It was an ordinary night in the Anthill. After putting the finishing touches on a new diorama and going over changes in the latest script with the Just Bruce! cast, I prepared to shut the hypergate to Fwoosh HQ down. Before I could, the Anthill’s hyper-intelligent computer S.M.A.R.T.I.E. detected an abnormality in the kinetic wavefront. Without warning, the gate roared to life and in a dazzling stream of actuated muons he staggered out. The man was older, bearded, deranged . . . but still unquestionably me!
“You have to tell them! You have to stop them!”
The familiar stranger fell into my arms and I guided him to a nearby beanbag. The hypergate shuddered behind me as it closed, the lights in the Anthill flickering uneasily for a moment before resuming their cool, muted glow. My older self looked around the room with fearful bloodshot eyes.
“It’s safe here, err . . . me,” I volunteered, but my twin looked doubtful. Over a cup of my famous java he told his unbelievable tale.
“With the success of Marvel Legends, Hasbro just kept plugging away. Waves got bigger, retailers were ordering more every time. Refresher cases, box sets, store exclusives . . . and then it happened.”
I’d been reticent to press my guest, but now it was clear I didn’t have to. He spoke quickly, his eyes tracing the passing of events yet to occur.
“Hasbro went too far. They created a wave that broke all the rules. In their hubris they killed teh lein.”
I smiled skeptically at the thought.
“How is that possible? Right now the line is going gangbusters. Even at a $20 price point most figures sail off the pegs. How could the line possibly . . . ”
“Listen. I don’t have long. They’ll be coming for me — but you’ve got to tell the world. You’ve got to warn them!”
Before I could reply he was speaking.
“There was no warning. Fans were expecting the Civil War series . . . When reports first started trickling in, we all thought it was a hoax, or thought someone was pulling some incredibly elaborate prank with mass-produced customs. But then the wave dropped everywhere at once. The devastation . . . was total.”
I fought the urge to press my future self for answers. I didn’t have to.
“The case-pack was made up of Hawkeye . . . ”
“What? They made Hawkeye again?”
He nodded his head sadly.
“No one knows what they were thinking. We can’t even guess. The pegs were still filled with Odin-wave Hawkeye when the final series hit.”
“My God.”
“People were pissed. Still, collectors needed his BaF piece, so we bought him and fudged him into displays as Dark Hawkeye or whatever derivative codswallow Marvel serves up these days. But Hawkeye was only the tip of the iceberg.”
My future self sipped his java thoughtfully, staring at the half-completed Avengers mansion diorama in the distance.
“Then there was safari-jacket Simon Williams.”
“Oh, really? Hey, that’s cool . . . ”
He turned, suddenly wild-eyed, a leash of spittle swinging from his quivering lips.
“NO, YOU FOOL! It wasn’t cool! Once you and the other eight people who wanted him here on Fwoosh got their figures, unwanted Simons began to pile up. Soon entire toy sections were overflowing with the insecure Avenger. He was like some hellish safari jacket-clad rabbit, perpetuating himself beyond the collector communities’ ability to sustain him. There was a plan to pull all of the Wonder Men from retail and melt them down for new roadways, but civilization had fallen by then.”
The Anthill grew silent then, as the weight of all that had been said sank in.
“Then there was Deadpool.”
I perked up at this.
“Hey, great. People have been waiting a long time for a decent Deadpool.”
“He was better than decent, he was perfect. Built on the Bucky Cap body with an all-new upper torso, lower arms and boots. He came packed with an unmasked head, three sets of hands, four guns, two swords and a BaF piece to build another Deadpool!”
I furrowed my brow.
“Well, that sounds great. What could have gone wrong there?”
“They packed him one-per-case!”
A sudden stabbing pain began directly behind my eyes. Of course they packed him one per case.
“And then there was Squirrel Girl.”
I looked up at this, surprised.
“Holy crap, they made Squirrel Girl?”
“They did. While she’d been on Hasbro’s radar for a while it was an article on the internet that finally convinced them to put out a figure.”
An unexplainable sense of dread suddenly gripped me.
“Really? What was the article?”
“It appeared on TheFwoosh.com. It was entitled “Make My Mort! Squirrel Girl.”
“Err . . . ”
He turned to me, snarling.
“We wrote that article, you buffoon! Someone at Hasbro saw it, thought that maybe it was somehow representative of what collectors wanted.”
“But lots of collectors DO want her!” I protested. Future-me shook his head angrily.
“No, they only say they want her! All they really want are updated versions of every X-Men figure they owned in the 1990s! In spite of a great head sculpt and killer accessories like Monkey Joe and Tippy Toe, Squirrel Girl was rejected by collectors.”
I stared at my hands in disbelief.
“I had no idea . . . of my power.”
“No, we didn’t. Hasbro was paying close attention to our little column. We made such a good argument for parts reuse and character selection they saved themselves the trouble of coming up with concepts themselves and just picked a few characters from the list.”
“Oh, no . . . ”
“Yeah. Hypno-Hustler didn’t peg-warm but he was a lightning-rod for controversy. Social media blasted Hasbro for promoting negative stereotypes, and the figure was quickly withdrawn from circulation, making completion of the Deadpool BaF almost impossible.”
I held my head in my hands.
“Do I want to know who was the last figure in the series was?”
“Oh. That was Magneto. Hasbro produced him on the Grim Reaper body. He had a removable helmet and came out beautifully.”
“Oh. Well, that’s something right?”
He shook his head in the shadow.
“Too little, too late. Other than Deadpool, the entire series clogged shelves almost immediately. Collectors who did buy them were outraged by the lack of paint and plastic so gummy the figures couldn’t stand. They demanded their money back from stores, stores demanded their money back from manufacturers, manufacturers ceased production due to lack of capital . . . the whole system just fell apart. Before we knew it people were rioting in the streets. Brother turned against brother, country against country . . . ”
“But why would Hasbro do it? Why would they ruin a good thing by putting out such an insane wave?”
“Impossible to say. There were some who believed it was the work of anarchists looking to unseat the world’s economic powers. Some thought it might have been a mole from DC poisoning the well. Still others theorized that, like Thanos, Hasbro loved the personification of Death itself and killed its universe to appease her.”
I looked towards my toy-shelves grimly. Row after row of faces stared back at me, hundreds of characters standing ready for any coming crisis. Somehow Marvel Legends had managed to release all of these figures without capsizing. Was it really possible one wave could cause so much chaos? Before I could voice this question my future-self jerked his head towards the hypergate.
“They’re coming! I’ve got to go!”
“But what do I do?”
He gnashed his teeth in the burning muon stream.
“Tell the world, you fool! Warn them of what’s coming! Prepare! Repent! Repent!”
And with that he was gone, swept back into the ether that had spawned him. I stood there for a long time considering the rumpled beanbag chair, the half-finished cup of now-cold coffee. He . . . I had been here — of that there was no question. But how to interpret this mad tale? Had travelling here already changed the reality my future self spoke of? Was he even from this reality at all? In the end all I can do is write what I have been told, in the hopes of avoiding this future catastrophe. You have been warned.
. . . although there have to be more than nine people who want safari-jacket Wonder Man! I mean, that’s an iconic loo . . . err, never mind, Hasbro. Go about your business!
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