The comic book industry of Earth-616—or whatever designation this reality held—was a creature of habit. And its habits were dying.
For decades, the shadow of Captain America had loomed large over the medium. When the Steve Rogers serials first hit the shelves in the 40s, they were revolutionary.
They were propaganda, yes, but they were also the genesis of the modern hero myth. But success breeds imitation, and imitation, over time, breeds incestuous mediocrity.
The market had become a factory of clones. Every publisher in New York was churning out the same story with a different coat of paint.
The formula was rigid, almost religious:
Step 1: Ordinary man gains power in a scientific accident (usually involving radiation).
Step 2: Reluctant hero loses a loved one/best friend to a tragic disappearance.
Step 3: Hero misses a date with his love interest to save the city. Step 4: Hero refuses to kill the villain, who inevitably escapes to kill again. Step 5: Hero sacrifices himself in a "Death of..." event, only to be resurrected six months later when sales dip.
Readers were exhausted. They were starving for nutrients in a diet of narrative sawdust. They bought the books out of habit, or loyalty to the characters, but the spark was gone.
The sense of wonder had been replaced by the cynicism of a cash grab. It was a stagnant pool waiting for a stone to be thrown.
One Punch Man wasn't just a stone. It was a boulder dropped from orbit.
It didn't care about the formula. Tragic backstory? Limit broken by doing pushups.
Moral dilemma about killing? Splat.
The "Will he survive?" tension? He's bored because he can't lose.
It was a deconstruction so violent and so funny that it made the "serious" books look ridiculous by comparison.
And like a drug to an addict who had built up a tolerance, the fresh hit of One Punch Man sent the market into immediate withdrawal symptoms for the old stuff.
Marvel Entertainment (Formerly Inksworth Publishing) Midtown Manhattan
The office was a war zone of ringing telephones.
"Marvel Entertainment, please hold—yes, I said hold!" "No, sir, we are currently out of stock on the first printing. The second printing is at the press now." "Five hundred copies? For a single store in Jersey? I can give you fifty."
The seven remaining employees of the newly christened Marvel Entertainment were fielding calls with two phones each. The air in the bullpen was electric, smelling of stale coffee and panicked excitement.
Andy moved through the chaos like a general in the heat of victory. His tie was loosened, his sleeves rolled up, and his face was flushed with a color that hadn't been there in years: hope.
"We need more trucks!" Andy shouted to no one in particular, slamming a phone down only to pick it up again instantly.
"Yes! This is Andy. Midtown Comics? You sold out? It's been four hours! Alright, alright, I'm sending a van. Don't let the customers riot."
He hung up and leaned against a filing cabinet, laughing breathlessly. Fifty-five thousand copies. That was the print run they had gambled on. In the current market, an indie debut selling ten thousand was considered a hit. Selling out fifty-five thousand in half a day? That was X-Men numbers. That was Daily Bugle headline news.
'We're not just surviving,' Andy ponded, watching his staff frantically scribble orders. "We're fuckin' thrivin'!..."
The Loft, Chelsea
While chaos reigned in Midtown, the atmosphere in Light's apartment was strangely serene. Light sat in his leather armchair, his eyes closed, ostensibly resting. In reality, he was watching a ticker tape of numbers scroll across his mind's eye.
[Fan Value: 104,320... 104,350... 104,400...]
The numbers were climbing with a speed that made his heart race. Every purchase, every tweet from a critic like Edward, every excited conversation in a school hallway fed the System. He had crossed the 100,000 threshold. That meant he had enough for his first High-Tier Lottery draw.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'This is it,' Light thought. 'The foothold. With this, I'm not just a civilian anymore. I'm a player.'
Across the room, Gali sat on the floor, surrounded by empty pizza boxes. She watched Light with a mix of curiosity and disdain. To the cosmic entity in the form of a little girl, seeing a human smile at nothing was a sign of low intelligence.
Ring. Ring.
Light's cell phone buzzed on the side table. He opened his eyes, the blue interface of the System fading into the background. "Hello?"
"Light! You genius! You magnificent bastard!" Andy's voice was so loud Light had to hold the phone away from his ear. "Did you check the news? We're trending! Top five on Twitter! The distributors are begging for restocks. We're printing money, kid!"
Light leaned back, crossing his legs. "I assume the fifty-five thousand are gone?"
"Gone? They evaporated! I've got the printer running 24/7. Light, listen to me. People are calling it the new Captain America. We're going to be the pillars of the industry!"
Light's expression remained cool. "Calm down, Uncle Andy. It's a good start. But don't let it get to your head."
"Calm down? Light, this is a phenomenon!"
"It's a phenomenon," Light corrected gently, "but it's not a foundation. Not yet."
Andy paused on the other end. "What do you mean?"
"One Punch Man is a disruptor," Light explained, staring at the ceiling. "It works because everyone is sick of the status quo. It's a parody. But parody has a shelf life. You can't build a ten-year empire on a joke, no matter how good the punchline is."
He knew the reality.
Saitama was the hook. He was the shock to the system that got eyes on the brand. But to keep those eyes? To build a Marvel that could survive Thanos? He needed the epics.
He needed the stories of growth, of friendship, of struggle that One Punch Man deliberately mocked. He needed Naruto.
He needed One Piece.
He needed the stories where the hero didn't win in one hit, but bled for every inch of victory.
"It's just the warm-up act, Uncle," Light said, his voice dropping to a serious register. "Enjoy the sales. But get the logistics ready. The real heavy hitters are coming next."
"Heavy hitters?" Andy sounded confused but intrigued. "You have more?"
Light looked at the System interface, at the glowing Lottery wheel that cost 100,000 points to spin.
"I have worlds, Uncle," Light whispered. "I have entire worlds."
...
The phone pressed to Light's ear was warm, a testament to how long Andy had been talking.
"Light, listen to me. The numbers are insane, but we have a problem," Andy said, his voice a mix of exhilaration and panic. "We have a flagship title, but we don't have a fleet. Weekly Shonen Jump can't survive on One Punch Man alone. People will buy the first issue for the novelty, but if the other two hundred pages are blank or filled with filler, they won't come back for issue two."
Andy was right. A magazine needed variety. It needed to be a buffet, not a single course.
"Strike while the iron is hot, right?" Light said, leaning back on his leather sofa.
"Exactly. We need filler. We need backup. Do we hire freelancers? I can make some calls, get some of the guys who left DC—"
"No freelancers," Light cut him off. "I'll handle it. I'm adding two new titles to the lineup starting next week."
There was a pause on the line. Then, a sputtered sound of disbelief.
"Two? Light, are you crazy? You're already drawing a weekly series. Adding two more? You'll be dead of exhaustion in a month. I know you're young, but burnout is real."
"I work fast, Uncle Andy. And I'm not drawing them frame-by-frame from scratch. I have... a process."
Light glanced at his hand. With the Ghost Trace function, he wasn't creating; he was printing. His stamina was the only limit, and he had plenty of that.
"Besides," Light added, his eyes narrowing slightly. "We're going to adjust the pacing for One Punch Man. Reduce the page count per issue. Make them hungry for it."
"Throttle the golden goose?" Andy sounded skeptical.
"It's not throttling. It's pacing. If we give them everything now, they'll binge and leave. We need to hook them, then reel them in slowly. The new titles will be the bait that keeps them reading the rest of the magazine."
"I... alright," Andy sighed, trusting the boy who had just saved the company. "But please, eat something. Sleep. Don't kill yourself for this."
"I'm building an empire, Andy. Emperors don't sleep."
Light hung up the phone and tossed it onto the cushion.
Beside him, a distinct crunching sound filled the room. Gali was curled up in the corner of the sofa, a family-sized bag of potato chips in her lap. She was methodically grabbing handfuls and shoving them into her small mouth.
"You know," Light said, watching her. "You look like a hamster."
"I am suppressing the vibration of my core," Gali said, crumbs falling onto her purple dress. "If I do not consume mass, the audio disturbance returns."
"Right. The growling black hole."
Light shook his head. "Well, keep eating. I have work to do."
Gali swallowed a mouthful. "More comics?"
"More comics."
Her eyes lit up. Despite her cosmic indifference, she had taken a liking to the stories. They were the only things on this primitive mudball that seemed to surprise her.
Light sat at his drafting desk and summoned the System interface.
[Fan Value: 215,400]
The number was beautiful. But Light knew it was a spike, not a plateau. One Punch Man was a viral hit. It relied on the shock of the new. Once the novelty of a bald hero one-shotting villains wore off, the casuals would drift away.
To build a true hegemony—one that could rival Stark Industries in influence—he needed depth.
He needed stories that hurt.
He scrolled through the Search library in his mind.
Naruto?
Dragon Ball?
One Piece?
'No,' Light thought, dismissing them. 'Too slow. They take dozens of chapters to really get going. I don't have time for a slow burn. I need explosions.'
He needed titles that grabbed the reader by the throat in the first chapter. He needed controversy. He needed shock value.
One Punch Man challenged the definition of strength.
The next wave needed to challenge the definition of safety.
Light's eyes drifted to two specific titles in the database. They were shorter, punchier. They didn't rely on hundreds of episodes of filler.
One was a story defined by bloody violence—a visceral, gory nightmare that would make the sanitized violence of mainstream comics look like a Sunday morning cartoon.
The other was a deceptive trap—a story focused on girls and human nature. On the surface, it might look innocent, but beneath the veneer lay a psychological horror that dissected the human soul.
"These will do," Light murmured.
They were intense. They were completely different from the patriotic fluff currently clogging the shelves.
He tapped the search bar.
The cover art for the two new series materialized in his mind.
He activated Ghost Trace.
His hand began to move.
Unlike the clean, simple lines of Saitama's face, this new art style was rougher, darker, and heavier with ink. He drew fear. He drew blood. He drew the fragility of the human condition.
Gali hopped off the sofa and padded over to the desk, crunching on a chip. She peered over his shoulder.
"Huh?" She tilted her head, her violet eyes tracking the pen. "This is... different."
She looked at the page. She was surprised. She had watched him from the very beginning. To her, One Punch Man was cool, stylish, and humorous.
But the work being created now was completely different from before.
Light reached out, his hand resting gently on Gali's silky purple hair. He smiled, a deep, meaningful expression crossing his face.
"Well," Light said. "This is exciting enough."