The Six-Million Year Man!

While trying to prevent Princess Zanda from obtaining King Solomon’s Frog, an ancient device that can pluck people out of time, the Black Panther inadvertedly summons an highly evolved human from six million years in the future.[1] The creature, dubbed Hatch-22 by the tattoo on his forehead, has powerful mental powers as well as a third eye in the back of its head that can fire a disintegration beam. As the creature can read their minds, T’Challa empties his thoughts and pretends to bow to Hatch-22 in servitude. This fools the creature and T’Challa knocks it out with a single punch.

However, they are now stuck trying to figure out how to stop the monster. Zanda wants to kill it, but the Black Panther stops her from shooting Hatch-22 in the head. He insists that they have to return the creature to its own time because it was their fault bringing it to the past. Examining King Solomon’s Frog, T’Challa theorizes that it must be one of a pair and that the second frog could return Hatch-22 to his proper era.[2] When T’Challa checks on Abner Little, he discovers that Little survived a seemingly fatal gunshot wound thanks to wearing a bullet proof vest. When Abner finally wakes up, and as they try to figure out how to handle Hatch-22, the creature’s dreams begin to manifest in ectoplasm around them as it dreams. They get a glimpse of the future where Hatch-22 comes from where Earth has become a world whose entire surface is covered with metal with small city states called “Hatches”. In this vision, they witness as a massive alien ship approaches the Earth and is destroyed single handedly by the mental power of a lone resident of Hatch-22, the state that the alien visitor comes from.

As the dream fades, Hatch-22 begins waking up until Little knocks it out again with a dart gun. However, this only delays the creature from regaining its full power and menacing the Earth. Needing to find King Solomon’s tomb and the second frog as quickly as possible, Abner reveals that he has a high tech jet plane to help them get there.

Recurring Characters

Black Panther, Princess Zanda, Hatch-22, Abner Little, Collectors (Nigel Pigman, Silas Mourner, Andreas Zorba)

Continuity Notes

1. Hatch-22 comes from a possible future some six-millions years after the Modern Age. Per the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, this future timeline has been designated as Reality-77211.

2. Actually there are three frogs, as we’ll learn in Defenders (vol. 4) #7-9 and that they are components that powered the ancient Concordance Engine which could reshape time, space, and reality.

Topical References

• References to the present day of this story happening in the 20th Century should be considered topical. Due to the Sliding Timescale, the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe does not begin until after the start of the 21st Century.