#i ain't taking this injustice lying down | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rappaccini · 3 months

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ain't no love in the heart of the city? 👀👀

(from this)

oooohkay. how do i describe this... i'm gonna have to ramble to make it make sense. and whip out these screenshots i've had sitting around for ages. but i've been meaning to talk about this for ages so thank you!

so first of all, you know how miles's uncle aaron is the prowler? that's a reference to hobie brown, who was the first black character to wear the spider-man costume in canon back in 1971 (issue asm-87).

in context: he was wearing it temporarily as a favor to peter to help throw the cops off his scent, but that was still the first time this ever happened.

aside from that, 616 hobie is also paralleled to peter parker often in his early appearances.

they're both genius tech whizzes with chips on their shoulder about injustice, who are ignored and mistreated by the people around them

they both make costumes with wrist-mounted tools.

they both start out using their secret identities to attract attention and for selfish gain.

they're both in on-again-off-again relationships with a girl who supports them but won't take their bullshit lying down, who doesn't know about their secret identity and wouldn't approve of it.

they both angst like fuck about their secret identities, wish they could quit them but keep coming back for more, and grow out of using them selfishly. (... though in hobie's case he keeps quitting being the prowler altogether, then backsliding, then trying to redeem himself again)

hobie even has his own uncle ben moment when a kid he's mentoring, manuel lopez, is killed and he suits up to avenge him.

like. it's so fucking interesting. this parallel keeps getting built between peter and hobie, and then it gets dropped and never comes back.

it's also fucking interesting that of all the characters miles morales is so personally linked to, it's the prowler. it's not a coincidence. miles definitely owes his creation in part to hobie brown, and aaron davis being the prowler is an acknowledgment that hobie came first, and that miles is going to pick up the torch hobie lit and run with it.

(also worth noting: because miles is so popular, aaron davis is now the default prowler. which means it's now possible for hobie's redemption as an antihero to stick. idk i think it's compelling that it came full circle, with hobie and miles each creating opportunities for each other to become something new to the narrative.)

anyway! the fic! it happened because i thought a lot about how the spiderverse writers went the route of 'miles was supposed to be the prowler, but he became spider-man by mistake,' when... to be honest, that's more of a hobie story than a miles one.

i'll never get around to writing the fic bc it's more a big list of ideas and worldbuilding extrapolations instead of a plot, and i don't have time to put in the research it would need, but basically it's an au where peter dies and hobie brown becomes the default second spider-man instead of miles morales.

like, how does his approach differ? what tech is unique to him? who does he fight and what motivates him? how does it affect his personal life? how does an adult who's spent years struggling to use his secret identity for good-- and being perceived as a supervillain by everyone-- change into a hero? and since the fic was meant to be a 70s period piece, how does nyc's perception of spider-man change?

#hobie brown 616 #asks

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