I, Tyrant (2025)

300 and Birdman's magical realism clash when** **Zahhak—a legend with a stark depiction of tyrants—proposes that Hafez toss out his unpromising myth’s conclusion. Hafez must retell it with a Kirby exodus for Zahhak, to give his tale a Miller reboot in the comics industry. CREATION MYTHS NEED A DEVIL.

CREATION MYTHS NEED A DEVIL When Zahhak—a 611 A.D. Arab prince—bargains with a sandman pilgrim for an ageless life, sand takes. That’s not all. Hafez, a rookie college playwright pushes his risky stage play of Zahhak’s old Persian myth—and he unsticks the bolts of a cylinder that administers Time.

**“CREATION MYTHS NEED A DEVIL,” Part Three ** When Zahhak buries his father and sits on his throne, his house is open to all. Tom Fitzgerald—the pro bono therapist in Boston trying to save Hafez’s marriage—struggles to grasp if Zahhak’s a vision Hafez claims he lives with. Or is the voice Hafez’s own legendary alter ego pecking his mind? There's also ICE. Hafez tells Tom that Zahhak and he have a pact he cannot do without.

“CREATION MYTH NEEDS A DEVIL,” Part Four With a bogus rite of honoring the king’s glory, the cook asks to kiss Zahhak’s shoulders. Hafez tells Tom how, back in Tehran, he and his father clashed over a pursuit of Zahhak’s stage play—how he didn’t know enough.

“**CREATION MYTH NEEDS A DEVIL,**” Part Five In this wondrous mess of a wrap to the first story arc, the Shah of Persia goes mad. Whatever it is that frightful freaks have, Zahhak offers more. Hafez insists that the undead Arab master is dragging him into an altered dimension, channeling him through time’s cylinder. Will Hafez’s ardor and alarm for that possibility afford Zahhak his hoped-for return?

NEW STORY ARC “A PHANTASMIK APOCALYPTO BEGINS” — The Crown Eats Men. Hafez is steeped in a cunning poison. Son of Reza, he’s under the sway of Zahhak, the serpent-shouldered king of Persia. Reza rages as the boy teeters between myth-spinning prodigy and fever-dream of comic-book tropes. Day one on the throne, Zahhak shreds royal ceremony and butchers his reign before it begins.

“A PHANTASMIK APOCALYPTO BEGINS,” The Fatwa ConfessionHafez confides in Tyler, his Best Buy co-worker, how a fatwa nearly marked his name and drove him from Iran. But Zahhak, the serpent-shouldered king who has just seized Persia, stirs. Zahhak reminds Hafez that ICE has counted his teeth. His only escape is his oath, the comic deal of the millennium. "If Mr. al-Miller crowned Xerxes, Hafez WILL deliver my exodus."