The story kicks off when Ryan visits his favorite comic shop and learns about a one-of-a-kind 1947 issue of Tales of the Undead by Jay Star, signed by the creator himself and worth five figures. A petty thief breaks the display case to steal it, and once he touches the comic, he assumes the guise of Ferrus, the robot-like armored villain from the pages. The comic is a cursed antique from Uncle Lewis’s ledger — Lewis bought it from Jay Star — and it transforms whoever holds it into the killer robot.
Ryan tracks down Jay Star (played by Ray Walston), his childhood idol. Star is embittered because unscrupulous publishers stole his characters and rights. When Ryan describes Ferrus’s attack, Star decides to reclaim the comic not to stop the killings, but to use Ferrus’s powers himself and avenge the injustices that ruined his life.
Ryan realizes his idol is now the villain and must turn to the original comics to figure out how to defeat him, which may mean killing the man he once admired. The cursed comic allows Star to transform into Ferrus the Invincible to take vengeance on those who stripped him of his superhero character. Both Star and another character, Cal, end up impaled by the episode’s end.
