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majorbaby · 1 year

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Re: Your Retention Please MASH writers I am once again asking, have you even met Maxwell Q. Klinger?

Honestly, I think it’s a fair question because we see Klinger take on a lot of things that are cast off by other characters (gay banter with Hawkeye post-s3, being the dog one pets once Radar is gone, occasionally the buttmonkeyism that I enjoyed when it was Frank on the receiving end) or he’s molded to fit whatever agenda the show needs because while Klinger the character isn’t expendable, his characterization certainly is. This is how you end up with all of these late-seasons Klinger subplots and traits that either completely contradict everything we know about him or tbh, outright play into racial stereotypes. Like when he’s all of sudden really into money-making schemes, or the weird friendship he strikes up with his exploitative boss, or when he takes a lot of racist, classist abuse from other characters (usually from Charles and sometimes Potter, but everyone gets a turn) lying down. This is the man who got into a fist-fight with Frank and then afterwards came back with a grenade to blow him up after Frank told him he couldn’t wear his lucky scarf.

This disregard for his character is how you start off with Klinger in a dress*, gun-toting, back-talking, practically fire-breathing (and hella risk-taking, considering he is a Corporal) all over Majors Burns and Houlihan in the early years and end up at Your Retention Please.

*I’ve read that Klinger stopped wearing dresses at Jamie Farr’s request which, while I respect his reasoning for that, I still feel we the audience and Klinger the character deserved a mourning period and a damn good, in-universe reason for him to have suddenly flipped like that especially after we saw the effect wearing the uniform has on him in Change of Command.

Though he may not have the emotional weight that comes with being a drafted doctor forced to fix people up just to send them out to get hurt worse or possibly die, his belief in the utter uselessness of the army is indistinguishable from Hawkeye and Trapper’s (BJ too, but by the time he’s settled in, the army is in the crosshairs less and less and the Klinger character starts to waver) and anyway he’s affected by having been drafted in his own personal and no less tragic way.

I’m on board with the way the recruiter goes after Klinger. First off, he goes after everyone. Secondly, it’s a common recruiting tactic, to this day, to go after the disenfranchised, the destitute and the desperate, particularly when those traits intersect with race. So there’s some realism in how hard the recruiter goes after Klinger - however, while I know that, these writers likely do not. There’s no race awareness going on. Par for the course.

And let’s talk about that scene with the recruiter for a moment: the slow music that sounds to me just the slightest bit sleazy. The way the recruiter doesn’t just offer a drink, he takes the empty glass from Klinger and places a full one in his hand and then he puts his arm around Klinger and leads him to sit down. The repeated closeups: the recruiter’s smile showing off his yellowed or missing teeth (nothing wrong with having imperfect teeth and idk if it was intentional, but it’s a common physical trait for a villain) and Klinger’s clearly zonked out expression. Klinger says, “You’re right... who are you.” and the recruiter responds again by being overly familiar, saying they’re buddies and that the army is his friend and family. Like if nothing else, I’ll give them this - there were numerous ways for us to read that this guy is a predator. It was appropriately unsettling, but my praise ends there.

Maybe I could buy that Klinger might drunkenly agree to sign up Nope. I started typing it out and I got midway before I decided I would finish and then cross it out for dramatic effect.

The writers forgot who main-cast member Klinger is yet I’m supposed to remember who Laverne is and believe that Klinger is so broken up about her leaving him after she’s already left him (3 seasons ago! hello???) that he decides to do something as drastic as signing up for the army, whether he’s drunk as a skunk or stone cold sober? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it anymore than I would if it were Hawkeye in that position, but they figured it was easy enough to do such a thing to Klinger. I think he (Klinger) gets this plot because it can’t be given to Hawkeye, BJ or Charles, which is funny because one of those three flew off the handle when his wife got a job, so if there’s anyone I could see doing something very drastic (though, tbf, even then not as drastic as re-enlisting) if his wife were to leave him, it’s not Klinger.

Klinger wants to go home but he’s not overly specific about why. He doesn’t have the same attachment to Laverne as BJ does to Peg - he’s not cheating on Laverne but he says about as much about her as Trapper does about Louise. In addition to wanting to be home, I think Klinger, like Hawkeye, is philosophically opposed to war.

He has that very touching scene in War of Nerves where he’s actually given space to tell us why he doesn’t want to be in the army - and it’s way more essential than just ‘I want to go home’ - he does want to go home, but he also doesn’t want to be given orders to do something that would violate his beliefs and he works tirelessly to try to avoid that fate.

In his dresses for 7 years, he’s a walking a protest, or as Sidney aptly puts it, “a monument to hope in size 12 pumps”. He does not believe in the mission of the army, opposes its authority over him and how powerless it renders him as people die around him - who does that remind you of? If you had to call any other character “a monument to hope”?

The other characters on the show are to different degrees opposed to war, with the exception of Frank but consider their reasoning - Margaret and Potter find the army fulfilling but are morally opposed to war, Charles is opposed to his life having been interrupted by the draft, BJ shows a great deal of compassion towards the wounded but his resentment towards the army also comes from how he’s been taken from his family (not a dig at BJ, completely valid for him to feel that way, it’s just different from what Hawkeye feels) and finally Hawkeye is opposed to the army I suspect long before he’s drafted and remains that way long after he goes home.

Getting back to Your Retention Please, I have to pass on setting up Potter and Hawkeye to “rescue” Klinger from his bad decision. Hawkeye I’ll let slide - I have my reservations about the white saviour-y undertones but I’m more fine with Hawkeye being the (white) saviour here than I am with Potter, the regular army guy, getting to be the hero and undermining the anti-military message.

And finally, i can’t accept this at all because we already have an in-character example of Klinger’s reaction to Laverne actually leaving him in Mail Call 3 - he deserts. He returns, blessedly not because he wants to ‘do the right thing’, but rather because he doesn’t want to be a fugitive. The icing on the cake is him declaring that when he does leave the army it’ll be the honourable way, via Section 8 - that’s Klinger!

Have you ever been upset that Larry Gelbart trolling-ly suggested that Hawkeye would become a right winger post-war? That’s how I feel about this episode and the difference is it actually happened, they really did that to Klinger. He deserved better.

#long post #mash #race on mash #max klinger #klinger meta #majorbaby.txt

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thebibliomancer · 6 months

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #44: BETTER A WIDOW...

May, 1989

VisionQuest continues

Vision forgot to put his skin on today...

And Hank Pym's 'I'm not like the other superheroes' jumpsuit is awfully maroon today.

Anyway.

Last times on West Coast Avengers: John Byrne took over the book and a bunch of things changed between issues. Tigra, Wasp, and Dr Pym rejoined the team.

Then, a fake-Ultron attacked and Vision was kidnapped and unpersoned while the West Coast Avengers were distracted.

Mockingbird showed up to Explain It All and took the Avengers to the secret Vigilance base where Vision had been taken due to fears he'd try to take over the world again.

Only the West Coast Avengers arrived Too Late. And Wanda found her husband disassembled, his parts strewn everywhere. It'd be way too much gore for comics if he weren't a robot.

Even this splash page is kinda too much, even with robot bits.

My boy! Look how they massacred my boy!

;_;

The various scientist who were just taking Vision apart are very concerned that Scarlet Witch and probably the Avengers are here instead of somewhere else being distracted.

And Wanda is not sympathetic. In fact, she's as angry as someone would be if they found their spouse turned into a pile of anatomy.

Mockingbird, who has still more exposition to exposition, explains this was the end goal of the kidnap Vision scheme. To erase Vision along with any top secret data he may have picked up when he was the internet for a hot minute.

Wonder Man shows up with project head Cameron Brock under arm and tells him to exposition more.

And since Vision has already been taken apart, Brock has no problem spilling the beans.

Vigilance is not a KGB operation but they are involved running the detention cells, which is why Mockingbird thought it was a KGB operation.

Brock reveals, he's not KGB and he's not SHIELD either. He's CANADIAN.

DUN DUN DUNNNN

Wonder Man jokes about the concept of Canadian spies, showing that he has never heard of Wolverine. He then jokes about Australia, because he's going for all the hits.

Brock goes 'well actually my deputy chief is Australian.'

And he explains that Vigilance is actually a truly worldwide joint venture. Almost every security network on Earth sent a representative.

The Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, etc etc.

The kind of global cooperation almost unheard of -- all to specifically fuck up Vision.

Brock reiterates what he told Mockingbird. As long as Vision wasn't on the Avengers, everybody was willing to grit their teeth and let bygones be whatevers. But as soon as he rejoined (because Hawkeye was a sad sack who couldn't keep together a team), all the intelligence agencies put aside their differences to fuck up Vision.

Global peace, just like Vision wanted when he took over the internet. What ironies.

Wanda claims that Vision can be put back together. He is a robotty robot so clearly they just reassemble him and good as new.

Hank Pym shows up just to say nuh uh.

This is a theme in this issue. People showing up in the nick of time to say nuh uh.

Even though Hank is an expert in robotics despite being a biochemist and even though he's more familiar with Vision's systems than almost anyone, he's skeptical that humpty dumpty can be put back together again.

If Vision's brain was erased like Mockingbird said, Hank has no idea how to deal with that.

Wanda says that they can just borrow some brain patterns from Wonder Man again and use the backup memory file that Vision kept in the Avengers' computers.

Again, with this idea that Vision's brain is a computer that can be uploaded to external storage. I feel like that's at odds with how Vision has been portrayed in the past.

But it doesn't matter.

Vigilance wiped the Avengers' computer systems with a virus. Both the East and West Coast teams. There's no back-up.

(This is where John Byrne put in a backdoor, as some writers do when writing something that may be contentious. In this case, his backdoor to get out of this was that there's a copy of Vision's brain in the Titan supercomputer ISAAC. From the time that Vision linked with ISAAC.)

(John Byrne also uses the idea that Vision's brain can just be backed up as evidence that Vision isn't a real boy and is just an overly sophisticated appliance. The idea that he introduced. Sigh.)

With all the problems on the table, Hank says lets ignore the fact that Vision's unique personality is probably gone forever, erased by magnets or whatever. Just putting all the pieces back together is going to be hard enough.

Heck, the Vision was built from the base of the original Human Torch, the most sophisticated android ever created. That might be beyond Hank's level of skill!

And then Wasp shows up and goes nuh uh!

Not about Hank not being able to do it but about the thing he said about the robot Human Torch.

The shocking prisoner she found in the detention level that was so shocking it had to wait until this issue to reveal?

It's Phineas Horton, allegedly!

He supposedly died in Vision's backstory but we're about to take a big dump on that.

Vigilance wanted an expert in Vision's systems so they tried to find associates of Phineas Horton that might have worked with him on the Human Torch.

Instead they found the actual dude. Just casually not dead.

Hank is like okay weird that Vision thought this guy was dead but he could have been mistaken. Either way, hot damn, the exact expert we needed is right at hand!

And Dr Phineas Horton says nuh uh. He's already here so he didn't pop in just to say it but he's complementing Wasp's earlier nuh uh.

He's definitely the real Dr Phineas Horton (this man will later be retconned to be an imposter, womp womp, retcon tennis) and he doesn't recognize Vision's systems at all.

Vision is definitely not Horton's creation.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Elsewhere, Hawkeye didn't get the memo about waiting just outside the lab to pop in and nuh uh things so he's wandering around the backlot of the Vigilance base.

And I say backlot because aside from the main areas that Mockingbird saw and the stuff related to disassembling Vision and holding people prisoner, this entire base is just a mock-up. Just enough actually functional stuff to fool Mockingbird into thinking it was a fully operational secret SHIELD facility.

Hawkeye also wonders how the Vigilance team was able to capture Vision, which I also am wondering.

But he hears Tigra growling and follows the sound to find her having cornered a couple of Vigilance guys.

Vigilance Person: "You're Hawkeye! Help us!" Another Vigilance Person: "For god's sake... stop her!!"

Hawkeye calls Tigra's name which makes her swing her attention from nameless asshole 1 and 2 to pounce at Hawkeye.

I guess one of her uncontrollable cat instincts is to kill birds.

(Despite the narrative caption promising that all kinds of horrible injury is about to happen to Hawkeye, he's fine when we next see him and Tigra. Typical sensationalism, tsk tsk.)

For some ding dang reason, the narrative cuts to Absolom College in Texas where some shadowy collegiate figures are trying to choose a suitable subject from a list of mutants.

Forty-one candidates are rejected before Scarlet Witch is chosen for whatever this is all about.

If you're curious and have trouble with the tiny headshots, here's how the judging sorts out:

No: Angel, Avalanche, Blob, Caliban, Callisto, Cannonball, Cyclops, Destiny, Firestar, Forge, Iceman, Karma, Multiple Man, Magma, Malice, Mandrill, Marvel Girl, Mastermind, Mesmero, Mystique, Nekra, Nightcrawler, and Pyro.

Too powerful: Apocalypse, Magneto, and Rachael Phoenix.

Too weak: Banshee, Black Tom Cassidy. This category is reserved for the Cassidys, I guess.

Too unstable: Beast, Cloak, Dagger, Legion, Quicksilver.

Dead: Colossus, Cypher, Dazzler, Havok, and Rogue.

No longer viable: Magik, because she retconned herself back to a young girl in Inferno, or something.

Unverified: Sabra, Sabretooth.

This was hard because the marvel wiki didn't have them all. I had to go looking other places and at one point just pull up a list of Marvel mutants and check everything that fell between certain letters. Because, thankfully, this is alphabetized.

What's funny about the dead category is that Cypher is the only one who is actually dead. Everyone else just faked their deaths and moved to Australia.

Back at the plot, some paramedics take Dr Phineas Horton away for treatment. Because he was an old man and Vigilance was keeping him in a KGB-type detention cell. He's not in a great state.

Wanda asks Hank why Dr Phineas Horton IF THATS HIS REAL NAME (lol, its not, retroactively) would say that Vision isn't his work when we all know that Vision was repurposed from the body of the robot Human Torch.

Hank has no idea but he's also distracted by the police coming up and asking what they should do with the Vigilance dudes that the West Coast Avengers captured.

And Hank says 'fuck if I know, let them go, ain't no law'

Specifically, since Vigilance was every intelligence agency working together specifically to fuck Vision, they all have government approval and nothing they did is wrong. And/or have diplomatic immunity because they're from Canada or whatever.

Project head Cameron Brock smugs about how Hank figured out how untouchable they all are.

Wasp is like uh geez are you sure, Hank? They kidnapped Vision and reduced him to piles of bits. And Hank says they sure did but we can't do anything about it. We didn't know we were fighting the law but the law won. Can't fight city hall. Best they can do is call Agent Sikorsky, the Avengers' government liaison, and whine about it.

Hawkeye and Tigra rejoin the group, having missed the plot, and Hawkeye covers for Tigra by downplaying the incident as Tigra getting "a little carried away."

Since the West Coast Avengers can't do anything except take Vision's various components home and try to put him back together, Hank proposes they do just that. Just leave Vigilance and go home to pick up the pieces.

Scarlet Witch has one thing she wants to do first.

And she blows the Vigilance base the fuck up.

Good thing everyone was already outside.

I'm not through this arc yet. I'm not even through the issue yet. But I looked at marvel wiki and Vigilance only has two appearances. This issue and the previous issue.

So I'm going to maybe jump the gun a little and talk about why, however things play out from here on, this story is going to be unsatisfying.

I don't like that the Avengers just have to shrug and accept that the government(s) killed Vision and there's nothing they can do about it.

It's a lot like how many spider-fans are still pissed about One More Day. It's not just about the marriage. Spider-Man made a bum deal with the devil and he's never going to get to redeem himself as things stand.

Sometimes cruel things just happen and there's no recourse except to pick up the pieces and try to live your life. But the superhero genre tends to be more active than that. Situations can be punched. There's always someone that can be punched.

If the Implied President of the United States is behind an evil plot to use a mutant powered UFO to take over the country, you don't shrug and decide he's too big to fight. If you're Captain America, you chase him to the Oval Office and unmask him. For one, particularly bizarre, example.

I don't know that it would make a better story if the Avengers COULD fight Vigilance in some way but it would feel less empty.

This whole thing feels less like a story and more writer fiat. Just like starting the team with Tigra and Wasp and Dr Pym back so Byrne doesn't have to do the legwork to get the team where he wants it.

An evil governments conspiracy kidnaps Vision and takes him apart so he can be rebuilt in Byrne's preferred way, everyone stands around talk talk talking about how this change is totally irreversible and the Avengers also can't do anything to the people that did it. And then Vigilance fucks off to never be heard from again.

There's more legwork done but only enough to get the change on paper. Because having Vision change like he is going to (spoilers: Vision is not going to be a pile of parts forever) and have it happen between issues is too much for the audience to buy.

Also on topic, also spoilers: this is going to lead to one of the big OH NO WANDA HAS GONE CRAZY stories which was apparently the only research Brian Michael Bendis did before Disassembled. And it may not be a good story but it may have been a better story if Evil Crazy Wanda had gone after Vigilance. Instead of what she does do. Which is apparently try to have sex with Wonder Man.

Byrne is going to ragequit the book at some point so I'm not sure how much of that is his fault. But what a blatantly obvious plot point to leave on the table.

Anyway. That's my feelings about VisionQuest. Before we even see how it falls out. It's a drastic change jammed into the book without respecting the audience enough to make it a good story.

You know when a writer really wants to write to a certain conclusion and has to expend walls of text assuring the reader that this is clearly the only way this could possibly go down? That's what this all feels like.

So that rant having been ranted, let's move onto the beginning of another dumb plot point.

When the West Coast Avengers arrive back at the West Coast Avengers Compound, they discover a distress signal has been activated from the guest house - where Wanda and Vision have been living.

Understandably, Wanda assumes the worst. That Vigilance has come after her children too, she runs to the guest house.

The racist governess Miss Bach tries to tell Wanda that babies Tommy and Billy vanished into thin air after she put them into the bath. But when Wanda runs into the bathroom in a panic, she sees that her two babies are happily splashing around in the tub.

... Add John Byrne onto the list of artists that just can't draw a baby to save his life.

Miss Bach insists that she looked everywhere for the twins but Wanda assumes that the governess was playing a sick prank.

So she fires her ass, right on the spot.

Miss Bach appeals to Wasp that she was telling the truth. But Wasp can't tell Wanda not to fire her own personal staff. She at least promises Miss Bach that she'll get the proper severance pay.

Then we time skip two days later, where Wanda is sitting outside Hank Pym's lab while Hank tries to reassemble Vision.

It's apparently not as hard as Hank feared, just tedious. Each piece has only one place it can properly go so its just a matter of trying to find the proper place for hundreds of thousands of pieces.

Wanda wishes that they could contact the Real Professor Horton not that lying fake. Y'know, the real dead guy who died in Vision's backstory.

Scarlet Witch: "If that central fact was now to become untrue... everything we think we know about the Vision would become equally suspect."

Wonder Man says he wasn't around at the time but he loves poking holes in the Celestial Madonna Saga. That's his Thing now. So given what he's heard, he thinks Vision's backstory is sketchy if only because they heard it with the help of Immortus, who is a sketchy, manipulative man.

But then there's a loud WUMP as well as CRASH CLANG tinkle! THUD! from within the lab.

Hank sealed the lab behind a bunch of airlocked doors to prevent contamination to Vision's kibbles 'n bits and it'll take three minutes to open them all.

Or.

Wonder Man just forces them all open.

And then a robot hand shoots out of the lab and shoves Wonder Man to the floor.

Ohhhhhh! It's just Vision! He wandered off without putting on his pants or his skin!

Wanda caresses Vision's bare skull, begging him to say he recognizes her.

Terminator Vision backhands her.

Boo. Boo to you, skinless Vision.

Wonder Man grapples Vision, saying he's going to put him down for a nice nap until they can finish fixing him. But he's hesitant to use his FULL POWER on his brother so skinless Vision tosses him across the room.

Elsewhere in the building, Hawkeye is sitting around thinking about how weird Tigra has been.

What we missed off-panel is that he just used a gas arrow when she pounced at him, knocking her out until she calmed the fuck down.

That narrative caption promising horrible violence really lied.

After coming back from the Vigilance base, Tigra has been hiding away in her bungalow.

Hawkeye isn't sure why he promised to cover for her but WHOOPS INCOMING A-PLOT.

He hears the ruckus going on in the lab and hustles down to see skinless Vision hoisting Wonder Man around.

Hawkeye shoots a constrictor arrow at the rampaging synthezoid but Vision just flexes his way free.

Wonder Man tells Wanda she's got to use her bullshit win-button powers to win because brute force isn't working and that's all he knows.

Wanda refuses to use her powers against Vision because she's worried that she doesn't have precise enough control of her hexes and that she might make him blow up.

She DID blow up a building a couple days ago. But she was really mad at that building.

And while Wanda is paralyzed, refusing to help, Vision picks up Hawkeye and shakes him upside down.

Its pretty funny.

I will say that it does make sense that Wanda would be hesitant to use her powers on the robo-man she loves. Its similar to how Wonder Man is pulling his punches.

But I do note that Wanda has been pretty useless this entire story. She was hypnotized to be unable to fight Fake-Ultron. Not sure why that was actually necessary but it was the explanation. And now she's not able to participate in the fight against skinless Vision.

She did blow up a building though.

I also have to say that Skinless Vision is a pretty intimidating antagonist.

His arm shooting out of the smokey lab to grab Wonder Man. Striking Scarlet Witch with no trace of emotion. Staggering around in the shadows as he moves on the collapsed Wanda. The way he tosses around Wonder Man and Hawkeye using just his robot strength, not his density powers. His robot noises being more audible without his skin in the way. Just the way he looks like a flayed corpse.

I gotta give props where props is earned because otherwise this post is going to be just bitter. And props, skinless Vision is alarming.

Anyway. Back to the plot. Where Scarlet Witch refuses to help.

Wonder Man: "You've got to take that chance, Wanda! Trust that your power won't permanently harm someone you love! But do it now! Before he kills Hawkeye -- or me!" Scarlet Witch: "No! No! Forgive me! I can't! I just can't!!" Dr Pym: "That's all right, Wanda..."

Hey, thank goodness for Hank Pym.

And that answers how Vigilance kidnapped Vision.

The device Hank has is a neutralizer that Vigilance used to shut Vision off for kidnapping reasons.

All the ruckus Wanda and Wonder Man heard in the lab was Hank reactivating Vision and then Vision smashing stuff up because when he's activated without his brain functioning, he defaults to defensive actions.

Hank only just regained consciousness and shut Vision back down.

SO THATS ALL EXPLAINED.

Skinless Vision is more of Brainless Vision. Head empty, no thoughts, just lashing out.

Hawkeye decides that this is his cue to call Washington and yell at Avengers liaison Sikorski.

Hawkeye: "Look, Sikorski, I don't care if I woke you out of your death bed! I want to know what you paper-pushers are gonna do about the Vision!" Sikorski: "Do? You seem to be missing the point, archer. We've already done it. The Vision has been rendered harmless. He presents no further threat to the security of this nation... Or any other, for that matter. You Avengers are now at liberty to reprogram him to suit whatever function you wish."

Wow. What an asshole.

He's still better than Henry Peter Gyrich but only because Gyrich would have said the same things and been 1000% smug about it.

God I hate Gyrich.

I'm glad Abigail Brand shoved him out of an airlock.

Anyway. Implication seems to be that Sikorski was In On It or at least was told after the fact and agreed 'yeah, excellent decisions all around.'

Vision isn't a dude. He was a malfunctioning appliance that had to be reset to factory settings so he could get back to Fighting Crime Or Whatever.

Hank argues that a) the Avengers can't just reprogram Vision that easily, b) the Vision they knew has effectively been killed by death of personality, and c) even putting aside all that, this is going to fuck up Wanda.

Which Sikorski acknowledges and says he regrets. That specific point.

What an asshole.

Anyway, as long as the Avengers called him to yell at him, Sikorski has some information he should have told them earlier but I guess he forgot or he's just shit at his job.

On top of killing Vision, the government has also decided that the West Coast Avengers and Vision need direct government oversight and have sent someone to take over the team. And the West Coast Avengers either accept this or the government cracks down on their future activities.

OKAY HAVE FUN WITH THE NEW GUY BYYYYYYE

And judging by the silhouette, it seems like the new guy is an old guy. A guy they can all get along with.

But silhouettes often lie in comics and this is the opposite of all that. A new guy that none of them can get along with.

When the government issued an ultimatum our way or the highway to Captain America and he quit and became the Captain, the government gave the Captain America name, costume, and shield to John Walker.

But recently, you may have noticed that good ol' Steve Rogers is back in his old costume and name and shield. Well, the government gave Cap's the Captain outfit to John Walker and dubbed him U.S.Agent.

And by editorial mandate governmental order, he's joining the West Coast Avengers.

Yeah, actually, it was editorial mandate.

According to John Byrne, editor Gruenwald, who created John Walker, insisted that Byrne put him in the West Coast Avengers book.

A captain-esque guy on every team!

John Byrne, who rankles at any degree of editorial meddling, had him written in as being forced on the team by an uncaring asshole higher power so he can annoy everyone on the team and not fit in.

John Byrne is not subtle sometimes.

Buuuuut. Like I said with the Worst Roster. A team having friction is very often more interesting. And there's a kind of poetic irony to Hawkeye having been the asshole constantly butting heads with Captain America getting his own Brand X Captain America to be the asshole to butt heads with him.

It rhymes.

So VisionQuest continues for another issue but AS OF RIGHT NOW I have to say it takes a sharp dip in quality after the first issue.

The first issue really jumped into things with a newish team suddenly assaulted by a Fake Ultron and having Vision stolen right out from under them.

Issues 2 and 3 are in full justification and retcon mode so it all bogs down into walls of text and explaining how this sequence of events is the only sequence of events.

I'm actually excited to see U.S.Agent here to shake things up and be a pebble in the team's shoe right when they're already going through the identity death of a beloved teammate.

Just please. Fewer walls of text.

Follow @essential-avengers for all these posts but only all these posts. Like, reblog, and comment perhaps.

#avengers #essential avengers #west coast avengers #Vigilance #Hawkeye #Hank Pym #Dr Pym #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #Wonder Man #the Wasp #Tigra #Mockingbird #Phineas Horton #mysterious shadowy college project #the government is a dick but what else is new #last page new team member

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infamousbrad · 2 months

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"Tell me, who goes to Hell?" "Um, sinners, I believe."

Remember that episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye asks the chaplain "who goes to Hell?"

Hazbin Hotel is apparently going with the same interpretation that I was taught in my (mostly Independent Fundamentalist Baptist) theology classes: nearly everybody. Just like it says in Matthew 7:13-14. Let's say that only a generous 1 out of 30 dead people go to eternal Heaven, like it seems to show in Hazbin Hotel, and everybody else deserves eternal Hell.

You don't find this in pre-Macedonian-era religions, you know. For almost all of recorded human history, basically every religion taught that maybe 1 per 1,000 people are lucky enough to go to heaven, most of them nepo babies because they have at least one divine ancestor, yes.

But fewer than that, maybe 1 per 10,000, are bad enough to deserve a customized torture pit in Hell. Usually only the most popular, wealthy, or politically powerful sinners, the ones whose monstrous examples lead the most people into sin, are tortured eternally as an example to the next 100 generations.

Everybody else? Seems to spend some time as a time-looped ghost in a purgatory-like realm, getting over their life habits and their life trauma, before their soul gets a new life, another chance to be morally heroic.

But, man let me tell you: humanity in general started getting more spiteful about the dead, some time between around 300 BCE and 300 CE, because this idea came out of nowhere but then really took off like a rocket:

"Fuck people, they're all no good, except maybe me and a couple of people like me. Fuck purgatory, fuck reincarnation, everybody but us gets creatively and specifically tortured forever, 'cause that's what they all deserve. And if my tribe and me don't watch our asses, we'll deserve that too. Humans suck. To literal Hell with all of us."

And yeah, I've read enough history and theology to know the literary history of this idea, where and roughly when it originated and how, by sword and famine and gun, it was spread.

But I also have seen that nobody has the guts to say this to a grieving family at the funeral, no, everybody's loved ones are in heaven at the funeral service. Only a few of us are so devoid of empathy to say it to their faces; only the worst of the worst stick by their guns on that, people addicted to hate. Only the actual worst of the worst of us, yes again, maybe 1 per 10,000, are so psychopathic as to tell the grieving that their loved one is in Hell.

When we're facing the grieving, everything we've learned and everything we've said and everything we think we believe collapses ever so briefly in the face of naked human sorrow and we all of a sudden know, again, that there cannot be a molecule of justice in the universe, let alone the heavens, if 29 out of 30 people go to Hell. Can't be. But then we leave the funeral and that 2,000 year old moral illness creeps back in.

So here's my question. I mean, I've read a fair amount of history but I genuinely don't even know where to look for this answer, do any of you know?

What the actual fuck happened to us around that time?

What was going on back then that this obviously wrong sick and twisted meme got so dominant? What changed? Whatever it was, is it why so many of us are still trying to convince ourselves and each other that it's true? Why do we want it to be true, why do we hate ourselves and each other this much?

#theology #history #heaven and hell #hazbin hotel #discourse

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marley-manson · 1 year

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Im realizing i didnt do this ask game properly at all???? I barely mentioned if i agree or disagree you just have to glean it from my answers... ANYWAY

☕️ potter is the fucking worst

☕️ hawkeye is pretty well-adjusted and doesn't lack confidence

☕️ GFA highlights the negatives of the Hawkeye-BJ relationship rather than the positives

lol fwiw I feel like it was mostly pretty clear whether you agreed or disagreed. Ty! lmao I'm sure you know my answer for all of these, but it's always fun to get an excuse to go on about them!

☕️ potter is the fucking worst

Agree, of course. He's the worst in that his addition to the show killed one of the things I enjoyed most about it, he's the worst in that his character is often extremely obnoxious, and he's the worst in that the show could've gone in such an interesting direction with him and it just decided to make him a nice grandpa army man instead 😔 The way the show ignores his flaws or treats them as cute quirks (army man mainly but also throwing around his authority in petty ways, lashing out when he's in a bad mood, etc) rather than interrogating them is such a tragic missed opportunity and really makes me hate him when otherwise I might be indifferent. It always annoys me so much more when the narrative is presenting a character in a way I don't agree with.

☕️ hawkeye is pretty well-adjusted and doesn't lack confidence

Absofuckinglutely. A major point of the show as far as I'm concerned, at least through the thematically on point first half, is that the war hits the most emotionally healthy people hardest. The reason Hawkeye is the most affected is because he's the most "sane," a la Hawk's Nightmare. It's one of the fundamental basics of the satire. The only sane reaction to being thrown into a warzone is to go insane. If you want to be there, that's what makes you crazy. Klinger's section 8 attempts only prove he's sane. etc etc. that catch 22 shit.

And of course from a strict character perspective rather than thematically, he's just... a fun, confident guy who has his shit together. It's hard to argue this case because it seems self-evident to me lol. He achieved his difficult life goal of becoming a surgeon, he's flirty and sexually experienced and despite some negative relationship experience isn't jaded and is still looking for love (though not so much in a warzone), he's optimistic, he acts on his principles heedless of corrupt authority and regardless of whether the odds are in his favour, he goes through life with a sense of humour but doesn't use it as a shield, he's very emotionally open and encourages everyone around him to be - and he listens and supports them when they are, he knows who he is and won't change to please anyone, but he will change his mind and work to do better if someone makes a good point about how he's wrong, he assumes a leadership role whenever he knows what to do and someone needs to do it but he's also happy to defer leadership to others more qualified, he's politically aware, he actively seeks out banned media, and just generally thinks for himself, he's willing to learn from people with more experience than him, he's happy to pass credit along to others, he's empathetic, he's willing to cry and admit to being afraid and talk publically about his mental health and discuss his nightmares with people and just generally doesn't bottle anything up... yk etc etc etc lol.

He has plenty of flaws, but they're not insecurity or reticence or feeling like he isn't good enough.

☕️ GFA highlights the negatives of the Hawkeye-BJ relationship rather than the positives

GFA is like the Hawk/BJ issues highlight reel and I love that lol. From BJ being the first one to toss the phone away to triggering Hawkeye when he should know better to not only not saying goodbye or having any alternative prepared but wanting Hawkeye to do the heartfelt goodbye for him despite Hawkeye not knowing he's leaving, to Hawkeye begging him for a goodbye when they get a redo and BJ refusing, to Hawkeye doing the heartfelt goodbye for him himself finally and extremely graciously considering how much BJ has jerked him around... I don't think the grand gesture "note" was a negative but I do personally see that as another incompatibility between them to add to the list lol.

send me controversial or unpopular opinions and I’ll tell you if I agree or disagree 🐸 ☕️

#ask meme #mash #marley on mash #hawkeye mash #mash s11 #potter mash #thanks this was fun!

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thebreakfastgenie · 1 year

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Directors commentary on the play's the thing 👀? (which I meant to ask this morning and then didn't, please forgive me)

I did this one before and got carried away so I had to think of something I didn't talk about there.

I mentioned the line about sleeping perchance to dream before, but that was the payoff for this line, which I didn't talk about:

How the hours between studying and sleep keep growing longer, and it’s not because he’s studying less. How even with the extra lab, he’s finding himself with too much time on his hands.

He's not sleeping, or he's not sleeping well, or enough. We see Hawkeye have issues with sleep in the show, and while that could easily be just a product of the war, I like the idea that he had problems with sleep on and off before, too. A lot of that is, admittedly, projection, but it also goes with the idea of Hawkeye as someone who's a little off because people who want to be surgeons tend to be a little off. And here, he's not being destructive, at least in the short term. He's doing extra work and studying and leading the class and taking on an extra hobby. Eventually, he'll probably collapse. Or he'll start sleeping better again.

Brian Thompson (Polonius)’s apartment. He closes his eyes and imagines it. Polonius has a phonograph, a good one. Claudius—what was his name? Greg something

“Hey,” a voice calls out. “There’s Hamlet!”

He gazes up at Ophelia looming over him, her breasts exposed, her hair loose around her shoulders.

She pulls back again, this time to tug at his shirt. It’s a doublet, really, he hasn’t changed—he’s still dressed as Hamlet.

These lines all go together, the recurring theme of the boundary between play and reality getting a little fuzzy. I had a lot of fun with that, especially using it intermittently.

The scene between Hawkeye and Gloria includes Hawkeye quoting some lines from Hamlet and when I first wrote this I just searched for some Hamlet-to-Ophelia lines to use as placeholders. When I looked more closely, I ended up keeping almost all of them! I think I just tweaked the order a bit so it would make more sense.

The interjections, beginning with "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance–," were @hamiltonsteele's suggestion, especially because I already had the "Her perfume smells like wildflowers," line, and I was so skeptical. But I tried it and it ended up being great. I'm glad I did it.

Speaking of interjections, the limited parts that are from other POVs being parenthetical is something I've never done before (or since, but I would do it again if the fic called for it) and I really love how it turned out. It started as a practical thing, because I wanted to stick with Hawkeye's POV, and I didn't have any full scenes from other POVs, but there were a couple of things I simply could not leave out. The original one was John Grable seeing the play:

He recognizes the skull, but not the student--

I think I decided that scene would flow better with more than just his reaction, if I was doing the parenthetical scene. And I think I came up with a second one fairly early on and wanted to fill it out. It was also important, I think, to show how people reacted to Hawkeye as Hamlet. So I wrote all those little OCs and the hardest part by far was coming up with names. I always use my relatives for Maine people and I'm running out so I had to supplement. I had fun with the rest of it.

She reaches for one, covertly, but the movement draws the man on the stage right to her.

I always felt like I could have written this a little more naturally, but this was the best I could get it. That moment of eye contact is really striking in my mind.

Doing the parentheticals also allowed me to give that little moment to Gloria. I really wanted that, Gloria telling the host "there’s a freshman in the bedroom who’s had too much to drink" because we know and in my opinion, though this is up to interpretation, she knows there's something else going on, but she doesn't know how to explain that. She's also trying to be tactful, because everyone understands a young guy drinking too much at a party, and she doesn't use his name.

I had at least one commenter remark that it was sad that Gloria didn't know who his friends were, but I never thought of it that way. I honestly just saw it as Gloria going to a different school and not really knowing these guys outside of the play (she meets Hawkeye to go over lines, but she wouldn't do that with most of the others). So that comment was really fun because it was a different perspective I hadn't anticipated!

He hears whispers, people asking if that striking young fellow is playing the lead again, and it doesn’t occur to him until later that they were talking about him.

I really liked the idea that Hawkeye doesn't really know what that was all about with the play, so of course he doesn't realize they're talking about him, but I also wanted to hint at the way other people might feel. What was the impact of this kid doing this incredible performance as Hamlet and then just disappearing?

“No kidding.” Sidney stares at him, and he has a funny feeling he can see all of it.

Sidney sees right through him, of course. That's what causes the "sudden attack of stage fright." This fic was finished and maybe even posted before I realized the parallel between Gloria thinking he has stage fright at the beginning and the sudden attack of stage fright here.

“You’re a great actor, Hawk, but you’re a terrible liar,” he said, but he laughed, and they got on with rehearsal.

I wanted to pull in "I lied to you about Hamlet,” because I fully believe (obviously, given the fic) that he was lying then. And it clearly doesn't work, because Sidney still wants him to participate in the reenactment. So, you know, he's a bad liar. We don't see Hawkeye lie often, so I found that believable. The exact meaning of the last line, and of it ending there, is unclear to me. It feels like it means something. So if you have an idea, I'd love to hear it.

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daydreamerdrew · 2 years

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I think out of all the Avengers, I would have liked to have seen more of Hank’s dynamic with the Hulk during season one of A:EMH. Similarly, the only Avenger in the show that Bruce ever talks to is Hawkeye, and if I could pick one more for Bruce to have interacted with then I would want to have seen him talk to Hank.

I think that the Hulk and Hank have a couple of different interesting points that we could have seen elaborated on more between them:

prior to the start of the show, Hank had created the Big House prison for SHIELD with the intention to help people whose genetics had been altered, believing that they need cures and rehabilitation, rather than punishment, and in his introduction episode was frustrated with Nick Fury over no one having yet been discharged from the Big House.

the Hulk was once imprisoned in one of the supervillain prisons and could be seen as an example of a “rehabilitated villain” but he does not want to be cured and does not want to stop fighting. the Hulk finding his place in the world doesn’t include his renouncing violence, instead the Hulk finds a way to use his skill in violence to help people.

prior to the main show, while Hank was working with SHIELD, he was not and refused to become an agent, as he did not fully trust Fury and recognized his ulterior motive of an interest in super soldiers (that also relates to his concern for the treatment of imprisoned supervillains).

prior to the main show, Bruce Banner (while himself on the run) was actively searching for gamma supervillains who had been to the Cube prison to ask them about their experiences there because he was concerned that the prisoners were being experimented on in order to create gamma super soldiers for SHIELD. he was motivated not just out of concern for what the consequences of those experiments succeeding but also by genuine concern for the well-being of the supervillains. he risked going entering a populated area, something he had avoided for years, for the opportunity to talk the Absorbing Man.

Hank is a pacifist whose uncomfortable with his role on the Avengers and sees it as participating in a system of violence rather than a legitimate way of helping people. he has consistently tried to talk down supervillains and resolve conflicts peacefully and is frustrated with his teammates’ belief that there is no value in this approach and that there is no reasoning with supervillains.

whereas the Hulk both enjoys fighting and benefits from being a part of the Avengers as it is what has allowed him to be a public hero rather than a monster that is actively hunted by the authorities. he is also always the one to rush ahead and attack villains first. but at the same time, he himself was once considered a supervillain that no one would give a chance to.

when Ultron turns evil and attacks the Avengers, he is shockingly able to force the Hulk to turn into Bruce, which suggests that either Hank or Tony had been working on the technology to do that. it would have been nice to have seen that brought up later and see Bruce or the Hulk react in some way to that.

Hank and Bruce both have experience with their scientific work being used in ways that they did not intend. about 5 years prior to the events of the show, Tony and Hank worked together on Ultron, a partnership that fell apart when Hank learned that Tony had modified Ultron with weapons and had been shopping him around to the military behind his back (this is before Tony’s change of heart). and Bruce alludes to Samson that he has personal experience with his work being twisted (it’s suggested that they’re using the 2008 movie backstory for him).

there’s also the obvious mental health connection. while Hank doesn’t have his big Yellowjacket breakdown until season 2, throughout season 1 he’s both a staunch pacifist and has multiple (increasing as the season goes on) moments in fights where he seems to lose control on a villain prompted by seeing Janet get hurt. he’s clearly negatively affected by the fights he participates in as a part of the Avengers. there’s one scene where he just stares in horror at all of the fighting, even when others need help, and doesn’t move at all until Janet needs help.

it’s very much not the same situation, but Bruce has had his own issues with violence. while by the beginning of the show he’s made peace with the Hulk and believes that there’s a place in the world for him, he was of course once horrified by the Hulk and the destruction that he could cause. and even though that’s no longer the case, it’s not as though letting the Hulk stay in control all the time is always easy for him. the Hulk is a very extreme person. in season 2 he talks about that and wants to spend his day in control fishing, wanting peace and quiet for once. I think that this is something that could have sparked real interesting conversations between Hank and Bruce.

#marvel #a:emh #bruce banner #hank pym #my posts

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moontheoretist · 3 years

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MCU timeline, if they actually cared about the characters as much as we do:

Phase 1 (setting up the universe)

- Iron Man - Incredible Hulk (+ Bruce’s DID is included and well represented, Hulk is not shown as a monster which cannot control himself so much he hurts everybody around including Betty, in fact he is shown to avoid hurting anybody who isn’t actively shooting at him, Dr Samson and Rick Jones are a must for this origin story, post credit can stay the same) - Hawkeye (includes: his childhood with an abusive father, his brother Bradley, his past in the circus so basically his origin story, his deafness, him being conscripted by SHIELD, and post credit scene with him choosing not to kill Natasha) - Black Widow (includes: her childhood in the Red Room, the fall of USSR and change in Russian politics, KGB being dissolved, Natasha’s breaking of her programming, her leaving the Red Room thanks to meeting Hawkeye, the assassination of Dreykov’s daughter, What Happened in Bucharest, Natasha joining SHIELD, and post credit scene with her taking place of the PA which was supposed to apply to Stark Industries) - Iron Man 2 (+ more info about Howard’s abuse of Tony, Natasha is there, but it’s not her first appearance, and also she isn’t shown as if she knew she was in a movie) - Thor - Captain America: The First Avenger (I think that his stupid behavior in CW is completely set up by his origin story, so I wouldn’t change anything if we wanna have that conflict with him being more concerned about Bucky than literally anything else going on) - Captain Marvel (because her existence makes Fury think about Avengers and explains why Fury wanted to create them in the first place, also action happens mostly on Earth) - Avengers (+ Jane Foster and Darcy are part of the science team and greatly contribute to the plot as scientists, because I am fed up with women being sidelined)

And because Avengers has a post credit with Thanos we should get some movies in space now related to Thanos first, before Iron Man 3.

Phase 2 (we learn about the ultimate badguy)

- Guardians of the Galaxy - Thor: The Dark World (but hopefully better written, + no damselling of Jane) - War Machine (Rhodey’s only movie, Tony is busy doing whatever) - Hawkeye 2 (how Clint dealt with everything which happened during Avengers, how SHIELD agents treated him, introducing his family?, maybe bringing back Barney and showing his relationship with Mockingbird and stuff like those) - Iron Man 3 (without the ableist meta message that all disabled people just wait to become murder machines, but still introducing Extremis) - Black Widow 2 (could be the same story as we got in 2021, introducing Yelena Belova) - Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (includes: their childhood, how their parents died (Yugoslavia being bombed by NATO, but I doubt Hollywood would ever wanna say it out loud), them growing in orphanage, possibly attending university (universities for citizens in Serbia are free and because Sokovia is based on Serbia, and it is a slavic country we can assume they have that system as well, and there are also social support programs available from both the government and possibly the university as well), the difficulties of a life in which they have to cover their costs of living themselves, because they have no parents, American army stationing in Sokovia, twins getting radicalized, protesting against foreign influences in their country and joining Hydra, experimentation, if they were trained by Hydra to use their powers or not and how were they trained, Sokovia being shown to be normal country instead of breaking apart state which Americans see each time they think about it) - Falcon (Sam’s origin story, his mission in Afghanistan and stuff - I don’t know his origin story, so I dunno what to say here) - Captain America: The Winter Soldier - TV show about the consequences of the movie above. Possibly something akin to Agents of Shield. What happened to the agents, how world reacted to Natasha’s “fuck you”. - Ant-Man (introducing Hank Pym) - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Ultron is Hank Pym’s like in the comics, but in some versions of this Tony helped or provided tech so he still wpuld feel quilty afterwards, + no dying Pietro)

Phase 3 (everything gets complicated, but they prevail)

- Incredible Hulk 2 (what happened to Bruce and Hulk and how they dealt with the idea that Steve literally had his well-being in his ass by inviting Wanda and Pietro to the team, what is going on with Thaddeus Ross and Betty Ross, we meet Jennifer Walters) - Black Panther (different one than the one we got, introduces T'Challa and his family) - Spider-Man: Homecoming (could be earlier, just after Avengers, but *shrugs* this story is written in such a way it is better after Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron) - Captain Marvel 2 (basically setting up why she didn’t participate in Civil War, my idea was to depower her, but not take her powers away, so she could have some more down to earth stories instead of stories set in space, maybe even explore her alcoholism that way) - Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch 2 (deradicalisation, becoming heroes) - Captain America: Civil War (Accords are better explained, Matt Murdock or Jennifer Walters show up to do exactly that, RAFT is explained as American prison not related to the UN, Steve this time has valid concerns about the Accords, but he still goes ape shit over Bucky, still lies to Tony about his family, because those traits were all set in his origin movie) - The Wasp (Hope’s origin story) - Hawkeye 3 or Hawkeye TV series - Black Widow 3 (something something about Ross hunting her, but Red Room was already taken down, so different story is here instead) - Ant-Man 2 (Wasp is here too, but this is Scott’s movie, previous Ant-Man and The Wasp) - Black Panther 2 (about Kilmonger and T'Challa’s scuffle for the throne) - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (didn’t know where to put it, because it is mostly unrelated to any other movies with this story about Ego, but it develops Nebula more, so let’s be here) - Doctor Strange - Thor: Ragnarok (I am not opposed to Planet Hulk, but I am more inclined to not put Bruce into a movie which is supposed to be about Thor and Loki so… more time for Brunhilde) - The Winter Soldier (solo Winter Soldier movie) - Avengers Infinity War/Endgame (it makes no sense to make two movies if we can have one, the snap was used as a plot device more than actual defeat of the Avengers, so it can last less than 5 years and also no time travel which then you have to explain why TVA didn’t put everybody in jail for that, Tony doesn’t die and Carol and some other powerful people (LIKE HULK, Hulk is NOT less powerful than Thanos or fearful or something) take down Thanos instead and Tony finally retires and is left alone by everybody goddammit)

Phase 4 (new era, some heroes retire, others take their place, while different ones just get the grip of whom they truly were all along, and also we get a new ultimate bad guy and possibly set a stage for his defeat) <- this one not really well set up, because we don’t know most of the movies and TV shows which appear in this phase so dunno how to set them.

- Spider-Man: Far From Home - Photon (origin story of Monica Rambeau) - War Machine 2 - WandaVision (or Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch 3, adjusted, so it would not repeat some facts and would only remind about the most important stuff. Also, Pietro lives in this timeline so no Bohner guy lol, he is just insufferable brother-in-law to Vision, and weird uncle to kids) - The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (but with Steve who didn’t go back in time, because there was no going back in time in this timeline, he just finally is learning what accountability is and has to forfeit his shield, because it’s time to retire) - Falcon 2 - Winter Soldier 2 - The Wasp 2 - Loki TV series (Loki survives Thanos and is taken by the TVA, it basically doesn’t force the story to make him quickly develop feelings in the first episode and bypasses that issue, + more Loki Variants, all genderluid and presenting in various ways in the show) - Incredible Hulk 3 (Bruce and Hulk finally start communicating and Hulk becomes gradually smarter, and we meet Bruce’s another alter Grey Hulk and the circus with getting along starts all over again, because Grey Hulk hates Green Hulk xD, is setting up She-Hulk) - Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings - What If…? TV show - Ms Marvel TV show - Eternals (feels like should be in different phase) - Spider-Man: No Way Home - Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness - Thor: Love and Thunder (about Mighty Thor - Jane) - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (about Shuri?) - The Marvels (Captain Marvel 3 basically) - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quntamania (setting mutiple Kaangs I suppose) - Moonknight TV show - She-Hulk TV show - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Blade (feels like should be in different phase) - Fantastic Four - Avengers (in which they fight Kaang?)

I was going with the idea that every superhero should get at least 3 movies ONLY about them. As of now, I managed to put 3 only for a few, and some were swapped for TV shows instead to fill the place and better show the character and what they’re up to, because TV shows have more hours than movies.

I know there are supposed to be TV shows for Armor Wars, Iron Heart and Secret Wars, but I dunno when, so no idea where to put them.

#mcu critical #mcu #mcu au #marvel cinematic universe

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guacam011y · 3 years

Text

***SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION EPISODE 6***

So I’m still processing everything but holy shite that ep was wild...

FIRST THINGS FIRST - WANDA, VISION, BILLY AND PIETRO ALL IN COMIC ACCURATE-ISH COSTUMES AND TOMMY IN A MINI QUICKSILVER COSTUME

PIETRO CALLING BILLY AND TOMMY DEMON SPAWN - GOD DAMMIT, IT’S MEPHISTO ISN’T IT? HOUSE OF M HERE WE COME

HERB ASKING WANDA IF SHE WANTED SOMETHING CHANGED

AGNES ASKING VISION ABOUT THE AVENGERS AND STUFF AND AT FIRST SHE SEEMED GENUINELY FREAKED OUT BUT THEN STARTED LAUGHING MANIACALLY AND I STILL DON’T TRUST HER AND AGNES BEING DRESSED AS A WITCH? AGATHA HARKNESS WAS A WITCH - COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

DARCY LOOKING OVER MONICA’S MED SCANS AND TELLING HER HOW THE HEX AFFECTS HER EACH TIME SHE GOES IN - IS SHE DEVELOPING HER POWERS?

PIETRO’S CORPSE - SCARED ME JUST AS MUCH AS VISION’S

MOVIES SHOWING IN THE THEATRE IN THE BACKGROUND - THE INCREDIBLES: A MOVIE BASED AROUND A SUPERHERO FAMILY AND THE PARENT TRAP: A MOVIE ABOUT TWINS WHO MEET AT CAMP AND TRY AND SET THEIR PARENTS UP

DON’T GO PAST ELLIS AVENUE - NOW I DON’T KNOW IF THIS IS A CONNECTION OR JUST A COINCIDENCE BUT ELLIS IS THE LAST NAME OF THE PRESIDENT DURING IRON MAN 3

TOMMY HAVING HIS SPEED POWERS AND BILLY HAVING HIS REALITY WARPING/TELEKINETIC POWERS - WELCOME SPEED AND WICCAN

A CALL BACK TO INFINITY WAR WHEN VISION EXITED THE HEX? SLIGHTLY DUSTING AND HE PROBABLY WON’T SURVIVE BEING OUTSIDE OF THE HEX - HE’LL JUST DIE AGAIN 🥲

I STILL DON’T TRUST HAYWARD - HE’S VERY SUS

DARCY BEING TAKEN INTO THE HEX WITH THE OTHER S.W.O.R.D AGENTS - HOPEFULLY WE CAN SEE THE OUTFITS THAT KAT DENNING’S WAS EXCITED ABOUT

I SWEAR THEY BETTER NOT STRAIGHTWASH BILLY AND TOMMY OR I WILL RIOT 😤

***FURTHER UPDATES***

So sit-com wise, it seems they were referencing Malcolm in the Middle as the twins broke the fourth wall and talked to the audience, like Malcolm did

However, the theme song has told the viewer to stop questioning the reality of Westview - which could be a little reference to Mystery Science Theatre 3000? - When Pietro first shows up in the title sequence, along with his name title card, the lyrics say “Though there may be no way of knowing who’s come to play” - Istg, I do not trust Pietro

Vision says to Wanda that he had to wear his Halloween costume because there were no other clothes in his closet, Wanda is trying to move the plot along and forcing Vision to play along

Evan Peters’ ‘Mom’ tattoo is shown, which is a tattoo he actually has in real life ! But could this stand for ‘Multiverse of Madness’ or some other red herring?

Pietro mentions to Wanda that if he had found ‘Shangri-La’ he wouldn’t want to leave either - Shangri-La is a real place on Earth-616 that was founded by a version of Vision

Tommy refers to Pietro’s speed as ‘kickass’ and then Wanda repeats that, saying ‘kickass’ again - Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Evan Peters (both versions of QuickSilver) were in Kick-Ass together

The ad for this episode was freaky af - the character on the beach who starved and decomposed could be a little nod to Indiana Jones, where a Nazi’s face melts in - and it could also be reference to Wanda being all alone and struggling to process her grief. The shark in the ad could also be Nightmare or Mephisto or just someone more powerful than Wanda offering her a new beginning with Vision or trapped her in some way - and is feeding off her magic? The flavour of the yoghurt is strawberry flavoured and strawberry’s are red on the outside and pink-ish on the inside - much like Wanda’s og costume and her magic being red 👀

Pietro and Wanda talk about their Sokovian accents at a point in the episode and how neither have them anymore. Wanda’s, as we know, has disappeared over the course of the MCU movies and Pietro’s just doesn’t exist - another nice little nod to Peter Maximoff from the fox X-Men films? Also, Pietro states that “I’m just trying to do my part, okay? Come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother-in-law, stir up trouble with the Rugrats (a 90’s cartoon 👀) and ultimately give you grief.” - in reference to the grief part, could Pietro be killed off again? Stir up trouble with the rugrats, being possible shards of the demon Mephisto’s soul, could this be Mephisto trying to influence them on a deeper level? It’s also many many common sitcom clichès

Pietro talks about how “I got shot like a chump on the street for no reason at all” - nice little nod to how Pietro was killed off unnecessarily and how we as a fandom still talk about how regular bullets shouldn’t have killed him

Herb is dressed as Frankenstein’s monster - Dr. Frankenstein created his monster and soon lost control over him, and he was created using electricity or lightning - much like Vision was created and brought to life by Thor using Mjolnïr to bring lightning down to his incubator thingy majig. Could this also be a reference to either Wanda slowly losing control over Westview or someone else controlling Wanda/controlling the citizens of Westview - we saw in episode 3 that Agnes told Herb to be quiet as it seemed he was about to spill the beans 👀

Vision goes towards Ellis avenue and is at a ‘crossroads’ of sorts - in folklore, crossroads are often used to speak to or summon the devil and are also used when an important character is making a decision that could change everything. He spots some citizens repeating certain actions and/or just standing completely still, could these be npc’s (non playable characters)? And now that the barrier of the Hex has spread, will those citizens now start to move? 👀 Also I know that all stop signs look like it, but the stop sign is also a red hexagon 🛑

Darcy scrolls through Hayward’s computer files and goes past a file called “Project C4-113” - it could reference Avengers Issue #113 in which Wanda and Vision both appear on the cover and she says she’s going to make the world pay for Vision’s death. There’s also another file called “Project M5-247” which could be a nod to Avengers Issue #247, which shows the origin of the Eternals and in the same vein, Scarlet Witch and Vision trying to help Captain Marvel. And when Darcy emails Hayward’s cataract plans, you can see the names of “James Alexander and James Gadd” - James Alexander is a visual effects producer on Wandavision and James Gadd works on post production at Marvel

Also: Agnes pulls as Mrs Hart and repeats the same phrase over and over again

After Wanda blasts Pietro, you can see on a fake grave stone the name of “Janell Sammelman”, Janell is a first assistant director on Wandavision

When Wanda moves Westview to save Vision, she turns S.W.O.R.D and it’s agents into clowns + a circus - I just love that the agents turned into clowns 😂 but there is a nice little plot line in the comics where Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Hawkeye join the circus - and this COULD be stretch, but earlier in the episode there is the number #22 which could be Avengers Issue #22, which is the Issue that they join the circus

As soon as Vision was brought back into Westview, he was healed - which means if he was to exit again, he probably wouldn’t survive 😭

The episode title is ‘All-New Halloween Spooktackular!” - which “All-New” is a designation that is often used on covers for comic books. And the first issue of the second The Vision and the Scarlet Witch series takes place on Halloween night - but the events in this comics didn’t influence this episode’s plot

Pietro points out that he has the “XY chromosome” - X for X-Men? Plus there’s the X gene 😂

He mentions “Uncle Peter to the rescue” - Peter is the name of Quicksilver from the Fox X-Men Franchise

Pietro and Tommy quote the movie Top Gun (1986) by saying “I fell the need, the need for speed”

Wanda almost seems hesitant to trust this version of Pietro (rightfully so, in my opinion) and is wary of him being around Tommy and Billy

Pietro says some very Mephisto/Nightmare-like things this episode - “Unleash hell, demon spawn!”, “The kids need a father figure”, “Damnit, if Westview isn’t charming as Hell...” - And if Pietro isn’t Mephisto/Nightmare, it HAS to be Agnes or her other half Ralph and Pietro is probably Ralph tbh...or could Pietro just be a scapegoat and Hayward is Ralph? 👀

The theatre in town, which is playing the Incredibles and The Parent Trap, is called the Coronet. There’s a classic poem called “The Coronet” written by Andrew MARVELL (Marvell, is also the true name of the first incarnation of Captain Marvel in the comics) and is about a guy who knows that the sins of mankind led to the death of Christ. He attempts to create a new crown for Christ’s head in an attempt to atone, but finds that there is sin in the crown as well, as the devil is within the crown and therefore he may achieve glory and success with his new creation 👀

Hayward’s confidential project “Cataract” included experimenting on Vision’s body, as was revealed by Darcy (my wife 💙 and Monica is also my wife 💚 and so is Wanda 💛, I just love women, you know? 😂). A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision - is Hayward trying to weaponise Vision? Or maybe even trying to bring Ultron back? Or do what Tony wanted to do in the first place, and make a suit of armour that’s around the world? Either way, it’s for nefarious purposes

Who is Monica’s guy? Jimmy and Monica are off to meet him - could it be Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic)? Or could it be Victor Von Doom (Dr Doom)? Could it be Hank McCoy (Beast)? Or even Adam Brashear (Blue Marvel)? Or if it is a woman, could it be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? Could it be Abigail Brand (A major character in recent S.W.O.R.D comics and an Alpha Flight Member)? Or even Toni Ho (Iron Patriot, and could she be introduced to help lay the ground work for my other queen, Riri Williams/Iron Heart?)? Or could it even be Sue Storm (Invisible Woman)?

In the background of the episode we see a number of children and adults dressed up as many different characters, which includes: Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat, Jason Voorhees, with a sweater striped like Freddy Krueger’s and even a kid that looks dressed in an off-brand Charizard costume 😂 Pokèmon has always been popular, but saw an increase during the 90’s

Pietro and the kids are drinking “Kane Cola” which could be a reference to the 90’s drinks “Jolt Cola” or even “Surge” - it could also, with all the X-Men Easter eggs, be a reference to Garrison Kane, who was a member of Cable’s mercenary team “Six Pack” and is sometimes also known as ‘Weapon X’

The kid that Wanda mentions having a “skin thing” in the orphanage - could that be a reference to her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants co-worker Toad? Or maybe even Mystique? Maybe Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler)?

One of the houses has a sign up that says ‘Macabre Mansion’ - another possible reference to House of M?

During a flashback, it’s shown that the twins are playing Dance Dance Revolution, which came out in 1999. Also this might be a stretch, but the boys have a dog plushie in their room the right - which is coloured red and black - could this be a reference to Dogpool? 😂

I love this show 🤣💙

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moonlayl · 3 years

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Thoughts on ScarletVision?

You mean WendySiri? Just kidding, just kidding. (sorry for the late reply). I assume you’re talking about the show ‘WandaVision’ but since I’m not sure I’ll also share my thoughts on the actual ship.

(long and negative rant)

Okay so throughout the entire show, I was kind of conflicted. Marvel did a really good job with all the clues and the suspense, and also the whole sitcom-through -the-decades kind of thing, and I applaud them for that. it honestly was really good and interesting and I really loved it. The show had so much potential, but that’s where things went wrong.

A part of it is on me for assuming, or more accurately, wanting, but I was waiting for the reveal that Wanda was being controlled or manipulated. Obviously that didn’t happen, and it just ruined the character for me. This show literally took everything that I liked about Wanda, and everything that made me sympathize with her or even defend her, and then changed it for the worst. I was a fan but not anymore. Wanda’s character through the other movies was someone who tried to do better. Like she joined the avengers to fix her mistakes and to help people. She hurt people in civil war and was guilty over it. She killed Vision to try and save the world and stop Thanos. WandaVision took a big dump on all of that.

I know many will use the “she’s grieving” card, and while it’s important to note, does it really excuse torturing and mindcontrolling a whole town? “But it was an accident. She didn’t mean to.” Yeah, at first. She discovered what she’d done way back in episodes 2/3 and decided to keep it. “She didn’t know she was hurting them.” But she knew she was violating them and keeping them captive. She knew they were actual people. And she still went with it. She didn’t care.

Fake Pietro says he admires what she’s done and she goes “you don’t think it’s wrong” Like she is literally self-aware. Vision, the man she loves is literally scared and confused and she goes “can’t I?” when he says she can’t control him. Broooooo. Wtf was that? Like she literally admitted to wanting to control him, or at least doing it, and wasn’t even ashamed? And in one of the episodes, despite literally dying and being in pain, he still tries to escape Westview so that he could fix her problems. So that he cold get away from her. So she brought him back, and had children, and just decided that she gets to control them along with the whole town??? I’m sorry but the show literally made her a terrible partner, mom, and avenger. And here’s the thing. I don’t think she’s evil, and I sympathized a lot with her. But she just got worse.

So not only did she willingly keep a whole town hostage (where everyone was suffering and separated from their families and children literally stayed asleep which means they were in a constant state of seeing her nightmares) but this woman got scared and angry when Agatha freed them. She’s like “I kept you safe.” Wanda literally would’ve kept them in that prison if Aatha had never arrived. She wouldn’t have cared about them. Like Agnes said, heroes don’t do that.

And then there’s her treatment of Monica. Wanda literally tried to kill her multiple times, and Monica only tried to help. Then she doesn’t even apologize in the end. I hated how this show wrote Monica or how they included her. From the Wanda only starts to use her powers when she sees Monica (when literally everyone else is pointing a gun) to how she automatically grabs her and tries to kill her, and then later has the audacity to say “don’t make me hurt you.” And Monica basically being ignored and used just to defend Wanda and prop her up. Like it was just bullshit. The way they treated their only black character. They even had her say she’d do the same. wtf? Even Jimmy Woo, their asian character, was more of a sidekick to Darcy in those episodes and ended up not contributing much. It sucks.

And as a person who criticizes Tony Stark, it’s really weird how a lot of his haters use the same arguments as his stans when they try to defend Wanda. ‘She has mental illness” “she paid for her mistakes.” No, giving up her family that only existed because of the torture of innocent people doesn’t win you any points. It’s the least she SHOULD’VE done.

And the thing that bothered me the most is that she never even learned her lesson? Like she took the darkhold and is trying to find a way to bring her kids back. mf, didn’t the entire show and mess start because she accidentally brought back vision? She literally didn’t learn a thing. What grief did she process if she’s just going to go and try to use dark magic to bring them again?

And then there’s all of Sword. First Maria was killed off, and then Sword was introduced as this thing that’s always existed, yet we’ve never heard of it??

And there’s also Agatha. “Agatha All Along” umm. What exactly did Agatha do all along? The show set her up to be this big bad and then Wanda took her down it was not satisfying at all. Wanda, who doesn’t know how to cast spells, managed to learn a spell and use it without Agatha knowing in 5 seconds? As Agatha was taking her powers? BS. And then I hated Wanda’s plan. She decided to take her back to the past for what? Agatha’s own family to kill her? And then later she traps Agatha into her nosy neighbor counterpart? And I’m supposed to go, “what a hero’?

Obviously Agatha isn’t a good person, but the entire mess happened because of Wanda. It felt wrong for her to use the same prison on innocent people on another person and it be celebrated. And then there’s the whole “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them line” i literally lost all sympathy for that character after that.

And I still don’t understand the romance between Wanda and Vision. I can’t get over the fact that he’s a robot. All in all, there are many aspects of the show that I didn’t like, but the number one reason is that it completely ruined her character. There was so much potential. But no. First they changed her age. “it was never said that she was a teenager.” Hawkeye literally said “if you want to go to high school.” no one says that to a 27 year old. Maybe he meant it as something else but in aou, he was the one to form the closest bonds with her and Pietro and it was the same movie that showed us that he had kids. it would make sense if it was supposed to be like a “he wants to help them because they’re young and he’s a dad so he knows how to deal with young people. And everyone referred to her as kid, so it just all fit. (also the actress looked a lot younger in aou than in her other works before that movie so the make up department probably tried to make her seem young.) And the way she dressed and acted.

second, apparently even though aou had us believe that they thought they were signing up to save their country, wandavision literally just went “yeah Wanda knew it was a terrorist organization’ and she didn’t even seem to regret it?

The show went about the entire situation the wrong way, and really ruined her character.

#messages #anon #anti wandavision #anti wanda maximoff

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variousqueerthings · 1 year

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I mean, you never like Frank true but damn that last scene at the end of season five really is something. Like for a singular moment I existed in a place where I just kinda felt bad for the guy. Love to hate all the rest of his crap though.

oh yeah totally -- I have a post I queued up which goes a little bit into this idea of him as someone who didn't need to stay like this, but when offered opportunities to examine himself, or to even just not do the lazy or racist or uncaring thing in a given situation, he just... doesn't.

and of course he wants to feel persecuted, he likes whining about how he's the victim in all this, and idk what that says in terms of inviting hawkeye (and trapper or bj) to continue messing with him, and the kind of dynamic this builds in which maybe they're all getting what they want out of it (and also the fantasy in his head that one day hawkeye will tell him that actually he was right all along, look I'm not saying that hawkeye's "you're so big and strong frank" is actually something frank wishes he'd say to him in full earnest, but... I mean.... I'm not NOT saying that, and a friendly reminder that in an earlier draft of george, frank was actually going to admit he'd been into a man when he was younger and there are definitely little smatterings of this concept still hanging about in the show)

anyway, his stagnancy and cowardice being the things that lose him what he really wanted is very very good. the later framing of his and margaret's relationship as two messed up people who gravitate towards each other, only for margaret to realise that she can be more than she's been forced to be by others, and especially, mainly, men who have power over her in some way (to the point that she seems to expect herself to be powerless, even though you can tell she's constantly carrying that tension of actually wishing she was in charge/had agency over her choices -- all coming to ahead in s8 of course) -- and honestly, margaret was always smarter and more emotionally aware than frank, she understood a lot better what she was trying to get out of that relationship and then she gradually realised that she would never get those things, and so when she had the chance to leave, she did

(here the obligatory addition that some of the things hawkeye and trapper pull on margaret are just sexist, and I like that -- while we do see them becoming more friendly esp starting in s3 -- there's some changing on their part that they have to do as well, and that that change goes on right through the show for hawkeye. but yeah, no wonder she's lonely)

and then frank's last shot in season 5. he is a victim, of precisely the belief-systems he's taken in to get ahead and used to hurt others (systems that easily turn around on him too, because after all, as much as he likes to pretend he doesn't know this, he is not the example of shining American Masculinity he worships, and you get the feeling he was probably the kid who picked on others so he wouldn't get picked on first), because they have made him a small, petty human being, who wasn't ever going to be good enough for a woman he genuinely loved... he is -- as dr freedman says about flagg one time -- just such a pile of fertilizer that it's hard to care 😂

and I really do want to write a reunion fic in which he gets invited by margaret and he thinks she's going to pick up where they left off, and louise discovers the invite and of course wants to come along -- and it turns out that margaret just wanted to be the bigger person and invited the whole of the 4077th (the ones who weren't rotated out after a couple of weeks/months or so), and louise puts together that margaret is the "houlihan" that frank once described as an old work horse and so couldn't possibly be having an affair with (but she always kind of knew -- not unlike margaret, louise hasn't been given many opportunities to spread her wings, but of course we hear from frank that while he's away she starts going on trips with her friends, getting into politics, wearing slacks...) and reveals that she's been cheating on frank since the war/around the time she was asking for a divorce that he talked her out of

I think public humiliation would be good for him, you know, I think hawkeye et al should definitely be there to see the whole thing going down, because louise makes it a public announcement while everyone is making toasts, I think it's free therapy for the whole rest of the 4077th gang -- life could be worse, at least none of us are this guy

(I think hawkeye might buy frank a couple of drinks even, can't kick the guy while he's down... in the morning though, wake him up with a trumpet close to his head)

and as always, all the kudos goes to larry linville for doing The Most and for having a truly unhinged giggle

#frank burns #it's appreciation hours for good bad guys #i think he's such a realistic Type Of Guy too #a type of guy you can imagine easily in the postwar reactionary 50s #and a type of guy that exists today #MASH meta #MASH #type of guy who's going to victimise himself for the rest of his life #❤ asks #nightisonlynight

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nikkoliferous · 3 years

Text

Phase One: Avengers (Part One)

With everything being about the LOKI series right now and me dreading it, I figured I'd distract myself by finally posting my thoughts on the Phase One: Avengers novel, which I seem to recall somehow being way worse than the Thor novel? I'm not completely convinced this thing wasn't ghostwritten by Taika Waititi; that's all I'm saying. Anyways, here we go.

(Quick note: please be aware that this overview is significantly Thor-critical. If that sort of thing bothers you, I do not recommend proceeding. You've been warned. Lol)

Let's start off with a friendly reminder that SHIELD had four hours to evacuate before Loki showed up, shall we?

Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago,” Coulson was saying.

“I didn’t approve going to testing,” Fury said.

Coulson nodded. “He wasn’t testing it. He wasn’t even in the room. Spontaneous event.”

So either they're grossly incompetent or grossly negligent, but either way those deaths are on them at least as much as they're on Loki. If not more so.

“It just turned itself on?” Hill sounded skeptical. Fury, as usual, was less interested in how they’d gotten there than in what they were going to do next.

[...]

Selvig acknowledged him briefly and then returned his attention to the monitoring equipment. “Director, the Tesseract is misbehaving.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No, it’s not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active, she’s… behaving.”

Fury didn’t comment on the doctor characterizing the Tesseract as female. He also wasn’t interested in Selvig’s notions about its personality. It didn’t have a personality. It was a cube containing energy, and all Nick Fury wanted was to know how to control that energy. “I assume you pulled the plug.”

Fury having no intellectual curiosity explains a lot, tbh. Like how he thinks Loki "kills because it's fun", even though nothing about their prior interaction indicates that. Like, at all. Loki killed only the agents who were attacking him. Because he felt threatened. If he indeed killed for the fun of it, he would have taken them all out and been done with it. Doing so would have both entertained him and made for a much smoother getaway.

“She’s an energy source. We turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level—”

“We prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space.”

“We’re not ready. My calculations are far from complete. And she’s throwing off interference radiation.”

Fury watched the Tesseract in its circular containment shell. Eight separate energy sensors built into a frame supporting that shell were designed to measure and conduct that energy. Those sensors in turn rested on stainless-steel support scaffolding. The whole setup sprouted cables and conduits. These were there to supply energy to the Tesseract in a controlled fashion so Dr. Selvig could analyze its reactions. Now they were all shut down, as Dr. Selvig had said, but even so, the Tesseract glowed with a fierce blue energy. It was starting to spill onto the sensors, arcing like electricity. But it wasn’t electricity. It was something much more exotic.

I also find it curious/amusing/something that Fury later accuses Loki of "stealing a force [he] can't hope to control". YOU'RE DESCRIBING YOURSELF, NICK. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CAN'T CONTROL IT AND HAS BEEN ARROGANTLY PRETENDING YOU CAN.

The man looked up at them and smiled as he stood. He was not a large man, not remarkable in any particular way. He had long black hair and wore black leather clothing, similar to what Fury was wearing. However, he wasn’t a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Fury didn’t know where he had come from.

I beg to fucking differ lmao

Fury had the Tesseract in a steel carrying case and was taking a step toward the door when the stranger turned to him and said, “Please don’t. I still need that.”

Kudos to Loki for not forgetting his princely manners even while completely off his rocker. Lol

“This doesn’t have to get any messier,” Fury said. He glanced quickly around, trying to figure the fastest way out.

“Of course it does,” the stranger said. “I’ve come too far for anything else.”

TELL US WHAT YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH, LOKI. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

“Loki?” Dr. Selvig said. He stood up from helping one of his fellow doctors, who was barely conscious. “Brother of Thor?”

“We have no quarrel with your people,” Fury said.

Loki acknowledged Selvig and then returned his attention to Fury.

By "acknowledged", the author means he rolled his eyes so hard he saw his own brain lmao

“I come with glad tidings,” Loki said. “Of a world made free.”

“Free from what?” Fury asked.

Turning back to him, Loki said simply, “Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that in your heart…” As he spoke the word “heart,” he turned and touched Selvig’s chest with the tip of his scepter, just as he had with Hawkeye. Selvig gasped, and the same change came over his face that Fury had seen in Hawkeye’s. “You will know peace.”

He's not simply deranged, you know. For Loki, this is actually true. He has never been free in his entire life, and won't be at any point after this either. Yes, there was also the torture and the mind control at play, but even underneath all that, is it any wonder he was vulnerable to the Thanos cult's brainwashing?

Hawkeye had been looking around the complex. Now he stepped up to Loki. “Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us.”

Loki looked back at Fury, who said, “Like the pharaohs of old.”

“He’s right, the portal is collapsing in on itself!” Selvig called out from the monitors. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before this goes critical.”

Friendly reminder, once again, that Loki wasn't even aware the PEGASUS facility was on the verge of collapsing—let alone the cause of it.

“Well then,” Loki said. He glanced over at Hawkeye.

Without a word, Hawkeye drew his gun and shot Nick Fury once, dead center in the chest.

Two things:

1) Every time I see this scene in gifs, all I can think of is, "Pull the lever, Kronk." 🤣

2) So how does the direct mind control of the sceptre work anyway? Because Loki never actually gives Barton a command here. So does he sometimes communicate with his minions telepathically (sort of like The Other does with him), or does Barton just intuit his intent here, or what?

Maria Hill saw Hawkeye come out of the lab into the garage with Selvig, a liaison officer, and a stranger carrying a spear. He looked more like one of the people they’d been recruiting into the Avengers Initiative than an ordinary technician or S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. “Who's that?” she asked.

*sigh* In a just MCU, this would have been foreshadowing.

She jumped into a jeep and headed after them. Other S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles followed, filled with agents. They roared along the underground access road that led up to the surface in the New Mexico desert. She was gaining on them and firing as she drove. Sooner or later, she’d be close enough to have a good shot at the stranger.

He had other ideas, though. When he saw the pursuing convoy get too close, he pointed his scepter at them. The tip of it flared bright blue, and a bolt of energy lashed out from it, striking the vehicle in front of Hill and shattering the right side of its passenger compartment. The vehicle slewed around and flipped, rolling and landing sideways across the road. They were blocked.

Interesting of Loki to go for the passenger compartment instead of the driver. Was anyone even sitting there? Just one more example in a long string of Loki being inexplicably merciful to his enemies, I guess. 🤷

They got around ahead of the truck, and Fury leaned out of the helicopter’s side door. He fired, emptying his clip. He could tell from the sparks that some of the bullets had hit, but he was too far away to see if they’d done any damage.

His real target was Loki, but he was protected by the cab of the truck. Fury couldn’t get a good shot at him.

Did Fury already forget that Loki is bulletproof, or...? I mean, I guess that's fair. Earlier, Hawkeye goes to draw his sidearm only minutes after the narration points out that the bullets already fired at Loki had bounced away harmlessly.

Leaning over the truck’s roof and keeping low, however, Loki could get a good shot at the helicopter. A blue bolt lanced out and struck the helicopter’s rotor assembly. All the control mechanisms went haywire, and the helicopter spiraled down out of the sky. The truck drove underneath them as they were about to crash, close enough that Fury could see the gloating expression on Loki’s face.

Haha, good for him.

“Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me,” she said.

“Oh, I’ve got Stark,” Coulson said. “You’ve got the big guy.”

Oh, Natasha thought. That big guy. She said something in Russian. It wasn’t polite.

This has nothing to do with Loki. It just made me laugh.

Nick Fury had called an emergency meeting of the World Security Council. They needed to know what had happened with the Tesseract, and they needed to know what he planned to do about it. He brought up holographic images of all the WSC members, with their faces and locations hidden. He did not know who they were, but S.H.I.E.L.D. reported to them.

Well, that doesn't sound problematic at all, does it?

“The Avengers Initiative was shut down.”

“This isn’t about the Avengers.” That wasn’t strictly true, but Nick Fury was no idiot. He wasn’t going to show all his cards to the World Security Council when he didn’t even know who they were.

I'm glad he at least recognizes the stupidity of working for people he doesn't know, but uh... debatable, otherwise. Lol

“This isn’t about personality profiles anymore,” Coulson said. He wasn’t giving up, and that irritated Tony even more than the fact he’d showed up right when the celebration of Stark Tower was supposed to be starting.

*cough*DIVA*cough*

Loki watched Dr. Erik Selvig work, preparing the Tesseract for the next phase of his plan. Technicians and soldiers scurried about on various errands. Loki did not know the details and did not care. They were beneath him. He had his eye solely on the greater prize. It was time to consult with the Chitauri and begin the next phase of the preparations.

Really? You expect me to believe that Loki, the master tactician with "a cunning mind far exceeding Thor and Odin’s", couldn't be bothered to know the details of his own plan? Um, how about no?

Deep space and a field of stars surrounded this rocky world. Pale blue lights glowed where the Chitauri had built their fortress. They gleamed in a set of stairs that climbed to the topmost tower. That was where Loki had made his bargain with the Chitauri: They would be his army and he would open a path to Earth for them. Once Earth was his, and Asgard as well, he would turn the Tesseract over to them.

At least that was what he had promised.

1) Who said anything about Asgard...?

2) Indicator that Loki never planned on actually turning over the Tesseract? I don't know why you'd include this line otherwise.

“Let them gird themselves,” he said. “I will lead them in glorious battle.”

“Battle?” the Chitauri warrior snorted. “Against the meager might of Earth?”

“Glorious,” Loki repeated. “Not lengthy. If your force is as formidable as you claim.”

He had intended to anger the Chitauri, and he had succeeded.

Personally, I saw this less as intending to anger and more as "Loki has no self-preservation instinct and literally cannot help himself". What's to be gained by intentionally pissing off The Other here?

“You don’t have the Tesseract yet.” The Chitauri leader rushed at Loki and stopped just short of him, claws raised. Loki did not move.

“I don’t threaten,” he said, though he was doing exactly that.

LOL

The Chitauri leader backed down but only a step. “You will have your war, Asgardian,” he growled. Then he too decided to make a threat. “If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.”

Loki flashed back into his awareness of Earth. He took a deep breath. The Chitauri did not frighten him… but he would have been a fool if he had not possessed a healthy respect for their leader, the mad Titan known as Thanos. For it was Thanos who had given Loki the scepter, and Thanos who had rallied the Chitauri to Loki’s cause… and Thanos who wished to possess the Tesseract for his own monstrous ends. One did not bargain lightly with Thanos—and one certainly did not fail to meet the terms of such a bargain.

Love how this book just repeatedly glosses over the obvious fact that Loki was tortured. In the first chapter, it makes zero mention of his stumbling or other signs of being weakened. Here, it completely omits the pain WE ALL SAW The Other inflict on him. Fuck this narrator, seriously.

Steve had a moment to look around. The commanding officer appeared to be a woman with short dark hair reeling off orders from near the center of the bridge. “S.H.I.E.L.D. Emergency Protocol 193.6 in effect,” she was saying after a series of status orders and acknowledgments. Steve didn’t know what protocol that was. At the moment, all he knew was that he was on a flying aircraft carrier… and wasn’t that enough? Amazing.

[....]

The Helicarrier disappeared from view. From the inside, it didn’t look any different, but Steve saw monitors from satellite feeds, and on those, the Helicarrier had simply become invisible. He corrected himself: He wasn’t just on a flying aircraft carrier. He was on an invisible flying aircraft carrier. The future was pretty… cool, was the word everyone used now.

I'm not the biggest Steve fan, but I will admit to finding his childlike awe over the Helicarrier slightly adorable. Lol

Side note: is someone on this thing coordinating with Air Traffic Control? I... really hope so.

“What did it show you, Agent Barton?”

Barton turned to look at Loki. “My next target,” he said.

Loki nodded. “Tell me what you need.”

Barton took one his bows out of a case and snapped it into shape with a flick of his arm. “I need a distraction,” he said. “And a biometric ID.”

Why the change from "eyeball", I wonder? Seems random. Lol

Inside, Loki had been mingling with the crowd, taking on the appearance of an ordinary man with a walking stick. But as the president of the museum, one Doktor Heinrich Schäfer, began his welcoming speech, Loki decided it was time to make a dramatic entrance. He tapped the walking stick on the floor and it became his scepter. Immediately, to get the crowd’s attention, he aimed it at the nearest museum security guard and fired.

This... didn't happen?? At all??

Loki strode the rest of the way down the stairs and manhandled Schäfer over to a stone altar that was one of the museum’s prized ancient Norse relics. He slammed Schäfer onto his back, forcing a machine over his face. Schäfer cried out in pain and surprise as the machine shone blinding light into his face, holding his eyes open.

On the one hand, confirmation that Loki did not actually shred this dude's eye and he's probably fine. On the other hand, the author completely made up what just happened literally two sentences ago, so their credibility is a little suspect at the moment. Lol

A police car, alerted by the commotion, raced toward him. He blasted it with his scepter, and it spun out of control and crashed.

ACAB!

The crowd froze. Slowly the crowd knelt, and Loki reveled in their submission. “There,” he said. “Is this not simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”

He's talking about himself here. We all get that, right?

An old man in the middle of the crowd stood. Loki paused in his speech to regard this individual. Around him, all the copies of himself also looked at this old man.

“Not to men like you,” the old man said.

“There are no men like me,” Loki said.

No lies detected.

But Loki was tougher than he looked. He struck back with the scepter, forcing Captain America to parry until Loki found an opening and slammed the butt of the scepter into Captain America’s midsection, knocking him down. Captain America threw the shield again, but this time Loki was ready. He knocked it aside. It fell ringing to the stones of the plaza, and Loki had the tip of the scepter against the back of Captain America’s neck before the soldier could get back to his feet.

Correction: If he'd actually been trying to win, he would have used the tip. (Narrator: he was not trying to win).

A sudden storm rose around the Quinjet. Natasha looked at the instrument panel. There’d been no warning of heavy weather. “Where’s this coming from?” she wondered out loud.

At first, she thought that Loki was responsible. But that didn’t appear to be the case. He looked more nervous than anyone else on the jet.

Loki has Thor-induced PTSD. Understandable, tbh.

Thor let Loki fall well before they got to the ground.

Because Thor is an asshole.

So hey, as long as we're here, let's review how each member of Loki's family responds to the realisation that he's survived his suicide attempt.

Thor- manhandles him, angrily demands to know where the Tesseract is

Odin- refuses to even use his name, implies he should have either slaughtered him as an infant or left him to die

Frigga- tells him not to make things worse (fucking rich coming from the woman who exacerbated his trauma immeasurably by thrusting the throne upon him when he was at his most vulnerable)

Wild, man. I wonder why Loki's convinced his family doesn't give a shit about him. They seem like such loving people to me.

“I remember a shadow,” Loki said bitterly. “Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss. I who was and should be king!”

Because you would have destroyed Asgard, Thor thought. Just to impress our father, you would have annihilated all the Nine Realms. “So you took the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights? No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki.”

1) Actually, he was trying to save Asgard... from a war that YOU started, numbnuts. He went about it all wrong because he was having a fucking mental breakdown, but at no stage did he even really endanger Asgard, let alone come close to destroying it.

2) Um, what? Where the fuck in Loki's plan was annihilating anything other than Jötunheim? I see Thor shares his friends' impressive conclusion-jumping skills. Not surprising.

3) Thor, I mean this truly and without reservation: go fuck yourself.

Loki chuckled. “And you’re doing a marvelous job with that. The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly fret. I mean to rule them, and why should I not?”

He... has a point.

“You think yourself above them?”

“Well, yes.”

At least Loki is honest about his condescension, Thor. You should try it sometime.

Suddenly furious, Loki raged at Thor. “I’ve seen worlds you’ve never known about! I have grown, Odinson, in my exile. I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, and when I wield it—”

“Who showed you this power?” Thor interrupted. “Who controls the would-be king?”

And he will never bring this up again. Ever.

Stepping right up to his brother, Thor shouted back. “Not here! You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream!” Then he softened. “You come home.”

“I don’t have it,” Loki said. Furious, Thor brought Mjolnir to his hand, ready for battle.

Thor's sort of a one-solution kind of guy, huh? Somebody help me out here, because he's "changed" but his first instinct when he's not getting his way is still to react with intimidation and violence. Funny how that works.

Tony braked and skidded to a halt as the Asgardian rolled away from him, tearing up trees and brush as he went. He got to his feet and extended a warning hand. “Do not touch me again,” he said.

Oh, what's the matter, Thor? Do you not like being manhandled? That's weird because you sure do seem to enjoy doing the manhandling. 😕

“If he gives up the cube, he’s all yours. Until then…” Tony’s faceplate clamped back down. “Stay out of the way.”

He turned to walk back to a place where he could make a clean takeoff. “Tourist,” he muttered.

That was the last straw, apparently, because the next thing Tony knew, the Asgardian’s hammer had hit him about as hard as he’d ever been hit in his life. The force of the blow carried him through the trunk of a tree and laid him out flat in the dirt.

Please note that Thor was not being attacked. He once again used offensive violence against someone who hurt his feelbads. "Changed", my rear.

“Then prove it,” Cap said. “Put that hammer down.”

“Uh, no, bad call,” Iron Man said. “He loves his hammer—”

The Asgardian interrupted Tony by smashing him out of the way with a backhand swing. “You want me to put the hammer down?” he roared, and leaped high into the air, bringing his hammer down toward Captain America.

And again—not in any immediate danger, simply reacting with violence to something that made him angry.

“Oh, I’ve heard. A mindless beast. Makes play he’s still a man. How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?”

“How desperate am I?” Fury echoed. He walked slowly over the catwalk to stand in front of Loki. “You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can’t hope to control. You talk about peace, but you kill because it’s fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.”

This is called 'projection', kids. Projection, and making up stories about your enemies so they're easier to hate. Fury needs to show his work.

Loki knew he had been heard throughout the ship. He could hear the echoes of the speakers, and even if he had not, he always knew when people were listening to him. That was part of his power, to make them listen… and to make each of them hear something just a little different. Just what he wanted them to hear.

This doesn’t mean anything, does it??

Perhaps he was in a cage right now, but he had been in cages before. Not once had one been able to hold him for long.

This... has to be a reference to his time with the Black Order, right? There's certainly no basis for such a statement pre-2011.

Or the author is just on crack. That's very possible.

Thor took a step toward Bruce. “Have a care how you speak,” he warned. “Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard… and he is my brother.”

“He killed eighty people in two days,” Natasha pointed out.

Citation needed, please.

“Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises…” As he spoke, Tony walked behind Bruce and gave him a little zap with an electrical instrument.

“Ow!” Bruce said.

Tony looked closely at him. “Nothing?” He’d been testing Bruce to see how well he controlled the Hulk. The little shock hadn’t provoked any kind of unusual reaction, which Tony seemed to find a little disappointing.

Ok, but what exactly was Tony's plan if Bruce had Hulked out here? lmao

“Steve,” Bruce said, “tell me none of this smells a little funky to you.”

Cap looked back and forth between the two scientists. Bruce could tell he was struggling with something… but he also wasn’t going to share it. He was too much of a good soldier for that.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

“Yeah. I’ll read all about it.”

“Or you’ll be suiting up with the rest of us.”

Bruce shook his head with a regretful smile. “No, see, I don’t get a suit of armor. I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.”

Bruce has BPD. Lol

No, you guys don't understand. That's literally what it feels like.

Thor watched over Coulson’s shoulder as the agent showed him S.H.I.E.L.D.’s current files on Jane Foster. When he had learned that Loki had captured Erik Selvig, his first thought had been of Jane. Thor had destroyed the Bifrost to save the Nine Realms, but he had also cut himself off from her… or so he had thought. It was a terrible decision to make, sacrificing love for duty—yet Thor had done it. If necessary, he would do it again. He hoped it would not be necessary, though, and that was one reason why he had asked Coulson about Jane.

Oh my god, Thor. You spent like, three days with her, max. And people call Loki the dramatic one...

Thor looked out into the sky, gathering his thoughts. “When I first came to Earth,” he went on, “Loki’s rage followed me here, and your people paid the price. Now, again. In my youth, I courted war.”

“War hasn’t started yet,” Fury said.

1) Correction: when your daddy threw you to Earth like a sack of trash down a cosmic garbage chute. You were not here on vacation, bro.

2) No, Loki's rage followed your treasonous friends.

3) LAST YEAR. YOUR 'YOUTH' WAS LAST YEAR.

4) *committed mass murder over an insult

“You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?”

This possibility hadn’t occurred to Thor. “I do not know,” he said. “Loki’s mind is far afield. It’s not just power he craves. It’s vengeance, upon me. There’s no pain that would pry that need from him.”

1) Opposing Thor = being crazy. Noted.

2) Not everything is about you, buddy. At the risk of repeating myself, this is the guy I'm supposed to believe learned humility? Really? Where?

3) Please note that Thor does not object to torturing Loki because it's immoral or because the thought of hurting Loki pains him. He objects because he doesn't believe it will work.

Thor held Fury’s gaze. It was not the first time he had looked at a one-eyed man who posed him a difficult question. “What are you asking me to do?” he asked, wanting Fury to be clear and to own his words.

“I’m asking what you are prepared to do,” Fury said quietly.

“Loki is a prisoner,” Thor said. He thought Fury was testing him, seeing if he would violate his ideals to find out something they all needed to know. But Thor would not.

"I'm okay with physically assaulting prisoners if they make me mad, but I suddenly draw the line at torture. Even though my 'ideals' didn't appear to be a concern two sentences ago."

If I feel like being generous to Thor, maybe he initially hoped Fury would back off if he just said torture wouldn't work, and then Thor wouldn't have to risk appearing... soft? Weak? I don't know.

“But you figured I’d come,” she said.

“After,” Loki said. “After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.” It was a typical approach. Cause misery, and then let someone appear as a friendly face. The miserable person would say anything to keep this friend. Loki had seen strong men break this way, many times.

I'm not sure why the author felt the need to depersonalize this by talking about other men. Loki knows this experience intimately. It's what he's endured his entire life at the hands of his "loving" family. The torture just wasn't physical then as far as we know.

An interesting story, Loki thought. She has much to atone for. He could hear some of her memories, from before her first encounter with Barton. Little girl, he thought, you’ve done some very bad things. And now you think you owe Clint Barton your life… but there is more to it. Loki could tell there was something in her mind that he was not quite uncovering. He pushed a little more.

Is... is this text implying that Loki can read people's minds/memories even without touching them?

“Can you?” he asked. “Can you wipe out that much red?” He listed for her some of the things he knew she had done. “Dreykov’s daughter… São Paulo… the hospital fire? Barton told me everything.” This was a lie. Barton had told Loki certain things about Romanoff, but he was also guessing some others.

He... guessed the details of these very specific incidents? What? lmao

He pushed ahead. Now that he understood her, he could break her. “Your ledger is dripping, it’s gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? Pathetic. You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, but they are part of you and they will never go away.”

He's talking about himself again. 🥺

For some reason, this book skips right over the part where Loki threatens both Barton's and Natasha's lives. Not sure why; the author clearly has no problem depicting Loki as an unhinged psychopath most of the time. Oh well, whatevs.

Loki couldn’t understand how she had gathered her composure so quickly—and then he did understand. She was a superb actress! Or not even an actress, for he could see through a conscious performance. She was something else. She had been broken down and remade so many times, with so many identities, that she could put them on and take them off at will. And Loki had gotten lost in those emotional costume changes.

He had been outwitted by a mortal. Unthinkable.

Yeah, phew, it's a good thing Natasha figured it out in time. Otherwise, something terrible might have happened—like Bruce Hulking out and rampaging through the Helicarrier. Oh, wait...

“I was wrong, Director,” Cap said. “The world hasn’t changed a bit.” He looked angry and disappointed. Captain America was a big believer in shooting straight and telling the truth. He didn’t like spies and he didn’t like lies, and now he saw he was knee-deep in both.

This novel's hero worship of Steve Rogers is going to kill me. 🙄

“I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction,” Bruce finished.

“Because of him,” Fury said, pointing at Thor.

“Me?”

“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town,” Fury said. “We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

Has anyone figured out yet how this line doesn't conflict with Captain Marvel? Is Fury lying to hide her existence for some reason? Or is this just one of those things that we're supposed to shrug and pretend wasn't retconned?

“A nuclear deterrent,” Tony said. “Because that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark,” Fury said coldly.

On the one hand, yes, good point. But on the other hand, he... stopped making them? So clearly, he no longer thinks they are a good thing?

And also, not to gloss over his past sins, but wasn't Tony born rich? Lol

“I thought humans were more evolved than this,” Thor commented.

Tony turned on Thor. “Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?”

Didn't Fury say this in the movie? Why did the author give the line to Tony instead? There are all these... weird changes in the story that are so minor I have no idea why the author made them. Very confusing.

Just like that, all of them were arguing. Cap and Tony were nose to nose, while Bruce and Natasha fired remarks back and forth. Thor stood off to the side, contempt plain on his face.

'Cause he also thinks he's superior to humans. 🙃

Tony and Cap squared off over an argument that they couldn’t even remember starting. Tony was still mad about the last thing Cap had said to him… whatever it was.

In case there was any doubt about the sceptre being the reason everyone starts losing their shit with one another.

Cap stood his ground. “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

Tony had an answer ready for this one. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

Hey Steve? You know he invented the suit, right? Like. The suit is literally him.

“Put on the suit,” Cap said. “Let’s go a few rounds.”

Steve putting out big Joe Biden, "listen, fat..." energy here lmao

Thor laughed. “You people are so petty… and tiny.”

Thor, my dude. You literally started a war over being emasculated in front of your friends. I don't think you get to judge other people for being petty.

Fury could see things were spiraling out of control. He started trying to get them all back on track. “Agent Romanoff,” he said, “would you escort Dr. Banner back to—”

“Where?” Bruce interrupted. “My room? You rented my room.”

Nobody had said it out loud, but they all knew the cell currently holding Loki was designed for the Hulk.

What was their plan for containing the Hulk if necessary after sticking Loki in his cage, anyway? Did they even have one?

“Dr. Banner,” Cap said. “Put down the scepter.”

Bruce looked down. He hadn’t even known he’d picked it up.

Why does that sound familiar...?

Even though he could see what was going on, the hostility in the air was still thick enough that Bruce didn’t know whether he could back everyone down… or whether he could back himself down. He could feel tension rising inside him. He could feel the monster trying to get loose.

And yet none of them so much as considers the idea that the sceptre might be having a similar effect on Loki? Ok then.

But even though he was now refocused on the mission, the others still bickered. Loki had gotten into their heads, sowing discord and setting them against each other.

lmao I'd just like to note that Loki didn't actually do anything. This was all them and the effects of just being near the sceptre. #ThanksLoki

“The Tesseract belongs to Asgard,” Thor said.

Why, though?

“I’ll go after it,” Tony said.

“No you don’t,” Cap said, stepping into his way. He wasn’t ready to forget the way Tony had insulted him.

Ok, first of all, you started it. But also, seriously, Steve, that's your number one priority right now? Earth's mightiest heroes, ladies and gentlemen... lol

I have apparently managed to hit the paragraph limit, so we'll return after this short break, I guess. 🙈

↪️ On to Part Two

#there is a lot of salt here please remember to drink plenty of water #loki meta #loki #thor #tony stark #steve rogers #bruce banner #natasha romanoff #clint barton #nick fury #avengers assemble #mcu #phase one: avengers #thor critical

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the-lightning-strikes-again · 3 years

Note

Yeah the Loki finale was meh/disappointing it doesn’t even feel like a Loki show anymore. I swear you could swap him with another character and the story would barely change.

Hi, anon! I'll put thoughts under a cut since idk who all has seen the Loki show yet.

Tbh, Loki is my favorite character from the MCU. I have waited for YEARS for this character to have an actual spotlight...

And I really wanted to like this show, I really did. Like, I legit wanted to just turn off my brain and enjoy everything?

But yeah, your message resonates with me. There were things I liked about the show, but once I got over the cool CGI and angst and female gaze, it just...feels like Loki got sidelined in his own story? The focus hadn't been about him specifically since episode 1. It instead shifted to Sylvie, who is different enough from Loki that she might as well have been Hawkeye still on his Endgame rampage for justice. And it was Sylvie's problems and Sylvie's motivations that drove the story. Which, you know, were interesting in their own way but not what I was expecting from a Loki show. A lot of scenes were just Sylvie running around and Loki somewhat helplessly following along in a daze that this is what his life has become. He was just ultimately a very passive character in someone else's story...because as the finale clearly showed, his core issues that needed to be worked out weren't in alignment with her own.

So it's sad to me that the show opened up by saying that Loki's destiny was always to function as a dead-end catalyst for other people's character development/journeys. And in the end, that's...exactly what Loki became for all the other characters in this show. ;A; And I'm not sure what they have going on for s2, but I fear he'll just play second-fiddle to Dr. Strange at this point.

I have other issues with the show as well....

___

I felt like they also massively declawed him? Ignoring the comics entirely (where he's even more badass) and looking just at the movies: He survived a Hulk smack-down, could toss humans like they were nothing, could travel between worlds through a variety of means, could already see into people's minds/memories and cast illusions and even change his form, and yet somehow all of this got retconned to make him a less powerful sorcerer compared to his Variants.

I remember this guy being actually dangerous and physically capable, which is why they locked him up. Loki used to have Avenger-level capabilities and strength. But now, he can't hardly fight off a human, and his defense skills are relegated to basic hand-to-hand combat and a dagger. The show even makes fun of his abilities and calls him a pussycat and turns him into a tie-wearing analyst...But I suppose that's in line with the general downgrade of his abilities in recent MCU movies...

___

And if being a sidekick in his own show and having his abilities retconned wasn't enough, I feel like the show failed to convince me that it really understood and is working to grow Loki's character.

The underlying issue that the show calls out as Loki's ultimate weakness is that he's "afraid of being alone," and that this feeds a narcissism complex. But this doesn't really make sense to me? Because he didn't grow up alone or unwanted. He had a mother (Frigga) who loved him deeply and taught him magic. He clearly made it into adulthood believing that Odin was his father, who certainly wasn't absent. He was always on adventures with his brother. He had clearly tried to build a reputation for himself that was differentiated from his brother's (the Silvertongue). This goes against how narcissists don't really have a personality of their own because they just absorb other people's mannerisms to fit in...So like, idk about parsing out the details of narcissism as a clinical diagnosis because I'm not a psychologist, but something feels a little odd here to me? Like, it's more than just...fear of being alone that drives Loki to be destructive? The loneliness is only a symptom??

The problem based off the early movies, providing that I'm not entirely an idiot in listening (which I suppose I could be), was that he was always in Thor's shadow and was never considered an equal, someone worthy of respect despite their differences. Even in the 2009 movie, his peers belittled his title as a Silvertongue and his love for magic. Discovering that he was actually an unwanted frost giant just twisted that knife in deeper and set him on a self-destruct path, once and for all. And it's really interesting to me that throughout this show, people are still constantly trying to establish themselves as alpha over Loki and make jabs about him as worthless and weak. And he's just desperate enough for validation to still try bonding with them the instant anyone tosses a bone of mild curiosity at him.

The fact that he's still positioned as less valuable and less respected than Sylvie, and that even Sylvie herself ultimately usurps equality in their relationship/partnership to enforce her will is just...depressing.

And for all this discussion about Loki changing/redeeming himself, at the end of the day, his perspective hasn't really changed? He still identifies himself as untrustworthy, even though he careens as a desperate lap dog for Mobius' approval and then Sylvie's once she gives him an ounce of attention. He has difficulty with accepting the value of a life, especially in regard to his own life. For example, he was still willing to consider upholding the death of future untold numbers via pruning despite being such a victim himself. And that's not a slam to his worry about a worse alternative, which is probably valid, but it's still weird that he does not believe he could contribute to a powerful resistance group capable of taking out multiple variations of one human man.

It's even weirder that he still seems to be caught in a tailspin regarding "necessary dictatorship," even though Loki is supposed to be a Silvertongue and could have won He Who Remains over as an ally against the other Variants of He Who Remains, thereby dismantling the TVA and freeing the multiverse. But unfortunately, he still can't see beyond two binary roads (mass chaos vs. subjugation). He has totally lost his confidence and identity as a Silvertongue. He can't see an alternative option despite supposedly being a Master Strategist, and that's echoed in how his initial thought to defeat Alioth was to kill it in a very Thor-ish, Asgardian way.

And because he has accepted the show's narrative that he is not capable or worthy of respect for his own unique talents, he openly just..accepts the concept that he's not meant to mean anything to anyone but himself ("I just want you to be okay") or do actually anything meaningful with his abilities. This probably underscores why he is so incapable of using his full powers for a Chaotic Good.

And for one final jab of hopelessness, the show immediately reverses the one (1) other mildly positive relationship he had just started to build via Mobius, solidifying that once again, Loki is not allowed to have friends. Loki is not allowed to have equals. Loki is not allowed to be respected. Which is probably why even when he's surrounded by other people, that's why he still feels alone.

I'm just sort of dead that for all the time the show spent on diagnosing Loki, it never got deep enough to ask why he feels alone.

Conclusion

So idk, the show just kinda depressed me tbh. I don't want to be this critical??? They have really great actors, interesting concepts, and clearly a strong CGI department. Again, not sure I could do better, so I recognize I'm playing armchair critic here. Maybe it'll get better in s2. I really want this show to prove me wrong and move Loki into a level of character development where he can like, actually have purpose in his own title show beyond serving as second-fiddle to other people in other people's self-discovery journeys.

Like please, just let him realize that he can have a positive, meaningful purpose. And that whatever his purpose is, that he is Enough just as he is, and that he can contribute meaningful things to others and be fully worthy of respect. And I think once that clicks with Loki, we'll see him really grow into something phenomenal. Something truly formidable, even if that character doesn't sit on a throne....

It's possible the show could go there? But I'm just a little leery that it's not really a show about Loki....

#Loki #Marvel #MCU #Sylvie #Agent Mobius #Loki show salt #Loki show critical #;A; there's things I do like about this show #but ahhhhhh #Marvel always devalues Loki #I just...guess I didn't expect them to do that here

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1-3

May, 1984

THE WAR BEGINS

Oof, here we go.

Just gotta replicate the pace that let me do the Hawkeye miniseries in one go, three times in a row.

This is probably too much effort considering its Secret Wars (or more accurately Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars) and maybe there’s not going to be a lot of big changes from this in the Avengers book to really justify it.

But we’re getting Jim Shooter writing the Avengers and his non-consecutive runs were a lot better than I had remembered. And it continues the theme he had from the Avengers book.

It just makes sense in a nonsense way to cover this story.

Last relevant time in Avengers! Acting Completely Normal Vision warned the Avengers about some weird, possibly hostile energy surges right in time for an energy surge to surge energetically in Central Park.

When the Avengers went to investigate, they found a weird structure that looked like a techy coliseum maybe. When some of the Avengers wandered into it (apparently the most bankable Avengers? Sucks to be Vision and Wanda, shrug) they vanished.

In the next issue, after several days, these heroes returned, speaking of a secret war they fought. Weird stuff like She-Hulk taking the Thing’s place on the Fantastic Four happened. In other books, Spidey got a cool new suit.

Would you know more?

After being raptured in their various books, the missing superheroes all end up on one of those distinctive structures like the one that appeared in Central Park, except IN SPACE.

Its cool that the Avengers will have some company.

We’ve got a terrific 3/4ths of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men (including Lockheed but not including Kitty Pryde for some reason), the Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the totally Articulate Hulk, and hilariously Magneto is also here.

Maybe Secret Wars is just setting up the most awkward moment in the universe, as a prank show.

I think I’d enjoy a big event that turned out to be a prank show at the last minute. The fan discontent. Imagine.

Everyone introduces themselves to each other but mostly the audience and Ben Grimm claims his new codename as the Easter Bunny.

Checking, marvel wiki doesn’t have Easter Bunny listed as one of Ben’s known aliases. Cowards.

Looking up into space, Captain America spots another one of the totally cool constructs and Professor X scans that it contains EEEEEEEVIL.

Specifically Amora the Enchantress, Ultron, the Wrecking Crew, the Absorbing Man, the Lizard, VICTOR VON DOOOOOM, Kang the Conqueror, Doctor Octopus, and Molecule Man. Also, hilariously, Galactus is there.

I’m more convinced than ever that this is a prank show.

You know what would be more hilarious? If Punisher ended up on this construct.

The distribution of villains is kind of odd though. Galactus and Doctor Doom map to the FF. Doctor Octopus and the Lizard to Spider-Man. Ultron, Molecule Man, and Kang are Avengers foes. The Absorbing Man and the Wrecking Crew can go a couple ways but started off as Thor villains. And Amora is usually a Thor villain but supposedly has chilled out around this time or at least is less of a pain than her horny sister.

No X-Men villains. Because Magneto is chilling with them in the generally heroic pod.

Also, all the heroes were raptured from Earth while the villains were grabbed from Earth, from space, from Asgard, resurrected just to be here, or from the FUTURE.

I know marketing is wagging the dog but be consistent, secret organizer who we don’t know yet.

The Thing points out that Magnet is off-sides, re: being in the hero construct, and Magneto is like ‘hey, chill out dudes’ and denies specifically doing murders.

Magneto: “I know not what power transported me here from my secret lair, nor why I was placed among you -- but I find it more appropriate to ask why such as you were judged fit to be placed in my presence!”

Oof.

Burn.

Then the conversation is put on halt on account of the wildest shit any of them have ever seen.

An entire galaxy vanishes but probably not due to a wave of anti-matter.

Thor: “It’s gone! Gone -- ! Swept away like dust before some unseen, giant hand!”

And then around that last star left unswept, various chunks merge together to form some sort of world, perhaps for battle.

A nice touch for later is that you can definitely see that one of the chunks is a stray chunk of city.

Some of the villains start squabbling because close quarters, ego, etc.

But Ultron goes hey we’re allowed to fight? I’m the best at that.

Ultron: “I am Ultron! I do not understand the events transpiring! I do not understand how I came to be resurrected... nor how I came to be here! Nothing computes... Insignificant! I am Ultron! My purpose is to slay that which lives. You are all living things, ergo -- Ultron must destroy you!”

With the benefit of having read all the Avengers up to now, I feel that Ultron got up on the wrong side of the resurrection a little.

He’s not not like this but he’s not usually this turned on?

(Then again, maybe he just came back cranky)

DOOM grabs and shakes Molecule Man to do something about this because given enough time even the mighty DOOM might fall before Ultron.

Ultron is famously annoying to defeat, what with that adamantium.

But Molecule Man is in therapy after the Avengers kicked his shit and Tigra yelled at him for being a punk. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

So Doom with all his brilliant genius tells MM a cool way to help out that won’t hurt anyone. Directly.

Using his Molecule Man power over molecules to lightly toss Ultron into Galactus.

So that Galactus goes ‘who the fuck scuffed my boots’ and rips out all the energy in Ultron’s Ultron.

He can do that.

Why wouldn’t he? If he can do that to a planet, he can do it to a pissbaby robot. Even one apparently containing more power than an atom bomb.

Then, because this is one of those plots where things are always thenning, a rift opens in the nothingness of space and a heavenly esque light shines out. A warbly voice commands the action figures beat each other up.

I mean. Its more like

The Beyonder: “I am from beyond! Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours! Nothing you dream of is impossible for me to accomplish!”

But you have to admire that this toy commercial of a comic book is being honest and upfront about being a story where action figures bonk off of each other.

Galactus just hears ‘i can finally shake off these persistent forever munchies’ and flies off to demand prepayment for action figure bonking, with DOOM following behind him.

The Beyonder speaks up warning Galactus that hey, personal space. And that a guy that can effortlessly wipe out a galaxy is gonna have a sweet barrier but Galactus wants the hunger pangs gone and does not listen.

DOOM recognizes a bad idea when he sees one once in a while and hangs back but still gets blown out of space by the force of Galactus bonking off the Beyonder’s barriers.

Captain America: “They were swatted back like flies!”

Professor X: “To the Beyonder, even Galactus is less than a fly, Captain!”

Interruption dealt with, the Beyonder gets the show on the road and sends the two constructs to different parts of the patchwork planet.

The Marvel Super Heroes And Magneto land on some hill and quickly make sure that there are no villains excepting Magneto around.

With Magneto around, the non-X-Men raise an objection to Magneto being around.

He sank a Russian submarine with all hands back in X-Men #150 but he insists that it was self-defense and also they started it.

The X-Men’s position is ‘hey he’s a jerk but he’s our jerk plus we could use his help? The bad guys get GALACTUS, how is that fair?’

Well, they don’t say it but they’re probably thinking it.

And Hawkeye decides to be a little racist today.

Hawkeye: “You mutants stick together, huh? Well, sticking to a blood-soaked maniac like him doesn’t speak well of you, pal!”

Dude, Clint. Your dear old friend is Wanda.

Wait, why ISN’T Wanda here? Did the toy people really not want her? Fools. Her husband is toyetic as all get out.

Also, point of order, Wolverine? If anyone qualifies as ‘hey he’s a jerk but he’s our jerk!’ here its you.

Johnny “good life choices” Storm decides he’ll just kick Magneto’s ass and end the debate but yeah. Yeah, no. Magneto makes a fool of him.

And then Magneto decides eff this noise and flies off.

With Magneto alienated (good job, guys), Professor X decides this group needs some dang leadership and throws a nomination to Reed Richards. Reed defers since he’s thinking of Sue, left at home and not able to participate in the event.

Wasp, the cool leader of the Avengers, nominates instead Captain America.

Wasp: “We’re off in a strange land, up to our ears in a little secret war that may decide the fate of the universe! Some people don’t know me well! They might have doubts... and there’s no room for that!”

I’m baffled that there’s people here who don’t know Wasp who has been heroing since the 60s but sure. Cap(tain America) probably gets more crossovers and whatever.

I mean, heck, we’re talking a group of heroes consisting of the Avengers (who she already leads), the Fantastic Three (who she’s well acquainted with), and the X-Men (who I’m sure she’s met, although awkwardly its going to later be revealed that Wasp is in the Hellfire Club, but only the sex parts).

And I guess Wolverine’s extensive backstory with Cap doesn’t exist yet because Wolverine isn’t keen on him being the leader, describing him as the least of the assembled heroes. When Hawkeye is right there!

I kid because I love.

Meanwhile, DOOM wakes up adjacent to Galactus ankle and heads to a nearby fortress which he correctly assumes is where the villains have ended up.

Wait, the heroes get beamed down to a random hill while the villains get sent to an advanced fortress with weaponry and we later learn vehicles sold separately?

Kinda stacking the deck, the Beyonder.

You gave the villains GALACTUS and A FORTRESS PLAYSET right out of the gate.

The other villains tell Doom that they’ve (mostly) decided that he should be their leader. But Doom has bigger fish to fry than the prizes that the Beyonder is offering.

In typical Doomesque fashion, he wants the whole kettle. But the other villains what with their petty concerns think he’s too afraid to fight.

So he ditches.

He goes to steal-borrow a spaceship and even though he hates the thought, takes off to go talk to Richards. And then Kang shoots him out of the sky with a GIANT GUN THAT THE VILLAIN FORTRESS ALSO HAS? to stop him from allying with the heroes.

Said (marvel super) heroes see the distant explosion and fly as a group in the most hilarious way possible to check it out.

God, I have always loved this image. Its squished down into the bottom third of the page but its a delight.

They find Doom sprawled in the crash site, rambling that he’ll only speak to RICHARRRRRDS and about the Beyonder’s power. But Cap offends Doom mightily but offering him a hand up and because Doom sees pity in Cap and RICHARRRRRRDS eyes.

So he blasts the heroes and fucks off.

How very Bakugou of him.

And right as the heroes recover from that, a bunch of villains arrive to get this secret war started.

I have a fondness for this particular issue. For a long while, issue 1 was the only issue of Secret Wars I could find. So I just had the start of this story with all these non-Spider-Man non-X-Men heroes I barely knew cliffhangering into an attack by villains I really didn’t recognize except for Doc Ock and the Lizard.

It was a window into another side of the Marvel Universe. And for child me, this first issue worked perfectly to intrigue me. All these characters, the very straightforward conflict, all the complications that immediately pop up like Magneto, Galactus, and Doom. Alas, small child resources.

June, 1984

PRISONERS of War!

The heroes react slowly to the sudden villain attack but thankfully, the villains aren’t working together well. Unthankfully, half of the heroes were already knocked out by the first attack.

Meanwhile, over at Doctor Doom’s side of the plot, he flies back over to where Galactus just in time to see him finally rouse from being slapped down by the Beyonder.

Galactus floats to his feet and wanders off.

Doom: “He ignored me! As though I were a gnat buzzing at his feet! And so I am... Just as all of us, even Galactus himself, are but insects to the all-powerful Beyonder! Thus, the others have chosen to play the Beyonder’s simple game -- thereby, in effect, paying homage to him. Should I, too, pay homage? Should I worship at the feet of this god-like being -- or chose another path... one only Doom would dare!”

I think anyone that knows Doom knows which option he’s gonna choose.

He heads back to the villain fortress and finds Ultron’s deactivated body and decides Doom can use this.

Meanwhile, back at the first secret battle of the secret war, the heroes rally and start fighting back under Cap(tain America)’s leadership.

She-Hulk even gets a designated girl fight with the only female villain on the villain team.

I’d complain, I would. But at least She-Hulk isn’t the only heroine on the hero side.

She-Hulk: “Hiya! I’m the She-Hulk! You must be the Enchantress! Gee, I’ve heard so much about you -- ! You’re a not-nice lady!”

Enchantress: “A green woman? Is there no end to the varieties of mortals?”

The Enchantress magic slaps She-Hulk away and comments that she could crush She-Hulk physically but its beneath her.

Yeah, all Asgardians have some level of super strength, that’s right. Even the squishy wizards.

But all She-Hulk heard was, ‘someone I can really punch!’

She-Hulk: “I don’t often duke it out with someone solid enough to really unload on -- and slow enough to let me! Oh, wow! That was, like tubular, you know -- to the max!”

Uh. Jen, are you okay? Did you have a stroke? You don’t usually talk so much in Mario World secret world levels.

I think maybe Jim Shooter didn’t have a good grasp on her. I don’t think he’s ever written for her. And the other heroes mostly don’t vary too much from generic hero speaking patterns. Add some smart for smart characters, add some rude to Wolverine, and so on.

The battle wraps up with Kang, the Enchantress, and the Wrecking Crew captured and the rest of the villains fleeing when the battle didn’t go their way.

Cap sends Storm off to scout for a cool playset that they can use as shelter and she does so, noting that the winds on Battleworld are super easy to control. Like Battleworld was created to create ideal fighting conditions for everyone. Pretty neat, the Beyonder.

Storm finds a particularly rad fortress (”Bigger than fifty-four and a half Pentagons, I’d estimate!” Wow!) and the heroes move in.

I unironically enjoy how toyetic this story is with the fortresses and the vehicles and the weapons. Because I’m almost positive that Mattel barely capitalized on it.

There were only two playsets. Pitiful.

Over in their new headquarters, Reed stashes the captured villains in some form of psychostasis which “works by controlling aggression through brainwave modulation!”

He also sticks Enchantress in a healing pod to address that nasty case of being She-Hulked right in the face. Nothing will salve her ego though.

Captain America: “It’s no wonder that the name Mister Fantastic is renowned for compassion as well as courage! You give added meaning to the word hero, Richards!”

Whenever someone loudly announces that Reed is super compassionate, it makes me feel like they’re overcompensating.

Nobody ever makes note of, say, Captain America’s compassion.

With the prisoners (of war? Is that the whole reason for the title?) accommodated, Cap calls everyone for a meeting in a cool meeting dome he found which has a small waterfall for aesthetic and so everyone has to yell to be heard.

Wolverine yells that they should mop up the rest of the villains and get this over with.

Not mentioning that in order to “win it” they’d have to kill the villains, which none of the heroes have shown any interest in doing so far.

Cap(tain America) replies that A) planet big and they have no idea where the villains got to. And B) the remaining villains slash antagonists are Galactus, Doctor Doom, Molecule Man, Doctor Octopus, the Wrecker, the Absorbing Man, and Magneto. Not really people you mop up.

In a fun logistics bit, Cap sends out a patrol to make sure the area is secure but he also sends out two additional groups to find if there are any places in this fortress they can sleep and whether there's any... food.

Makes me imagine a Secret Survival War where the sides have to wrestle over limited resources.

Hours later, the villains that escaped the fracas arrive back at their fortress.

I’m sort of confused here.

Maybe it took so long because they had to make sure they weren’t followed. Or maybe because they didn’t have the sweet tripod vehicle anymore. But think about the flow of events of: everyone beamed down to Battleworld > Doom ditches the villains and gets shot down > heroes investigate and Doom ditches > villains show up for cliffhanger fight.

The villain fortress should be pretty close to where that fight took place. And then the heroes find a nearby fortress of their own so their fortress should be pretty close to the villain fortress. Maybe not in the same neighborhood but surely the same zip code.

Anyway, they find that while they were gone, Doom swanned in and renamed the place the Doombase.

If they have problems with it, they can talk to his Ultron.

Which I’m surprised he didn’t rename Doomtron.

Doom also tells them that he’s in charge now.

Absorbing Man: “Aw! Who gives a hoot! I need a meal an’ sleep! You wanna be in charge, Doom? Okay by me!”

If you think about it, this is just some steps added what the villains wanted all along.

They wanted Doom to be their leader but he told them he had bigger fish to fry and fucked off. Now he’s fucked back on and told them all that he’s their leader. They initially object before reconsidering due to Doomtron but, yeah, its all gone full circle.

Doom is a lot more cordial to Molecule Man though.

Doom: “Molecule Man... uh, Mr. Reece, I believe it is? I trust you were not inconvenienced.”

Molecule Man: “Well, being absolute master of molecules I can just assimilate molecules when I want, so I never have to be hungry, and I can just shoo away dirt molecules, so I’m always nice and clean -- but I am tired!”

Doom: “I have prepared a special chamber for you! I hope you like it!”

Molecule Man: “If not, I can always reconstruct the molecules -- !”

Heh.

Nice to see Jim Shooter able to follow up on the trajectory he sent Molecule Man on.

The rest of the villains head off but Doctor Octopus, the only other brain cell in this group, hangs back to talk to DOOM.

He wants to know what he plans to do about Galactus and then shows Doom on the biggest screen TV that Galactus is standing on a mountain glowing with an awesome power.

Doom just retorts that his plans are for his forces to triumph.

Doctor Octopus: Something tells me he’s got ambitions that dwarf merely triumphing in the Beyonder’s little contest! The question is whether he will destroy us in trying to achieve them -- or immediately after fulfilling them?!

Like I said, the only other brain cell in this group.

Meanwhile, while Magneto secretly sneaks into the hero fortress for Reasons, the heroes have a quiet moment that lets this Secret Wars biz really sink in.

Wasp: “I’d be having tea in my studio now, Jenny... And lunch on my patio tomorrow... This... um... situation we’re in... is kind of... much, you know? I feel there’s just a little thin wall inside me holding back a flood of despair!”

Its a nice touch, if intentional, that Wasp only admits this kind of thing now that she’s passed off the leadership responsibilities to Captain America. Its been a recurring character beat that she’s been keeping these sorts of worries to herself as chairwoman.

Over in another part of the fortress, Cyclops complains that he was right in the middle of his dang honeymoon when he was yanked into this event.

Cyclops: “I don’t know about you, Richards, but more than angry or afraid, I feel cheated! I -- I was on the verge of real happiness...”

Oof. This really sets the tone for his marriage with Madelyne Pryor.

Spider-Man and the Human Torch even have a little conversation.

Spider-Man: “You mean it doesn’t shake you, Torch, being here? What if we don’t get home?”

Human Torch: “The Fantastic Four have been off on space missions a couple of times, Spider-Man! We’ll get back! Believe me!”

I like when they’re friends.

So, I’m not sure what Magneto’s plan actually was. He was going to sabotage the fortress’ fusion generator as a distraction but Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense Spider-Alerts him to shenanigans afoot and he runs off to the power plant while Johnny Storm goes to get the other heroes.

Magneto decides to abandon whatever his plan was and captures Wasp as a consolation prize.

Gasp, another prisoner of war!

The Thing tries to give chase but inexplicably turns back to normal, smooth skinned Ben Grimm.

Also, Magneto escapes with the Wasp.

It’s like the aardvark says, you can get what you want and still not be happy.

Captain Marvel is holding the randomly anti-mutant ball for Hawkeye here and comments that none of the X-Men showed up to help stop Magneto.

Cap(tain America) tells her to belay that.

Captain America: “Let’s keep our minds on solving problems, not creating more!”

And they can’t even go after Magneto or rescue the Wasp right now because they have bigger problems: Galactus glowing with an awesome power and a massive storm that’s forming on Battleworld.

July, 1984

TEMPEST WITHOUT, CRISIS WITHIN!

The Beyonder has thrown in a nice stage hazard to keep things fresh in the form of a massive storm raging on Battleworld, with lighting that shatters mountains and winds that could tear someone’s limbs clean off.

Or perhaps its the unintentional result of just slapping a planet together out of random stuff you have lying around. The climate must be shot to shit.

I like it either way. Secret Wars has a lot of very toyetic collisions between groups of characters so its nice when Battleworld itself manages to be an obstacle.

Over in his giant U-shaped fortress, Magneto finally unwraps Wasp from the ball of random metal crap he has her in.

He lets her wander around until she finds him so that he can be all casual and eating a space scone.

Magneto: “Do not bother trying to attack me, my dear! My person is magnetically shielded!”

Wasp: “Well, la-de-da!”

Wasp: -blows up his space scone- “You think I have to strike at you directly to hurt you, monster?”

Hilarious spite, thy name is Janet van Dyne.

She also makes the point that magnetic shielding or no, she could bring this whole room down. Her being able to knock over a small house with her pew pew hasn’t stopped being true.

Magneto hastens to ask her not to do that because neither of them want to be out in the storm outside.

Besides, he just wants to talk! And flirt!

Magneto: “You are obviously a woman of intelligence and understanding as well as great beauty -- and I am not the monster you believe I am -- which is precisely what I wish to discuss!”

Wasp: “Oh? My intelligence, understanding and beauty or your non-monsterhood?”

Magneto: “Why... both!”

Back at the hero base (which is apparently ROUGHLY THE SIZE OF CHICAGO?? I want that playset), the storm has almost completely flooded the area, leaving just the top dome and such poking above the water.

The storm keeps dropping chunks of mountain at the base but Thor is standing on top, protecting it while grinning like a loon.

Captain Marvel even speculates that Thor could calm the storm but is whipping it up into a greater frenzy instead. Those storm gods, amirite?

Hawkeye is also standing by, with his explosive arrow, thinking to himself that if Thor fails, Hawkeye will totally save the day.

I don’t know whether that’s sad or endearing.

Mostly though he’s trying to distract himself from thinking about the new wife he left behind.

Cap, Reed, and Hulk are watching the villain base because apparently they do know where it is. The storm is keeping the villains in too but Cap figures they’ll pull one desperate attack as soon as the storm breaks.

They’ve already lost four of their dudes. Plus, Galactus isn’t a team player.

Spider-Man is just swinging around, enjoying how good for swinging the random technological pipes and tubes and whatsits are when he stumbles upon the X-Men having a secret meeting.

Professor X has decided, possibly on the basis of two (2) rude comments from Hawkeye and Captain Marvel, that the X-Men just don’t belong here and that they’d be better off going and teaming up with Magneto.

This... sure is a take.

Rogue comments that the Avengers don’t trust her because of that time she kicked their asses collectively. Which, hey, very possibly. They haven’t really had a thing to say about you though. They’ve mostly been grouchy about Magneto.

Which is kinda born out by the way he tried to blow up their base and definitely kidnapped the Wasp?? And is even now aggressively eating scones at her?

That’s the Magneto you guys want to go join because he’s more your people than the Fantastic Avengers and friends are?

You know, there’s a pattern I sometimes see with the X-Men where they loudly insist that the other superheroes don’t help them and don’t care about mutant stuff while at the same time doing shit like this.

“Should we get Reed Richards, smartest dick in the world to help with the legacy virus or the techno-organic virus Stryfe shot into Xavier? NAHHHH Beast can handle it.”

“Should we stick with the other superheroes or go hang with Magneto instead in a cool mutants only U-shaped fortress? Well, U is the coolest letter that isn’t X...”

If you squint, you can definitely see Krakoa all the way in the future.

Anyway, Spider-Man overheard all of this and goes ‘I’M TELLING!’

Wolverine tries to tell him that snitches get stitches but the thing is?

Spider-Man is ridiculous. He’s a ridiculously good combination of skills and powers which lets him make chumps out of entire groups at a time.

He’s embarrassed the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and now he’s about to embarrass the X-Men.

After making them all feel foolish, Spider-Man gets away and goes to tell Reed what that doody-head Xavier said when Xavier uses his psychic powers to just wipe the entire encounter out of Spider-Man’s memory.

Yeah, it’s to cover their imminent blowing off but also? I don’t think he wants anyone else to find out how badly his X-Men just got stomped.

Psychics are too OP, I tell you what.

In fairness IN FAIRNESS, the X-Men kind of have the right to fuck right off if they wish. I don’t even know what it had to be in secret. In fact, doing it in secret is a massive dick move of its own for reasons.

What would the Fantastic Avengers have done if the X-Men had just said ‘hey we’re heading out’? Would they have put them in stasis tube jail? I doubt it.

Professor X made the decision to handle this the stupidest way for whatever reason. That scamp.

Speaking of Magneto, he’s over at the U-Lair turning down a partnership offer from DOOM. So, hey, he has standards.

Wasp has become less ‘i’ll blow up this room and your breakfast’ about him over the course of whatever the hell they discussed in their offscreen chat.

Magneto even starts to make out with her and Wasp is like ehhhhhhhhhh what the fuck why not.

Why is this happening?

I guess he has a...................... magnetic personality?

Eh? Eh??

No, but seriously, I do have a theory that I heard someplace but it’ll have to wait.

What’s weird is that there’s a Marvel What If about some spinoff babies that come about if the heroes and villains got stuck on Battleworld and never managed to leave.

Wasp has a son with Human Torch. Which is pretty weird and comes from nowhere. I guess a lot can happen during a massive time skip. My point being though, its weird that they didn’t have a Wasp/Magneto baby instead given the weird chemistry they have here.

Meanwhile, over at DOOMBASE, DOOM has some women in giant tubes.

That’s So Doom.

Doctor Doom: “All is ready -- ! This alien technology, so rich, so subtle... so easily harnessed to serve my purpose... Energy, tapped from the raging tempest... And two mortal subjects who dare to gamble for power -- knowing that to lose is death, for truly, here I shall test the limits of power a human body can contain! With the throwing of a switch... so -- the die is cast! Hear me -- ! Power must be seized -- ! Crave it! Welcome it! Drink it in, despite the pain... or it will destroy you.”

And thus are Volcana and Titania created!

Talk about lasting effects of Secret Wars! Titania is going to be around forever! Mostly annoying She-Hulk!

Where did Doom find two random women to give superpowers?

Denver, Colorado.

No, seriously.

That city chunk we saw as Battleworld formed? That’s Denver, Colorado, USA, EARTH.

Why isn’t there a miniseries or one-shot about a normal ass civilian from Denver having to deal with OH MY GOD WHERE DID EARTH GO?

I actually read an interesting thing re: this scene. It exists because Mattel asked Marvel to introduce some new female characters so Shooter wrote in these two and a third who I’ll get to when I do.

Mattel then promptly used none of these characters for the associated toyline.

The toyline, in fact, used none female characters at all. It made toys of characters who weren’t in the story but did not have a single female character.

So its very weird that they asked Marvel to introduce some but I’m not going to knock the results.

Doom introduces these two new characters to the other villains.

Hilariously, Absorbing Man guesses that Doctor Doom just made women from scratch. Because doesn’t it sound like something he could do?

Volcana and Molecule Man immediately hit it off, her being attracted to his sensitivity and him being attracted to... positive attention at all, I guess?

He muses that he could easily stop the storm outside, because molecules, but his therapist told him to let nature take its course. “Unless Doom asks me to!”

And Titania and Absorbing Man. They don’t hit it off. She either wants to hit him or hit that and its not clear and it might be both.

(Spoilers: Its both)

Titania: “You! Absorbing Man! You look like the toughest man here! Get up!”

Absorbing Man: “Whatcha got in mind?”

Titania: “I’m going to do anything I want to you! Everything I always wanted to do to everybody who used to be bigger and stronger than me! Maybe I’ll just play with you... or maybe I’ll make you eat dirt... or maybe...”

Absorbing Man: “Woman, if you got somethin’ to prove, prove it tomorrow against the guys we’re fightin’!”

Titania: “You’re backing down?”

Absorbing Man: “Nope! I just ain’t getting up! I got nothin’ to prove... to a dame!”

Would you believe that they become one of the healthiest and most stable romantic relationships in Marvel?

Speaking of weird relationships, back over at hero base, Thor goes and pops the lid on Enchanteress’ healing tube because he’s bored and wants to talk to a peer. A god peer.

Enchantress is at first more characteristically worried about what her face looks like after being She-Hulked.

But she then creates a portal so she and Thor can go have a chat.

Later, it’s morning and Hulk has been too busy stressing over losing his Banner smarts to actually keep watch or wake up Cap for watch like he was supposed to.

So when the villains ram an airship into the hero base, the heroes are not at all prepared.

Titania hurls a giant slab of wall through the room the Terrific Three are sharing, breaking Johnny Torch’s arm and ribs and knocking out the other two. He manages to get himself and co out of danger by melting through the floor.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk is carrying a big heavy as she’s been doing since the previous night and is caught unaware by Volcana who blasts her off her feet and then collapses the room on top of her.

Doctor Octopus knocks out Captain Marvel who is in the hot springs dome but gets chased away by Hawkeye, claiming that long-range firepower is his weakness.

I’m stunned at the implication that Doc Ock is one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes but could be scared off by Hawkeye while Spider-Man could pretty easily drop Clint’s ass. There’s some rock-paper-scissors nonsense at play here.

Spider-Man and Iron Man are also taken unawares by Ultron but manage to hide under some rubble.

Hulk leaps into the fray at Molecule Man and Doom but Cap convinces him to fall back to a defensible position.

The villains reconvene with all the captured villains freed except Enchantress (since she fucked off to have a chat with Thor) and the heroes scattered and buried under various rubbles. How the fortunes of Secret War turn.

Sure would have been nice if the X-Men had been around to help or if they mentioned they wouldn’t be. Sure would have been.

Doom: “We have accomplished much here today! And to finish it, we shall level this place so that no stone remains on stone!”

No wonder Mattel didn’t make a playset of this base! Dammit Doom, you’re ruining the merchandising!

Follow @essential-avengers for more of Secret Wars! At this same pace! Its sustainable! This is fine! Like and reblog too!

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arrow-guy · 4 years

Text

Talk to Me

Original request from @scrawlingwithstyle: Here's a request I've been sitting on for a bit. ClintxReader; Clint is deaf and most people rely on his lipreading skills, but Reader knows some ASL from when her family thought her autistic younger sibling would never speak (they became vocal close to seven years old). They have secret conversations across the room, thinking no one else on the team understands. . . . They're wrong. Adjust however you like!

A/N: Okay, it’s taken probably close to a year to actually get around to this, but i kind of breezed through writing it? And it was a whole bunch of fun to finally put down in a document. I didn’t change much about your request, but I definitely added to it, and made it a little romantic? Idk if it’ll come off as romance, it’s kind of goofy (it’s Clint, there needs to be a goof somewhere.) I really hope you like it, though!!

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

Pairing: ClintxReader

Word Count: 5.5k

Warnings: None

“Are you sure about this, Bruce?” I ask. “Ross let me go as soon as you went AWOL. I haven’t worked with people like this in years.”

“Of course I’m sure! You were the best back in the day.”

“Back in the day,” I laugh. “You make it sound like we’re ancient.”

“We’re not as young as we used to be,” he says. “But that’s the point. You’ll bring some much needed experience to the table.”

“But I’m not a spy and I definitely don’t have any powers.”

“Trust me, (Y/N), superpowers are not all they’re cracked up to be, and both spies have long since ceased their spying activities.” I cock one eyebrow and he laughs. “For the most part.”

“Saying a spy stopped being a spy is like saying you misplaced the hulk.”

“Ah, very true.”

“I’ll do it, though.”

“You will?”

“Well I can’t very well leave you to fend for yourself, now can I? As it stands, I’m already a shitty friend, working together can’t hurt things.”

Bruce grins and grips my shoulder. “I’ll see you Monday, then.”

I roll my eyes, but can’t fight back my smile. “Do I need to pack a bag, or will I be allowed to go home at the end of the day?”

“Not sure yet. Might as well bring a change of clothes and a toothbrush just in case.”

“Alright, then. I’ll see you Monday.”

“I can’t believe you actually pulled it off, Banner,” Stark says. “You wrangled a counselor for the team?”

“What,” I say. “Like it was supposed to be hard?”

Bruce laughs and reaches out to place his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve known (Y/N) for just about as long as I can remember. I’m sure she’ll be a good fit.”

“As long as you can remember, huh?” I look past Captain Rogers and find a sandy haired man. He grins when I meet his eyes. “Just how long?”

I bob my head from side to side. “Somewhere between twenty years and most of our lives.”

He whistles. “Pretty long time, then.”

“Mhm.”

Bruce clears his throat. “I’m sure (Y/N) wants to see where she’ll be working, so I’ll just show her to her office.”

Everyone in the boardroom waves and Bruce leads me out of the room. As soon as we’re out in the hall I sigh and bow my head, finally able to let my shoulders relax.

“That was a lot.”

Bruce chuckles. “Trust me, it’ll either get worse or stay exactly the same as time goes on, depending on who you’re talking to.”

“The blond guy who spoke up, that’s Hawkeye, right?”

“Clint Barton, yeah.”

“Will I be seeing much of him?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t really know much about the guy. He seems pretty happy-go-lucky and stable most of the time, though.”

“Huh.” I shrug and hitch my bag a little higher on my shoulder. “You never know with some people.”

“True. I’m sure you’ll deal with him at least once more after this. He’s the curious type.”

“I guess I’ll have to look forward to that, then.”

Bruce hummed in agreement and leads me to the elevator bank and takes me down to what will eventually be my office. He gives me a basic rundown of the facilities and shows me which restroom is closest to my office. I ask for a baseline reading on everyone on the team and Bruce rattles off what he’s noticed about the main five.

“Steve will most likely drop by to make small talk, but it may take some time for him to open up in any way that counts. Tony will joke about therapy, but once he warms up to you it’ll be impossible to get him to leave.”

“Oof, that bad?”

“He’s long-winded.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to enforce appointments with him when he starts to take interest.”

“Probably wise.”

“And Natasha?”

“I doubt you’ll see much of her. She has her ways of working through her issues on her own.”

“Do they involve murder?”

“Don’t know, and I don’t care to.”

“Got it. None of our business. I’ll let her come to me if she needs anything.” I plop down behind my new desk. “What about Thor?”

“Who knows. He shows up when he wants and tends to be a pretty jovial guy.”

“Ah. Is there anyone else outside of the tower I can expect?”

“Wanda, Sam, and Rhodey will be around from time to time. If Steve has his way, Bucky will move in at some point, and Wanda is currently in the process of moving into the tower, so you may see her more after that. I’m not sure how often she’ll drop by. She’s fairly private due to her powers.”

“Energy manipulation, right?”

He nods. “That, and other mind tricks.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“But that just leaves Clint, and we’ve already gone over what you can expect from him.”

“It doesn’t just leave Clint, Bruce.” I fold my hands on the desktop. “I expect to see you in here at least once a week. Ideally twice.”

Bruce scowls. “(Y/N), you know how I feel about that.”

“Yeah, well, I listen to your opinions on that stuff when I’m just your friend. Now I’m your therapist, and you’re going to listen to me because I know what works for you. So I expect you to get your pasty ass in here when you’re scheduled.”

“You’re making appointments for me now?”

“Until I’m sure you’ll come to me on your own, yes.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Send me the schedule. I’ll see you at my appointed time.”

“Wonderful.” I relax my shoulders, letting my professional mask slip. “Thanks for this, Bruce. I mean it.”

“I know you do.” He cracks a smile. “You’re the only person I trust to get to the root of our issues.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll try not to let you down.”

“Believe me, (Y/N), if anyone’s gonna let me down, it’ll be the team.” I laugh and he heads for the door. “I’ll see you later. Good luck with your first day.”

“Thanks, Bruce. I’ll see you later!”

“So, (Y/N),” Tony says, spreading out on the couch across from my chair. “What’s your deal?”

“My deal?”

“Yeah, what makes you tick? What motivates you to try and heal the fragile minds of the Avengers?”

“I’d say a decent paycheck is a pretty good motivator, Mr. Stark.”

He seems disappointed with my answer. “Is that it?”

“Well, that, and I want to make sure Bruce is doing alright. He’s struggled with therapy in the past, and I want to make sure he’s getting the kind of help that he needs.”

“I see.” He presses his lips together and folds his arms. “You’re not even curious about the rest of the team?”

“Of course I’m curious, but nothing discussed in this tower will be shared with anyone outside. I take my patients privacy very seriously.”

“You sure you don’t just fear for your life?”

“Living in New York, I fear for my life constantly. That doesn’t mean that I’m worried about getting merced if I get a little loose lipped outside of work.” I sigh and lean back in my chair. “That being said, I won’t be sharing your confidential information with anyone you haven’t specifically given authorized access to your records.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. It’s almost like I’m a professional, right?”

He smiles. “I’m really starting to like you, (Y/N).”

“Then I guess I have a lot more of this to look forward to, then, don’t I?”

I laughs and hauls himself up from the couch. “We’ll see.”

I make a note of his response in my open document. “Sounds like a tentative yes to me, Mr. Stark, and I’ll be here so long as you deem my services necessary.”

He nods and exits my office. He leaves the door open.

“How are you liking it here so far, (Y/N)?”

“It’s been quiet, Captain Rogers. It’s a bit like pulling teeth trying to get anyone to make use of their resources.”

“I guess it would be. We’re a relatively private bunch.” He pauses a moment. “And, please, call me Steve.”

“Right, Steve. Is there anything that I can do for you today?” I ask. “It’s entirely alright if you just want to make small talk.”

“Oh, well, uh…” He awkwardly clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably on the couch. “I guess I just wanted to get a lay of the land.”

“I understand.” I glance around my office. “I should probably bring in some art and plants. Make it a little less sterile in here.”

Steve laughs. “That might help.”

I smile. “Maybe an area rug?”

He shrugs. “Whatever you think would be best.”

“I appreciate the creative freedom.” I close my laptop, set it to the side, and settle back in my chair. “Is there something on your mind, Steve?”

“No,” he says quickly. He immediately looks conflicted. “I… well, kind of.”

“Feel free to speak. Nothing you say will leave this office.”

“You hardly know me.”

I shrug. “I know how stressful this environment can be. And, while your team is very good at what they do, they’re also the ones who are causing your stress.”

“I don’t know if I’d say that.” I watch him chew the inside of his cheek. “I guess I’m just concerned that things might not get better, even when Bucky’s moved in.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. I’m worried that it might not be a good fit for him, or that the team won’t accept him, or that he might not even want to be around me.”

“Those are all valid concerns. Have you mentioned any of this to him?”

“God no. I don’t want to stress him out more than I already have with all of this moving business.”

“I might suggest bringing it up. He might be having similar worries himself, and, as helpful as it is to work towards what’s troubling you with me, I won’t be able to settle your nerves.”

“Maybe you’re right…”

“If nothing else, it might open up a new line of communication between the two of you, which couldn’t hurt.”

Steve stays for another hour, just talking. When he leaves, he asks if I want the door open or closed. I don’t give him a definite answer and he leaves it open, just a crack. I laugh and start on his profile.

Someone knocks on my door and I glance up from my paperwork to see Clint standing in the doorway.

“Mr. Barton,” I say. “I was wondering when I might see you.”

He shrugs. “Here I am.”

“After two weeks, I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

“If I was?”

“Then it’s none of my business.”

The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile. “I like that answer.”

I rise from my desk and gesture to the couch. He raises his eyebrows, but takes a seat anyway. I sit across from him and watch as he tries to decide just how he should sit. In the end, he leans heavily on his knees. Nothing about him is relaxed.

“I’m starting to think Bruce was wrong about you.”

“What’d the green bean tell you about me?”

“Nothing concrete,” I answer. “He just mentioned that you seem to have a positive outlook on things most of the time.”

He snorts. “Great.”

“Mmm, I see. It’s a facade, then?”

He frowns and presses a finger to his right ear. “Could you say that again?”

“I said, it’s a facade, then?”

“Sometimes.”

I nod. “Interesting.”

He barks out a laugh. “Yeah, interesting.”

I watch him look around the room, examining the art on the walls and the stacks of paper on my desk. When he turns his head to the left, I notice his purple earpiece and something suddenly clicks. He tilts his head to the side when he sees me staring.

“What?”

“Would it be easier if we signed?” I ask, signing along as I speak.

He looks surprised. “You sign?”

I laugh. “Yes. My little brother is on the Autism spectrum. When he was a kid, he was almost entirely nonverbal. Mom taught him sign, and the rest of the family learned along with him.”

“That must’ve been really nice for him.”

“It was nice to be able to communicate with him when he couldn’t vocalize what he wanted to say. He eventually started speaking when he was about seven, though.”

“And you still held onto the signing skills?”

“Of course! It’s not like he just, bam, started talking. It was a long process, and he still has nonverbal days sometimes.” Clint starts to actually smile and it warms my heart. “It’s come in handy in my particular line of work too. Deaf and hard of hearing folks need counsellors and therapists too.”

“Which brings the topic of conversation back to me.” He shakes his head and leans back against the couch and signs, “You’re a tricky one, (Y/N).”

“I’m not tricky!”

“Then what?”

“I’m accommodating.” I speak again, but continue to sign along. “You don’t have to tell me everything, or anything, really. But I’m here to help, if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Clint. Any time.”

“Seems like you and Clint are getting close,” Bruce says.

“I don’t know what you mean, man.”

“He’s in here all the time, (Y/N). There’s no way Barton needs therapy five times a week.”

“It’s not always about therapy, Bruce. I strive to make my office a safe space where everyone knows that they can speak freely. He knows that he can come here and chill out without worrying about the rest of the team.”

“Barton doesn’t really worry about anything, though.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

Bruce stares at me, eyes narrowed, and snaps his fingers. "You like him."

I roll my eyes. "I do not like him, Bruce. And you're not even here to talk about Clint, you're here to work on yourself and managing your stress levels."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm sure there's something we could talk about aside from me."

I sigh and hold my head in my hands. "I've been here for two months. I haven't been around long enough to form anything more than tentative relationships with the rest of the team. I'm more concerned about whether or not they can open up to me than I am with my love life."

“Right,” Bruce clears his throat.

“Thank you.” He looks thoroughly ashamed and I have to laugh. “I appreciate the interest, but it’s just not something that you need to worry about.”

“No, I understand.” He smiles and shrugs. “I guess I just miss having that easy rapport with you.”

“I mean, we still have that, Bruce. It’s just not something that I want to talk about in the workplace. It’s one thing to shoot the shit over lunch on a Saturday, it’s another to discuss my patients with another patient, all of whom are my coworkers.”

“I didn’t think about it like that.”

I smile. “It’s fine. Did you want to pick up where we left off on Tuesday?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“(Y/N)?”

I’m startled by the woman in the doorway. “Ms. Romanoff?”

She shakes her head and steps into my office. “As long as you’re not a government official, it’s just Natasha.”

“Ah, right.” I sit a little straighter in my chair. “What can I do for you, Natasha?”

“Clint’s said you’ve helped him a lot.”

“I don’t know about that. We just talk. He does all the helping.”

“I figured you’d say that.” She moves quickly across the room and takes a seat on the couch. “I’d like to talk to you, if you have the time.”

“Oh.” I scramble up from my desk to sit across from her. “What about?”

“I need help working through a recent case.”

“Are you sure I’m qualified for that?”

“Well, you said Clint does all the helping. Maybe what I need is a sounding board.”

“Fair enough. Where are you caught up?”

Natasha rattles off the details of a recent mission. I do my best to follow her, but she loses me when she starts explaining the intricacies of a piece of Hydra technology they discovered. Eventually, she perks up, almost looking like she wants to jump up from her seat and run from the room.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“That’s great!”

She calmly gets to her feet and walks to the door. “Thank you, (Y/N).”

I shake my head. “It was my pleasure.”

“Even so, you helped me.” She flashes me an unexpected smile. “I appreciate that.”

“It’s not a problem, Natasha. I hope that we can speak again at some point.”

She nods and heads for the door. “I’ll see you around.”

In the hall I hear, “Oh, hey, Nat.” and Clint pokes his head in soon after.

I smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He leans in the doorway and folds his arms. “What’d Nat dump on you?”

“Doctor patient confidentiality, Barton,” I say. “I can’t tell you.”

His arms fall to his side and he dramatically slumps into the room. “I thought you trusted me!”

I laugh. “I do trust you, Clint. But it’s not my information to give.” He drapes himself across the couch and grins at the sight of me fighting back my smile. “If it were, Bruce would have full access to what we talk about in our sessions.”

“That’s private information, (Y/N)!” He laughs. “I see your point.”

“Good.”

“Did you want to grab lunch later? That weird little cafe down the street started serving some kind of coffee burger.”

“Ugh, and you want to eat that?”

“(Y/N), it’s a coffee burger.”

“With all the heinous shit you put in your body, it’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

“If you think I’m bad, you should meet my dog.”

“Is that an offer?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Guess you’ll have to stick around long enough to find out.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s been four months, Clint. If I haven’t run for the hills yet, I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna happen for a while yet.”

Something twinkles in his eyes. “That’s good to hear. I was worried I might scare you off.”

“If anyone were to scare me off, it’d be Tony.” I shake my head. “That man is a handful.”

“What happened to patient confidentiality?”

“Since when is Tony being a handful a secret?” He laughs and I relax in my seat. “But, yeah, I’ll get lunch with you.”

“Really?”

“Someone has to make sure you don’t keel over from physically eating coffee.”

“Oh come on! It’s not like they solidified the coffee and stuck it on a bun!”

“How do you know they didn’t? Maybe they turned the coffee into jello, passed it through a meat grinder, and threw it on a griddle.”

His face scrunches up in disgust. “Ugh, that’d just be burnt coffee.”

“I’ve watched you drink an entire pot of burnt coffee.”

“Desperate times, (Y/N). They call for desperate measures.”

I sigh and shake my head. ”I guess it’s fine, so long as you’re not addicted to caffeine pills.”

“Those don’t do anything for me.”

“That’s terrifying.”

He laughs, hauls himself up from the couch, and offers me a hand. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?”

“Head out for lunch.”

“Now? I thought you said later.”

“It’s been like five minutes. It’s later now.”

I laugh. “I can’t just go now. I have an appointment with Steve in twenty minutes. We can leave after that.”

He pouts. “Fine.”

“Don’t give me that look, Clint!”

He sighs and trudges towards the door. “I guess I’ll just have to make a reservation for one thirty.”

“That’d be great.”

He flashes a brilliant smile before disappearing out into the hall. I shake my head and move back to my desk.

“That man is gonna get me in trouble.”

“I thought you said you weren’t involved with Clint?”

“I’m not, Bruce.”

“Then what’s this?” He places his phone on my keyboard.

I pick up the phone and find an article titled “Hawkeye’s New Flame, or Just a Fling?” pulled up. A picture of Clint and I at lunch the other day sits just below a paragraph speculating who I could be. I snort and hand him his phone.

“Clint and I went to lunch. That’s all.” I sit back and fold my arms. “What’s the problem, Bruce?”

“I don’t want you getting dragged into some kind of media storm because you work with us.”

“It’s one article!”

“There’s at least four more like it that I’ve seen.”

“I’m not worried about it, Bruce. Clint just went out for lunch and some pap caught us talking. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it, but I can’t stop people from talking.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“No one should have to deal with anyone plastering their personal life all over the internet, but you know what? I’d rather get caught out in public with Clint than Tony.” I laugh. “Can you imagine the shitstorm that’d kick up if that happened?”

Bruce tries not to laugh. “I guess you’re right.”

“It was bound to get out that the Avengers brought in a counsellor at some point. It’s better that it’s like this instead of some media outlet picking up a rumor and deciding that you’re all unstable.”

“Well…”

“I’m not saying you’re the most sane bunch, but that’s no one’s business but yours. Regardless, don’t worry about this. It’ll be fine.”

“Alright.” He pockets his phone. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Of course I would, Bruce. If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”

I sit on the floor of the gym and lift the collar of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face.

Clint plops down on the floor beside me and tips his head to the side.

“Definitely didn’t expect to find you in here,” he says.

“What, I can’t work out?” I groan and lay back. “Ugh.”

“You okay?”

“No. I knew I should’ve just stuck to the treadmill.”

“What’d you do to yourself?”

“Weights.”

He laughs. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. Is wanting to be able to lift a very large dog a good reason?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a bad reason.” He lays beside me and props himself up on his elbow. “I could help you, if you want.”

“I don’t know how I feel about being all sweaty gross around you.”

He pokes my stomach and I laugh and shift away. “I don’t know, (Y/N), sweaty’s the new sexy.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” I laugh and scrunch my nose. “Also kind of gross.”

“Sweet and kind of gross, I think you’ve pretty much summed me up perfectly.” I laugh so hard that I snort and he grins. “So, do you want help working out?”

I press my fist to my mouth to quiet my giggling. “If you’re willing to, I really would appreciate it.”

“Then it’s a done deal.” I thank him and his smile softens. “Sorry about those articles last week, by the way.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“I should’ve warned you, at least. I’m used to it, but you didn’t sign up for pap shots and gossip columns when you took this job.”

I scowl. “Honestly, Clint. If you’re not gonna read my lips, read my hands. It’s totally fine. I don’t care. I had a nice time at lunch. A few dumb articles won’t change that.”

“You mean that?”

“Well, yeah. I like spending time with you outside of all of this,” I say, gesturing to the tower in general. “With, y’know, no expectations of maintaining all of the professional bullshit.”

“Pretty sure you’re the most professional one here.”

“Thanks, I’m glad that comes across in the day to day, but do you understand what I’m saying? Like I genuinely do not care about what a shitty news outlet says. At the end of the day, the only opinions that matter are ours.” I sigh and settle on the floor. “Sorry.”

“Sounds like we’re not the only ones who need therapy.”

I hum. “Maybe I do.”

“No shame in it.”

I smile at him. “I know.” I sit up and get to my feet. “It’s getting late, I should head out.”

“You’re in tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be around till noon. I’ve got a wedding later in the day.”

“Not yours, right?”

I laugh. “No, definitely not mine.”

“Cool,” He smiles up at me. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Since when do we have staff meetings?” Clint asks.

“Since we brought on a counselor,” Tony says.

I frown. “I’ve been here six months and I’ve never been to any kind of meeting.”

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you brought that up and just keep moving with the meeting.”

I snort and shoot Clint a look. He laughs and signs for me to stop. I wave him off and turn my attention back to the head of the table.

Tony rambles on for about half an hour before Steve cuts in and the two of them start going back and forth. They bicker for twenty minutes before Thor swans in, greeting everyone with his bright, booming voice. I was stuck in my office the last time he was on Earth, so our paths never had a chance to cross. Steve takes a moment to introduce the two of us and Thor vigorously shakes my hand, unintentionally jostling me around the whole time. He takes his seat on the other side of Bruce and the conversation picks up again.

I catch Clint’s eye twitching in my peripheral when Thor speaks a little too loudly. I gesture to get his attention and he raises his eyebrows when he meets my eyes.

“You good?” I sign.

He nods. “Can’t pay attention to save my life in these meetings.”

“I’ve never known anyone to compliment your attention span.”

He mouths, “Oh, ha ha,” and I laugh.

“You’re mean, (Y/N).”

“And here I thought you liked me.”

“Never said I didn’t.” He grins. “The way things are going, I’d say you’re probably just my type.”

I shake my head and hide my smile behind my hand. “Stop.”

“Aw, you're cute when you're embarrassed." I flip him off and he laughs. “That's a compliment!"

I snort. “Pay attention, Clint.”

We manage to make it through another hour and, by that time, someone has turned off the lights and started giving a presentation. I fold my arms on the table and rest my chin on top and beg myself to stay awake through this meeting. I’m sure it’ll only be a little while longer.

Clint’s hand creeps into my line of sight and he taps the table to get my attention. I shoot him a quizzical look and he lifts his eyebrows.

“You still with us?” he signs.

“No.”

“It’s going longer than I thought it would.”

“I’m honestly about to fall asleep.”

“Aw, (Y/N), no.”

“This is how I go out. Avenge me, Clint.”

“No!”

“It’s your job. You have to.”

“But who will help me through the trauma?”

I cover my mouth to muffle my laughter. “I’d be dead, that’s none of my concern.”

He shakes his head. “And you call yourself my friend.”

Natasha clears her throat, startling me away from the conversation. I try to pay attention to the presentation, but I just can't wrap my head around what they're talking about and Clint easily distracts me again.

"Quick question."

Surprised, I sign, "Shoot."

"Would you want to go out with me?"

My brain stops working for a second. "Wait, what?"

"I said, will you go out with me?"

My heart hammers in my chest. "Like as friends, or on a date?"

He sighs. "We've been hanging out as friends for months now. I'm asking you on a date, stupid."

My face heats and I sit back in my seat. “Oh.”

He laughs. “Did I break you?”

“A little.” I frown.

“Just say yes!”

Startled, I glance up the table, only to find Natasha glaring at Clint and I. Everyone is looking at us and I suddenly want to disappear.

“What’s the problem?” Steve asks.

“I’m sick of watching the two of them flirt with each other,” Natasha says. “You’ve been mooning over each other for months. Just say yes and be done with it.”

“Nat, they haven’t said a single thing since the beginning of the meeting.”

“They’ve been signing at each other the entire meeting.” She looks directly at me and signs, “I see everything.”

“Sorry.”

“Just say yes.” She looks very pointedly between Clint and I. “You’d be good together.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like him!” Bruce says.

“That was months ago, Bruce. Things change.”

“Don’t be hard on her,” Natasha says. “Clint’s an acquired taste.”

“I’m just gonna, um…” I gesture to the door. “I’m just gonna go.”

I see Tony and Steve nod and I shove my chair back from the table and make my escape. The door shuts behind me, and I’m free. I sigh, relieved to be free of the weight of everyone’s eyes on me, only for the embarrassment of having my crush exposed to my coworkers to settle deep in my stomach.

I press my fingertips to my temples and walk down the hallway. “I knew he was gonna get me in trouble.”

I make the decision to just go back to my office. Maybe I can at least get some work done or, at the very least calm down. I turn as the elevator doors close and catch a glimpse of the conference door opening at the end of the hall. I shift slightly so that it’s not in my line of sight.

The elevator ride feels like it’s too long and I immediately flop down on my couch as soon as I’m in my office. I can't get comfortable and shift around until I'm upside down with my legs over the back of the conch, staring at the ceiling. I press the heels of my hands over my eyes and groan out of frustration.

“I left without even answering him,” I mutter.

The door suddenly opens and I freeze, pulling my hands away from my face, waiting for whoever it is to announce themselves.

"(Y/N)?"

"Clint?" I try to sit up and smack my head on the edge of the coffee table. "Shit."

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I rub my forehead and sit up a little more carefully. "I'll live."

He takes a seat on the coffee table and watches intently as I sit upright on the couch and face him. He reaches out and gently touches my forehead, only to jerk his hand back when I wince.

"Sorry."

"Don't, it's fine."

"Okay." He sighs softly and shuffles awkwardly on the table. He stills when I touch his knee and takes my hand in his. "I'm sorry about the meeting. I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that."

"Honestly, Clint, you don't need to apologize," I murmur. "I got flustered and then embarrassed when everyone else got involved."

"I know. I probably like pushing your buttons a little too much."

"That's not it."

"But I do push your buttons."

"Yeah, but only 'cause I let you." He smiles and I squeeze his hand. "But I'm a deeply private person. To have Natasha butt in like that, no matter the good she meant by it, really set me on edge."

"I had no idea."

"I don't feel like I have to keep everything close to my chest when I’m with you. You tease me, but it’s never from a place of malice and you know me well enough that you never take it too far.”

“I mean, you give as good as you get.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he runs his thumb over my knuckles. “But still. I should’ve just asked in private, but you know me.”

“Yeah. You’re sweet, but kind of stupid sometimes. More than a little impulsive. And way too fond of coffee.”

“Aw, I thought that was endearing!” He smiles when I laugh. “The invitation still stands, but you don’t have to say yes.”

“What’re you talking about?” He meets my eyes and I shake my head. “I’m not about to turn you down. You haven’t introduced me to your dog yet.”

“Oh, I get it, you only want me for Lucky.”

“Mhm.”

He shakes his head and kneels on the floor in front of me. “Shoulda known.”

“I know, I’m pure evil.” He grins and takes my face in his hands. “I should be fired, right?”

“Without a doubt.”

I hum softly and lean forward to bump my nose against his. After a moment’s hesitation, Clint closes the distance between us and gently kisses me. I place one hand on his forearm and tilt my head to the side to kiss him back. He smiles against my lips and pulls away, his eyes flitting over my face.

“So… about that dog.”

I have no idea what would happen to them after that, but I’d like to think they’re having a great time, petting dogs and continuing to mess with each other, all whilst falling in love.

I’d love to know what you guys thought of this little one shot. Did you love it, did you hate it? Did you breathe out through your nose a little bc you kind of laughed but also didn’t? Be sure to like, reblog, comment, or shoot me an ask and tell me all about it!

If you’d like to be tagged in future fics, please let me know!

Tag list:

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cruciatusforeplay · 3 years

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Do you know of a comprehensive list of Hawkeye appearances in the comics, with summaries?

So when I first saw this ask I thought "a comprehensive list of Hawkeye? With summaries? That is absolutely madness, who would have done that?"

I had a quick glance at Marvel Unlimited and found there was over 500 issues listed under Hawkeye (and that's not considering his time spent under other names, or alternative universes, or Kate Bishop doing her thing) and confirmed to myself that a comprehensive list would indeed be completely unmanageable. So obviously I decided to give it a go.

I absolutely cannot give you an entire rundown, because ya boy's been busy, but I can try to give you a little bit of an overview. (Head's up, I said "little" but that was a lie. This is a BIG post and I'm hoping it might give you some key points for Clint's comic career and his background which will hopefully be useful for figuring out which comics to read or anyone writing canon-based fanfic)

A not-so-brief history of Hawkeye in Comics (spoilers below the cut)

First appearance: Tales of Suspense #57 (1964)

We run into Clint working at Carson's Carnival, where he is being underappreciated by the audience and very unhappy about it. He's a proactive lad, so he makes himself a new costume and arrows to be utterly unforgettable. He accidentally gets himself implicated in a crime and meets the Black Widow. They become allies and he uses trick arrows and nearly manages to take out Iron Man, but must abandon his plans to save Black Widow from a blast of his own arrow. He kicks off as an enemy to Stark basically. There is also a bunch of Iron Man shenanigans happening here and it's a fun read.

He sticks around as a villain for two more issues in Tales of Suspense #60 and #64 (1964 and 1965).

First appearance as an Avenger: Avengers #16 (1965)

Clint shows up about halfway through and has determined that he'd like to be an Avenger instead now, thanks. He tells them a little about his doomed love with Nat and how she paid the price and they decide they're on board. He is introduced to the press. There's a bunch of other Avenger member swapping around in this issue (and if you want the most of it, you should start with issue 15 because it's a direct follow up story wise)

He's a key member of the Avengers from hereon in and features in most issues. He spends his time shooting arrows and having problems with authority (particularly Cap)

Key background: Avengers #19 (1965)

This issue gives us a bunch of background on Clint. The Swordsman shows up wanting to be an Avenger (because he wants an Avengers ID - yes really). Clint objects and we find out Clint's an orphan and that the Swordsman took him in and trained him at Carson's Carnival. Clint then caught him stealing from the circus and they fight where he leaves Clint for dead. It's a big old betrayal. The Swordsman then spends the rest of comic kidnapping and trying to kill Cap, so all round that's a no on the Avengers ID.

Hawkeye quits the Avengers: Avengers #109 (1973)

Hawkeye doesn't like that Scarlet Witch and Vision are in a relationship, and essentially he plays the jealous jilted lover who throws a tantrum (door slamming included). He quits the Avengers, immediately realises he didn't actually love Wanda after all. He spends his fresh downtime teaching The Champion archery, who then promptly betrays him. The Avengers come to the rescue.

His involvement in the Avengers is spotty over the next decade.

Hawkeye gets Hitched: Hawkeye #1-4 (1983)

This is Clint's first solo run. It's important for two reasons. He meets Mockingbird who he marries by the end of the run, in what can be described as an enemies to lovers speed-run. This is also the series where Clint is originally deafened; he has to make a sacrifice play with one of his own sonic arrows which is how he ends up deafened. There are some other classic Clint moments: he starts the run by getting dumped, he rides on the skycycle/sky-sled and he ends up with his outfit getting mostly ripped off more than once. We also get some background about him and his brother Barney running from the orphanage to join circus, how Barney got him to hospital after the incident with the Swordsman, and we find out that Clint didn't speak to his brother for years and that he's dead now. Honestly this run is great fun and I have a big soft spot for it.

The West Coast Avengers: West Coast Avengers #1-4 (1984)

Clint helps found and then leads the West Coast Avengers with his wife Mockingbird. This is another mini series, but it led to a much longer run starting the following year that ended in 1994. Real talk: I've only skimmed this iteration of WCA but what I've seen is campy fun, the skycycle is back, Clint really settles into being a leader and the sun is always shining. Special shout out to Tigra who is a bad-ass in this mini series. During the longer run, Clint and Bobbi's marriage is put through the ringer amongst other things, and they eventually separate. Truthfully there is a lot of other stuff going on regarding their relationship in that run and onwards. If their marriage is something you want to know more about I recommend checking out the full summary listed at the back of Hawkeye and Mockingbird #1 (2010) - it starts on page 22 of that issue - be aware it contains major spoilers for later stories.

Key background: Solo Avengers #1-5 (1987)

We get to meet Clint's other circus mentor here: Trickshot aka Buck Chisholm. You'll be shocked to hear that Clint gets betrayed. We kick things off with some circus shenanigans where his charity performance/showing off opportunity is interrupted by mercs sent to kill him, by Trickshot wanting to settle a debt. The second issue presents us with a lengthy flashback where we find out Hawkeye's dirty secret: it wasn't actually the Swordsman who taught him archery, but instead an actual archer called Trickshot. We see Clint get trained up only to be immediately pushed into a life of crime where he ends up shooting his own brother. Buck then shoots Clint when Clint wants to take his brother Barney to hospital. Trickshot is shown to have an unsavoury taste for killing for pleasure and promises to kill Clint when he's got something to lose. In addition we also get some flashbacks to Clint's abusive home situation and his time in care before joining the circus. The next two issues cover a side story that honestly doesn't lead anywhere or get resolved by the end of the run. Issue #5 (which is the first of this run available on Marvel Unlimited if that's how you're reading) then brings you into the real action. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Clint spends this entire issue in only his undershorts. There's some fun archer Vs archer antics, before an emotional reveal where Trickshot begs Hawkeye to end his life because he has cancer and doesn't want a slow death. Trick has a cry, Clint refuses to kill him and instead they have a comforting cuddle on a beach under a sunset. It's an unusual run, but Trickshot will show up again later in Clint's arc, and it's got a lot of fun quips and action sequences.

Quick note on the 90s

In my opinion, the 90s weren't real good to Clint. He had a couple of solo runs, but imo nothing with major substance, or character development so I'm skipping them. If you want to know what you're missing check out Hawkeye #1-4 (1994) aka Clint broods in Canada and there are wolves, and Hawkeye: World's Mightiest Marksman #1 (1998) aka Clint is stubborn and goes head to head with Taskmaster.

Key background: Hawkeye #1-6 (2003)

This series, which has Clint travelling on a motorcycle in order to find the best chilli and sporting some 90s boyband hair, also gives us some really great insight into his and Barney's relationship. We get snapshots in amongst the rest of the story of Barney being the moral compass for Clint. We see Barney getting his GED while Clint works on archery, and later we see Buck encouraging Clint into crime and Barney telling him it's wrong. We get another retelling of the Swordsman story, this time with both Buck and Barney coming to rescue Clint. While Clint's broken leg is healing, Barney tells him he's joining the army and Clint should come with. Clint says no, then changes his mind, but ends up missing the bus. We again see Clint on a job with Buck where he shoots a guard only to realise it's Barney, and is subsequently shot by Trickshot for wanting to help Barney. They both make it to hospital. Clint asks what happened and Barney tells him "guess you are what you are." Years later we see Clint at Barney's grave and are informed that he was involved with the mob. Clint is upset, only to then be informed Barney was actually working undercover for the FBI. These snapshots are my favourite part of the entire series. The rest of the series focuses on Clint doing some detective style work and shooting arrows. If this is the first run you've checked out since the WCA or Solo Avengers runs, you'll note this is very different in both art and story style. There was a definite shift in the 90s that brought us closer to the style we have today.

Clint doesn't have any solo runs for a while, but he is involved in a bunch of bigger stories which we'll take look at in part two of this post.

The MCU push and key background

In the lead up to the movie premiere of Avengers Assemble (2012), Marvel produced a lot of content for the Big Six as promo to their preexisting market. Hawkeye and Mockingbird #1-6 (2010), Widow maker #1-4 (2010) and Hawkeye Blindspot #1-4 (2011) follow on directly from one another, though you could read any of them independently and the first two are less about Clint. Avengers Solo #1-5 (2011) also featured during this time. All but Blindspot are simple action comics without any lasting impact for Hawkeye. Blindspot has a pretty comprehensive rundown on Clint's history including his abusive dad, the circus, the Swordsman, Trickshot, his relationship with Cap and the Avengers, him becoming Goliath and some very important information regarding his brother and their relationship, all woven into a well paced plot. Additionally, he's going blind. There is a lot of story in these four issues. It also provides the foundation on which Fraction set his run, so it's a good story for anyone who had any unanswered questions regarding the start point for Hawkeye (2012).

The Fraction/Aja Run: Hawkeye #1-21 (2012)

This is the big one. Either you're here because you've read it and now you love this idiot, or you want to start reading Hawkeye. This is where you start. I'm not gonna summarise this one because everyone deserves to read it without spoilers. But I'll say this: this is Clint when he's not being an Avenger. He's messy and relatable and he loves dogs. This is a character defining run and it is one of my all time favourite comics. There is so much good stuff in here and I could talk for hours about it. Go forth and feast your eyes.

If I've missed anything major, or listed something incorrectly or you just have some Clint related opinions that I need to know about, do hit me up.

I've run out of images, so this post will continue in part 2 which you can read here.

#clint barton #deaf clint barton #hawkeye comics #marvel comics #let's talk about comics #comics #hawkeye #hawkguy #hawkguy and other costumes

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