Paper Prison

Iron Man was chilling on the large terrace of his beach mansion, gazing at the sunset and thinking of Pepper; not the spice, though to him, she was just that. He wore his suit, with the helmet removed, so he could sip on a freshly brewed martini. It was the least he deserved, after a whole day of cleaning debris from the ocean - the remnants of his old beach house, which got destroyed, unfortunately.

“Sir, if I may, prolonged sweating in the suit is not advised,” Jarvis, the suit’s inner AI said. “I suggest you take it off and go shower.”

“Relax, Jarvis,” Iron Man said and sipped his martini. “I’ll take it to the dry cleaning tomorrow.” 

“The dry cleaning, sir?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Dr. Banner’s new photon bombardment chamber, or whatever. He said it can alter things on an atomic level. Think it can get rid of some sweat?”

Jarvis sighed.

Iron Man finished the glass and stood up to go refill. Something rustled in the bushes at the edge of the terrace.

“Pepper?” No, she was working late at the Stark tower. 

“Crusty?”

“Who’s Crusty, sir?” Jarvis asked.

“Could be someone’s dog,” Iron Man shrugged. “Come out boy, or I’ll zap you.” He raised his right arm, blaster powering up, and walked up to the bush.

Something jumped out of the bush, but it was too dark to see who or what it was.

“That’s not Crusty,” Jarvis said.

The figure flashed open something like a small book at Iron Man.

“What the…?”

There was a flash of bright light and Iron Man was gone, the empty martini glass smashing on the terrace tiles.

***

Two men huddled together in the alleyway, hiding behind a pile of crates and gazed towards the main street. Guns shook in their hands and the gym bag full of money lay forgotten a few blocks back. Their eyes darted from one corner of the alleyway to the other, palms sweaty.

Then, a shadow flew over their heads, blocking the light of the full moon for a brief second. The two men immediately looked up and fired their guns without thinking. They didn’t care if the gunshots alerted people, they just wanted to be rid of their persecutor.

“Man, this was a bad idea!”

“It was your idea!”

“I know! I have bad ideas!”

Something sounded on the other side of the alley, and the men quickly turned to the direction of the sound, trying to see through the darkness.

“He’s coming…” whispered one and they raised their trembling pistols. A tapping sound approached them, accompanied by heavy breathing.

“Oh Lord, what is this abomination!” Just as the men were about to pull the trigger, a stray dog appeared from the shadows, tongue hanging low, tail waving. He ran past them, without giving them a sniff.

“What?” The men looked bemused.

“Here, boy,” a deep voice said from the other side of the alley, where the men were looking before the dog startled them.

They turned again. And there he stood, petting the stray dog.

“He smells your fear,” Batman said, rubbing the dog behind his ears. “Says it’s repulsive.”

The two men blinked and raised their guns to shoot. In a split second, Batman spun and knocked their guns out of their hands by throwing bat-shaped-knives at them. As the men clutched to their hands in surprise, Batman was already there and he one-two punched them unconscious. The dog ran up to him, and barked once, pleased.

Batman smiled. “Good work, Crusty. You could help me fight crime, distracting-”

An empty can turned over and clattered in the dark corner of the alley and footsteps approached. Crusty’s tail stopped waving. The dog growled.

“Who’s there?” Batman said and crouched, ready to jump.

“Just an admirer,” a voice said through the night. Batman squinted his eyes and thought he saw a figure of a man, opening a magazine at him.

“What are you-” 

A bright flash. Batman was gone. Crusty whimpered away, his eyes hurting from the sudden light.

***

The conference room was bustling with people asking too many questions too quickly. Nick rubbed his one good eye and exhaled deeply.

“Will y'all please, just shut the F up?!”

All heads turned to him, eyes blinking. Despite the dire situation, Nick found that at least a little satisfying. Then he eyed every man and woman in the room.

“Superheroes are under direct assault by an unknown enemy,” he said, hands planted on the table. “One by one, they are being targeted and captured, leaving no trace of their disappearance behind. No clue. No message. Nothing.”

He glanced at the empty seats of Iron Man, Batman, and the others. More than half the conference room’s seats, nearly half the heroes, were gone.

“Dr. Strange,” he said, “Wonder Woman, Flash, Elektra, Robin, Storm, Xavier, The Hulk, Wolverine, Aquaman, Captain America, three quarters of the Fantastic Four, Hellboy, Defendor …” With each name he spoke, he glanced at the empty chairs. “... and as of late, Iron Man and Batman. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a disaster.”

“You forgot to mention Spider-Man,” said Black Widow. “He’s gone too.”

“I was only counting superheroes,” Nick replied. He paused. “Just kidding. Spider-Man is gone too, yes.”

“I heard it’s Thanos,” said Starlord. “He caused some technobabble about the ripple effects from his ‘destroying half of life’ thing.”

“Ignorant human child,” Thanos said. “I’m sitting right here.”

Half the room turned in the direction of the big purple man. “What’s a villain doing amid heroes?” someone exclaimed.

Thanos shrugged. “Some recognize the value of my work and praise me as a hero.”

“People,” Nick said, “we’re getting distracted here. Someone is out there, kidnapping heroes and we have no idea who it is or what they want or why they’re doing it, or even how they’re doing it! Damn it!” He slammed a fist on the table. “They even got Superman and Captain Marvel. The most powerful assets we have.”

“Well, that last statement could be debatable,” said Thor. 

Nick ignored the god of thunder. “We need to make a coordinated effort to rectify this. We need to find out who’s behind this. What do they want? How to stop them?” He looked over the room. “Does anyone have any suggestions?”

Silence. 

Then, an arm went up.

“Yes, Ant-Man?”

“What if we all wear tiny cameras so that when one of us gets kidnapped we will know how it happens?”

“That’s-” Nick paused. “... not that stupid, actually.”

“What is with you and tiny things?” Thor asked. He eyed Ant-man from head to toes. “Oh, right.”

“We will do as Ant-man suggests,” Nick said. “Someone get me some smart people here! There are tiny cameras to assemble!”

***

The cafe was bustling with people.

Black Widow sat at the table in the back, sunglasses on, pretending to write a blog post on her laptop. Her eyes were scanning all the people around, searching for the possible villain. Through the earpiece, Nick just informed her that another hero, Hawkeye, disappeared just a few blocks away. And the last thing his camera caught, before the feed was cut, was a man wearing a Star Wars hoodie.

“Agent Romanoff, he’s heading your way. He should enter the cafe at any moment. Get out of there!”

“I can handle this,” she said, glancing at the door.

“Don’t be a fool,” Nick said over the earpiece. “This man is too dangerous! We have no idea what he is capable of-”

“Then it’s time we found out.” She cut off Nick’s voice but kept the camera recording.

The bell above the front door rang, as someone entered. A man wearing a Star Wars hoodie. He kept his hands in the oversized front pockets and wore the hood over his head. He stopped at the counter, looking over the crowded cafe.

Black Widow raised a hand and waved at the man, inviting him over, patting the chair cushion next to her. “Saved you a spot, Ace!”

The man startled, not accustomed to being invited to sit next to total strangers, but as he looked at Black Widow, his hands dug deeper inside the pocket. Cautiously, he walked over.

“Rush hour, huh?” she said, pretending to type, as the man came standing next to the empty chair. “Yeah, I hate it too. Though it helps me write. Feel free to buy me a drink for the free seat.”

The man hesitated. Then he pulled the chair and sat down. She glanced at his face, making sure the camera attached to the sunglasses frame filmed him.

“You look familiar,” the man said. His voice sounded raspy.

“I’m quite famous on the Vegan Fashion blog, maybe you’ve seen my picture?”

The man leaned back, uncomfortably. “No.”

Black Widow pretended to type, but she stole glances at him from under her glasses. What great powers did this man possess? What power can be great enough to stop even Superman?

“So, what’s your name, Ace? Girls don’t like it if strangers sit next to them.”

The man seemed to blush. He hesitated, then slowly said, “Mike.”

Mike, she thought. The supervillain that threatened to eradicate the superhero ensemble. Something didn’t seem right.

“You really look familiar,” Mike said.

“I’m a really famous blogger,” she said.

“No,” Mike said. Black Widow pretended to straighten her skirt but went for her gun.

“No,” the man repeated. “You’re no blogger. You’re-”

“Hands up, Ace!” She pulled the gun up and pointed it at Mike. The man nearly fell from his chair in surprise, but took his hands out of the pockets, his left hand holding something.

“What is that?”

He gazed at her in shock, then glanced at the thing in his hand.

“Is that a-”

Mike opened the small magazine-sized book and a bright flash of light followed. The gun, sunglasses, and a rose-red lipstick cluttered to the floor where Black Widow was standing just a moment ago.

***

“Let me fight this foe!” Thor bellowed as he followed behind Nick’s fast footsteps. “I can defeat him and stop this madness!”

“You’ve said something similar when trying to stop me,” Thanos commented. “And as far as I remember, you missed the head.”

The three of them were all that was left of the superheroes. Everyone else was taken by the Villain, as they named Mike, the man in the Star Wars hoodie. 

“This is different,” Thor said. “You had forbidden powers of the universe in your hands, but this, this boy, has nothing! I can slay him and avenge our friends!”

“Nothing, you say,” mused Thanos. “And yet he can make us disappear with a simple flash of his magazine.”

“We still don’t know what we’re dealing with here,” Nick said as he paused to enter a security code to unlock a door. With nearly everyone gone, the Superhero Complex was almost abandoned. “But Ant-man’s camera might have captured something that we can use.”

He opened the door and led them into his private office, a high tech bunker underground. There were monitors and computers, big screens, maps, 3D holographic projectors, and a fridge stationed all around. Only one of the screens was turned on, and on it, the last frame captured by Ant-man’s camera was displayed. 

“I analyzed the last second of the film, just before Ant-man disappeared and the camera stopped broadcasting the signal,” Nick said. “I ran the video footage through advanced filters and was able to reduce the flash of light.” He tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. “Look at this.”

Thor and Thanos leaned closer, staring at the screen. Nick played a frame by frame video of a man - the Villain - standing over Ant-man and holding a small book opened at him. The video appeared very dark, due to the light reduction, but it clearly showed the Villain’s power.

“By the Allfather…” Thor gasped.

“It cannot be…” Thanos whispered.

“Comic books,” Nick said, dead serious. “That’s what the Villain’s holding in his hand. That’s what he flashes to the superheroes. And watch what happens next.”

They observed Ant-man being sucked into the comic book. Then the footage ended.

A silence fell on the three.

“Mike the Villain,” Nick said, “is using comic books to trap heroes inside, somehow. Comic books about us. You and I and everybody else portrayed as fictional characters in a one-dollar paper book.”

“What does this mean?” Thanos pondered.

“It means,” Nick said, massaging his temples, “that Mike is either a magician of some sort, capable of drawing a comic book about us real people and then using it to trap us inside somehow, or…”

Thro raised an eyebrow. “Or what?”

“Or,” Nick sighed, “that Mike comes from another dimension. One in which we aren’t real, but exist as characters in a comic book.”

“That’s absurd,” Thanos said. “My will is my own, nobody came up with it. I am real. I am inevitable.” 

“That’s so cool!”

All three of them turned around at the sudden sound of the excited voice. It was Mike. “You said that in the movie and now you’ve said it for real. And I heard it!”

Thor glanced at Thanos, who glanced at Nick, who nodded. All three men charged at the Villain, who did not flinch. He took his hands out of the pocket and produced three comic books. Thor launched his hammer at the Villain, but Mike opened the first comic and the hammer - as well as Thor - got sucked inside with a bright flash.

The flash blinded Thanos and Nick, causing them to stumble away from Mike. Mike used the advantage to flash open the two remaining comics and both Thanos as well as Nick disappeared in a bright flash of light.

With that, the world ran out of superheroes.

***

The leather cracked softly as Mike leaned back on his sofa. In one hand he held a half-finished can of soda, in the other his smartphone. He took multiple pictures of his large bookcase, which displayed his complete collection of comic books. Real comic books.

He grinned, thinking of all those ‘collectors’ out there, who prided themselves with some antique limited edition comic that ran out of print fifty years ago and there were less than a hundred copies left. Once, Mike would envy such precious artifacts of the past, but not anymore. Not since he discovered a way to get a hold of the real deal.

He felt like an archeologist, digging deep into the box-framed stories and pulling out treasures of the fictional realm. Men and women of great power, heroes and heroines, alien creatures, mutants, and gods. 

And he stuffed them all on his shelf.

“Eat that you self-proclaimed fanboys and fangirls, geek kings and nerd queens,” he said, as he typed a comment to post below the photo of his collection. “Today, I surpass you all. Today, I am the one who collects all the pokemon. I am the one who casts the One ring into the fire, today I destroy the Death star. Today I drink a cup of kryptonite and I live! On this day,” he shouted and stood up, “I am worthy of the hammer of Thor! I wear my self-made suit of armor and my heroic mantle like a god! Today I rage like the Hulk, run fast like Flash, fly high as Superman, and dispense justice like Odin! I control the seas like Aquaman,” he waved a hand at his fish tank, “and the Earth’s molten core like the Human Torch,” he waved his other hand at the fireplace. “Fates of billions are in my hands and only my benevolence allows for their salvation… or their destruction.” He crushed the soda can malevolently, spilling the bubbly beverage over the carpet with a fizz.

“Today,” he laughed with hysteria, “I own everything! I have all the power in the universe! I am the hero of-”

“Mike, honey,” a voice cut from the upstairs.

Mike fell silent, his moment of glory ruined. “Yes, mom?” he sighed.

“Can you keep it down? I’m trying to watch Storage Wars on Discovery!”

Mike slumped back on the leather sofa, his underground throne in the basement of solitude. He grimaced as he noticed he crushed the can and had nothing left to drink.

“Stupid storage wars,” he mumbled and threw the can at the trash bin. He missed.

He glanced at the bookshelf.

A thousand tiny screams came from those pages, each one begging for him to set them free.

Mike smiled.

All he needed to do now, was to find a way to release them out into the real world.

And have them do whatever he wanted.