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Greetings, Earthlings. I am Uatu the Watcher. For countless millennia I have observed your world from my outpost on the moon. Eventually that got old, and I began to examine the alternate realities of the multiverse and take note of how the events there diverged from those in this dimension. What I find particularly fascinating are the turning points in which destiny changes course, where individual choices are made at critical junctures, irrevocably altering the lives of every being on your planet.
There was a time when the insights I gained from observing every possible outcome of key moments in history were valued, when the philosophical questions and answers from my personal journals were published in a periodical aptly titled "What If...?" But those days have passed, and like the legions of other marginalized writers on Earth, I have turned to the Internet to publish my musings. What makes my Internet access unique, however, is that it, like my vision, spans across parallel universes, allowing me to surf an interdimensional web that links an infinite number of material planes of existence.
I have decided to use my mind-bogglingly advanced networking technology to allow you -- the denizens of infinite Earths -- to experience a virtual interface with another world. Because I have an artistic preference for cautionary tales, I have chosen to showcase a dimension in which the planet Earth is in particularly dire straits.
In most of the versions of reality that I monitor, your planet is inhabited by a variety of super-powered beings. Many of these individuals choose to take the hero's path and oppose the madmen bent on world domination. But in one dimension, the superhuman population arose too late. By the time superheroes and mutants arrived on the scene, the world had already been conquered by supervillains, and most of the human race had been enslaved by this Legion of Terror.
The heroes of that dimension did not have the luxury of working within the confines of society, of confronting villains in their lairs and thwarting their evil plots and then returning home to a grateful public. In a world run by the enemy, they had no choice but to work outside the law. To free humanity from oppression, they had to establish a Resistance. And so they founded SHAFT: Super Heroes for Anarchy and Free Thought.
Because they play a unique role in all of the alternate Earths that I have observed, and because their webmaster offered me free space on their server to post my observations, I have decided to make the SHAFT website available to every dimension with Internet access. You can access their files, study their briefings, follow news reports about the beings I refer to as Ultimate Marvels, and even contact them via transdimensional email.
Most importantly, watch and learn. Observe what happens when an entire planet is caught in the grip of tyranny, leaving the inhabitants no choice but to take responsibility for reclaiming their freedom. The only thing that could be worse is a world such as this without any superheroes to defend it.
Uatu the Watcher
September 1st, 2002
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