Hopefully, somebody besides me was excitedly anticipating the arrival of Justin Hammer, ever since his presence was confirmed in the Phil Wrede Marvel Action Figure Comic Universe earlier this year. Tony Stark can never have too many rivals or antagonists, after all!
I think this marks the first of my comic strips without a single bona fide superhero in it, just antagonists, and regular citizens bumping into each other (or, as regular as high-ranking military officers and significant elected officials can be). I feel these characters do at least as good a job of infighting and being dysfunctional as the Avengers, themselves, and that’s no mean feat!
It took a while, staring at the characters in my toy collection, to decide just who should take the “role” of Justin Hammer in my comics, but I’m quite happy with the “winner” being Dr. Ian Malcolm from the Jurassic Park Amber Collection. It was really his water cup (which I’ve repurposed into an nonspecific beverage that he’s constantly sipping) accessory that won me over; I love a little accessory that can punctuate a moment, or emphasize a gesture.
Though we’ve not seen the taping of an episode of Justin Hammer’s podcast, that might not be the case forever! We’ve certainly been flies on the wall for J. Jonah Jameson’s program often enough that it might be interesting to see how somebody else manages their own media empire. Even if that empire depends on people like Baron Zemo to build it.
Speaking of media empires, don’t think I’ve forgotten Spymaster’s prior claim, that the Daily Bugle might just be the key to the Avengers’s downfall. It’s just… there are a lot of plates to spin here in the #PWMAFCU, and some of them have to spin more slowly than others.
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