Marvel: God-Tier Talent—Infinite Critical Strikes!

”He’ll have plenty of time to cry later. Everyone in this industry depends on us. Without us, they can’t survive!”

The head of the Gotham Television Alliance spoke indifferently.

”Tell every advertising company that from now on, they’re not to do business with Arkham Broadcasting Company. I’d like to see how long Karl can hold out without us.”

Meanwhile, after returning to his own territory, Karl was no longer acting as carefree and arrogant as before.

Instead, he became extremely serious.

He gathered everyone working at the television station and immediately began discussing the project.

”As everyone knows, we’re preparing to produce a variety-style talent competition as our station’s first independently produced program!”

Karl looked at the employees he had recently recruited and spoke firmly.

”Since this will be our station’s first original program after a year in operation, we have to take it extremely seriously.”

”And we need to launch and promote it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, similar programs will start appearing almost immediately and split our potential audience.”

Hearing this, the Riddler pushed up his glasses and continued the discussion.

”Following the instructions you gave before you left, most of the preparations are already complete. But just now, one of the judges we originally invited contacted us and said that he was in poor health and couldn’t participate in the show.”

Karl smiled faintly, but his brows furrowed.

There was no way things were that simple.

He had only just fallen out with the Television Alliance, and suddenly something this convenient happened?

Seeing that Karl remained silent, the Riddler continued reading through the reports.

”Originally, the competition was supposed to use a panel consisting of hundreds of judges. They would evaluate the contestants through several rounds before eventually determining the final winner.”

”But now, almost every judge has called to withdraw. I’m afraid our first priority will be finding suitable replacements.”

There was no question that the Riddler’s format was essentially a variation on a traditional beauty pageant.

Traditional pageants relied on large numbers of professional judges to assign scores.

However, that was still far removed from the kind of talent competition Karl had envisioned.

Perhaps this was simply one of the Riddler’s limitations.

To put it simply, even though he was exceptionally intelligent, creating something truly revolutionary from nothing was still difficult.

”Sounds like someone couldn’t wait to make their move.”

Karl tapped his fingers against the table thoughtfully.

”In that case, I don’t think the original competition system is going to work.”

”My original plan was to make this an open-entry program suitable for all ages. Since the professional judges refuse to participate, why don’t we bring the audience into the process and make their votes an important part of the scoring?”

Everyone in the room froze.

For a moment, none of them understood exactly what Karl was proposing.

”Something like this.”

Karl continued.

”We obviously can’t gather hundreds of professional judges anymore, but inviting a dozen or so should still be possible, right?”

”Then we divide Gotham City into several districts and allow any resident to register.”

”They can come onstage and improvise, sing, dance, or perform whatever talent they have.”

”If they pass the judges’ evaluation, they advance to the second round.”

Karl closed his eyes, recalling the talent-show formats he remembered from his old world, then continued refining the idea.

”I’ll start putting everything together immediately and see if I can negotiate an equity arrangement with the telecommunications company’s largest shareholder,” the Riddler replied.

Then he suddenly remembered something.

”Oh, right, boss. What are we calling the show?”

”I need a name before I can talk to the people below us and have them start working on the promotional copy.”

Karl fell silent.

He genuinely hadn’t thought of a suitable name for the format he had borrowed from his old world.

What he didn’t know was that, at that very moment, a passenger plane from France was landing in Gotham City.

And with its arrival came an even bigger problem.

While Karl was busy preparing his talent show, Harvey Dent, who had taken over as head of the Gotham City Police Department, was equally busy on the other side of the city.

His current priority was rebuilding and consolidating the GCPD.

The pen Loeb had left behind should have been the perfect tool for completing that task.

Unfortunately for Harvey, Karl had turned the entire affair into a disaster.

Not only had the pens failed to bring the officers under Harvey’s control, they had instead made him the target of their resentment.

After Bullock spread the truth, practically the entire police force learned what had really happened.

By burning all of those pens, Karl had indirectly prevented every officer in the department from falling under Harvey’s control.

Naturally, the officers were grateful to Karl and treated him exceptionally well.

Harvey received the opposite treatment.

The officers practically spat whenever his name was mentioned, regarding him as shameless and despicable.

Constantine, however, wasn’t concerned with any of that.

His only concern was finding a way to make Karl’s life more difficult.

And his latest clue came from the surveillance footage left behind when Catwoman stole the evidence.

In other words, if he could capture the Catwoman who appeared in the footage, he might finally obtain enough leverage to bring Karl down.

”Bring up the latest surveillance footage. I want to inspect it.”

Constantine spoke lazily, paying absolutely no attention to the displeased expressions on the faces of his informants.

Constantine had never cared much about what outsiders thought of him.

As far as he was concerned, if Karl had managed to find such an exceptional master thief, there was no chance someone like her would remain unknown forever.

Sooner or later, she would commit another crime.

And a woman with such a striking figure and distinctive appearance was hardly the sort of person who could disappear into a crowd without leaving an impression.

In short, as long as Constantine could locate that stunning thief, he would have leverage against Karl once again.

”Listen carefully.”

Constantine adopted an official tone.

”Over the next few days, keep an eye out for anyone matching this description.”

”If you hear anything about a female thief with this kind of distinctive appearance, tell me immediately. Understood?”

The informants were clearly unhappy about being ordered around.

But after hearing what Constantine was asking them to search for, they exchanged strange looks.

A mysterious, attractive female cat burglar?

Why did this assignment sound so bizarre?

Still, none of them objected.

They memorized the description Constantine had given them and went off to follow the lead.

At that very moment, the passenger plane from Paris, France, touched down.

Several reporters had already gathered inside the airport terminal, eagerly waiting for someone to appear.

(End of Chapter)

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