loewenherzog

[loewenherzog]

Captain Marvel Assault on Eden

Assault on Eden had a plot that would make for a nice enough annual issue if Hulkling and Wiccan had on ongoing. The execution is messy and Carols inclusion honestly makes it weaker. So if this was to celebrate her it was not a great premise.

So the premise is that Carol attends a celebration of the one year adversary of the Kree and Skrull uniting.

During this the Supreme Intelligence attacks kidnaps all the hybrids to reedcuate and roll back the clock to its old empire.

And then it's just blown up by Carol while saying it will come back anyways. The end.

Now as I said fundamentally the idea of setting a story around the annual unification and the symbolism of the date being chosen for action by those that opposed it is not bad.

But just about everything in the execution is bad. Starting with Art that really gives no sense of scale or distance whatsoever, but primarily outsider Carol Danvers essentially singlehandedly solving the issue by telling the leaders of the Alliance what to do while its population does nothing and simply being super powerful weakens it unbelievably.

What was that supposed to do? Downplay everyone from marvels most famous empires to an iconic couple just to play up Carol Danvers?

The flaws go beyond that of course. The premise relies on the fact that Hala is now just this perfect place without conflict. Dumbing down everything unifications of different nations or even different groups living together in a country. It is Eden, paradise, Utopia, which just makes me think the writer doesn't know about the utopian kree where Noh-Varr and his Plex-Intelligence brainwashed everyone into feeling happy and the alliance are different things.

The point is bring different people together in this case brutal totalitarian empires by decree of the most brutal one of them as part of a military action and there are issues that don't dissappear. Multiculturialism does not mean everyone just decides tp come together and sing.

I personally live in the aftermath of a unification decades later and the issues are immeasurable due to abuse, economical differences and politicians using resentments it created for their benefits. But if you don't let's just look at muslim and lgbtq communities. Both face discrimination and does that stop the fact that many queers have islamophobic views or many muslims have transphobic or homophobic views? That's complicated enough before considering these groups have overlap with trans and queer muslims, which commonly bear the brunt of both forms of discrimination.

The point is this alliance exist, because a skrull royal who dressed up as a kree leader decreed it. The purpose was to beat back the native population the kree had commited genocide against in the past and resulted in them graciously placing them back in reservation and Teddy declaring that they beared no responsibility for the actions of their predecessor empires that murdered unimaginable billions.

Now look at it like this. The kree were represented by a skrull for this unification. Both sides are worshipping militarism. Now the grandson of that skrull leads them and says no more conquering. Additinally to those groups clearly pissed off by that we have a religious sect of the kree that worships said natives as gods. Skrull religious groups whose holy war their new ruler openly opposed. The fact that skrulls are super liberal regarding gender identity and sex while Kree view romantic and sexual desires as atavisms of their primitive ancestors and procreate essentially exclusively in the lab, also they operatively remove their females abikity to feel pleasure during sex. The amount of legitimate and illegitimate grievances with a united empire is unlimited. And that is before newborn hybrids are a thing and what they would undergo.

Now if this book had all these different groups come together when faced with the choice of returning to what came before or moving onward with the alliance , because their common ground was the potential and believe that what they built was still better than what came before. That would be powerful. Regardless of whether this was their rulers galvanizing them into such action or if they did it now even in their absence.

And when the inhumans ruled the kree the opposition to their and the tension within the populace was addressed so it's not like this was not done properly if characters a writer cared about were involved.

Ideally this would be the annual to a book in which Bily and Teddy had constantly been trying to bridge these differences with characters representing them appearing, but would absolutely be possible if the introduction was used effectively.

Instead they are now all peaceful friendly and completely asimiliated all because their ruler is nice and they think he is right about everything regardless of the fact that he kinda doesn't ever accomplish anything himself. And that's just infantile. The whole premise is reduced to being nice is good. People good now. There bad people. Blow up bad people.

What message do we have left? If anything that foreign military interventions rule and the US is awesome. The great american soldiers bravely defending the freedom of the weak incompetent nations wanting to live peacefully overseas from those seeking to oppress them. I don't mind the acknowledgment of soldiers sacrifices and what noble convictions they may indeed have signed up for, but those are always used for misreprenting the actual geopolitical interests in which interest they are getting deployed as some sort of heroic action.

No, 99% percent economical interests, 1% US security, 0% for the sake of helping anyone overseas, may occur as a side effect sometimes, though.

Carol comes in tells the people living there how this is going to work and then mostly just does it herself, while praising what a soldier she is in a place that we are supposed to celebrate for being less militristic. Imagine this happening with Black Panther and Wakanda. Just some US soldier with a loose connection to the nation solves their issue, while telling T'Challa whose actions go not beyond being a cool dude to hang out with how to run the show in emergency and celebrating the Wakandans themselves no longer fighting.

No, clue if this is intentional though. Writers are not necessarily that political. But what else is left than a story that can intentionally or accidentally be read that way.

I for example don't know if Empyre wanted to be anti-indigenous by placing an indigenous messiah and villifying him opposite of a blonde one and suggesting that one fullfills his destiny and the other is just a religoous fanatic. I know that in a book that was written during the time pre-covid when the news were dominated by fridays for future and Greta Thurnberg including the claim she was being used by her parents and that her followers were religious zealots. They(Slott, Ewing) knew what they were doing with Quoi in the last issue screeching about clean oceans and that they knew what they were doing when they said Bily and Teddy were a great examplemof the next generation for not sharing his believe.

Moving on.

The villain was poorly chosen. The supreme intelligence, which Carol never comments on not being vox supreme how it last appeared, is shown here obsessed with purity, but the intelligence is obsessed with evolution. It encouraged crossbreeding. It's what led to the creation of the pink kree to begin with.

The kree were an evolutionary dead end and the evolution of the intelligence depends on their evolution so it took brutal and calculated actions to kickstart it. The negabomb that gets mentioned in the book was meant to kill everyone but those with the greatest potential for evolutiin and irradiate them in hopes of mutating them. It sets up Ricks and Mar-Vells connection so it can absorb a human mind. It would be thrilled to expand its ability to assimilate to skrulls and humans due to hybrids.

A much better choice would be characters like Ronan or Sarek and the lunatic legion, or house fiero who were blue kree supremacists who overthrew the intelligence for the sake of their racist idelogy in the past.

Not digging the intelligence offering Carol rule of the kree and her rejecting it, considering every time Hulkling and her are in a book he immediately just does what she says. And her talking about how awesome Billy putting neonazis in a coma is just hypocritical in universe when she wanted to lock him up and maybe have to kill him in the story that happened.

Honestly I got to stop reading comics because Wiccan and Hulkling are in them. I actually try, but part of me just thinks I'm kinda in the right wanting my faves to be written well rather than stop reasing them because they are just used to boost sales. It's so obvious that neither Ewing nor Oliveira have any interest in it.

Ewing is all over the place with not giving a shit with how he changed his depiction of Teddys personality 100%, but when Oliveira is writing it's always the same thing.

Teddy is completely useless but gets to cry about his mom who Oliveira builds up more as a character than him and who somehow is behind everything good he could ever do. At the same time we get this time this nonsense of her being a warrior. No, she was a nurse. If she was a warrior she would have been involved with all the skrulls genocides and loyal to the man who condemend Teddy to death. She was a regular civilian who gave up everything to save him and raised far away from the skrulls militarism to be a decent person. But lets undermine it because she needs spiky armor on a shiny statue.

Billy on the other hand has no character development or struggle and is just the solution to everything almost instantly and just way better. Better half does sum it up. And that only gets worse when on one hand Teddy not taking action due to kindness is bad and him prevneting Billy from doing anything is a mistake, but Carol telling Billy to be a good soldier and not do something its great. It's a mockery of kindness being capable of archiving anything.

When Oliveira writes them we get to hear that Teddy is kind and see him in underwear and Billy solve an issue that's it. Does kindness ever make anything better in those books? No. Power does. Does Teddys kindness have to make Billys immediate actions more measured? No, Teddy can't fill that role, but Carol immediately tells him not to do so ething and is right, while Teddy doing the same would be foolish and naive and make things worse.

They are good kids, alright. So look at the shiny statue we bought you for the anniversary that you two as leader should have been organizing, you know, while the adult handles the job.

Writers who uses them because they know they get a response but have no real interest in writing them or do anything withe them or are even capable of understanding their characterization. To be fair when Oliveira started what was left of a good characterization?

#Captain Marvel #Hulkling #billy kaplan #teddy altman #Captain marvel assault on eden #anthony oliveira

[loewenherzog]

While a part of me will never stop wondering why they would ever adapt the silly clownshow that is Namor flying by flapping tiny wings on his ankles to the movies, a different part of me has to respect them for it.

TENOCH HUERTA as NAMOR BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (2022) dir. Ryan Coogler

#Namor #Mcu #Marvel

[loewenherzog]

She-Hulk fans: "The real villain was bad writing."

Me: "And her real superpowers were being a privileged white woman."

She-Hulk: "I'm not priveleged my life is incredibly hard and getting harder due to me being a Hulk."

Me: "How?"

She-Hulk: "I lost a case and my job."

Me: "And then?"

She-Hulk: "I got a job for having them."

Me: "And?"

She-Hulk: "Demanded my best friend would be hired too so we could have a fun time together."

Me: "And?"

She-Hulk: "And won a prize for being a super important female lawyer despite never winning a case in this show for having them."

Me: "And who did not get those things?"

She-Hulk: "Huh?"

Mallory Book: "The woman of color the show admits is more competent than you and was definetly slated to run the superpowered division at the company and now has to work beneath you, while the show never realizes and thinks of my race change as anything else than an inclusive action aka getting a token black character on screen. Not that they had that consideration when they made Thunderball white..."

She-Hulk: "You can break the 4th wall, too?"

Deadpool: "Can you break the 4th wall, Jennifer, because every time you do it you look directly at the camera and just expect everyone to pee their pants laughing because you talk to them. You know you still need to construct a joke around it."

She-Hulk: "The writing isn't that solid we were over that."

Deadpool: "What are we going to do about it. I think we go over ther and fucking mur-"

She-Hulk: "Demand to speak to the manager and have him rewrite our lifes to be easy, hot boyfriends inclu- Oh my god! I'm literally a Karen!"

Me: "That complains about her pay, while being able to afford an apartment in L.A."

She-Hulk: "Do you like kicking people on the ground?"

Me: "Occasionally."

She-Hulk: "When did this start?"

Deadpool: "First episode."

Me: "Why are you still here?"

Deadpool: "I'm still waiting for her to speak to the manager and get me a hot boyfriend."

She-Hulk: "It can't have been in the first episode! Complaining about the specific struggles of being a woman like men explaining my area of expertise to me or calling me hysteric and wanting to murder me alone does not make me a Karen."

Mallory Book: "I agree, but don't you think doing so while dismissing the advise on being a Hulk from 'the Hulk', a man who did once almost get murdered by three thugs trying to stop them from harrassing a woman and has a history of losing loved ones getting hunted by his own government and continuously having been denied control over his own body including for multiple years during which he was forced to reproduce against his will without a choice of his own is maybe not a good choice to get the point across."

She-Hulk: "Wait... how did we create a scenario in which a guy works as a metaphor for female reproductive rights by accident."

Me: "You know... comic books... mixing metaphors... not so good implications of science fiction scenarios... the Avengers #200 debacle was an accident, too."

She-Hulk: "Okay, anything else?"

Mallory Book: "Well, there is the Daredevil situation..."

She-Hulk: "Oh, I tried to explain being a superhero to him, too, despite me hating men doing that to me, didn't I?"

Mallory Book: "I was talking about his smug ass attitude and how you just let him."

She-Hulk: "Okay, maybe interpreting it here like it's just banter, while normally considering it inacceptable is a little hypocritical but in my defense... He is really hot."

Mallory Book: "The message of your feminist show can't be hot guys get to mistreat you, if you want to sleep with them."

Me: "The show really only screams 'Girlpower' and never 'Feminism' per se though."

Mallory Book: "... are you trying to say that the show is using the idea of 'strong women' to avoid having to commit to the idea of feminism while still trying to earn points for supposedly calling out social problems."

Me: "Sure, why not."

Mallory Book: "That would explain why I get to shame Jennifer for wearing a suit that is not up to my standards and the sollution is her getting a designer outfit, despite the real cause of the issue being not her She-Hulk power but the fact that our male boss dictates her to take that form aka how she has to dress in his employment despite this not being necessary for the job itself."

Me: "Sure, though her getting pushed around by woman without ever standing up for herself does not exactly scream strong woman either."

She-Hulk: "I stood up to Titania!"

Mallory Book: "The bitchy mean girl wearing too much make up we define as bad for her interest in fame, money and looks in this show that pretends to be empowering to woman. Considering this amount of subtlety one almost expects a frigid manhating woman as a second antagonist."

Me: "Well, they tried to be subtle about the not actually feminist thing."

Deadpool: "Man. I just love that I at no point try to be a role model of any kind in my movies and just straight up avoid ninety percent of this shit. I mean we get to show naked boobies for no reason except it being hot and can fridge my girlfriend and we still come of better simply by not pretending."

Me: "Fridging? Please? You call that fridging?"

Deadpool: "Huh?"

She-Hulk: "She appears throughout the movie whenever you die and comes back to life at the film so her dying tragically doesn't reduce her presence or role at all and is only temporary therefore barely if not at all or in short you didn't have the balls to go through with it, tough guy."

Deadpool: "A) Me seeing her when I die but being unable to stay with her is a reference to my romance with Lady Death from the comics which automatically invalidates any criticism about execution, because... comicbooks. Do you even read them, bro."

Me: "That makes zero sense."

Deadpool: "And B)... uh... uhm... you stole the rewriting your ending thing from me."

She-Hulk: "... Fuck, he's right. That wasn't even original."

Me: "It was not."

She-Hulk: "But... a CGI brawl really isn't necessary if the writing is good."

Me: "Yeah, the enemy really was bad writing you just never beat it."

Mallory Book: "But what if it wasn't? What if the real villain was a lawyer that was jealous about being passed over and hired a group of people to steal your blood."

She-Hulk: "To become a Hulk herself? Really?"

Mallory Book: "To frame you."

She-Hulk: "What?"

Mallory Book: "Yes, this lawyer..."

Me: "It's you... it's obviously you."

Mallory Book: "Set Todd her client up to try and get a date with you knowing that you would obviously reject and unreasonably piss him off. And being aware of his Intellegencia business, because she is his lawyer, would know he would try to harm you using it. Then just wait for you to lose control in response to his actions and get you released from prison afterwards, while having Todd beat to death by a different super strong woman, Titania, whose hits could be mistaken for yours, and has her place your stolen blood placed on his vibranium spear, which could cut your skin."

She-Hulk: "Which would lead to me being on trial and having to defend myself, when I realize, because the reformed Wrecker guy tells me about trying to steal my blood at the last moment that my own lawyer is the one behind it... YOU!"

Mallory Book: "Oh, so you figured out my secret."

Me: "We all knew it was you... but it is impressive how somehow everything that is necessary to make this plot believable was set up in the show already yet all the actual writers came up with after announcing good writing beats fight scenes, the only thing the show actually consistently produced at a decent level, was that Jen just gets everything her way. Hell, if I know why you were no longer required to wear the inhibitor you wanted and Banner could not built you in the first episode anymore, Blonsky went back to jail for the same violation.

She-Hulk: "You know for a guy who did not hate Thor Love and Thunder and actually liked Multiverse of Madness you are way to nitpicky, right?"

Me: "At least no character in either of those movies bragged about the writing quality while obviously being completely lazy about it."

Deadpool: "So I take it I'm not getting that hot boyfriend?"

Me: "Only if you and Wolverine get together in the next Deadpool movie."

Mallory Book: "Ridiculous, the franchise has clearly been setting him up with Collossus up until now."

She-Hulk: "Eh, guys, are you forgetting the 'you remind me of my wife' line from cable. Pretty clear where that's heading."

Deadpool: "Nope, I end up dating Ryan Reynolds who comes back to life wearing burn victim make-up as a zombie after I shot him in the last movie."

She-Hulk: "But you are already... I should have had a case involving my own actress."

Me: "About identity theft involving clones."

#she hulk #Marvel #mcu

[loewenherzog]

Star Wars where the Empires and their stormtroopers are clearly space nazis. And the Ewoks are according to Lucas based on the vietcong, which in the context of return of the jedi makes the nazi allegory...

Yeah, no political messages and opinions in this one.

imagine watching Star Wars in theaters in 1977 and pointing at Darth Vader boarding a ship with Stormtroopers and then choking some guy, and exclaiming THAT'S CLEARLY JESUS CHRIST, THAT'S WHY I'M INTO THIS

#Star wars

[loewenherzog]

That's because all discrimination has seized in its entirety whatsoever. Therefore those "formerly" discriminated groups now decide to single out people for not being "them enough" with declaring the experiences of whitepassing not poc enough people invalid and declaring any gay person wrong that has not at least one of the seven most common traits their homophobic uncle used to say about gay people at thanksgiving. I mean it's hard to believe all discrimination would suddenly be gone, but how dumb would it be to try and arrogantly decide you're the only standard for whatever group you are part of and discriminate against anyone that does not fit you if the group in its entirety was facing discrimination at this point?

Anyways please stop this creator of the multiverse nonsense. The Demiurge is not only unimportant in greater marvel canon that does not acknowledge it at any level of importance at all and solely created as a deus ex machina that damaged the character more than it did anything for him. It's also somewhere between tone deaf and straight up antisemitic to apply it to a jewish character in particular. As the gnostycisms Demiurge is a villainous version of the god of Israel, whose act of creation trapped the naturally divine human in the flawed and vile physical world we now occupy. They are also Satan who stands in opposition to a much greater true god / the christian god and is also a much lesser entity than lesser emanation of that god such as the Holy Spirit and Christ. And the fact that by being a hemaphrodyte it is also playing into the idea of gay men being not properly male does not help. Granted it is pretty likely the guy who came up with this nonsense actually meant abraxas, the god of magic who in some gnostic believes is the highest entity. So the jewish character would not be the bad guy version of the jewish god but a neutral being above the jewish god, which is not much less tonedeaf.

People have started saying that Billy and Teddy aren't good enough queer representation anymore, and like, are you guys insane?

Not only are these two are at the very center of the Marvel universe - the King of Space AND the very God of Creation of the Multiverse - but they were literally the main romance/couple of a comics' event not too long ago, with Teddy as the main character. When has that shit ever happened to a queer couple? It just doesn't.

DC is putting their new queer characters at the center of Dark Crisis, but notice how there is no push for a gay couple - or at least a queer one - leading it (at least so far).

Even if they were brought into the MCU, it would still be a big thing. There is no superhero live action story out there with a main gay couple as their leads/main romance - and let's be honest, any decent Young Avengers project NEEDS to have these two as the main couple of the story. Maybe a couple lesbian led shows - geez, I wonder why - but one of them has literally just been cancelled. But there is no gay lead superhero story out there.

But the worst part seems to be people complaining about how they aren't queer enough, or are too perfect, or are white (which makes absolutely zero sense since Billy is jewish and Teddy isn't even human) cis guys. You people keep asking for more queer stories without gay people suffering all the time and complain when it happens? It just makes zero sense. Even more when these same people turn around and start saying how perfect Heartstopper is?

(No shade on that show/comic, because I love it, btw, just pointing out how the complaints about BillyTeddy make no sense if compared to how much NickCharlie get praised, when they are literally the same thing.)

Anyway Wiccan and Hulkling are still great gay representation and you people make zero sense.

#Billy Kaplan #Hulkling #young avengers #marvel comics #lgbtq community #gnosticism

[loewenherzog]

Marvel: Let's celebrqte Pride with a book about a long term gay couple fucking other people for the entertainment of an old lady.

This book is so bad...

Like I’ve said I’m not a huge fan of the story but I had to pick them up, happy Hulkling & Wiccan #1 day!

(It was talked about a few days ago but in the back of the issue there is a little ‘stay tuned’ blurb!)

#hulkling #Bill Kaplan #Young Avengers #Marvel #Marvel comics #Infinity

[loewenherzog]

Reblog if you genuinely support asexuals

It terrifies me that there’s so much raging passion in the lgbt+ community that insist on marginalizing asexuals and implying that asexuals don’t deserve to have safe spaces. There’s still so much acephobia so I just wanna know which blogs are genuinely supportive and a safe space for asexuals

[loewenherzog]

The modern Hulkling - As wrong interpretation became depiction(Part 3)

Hulkling as the boyfriend/husband

Another one of Hulklings modern characterizations is for him to only be regarded as some add-on love interest of Wiccan as his boyfriend or husband like he was not an equally important character during their original appearances and even in that function he is still commonly only allowed to be bland and perfect in a relationship way. A guy sharing all of Billys interests, making Billys issues his greatest priority, would never truly speak against him and has no traits beyond that. Or is supposed to be anyway, as we may really only be informed of it, while the actions are not really representing it.

This believe goes so far to suggest that Billy was like some sort of self-insert of his creator and Teddy by extension his perfect idea of a partner like that is fact, when it's more likely that by the time he wrote Young Avengers the man had as a writer probably long evolved past the point where he would feel the need to live-out fantasies through his creations and the focus on Billy in the books is not exactly on the level where you would call him the main character beyond the other team members, aside from Childrens Crusade, where he in fact was the main character.

To put it simple. Teddy will either be the big strong man who weak little boy Billy has to rely on especially to make up for his own mistakes and shortcomings or the inferior lover he has to take care off, the latter being ironically more the story where Teddy might be considered a main character. It's weird.

The mistake here is both seeing Hulkling placed in that intrinsically linked supporting role and the fact that their relationship is perfect to begin with.

Functional not perfect - their relationship according to Heinberg

Their creator Alan Heinberg pretty much admits that he did not write these two as a teenage couple, when he has Jessica Jones point out that they probably have that figured out more than her. For context she is at this point pregnant from Luke Cage and in a relationship with him, but not yet married.

True enough Runaways, which was another succesful teen superhero book at the same time, probably depicted much more realistic teenage relationships over its entire run and it had a gendershifting alien prince who wanted to marry Karolina on the first day. Gert and Chase get together or fight over the dumbest things, Nico is attracted to like half her team for reasons ranging from the superficial with Chase to mostly jealousy and loneliness with Karolina to 'sure might as well why not' with Victor, who falls for a different girl while he is with Nico and she is not even mad, but encourages him, because they weren't that close. Not to mention the beginning of everyone having superficial crushes on each other and none of them working out.(I guess Karolina got Nico over a decade later, with multiple relationships inbetween for both of them.)

Heinberg pretty much writes these two as a functional long-term relationship, which is not really common for teens in high school or factual, because they can't actually have been together for that long when the book begins.

And that's probably all he aims for with it. Functionality. They were never meant to be some sort of shining example of how to do it, but just a steady relationship past the point were you have to prove anything to one another and once they already know each other very well, but Heinberg also understood what a functional relationship is, which I can't say about writers like Tini Howard or Kieron Gillen who lean very hard into the perfect boyfriend Hulkling thing and I have yet to see write a healthy relationship.

There is later on this idea, like these two never fought or disagreed, primarily to pretend depicting a fight was the reinvention of the wheel in writing these characters. In truth in stories focused on one of them Heinberg had in fact have them take contrarian positions and oppose nearly all of the focus characters stupid decisions and mostly only go along with them because they were convinced the other idiot wass going to get himself killed if they didn't, while berating them about how stupid they are.

Things somehow mostly worked-out and the one with the focus was commonly proven right in their assessment. And then they cry a lot, because none of Heinbergs YA books actually ends happy generally speaking. Each storyline is just shit happening, having terrible consequences, usually someone leaving the team or being dead, and then people continuing to go on, because that's Heinbergs idea of superheroes. And considering the basic role of superhero is something writers these days refuse to let either Teddy or Billy be these days that's also the only kind of superheroes these two have ever been.

But to get back on topic: We have Hulkling declare he would kick Billys ass if he decided to head-out alone after the team decided to come with him, before threatening the guys uncle and all but physically dragging Billy back, just for Billy to ignore it. We have Billy declare Teddy wanting to prevent Skrulls and Kree from slaughtering each other a mistake, because they are not even people, even when Hulkling is all of 0% human. We have Teddy refuse to help Billy get any closer to the Scarlet Witch, pointing out that he lost his powers because he did not listen to him. But neither of these guys ever stops. They just push straight ahead and are proven right for what they pretty much believe to be right out of pure instinct.

But that's what I mean by functional relationship. The fact that these guys would snap at each other or disagree isn't a threat to them being a couple, nor are they so up in arms about their partner blowing off their concerns that they refuse to help them when it's literally a life or death situation.

Heinberg also understood that a romantic relationship is not peoples only way to evolve. None of the characters in his YA books needed a lover to evolve and if another character would be essential to their decisions it was not necessarily going to be their lover.

Perfect relationship aka melodramatic mess - What we now have to suffer through afterwards

Kieron Gillen

Enter the pioneer of rainbow capitalism over at marvel Kieron Gillen, who was seemingly not to happy with getting asked to write this team again and again and whose general attitude towards them was that they were all really lame, because they were like real people and regular teenagers at their heart. Gillens perception of the team was by all indications based on skimming Childrens Crusade and then checking tumblr pages so in his mind Young Avengers was a Billy centered book to the point he suggested adding Tommy would make the book too Billy centric, even though Tommy is his own character and Gillens entire run pretends to be Billy centric anyway. I guess he meant Tommy could overshadow America or Loki.

Anyways right off the bat Gillen throws us a scene that potrays a really toxic relationship if there ever was one. While Billy apparently uses his dead friends to force Teddy to promise not to superhero, Teddy has no problem doing so behind his back despite agreeing not to and then when caught throws around his own dead mom to guilt trip right back until Billy apologizes for not considering that. And then they kiss and Billy just leaves the room without establishing if this means Teddy is now allowed to continue superheroing or if Billy will do so with him again(the conversation suggests Billy should be a superhero).

Going forward in the story Teddy idiotically buys that he is just a perfect boyfriend created by Billy when the god of lies of all people tells him. And then after getting told all good things about his relationship are due to him - without tangible examples mind you - denies their relationship being perfect before splitting with Billy at least temporarily hoping to test that theory of him being Billys artificial construct, even if that theory completely depends on him being a perfect boyfriend suggesting he DOES in fact believe he is. After that in the books finale he states he can't support Billy right now because he is not sure about their relationship at that point until the guy telling him to take a break with Billy and indirectly causing Teddys capture in the first place tells him he does.

So he guilt trips his boyfriend, considers himself the best lover the guy could even dream about and is unsure about them when things get tough... See why I mean that Teddy being a perfect boyfriend is an informed trait?

Even if we ignore what is basically written and bring this down to writers intentions behind these scenes. Then we're left with Teddy hiding what he wants to do so he does not get into a fight with Billy or does not want to worry Billy and still doing it behind his back. Only reveals his real feelings and issues at his breaking point and has Billy at that point acknowledge this and want to help him, which would have been the only thing of value in a relationship either of these two does in the book. But going forward Teddy would have still again hidden his issues and true feelings from Billy, who had demonstrated already he would react supportive, while discussing them with complete strangers like Noh-Varr and Prodigy and still splits from Billy over this and still needed someone elses assistance for his love to be strong enough to help out in the end, which in itself should contradict him having been created to do so, but no that possibility is treated as valid to the bitter end.

Gillens work has everyone treat Teddy being a perfect boyfriend as fact when even beyond the toxic form any interaction takes on the conceptual level of author intention behind a scene the only one who ever does anything for the other is actually Billy. All Teddy does in the entire book is say he loves Billy at two separate points under circumstances where that would somehow solve an issue and he needed someone to convince him he even did the second time. So he is not actually written as a perfect boyfriend. He is given the trait of perfect boyfriend and therefore written so that his love alone solves problems. And it's done at the expense of any other trait he could possibly have. He is a perfect boyfriend only without even being a perfect boyfriend.

It does not help that by the end of the book even Billy continues to question whether a different relationship would be better for Teddy rather than him, as it fails to find any sort of reason why he would want to. It then handwaves this by basically saying "They're in love whatever." But honestly what is presented is that the only thing keeping the universe safe from the threat of Billy Kaplans emotional state is Teddy sacrificing himself to be in that relationship. Whether you look at the terror of that in-universe or at what it would be a metaphor being forced to be with someone due to them not being able to cope alone due to a mental condition. That's just miserable writing considering the writer supposedly wants to say love conquers all or these two are a great couple.

And yeah, this is because Gillen based it on readers perception. And in the fandom moments like Teddy helping Billy cast a spell in the battle with Kang are solely treated as this sweet moment of support and Billy being helped by his boyfriend like this is the only thing that matters. Ignoring that a) Billy does the same thing all the time like after Teddys mom dies and is not just the guy freaking out when Teddy gets hurt or tortured and b) Teddy apparently not only realized how Billys powers work, but also came up with an impromptu method of spellcasting based on selfsuggestion from a selfhelp book for him. Kid helped him by being smart as hell himself is what I mean. It was not a one way road and Teddys support of Billy was certainly not just telling him that he loves him. Similiarly when Teddy is ready to surrender to Kl'rt in a later issue people only wanted to see or talk about him loving Billy so much he would do it, ignoring both that he literally does it for his not love interest Eli just a few pages later and that it was a ruse to begin with since we've seen him do it transformed into Iron Lad to save Kate in an earlier issue and then just punch Kang like he did with Super Skrull during the Billy instance. And now we have storylines in which Teddy will constantly be shown to surrender or despair at any adversary.

A lot of "perfect romances" in written books or movies have relationships composed of big gestures that overshadow and supposedly make up for the pointless drama in-between and then pretend that last big gesture in the story is a sign of everything going forward being perfect and when guys are a mess over dramatic moment X they have perfectly sexy five-o'clock shadows their sweat smells somehow manly and not disgusting, their clothes are dirty and crumbled in just the attractive way and them being rude and wanting to fuck simultaneously is somehow not terrifying to people who could not fend them off if they tried to force themselves on them, before their lovers dramatic or loving reaction fixes them almost instantly, but that is just a romantisation of bullshit. Partners helping each other through terrible moments is a beautiful thing of course, but none of those terrible moments is beautiful for it.

Yet that is where the first writer to really dig into this perfect husband nonsense begins and ends with it. And that might just be because he knows nothing about relationships or at the very least does not consider using that knowledge in any way. He has no real life inspiration for a conflict between lovers to make a dramatic fight betwen them so he just takes a scene from any TV-Show or movie were someone cheated on their partner and it leads into some discussion about how the relationship has not been working for a while and the cheated on party refused to also take the cheating partys feelings into account. And if you consider that Gillen is the blue print for both Tini Howard and Al Ewing on how to write this couple we end up with the photocopy of a photocopy, which may make things less aggregious at the very least but also unbelievably bland and boring. Granted despite Ewing deciding that a future version of Teddy married a possessed Billy who acted like a monster and built a family with them he is barely worth mentioning in this context, because he really only ever used them as a rainbow colored publicity stunt to advertise his books before removing them from any actually important plot or in Empyres case to distract from the insanely pro-imperialist message and the fact it attacked Fridays for future of all things, but those are different issues

Tini Howard

Now if there is one thing afforementioned Tini Howard - a later writer who digs into perfect partner Hulkling hard - nailed. It's these guys intended relationship in Gillens work. In fact she did it far better than he did.

In her works Teddy is in fact constantly and actively shown to consider Billys state first and foremost. His only flaw as a romantic partner is to be too considerate and hide his own gripes primarily focused on Billy not being less frustrating.

All criticism about how utterly wrong this is from the perspective of actually first seeing this relationship in the books or as a general relationship constellation remain valid of course, but at least she is actually showing what she is trying to portray, rather than lose herself in her own pretentiousness. No, her pretentiousness is lowkey.

She does come with her own new problems thought. These however are primarily about her handling of Billy. As bland as Teddy is in her writing the only issue beyond that is that to be perfect he will essentially adjust to fullfill that in whatever role he takes and that she just does not have him do a whole lot beyond worrying about Billy.

What's her issue with writing Billy? Well essentially Billy is a selfish ignorant and whiny crybaby that has to be entertained by his hubby, requires his permission to do things and whose biggest worry is to be scolded by him for his failure to hide the trouble he accidentally cause when doing something selfish. He is infantilized to the point you want to forget Teddy is not his overworked single dad or Billy the wife in some decades old show where the wife not getting anything and being a nuisance to her husband was considered factual.

If this woman pitched an ongoing - and pray this never happens - it would not be a superhero book but something like Fairly Oddparents or that old Sabrina cartoon. The plot is character has some random problem, refuses to solve it in any reasonable way and uses magic instead, it backfires, they spents the whole episode fixing it maybe while unsucessfully hiding they screw up and learn nothing by the end of it. That's like every episode of either show.

That Howard does not go before Gillens Young Avengers when writing these characters is pretty clear, too. Especially with the hilariously incompetent scene of her having Teddy inform Kate of his and Billys engagement and her responding like it is a new thing she found out from their relationship status online.

Because due to Gillen effectively ignoring the ending of Childrens Crusade to keep Billy in a state of constant depression and their engagement never being mentioned in the book even when their break up would make it absolutely ludicrous for nobody to bring it up, he effectively retconned it out of existence. Al Ewing would then just casually bring up the two being engaged years later clearly in reference to the scene from Childrens Crusade everyone knows. But with Howard referencing it as a new thing in Death's Head afterwards technically the canonical marvel comics point of Billy and Teddy getting engaged is off-screen between Young Avengers Volume 2 and New Avengers, even though everyone knows the scene of them getting engaged as teenagers... that's how bad the writing of this romance has gotten after that scene.

Anthony Oliveira

Anthony Oliveira... does not fall into the trap of trying to follow Kieron Gillens depictions... he does not fall into the trap of making Teddy a perfect boyfriend/husband... he does not even fall into the trap of following a wrong interpretation rather than how Teddy was depicted for the most part... no, he never gave a fuck about how Teddy was depicted or who these characters are. No, Anthony Oliveira is perfectly capable of writing his own personal type of toxicity. But it still relates to Teddy being this add-on love interest so I'll cover it anyway.

I went into this in a previous post, but Oliveira needs to tear Teddy down and push on Billy being a superior being Teddy has to aspire to be like because secretly Teddy is exactly like him and all differences are a result of Teddy denying himself of being himself due to external pressure to fit a masculine role model. Because gay men have no right to have any classical masculine traits or likes they have to be nerdy and quirky and feminine, because the only real way to be gay is the way Anthony Oliveira tells you it is. They have every right to their gay journey, but boy you better believe he decided were the destination of that is already.

But I went into that in part 2 and most of points about Oliveira feels the need to make Teddy for the slightly more jock like appearance into some insecure follower trapped in toxic masculinity he needs to be liberated of by the guidance of further evolved lgbt characters and the always positive influence of all things female around him and his culture. And can only be his true self while naked pre- or post sex with his hubby.

Even though Oliveira essentially had an assignment for a Teddy solo story with his lords of empyre hulkling book, which essentially existed to tell readers of Empyre who the skrull leader was and why they should root for him and fans of the character how he came to be in his current position(and why he would deserve it?), he could not allow Teddy to succeed at any point and rather showed him getting led around by Tanalth with no resistance and be saved by Billy solving his issues.

The whole thing becomes only more absurd once you realize what kind of lgbt character the man is willing to defend. Noh-Varr is a canonical faschist who brainwashes people, and likely also murdered the skrull species of his universe and had a subordinate bomb disney world once and Loki a canonic mass murderer on many occasions who has betrayed just about anyone whoever genuinely wanted to help him, yet Oiveira will write them to be both capable and ask for sympathy for them.

#The modern hulkling - as wrong interpretation became depiction #hulkling #billy kaplan #young avengers #marvel #marvel comics #teddy altman #tini howard #kieron gillen #Anthony Oliveira #Alan Heinberg

[loewenherzog]

Dracula: "I shared the place with three of my exes, still had to do the entire housework alone and they tried to eat my guests."

Billy: Dracula had it right, sleep all day, live alone in a castle, and explode into bats to get out of all social situations.

Tommy: Billy, I think you have depression and social anxiety.

Billy: Think?

#Dracula #Like the actual novel

[loewenherzog]

Hey it's Basaltblitz!

Outfit for Billy Kaplan “Wiccan”

Philipp Plein Fall 2016

#billy kaplan #young avengers #Basaltblitz

[loewenherzog]

No, it's not.

In fact the central problem of the original young avengers is not about legacy at all. It's about a generational conflict.

The entire conflict with the Avengers comes down to the fact that the pioneers of superheroism in this case the Avengers are all people that were forced to chose being superheroes as the result of tragedy or extraordinary circumstances so they don't get why a bunch of regular teenagers would simply chose to be superheroes, while the next generation of the profession aka the young avengers simply want to be superheroes to help people, because that's the thing the people they idolized in this case the Avengers have been saying people should do for the entirety they have been alive.

The entire concept of legacy matters shockingly little in the book for a story about characters that have these individual connections particularly because a lot of characters don't exactly know about them. And when they find out all of them are just like "oh, I'm related to this really amazing person. Cool. Moving on." There is never a conflict between Eli and his grandfather. There is never a conflict between Cassie and Scott. Or Billy and Wanda. Or Tommy and Wanda. Or Mar-Vell and Teddy. Much less Vision and Vision. It's only the guy related to a supervillain who has a problem with it. Everyone else is like "superhero parent, sweet! I'll be a superhero!" and the only conflict they might have is getting around the lack of superpowers. Parental conflicts are in fact limited to the none superhero sides of the family like with Cassies mother or Teddys species.

And V2 focuses more on legacy? Is that a joke? The writer literally said he would not write a story like that. There is not a single storyline about legacy in the whole thing. Why would you think that? Because no name parent characters pop up as villains for a couple of issues? That was the writers opinion that teenagers have to villifiy their parents to run away from them and leave home in order to grow up and have their own lifes. Mommy and daddy issues? I guess. Legacy? Nope.

(Un)Friendly reminder that the Young Avengers is a team of legacy characters who have problems with their legacy.

It's not about teen/young adult heroes. It's not about legacy characters. It's about characters that have a complicated relationship or story with their legacy. It's the whole point of the team. From it's very formation

V2 focused more on this, but it's present from the start.

#young avengers #young avengers v2 #marvel #marvel comics #Hulkling #tommy shepherd #tommy shepard #cassie lang #eli bradley

[loewenherzog]

Like that was the only time Leah Williams used Tommy as a prop.

Tommy was used to show us how amazing Northstar is for being so much faster than anohter speedster.

He was used to tell us how amazing Eyeboy was for being able to predict and stop a speedster in his tracks so easily and how nice he is for trying to stop Tommy from seeing his mother corpse.

He was infantilized so we could be told how amazing and caring Kyle was.

He was shown scolding Wanda with his twin trying to appease X-men fans from criticizing that Wanda was getting off too easy.

He was used for fanservice so there would be a same sex make out session to sell on and appease the Thinkfast crowd, while every moment of development his boyfriend has in the book is linked to eyeboy.

I mean the lady clearly only inherited having to use him because of marvel giving so little of a shit they allowed him to get hooked up with another character off-screen for a book he was barely in and only kept because she was afraid the thinkfast crowd would cancel her if she did not, but she sure got some use out of him without ever reading a single issue of a comic that included him.

Right now it’s thinking about how marvel did soooo Tommy dirty by making him a second rate slow speedster….also also erased his badass power of accelerating molecules to make explosions

#tommy shepard #marvel #marvel comics #X-factor #trial of magneto

[loewenherzog]

To be fair if you consider the value of rare spices in our world the idea that once you bring this to a galactic scale and spices that only exist on a single planet are wanted on every planet it would become insanely profitable to smuggle that shit and have a black market for it does not seem that farfetched.

I know the Star Wars extended universe treats “spice” like it’s this big scary drug, but I kind of like to imagine that it’s basically just space weed, and the only reason Han got in trouble with the Imperials over Jabba’s cargo is that he was evading import tariffs.

[loewenherzog]

The weirdest thing about reading a modern encounter between Carol and Mar-Vell is that at some point everyone pretended they were close

So checking out Mar-Vells newest possible return from the dead. I'm once more annoyed that at some point marvel just seemed to pretend he was her mentor or close friend or anything.

I can't blame the newest book too much for running with it as it continues it from his previous return but why did it ever end up like that.

Thought I have to question several things like. Apparently bringing back Genis after his rather elaborate death or what the heck "A Marvel" is supposed to be, as it includes the likes of Kamala and especially Monica who have nothing to do with the others or even the Kree, but essentially just randomly chose the Marvel name, but then a bunch of people specifically related to Mar-Vell and Noh-Varr who is essentially just related by being a kree in the widest sense.

The truth is that Carol only became Ms. Marvel after he was already dead and prior to that she was a minor character in his book briefly early on and had like one more later appearance. She had a fairly superficial attraction to him because he saved her and the base which security she was in charge off, which he likely did not reciprocate since Una, the lover he is shown to never truly get over is still alive at that point.

Even weirder several books suggest Carol was supposedly close with his civilian identity of Walter Lawson, when in truth she could not stand the man, because she thought he was a russian spie infiltrating the base, mainly because he was a kree spie infiltrating the base and she did not think it was aliens. His method of dodging her questions being to walk all over her and insult her professionalism probably did not help.

There is also this trend of pretending Mar-Vell was like really powerful beyond everyone else, when he was weaker than most of the more powerful heroes and villains such as Thor or Drax in his classic days and was fighting uphill battles against the likes of these for essentially all of his career. Like the books are ancient as of now, but if you are insisting of not just letting the guy rest in peace please actually read the books instead of having Carol randomly throw out statements about something being like him when it does not actually match him.

#captain marvel #carol danvers #mar vell #marvel #marvel comics #The heck is a marvel? #marvels

[loewenherzog]

how does someone like billyteddy but hate trans people?! you are so confusing

I don't hate trans people I never claimed or implied I did. I criticized some of the handling of the topic and peoples attitude. I was very clear on it. What confuses you is presumably you incapability of not bringing anything down to a good bad duality in which nuance does not exist and your opinion has to be exactly met in order not to be bad. Which is why you jump in with an anonymous ask everytime you realize I still write on tumblr because you think you could somehow bully me off the platfrom. Why anonymous anyway? If I was prone to do the same kind of attack on you if I knew who you were I would already have done it after you announced to me you were going to troll me later. because well that was the one who suggested they would. I don't really care who you are, but I'm like 90% certain you are@scribe-of-maat

[loewenherzog]

That's not entirely fair. The Skrulls were weak in comparision to other big empires for like 30 years of marvels publication. Their Empire crumbled in 83 and was not restored until 2014 after which they were still at a fraction of their power and Kl'rt literally refers to them as living like refugees to Kamala until they merged with the krees Empire in 2020. With the exception of a brief period were S'Byll ruled the skrulls with seemingly similiar capabilities to her predecessors early on during that period which was then just kinda forgotten and ignored by later writers, the skrulls were pretty much a bunch of factions that could threaten heroes or earth, but they were mostly none factors in galactic politics and hopelessly outmatched against the kree, who were dominant force until their destruction in 92 and then again after 2004 after their restoration. The skrulls are due to this missing from most cosmic marvel events such as the Annihiliation, that wiped out most that remained, Conquest, which only has Super-Skrull, War of Kings or the Realm of Kings.

The Secret Invasion was suggested to essentially be one last ditch effort to take earth because they had no planets from at least a thousand left at that point.

The real problem is that the kree skrull conflict was dumbed down into a simplistic battle of good vs evil, when it was most of the times treated with a lot more nuance and both species have both allied and battled with heroes against greater threats.

Also honestly not expecting much from Secret Invasion for long term effects. I think this is going to be self contained and wrap up within its run with only a few character introductions mattering in the long run. It's probably going to be the Nick Fury show and that's the end of it.

don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but making the kree skrull “war” really simplified and swapping the antagonist was a dumb choice. i’m all for nice sympathetic skrulls but they are supposed to be a really powerful alien empire making them weak is weird i can’t even fathom them having royalty

#skrull #secret invasion #marvel #marvel comics

[loewenherzog]

The modern Hulkling - As wrong interpretation became depiction(Part 2)

Hulkling interpreted as a jock

So if Hulkling was written as a calm polite and thoughtful comicbook geek forced to grow up early with pierced ears running around in a punk outfit, where did the whole classic jock thing come from.

Well, let's take a look.

What's real and what's false

The reality of the idea is that Teddy was in fact on his schools basketball team.

What's false is that there is even a single issue entertaining the idea that Teddy actually wanted to play or fits into typical jock characterization in this context until 2021, the only time comics actually revisit this.

The young Avengers special issue that tells us Teddy used to be on his schools basketball team literally tells us the opposite. Teddy tells us he was an insecure closeted kid, that was using his powers to fit in with a more popular crowd and get close to an outwardly perfect guy he had a crush on and trying to please him for both reasons, before realizing that it is impossible to be normal as the entire concept of it is nonsense and he has to accept his differences, realizing later on that these are his best qualities.

The story does not only tell us Teddy is not part of this crowd, but also that by the time he first appeared he valued what separated him from it the most about himself and as mentioned before he dressed the part of a misfit consciously dividing himself from the mainstream during his first appearances.

The sport is merely a device to try and conform to the norms around him and serves to create the image around him that he is just like anyone else. It's neither about craving attention, nor about prestige and least of all about actually playing a sport. Being part of a sportsteam is only about being part of something.

Let's also note that Teddys physical abilities are so far beyond that of a regular high school student he would have to essentially spent the time playing being worse than he could be to avoid detection of his strength and speed.

The perception

The perception of Hulkling as a jock. Is ultimately pure fanfiction. And it likely primarily exists, because this is a standard fantasy and it was too good to pass for people presented with the oppurtunity. They were attracted to jocks as a teen so there needed to be one in the relationship they were fantasizing and the fact that there is a picture of Teddy on a basketball team is just an excuse.

But there might be another truth to the entire jock perception. And that is that the classic jock character is intrinsically linked to an idea of ideal masculinity and Teddy has to conform to it if he is a perfect masculine character, which he has to be to form a heteronormative relationship with Billy as a perfect couple, because of course this character must be about Billy and the relationship must be perfect. As determined by the fact people generally liked him more.

Full disclosure: The ideas of masculinity and feminity are stupid in general, but especially within communities that fight for peoples right to feel, be and be seen as neither. It has a far too simplified view, while being so suspect to the culture defined by place time and community that you will not be able to properly define them universally to begin with, yet everytime it comes up people have such a narrow view of it it's ridiculous. Yet I was now forced to talk about it, because it is so telling of several authors depictions and they are much less hard to understand, than his creator in this regard.

Heinberg likely never bothered with the concept so whatever subconscious influence his understanding of it had, when creating his characters is subtle and you will still be incapable of analyzing them based on your idea, because he was a gay jewish american yale graduate who grew up in Oklahoma during the seventies and worked at the broadway in the 90s and his concept of what is masculine was defined by so many influences in 2005 the idea its whatever of the many forms you found and subscribed to on tumblr or find championed anywhere is not going to be an exact match to it. And even this brief outlook on where he could encounter differentiating views is only from what you can gather skimming his wikipedia page.

What became depiction

Even before 2021 we see dumb jock tropes tossed around the character after Heinbergs involvement came to an end. Be this his absolutely clueless characterization in New Avengers, usually gushing over some sort of food or "cool" thing, as he is barely capable of articulation, while his "hunkiness" is driven home or the Emperor Hulkling book, where he is essentially portrayed as a high school athlete whose life peaked with highschool, lazing around all day doing nothing or hanging out at a club, while pretending to have an exciting life in the meantime and demanding the prestigious treatment and attention he did in school, because "Have you seen my arms, bro?".

Other depictions such as King in Blacks tie-in or Death's Head can be seen as partially inspired by this in their dynamic and when the writer talks about them as Quarterback and Cheerleader I'm hard-pressed to say it was not, but ultimately that is more about the idea of him as a more masculine character compared to Billy. That is true for Last Annihilations writer as well, though, hence the earlier paragraph.

There is a strange dichtonomy in these depictions, as both actually prefer Billy, but in very different ways. One views him from a very fangirlish cutefied point where Teddy becomes an accesory and device for Billys story, while the other depicts him as the ideal gay man every gay man should strive to be flawless and superior in everyway with Teddy as a weak counterpoint of doing it wrong, who has to be slowly moved to be closer to that ideal by Billys guidance.

Tini Howard the author of the King in Black tie-in and Death's Head will do this in a way where Teddy will have to serve as the confident masculine partner, who will always know what to do and make the sacrifices for his responsibilities and relationship, while Billy is painted as an overly emotional naive child, reminiscient of rather outdated feminine depictions and that is probably mostly based on a subconscious need for heteronormativity.

Anthony Oliveira on the other hand will depict Teddy as the most feckless and most inefficient idiot who is slave to the expectations around him and utterly dependant on Billy and his own family members propping him up to be a hero, while he himself does not or barely contributes to the solution.

Oliveira does not yearn for heteronormativity, which is what informs his depiction of Teddy once reduced to the classic masculine jock he was perceived as. Now it's possible Oliveira simply chose to ignore Teddys classic depiction, because he wanted to make his point on this rather than his perception of Teddy prompting the choice to do it - there are points where he makes seemingly conscious choices to ignore continuity for things to fit his narrative - but as I mentioned generally speaking I think his opinion here is simply reflective of the perception of the character outside of their books and the mischaracterization in books predating his work. To cut to the point here: Teddy is for Oliveira the classical idealized masculine jock, while Billy is a more feminine quirky geek and being one of these things is right, while the other is wrong and means he needs to change.

Teddys backstory originally was very much about a disenchantment with the perception of the classic jock, whether that's Gregg Norris who depicted it turning out to be a criminal who only used Teddy or Teddy realizing it is not him and not worth or possible to maintain, but it understood this merely as a break away from an imagined unobtainable ideal and as complete with that the concept of masculine or feminine did not actively factor into it. Neither is Teddy parting with Norris and the team considered to make him less of a man nor more feminine.

Anthony Oliveira writes Teddy as constantly trapped by this ideal within his self-conception in the most entitled of ways and the desperate need for the view of others perceiving himself as it and that treads back to its intrinsic link to idealized masculinity or rather the perception of idealized masculinity. And that's too straight to be gay.

As a gay man Teddy does not get to be male like a straight guy. He has to be intrinsically more feminine and geeky than the straight man, who may indulge in straight peoples teamsports. As a gay man he is not masculine and if he acts the part he is not himself, but conforms to this "straight masculinity", where as acting more geeky and feminine is the natural state for a gay man that he has to realize to be of true value.

Heinberg and Oliveira don't have fundamentally different concerns about adhering to a jock ideal, but where Heinbergs work told people that they were their own person and everyone was different and differences nothing to be ashamed of, Oliveira insists on telling you that not the concept of an ideal, a single ideal, to adhere to but the concept of this ideal specifically is bad and desperately has to tear it and therefore Teddy, who he forced into this role, down, so he can prop up the singular right way to do be gay or the ideal he agrees with.

Teddy not only needs to be everything his backstory tells us he has come past before his very first appearance like a Spider-Man that screws the very concept of responsible use of his powers he also needs to be as ineffecient as possible. Hereby Oliveira establishes a bunch of equivalencies and opposites within his work that don't apply to reality.

Essentially: Feminity=Quirkiness=Geekdom=Intellectuality=Supportive=Confidence=The right way to be queer in contrast to Masculinity=Entitlement=Jock=Stupidity=Insecurity=Toxicity=the wrong way to be queer. Keep these in mind.

Teddy similiarly must be viewed in contrast never conjunction with Billy. Rather than both characters with weaknesses and strengths in their traits, who have both similiarities and differences informed by their own characterization with both of them being different but completely valid ways of being a person, the traits given to Teddy are fundamentally bad and he must replace them with those Billy already displays, because those are his true nature which he is merely hiding and due to that there is nothing he can hope to give to a plainly superior in everyway Billy except his adoration. Whatever positive effect or success Teddy has will be based on either Billy or another quirky/geekier lgbt character or a female family member. It is only these characters and what they tell hiim that enable Teddy to succeed in even the smallest of ways.

This is taken so far that we're informed without that he would be a megalomanical madman who had to be killed by another universes Phylla-Vell or in other words the jock monica that is forced on Teddy automatically equals toxic masculinity and the only reason Teddy is not a monster is the constant positive influence of proper queers and females.

Toxic Masculinity, there is a term nobody ever thought anyone would use to describe Teddy of all people, but Oliveiras need to tear down the jock identity so falsely placed on the character leaves us exactly there.

He punches the Super-Skrull on sight not matching their previous interactions at all, but its the fact that its thrown out of pure anger and does not help the situation in anyway and Teddys self-congratulation about it that is telling of the writers view of him.

Similiarly he assaults the Super-Skrull immediately when Billy is slightly harmed causing only negative consequences for everyone involved and even just throwing a punch in the annihilation tie-in leads to his hand getting stuck in an enemy and dragging him down. In an actual fight on the other hand Teddy is seen to be immediately overpowered by a single kree opponent and end up in desperate need of saving from Billy.

It is here that Teddy than can get success only now riding his magical girl poses striking husband and after getting called by a female term to verbally tear down his masculinity. They are now throwing out random science fiction quotes. And a line that they should do more space stuff cause they are good at it.

In other words gays can't do sports they are actually geeks even if they do. Teddy is a geek, but trapped by being masculine jock and to weak to break free from this unless Billy is there and helps him do so. One is good one is bad and they have to be viewed in contrast. And Teddy has to be more geeky and feminine, be properly gay, to have success.

Teddys agressiveness and protectiveness of Billy also only extend to physically assaulting people physically harming him. When Billy is insulted right to his face he will just stand there and nod along with whatever the people doing it say, if not defend Billys abusers to his face, because he is in desperate need of them to give him the attention he has been feeling entitled to and therefore gets easily manipulated once more giving testament to his ineffeciency and impotence.

which extends to his shapeshifting, as Oliveira paints a picture, where he is a shitty liar despite past showings and all to easily figured out, while he states how he himself sucks at it at Mar-Vells grave circling back to his inability to figure out the schemes around him.

Billy meanwhile will just shrug off any insult and the like thrown at him while solving any problem Hulkling teleports him into instantly and with a single glance, as he is the superior quirky gay, who dreams of MODOK in a wedding gown. This is literally how all of Oliveiras solutions for Hulklings dilemma go.

Emotional support will only be given from him to Teddy not the other way around. Even beyond that Billy will be a great student with perfect answers for the most complicated subjects, while Teddy can just useless stutter along, because jocks are bad at school and geeks are super smart. This extends to other same sex couples written by Oliveira as well, as Tommy is treated as the more masculine counterpoint to Billy and therefore like Teddy can only speak about himself and declare his anger at his "properly queer" brothers greater success, while demanding more attention and praise for no reason, before like Teddy getting taken out immediately when it matters so his geekier boyfriend, who tried to give Teddy emotional support earlier, can defend him. Hercules may or may not get a part for perfectly fitting a gay masculine archetype or not. He certainly does not add anything unlike his faschist boyfriend, who marvel comics is pretending is a whimsical music loving oddball looking like an androgynous popstar, as Noh-Varr gets to convince Phylla to allow Teddy to succeed.

Any positive aspect of Teddy or what is considered such is always linked to a female family member or "proper male lgbt" character. His geekiness, which he belittles about himself is a result of his mothers influence, which he then denies himself due to being a jock and can only show due to Billy, she needs to set him and Billy up in some way and is the sole link to Teddys motivation for helping the skrulls and kree beyond stroking his ego after getting scouted.

Since she is dead Phylla-Vell gets the dubious honor of being the new positive female familiar influence on him to tell him the not at all toxic thing that he is only good because of others, which allows Teddy to save them all by just letting Billy do it effortlessly when he only now remembers he already prepared something that allows for this.

He himself only gets to poke a demon allergic to a magic sword with the sword after Billy has both the position to due it from and the sword prepared. The book pretends Billy could not have wielded it himself, which we know is false, but even if that is true it only means that Teddy was given an unearned advantage over all other people for this situation and still needed everyone else to prop him up to do it. In a video game The boss would be scripted to only die from a specific characters attack, but said characters stats are so lacking others must bring him down to a single hp-point for that to happen.

He is in this book a jock and therefore not gay enough in Oliveiras view and therefore he is a violent, impotent airbag, who talks a big deal, but will fail and despair whenever it counts only able to do even the slightest bit of help when propped up by "proper queer characters" and the women in his life he needs to keep his toxic masculinity from almost literally destroying the universe.

Even his own success on his own in his very backstory has to be nullified by informing us he went right back to kissing Norris ass and only being able to break free when Billy is there. Then apparently doing nothing to help Billy with his bully whatsoever.

Oliveiras equivalencys are bullshit and the way he tears down a beloved character to make a point about what he believes proper queers are like both disgraceful and toxic. Nobody gets to define who you are. You get to be who you are and you get to be who you want to be and anyone that tries to decide for you is out of line. It does not matter whether thats a preacher who tells you you don't get to be gay or a gay man telling you what you have to be like to qualify as one. It doesn't fucking matter whether you're a straight guy who likes to wear skirts or a gay guy who likes to play basketball. You don't have to decide whether or not you like to sew or lift weights or read comic books. You don't have to decide whether you're man or woman. There is not one way to be proper person anyway you want to be is just fine, as long as you don't harm people by doing it.

And if you really want to tell anyone who they are you get to say one thing: "It's okay."

People like Oliveira who still demand you to aspire to some ideal and singular right way to be a correct or normal way to be gay. Certainly do not get Hulklings character.

Also geek culture as a counterpoint to jocks in terms of being toxic. Sure two guys contemplated suicide because they played unpopular Star Wars characters, but sure we nerds are supportive and enlightened.

Corrections

Whether it is the dumbing down of his character, the reduction to a jock fantasy or the desperate tearing down of the jock archetype as something intrinsically bad and toxic at the very least for a gay man, the jock depiction has certainly not done Teddy any favors and writers use of him in this capacity fails on a very basic level at understanding his character. After all what chance do you have to get a character right, when you deny their very backstory to write around a paperthin arechetype instead.

Teddy is not a jock character, he just wanted to be normal. He does not feel entitled to being treated better by the universe and he does not break down to peoples expectations unjustly placed on him, he just wants to help people. He certainly is not a dumb jock character. When his way of speaking suggests he might just be the most articulate and book smart member of his original team and he has been outsmarting alien empires and genius superheroes since he was a teenager. He does not need to be kept on the right track by the people around him, because his moral center remains in any given situation. Neither is he a perfect boyfriend/husband whose problems can only be being too good for the world or harming himself for his lovers sake who is there to educate his partner and enable his impulsive idiocy cause it's cute.

And he is not to be viewed in contrast with his husband but in conjunction. It's not about one having to be right and one having to be wrong, it's not about one having to change the other. It's not about one always supporting the other. It's not even about one needing the other to begin with, because believe it or not they don't.

Well, I'll get to that probably.

#The modern hulkling - as wrong interpretation became depiction #hulkling #teddy altman #young avengers #marvel comics #marvel