Tentacles!

I've thought about this long and hard. Here is what I plan to do, when I become Editor In Chief at Marvel --

My first big move will be to initiate a universe wide crossover event, that will draw every single title into one ongoing storyline. Called "The Man In Black", this story will essentially run as follows:

A mysterious Man In Black appears in every Marvel title. (Maybe it could be a Woman In Black. I don't want to be sexist. Although if I made her a chick, she would need a cool chick name, like Silhouette, or Babe of Darkness, or something like that.) Anyway, this Person in Black shows up, breaks in someplace -- Avengers mansion, Dr. Strange's sanctum sanctorum, Peter Parker's apartment -- and steals some really powerful device, while the hero(es) of the book try to stop him or her, and totally get their asses kicked.

So then, all the heroes in the Marvel Universe get together in, like, Shea Stadium or something, and they're all like "Dude, this Person In Black showed up and stole some really powerful shit and totally kicked my ass. What is UP with that?" And then they all get this alpha waveband transmission (or something cool sounding like that) and it's all like "Dudes, I totally stole all your shit, but I’m in big trouble! If you value the universe, come to the following coordinates totally soon, or, like, things will be completely heinous!” So, like, Spider-Man doesn’t want to, because he’s a wuss, and Wolverine is too busy trying to score with the newest jailbait X-nymphette to be bothered with it, but everybody else is like “Yeah, yeah, let’s do it!” So they all pile into their Avengers quinjets and X-birds and Defenders antigravity discs and Champions pedo-copters and Fantasticars and what have you and off they go, ka ZOOM!

And they jet to like the middle of the Pacific ocean or something where there’s this desert island and when they get there they see like Dr. Doom or the Beyonder or someone and he’s standing over the Man/Woman in Black and has all the powerful shit that the Man/Woman In Black stole, and there’s all this Kirby energy dots stuff swirling around them, and he’s saying, like, “Now that I’ve stolen all your powerful shit, Man/Woman In Black, I will totally ruuuuuuule the universe!”

And all the heroes land and they’re totally like “No way, dude, first we will get all up in yo' grill!”

And so like Dr. Doom or the Beyonder or whoever it is is like craning his head over his shoulder with his eyes all bugging out and going “WTF? NO WAY!!!”

And then, in this totally unexpected plot twist, the Man/Woman In Black springs to his or her feet and gives Doom/Beyonder or whoever the Vulcan Mind Punch or something, saying “Way, dude, totally!” And this bad guy totally falls to the ground unconscious.

So then the Man/Woman In Black is all like “Just as I planned, you superguys all showed up at exactly the time I calculated and provided a vital distraction! Now I’ll just take all this massively powerful shit I stole from you and be on my way -- !”

And Captain America is all like “Not so fast there, nut-munch, we got a big shipment of whup-ass just in and it’s all for you!”

And the Man/Woman in Black shoots back, "Fo' rizzle?"

And Captain America shakes his fist mightily and responds "Fo' shizzle, biatch!"

So then the Man/Woman in Black is all like "You fools, you fools, did you truly think I was only a mortal dressed all in black, you fools, NO, you fools, you foolish, foolish fools, I am, actually --"

And there's this huge transformation effect, and tentacles pop out everywhere, and we see this gigantic one-eyed thing with like beaks all over it and writhing tendrils and it's the size of Mount Everest and it finishes with this big jagged edge word balloon:

"C'THULHU!!!!!"

And then C'thulhu kills everyone.

From that point on, every Marvel title is pretty much the same. Each issue opens with "The Marvel Universe has been conquered by C'Thulhu!" And there's a big splash page of C'Thulhu, like, undulating and shit, amongst the ruins of New York City, or Paris, or something. And people are fleeing before it. Which is hyper-realistic, because, you know, everyone totally would.

And then, in each subsequent panel, you show, like, tentacles and beaks and stuff tearing people into gobbets of screaming flesh, and then devouring them, and you have the same caption in every panel: "TENTACLES!"

Or, occasionally, "AND BEAKS AND STUFF!" to keep it from getting too boring.

Of course, you have different artists on each title, so it looks different, which will help.

This way, you can cut a lot of overhead and get per issue costs back down to like twenty cents apiece.

I think it will usher in a whole new era of affordability in monthly superhero comics.

Yeah, you sneer at me, but if Todd McFarlane did it with foil covers you would totally buy 1,000 copies.

Each.