*Thud!*
Hunkering down behind his shield, he landed on the ground with a soft sound.
The shield from Captain America perfectly absorbed the impact of the landing.
Anthony gave his neck a twist, reattaching the shield to his back, then turned to face Hawkeye Clint.
"Taskmaster?!"
Hawkeye frowned, looking at Anthony, and spoke with a grave expression.
"It seems you're all alone this time..."
Taskmaster looked at Clint, who had appeared alone. Speaking from beneath his silver-white skull mask, his tone devoid of any emotion, he said, "I originally thought more people would come."
"What?!"
Hearing the words from under Taskmaster's mask, Hawkeye's expression changed slightly.
He clearly understood now that this was a trap set for the Dark Avengers.
However, before Hawkeye could even counterattack, a grayish-white phantom appeared behind him, amidst the faint sound of electric currents.
Immediately after, Clint lost consciousness and fell into darkness.
...
"The bug has been caught!"
Manhattan, 890 Fifth Avenue.
Inside the Dark Avengers Base, Tony's voice suddenly rang out.
...
"Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)?"
Main World, inside the Messenger Newspaper.
Faced with the invitation from the broadcasting company, a look of surprise appeared on Colin's face, but he quickly concealed it.
As mentioned before, The Great Depression was also the 'Golden Age of Radio'.
During this period, radio experienced a booming development.
And the Columbia Broadcasting System was one of the radio stations that developed during this era.
Early on, CBS also operated businesses like publishing, musical instrument manufacturing, toys, and records, and primarily operated on a paid-broadcast model, meaning affiliate stations had to pay to broadcast its radio programs. Later, after a series of reforms and reorganizations, CBS changed this strategy, deciding that affiliate stations could rebroadcast for free, and in return, it would take a certain commission from the affiliate stations' advertising revenue.
Through this decision, CBS swept away its decline, accumulating a large number of loyal listeners and becoming another national radio network after NBC.
Recalling the relevant history of the Columbia Broadcasting System in his mind, Colin looked up at the CBS representative before him and then asked, "So, CBS's goal is Superman?"
Besides Superman, Colin really couldn't think of anything else the Newspaper Agency had that would be of value to them.
"That's right."
The CBS representative nodded. Compared to the disdainful appearance of the negotiator from World Daily News, this representative's attitude was clearly much more sincere.
Of course, this was also because the Messenger Newspaper of today was a far cry from its former self, no longer a small-time paper that could be easily manipulated.
Relying on the Superman serialized story, The Messenger Newspaper had already become the second most popular newspaper in New York City, after World Daily News.
The previous incident with World Daily News's Knock-off Superman, while causing some trouble for the Newspaper Agency. But in a way, it had also helped boost the recognition of Colin's The Messenger Newspaper.
Especially since World Daily News, as the undisputed number one newspaper in New York City, was incomparable to the previous The Messenger Newspaper in terms of both subscriptions and audience.
Yet that Knock-off Superman incident had inadvertently helped boost The Messenger Newspaper's popularity.
In particular, the comic about 'The Yellow Kid' that Colin later created in the serialized story had, in a roundabout way, tied The Messenger Newspaper and World Daily News together.
This brought no benefit to World Daily News, but for The Messenger Newspaper, it was clearly a very good thing.
At the very least, ever since that incident, The Messenger Newspaper's sales had been growing steadily.
It was said that World Daily News had already held internal discussions on how to break free from this association with The Messenger Newspaper.
"After unanimous internal discussion at CBS, we believe that Superman, published by the Messenger Newspaper, is a character with great potential. Although Superman currently only appears as a serialized comic, CBS is confident that we can adapt Superman into a radio drama for broadcast..."
The earliest radio content related to Superman was on the CBS radio program, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, hosted by Orson Welles.
The host, Orson Welles, asked on the program, "Who is Batman?"
At the time, CBS just treated this topic as an impromptu performance by Orson Welles on the radio.
However, judging from the reaction to the radio program afterward, the audience responded enthusiastically to Orson Welles's question.
This also made CBS gradually notice Batman, or rather, the comic behind it, Superman.
This, combined with the social unrest and large-scale protests previously caused by the 'English Tax' in the Superman serialized story, made CBS instantly realize the potential that existed behind the Superman comic.
Currently, although CBS has become a nationwide radio station thanks to the popularity of radio, in terms of influence, it has always been second to NBC.
This was an unacceptable fact for any broadcasting company that wanted to grow, especially since CBS itself had a history of competition with NBC. In order to defeat NBC, CBS had made numerous efforts, and persuading the Messenger Newspaper to produce a Superman radio drama was one of the attempts CBS intended to make.
"A Superman radio drama?"
A radio drama was indeed outside the scope of Colin's previous considerations.
He had thought about producing a Superman comic, animated film, or even a musical, but a radio drama was a part he had truly not anticipated.
If he really thought about it, a radio drama was indeed a good attempt.
Especially in the era of The Great Depression, when television and film were far from as popular as in later generations, radio had instead become the most popular form of listening entertainment.
And, truthfully, the connection between Superman and radio dramas runs quite deep.
Among these connections, the most talked-about is the birth of 'Kryptonite', Superman's well-known weakness, which in fact is greatly related to the radio drama.
And the original purpose for the creation of 'Kryptonite' wasn't to target Superman's powers, but purely to give Superman's voice actor at the time, Bud Collyer, a vacation.
In the "Superman" radio series of the time, because voice actor Bud Collyer was on vacation, the radio drama team found another voice actor and had him make incomprehensible groaning sounds on the radio until Collyer returned from his vacation.
And in the show, to explain this, the radio drama team came up with the idea of 'Kryptonite,' claiming that Superman had lost his powers due to Kryptonite, which was why this situation occurred.
Although the entire process was filled with absurdity and was quite perfunctory, surprisingly, the listeners of the radio drama at the time accepted this setting, which also laid the foundation for the later appearance of 'Kryptonite'.
(end of chapter)