I'm a hero in Marvel

Now that it is clear that recruiting Roberto is almost impossible, Katie expresses her opinion directly: "You are not from the same camp as us. Maybe you didn't hear the fable in school. Professor Charles has repeatedly warned us why mutants must unite."

“At first, they were after the communists, and I wasn’t a communist, so I kept silent;

Then, they came after the Jews, and I remained silent even though I was not a Jew;

Then, they went after the union members, and I was not a union member, so I remained silent;

After that, they went after the Catholics, and even though I was a Protestant, I chose to remain silent;

Finally, when they turned to me, they realized that no one was standing up for me anymore.” Katie recited the well-known poem softly.

"Roberto, you are different from us. We don't want to be silent. If one day our plan can be realized and you need help, we will still open our doors to welcome you. Just like we treated you today, we welcome you back warmly, because you are also one of us." After Katie said this, she was about to turn around and leave. Bob glanced at Roberto and then followed Katie's footsteps.

"Cameron, you said that Shanshan has gone to the West Coast?" Katie asked Cameron as she walked out of the villa.

"That's right. Winky's guardian is the leader of the West Coast Thieves Guild and the League of Assassins, named Remi Loeb, also known as Gambit, who is very famous in the West Coast mutant circle. Winky hopes to get Gambit's support for our plan." Cameron responded to Katie. It seemed that they had completely given up on Roberto.

Roberto stood up from the sofa and stared at the three people with complicated eyes. When they were about to leave the villa, he suddenly shouted, "Have you ever thought about how complicated it is to build a country?"

The three of them stopped and turned to look at him. Roberto continued, "We need to make laws and establish a sound system. The biggest challenge is how to gain recognition from other countries!"

"So, you're still trying to convince us to give up this seemingly childish idea?" Katie asked, shaking her head.

"Before you start doing these things, you must consider one question - whether the mutant country can be recognized by other countries. A country that is not recognized has no sovereignty!" Roberto walked to the door of the villa and stood in front of the three people.

"So..." Katie felt like Roberto seemed to have something else to say.

"So I think your plans need to be modified." Bob, who knew Roberto's personality, smiled slightly. He realized that his friend might have been touched by Katie's words just now.

Bob smiled and asked, "What suggestions do you have?"

Roberto raised his eyebrows. "Why do we have to build a whole new country, and start from scratch? Shouldn't we recognize the fact that human power is limited?"

"Are you saying that the plan of creating a country itself is wrong?" Katie did not intend to ask Roberto back, but fell into deep thought. Is there a problem here?

“No, it’s not that there’s something wrong with creating a country.” Roberto waved his hand seriously, “What I mean is that sometimes we don’t have to take so many twists and turns. Building a country from scratch may take decades or even hundreds of years.”

"So what do you think?" Katie asked curiously.

Roberto pointed to the luxurious house. "Money in this world cannot solve all problems, but it can solve many problems. Having a large amount of money can help people achieve their goals in various aspects, whether it is academic research or the pursuit of love."

He winked at Bob and Katie and said in a very serious but shocking tone: "For example, buy a country!"

As Li Jie expected, Captain Rogers' case did not reach any substantial conclusion on May 5, and the lawsuit was finally determined to be heard for the second time on June 15 after much debate and dispute. In the first trial, the military sent a team of lawyers with an astonishing number of people, but they were defeated by the defense of Matt, Captain Rogers' only defense lawyer.

The reason is that Matt is not only Captain Rogers' attorney, but also Marvel's legal advisor. He is responsible for handling half of Li Jie Comics' legal affairs.

It can be said that it was Marvel that gave Matt the powerful weapon, because Marvel was originally established to prevent those superheroes who do good things and get reasonable rewards from suffering the fate of good people not getting good rewards.

The company's internal copyright fees for superhero comics are settled every three months, and it just so happens that the copyright fees for all previous superhero works have already been settled.

This income happened to become Matt's powerful weapon to fight back against the military. "Even an ordinary private enterprise can understand the importance of respecting the copyright of others. As American officials, you actually ignore the laws you have made!" Matt said righteously, holding the financial statements in his hand.

On this day, the originally planned online public opinion offensive in support of Captain America was officially launched. Under Li Jie's organization and communication, all the superheroes who received royalties posted their royalty income on their own self-media platforms.

For example, Baihu, due to her low popularity, her royalty income in the past three months was less than 78 US dollars; however, Spider-Man, a new internet celebrity who opened a Weibo and Twitter account, showed his royalty income of up to US dollars after deducting taxes in three months.

Spider-Man is the first superhero under Marvel to sign a licensing agreement for the production of peripheral products, and Japanese toy manufacturer Bandai was the first to obtain the production license for the Spider-Man series of toy products.

Spider-Man's income will increase further after receiving this royalty. The comic company run by Li Jie released a special issue on May 15, clearly expressing its support for Captain Rogers' decision and titled the issue "Good people should be rewarded!"

This issue tells the story of how the superheroes plan to use the money after receiving their first royalties in their lives. For example, Blade rushed to the bank with a credit card to pay off his mortgage, while Iron Fist was busy paying salaries to his personal trainer and lawyer.

White Tiger needed to pay off his student loans, while Spider-Man and Nightcrawler needed to set aside their own college tuition in addition to donating to an orphanage.

The entire comic records the daily lives of these superheroes from a very realistic perspective. They also need to eat, drink, solve daily chores, and pay when shopping, such as when they buy hot dogs at convenience stores.

This combination of online marketing and comic book supplements has been highly appreciated by fans. People worship gods, but they tend to pay more attention to the side of ordinary people. When seeing Blade calculating monthly wages, mortgage payments, property taxes, car loan payments, and medical insurance expenses, most people are deeply touched because this is their daily life.

Because of this marketing strategy and the dual effect of the supplement, Marvel's comics quickly broke away from the geographical restrictions of the New York area and attracted readers from all over the country and even overseas. In a short period of time, the company received a large number of calls from comic bookstores and distributors from all over the country, asking about cooperation in distribution. After using the Captain America incident as a breakthrough, this comic company, which was established only half a year ago, quickly increased its global visibility.

Subsequently, the CEO of Marvel announced that the copyrights of three heavyweight superheroes had been successfully signed. One of them was the mercenary Deadpool who caused heated discussions due to the salary arrears of SHIELD. Rumor has it that he might join SHIELD and become a member of the Avengers. Although the outside world is skeptical about this, after all, the two sides have had an unpleasant history, and the specific situation still needs to wait for the final result to be revealed.

Another superhero who signed the contract was the world-renowned billionaire and superhero, Iron Man Tony Stark. After Li Jie's unremitting efforts, he finally persuaded Tony to license his comic image to Marvel. Tony didn't care about the copyright income. What he cared most about was whether his image in the comic was handsome and cool enough. Because Li Jie firmly supported Captain Rogers and won Tony's favor, and Marvel has always respected and maintained the image of superheroes, Tony finally signed the contract and made the only request: "Just two words: handsome enough! If my image in the comic is not handsome enough, your small company will soon go bankrupt, even with the Osborn Group as the backing!"

Finally, an unexpected super hero joined Marvel: Captain Steve Rogers personally granted the copyright of his comic image to Marvel. At that time, Captain Rogers was still suing the military for the copyright of his personal image. Why did he grant the copyright to someone else at this time?

The answer to this question was revealed in the first issue of the new comic. Instead of using the title "Captain America" ​​that had been used for 70 years, the new publication directly used "Steve Rogers" as the image name. For many years, the military has used "Captain America" ​​as a marketing hotspot to closely link Rogers with the country. At Matt's suggestion, in order to avoid possible future disputes, Li Jie signed a new copyright agreement with Rogers, avoiding the name "Captain America" ​​and using Captain Rogers' real name instead.

This move may seem redundant to outsiders, but from a legal perspective, "Captain America" ​​has been registered as a trademark by the military, and they will never give it up easily. However, Matt's move reminded Li Jie of the story between China's famous herbal tea brand Jiaduobao and Wanglaoji. Although this incident is different from the herbal tea dispute, the military and the government can arbitrarily give the title of "Captain America" ​​to any American soldier. However, there is only one Captain Rogers in the world, and it was Steve Rogers who saved World War II, not anyone wearing this title.

Now, as long as Captain Rogers is on his side, Lee is confident that he can establish a personal comic series with Captain Rogers as the protagonist in a short period of time and make it a signature work of the company. In this lawsuit about Captain America, Lee has seized the perfect opportunity from beginning to end. Today, Marvel has become a world-renowned comic company, and many Hollywood studios have extended olive branches, hoping to establish a cooperative relationship and strive to obtain the film adaptation rights of Lee's superheroes.

However, Li Jie has not agreed easily at this time, because he knows very well that Marvel is still small in scale and its overall strength is not enough to negotiate with major Hollywood film producers.