But before that…
11:00 PM
Only the editor-in-chief's office on the top floor was still lit.
J. Jonah Jameson gripped a cigar, shouting into the phone, saliva flying.
"What? No evidence?! I saw it with my own eyes! That self-absorbed man in a tight suit he can fly, shoot lasers from his eyes the biggest threat in history!"
"Shut up! You're fired!"
"What? You're my boss?… Fine, we'll talk tomorrow!"
J. Jonah Jameson slammed the receiver down and chugged whiskey.
He still remembered the Battle of New York his brand-new Mercedes cut into four pieces by the Patriot's laser beams.
And the damn insurance company refused to pay alien invasion counted as force majeure!
He had to teach this lawless "superman" a lesson.
"Coward… weakling… this city doesn't need a god it needs me, J. Jonah Jameson, to tell them "
"Mr. Jameson?"
A gentle yet eerie voice came from behind.
J. Jonah Jameson's hair stood on end.
He spun around.
In the center of the office, Marcus Lee stood calm, composed, the same figure that had dominated the front pages.
His perfect smile vanished, replaced with… a blank, almost insect-like stare.
"You… how did you get in?!"
"Straight in, Jonah can I call you Jonah?" Marcus stepped forward.
"Don't… don't come near! Don't call me Jonah, you monster!"
"They can't hear you, Jonah." The Patriot smiled, glancing at the office floor below. "The security guards are watching the Saturday Night Live rerun the volume is blasting."
"What do you want?!" J. Jonah Jameson grabbed an ashtray. "Touch me, and the whole world will see your face tomorrow!"
"My face?" The Patriot picked up the latest Horn Daily issue.
"Arrogant tyrant? Star-Spangled Devil?"
He shook his head, his disappointed expression rivaling a trained actor's.
"Jonah, I saved thirteen people in that building, I saved New York cops trembling under gunfire, I saved this city and you sit behind a keyboard attacking me with… this?"
"What I write is true!"
"Oh?"
Marcus Lee disappeared.
As J. Jonah Jameson was lifted into the air, it felt like his throat had been clamped with pliers.
"Let me go, you Nazi!!"
"We're here to discuss journalistic ethics," Marcus said cheerfully.
"But you're not the Jonah I thought. I've changed my mind."
"I've decided… to show you a wider world."
"You… can't… cough… do this… you're… a hero…"
"So now I'm a hero?" Marcus grinned.
He smashed through a distant window and surged into the night sky over New York, J. Jonah Jameson clinging behind him.
"Ahhh !!"
The biting cold and weightlessness swallowed J. Jonah Jameson.
Marcus shot upward like a rocket.
One kilometer… five kilometers… ten kilometers. The air thinned; Jameson's screams turned into hoarse gasps, eyes bloodshot.
"Jonah!" The Patriot had to shout over the roar.
"Look down Jonah, how's the view?!"
"Please… give me another chance… I have a daughter…"
"What do you think?!"
Marcus's smile turned wicked.
Let go.
"No !!!"
The Horn Daily's star editor began his free-fall descent.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!!"
Flailing arms were useless.
Death gripped his heart.
Clouds whistled past.
Below, the lights of New York spread like a massive net, ready to swallow him.
"Help…"
No sound escaped.