Only in a freakish place like the Marvel universe could there be so many superhumans and supervillains who "mutated" successfully.
In a normal situation, 99.9%99.9% of people would just have their genes collapse and die. The rest would live in a fate worse than death.
Zod wasn't worried that freezing Doom would prevent the Fantastic Four from growing and bonding. They could still go beat up small-time criminals anyway.
As for Ben the Thing, all that could be said was that Reed really was a master at screwing over his friends, almost on the same level as Constantine. The difference was that Reed did it passively, while Constantine did it both passively and actively.
So it was perfectly normal for Ben to fall out with them.
And just as he wished, he eventually turned back into a human through a machine Reed developed.
Zod kept an eye on them for a while. He didn't care about the rising fame of the "Fantastic Three." Dark Knight Zod's showmanship was only for that little bit of public support. In truth, Zod didn't value his so-called superhero career much at all.
Meanwhile, another "superhero trainee," Jessica Campbell, was having a miserable time.
Every day she got dragged out of bed before six. She had to wash up, brush her teeth, and make breakfast herself, all before 66 a.m., because she couldn't delay the training afterward.
"Why do you have to demand this?" Jessica protested at first, furious.
"This is a required quality for a superhero. Punctuality. If you're late by even one second, someone dies," Zod replied.
That left Jessica with nothing to say. She was just a high school student, a public-school kid at that. How was she supposed to argue with Zod? Besides, Zod had only twisted the concept slightly.
As for the training itself, Jessica questioned why she even needed it when she was already so strong.
"Training is so you can get familiar with your own power and truly control it. And do you really think you're strong enough already? If you run into a plane crashing, can you set it down safely? If you run into a flood, can you hold it back so it doesn't destroy a city?" Zod demanded righteously.
Jessica got completely shut down.
Looking at it like that, she really was still too weak.
With no choice, Jessica clenched her teeth and endured it for the sake of her dream of becoming a crime-fighting warrior.
That surprised Zod a little. He'd thought Jessica would be crying and begging to go back to school after a few days.
He didn't expect her to be this tough and persistent. He'd underestimated her.
So, after Jessica trained for a full month, Zod took her out for an internship.
"First, even though your body can stop bullets now, I still suggest you wear protective gear," Zod said.
His style was to never fight a battle he wasn't sure about. He liked that Batman approach: lose the first time, then crush the opponent the second time. Of course, that was because Batman lacked intel the first time. Zod couldn't claim he knew every single character in the Marvel universe, but he could recognize most of them. He knew the comics versions and the movie versions, their weaknesses, flaws, personalities, abilities, and more.
That made it easy for him to kill on first contact and end things instantly, making it look like the power gap was absurd.
In reality, it was just because he had the intel.
"I can wear that too?" Jessica asked in shock. She thought the "iron suit" was Zod's exclusive gear.
"This is a test. If you pass, it'll be your gift," Zod said.
He opened a storage cabinet beside him. Inside a cylindrical glass case was a skintight suit.
"A skintight suit woven from vibranium fibers. Flexible, won't affect movement, and it can block most attacks," Zod said.
A full iron suit wasn't suitable for Jessica, so a superhero-style bodysuit was better.
After Jessica changed, the suit outlined her figure clearly. Zod complained to himself that American high schoolers really were something else, then brought her to Hell's Kitchen in New York City.
There were plenty of thugs and scumbags here. Even if they weren't actively committing a crime at the moment, beating them up came with zero guilt.
It was also Zod's current main source of raw materials for Vitamin ∞∞. From a single person, he could extract about 10,00010,000 Vitamin ∞∞ pills. It was an insanely profitable business.
"Don't be nervous," Zod said, calming Jessica.
They hadn't walked far before they ran into a robbery.
"Go on," Zod signaled. "Just remember, don't hit too hard and kill him on the spot."
Jessica took a few uneasy steps forward. When she turned her head, she realized Zod was gone.
She panicked instantly, completely unaware that Zod was directly above her.
In fact, Zod intended to use Jessica as bait to lure out the Purple Man. Black Queen still hadn't found the Purple Man or located him. Since Jessica was already in hand, Zod might as well use her to draw him out.
But at this point, the robber had already noticed her. There was no way she could back down now.
"Stop!" she shouted.
"What the hell are you?" the robber snapped.
He hadn't yet reached the era where superheroes were everywhere and five or six heroes would fight over one criminal for "performance metrics." To him, Jessica in a skintight suit was just bizarre. Not even showing her face, what was she, some kind of costume freak?
Jessica took a deep breath. She didn't waste words. Instead, from the best angle and timing for exerting force, she exploded with speed and power, closing the distance in a flash. The robber's shocked expression rose slowly across his face as Jessica punched the handgun out of his grip.
But the problem was, a move learned from movies, combined with her strength and speed, became a disaster. Four of the robber's fingers snapped instantly. His wrist twisted at a horrifying pace, and the cracking of bones could be heard clearly.
By the time Jessica stopped, the robber's arm had twisted multiple times. For several seconds, he stared blankly, unable to believe what he was seeing. His brain hadn't even processed the situation yet before searing pain slammed into him.
"Aaaaaaah!"
He clutched his arm and collapsed, sweating cold. His lips turned white.
Jessica froze, completely at a loss. She hadn't expected it to turn into this. The gun had been shattered by her punch too, like an exploding fragmentation grenade. You could probably find pieces of it even 300300 meters away.
And the victim being robbed had already run off. The scene was too bloody, practically a river of blood.
"Pfft."
Zod appeared. A nozzle extended from his arm, spraying a cloud of freezing mist.
/-\
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