Luther was sitting in his office, sipping a synthetic nutrient blend that cost more per ounce than printer ink, when the news broke.
He had TMZ playing on one of the side monitors—a guilty pleasure, or perhaps just keeping tabs on the competition. The headline was flashing in bold, obnoxious red letters:
IRON MAN OR MAN OF STEEL? STARK DENIES DOPING ALLEGATIONS AFTER 10-MODEL MARATHON.
Luther nearly spit out his drink.
"This guy," Luther chuckled, shaking his head. "He really knows how to market a product, even when he's trying not to."
The report was salacious. Apparently, Tony Stark had been spotted leaving a penthouse party in Monaco two nights ago. The rumor mill was churning out reports that he had entertained ten Maxim cover models. Simultaneously.
And the whispers on the street? He was powered by Vigor.
On the screen, a clip played of Stark being mobbed by paparazzi outside a shawarma joint. Stark looked exhausted but defiant behind his rose-tinted sunglasses.
"Look, I don't know what you vultures are talking about," Stark snapped at a microphone. "My stamina is all natural. It's the arc reactor. It keeps the rhythm. I have never touched Emperor Industries' little blue pill. These allegations are slanderous, jealous, and frankly, insulting to my cardio regimen. I'll sue anyone who says otherwise."
Luther leaned back, amused. "Classic Tony. Deny till you die."
But the math didn't add up. Even with Vigor, taking down ten models in a single night was… ambitious. The serum gave you super-strength and endurance, sure, but it didn't turn you into a machine.
"How much did he take?" Luther wondered aloud. "Did he drink a gallon of the stuff? Or is he just lying about the number of models?"
Either way, it was gold. Stark's denial was the best endorsement Luther could have asked for. Every man in America was watching that clip and thinking the same thing: If Tony Stark uses it to party like a rockstar, I need a case of it.
Luther tapped his desk. "Michelle?"
"Yes, Boss?" Her voice came over the intercom instantly.
"Pull the sales records for the New York flagship store. Look for a purchase made by 'Happy Hogan' or any Stark Industries security personnel in the last week."
Two minutes later, the file pinged on his screen. Happy Hogan. Three cases of Vigor.
"Happy probably bought it for security detail," Luther mused. "And Tony raided the stash."
Luther could have leaked the receipt. He could have destroyed Stark's credibility in seconds. But that was petty. That was small-time.
Luther preferred to be... theatrical.
"Get me marketing," Luther ordered. "And get me the number for Hollywood's biggest heartthrob. We're shooting a commercial."
Three days later, the ad dropped during the Super Bowl halftime slot.
It opened with a high-octane montage. A sweaty, chiseled A-list movie star—let's call him Brad—was shown bench-pressing a tractor tire, sprinting up a mountain, and chopping wood with a single swing of an axe.
Voiceover: "Life demands strength. Life demands endurance."
The camera zoomed in on Brad's face as he wiped sweat from his brow, popping a sleek black-and-white Vigor Capsule into his mouth. His eyes flashed with a subtle blue electric charge.
Voiceover: "Reclaim the confidence of a true man."
The scene cut.
Brad was now in a luxurious bedroom, wearing a silk robe, holding a glass of champagne. He was lounging on a massive king-sized bed.
Surrounding him were ten women.
And not just any women. Luther's team had paid a premium to hire the exact same ten cover models that had been spotted with Tony Stark in Monaco.
Brad looked at the camera, flashed a million-dollar smile, and winked.
Voiceover: "Vigor. For when you need to go the distance."
The screen faded to black with the Emperor Industries logo.
The internet melted down.
#StarkRoast trended worldwide within ten minutes. It was the ultimate shade. Luther hadn't said a word. He hadn't accused Stark of anything. He just let the implication hang there like a neon sign.
"Boss, the servers are crashing again," Michelle said, walking into his office with a look of frantic exhaustion. "We sold out of the Q3 inventory in an hour. Men are buying it in bulk. It's... it's a frenzy."
"Good," Luther said, watching the stock ticker climb vertically. "Let them buy."
The media was begging for a comment from Luther. They wanted him to go on talk shows. They wanted a face-to-face with the man who had just publicly humiliated Iron Man.
But Luther stayed in the tower.
He knew his brand. He was the "Man Behind the Curtain." He was the Anti-Stark.
Where Tony was loud, messy, and constantly drunk in public, Luther was a ghost. He was young, impossibly handsome, richer than god, and completely scandalous-free.
The public ate it up. They called him "America's Most Eligible Bachelor" (despite his lack of citizenship). Women swooned over his mystery. Men idolized his power.
Stark hated it. Luther was stealing his thunder, his headlines, and his "cool factor."
But Luther had a reason for avoiding the dating scene that had nothing to do with branding.
"If they knew," Luther thought, looking at a magazine cover featuring a stunning actress who had publicly declared her love for him.
Being a Kryptonian—specifically a Doomsday-enhanced Kryptonian—came with drawbacks. His senses were dialed up to eleven.
If he looked at a beautiful woman with Super Vision, he didn't just see her face. He saw the mites on her eyelashes. He saw the bacteria in her pores. With Super Hearing, he could hear the digestion of her lunch.
"It's hard to be romantic when you can see someone's skeletal structure and hear their bowel movements," Luther sighed. "I need someone... compatible. Someone who doesn't look like a biological diagram."
Maybe an alien. Or an Android.
Speaking of business, the "Stark Bump" wasn't the only thing keeping Michelle busy.
The hostility from the establishment had evaporated.
A few months ago, the "Old Money"—the pharmaceutical giants, the defense contractors, the shadowy cabals—had tried to crush Emperor Industries. They sent spies. They sent assassins.
Those assassins never came back. (They were currently working security in the lobby, very polite and very lethal).
The investigators hired by the CIA and FBI found nothing. No paper trail. No dirt. Just a terrifyingly clean corporation run by a man who seemed to have dropped out of the sky.
So, the establishment did what they always do when they can't kill a competitor: They offered a partnership.
"The head of Pfizer is on line one," Michelle listed off, looking at her tablet. "The NYPD Commissioner is on line two. And... oh, this is new. The National Guard wants a contract for domestic disaster relief."
"They realized they can't beat us," Luther said, spinning his pen.
"It seems so. The pharma reps are particularly desperate. They want to license the Vigor formula. They're offering billions."
"Deny the license," Luther said. "But tell them we're open to distribution deals. Let them put their label on the box if it makes them feel better, as long as we control the supply chain."
"You're not going to... retaliate?" Michelle asked, surprised. "These are the same people who tried to have the FDA shut us down last month."
Luther stood up and walked to the window.
"Michelle, revenge is for people with small horizons."
He looked up at the sky. He wasn't looking at the clouds; he was looking past them, into the deep vacuum of space. He knew what was coming.
Loki. The Chitauri. Thanos.
"Why should I destroy Pfizer or Lockheed Martin?" Luther thought. "When the alien armada arrives over Manhattan, half of their board members will be vaporized anyway. I don't need to kill them. I just need to sell them armor before the sky falls."
"We're pivoting," Luther announced, turning back to her.
"Pivoting?"
"We're not just a biotech company anymore. We're a Private Military Contractor."
He pulled up a schematic on the main screen. It looked like a soldier, but enhanced.
"Blackwater. Haliburton. They sell guys with guns. We're going to sell guys who can catch bullets."
"We recruit," Luther outlined. "We find veterans. We give them the Enhancement Loan. We give them the serum. And then? We hire them back."
"We create a closed loop. We build the soldiers, we own their debt, and we lease them out to the highest bidder for security, counter-terrorism, and 'strategic consulting'."
"It's... vertical integration of war," Michelle whispered, horrified and impressed.
"Exactly. Why would a government hire Blackwater—who has to buy our serum at retail price—when they can hire Emperor Security directly?"
It was the Nokia problem. The old guard was selling flip phones while Luther was selling iPhones. They couldn't compete.
But there was a bottleneck.
"We have a problem, Boss," Michelle said, tapping a red graph on her screen. "Labor. We have thousands of orders for the security detail. But we don't have enough loyal bodies."
"I can't hypnotize everyone," Luther grumbled.
Hypnosis worked, but it was manual labor. He had to sit there, use his voice, and break them down one by one. It was boring. And normal humans were fragile. They needed sleep. They demanded rights. They had "morals."
"I need a workforce that doesn't complain," Luther said. "A workforce that doesn't need a pension plan."
He dismissed Michelle and went down to his private lab—the one accessible only by flight.
He looked at the empty stasis pods lining the wall.
"Humans are inefficient," Luther decided.
He pulled up two files on his secure server.
Project 1: The Android Initiative. Based on the scraps of Dr. Gero's research he remembered and the Red Room technology he had hacked from S.H.I.E.L.D.
Project 2: The Clone Protocol. Using the Kryptonian Genesis Chamber technology combined with Earth's crude cloning methods.
"If I can't hire loyal people," Luther said, his eyes glowing red in the dark lab, "I'll print them."
He cracked his knuckles.
"Time to build an army."
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