American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

"That was a wonderful show. You'll be even better than your father, Norman."

An old man with white hair and an imposing presence stood before the young Harry, smiling as he spoke to him.

"I'm just standing on my father's shoulders," Harry replied with a reserved smile, appearing calm and collected despite the old man's praise.

In truth, he was far from as composed as he seemed. He was actually quite nervous. Although he had verified the experiment multiple times beforehand and witnessed the effects of the Lizard formula, he still couldn't help but feel a sense of apprehension at this moment.

The old man before him was a military figure with intricate ties to Oscorp Industries and had always maintained a good relationship with his father, Norman Osborn. He had met the man many times as a child.

Although this old man, who was close to his father, hadn't offered a helping hand when he was mired in difficulties after his father, Norman Osborn, left, that was only to be expected.

Little Harry might have been indignant in the past, but after being guided and analyzed by Big Harry, he had matured and was no longer as naive as he once was.

"This formula has a wide range of uses, not just for the military, but also as a blessing for limb-deficient patients worldwide. Have the relevant procedures been completed? If not, I can lend a hand," the old man said with a smile. He could tell that the young man before him was suppressing his emotions, and he was far from as calm and collected as he appeared.

But what did it matter? Considering his current situation, he could understand the young man's feelings. Now that the young man had demonstrated his value, reconnecting the ties with the Osborn family wasn't out of the question.

After all, Oscorp's relationship with the military was still relatively close.

"Of course. My father said before he left that I could seek your help with these matters," Little Harry said.

"Is this formula something only you can create?" the old man asked casually as Little Harry was about to leave.

"Of course," Little Harry replied, turning around to face the smiling old man, nodding. "The most important formula is in my hands alone. It belongs to the property of the Osborn family."

...

Osborn Mansion.

Basement.

Little Harry hurriedly walked out of the opened elevator doors. The spacious basement was now filled with various instruments, crowding the space and making it difficult to move around. Someone with a slightly larger build might even get stuck trying to squeeze through the gaps between the instruments.

"Seeing you so excited, let me guess, this trip went smoothly?" Big Harry, who was busy in the lab, glanced at Little Harry as he entered and chuckled softly.

"Of course, the Lizard formula is a great product, enough to be a gold mine in the hands of any giant. And once it's released, Oscorp will become the savior of specific customers!" Little Harry no longer needed to suppress or conceal his excited emotions in front of Big Harry, and he rarely spoke with such fervor.

"Great? No, no, no, it's very ordinary, as ordinary as a common cold medicine. Where we come from, it's almost a publicly available preparation. Although Oscorp Industries has the patent for it, but..." Big Harry shrugged, correcting Little Harry's statement.

"Oh, Harry! Damn it, every time I call your name, I feel disoriented," Little Harry said, covering his face. Although it had been many days, he still wasn't quite used to it.

"Me too. But we have to get used to it, don't we?" Big Harry didn't mind Little Harry's words.

"Okay, what was I going to say? Oh right, I wanted to say, don't always use your world's perspective to judge this world. In fact, this formula may not be anything special in your world, but in my world, it still has a market and is very important," Little Harry said, speechless but still unable to hide his excitement.

"I know. But its purpose is just to give you a breather, buy you some time, and give you another bargaining chip to play. It won't be a game-changer, and it won't help you get home or deal with a powerful enemy lurking in the dark.

It really is just a very ordinary formula. I even castrated its effect of giving people a powerful physique. This has lowered its value a lot," Big Harry said very frankly. "If you're already so surprised by just this, what will happen when I take out more technology later? Are you going to explode?

At that time, you'll probably have the same attitude as me: Lizard formula? Oh, a very ordinary, very common formula. Not worth mentioning."

Little Harry was stunned and speechless. But he quickly perked up and asked curiously, "Is there a follow-up formula? I thought it was already perfect."

"Of course, there's an upgraded version. In fact, it can be used as a super-soldier serum. Your world is missing so much. No S.H.I.E.L.D., no Captain Rogers, not even Tony Stark, okay, a female Tony Stark. You haven't even encountered extraterrestrial civilizations yet, so I can't be sure if there's an Asgard," Big Harry said, spreading his hands and listing a bunch of names and organizations that Little Harry was unfamiliar with.

"But you have Spider-Man, Peter Parker."

"Wait! Did you say Spider-Man is Peter Parker?" Little Harry suddenly interrupted Big Harry, as if he had heard something shocking, and asked in surprise.

"Don't you know? Where we're from, Spider-Man is employed by the metropolitan police department and S.H.I.E.L.D. His ridiculous suit can't hide his real identity. Although only a few people knew at first, he was exposed long ago as the number of superheroes increased.

As for later, once the extraordinary becomes commonplace, it's worthless. Can you imagine? In our world, there are at least tens of millions of wild, mutated extraordinaries. Oscorp alone employs more than eight thousand."

Big Harry didn't seem to realize how much of a mental shock and impact the news he was revealing was having on Little Harry.

"As a friend, I envy Peter. It turns out that lone wolf heroes who fight alone can't go far in a constantly changing world.

Without the technical support of Stark and Heberon, Peter would have faded into obscurity long ago. But he's excellent. He has a Stark who treats him like a son and a girlfriend who has been working at Heberon for a long time.

Do you know that he even secretly participated in extraterrestrial wars multiple times without telling me."

"My head is a mess," Little Harry said, overwhelmed by the barrage of information Big Harry had thrown at him. He couldn't accept that his good friend was Spider-Man.

"Are you envious of him?" Big Harry suddenly asked.

"Envious of what?" Little Harry asked, raising his head to meet Big Harry's gaze.

"Envious that he possesses extraordinary power. You should know that he gained this power because of an accident during a visit to Oscorp."

"No, Peter is my friend, okay, I am envious of him. You know, my body isn't good because of a family genetic disease."

"Don't worry, I've already checked your body. Your genetic disease isn't difficult to solve," Big Harry interrupted Little Harry and comforted him.

He wasn't lying to Little Harry. This genetic disease might be tricky and troublesome in this world, and it could be called a chronic terminal illness, but it really wasn't a big deal to him. Even the Lizard formula could specifically alleviate and suppress its onset. Although it couldn't be eradicated, it was still possible for Harry to live a normal life until he died of old age.

"Of course, I believe you," Little Harry said, nodding seriously. "What should we do next? Should we talk to the major shareholders? Or...?"

"It depends on what you choose. If you want to take it slow, then you can stabilize them first. If you want to quickly take control, then we can also use some means," Big Harry said.

"Won't the methods you mentioned expose us?" Little Harry asked, slightly worried. In fact, he was very disgusted with those greedy and short-sighted people who were desperately dragging him down and colluding with outsiders to betray him. If he could, he would send them where they deserved to go.

He wasn't like Peter, who had become silent and taciturn after Uncle Ben's death. Everything after taking over Oscorp disgusted and nauseated him. The resentment and darkness that grew in his heart because of this would have been replaced by another cruel and destructive personality if it hadn't been for Big Harry's appearance.

So, he didn't want to speak up for those who disgusted him at all. He even wished they would disappear quickly. The only thing that made him cautious was the trouble after these people disappeared.

"If that's what you hope for," Big Harry said meaningfully.

"You seem to have experienced a lot of this kind of thing? Have you killed anyone in your world?" Little Harry suddenly asked. "I can see the familiarity and nonchalance towards this kind of thing from your tone and expression."

"Maybe it's a little bit of letting go and nervousness. You know, the organization I'm in is called the Time Variance Authority, and it's actually a violent organization. Although I'm not a combatant, I'm responsible for processing information and data. So, I have access to a lot of information, including the conquest of civilizations, the destruction of planets, and even the targeting of universes, followed by the outbreak of wars," Big Harry said, rubbing his forehead. "I'm feeling a little insecure right now. I hate everything that's out of control, including your side of things."

"I understand," Little Harry said. Although he couldn't empathize with some of Big Harry's remarks, he understood the other part, such as hating things and people that were out of control.

"Now that we've decided, let's start preparing. You need to know that once our plan unfolds, it won't be a small matter. There may be more people and organizations standing against us, and we must have the power and plan to control the situation.

The board of directors and those outside people who covet Oscorp aren't worth too much of our attention, nor are they worth wasting too much time on. After all, there's still a powerful enemy who doesn't know when they'll discover us," Big Harry said, throwing a black sphere the size of a tennis ball to Little Harry.

"What's this?" Little Harry hurriedly caught the black ball and carefully examined it in his hand, carefully feeling the material.

It was like a soft, elastic ball that could be easily dented with finger pressure.

"Venom?" Big Harry tilted his head and said a name.

"Venom?" Little Harry asked, bewildered, not knowing what the name had to do with the black ball in his hand.

"Venom is a unique life form in the universe that can only coexist with life, feeding on the emotions of intelligent beings. They can merge into a person's body and grant the symbiote great power in times of danger.

However, they can also bring a strong physical burden to those who aren't compatible. If the nutrition isn't sufficient, some of the more vicious ones can cause the symbiote's life to decline rapidly," Big Harry explained.

"Then this?" Little Harry suddenly felt that the black ball in his hand was a little hot.

"Don't worry, I'm talking about symbiotes. Where we come from, symbiotes are assets of Heberon and S.H.I.E.L.D., and only these two organizations can mass-equip symbiotes like they're wholesale.

Most of those symbiotes only coexist with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Heberon's security personnel. Those symbiotes are mostly relatively vicious. Peter's girlfriend, Gwen, who works at Heberon, was one of the earliest symbiotes, and her symbiote is also the most powerful in the current symbiote group. It's said to be very vicious and has caused Peter a lot of suffering. At least when I saw Peter, he spent five minutes out of every ten complaining to me about the symbiote's oppression of him.

Mine is a replica, to put it in terms, if symbiotes are natural humans, then what you're holding is a clone, an artificial human."

Big Harry paused, then continued, "Of course, limited by the environment, materials, and instruments, this is just a very inferior product. It can't even guarantee long-term stability. But at least for the next period of time, it can protect you."

"Protect me? Are you saying that I'm going to be in some danger?" Little Harry asked, instinctively tightening his grip on the black ball.

"We always have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, don't we? No one can say what some people will do. Stark and the others have experienced kidnapping and near-death crises," Big Harry said, giving an example that Little Harry didn't understand but that he remembered vividly.

"How do I use it?" Little Harry nodded, following his lead. Since this was Big Harry's good intention, he was happy to accept it. He didn't trust the people around him very much.

"Feed it some blood and let it bind to your DNA to complete the activation," Big Harry said, adding before Little Harry could start looking for something to cut his skin, "My suggestion is to have the butler prepare a lot of food for you first. Because this is a flawed product, although it's the best flawed product I can currently manufacture, it will put a certain burden on your body and cause intense hunger. You have to satisfy it."

PS: Thanks to the donation from classmate Silent Peak.