#i could have drawn marvel black widow

[anyon-else]

My Struggling Form, My Willing Soul (The Red Room pt.7) | Sakura is adamant that you stay in the compound permanently, and you're trying to think of any reason why that's a bad idea. You don't expect Kakashi to be the one who convinces you to stay. (Marvel AU) – spotify playlist | read on ao3

Pairings | Kakashi Hatake x Black Widow!Reader + Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, Naturo Uzumaki, Kakashi's Ninken

Warnings | fem!reader, hurt/comfort, fluff, mentions of torture, mentions of abuse

Word count | 6.7k

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"I don't get it. I slept in the woods for three weeks, completely exposed and relying on a near-stranger to watch my back. And in all that time, I barely had any nightmares after the fourth day. I slept better than I have in years. And then I come here, where it's arguably safer, and I've had one every night. How does that make any sense?"

While Pakkun was giving you what appeared to be his full attention, a huff was his only response to your rambling.

It had been a week since Kakashi left to go to the compound, leaving you with an ample supply of instant ramen and a pack of eight dogs to care for. For the most part, looking after them had given you enough to do that you'd avoided being completely alone with your thoughts. However, since you'd been staying at Kakashi's house, you'd woken up at least once every night drenched in sweat and shaking from phantom pains. Each dream was different, but they all involved the same thing. Pain, either inflicted by others onto you, or you onto others.

"What do you think, hm? Got any wise advice for me?"

Pakkun took in a large breath, then let it out in a long, drawn-out sigh. You'd been reading a book from Kakashi's Icha-Icha collection, and the pug had settled for a nap on top of you. He looked irritated that your one-sided conversation was preventing that.

"You look grumpy, but you're very clingy."

Pakkun grumbled, rolling onto his side and settling in for his nap now that your conversation had run its course.

"You're lucky my phone doesn't have a camera. I'd be taking so many pictures of you right now."

Kakashi had given you a burner phone before he left. Sakura had the number, but she rarely got the opportunity to use it with so many SHIELD agents crawling around the compound. Instead, it was Kakashi who generally contacted you, though it was with the same update day after day: no progress.

While you appreciated his effort to keep you updated, he generally texted you late at night after the doctors had finished working. Every night, you stayed up for his update, received it, and then went to sleep.

It was likely this pattern that made Sakura the main subject of most of your nightmares. In some, Kabuto forced the two of you to fight. In reality, you knew that you would've allowed her to win, but this dream-version of you was ruthless. Your movements were robotic, and your expression was cold and stoic as you watched the life drain from Sakura's eyes.

Orochimaru was always there. He watched with a wicked smile on his face each time you killed Sakura. And when you knelt at his feet, waiting for new orders, Sakura was already on her feet again. Then the cycle would repeat.

In other nightmares, Sakura was in the compound. She was with Kakashi and Sasuke and Naruto and she was happy. Then Orochimaru made her watch as he ordered his widows to kill each one of them in front of her. All you could do was look helplessly at the scene, trapped in some subconscious cage and unable to reach her. Unable to help any of them.

Each time you had a nightmare, you were woken up to a wet nose pressed against your cheek. Most nights, it was Akino who would wake you and curl up against your side. Other nights, you woke to Bull panting in your ear and Pakkun grumbling as he settled on your chest.

They seemed used to waking their companions from nightmares. Almost as if they had a routine response to it.

"Does Kakashi get them too?" you asked Pakkun one night. He gave you the same disgruntled look as always. "I'm sure he does. Probably hard not to when your kid is kidnapped."

The days were idle, but you sometimes wondered if you would be happy living like this. There was no larger purpose to it. No goal but to keep the dogs and yourself alive. But you also felt at peace knowing that you were caring for other living beings. You saw why so many people chose it.

It also gave you an excuse to indulge in Kakashi's sizable backyard. When you were in the Red Room, being outside was a luxury that you were only able to indulge in on missions. Having constant access to fresh air felt like a dream.

"C'mon," you called to the dogs, "outside, let's go."

All eight rushed through the door when you opened it, jumping over one another in their haste to race around the yard. Only Pakkun seemed content to sit at your side and rest his head against your thigh.

After a while, Bull wandered towards you and rested his head in your lap, looking up at you expectantly.

"Thirsty?" you asked the bulldog. "Hold on, big guy. I'll be right back."

"Y/N!"

The familiar call of your name made both you and Bull turn towards the source. Bull was quicker to react than you, his thirst forgotten. It took you a moment to start moving so that you could see past the gate.

The voice came from the opposite side of the gate. Pakkun jumped up when he saw Kakashi unlatching it, and he was quickly followed by the rest of the pack. You released a shaky breath when you saw Sakura looking over his shoulder, waving wildly at you with a grin.

You sidestepped Kakashi and the pack of dogs competing for his attention and met Sakura in a tight hug. Something loosened in your chest that you hadn't realized bound itself up. She was safe.

"I missed you," she said happily, the words muffled in your shoulder. You laughed and squeezed her tighter.

"I missed you too," you laughed, pushing her away enough that you could give her a once-over. There weren't any physical changes that you could see, and she seemed relatively unharmed, but that didn't stop fear from growing from its root in your stomach. Why were they here?

"Looks like the dogs are still alive," Sasuke grumbled behind Sakura, followed closely by Naruto. He seemed surprised that all of the dogs were unharmed and presumably well-fed in your hands.

"Of course they are," Sakura shot back, and you noted the guilt that crossed Sasuke's face when he met her icy glare.

Once they had given Kakashi a thorough greeting, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto were given an equally enthused welcome by the pack. They switched between the three with wagging tails, and the kids seemed just as happy to reciprocate. Even Sasuke had a fond smile on his face as he rubbed behind Bull's ears.

"Thank you for looking after them," Kakashi said, taking up Sakura's empty space next to you. The two of you watched the dogs pile on top of Naruto until the boy could barely be seen, but you could hear his laughter from underneath. "I hope they weren't too much of a handful."

"They were good. It was nice," you added as an afterthought. "I didn't realize you were all coming here."

"We sometimes come when we want a break," Kakashi shrugged, "I figured they could use it."

It only took a moment for you to break out of the domestic fantasy that you'd been living in for the past week.

"Did something change?"

Sakura seemed normal. She was moving around fine, and nothing looked out of the ordinary. But yesterday, the update had been the same. No progress.

"The doctors couldn't find anything," Kakashi sighed, "if there had been anything in her system to begin with, they think it probably passed after it had been deactivated. They're guessing that it was some form of the chemical agent that was mentioned in HYDRA's files, but since we're missing so many years of information, they can't know for sure.

"The good news is, since the doctors think that it was a one-time use, we probably have nothing to worry about. The only thing they want us to do is keep an eye on her."

"If there had been anything?" you repeated. That implied the possibility that there hadn't been anything wrong to begin with.

"SHIELD sent a psychiatrist to talk to Sakura, and I told him that Sasuke was the one who found her. He raised the possibility that, since this has been a time of high-stress, Sasuke could have been exaggerating how bad things really were. He suggested that Sakura was just having a psychological episode when she attacked, and that Sasuke misinterpreted it as mind control."

"You've got to be kidding me," you scoffed. When you glanced at Kakashi, you expected to see the same anger that you felt at this assumption, but all you saw was guilt. He wasn't meeting your eyes. "You're not serious."

"I'm not saying that there was nothing wrong–"

"No," you held a hand up, silencing him immediately, "I don't want to hear it. I know what happened. I've told you dozens of times. It wasn't some episode. It was Orochimaru looking at me that night, not Sakura."

"I know you believe that," Kakashi muttered. He winced at his own choice of words, "but you're not exactly...in a good state of mind right now. You've been seeing things for weeks. You attacked me because you couldn't remember that you'd escaped the Red Room and you thought I was an enemy. I'm just saying that there's a possibility that...that Sakura was just having a nightmare and thought the same thing about you. Those kinds of responses to trauma aren't uncommon."

That couldn't be true. That night...it hadn't felt like any of your other panic attacks, and it hadn't felt like a hallucination.

"I know what I saw. I'm...I am not crazy, Kakashi."

"I never said that."

You needed to think. You almost wished you could lock yourself away and pretend that you were still in the Red Room. Things hadn't been pleasant, but they had been simple.

You didn't spare a glance at Sakura as you strode inside, though you felt her eyes on your back. You felt all of them watching you as you retreated back inside.

Anger and guilt fought furiously in your mind, and nausea swirled in your stomach at Kakashi's words.

There had to be some other explanation. You would never forget the look in Sakura's eyes when she wrapped her fingers around your throat. You'd never seen such pure hatred on her face before.

Kakashi and the others had probably been discussing this. They likely came to the mutual conclusion that you were out of your mind and unable to give a proper account of that night.

It made sense. You were an outsider. Even to Sakura, you were a companion that she'd been forced to hold onto rather than someone she chose. But now she had her family back. Kakashi probably told them everything that happened during the mission, from what you'd found about your parents to your episode only four days into the three weeks that you were away.

In their eyes, you were the basket-case who wasted a month of their time because you weren't in control of your own mind. You'd taken their teacher away for nothing, leaving Sasuke and Naruto to try and help Sakura heal without him. And if what they thought was true, it had all been for nothing.

Logically, it should've been a good thing. If what Kakashi told you was correct, it meant that Sakura hadn't been in any danger to begin with. But you couldn't help the dread that kept you huddled on your bed in the spare room, curled into yourself as you replayed Sakura's attack over and over again. This was your life now. Without Orochimaru, you were breaking apart and dragging the others down with you.

You heard someone enter the house a while later, and you weren't surprised to hear Sakura knocking at your door with a quiet request for entrance. She sounded nervous, and knew Kakashi probably told her why you were upset, if he hadn't out right requested that she come talk to you.

"Come in," you sighed, hoping she wouldn't notice how anxious you were.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. You winced; why did you need an apology from her, of all people? None of this was her fault. And if you could just stop being so selfish and worrying only about yourself, she wouldn't have to worry about you either.

"Why?" you forced a small smile, but it only made her frown deeper, "you don't need to be sorry, Sakura. You didn't do anything wrong."

She nodded, but didn't look any more convinced than she had when she walked in.

"I just...I wish I could remember what happened that night. Then maybe I could help us find answers."

That burden shouldn't have been hers to bear. This was your responsibility, and you failed.

"Don't be mad at Kakashi-sensei," she said quietly, eyes cast downwards at where your hands were gripping the sheets. You released the white fabric and locked your fingers together, "he's just trying to make sense of this. We all are."

I have made sense of it, you wanted to tell her, I know Orochimaru. I know that this is something he would do.

But you weren't so sure now. You had been questioning what was real and what was just a product of your panic for weeks now.

You were supposed to be strong for her. She was the one who needed your support, not the other way around. When Kakashi hadn't been there, you'd taken care of her. That wouldn't change just because you were unable to gain proper control over your mind.

"I know," you said, attempting another reassuring smile. This one seemed to work a bit better than the last, as she returned it and let some of the tension drain from her shoulders, "I'm just happy you're safe."

"I'm happy you're safe too," she said with a watery laugh, "and Kakashi-sensei and I were talking. He agreed that, if you'd like to, you should stay here for a while."

Your immediate instinct was to reject this offer on the same grounds as you had the last time, but you supposed that Ino had given you some leverage by making it appear that you were dead. Assuming her ruse had worked, the main issue keeping you from accepting Sakura's offer would be...

"Sasuke and Naruto agreed too," she added. You raised a brow at her, unconvinced that Sasuke had been as willing as she was making it sound. She winced, "it did take some convincing."

"I don't know, Sakura," you murmured. While the thought of what you would do after Sakura was safe had crossed your mind, you always pushed it off as a secondary problem. And while you weren't convinced that Sakura was safe, from what Kakashi had told you, you weren't needed anymore, "I don't think I'd fit in well here."

"Of course you would!" Sakura waved a hand, pushing the thought away. "He won't admit it, but Kakashi-sensei likes you. He was worried about leaving you here for so long."

"I think he might have been more worried about his dogs," you corrected, but her expression didn't change. "You four are a family. I'd only get in the way of that."

"You're my family too," Sakura said firmly, taking your hand from your lap and holding it between hers, "and I want you to be safe. Where else would you go?"

It was a fair question. Since you began planning your escape, it had always been about Sakura getting back home. You'd never given much thought to what you'd do. The only thing that you could come up with was going back to the Red Room, but that wasn't exactly a viable option. You also knew that it wasn't want pulling you back, but the need for familiarity and routine. Despite all of the pain you experienced there, you knew that having a sense of purpose again would be something of a relief.

"I don't know. I'd figure something out," you tried reassuring her. You were an adult; you should've been more than capable of creating a life for yourself outside of the Red Room. Sakura didn't need you anymore; you'd done what you could for her. Staying any longer in your current mental state would only burden her further.

But maybe there was a chance for redemption here. A chance to heal.

"Let me sleep on it," you finally answered. You tried not to let the hope on Sakura's face convince you to stay right then and there; Sakura wasn't the only one you would be living with. You couldn't imagine that the others, even Kakashi, were eager to make you a permanent fixture of their daily lives. Kakashi had seen your mental state first hand; you doubted that he'd so easily put you in close quarters with his students.

"You can be happy here."

That was what she left you with. It was a thought that you ruminated on for hours, long after the others had come inside and gone to their rooms. When you looked at the clock again, hours had passed, and you were still no closer to a decision. Things were moving too fast for you to keep up.

This was new to you. Independence was not one of your strongest traits. It was rare that you'd ever made this kind of decision for yourself.

After another hour of stewing in your frustrations, you wandered into the kitchen for a change of scenery. You weren't going to sleep anytime soon, and sitting in a dark, empty room certainly wasn't doing you any favors.

Instead of the solitude that you'd been expecting to find, you saw Kakashi rummaging around the kitchen with a bowl of instant ramen sitting next to him.

"It's late," you grumbled, "don't you have a bed?"

Kakashi didn't seem surprised to see you awake either, though he also didn't look as frustrated as you felt. You could feel some leftover anger from your last conversation bubbling up. You'd been hoping to avoid speaking with him until tomorrow, especially now that you had two reasons to be avoiding him, but you supposed that this was a fitting way to end an already unpleasant day.

"You of all people should understand what insomnia is like," Kakashi retorted with a short chuckle.

You huffed, turning your attention to Shiba when he sat at your side. His face was the picture of contentedness as you buried your fingers in the thick fur on his head.

"Tea?" Kakashi asked over his shoulder, pouring himself a cup and raising a second in question. You felt some of your anger drain away. You were too tired to be so upset.

"Alright."

There was likely little harm in something so soothing. The only problem was that this appeared to be an invitation to spend more time with Kakashi, which wasn't something you were eager to do. But a conversation about what Sakura had told you did need to happen, and now was as good a time as any to get it over with.

You took the steaming cup that he handed you and followed him to the couch in the middle of the living room. Akino and Pakkun were already lounging on it, and Kakashi lifted the latter up and moved him to the middle cushion so that he could take the left side. Pakkun grumbled at Kakashi, but settled on his lap a few moments later. Akino lifted his head when you settled on the opposite side and rested it on your leg with a contented sigh.

"Sakura talked to you?"

"Yes," you sighed, focusing on Akino's slowly rising and falling back rather than Kakashi's studious gaze on you, "I found it hard to believe that you agreed to let me stay so easily."

"I spent a month with you where you had every opportunity to kill me. You didn't."

"I hope that's not your only criteria when looking for a roommate."

"No," Kakashi huffed, "but like I told you before, I trust you. And you obviously don't have anywhere else to go."

You glared at him despite how right he was. You would be wandering the streets if this opportunity hadn't been offered to you. If that were the case, you'd likely be found by HYDRA too, despite Ino's efforts. Orochimaru had eyes everywhere, but they had become limited within SHIELD in the past year. The offer really was too good to be true.

"So, what? I just become a part of your little group? There's no way Naruto and Sasuke are okay with that."

"They've barely interacted with you. And Sasuke is like that with most people before he gets to know them. Just give them some time."

"Why are you so insistent about this? You said it yourself; I'm 'not in a good state of mind,'" you repeated bitterly, ignoring Kakashi's guilty wince, "you really want me around your students?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but none of us are the pillar of good mental health. All of us have baggage, but we help each other deal with it. That's what makes us such a strong team."

It was all too easy. You escaped the Red Room with little trouble, Sakura was apparently never in any danger of Orochimaru's mind control to begin with, and now you were being offered the chance to have a home. A real home, with people who weren't looking to exploit you.

It was terrifying.

"I thought you'd jump at the chance to stay with Sakura."

"I...of course I want to stay with her, I just..." you buried your face in your hands, looking for the words to articulate your inner turmoil, "I could still bring HYDRA here. Ino said it herself: what she did might not have been enough to keep HYDRA away."

"What's the real reason?"

The silence that followed his words was heavy, and you sat in it uncomfortably while you tried to think of a good way to avoid the question. The truth was, you didn't know why. Maybe you didn't want to taint the good thing that the four of them had. Maybe you didn't know how to survive in an environment that didn't constantly threaten you with life and death decisions. How were you supposed to function in a place that seemed so...so good? You weren't good. You would only poison the life that they had.

"I don't belong here."

"'Belong.'" Kakashi chuckled, repeating the word like you'd told him a bad joke, "how do you think we all ended up together? All of those kids were outcasts. I was too. None of us belong anywhere. That's why we found each other."

It's not the same, you wanted to scream, but really, you had no idea if it was. You didn't know their stories. You only knew Sakura's, and that was certainly the case for her.

Maybe you could consider the possibility that you could be okay here.

"I'm not trying to force you, but you don't have many other options. And I know you've thought about going back to the Red Room, but that's not happening. Not while Sakura has any say in it," Kakashi said, setting his empty bowl on the floor for Shiba. "Or while I do."

It was an afterthought, and it shouldn't have surprised you as much as it did, but it still sent an unexpected shock down your spine. This was all happening too fast. Too many people were entering your life. You could feel yourself becoming emotionally overstimulated as each day passed, but you tamped the feeling down. You didn't need Kakashi seeing another breakdown.

"I wasn't planning on it," you muttered, though he was right in assuming that the thought had crossed your mind. It was a hard thought not to consider when the Red Room was all you had ever known.

"Glad to hear it," he said, taking a long sip of his tea. You followed suit, resenting his ability to be so nonchalant during these kinds of conversation. You weren't sure if you could get more tense if you tried.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"Fine."

"You don't have to lie."

You almost snapped at him. Why would he be the person that you opened up to about anything? But as soon as the thought crossed your mind, your anger dissipated. Aside from Sakura, there weren't many other people that you would talk to.

But that didn't matter. You were fine. At the very least, you were fine enough that you didn't need him psychoanalyzing you.

"I didn't mean to upset you earlier."

"I think I'm going to go to bed," you said, stopping the conversation in its tracks before you had to think about your state of mind on top of the decision you had to make. There were too many things to sort through, and you didn't have the energy to do it right now. Not when Kakashi kept looking at you like he could see right through you.

You gave Akino's head a scratch when he grumbled at you for moving him, but he settled his head back on the pillow that you situated in front of him to replace your leg.

"Goodnight," Kakashi said. You muttered the same, barely loud enough for him to hear, and retreated back to your room. You brought your nightmares with you.

The next night, you didn't fare much better. You woke from a nightmare at midnight, and soon after you heard Kakashi's door open. His soft footsteps moved towards the kitchen, and despite telling yourself that spending any more time with was a bad idea, you found yourself following the sound of the faucet and clinking glasses.

This time, he was sitting on the couch with a book, feet propped on Bull's back. Next to him on the couch was the volume of Icha-Icha that you'd been reading.

On the table in front of him were two cups of tea, steaming and warmly inviting you in.

You stopped to take in the scene, though Kakashi didn't look up at your entrance. Pakkun was on his lap, which seemed to be a common occurrence at this time of night, and the pug lifted his head to watch you as you contemplated whether or not to accept Kakashi's silent invitation.

Pakkun grumbled at you, eyes drooping tiredly. He was waiting for you to move, the little bastard.

You sat carefully on the opposite side of the couch, watching Kakashi like he would pounce at you the moment you let your guard down. He seemed unbothered by the attention, completely consumed by his book.

A bookmark was tucked into the pages of the volume you'd been reading. You remembered leaving it out on his bookshelf where you could easily find it, and you were almost embarrassed that he knew you'd been looking through his things. Still, you opened it to the bookmarked page and hesitantly began reading over the page.

Admittedly, the tea was very comforting.

Pakkun settled his head back on Kakashi's lap when you opened the book. Kakashi didn't move. If you didn't know better, you'd wonder if he had even noticed you sitting down.

Hours later, you were still glancing nervously between Kakashi and the book, though your distraction was becoming more infrequent. Kakashi looked completely engrossed in his novel, and it had been about an hour since either of you had moved past turning the page every few minutes.

You felt your eyes starting to get heavy, but the idea of sleeping was unpleasant at best. You didn't need Kakashi seeing you waking up from a nightmare. Not after he'd already seen it during the mission. But the idea of leaving the comfort of the living room seemed worse than risking having a nightmare in his presence.

Before you had fully made up your mind, your book had already fallen into your lap. When you drifted off, your nightmares were a distant memory.

You hadn't realized how addicting a pleasant night's sleep was until after you'd begun having nightmares again. What infuriated you was that the deciding factor for whether or not you had a pleasant night's sleep seemed to be Kakashi. You tried to think back and deduce what had triggered the seemingly random attachment, but came up empty. There had to be some reason for it, something logical that explained why you rarely had a nightmare when you slept in the same room as him.

Instead of giving you answers, thinking about it just left you frustrated. That didn't mean, however, that you stopped reading with him at night.

After the first couple of days, you fell into an easy routine. Kakashi would get up at around midnight, and when you gave up trying to fight the urge to follow, you'd enter the living room to see a volume of Icha-Icha on the couch and a cup of tea on the table. Each night, Pakkun would lift his head to look at you when you entered the room. You swore that his expression became more smug each time you came out.

After hours of reading with Kakashi, you'd fall into a dreamless sleep. Upon waking, Kakashi would be up and rummaging around the kitchen. Some mornings, a heavy weight in your lap would wake you, usually either Bull's large head on your thigh or Biscuit curling up on your legs.

Sakura generally woke next, though she never questioned your constant presence on the right corner of the couch. Instead, she'd take up Kakashi's empty spot and lay on your shoulder to continue resting.

You were relieved to see that she was already breaking her habits from the Red Room. Even just allowing herself more time to rest in the morning was a victory.

By the time Sasuke and Naruto wandered out of their rooms, Kakashi would have a small breakfast ready for the five of you.

The routine should've been comfortable. It should've been a sign that staying here with Sakura and the others would be good. And the problem was that it was making you comfortable. You weren't sure what to do with comfort. The unfamiliarity of it made you wary to accept it as your new normal.

But Sakura was okay. HYDRA thought you were dead. There was nothing keeping you from staying. You wondered if you'd get used to it if you just gave yourself some time. Maybe your nightmares would disappear completely, and the Red Room would become a distant memory that wasn't constantly trying to fight its way to the surface.

"Why do you come out here?" you asked Kakashi one night, almost a week since he'd come back to the house. You'd finished a volume of Icha-Icha and had been staring at the last page for at least five minutes, contemplating whether or not to say something. It almost felt wrong to break the silence that always persisted throughout the night; even more so when Kakashi looked at you instead of keeping his eyes focused on his book.

"Hm?" he tilted his head.

"You come out here every night," you stated, setting your book down. "When do you sleep?"

"I sleep when I'm tired," he shrugged, "same as you. And I like it out here."

It wasn't the answer you were looking for. What you really wanted to ask was why he'd been so sure that you'd join him every night that he made you a cup of tea and set out a book for you. You wondered when you'd gotten so used to it that you stopped questioning it altogether.

"I haven't had a nightmare in a week," you said instead. You felt like you were treading dangerous ground, and you almost wished you'd kept quiet.

"Oh?" Kakashi set his book down. "Good."

You nodded, though you knew by the tilt of his head that he saw your discomfort. He watched you flip absentmindedly between pages and waited for you to continue.

"I only started having nightmares like this when I met Sakura. Even when we were together, I couldn't figure out how to stop having them" you muttered, closing your eyes to try and stave off your impending anxiety. Sharing these kinds of things was frowned upon in the Red Room, and doing it now was almost painful.

Sakura was the one who taught you how to be open. How to be vulnerable. She guided you while you learned that the way you lived in the Red Room was not the only way to do so.

She'd be proud of you for this.

"I was fine during the mission," you glanced at him, "and I've been fine since I started sleeping out here. It was only when you left that I started having them again."

His silence was more frustrating than it should've been. Was he really going to make you say it?

"I don't get it," you huffed. You should've planned for the conversation better. Though at the moment, it wasn't much of a conversation.

"Neither do I."

Now Kakashi was the one who looked uncomfortable. He had admitted something. You didn't have the full picture, not yet, but it was a start. A start to understanding why you were becoming so dependent on him without wanting to.

"What?" you breathed, finally looking at him while he avoided your eyes. He looked down at Pakkun, who was staring at him with curious eyes.

It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. He looked at the ceiling, maybe hoping that the words he was looking for would be scratched into the paint. When he found nothing helpful, he met your eyes again.

"I've dealt with nightmares for a long time. But when we went on the mission, I stopped having as many. When I went to the compound, I had them every night. I saw Sakura being taken again and again. Some nights I saw..."

He paused and shook his head.

"Now they're gone again. I've been wondering why you seem to be the common factor."

It was hard to believe that he was having the exact same problem as you, and you couldn't decide if your mutual struggle made you feel better or worse. Mutuality would make it harder to break this habit that was beginning to form.

Did you really need to break it?

You silenced the voice in your head quickly. Of course you did. Whether or not you chose to stay, you couldn't live with Sakura and Kakashi forever. Soon or later, HYDRA would catch up to you. You'd seen it before. Runaway Widows rarely made a life for themselves. The idea of independence was often too much for them, and they came crawling back. That was one of the reasons Orochimaru raised Widows the way that he did. He knew that they wouldn't be able to stay away.

You felt that pull too. It kept you up at night.

"You look stressed."

"I am stressed," you said with a laugh, almost in disbelief that you were having this conversation with him, "It'll just be harder to leave if I know that you're..."

"So you decided?"

He asked it so nonchalantly that you almost answered, yes, you had decided. You wanted to stay, but you caught yourself. You hadn't decided. What you wanted was not the only factor you needed to consider. Sakura's safety was more important. It was more important than your own safety, so if leaving helped ensure that she was out of harm's way, that's what you would do.

"Can I say something?"

The fact that he was asking made you wary to give him permission, but you nodded.

"I think you're looking for a reason to leave," he said, "and you're trying to twist this into a bad thing."

"I'm not twisting it," you said with a glare, "I just don't understand why I can only sleep through the night when I'm around you. And even more confusing is why you can't seem to get a good night's sleep without me."

"Maybe you feel safe around me," he shrugged, and before you could negate the statement, he added, "and maybe I feel safe around you too."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it?" he shifted, much to Pakkun's chagrin. The pug stood from his lap and wandered towards you, laying down with a disgruntled look in Kakashi's direction. "You protected Sakura in the Red Room for four years, and I've protected her for most of the rest of her life. It makes sense that we would see safety in one another."

It did make sense. So much sense that you wanted to throw the thought away and never revisit it again. The idea of relying on someone this much made a weight settle on your chest. Orochimaru hadn't taught you to need other people. He taught you the opposite. He taught you how to survive despite pain and fear, and eventually, he taught you how to crush those weaknesses. Now you couldn't handle a couple of bad dreams.

"Ironic, considering you attacked me when we first met," Kakashi spoke under his breath, though there was no trace of contempt in his voice.

"I thought you were testing me," you muttered, as if that was reason enough for the second time you'd attacked him.

You didn't understand this. You didn't understand why he was so insistent that you stay.

"Why does it matter to you what happens to me?"

"I think you deserve the chance to be happy. Just like Sakura."

You were so angry. Angry with Kakashi for making you rely on him. Angry at Orochimaru for turning you into this poor excuse of a human being. Angry at yourself for the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes, another sign of your weakness.

Silence crowded the room, and you felt pressed in by it. Tears fell down your cheeks in slow streaks, but you ignored them.

You couldn't keep from flinching when Kakashi reached a hand towards you. He paused, knuckles frozen inches from your face. You eyed his hand like you were waiting for it to form into a fist and strike you; waiting for the familiar ache of a bruise forming on your cheek.

When you met Kakashi's eyes, he moved closer until his knuckles brushed a tear off of your cheek. The touch was lighter than anything you'd experienced, and more gentle than you'd expected. Other than Sakura, no one had ever treated with so much care.

"Ino was wrong," he whispered, opening his hand and brushing his thumb over the wet trail where your tear had fallen. You were frozen in place, forcing yourself to not react to his touch. You wanted to flinch away or push him back on instinct, but nothing was hurting. Nothing felt wrong, "you're not a lost cause."

You had trouble believing that. Kakashi dropped his hand from your face.

"I'm sorry that no one told you that until now."

More tears followed the ones Kakashi had wiped away. This was too much. You were unprepared for the emotions that were swirling in your chest.

"It's too good," you croaked, voice watery, "all of this is too good. I shouldn't be in a place like this. I'm...I'm not meant for it."

"I thought that too," Kakashi said, voice hoarse, "a long time ago. I've done things that I regret, and for a long time, I was convinced that I didn't deserve to be happy. That my penance was to ward off anything good that came my way. But the things that we have been forced to do are not our fault. Our regrets don't define us."

You felt the lump in your throat growing the longer he spoke, and you tried your hardest not to break down in front of him.

"At least try," he murmured, voice quiet and low.

Your words were failing you. You still felt where Kakashi had brushed his thumb over your cheek. If you opened your mouth, you were afraid you'd only break down.

You nodded, and it didn't feel like a betrayal of Orochimaru. It felt like a second chance.

(previous chapter) | (next chapter) | (series masterlist)

Author's note | title is from "Through Me (The Flood)" by Hozier

#kakashi #kakashi x reader #kakashi x you #kakashi x y/n #kakashi imagine #kakashi hatake #kakashi hatake x reader #kakashi hatake x you #kakashi hatake x y/n #kakashi hatake imagine #naruto #trr #emwrites

[youtwitinmyface]

Superior Spider-Man #6

Written by Dan Slott Drawn by Humberto Ramos Published by Marvel Comics

Here's a retro review of a comic book that was published by in 2013. The premise of this series is that Doctor Octopus had managed to take over Spider-Man's body.

That's right, through some sort of supervillain shenanigans (I wasn't reading that storyline, so I still don't know the exact details, but for the purposes of this review it's irrelevant), he was now in Spider-Man's brain and had all of his memories. And the plot twist is that once this happened, Doc Ock's massive ego made him decide that he was going to prove that he could live Spider-Man's life, both as a superhero and a civilian, better than Spider-Man ever could. And thus this new series was launched as Doc Ock set out to be a superior Spider-Man, get it?

This is #6 of the new ongoing series and part of a longer overall story arc but, thankfully, Dan Slott writes it as a self-contained story that any reader can follow even if they hadn't read the previous issues, which I hadn't done. I don't recall exactly how I found out about this issue in the first place but I picked it up because I'd somehow heard of the villains who appear in it, and I thought they sounded intriguing. The characters you see on the cover are the duo of Screwball and Jester, a couple of costumed criminals armed with various joke-related weapons like paintball balloons, slingshots, and squirt guns Their modus operandi is that they go around filming themselves "pranking" people in public and uploading the videos online to get hits. But with their software they're able to secretly phish the accounts of everyone who subscribes to their website, and hack all of their credit card and bank info.

I thought that was a clever idea for modern supervillains, as technology advances you'd think more supervillains would be engaging in cybercrime instead of just robbing banks or whatever. In this issue, J. Jonah James, who was the Mayor of New York at the time, is Screwball and Jester's latest victim as they throw a pie in his face and pull his pants down in the middle of a press conference. Jameson is outraged and contacts Spider-Man to track down and apprehend the criminals. So that's the main plot of the issue. There are a couple of subplots. We see that the real Spider-Man is still "alive" sort of. His mind and personality is trapped inside his body, he's unable to control anything, but he can see everything Doc Ock is doing, and can also access Ock's memories, including one flashback of Ock being picked on by a bully when he was a young boy, which is something we see motivates Ock's hatred of people like Screwball and Jester who like to humiliate other people.

Also at this time, Spider-Man was still serving as a member of the Avengers, and in several scenes we see his teammates, Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Thor, Black Widow, and Spider-Woman, having a private meeting at Avengers HQ as they discuss Spider-Man's behavior. In recent weeks he's gotten more violent in his treatment of villains, even killing one of them. They don't know about Doc Ock, so they just think Spider-Man is getting out of control. Only Wolverine, no stranger to violence and killing himself, ever speaks to Spider-Man's defense. But they vow to keep a close eye on him.

In his private life, we see that as Peter Parker, Ock has re-enrolled in college to get his PhD. He's also struck up a close friendship, possibly more, with a woman named Anna Maria Marconi, a fellow college student. I can't tell if she's meant to be a Little Person, or just is just really short. But we see her getting made fun of by some other students because of her size, which enrages Ock but Anna Maria takes it in stride. Doc Ock manages to track Screwball and Jester, but when they get the upper hand and mock Spider-Man (all while broadcasting the encounter on their website), Ock snaps and proceeds to brutally beat the crap of both of them, to the horror of the real Spider-Man who can do nothing but watch. I really enjoyed this issue, the characterizations were all spot-on, J. Jonah Jameson is as insufferable as ever, and through captions of Doc Ock's private thoughts, we can see that even as he's trying to be a hero he's still an arrogant egomaniac. And I've also been a fan of Huberto Ramos' artwork and think that Spider-Man is a character that's perfect for his style. Re-reading this issue again after these years makes me think I should probably track down the rest of this series to see what happened next... SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #6

#dan slott #humberto ramos #marvel comics #spider-man #doctor octopus #doc ock #superior spider-man #comic books #comic book reviews #J.R. LeMar reviews comic books #jester and screwball #jester #screwball #superheroes #anna maria marconi #the avengers #captain america #wolverine #black widow #spider-woman #thor #j. jonah jameson

[emmym1]

My thoughts on... Black Widow 2020 (#1-5) "The Ties That Bind"

So after finishing the incredible 50 issue run of Captain Marvel by Kelly Thompson I decided to start reading Black Widow (2020) which also happens to be written by her! I was super excited to read it because Black Widow is one of my favorite characters in the MCU, and while I had casually read some of her comics a few years ago I never really was able to delve into everything the character had to offer in the comics. So it was super excited I now have that chance! And I have to say it absolutely blew my mind how amazing these first 5 issues were, all of my expectations were exceeded.

This run started off amazing and immediatly grabs your attention within the first three pages with its amazing art and visualisation of action sequences. It was actually incredibly how fluid and smooth the action in this. It was drawn in such a way that you could easily understand the flow of the action while also seeing every single detail of it. The art in general in this is absolutely fantastic in everyway. I was really intrigued by the setup of this first arc. Black Widow getting taken out only to reappear as a super happy mother in a perfect family. I was really curious to see as to what actually happened. And as the story progresses you get more and more Truman Show vibes. I think it was a really great pick to have Arcade be the mastermind behind it as this type of thing was completely up his alley. I loved Clint's and Bucky's involvement in this as well. Them trying to figure out what is going on with Nat and not being sure whether they should pull her out of this or not. It's really bittersweet in a way, as they realize it is too good to be true for Nat but still hesitating to pull her out as she seems genuinely happy and at peace. It's kind of tragic too as I imagine she hasn't had much peace or chances to just live life and be happy, and now that she has that chance she gets forced to leave it all behind. Her slowly remembering her old self and then remembering who she was was so well done. The way she slowly took upon her old spy habbits was great. In general they did an amazing job at showing how much her being a spy affects her mind, how she percieves things and how she stands in her daily life. Little things like putting tape on the door so she would know when someone was waiting on her, stuff like that really did a lot for her characterization and showing how much being a spy influences her daily life. The moment she realizes everything and is back to her old self was kind of heartbreaking in a way. As she knew from that point on that she wouldn't have the chance anymore at a peaceful and blissful live with her husband and kid. Even worse, that she would have to break all ties with them so they would be safe and wouldn't get caught up in her troubles. It must've been such a painful moment for Nat, because you see that she genuinely cares for them and genuinely wants a normal life with them. But she just can't. And it's super heartbreaking because you know it really hurts her that she can't have that. The final few issues of this arc were defintely the most emotional and admittedly made me tear up a bit. Them trying their best to bring Nat's husband and kid to safety. And just as she checks up on them and turns her back they get blown up by the people behind this entire mess. That moment was incredibly emotional and heartbreaking, especially due to how good the art was during it. Nat crying as you see her face through the fire, realizing what just happened, and why it was right of her to force them to break all connections with her. It's very painful. I'd imagine that in the back of her mind there was a small part that was convinced that they could make it work somehow and they she could have her happy life with them. And now she gets the ultimate proof that she can't, no matter how much she wants it.

The reveal afterwards that it was a fakeout and that in reality her husband and kid were safe somewhere else on the planet was really shocking. Because it completely recontectualizes the scene where they get "blown up" and Nat cries. One could say she was just acting so everyone would be deceived and convinced of what happened. But I feel like those were genuine tears because like I said she gets the ultimate proof that she can't have a normal and happy life with them. But furthermore, from that point on they're basically "dead" in Nat's eyes. She can't ever see them again, no matter how much she wants it. She'll never know whether they'll be happy and never will get to see her kid grow up and that must be absolutely heartbreaking to realize. And that's what I think she started to realize as the plan was set in motion and the explosion happened. Her happy, perfect family is gone forever and even though they're still out there, she can't ever see or reach them. It's incredible tragic. But the moment that really hit me was this piece of dialogue she has with Bucky afterwards, who was the only one in on the plan: "There's an ache in me I've never felt before. In all the things I have been through... the highs and lows... the peaks of joy and the depths of sorrow...all pain and regret...nothing has felt as empty as this ache. It feels like and endless hole. And I cannot imagine how something so dark and endlees and empty could ever be filled." Seeing her say this and breakdown into bucky's arms on the floor was incredibly emotional and heartbreaking. It really made me tear up because you realize how tragic all of this is. And it only gets proven further in the last few pages of issue 5 as you see both Nat and then her husband and kid sit at the front of their houses each in a different part of the world as Nat talks about finding peace and happiness thinking about how she might be watching the same sunset as them. It's such an emotional page. This first arc just completely sold me on this run. I was left feeling absolutely speechless and emotional after finishing this arc. It really shows how tragic Nat as a character is and how bittersweet her life is. The trajectory of her life is such a tragic one but yet she manages to always push through and be better, even now when she basically lost her entire newfound family that she was genuinely at happy and at peace with. But still she pushes through and wants to be better because of them. And that's what really makes this character so interesting to me. She's been through so much, suffered so much and yet she still stands strong even though it's not always easy and even though she'll never have the normal life she might dream of. She does the best she can given her circumstances and knows who she is and what she can do, but also the things she isn't and can never have. I'm so happy I decided to start reading this run. I'm completely hooked and this first arc just left me feeling speechless and emotional. The art and writing of this run is just absolutly incredibly, every action moment is perfectly visualized and the writing just really sells her as this incredibly spy that can't get topped by anyone while also being a really vunreable person deep down. The last few issues were just incredible and I can't wait to see how Nat will evolve from this. Will she be able to become better for them as she promised or will she give in and take revenge for what she lost? It's going to be really interesting to see where they'll take the story from here. And I for one can't wait to read it!

#marvel #earth 616 #comics #black widow #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov

[tarotwithdanise]

im a vv big marvel fan so this is pretty typical of me to be curious abt BUT IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE MARVEL CHARACTER BE UR APPRENTICE FOR YOUR TAROT BLOG / HELP YOU WITH IT WHO WOULD THEY BE?

I would like captain america and black widow. I was honestly not an avid fan but I felt really drawn with these two and idk why.🫣

#danise moots #🌷.danise #danise interaction

[daydreamerdrew]

Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

Black Widow (2014) #1-20

These issues were published across January 2014 to July 2015. All were written by Nathan Edmondson and drawn by Phil Noto.

I largely didn’t really care for this book. The premise is that when Natasha isn’t working for the Avengers or for S.H.I.E.L.D., she’s taking on jobs for criminals but against other criminals, jobs that have to fit certain ethical requirements in order for her to accept them. This is to fund both her personal network of safe houses and various trusts to atone for her past crimes, but it’s all brokered through her lawyer, new character Isaiah Ross, so that her work doesn’t become about money for her. In issue #2 she says, regarding this, “Picking your own jobs means you get to exercise your own ethics. But ethics isn’t a science. Which is to say… You do your best… But that doesn’t make you right.” I don’t have any issues with this concept, but I didn’t find anything that was done with it to be interesting.

In issue #1 Natasha says, “No one will ever know my full story.” In issue #3 she says, “I don’t have a home. A home is a distraction. In my work one cannot have distractions.” These kinds of vague assertions frequent the book, which is unfortunate because they are just inherently uninteresting. Natasha’s growing ease with her life is demonstrated through her relationship with a stray cat, Liho, which she goes from feeding but not allowing into her home in issue #1, to allowing into her home in issue #6, and then to trying to make Isaiah take but then choosing to keep in issue #18. I didn’t find this emotionally compelling at all. In issue #16 there were some flashbacks to Natasha’s childhood that didn’t work for me because I didn’t think they fit well with the portrayal of her upbringing that was in Black Widow: Deadly Origin (2010), which I am attached to already because that I did find compelling. In issues #19-20 we see another flashback, this time to Natasha as a young woman, in which, under orders, Natasha kills the friend she had in the prior flashback, as well as her boyfriend and her cat, because the friend was believed to be becoming too attached to and settled in her cover to be of any more use to the Red Room. For me this was too little too late. This context could have given Natasha’s prior vague musings more depth had it appeared earlier in the book, but as it was Natasha was just inexplicably resistant to normal life many years after defecting for too long.

I did find Natasha’s relationship with her lawyer Isaiah to be a bit interesting. It’s a recurring thing throughout the book that he nags her about how she doesn’t have enough money. In issue #2, while Natasha is away on a job, he’s targeted by people who want to use him to extort money from her, and he takes care of the situation and kills them all before she gets back and never tells her about it. In issue #7 we see that his sister is worried about him working for Natasha, who is apparently his only client. We learn that Isaiah formerly worked for the mob, which Natasha got him out of, and that he now feels indebted to her.

I’ll also make note of Bucky’s role in this book because I believe it’s the first time he and Natasha have been depicted together since their relationship was ended by Natasha being brainwashed to forget it in Winter Soldier (2012). The depiction of that was somewhat vague, their relationship was in no way a secret before that and it’s not as though everyone agreed on-panel to keep it a secret from her after she forgot. Bucky first shows up in issue #8 of this book when he and Natasha happen to have intersecting missions. Natasha is at least aware of who the Winter Soldier is and speaks professionally with him. Bucky tells her, “It’s been a while… not that I don’t hear stories…” She doesn’t seem to think how he coordinates with her and his desire to patch up her wounds is at all suspect of them being something other than distant colleagues. When the people they’re fighting call for back-up, Natasha says, “Takes more than a few thugs to take down the Winter Soldier himself, right?” When he tells her to leave and that he’ll take care of the gang, she at first dismisses that as unnecessary chivalry, but he convinces her that that’s what makes sense for their different missions. But Bucky then falters, calling her back to say something to her, and then not being able to do. As Natasha leaves, she tells him, “You’ve got this… You always did impress me.” After she’s gone Bucky is more open about his emotional attachment to Natasha. He tells the people he’s fighting, “You shot at Natasha. That was your last act on earth pal.”

Bucky next shows up to save Natasha when she’s in trouble in issue #15. He admits that he’s been watching her from afar for awhile, which she finds suspicious, asking, “Why? Why me? I don’t believe in two coincidences.” He tells her, “Because someone needed to know where you were. Especially with what happened on TV,” referring to a news report that painted Natasha in a negative light and caused S.H.I.E.L.D. to distance itself from her, which Natasha believes. Later, Bucky tries to prevent Natasha from running into danger, and Natasha punches him in the face to stop him. This reminded me of their reunion in Captain America (2005) #27, the first time the two of them had seen each other since the Red Room, which was a fight that ended in Bucky knocking Natasha out. In issue #18 he rescues her again, and he tells her, “I could take you anywhere, you know, We could- You could go away for awhile. The world hasn’t been kind to you and maybe you need to just-” but she turns him down.

Secret Avengers (2010) #5 and #15 and #18-20 and #22-25 and #37

This series, from issue #1-37, was published across May 2010 to February 2013, according to the Marvel Wiki. I’ve listed just the issues that I read in full. I originally started skimming through this book to see if there was anything interesting with Sharon Carter in the issues written by Ed Brubaker, because this series takes place after Captain America: Reborn (2009) and I still felt like I hadn’t gotten proper closure for what was built up with Sharon in Captain America (2005). Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for with Sharon in this series so I still feel that way.

Issue #5 was written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by David Aja, Michael Lark, and Stefano Gaudiano. It details the history of a LMD of Nick Fury who believed he really was Nick Fury between issue #1 of this book and when he was last seen in The Defenders (1972) #51. In The Defenders (1972) issues he was working for Jake Fury, Nick’s brother, and part of that was impersonating Nick. He doesn’t react when Jake says that he’s an LMD in his presence in The Defenders #49 and he’s fine when he speaks briefly to Nick in The Defenders #51, but in issue #5 of this book his relationship to Jake Fury and reaction to his death isn’t delved into in any depth and instead his issues are presented as coming from the shock of learning that he’s not the real Nick Fury. He apparently spent years on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D., continuously forgetting that he’s a LMD and believing that he was being wrongly persecuted by S.H.I.E.L.D. for mysterious reasons unknown to him, and doesn’t accept that he’s a LMD until he comes face-to-face with Nick 5 years before the events of Secret Avengers. He was supposed to be incinerated after that, but instead he’s saved by the Shadow Council, who believes that someone with Nick Fury’s memories would be valuable to them, and is given his own name, Max.

I ended up continuing with this book largely because I wanted to see what happened with Max Fury. In issue #9 (written by Ed Brubaker) he tells Sharon that it’s nice to see her again, and when he’s told that they’ve never met before, he says, “I know… But I remember you like we were good friends once upon a time.” Throughout these issues Max works for the Shadow Council, the Father of the Descendants (who commanded an organization that included Doombots, adaptiods, synthezoids, Machine People, and Reavers), and his own version of the Masters of Evil (which Max claimed, at different times, was actually for the Shadow Council or actually for Father, depending on who he was talking to), which I thought was charming of him, very rogue Nick Fury-like. In issue #30 (written by Rick Remender) Max tries to use the crown of the Abyss but it doesn’t work for him. He’s told that it’s “because you’re a life-model decoy- a gussied-up robot” and that it “might be time for the tin-man to admit he doesn’t have a soul,” to which he says, “No- not after all of this- I’m more than a robot… more.” In issue #33 (written by Rick Remender) Max finally gets killed. The context is that he’s been imprisoned by the Secret Avengers and he was told he was being broken out, much like his original escape from S.H.I.E.L.D., and then is betrayed. His final words were, “You- you can’t do it like this- build up my hopes-”

Issue #15 was written by Nick Spencer and penciled by Scot Eaton and inked by Jaime Mendoza. This issue was a tie-in to the Fear Itself event and had Natasha confronting a tabloid news organization for baselessly claiming that Bucky’s Death in Fear Itself (2011) #3 was a hoax, despite the fact that it would later be revealed in Fear Itself (2011) #7.1 that Bucky’s death was, in fact, a hoax, and one that Natasha had orchestrated herself.

Issue #18 was written by Warren Ellis and drawn by David Aja and was a strand-alone story featuring Steve, Sharon, and Shang-Chi on a mission together. The artwork was great, but nothing about the story really stood out to me other than Steve dismissing Arnim Zola 4.2.3. as “just a broken phone” and saying that the Shadow Council is “good at recruiting broken copies of things.”

Issue #19 was written by Warren Ellis and penciled by Michael Lark and inked by Stefano Gaudiano and was another single-mission issue, this time with Steve, Sharon, Natasha, and Moon Knight. The artwork was also good, but nothing interesting happened characterization-wise for me.

Issue #20 was written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Alex Maleev. This was actually a really interesting story where Natasha gets sent back in time right when a mission was going south and she has to find a way to make it go right without disrupting the timestream. She ends up orchestrating the construction of the device that sent her back in time in the first place, and with that specifically getting it built with what she needs to ensure the mission succeeds when she goes back to that moment. In order to balance both her own morals and the preservation of the timestream, she works with criminals right before she knows they’re about to be killed, which includes people that she killed herself in the past but hadn’t known that this mission was what she was doing it for when she first did it.

Issues #22-25 were written by Rick Remender and drawn by Gabriel Hardman. This was the beginning of the robot-focused storyline where the Secret Avengers were fighting the Descendants, which I actually largely really liked. In these issues the original Human Torch joins the team and I found him intriguing, and also Eric O’Grady gets killed and replaced with an LMD. I was frustrated with how, after this, once the Eric LMC finally publicly betrays the team, people spoke negatively about Eric as though he had any control over what happened with his corpse after he died. Issue #37 was written by Rick Remender and drawn by Matteo Scalera. This was the conclusion of the Descendants storyline. I wasn’t particularly compelled with what happened with the Human Torch, but also in this issue it’s finally acknowledged that Eric isn’t at fault for what the robot imposter of him did.

Fawcett Comics:

the Captain Marvel stories in Whiz Comics (1940) #82 and Captain Marvel Adventures (1941) #69 and The Marvel Family (1945) #8

In this batch of 7 Captain Marvel stories I read through the Captain Marvel appearances in February 1947, according to the issue cover dates. The stories ranged from 7 to 11 pages.

In the story “Captain Marvel and Billy Batson’s Xmas” (written by Otto Binder; art worked on by C.C. Beck, Pete Constanza, and the Beck-Constanza Studio) in Captain Marvel Adventures #69 Billy decides to get a Christmas present for Captain Marvel because, “Of course, Capt. Marvel and I are the same person, but why shouldn’t I get him a present? Ha, ha! I guess I’m the only one in the world who can buy a present for himself!” Billy buys for Captain Marvel “a certain something he would just love to have! He never dared get it because he’s such a big, strong man!” And reciprocating, Captain Marvel buys something that “Billy always wanted, but never had the- er- nerve to buy for himself!” But, unfortunately, Captain Marvel also agreed to be the Santa Claus for a party that’s at the same time as the Christmas party Billy planned. When he realizes this, Billy is crushed, thinking, “We won’t even be able to open our presents for each other, and that would have been such fun!” However, Captain Marvel is able to find another person to be the Santa Claus and he makes it to Billy’s party. The present for Billy was a “loud” necktie, and the present for Captain Marvel was a childish game, a tiddle-de-wink set.

#comics read this past week #my posts

[constantviewings]

Seven Days of Films: Marvel Edition Vol. 8

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Peter Parker, the beloved superhero Spider-Man, faces four destructive elemental monsters while on holiday in Europe. Soon, he receives help from Mysterio, a fellow hero with mysterious origins.

If it wasn’t already glaringly obvious, I don’t know anything about the Marvel comics; nor do I care. Because of this, I didn’t know Mysterios real identity which made the twist pretty cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is pretty bland and doesn’t live up to the expectations I had for the first movie post-Endgame. 

Rating: 3

Black Widow

Natasha Romanoff, a former KGB spy, is shocked to find out that her ex handler, General Dreykov, is still alive. While evading capture by Taskmaster, she is forced to confront her dark past.

Now I had a negative attitude towards this film, from a Marvel perpective, before I watched it; I think it’s bullshit that they only give Scarlett Johansson her own movie after her character had already been killed and then screw her over with the release contract. Apart from that, this movie’s pretty good. I wish it didn’t tell the Budapest story in snippits and instead should have started with that, then flashed forward. I also wish they’d delved more into the Red Room because I still don’t understand the story behind it.

Rating: 3

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization.

Talented, beautiful, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular... I could talk for day about how much I love��this movie. The cast, phenomenal; the VFX, stunning; the fight choreography, the best the MCU will ever see. 

Rating: 5

#Film Reviews #MCU #Spider-Man Far From Home #Black Widow #Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

[ashlynya2-0]

Day 22: Widow

#ash star doodles #fanart #pkmn #pokemon #ポケモン #ink2020 #its in a black widow outfit #i could have drawn marvel black widow #but im not into marvel enough to do so #galvantula #gen 5 #unova #bw #bw2 #inktober #inktober 2020 #black widow #spider #i also could have drawn a widow at a grave but i didnt want to #thats sad #i say drawing Hop watching his brother get maimed..... #angst is so tasty #i love galvantula #my liddle baby

[starshipsofstarlord]

Hot and Saucy

Yelena Belova Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Navigation

Fandom: Marvel (MCU)

Pairing: Yelena Belova x Female Barton Reader

Summary: It is Yelena’s idea to catch up with Kate Bishop to confront her for foolishly working with the man that allowed her sister to die, however she doesn’t come alone. Y/n Barton goes with her, and well, it appears there’s more going on behind the scenes with her and the hired Black Widow assassin than anything else

Warnings: spoilers for 1x05 of Hawkeye, I tried to stick true to Yelena’s sexuality (aeroace) which makes romantic attraction come and go (I am sorry if I haven’t written this accurately enough to represent that), fluff, mentions of Natasha’s death, Kate’s adorable rambling, angst, breakup (if you can call that it)

“Who the hell is that?” The new accomplice of the arrow shooting avenger asked after she had entered her apartment and saw the company that the hired Black Widow was keeping, more directly in the corner of the kitchen, with crossed arms and a brooding complexion. Said woman cocked her head, however remained silent, and thus Yelena Belova decided to answer, after all Kate Bishop was not the enemy, she was only clueless and working with her assigned target.

“I called in the big guns, he took my sister from me, and now I have taken Clint’s, however in a much different way.” Yelena spoke as she held the fork in her hand, her rich accent directing its way to Kate Bishop’s ears. “This is y/n Barton, once a SHIELD agent like Natasha and Clint, but she is on my side after discovering what her dear sibling did as Ronin.” It was tough for her if she were to be honest, to see her stand against her own brother, it did not matter if they were bound by blood or not, however it reminded Yelena of the time that her and Natasha stood apart. At least in the end that rivalry was no more, and their relationship became real to more than just them.

“Just cough him up Kate Bishop.” Y/n commanded, her brow drawn as she came to sit beside Yelena, the blonde woman raising the mac and cheese to her and mouth and accepting the offer, drawing the food past her teeth and chewing on it. In that moment when she hummed in delight and nodded in agreement of the hot sauce that the assassin had drowned the pot in, the pair of them definitely seemed less intimidating. It appeared more like a dinner date or a get together with their old friends, but no matter how slyly trustworthy or casual they were with their words, Kate knew not to trust them.

“Can both of you please stop using my full name?” The archer sighed, it was getting kinda creepy, her eyes wavered between the two and her brow raised, noticing the longing in each other’s eyes when they looked at one another. She knew her stuff, romance was never her forte, the closest that she had got to something real was watching cheesy holiday movies at her aunt’s place with the one eyed dog that still had yet to be named and Clint. “Wait, are you two like dating or something? Like that would be weird given everything with your siblings; not weird that two attractive women are dating, but you get what I’m saying.” Or so she hoped they did.

If not then either one of them could murder her in her own crispy home, and she put her bets on Yelena being the first to spring into such an action. However both remained seated and calm, y/n stifled a little, under pressure from the question, as Yelena gulped from the reminder of strain on their relationship together. “Or something.” She answered before she filled her mouth with her meal again, wiping the sauce that dripped out from the outline of her lips with the back of her hand. “Not that that is any of your business Kate Bishop. Anyways, if I remember correctly then we are here to interrogate you, not the other way around.”

“So where’s my brother Bishop?” Y/n placed her hands flat on the table between them and leant forwards, her eyes prying at her for a truthful answer, but Kate wasn’t naive enough to comply with her verbal demand, the archer gulped from nervousness as her eyes darted around, trying to escape those of y/n Barton, but it was impossible. “I just want to talk to him, it’s been some time since we’ve seen each other. 5 years can change a person, and well, clearly all of us sat around this table know what that did to him. He became Ronin, and if he were a true hero he’d pay for his crimes.”

“Now that doesn’t sound like you want to just talk to him, so why don’t you take your girlfriend and go sightseeing since that’s what she’s so curious about.” Yelena felt a shiver run up her spine from the way in which Kate Bishop had referred to her; she liked y/n, however only sometimes. The way that she felt was something that she couldn’t always explain, so they did their own thing, cuddling whilst watching movies if she was okay with it, trying various different foods and going shopping, where y/n always became astounded by Yelena’s childlike curiosity whilst doing so.

As she watched two polar expressions cloud the assassins’ faces, Kate realised that it was her mistake to bring attention to their bond. Y/n abruptly stood, stepping her legs out from beneath the table and sending a short lived smile towards Clint’s accomplice. “Tell my big brother I’m looking for him would you? And that I miss my niece and nephews.” Kate felt her heart thump, almost thinking her last words to be a threat, but as she looked up and saw the loneliness in her y/e/c eyes, she realised that she was speaking the truth. Although she was stalking around with Yelena her company alone did not help her feel complete, there was something missing, perhaps the admittance of true feelings.

“Y/n…” Yelena called sternly after y/n but her pace didn’t falter, she left through the door and exited out into the cold street. The assassin’s hands rubbed her temples as she sighed exasperatedly and begrudgingly denied her appetite, passing on a few morbid words to Kate before leaving too, only just catching y/n’s silhouette. “Y/n!” She repeated, and this time she stopped, pausing so that the blonde could catch up with her. “What is your problem, I thought you were on board with this whole ordeal?” Her hands raked through the air, implying that she was in demand for an answer.

“Perhaps I want more from life than being your emotional booty call Lena! I love you, and I can’t ever seem to win with you. I’m standing against everything that I once fought for, with Natasha and Clint, for what you want to do. The least you could do is treat me as your equal, I don’t want payment from this job, I just want you to admit without stepping back every thirty seconds that that you resonate emotion towards me.” Tears pricked the outside layer of her eyes as she ogled sombrely at Yelena, who’s hands were shaking from the confrontation.

Yelena knew that y/n had tried to understand the mental notion of her sexuality, and she was grateful for how long she had held on to her for. But this wasn’t fair on either of them, the string connecting them hardly deposited space for their own roles of freedom, she had to let her go and vice versa. Everything that left Yelena’s mouth next was a sacrifice that she had to make, and it felt as great as the one that Natasha had made for the universe. “Then go back to your brother, be an avenger again, whatever that is supposed to mean. If you want more from life then that is how you will get it, by abandoning my side and flying away to the good side again. We all know that in all good there is darkness, and you will succumb to it.”

“You already have.” Y/n spoke in reference to Yelena’s vendetta, breathing heavily through her nose as she thought of the scolding that Clint would give her and the heart ache that she would feel from walking away from the Black Widow. Through her life she had felt so much pain, but nothing more in this moment. She had fought for the world, however she never had the strength to fight for the things that she really wanted, she wasn’t a hero, instead she was a coward, one susceptible to being weakened by her own desire. Now all she had to was uncover the whereabouts of her brother before Yelena did, and warn him before it was too late; it was already too late for her and Yelena, and she didn’t want to be feeling the sting of losing a sibling too.

#yelena belova x reader #yelena belova angst #yelena belova imagine #yelena belova fic #yelena belova fanfiction #yelena belova one shot #yelena belova smut #yelena belova x you #yelena belova x y/n #hawkeye x reader #hawkeye imagine #hawkeye x you #hawkeye x y/n #imagines #imagine #xreader #marvel x reader angst #marvel x reader #mcu x reader #mcu x you #mcu x y/n

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Yeah, but on the Avengers ymmv no one considers Loki being mind controlled Pandering to the Base

Link to The Avengers ymmv.

Who writes these things? It's so cringe-worthy at times that I almost stopped reading. They don't talk about pandering to the base, that's true, they say this:

Alternative Character Interpretation: Between Thor and this movie, Loki's tactics change from "Silvertongue" to "ranting villain with an army". That and some of his dialogue with Erik Selvig about their experiences with the Tesseract could be read as him also being under coercion from the Tesseract/Staff, if one wanted to do so (moreso since it's revealed in Age of Ultron that Loki's scepter contains another Infinity Stone). He also looks quite intimidated by the threats Thanos sends him through the Other and seems to genuinely believe that Thor was responsible for him falling into the abyss at the end of Thor.

Additionally, the trickster was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place with Thanos, not really having the option to reject the deal but having no reason to believe the titan would keep his word. Many of the cases of Idiot Ball could very reasonably have been him unconsciously or even consciously trying to lose. And resolves the complete breaking of suspension of disbelief where the random scientist inserted a complex backdoor into the security of a device he didn't really understand, too; he didn't break the mind control at all. The person responsible for assembling the Avengers and defeating Loki might be... Loki. Albeit, not from the goodness of his heart, more to give Thanos something else to worry about and because he lives in this universe too, respectively.

That's nice and all but the rest of the page is disgusting, especially their obsession with "fangirls", there are several examples of this:

Draco in Leather Pants: Search for Loki on Tumblr. The fangirls have gone nuts about Loki ever since the first Thor film, to the point that some have said, without a single trace of irony or sarcasm, that he's the real good guy and all his misdeeds should be automatically forgiven. Yes, this includes his attempted conquest and subjugation of humanity. It's a character interpretation shared by Tom Hiddleston, incidentally. He thinks Loki needs a big hug.

Granted I have only been here for less than a year but I keep seeing people complain that so many Loki fans think he's a baby who's never done anything wrong... and yet I have never seen a post saying anything of the sort. Also, to ignore the countless meta posts written by dozens and dozens of fans and to sum everything up in "he needs a big hug" is downright insulting. Another:

Loki calling Black Widow a "mewling quim" ("whimpering c**t" in more modern vernacular) is supposed to establish that he's a nasty, unpleasant, misogynist villain. Either because the language was too dated and silly-sounding, or because fangirls will forgive anything if the guy is hot, that didn't happen.

Pot meet kettle. I always find it funny when a misogynist complains about misogyny. They mention fangirls not only when it comes to Loki but with Steve and Stark as well:

Ron the Death Eater: Steve is continuously demonized by Tony fangirls as a cruel bully.

This one is funny because half the page is full of the author kissing the ass of Stark in pretty much every single point. What's with this obsession with fangirls? See how nowhere in that page they mention the fanboys, not even once.

But in case that wasn't bad enough, there's also this:

The comparisons that are drawn between Loki and Hitler are much more amusing in light of Marvel's later decision to make Loki an LGBT character.

WTF is that supposed to mean? Amusing? Whoever wrote this is a piece of shit.

#Loki #avengers #the avengers #thanos

[mosylufanfic]

Your Friendly Neighborhood Coincidence

Another one from a @dailyau prompt

Your Friendly Neighborhood Coincidence

Caitlin's first inkling that something was wrong came when she walked into the frat party. 

A slightly drunk girl in a Black Widow catsuit screeched, "Oh my gawd, I saw your boyfriend! I lovvvvveee iiiittttt!"

"My - who - ?" Caitlin said blankly. But the girl had moved on.

Another girl in a Captain Marvel outfit caught her arm. "You guys are so super cute together."

"What are you talking - ?"

But Captain Marvel yelled, "Bitch, you better not be doing shots without me!" and rushed off to tackle Supergirl. 

Dazed, she moved through the party, looking for her best friend. 

She wasn't really a member of the STEM frat that were the hosts. She could have been - it was all genders. She wasn't a joiner, though, preferring to focus on her studies and speed through undergrad as fast as she could, in order to get a head start on the rest of her schooling.

But she'd been invited to the superhero costume party because Cisco was one of the most active members and he'd refused to let her miss it. "It's our best party all year. How often do you get to see the Joker helping Captain America do a kegstand?"

Caitlin had drawn on her limited-but-improving knowledge of superhero movies and guessed,". . . Never?"

"Exactly. Now what are you gonna wear?"

She'd pondered a few, but finally picked Spider-Girl because Spider-Man was his favorite, and she'd thought it would make him smile. But it seemed to be sending a totally different message to everyone else at the party - a message that felt like code to her.

"Batman approves," said a boy in a gravelly voice, then coughed and cleared his throat. "Man, the voice is hard to do. Anyway, you look great. Can I get you something to drink?"

She was pretty sure he was in her stats class, and he was nice. She was about to accept when his friend hit his arm. "Dude, did you not see who's wearing the other one? She's taken." He shrugged at Caitlin. "Sorry."

"I'm not taken," she said to their backs as they went off to find more Mountain Dew.

She peered in the direction of the drinks table and recognized Iris, who was dressed as Storm. She was a journalism major, unlike practically everyone else here, but it was physically impossible for her to be apart from her boyfriend Barry, who was Cisco's other best friend. So they'd gotten to be friends over the semester. 

She tapped her on the shoulder and Iris turned. "Hi! Oh." Her eyes went big as she took in Caitlin's costume. "Ohhhhhh. I approve." She handed Caitlin a Solo cup full of something that smelled strong enough to strip paint.

"Thank you," Caitlin said, taking a cautious sip. "I had no idea Spider-Girl was such a favorite of yours."

"I have no idea who Spider-Girl even is," Iris said frankly. "I just think it's about time you guys got it together. You've been hanging out forever."

"What are you talking about?"

She shrugged. "Babe, if you didn't want anyone to know, choosing a matchy matchy couples costume probably wasn't the best option. But frankly I don't know why you'd hide the fact that you bagged Cisco Ramon."

Caitlin spit out her drink. "Who?"

"Hey, Iris, have you seen - Oh."

Caitlin turned to see Cisco standing behind her. He was wearing a Spider-Man costume.

"Well," he said. "This explains a lot."

She grabbed his hand and dragged him out to the backyard. "Why are you wearing that?"

"Why would I not wear my favorite superhero to the Superhero Costume Party?"

“I thought you were going to be that one guy. Vibe.”

“That was the plan until my brother un-lent me his sweet ass leather jacket.”

Caitlin, who was reasonably familiar with Ramon family dynamics,  asked, “Un-lent? You mean he realized you’d borrowed it without asking and took it back?”

“Let’s not get caught up in petty discussions of legal ownership. The bigger question is, why are you wearing that? I thought you were going to be Rosalind Franklin."

"Well, you said it wasn't allowed," she mumbled.

He'd groaned and covered his face and said Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin, there are some levels of nerd that are actually too nerdy for the STEM frat, okay?

"I was teasing you," he said. "You can say Rosalind Franklin is a superhero if you want. She is. But you went with Spider-Girl?"

"I thought you'd like it."

"Me?"

"I knew Spider-Man is your favorite, so Spider-Girl is almost as good, right?"

"She's awesome. But - okay, look,. I don't know if you know, but everyone thinks we did a couples costume."

"Oh, I know," she said. 

"Which, like, what the hell, right?"

She wrapped her arms around her middle. "Do you really think it's that bad, people thinking we're a couple?"

"I mean, Spider-Girl is Spider-Man's daughter, so that's kinda nasty. And we're just friends. Which we'll tell them."

"Right. Friends. But why were people talking like they've been waiting for us to get together?"

He huffed. "Come on. That's just a thing that people always say about a guy and a girl when they're friends. Like I could be literally sticking my tongue down a guy's throat before they'll go 'oh my god, are you dating?' Whereas us? Just because we hang out constantly and text each other all the time and have a standing movie night and know each others' favorite drinks and you're like my favorite person on the planet . . . I mean, that doesn't mean we're dating."

"Everyone else seems to think so."

"You don't have to sound so thrilled about it."

"Well, you were the one who was like, 'ew, nasty!"

"Because of our costumes! Not because . . . you know."

"And you've never been interested."

"I never said that."

She blinked at him. "You've never flirted with me or hit on me or -" But as some of their silly, bantery conversations came back, she thought, or did he?

"I did," he said. "Right when we first met? But you just sort of laughed so I was like, okay, shot my shot and it bounced off the deflector shields. I still wanna hang out with her."

It had been that reaction, more than anything, that had convinced her he wasn't serious. Boys who got rejected got red-faced and angry and called you names, or they pouted and looked hangdog at you for the next month. They didn't shrug and ask your opinion of the best burrito in a three mile radius. "I thought you were kidding."

"I wasn't," he said. He shook his head and turned away. "Never mind. We'll just tell people it's not a couples costume, just a coincidence, and - "

She reached out and grabbed his arm. "It could be," she said. "A couples costume. If you wanted."

He squinted at her. "Yeah, but you  . . . don't?" His last word trailed up into a question.

"I never said that," she said.

-

They'd been kissing in the lawn chairs for a good half-hour before they had to go back inside because they were getting cold. As they disentangled themselves, a guy passing by said, "Gross, man, Spider-Girl is Spider-Man's daughter. Nasty."

Cisco shook his head. "Can't make everyone happy, I guess."

FINIS

#Cisco Ramon #Caitlin Snow #killervibe #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #NaNo prompts #fanfiction #college AU #the flash

[neon-night]

Looney Avengers

AKA THE NERDIEST THING I’VE EVER DRAWN IN MY LIFE BUT SCREW IT I LOVE THESE GUYS

Alright so I had recently gotten the idea (after admittedly not drawing stuff for a while because irl busy life stuff) to draw the Looney Tunes as Marvel characters. Why? Cuz why not it’s fun.

I know not everyone’s gonna care for this cross-over, and that’s fine. It’s defiantly odd- but I wanted to just do something fun and for me, so that’s what this is really for at the end of the day. Just a weird cross-over to enjoy.

So yeah, there’s not really much more to it than that, though I will have some comments to leave for each respective piece of art basically saying why I chose this character for that and my art process and yada yada. But if you don’t want to read all that, then don’t and just appriciate the art that while it did take a lot of time, was very worth it in my opinion.

SO starting things off, of course I had to do Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck first, arguably the two most popular Looney Tunes. As you can probably tell by the art, I chose the original comic designs rather than anything more modern. I wanted to stay true to the original look of the Marvel comics look and I figured that the bright colors and slightly more innocent tone would be a better fit for cartoons rather than the grittier MCU. (though make no mistake, I still very much plan on doing some re-draws of iconic scenes with these designs from the MCU) So yeah, while I have mixed in a bit of SOME modern elements in with these designs as you can tell just by comparing the original comic designs, they are for the most part the og look, which is what I wanted to both respect and totally use to my advantage. Other than that though, they both just seemed like obvious choices. Maybe too obvious some could argue, but I’m happy with it and hey it was my decision in the first place.

Honestly, while Black Widow was the OBVIOUS choice for Lola, I still think it fits. Black Widow has been trained in pretty much every form of fighting out there, and I really like the idea of a Lola that’s good at combat. Plus I mean it would add more to her character than just “good at basketball” which isn’t a bat trait, but shouldn’t be her only one. Aaaaand Tweety. Some people may not know this one so I’ll just go ahead and tell y'all so no one’s confused. There’s a classic Looney Tunes short (which is also one of my faves) that has Tweety transform into a “hyde” version of himself thanks to the potion from the classic story. (Bugs also did this in another short, but I thought Tweety would be a better fit-even if Bugs is actually green there) So yeah, he stays yellow just like the cartoon, but has a transformation into this form, all with the purple shorts.

Oh these boys-where to begin? Well I have to say that these two were probably my favorite to draw. And they look dorky as hell but that was kinda my point. I do think Thor and Loki are great characters- but the idea of these two being “great mythical gods” was too funny not to do. And much like the others, the designs stayed mostly true to the original, except for the Loki helmet, which I made more like the MCU one to still show Sylvester’s ears.

And finally, the last one for this list: Wile E Coyote/Doctor Strange. Yeah I don’t actually have cool names for these guys cause I’m really not good at coming up with creative ones that could combine both, so if any of you guys have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. But yeah, originally I was actually gonna go with War Machine, cause you know, tech. But after brief consideration and looking at an actual Marvel poster I have, I decided that Doctor Strange would be a much better fit. Not only personality wise, but also because Wile has dabbled in sorcery in the past, so it wasn’t completely un-reasonable. And yeah, aside from the two above Wile was also one of my favorites to draw, though I’m very proud of how all of these turned out.

But before we go- enjoy some character posters I made for everybody, and one last big group shot.

Also though it will probably be a while, stay tuned cause I’ve got some more Looney Tunes who I plan on fitting into this wacky little universe, but for those you’ll just have to wait and see!

cue a sillier mix of the avenger’s theme

#marvel comics #marvel #looney tunes #comics #looney tunes cartoons #bugs bunny #captain america #iron man #daffy duck

[brw]

Reed and Sue for the character ask please?

REED

Sexuality Headcanon: I definitely see him as asexual!! Despite being almost 50 in canon he’s only ever really been with one person, Sue. He was only shown to have one girlfriend previously and even then their relationship for the most part seemed fairly one-sided so! Also despite being one of marvel’s oldest characters I could probably count all the times he seemed attracted to people on one hand fdcbfvhjvfbhj. he is an ace king <3

Gender Headcanon: A man but only by association <3 jk kinda but um i am fluid abt this! i definitely have written fics about him being trans or nonbinary so! but also it’s not a constant and i have plenty of cis-ish reed stories so yeah cdbdcbhjfcj.

A ship I have with said character: Him and Sue ofc is a big one :> one of the best classic marvel couples, if not the best! but ofc DoomReed is also a banger + him and Ben make a cute best friends to lovers dymanic fjhnfdv

A BROTP I have with said character: Him and Ben 2: the electric boogaloo vfjhfjfvjdv but um yeah! they have a very sweet underrated friendship??? like i’ve said, why don’t they hug more! they’re best friends and more people should remember that abt their dymanic reed is way too polite to ben jfc i’ve called my friends idiots (affectionate) at least 100 times. BUT aside from that he has a very nice dymanic with the other marvel scientists (tm), honestly “Atomic Knights Of The Round Table” how much more nerdy can you get jfc. definitely want to see some flashbacks to them playing DND cdddfhfvhfh. and finally him & jen! i find it very cute and sweet how close Reed is to random people tbh, he’s a human capybara.

A NOTP I have with said character: I dunno if I really have one? I haven’t seen anything that really made me go “ew” with regards to Reed. Most stuff is OK conceptually. I guess at a stretch (lol) that au where Natasha/Black Widow had a crush on him was kinda weird. But that’s about it dcbfdhjdfvdh

A random headcanon: IDK why but I see him as a clothes hoarder. One of those people who’s wardrobe is 80% stuff he borrowed and then never gave back from others bhcfdhbfvdh. When he does buy his own clothes they’re absolutely awful and garish <3 so he just ends up taking others. Perk of stretching; everything fits. I also think he could be good at baking but only when extremely stressed out idk why cfdchfdfdvhj.

General Opinion over said character: Legend <3 get’s a bad rep for sure. Just an autistic stretchy man who loves his family very much and is a good dad. I hope he’s having a good day. One of the Comfort Characters (tm) for me. Do wish his funko pop could like. stand up and not fall down BUT ASIDE FROM THAT. 10/10 a perfect character for my wants and needs. 

SUE

Sexuality Headcanon: Bi sapiosexual <3 /hj

Gender Headcanon: Similar to Reed I don’t have anything strong however her and reed have strong t4t vibes and I like the idea a lot tbh. Easily could be marvel’s trans milf representation if they were not cowards! but um yeah fchjfcdhfdhj. nothing strong but a lot of nice concepts <3

A ship I have with said character: Yet again, her n Reed! They’re very sweet and the fact that they’ve been going strong as long as they have is an achievement! BUT ALSO her and alicia have strong Gal Pals (tm) energy so that’s also fun. I also rlly like BenReedSue for her I just think she deserves to have two handsome boys love her a lot.

A BROTP I have with said character: Her and Jan Van Dyne have such a nice cute friendship! I definitely liked when you can see them go out for lunch n stuff and gossip about their pet scientists and kick ass together they should do it more often. They’re good friends! I don’t think it’s been on panel much but I would also like to see her friendship with Wanda! They obviously talked at least once bc Sue copied her opera gloves look for a bit so they obviously are close enough that Sue felt comfortable to do that, so I’d like to see more of them too! I think they’d have more in common than realised. and OFC her and Alicia again. Very sweet and nice. I like how much they care abt each other and look out for one another.

A NOTP I have with said character: Her and Namor <3 get that shit away from me

A random headcanon: NO idea why and I think this may be a latent piece of canon in the back of my mind that I cannot recall but I think she plays guitar, specifically base and is pretty decent at it. I also think that the few movies she starred in in Ye Olde Days have become cult classics now :>

General Opinion over said character: Wife <3 one of the most powerful marvel characters in universe and i’d like everyone to remember it! More than capable of kicking ass. should be allowed to go feral more often. Also deserves to be drawn as the 50 year old she is jfc stop making her look Vaguely 20 she is the same age as Reed and Ben and I will maintain this until the day I die <3 sufferer of Eldest Daughter Syndrome but we can’t all be perfect. Marvel keeps nerfing her by having her be written by D*n Sl*tt and B*rne because if they let her be the 50 something y/o milf capable of taking out the Avengers in 0.5 seconds she’d be too powerful for them to contain.

send a character!

#THANKS FOR ASKING! #ask games} answers #theycallher-marvelgirl #💛💛💛 #ch: the most powerful member of the ff

[writingblock101]

Dramatic Effect (Jason Todd x Reader)

This is pretty short which is surprising, but it felt forced to add more. Hopefully, this lives up to expectations for the anonymous who sent this! If not, shoot me another message and I’m down to revisit this idea. 

Request:  I just saw that you write for both Marvel and DC and was just wondering... are you open to doing something with a Black Widow! Reader and Jason Todd?? 

Word Count: 1,000

Tags: @idkmanicantenglish

“Jinkies,” A voice says. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

You roll your eyes as you glance up at the infamous Red Hood who’s just slipped into Lex Luthor’s office. 

“So,” Red asks, sitting down at a chair in front of Lex’s desk. “What kind of information has good ole Lex dug up on your precious SHIELD?” 

You look up from the computer with a sarcastic smile. 

“That’s classified, sweetheart.” 

Red chuckles, leaning back in his seat. 

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” 

“Not a chance,” You grin. 

“After seeing how good you looked in that dress, it was worth it.” 

You roll your eyes again, thinking back to the last mission you ran into Jason. You were undercover, looking to distract a mob boss at a gala. It ended with a thug recognizing the infamous Black Widow, you stabbed someone in the eye with your high heels and you and Jason escaped through the kitchen. Honestly, it was a pretty fun mission all things considered (and you eventually got the information you went for). 

“I thought you didn’t operate in Metropolis?” You ask, still focused on the screen. 

“That’s classified, sweetheart.” 

You glare over the screen at Red, not needing him to remove his helmet to know he’s got a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“But, if it really means that much to you, since I know you worry, Lex has been developing some weapons that would be more helpful to me than they would Lex.” 

You hum in response. 

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll find a good use for them.” 

“Sarcasm?!” Red declares, holding his chest dramatically. “You wound me.” 

“I’m sure you’ll recover,” You smile sickly sweet again. 

“With a smile like that, I’m sure it’ll take no time.” 

You groan and roll your eyes. 

“I thought your brother was supposed to be the well-known one for flirting.” 

Red shrugs. 

“What can I say? I have a thing for women who can kick my ass.” 

“I’m surprised you’re even admitting that I could beat you.” 

Red scoffs. 

“I’m on a team with an Amazonian and I was raised by the Bat when Batgirl and Black Bat were active. You’re hardly the first woman I’ve met who could kick my ass.” 

“Fair,” You nod then click over to Lex’s encrypt agenda. “That shipment you’re looking for is happening in two days at Star City Harbor at 11:45 PM.” 

“Wow, you do care,” Red puts a hand over his heart, but the moment is short-lived when you both hear a commotion outside of Lex’s door. 

You and Red are on your feet in an instant, guns drawn, then the door burst open. You two make quick work of the guards, shooting, punching, and kicking. One tries to tackle you, but you duck, letting him rollover your shoulders then Red flings him into the wall, knocking him out. Another tries to sneak up behind Red, but you shoot him and punch another nearby guard. 

You use Lex’s nameplate as a throwing star and smash a mug on another guard’s head while Red breaks one guard’s arm and shoots another. You roundhouse another guard then taking a leaping jump and choke out another guard with your thighs. 

“You have no idea how hot it is when you do that,” Red sighs. 

You shoot another guard who attempts to sneak up on Red. 

“Stay focused, sweetheart.” 

He slams another guard into the window while you use your widow’s bite to electrocute a nearby guard. 

“I can multitask,” Red promises, shooting another guard. 

You roll your eyes, but sweep one guard’s feet out from under him and hit him with your widow’s bite. Another tries to pull you in a chokehold, but you flip him over your shoulder and punch him in the throat. One large guard charges at you, but you swing him to the side, forcing him toward Red Hood who promptly shoots him then roundhouses the next closest guard. 

“You know, as fun as it is to watch Black Widow kick your asses,” Red says. “We’re busy people with things to do that are better than beating up you mall cops,” He shoots out the window, pulls his arm tight around your waist, and grapples to the roof of another building. 

The guards flood toward the window, staring at you two dumbfound, making you laugh. 

“You know, I had it handled,” You tell Red. 

“Oh, trust me I know we could’ve taken all those rent-a-cops, but breaking the window is so much more fun.” 

You roll your eyes. 

“You’re dramatic.” 

“I’m dramatic?” Red scoffs, tightening his hold around your waist. “Sweetheart, you haven’t seen dramatic.” 

“I guess that’s what you get when you’re raised by,” You drop your voice to imitate Batman. “The Night.” 

“Pft, that man should’ve been a theater major in college with how dramatic he is.” 

“Right, and I’m sure you don’t share any of the same sentiments.” 

Red shrugs. 

“Maybe I do,” He pulls you closer to his chest. “Only one way to find out.” 

“Does it include taking off the helmet?” You raise your eyebrows. 

Red chuckles, sounding a little sheepish. 

“Actually, taking off the helmet isn’t going to help my case.” 

You raise your eyebrows, but Red reaches up and pulls off his helmet--

You burst out laughing. 

“Of course you wear a fucking mask under the helmet!” 

“It was for dramatic effect, okay?!” 

“Yeah, no shit it was for dramatic effect,” You roll your eyes, stepping away from Jason. 

“You know, having some back up at the shipment would be nice,” He tells you.

“Isn’t that what you have teammates for?” You raise an eyebrow. 

“My teammates aren’t you.” 

You smirk. 

“We’ll see,” Then you hop off the roof, grappling to your rendezvous point. 

Despite your ambiguous answer, you both know you’ll be at that dock in two days, watching Jason’s back. And when he pulls you close to him again and kisses you, well, that won’t be a surprise either. 

So, would anyone like to explain to me why Jason has so many freaking storylines? I don’t get it, but my favorite will always be him stealing tires off the Bat Mobile, because power move. Also, my classes are being moved online cause Corona so this is a really weird time to be in college. I’m opening request again, and right now I’m planning with some prompts and the Batfam (including Duke Thomas!) so look out for those! 

#jason todd #red hood #red hood x reader #jason todd x reader #jason todd x black widow! reader #red hood x black widow! reader #black widow! reader #black widow #I don't know if I like this #idk I feel like I could've done better and that this will be a little disappointing... #sorry #really it was just another self insert where you don't take any of Jason's shit

[daydreamerdrew]

Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

Winter Soldier (2012) #15-19

These issues were published across February 2013 to June 2013, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Jason Latour and drawn by Nic Klein.

I was a bit wary going into these issues. I didn’t have high expectations after the end of Ed Brubaker’s long run writing Bucky, both because Brubaker practically reinvented the character and I really got invested in Bucky through his particular portrayal of him and because I didn’t actually fully enjoy how Brubaker’s run ended off. But these issues written by Jason Latour required multiple readthroughs for me to understand the story and characterizations and I was motivated to go through that whole process because I was really compelled.

Captain America and Black Widow (2012) #636-640

These issues were published across September 2012 to December 2012, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Cullen Bunn and drawn by Francesco Francavilla.

I really enjoyed these issues even though the execution of the concept didn’t quite work for me exactly. The villain of the story is the many versions of Kashmir Vennema, who make of a multidimensional criminal organization of just Kashmir Vennemas that steal weapons, which are oftentimes people, to sell to other people in other dimensions. In issue #637 Steve and Natasha bust a sale taking place on their world and, upon realizing that the merchandise was people, Natasha goes to free them right away, but Steve stops her, saying, “We don’t know what… who… we’re dealing with. For all we know, they could try to kill us.” Natasha tells him that he doesn’t understand, that, “You don’t know what it’s like… having everything that makes you who you are strip-mined so you can be… a good little slave.” I wasn’t quite convinced of this characterization. I wasn’t convinced that Natasha would be so incautious as to want to just set brainwashed versions of people like Wolverine and Bruce Banner free or of the positioning of Steve as improperly sympathetic to their plight.

Then in issue #638 there’s an argument between Natasha and another version of herself that’s been hunting and killing Kashmir Vennemas. Our Natasha says, “You remind me of someone who didn’t think for herself. A puppet. A marionette dancing at the pull of a string.” And the alternate Natasha says, “Nonsense. The Cold War is over… for both of us. Only… one of us grew fat and lazy during peacetime… and the other stayed sharp.” It does turn out in the end that the person this other Natasha was working for, a version of Kashmir Vennema that was supposedly against all of the others but really just wanted to be the Kashmir Vennema on top, was playing the alternate Natasha. However, that’s not revealed until the very end of this story, so at that time of that first argument I felt that that criticism of the alternate Natasha was unsubstantiated and was more based on personality than anything else.

Then in issue #640 the alternate Natasha kills a bunch of Kashmir Vennemas, which our Natasha was against. The alternate Natasha says, “I only did what you would have done in the same situation. I finished this,” and, “These women were murderers and slave traders. They used people… People like me. Like you!” And our Natasha says, “I understand you’ve been mistreated. Enslaved. But you’re still letting yourself be used. Either by your own rage. Or by some other puppet master.” At this point neither Natasha knows that the resistance Kashmir Vennema has self-serving motives, so this criticism again feels unsubstantiated. Particularly considering that in the end, after being told that the alternate Natasha is imprisoned and will stay imprisoned for a long time, our Natasha says, “She said those women… the inner council… deserved to die for what they did. And… I try to convince myself that I’m nothing like that woman… That my background has made me a different person… A better person… But I agreed with her. I’m glad they’re dead.” So it wasn’t even truly a disagreement about tactics in the end and I feel sorry for the alternate Natasha that she got imprisoned. Even though by killing Kashmir Vennemas she was leaving a power vacuum for the resistance Kashmir Vennema to take over, I’m not convinced that the alternative Natasha was necessarily going down the wrong path as the narrative is trying to frame it, because killing the Kashmir Vennemas completely aligns with her own goals and morals, it’s just that there’s one more Kashmir Vennema that she didn’t realize she needs to kill.

Also, the way that the various Kashmir Vennemas are portrayed is that in personality they were all just a little bit different and the first time they appear there’s additional narration to the scene which explains their upbringing, which were all completely unique. Conceptually and in execution this worked really well for me, and I also like this being paired with the conflict between the two Natashas about how their comparable, possibly identical, upbringings shaped them, even though their lives diverged into something completely different at a certain point.

Captain America and the First Thirteen (2011) #1

This issue was published in March 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. It was written by Kathryn Immonen and drawn by Ramón Pérez.

I read this issue because I was genuinely interested in Steve and Peggy Carter’s wartime romance, but unfortunately the portrayal of how they interacted with each other wasn’t very interesting. Sharon Carter said, about their relationship in Captain America (2005) #25, “And briefly, they had fallen in love… the only way you can when there are bombs falling all around… with wild abandon.” I was surprised to learn just how brief that relationship was. Peggy never even knew Steve’s name or his face before he got frozen. In the beginning of the story she says, “In my heart I know there could be no disguising his bravery, his courage, his intelligence. And one of these days, we will meet without the mask, quite by accident, probably. And we will know each other face-to-face. And then there will be no disguising ourselves or our feelings.” But at the end of the story she says, “And then it was over. And I never saw him again. Not that I know of,” while Peggy is shown passing Steve as a regular serviceman, while herself in disguise as part of her work in the French resistance, and not recognizing him. And before that there’s a scene where Peggy asks Steve if he remembers their first meeting and he says it was “a beautiful sunny day,” referring to the first meeting of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, and she corrects him and says, “It was pouring rain and you know it,” referring to her later meeting of Captain America. I also thought it was unfortunate that Bucky happens to be elsewhere during this story because it would have been nice to see his dynamic with Peggy.

What was of the most interest to me in this issue is how casually Steve interacted with another female spy, a friend of Peggy’s named Anna, regarding her tactics. She’s introduced when Steve gets distracted by the sight of her while talking to Peggy. Anna then applies her lipstick while looking at herself in the reflection on Steve’s shield and Steve jokingly asks, “So… Is that the famous knockout lipstick me and the boys have heard so much about?” Anna says that it could be and offers him a demonstration, which makes Steve a little bit flustered, and then he turns to Peggy and asks what she thinks. Peggy says to go ahead, Steve and Anna lean in to kiss, and then Steve learns that the “knockout lipstick” is really just a knife or a gun pressed against the stomach while the soldier is distracted. Later, Steve and Anna are chatting and Anna takes something out of her bag and Steve teases her by asking if it’s water-activated poison, a radio transmitter, or a garrote holder. Anna admits that it is a garrote holder, but that it’s primarily just rouge, while Steve grins. I would have thought that Steve would be less smooth around women and in particular that in the 1940s he’d be less comfortable around seduction-based female spies.

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (2014) #1-5

These issues were published across February 2014 to July 2014, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Rick Remember and drawn by Roland Boschi.

The first issue of this miniseries, which takes place in 1966, did not give me high expectations for the rest of it. It seemed like a generic spy story with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Ran Shen as the protagonist and the Winter Soldier as the mysterious villain. What brings everyone together is that various competing agencies have given their operatives the same orders, to capture two Nazi scientists, a couple, so that they can work for their agency or, if that proves impossible, to kill them so that they can’t work for someone else. In this first issue Shen treats the mission somewhat flippantly, making bets with Nick Fury about who’s strategy is better and splitting up. The first hint of something interesting was in issue #2 when Bucky is shocked with electricity by Shen and subsequently has a flashback of Captain America telling him to never shoot someone that’s running away, which messes him up in his pursuit of Shen. Meanwhile, Shen is becoming enamored with Mila Hitzig, one of the scientists, who isn’t the Nazi her husband is and is more of a dedicated communist that went down the wrong path, which didn’t really impress me. And then in issue #3, after experiencing yet another electricity attack, Bucky has a flashback of Steve telling him that they don’t kill foes that are already defeated and can’t fight back, which prevents him from killing Shen in a vulnerable moment.

Then Bucky has to fight Lord Drain, a vampire-like Hydra operative with the ability to drain people of their will to live and convince them to kill themself. There’s some really great lines during this fight. Lord Drain says, “Oh to see what they did to you. It would break your poor captain’s heart,” and then makes Bucky see a hallucination of Steve, who shames him for what happened to him, saying, “My partner, what have you let them do to you? A bloodthirsty pawn of the Soviets, a faded memory who was better off dead- You shouldn’t be here, sullying your legacy,” and then tells Bucky to “set things right” by killing himself. And in issue #4 Lord Drain says, “I’m telling you what your heart knows is true- he’d want you dead! Captain America would want this distortion ended,” and, “If only to preserve his legacy- kill yourself!” But Bucky recognizes that this isn’t true and the memories of all of the lessons that Steve taught him coming back to him gives him the strength to resist Lord Drain. Later Bucky saves Mila and Shen from Lord Drain and has a parallel moment to Steve having told him, “No matter what- we always stand up,” when he tells Shen to stand up after Shen has lost his will to live because of Lord Drain.

In issue #5 Bucky, Mila, and Shen are all united. I was by this point still not compelled by Mila and Shen’s relationship. However, the ending of this series landed incredibly well. Bucky tells Shen that he was a brainwashed American soldier, but not specifically that he’s Bucky, Captain America’s long-thought-dead partner. They end up working out a deal where Bucky will come in after he gets revenge on the people who brainwashed him, which Shen is apprehensive about because he feels that if Bucky gets recaptured and rebrainwashed then everything he does for the Soviets from then on out will be his fault. Mila doesn’t want to go to the Soviets or to S.H.I.E.L.D. so Shen agrees to get her away from everyone and then they’ll be together, but the only way to get her out alive is to have Bucky take her away in the Soviet’s helicopter while pretending to still be working for them while Shen keeps the Soviet soldiers on the ground occupied. There’s a moment where Shen is injured and dying, and, while he’s sad that he won’t get to live the life he wanted to with Mila, he’s watching the helicopter fly away satisfied that he traded his life for hers. And then, tragically, Nick Fury shows up and saves Shen and, following their original orders to capture or kill the scientists, he shoots down the helicopter while Shen is still too injured to stop him. Despite not caring for this character prior to this, the close-up on Shen’s horrified eyes as he helplessly watches this got to me. This action from Nick Fury kills Mila and dooms Bucky to being recaptured and rebrainwashed. Later, Shen is told that he performed admirably on the mission, and is given a new assignment that requires him to act as though he hates the U.S. and is a committed communist, which he accepts with an angry look in his eyes as it is now actually true. Meanwhile, Bucky is being rebrainwashed in a way as to ensure that the way his programming was broken in this story won’t happen again.

Timely Publications:

the Jimmy Jupiter stories in Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #36-39

In this batch of Jimmy Jupiter stories I went from October 1942 to January 1943, according to the issue cover dates. All were signed as by Eddie Robbins, and according to his Who’s Who page he was only the artist for these stories. All of the stories were 7 pages.

The stories in issues #36-37 break the traditional Jimmy Jupiter mold as in neither of these does Jimmy end the story believing that his adventure was real, as he does with all his prior adventures. In the story in issue #36 Jimmy is sent to go to the dentist by his mother, but he gets scared in the waiting room and tries to run away and knocks himself out in the process. He initially believes that he just gets up from the fall down the stairs, and is then chased by the maniacal dentist, who is assisted by his mother at the end of the dream. Jimmy’s mother “administers the anasthesia,” which means hitting him on the head with a hammer, and the dentist pulls out Jimmy’s tooth, and then that scene dissolves into the real world as Jimmy wakes up at the bottom of the stairs. When Jimmy is told what happened, he says, “Gee whiz!… I suppose I’ll have to go back up and get that tooth out now!” But then he learns that the fall down the stairs knocked out the offending tooth and he’s in the clear. I liked the ending narration to this story, which reads: “The only thing that’ll keep Jimmy away from more sweets is sugar rationing!”

And in the story in issue #37 Jimmy is told to spend Halloween night at the cemetery to learn whether or not he can see ghosts. He does and he falls asleep, though he doesn’t realize that initially, and meets ghosts in his dream that turn out to be harmless. After his adventure Jimmy sits back down under the tree that he did at the beginning, and then he’s woken up and asked if he met any ghosts. Jimmy says, “I don’t know! Maybe I was just dreaming after all! But, anyway- even if I wasn’t- I sure will never be afraid of ghosts again!” This is also, unfortunately, the first Jimmy Jupiter story to contain racist caricatures.

The adventure that’s begun in the story in issue #38 is more like the traditional Jimmy Jupiter story. At the beginning Jimmy is once again sitting under a tree when he’s approached by a fairy to come with her to the land of fairies. Along the way they’re attacked by an evil wizard, who imprisons Jimmy in a cell with an animate marionette doll named Knobby. This reminded me of the Jimmy Jupiter story in issue #29, which began with Jimmy lying in a field and being whisked off by a bee, and then had him get captured by witches and imprisoned with a talking rabbit. In that story Jimmy defeats the witches by stabbing one with a hatpin, causing her to deflate and the other two to run away in fear. In this story Jimmy and Knobby are able to run away while the evil wizard is having a coughing fit, which was caused by Jimmy kicking salt into his face, but Jimmy feels bad leaving him like that so he goes back splashes water on his face to help him, which actually causes the wizard to shrink and lose his magic powers.

In the story in issue #39 Jimmy and Knobby are still trying to get to the palace of the king of fairies, which is where Jimmy was supposed to be going in the first place. Along the way they have to cross a steep river and, in a play on “The Scorpion and the Frog” fairy tale, they are offered a ride by a crocodile, who tries to eat them when they are halfway across. Jimmy defeats the crocodile by telling him to eat them in pieces and then feeding him Knobby’s leg at an angle where the crocodile can’t close his mouth, forcing the crocodile to take them to the other side of the river so that Jimmy will remove the wooden leg so that the crocodile won’t starve to death.

Then Jimmy and Knobby are interrupted in their traveling by three witches, who are a play on the Graeae from Greek mythology, three sisters who had to share one eye and one tooth between them. The witches all have terrible eyesight and only one pair of glasses, and they use their magic to freeze Jimmy and Knobby in place and intend to hold them for ransom to the king to get more glasses, but Jimmy is able to snatch the glasses out of one of their hands in the moment of trading, leaving all of them blind. Jimmy tells them they undo the spell that’s keeping him and Knobby frozen and they say they can’t without the glasses, which makes Jimmy realize that the magic is in the glasses themselves and he uses them to free himself and Knobby. In the end Jimmy keeps the glasses, but he tells the witches that once he reaches the king he’ll have him send them three pairs of glasses with no evil power.

DC Comics:

Superman (2023) #1-7 and Annual #1

These issues were published across February 2023 to October 2023. All were written by Joshua Williamson. Issues #1-3 and #5 were drawn by Jamal Campbell, while issue #4 was drawn by Jamal Campbell and Nick Dragotta. Issue #6 was drawn by Glen Melnikov. The Annual was 40 pages and was drawn by Mahmud Asrar, Edwin Galmon, Caitlin Yarsky, Max Raynor, and Jack Herbert. And issue #7 was a 40-page anniversary special and was drawn by Gleb Melnikov, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, and Edwin Galmon.

I enjoyed these issues well enough. I’m not really a Superman fan, and I’ve got nothing against how Superman or Lex Luthor were characterized in these issues, I just personally wasn’t particularly compelled by their portrayals either. I read these issues because of the surprise appearance of Lena Luthor, specifically the version that’s Lex Luthor’s daughter, in issue #7. I got invested in this character back in 2021. She appeared in the later half of the 90s and the very beginning of the 2000s, and then Lex Luthor’s backstory was changed so that rather than having a foster sibling named Lena that he fell in love with and that died and that he named his daughter after, he had a biological sister named Lena who was still alive, and before this series “Lena Luthor II” hadn’t been seen since. I haven’t read the comics with Lena Luthor, Lex’s sister, from the 2000s yet and what I have read with her from the 2010s didn’t appeal to me.

In the 90s Lena was a baby that other characters talked at, but I was able to get invested in her through the fact that what she brought out in Lex was so interesting to me. Then in the early 2000s, after having been traded to Brainiac 13 by her father, she reappeared as Brainiac 13’s right hand and was in a conflict with her father that I found interesting. In Superman #7 she’s a teenager with scars from Brainiac circles having been removed from her forehead, showing that some version of events of her having been taken by a Brainiac still occurred in this new modern continuity. She’s introduced when Lex’s mother comes to visit Lex at the hospital and Lena waits in the hall, which Leticia Luthor refers to as her being a “typical overdramatic teenager.” Lex complains, “I told you she could never come back here. It’s too dangerous. No one can know about her…” And then Lena says, “Thanks, Dad. You really know how to make a girl feel welcome.” She’s looking down at her phone, and is also wearing ripped-up jeans and a t-shirt for the band The Black Canaries. Apparently, this version of Lena had been half raised by/half imprisoned with her grandmother on a private island up until Lex gave his company to Superman when he was sent to prison.

During the 90s Lex had Lena’s mother, the Contessa Erica Alexandra Del Portenza, placed in a medically-induced coma as soon as Lena was born so that he wouldn’t have to compete with her for Lena’s love. The Contessa herself was an interesting character, a mostly immortal being who ultimately decided to allow Lex to keep Lena with the intention of just waiting him out, planning on destroying Lex’s company after Lena inherited it and then coming into her daughter’s life as her savior after Lex died, not foreseeing him trading their daughter away to an alien. Lex was obsessed with his baby and repeatedly stated how important it was to him that his child not suffer as he did in his early life and that everything he did was for her future benefit, which made it all the more shocking when he lost everything except Lena and then traded her to get back on top in Action Comics (1938) #763. In that interaction Brainiac 13 told Lex, “I will make you a god… in exchange for this bit of meat.” In Lena’s later appearances that dismissal of humans is present in Lena referring to herself as becoming something superior to humans or that she’s trying to overcome her human heritage, but she ultimately betrays Brainiac 13 for her father and says, in Action Comics (1938) #782, “You’d be s-surprised what meat is capable of… when the heart is involved.”

I am concerned that Lena’s portrayal in the upcoming issues of Superman (2023) will just be as a generic angsty teenager. I hope that the specifics of her previous portrayal that I listed here- her father’s obsession with her and then betrayal of her and the idea of humans being just meat, which she overcame- influences the writing. I don’t expect the Contessa to be a character in this story, but I hope that it’s not revealed that this version of Lena has another mother. Also, at the end of Superman #7 Brainiac is shown to be creating a woman and he says, “For centuries I have destroyed and hoarded. But soon… I will have the power to create life.” I hope that wherever this is going is directly connected to Lena.

the Dr. Fate stories in More Fun Comics (1935) #62-69

In this batch of Dr. Fate stories I went from December 1940 to July 1941, according to the issue cover dates. All were written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Howard Sherman. The stories in issues #62-67 were 6 pages and the stories in issues #68-69 were 10 pages.

In the story in issue #64 Inza is placed under the spell of “the sleep of evil dreams.” The villain tells Dr. Fate, “I control you- because if you fight me- Inza dies!” Dr. Fate’s response is, “Then die she must- to save the world!” The villain is surprised by this and get scared and tries to surrender, but Dr. Fate refuses him because, “You shall always be evil- and so you must die!” After defeating the villain, Dr. Fate is able to wake Inza up. Apparently, because the villain had been imprisoned for thousands of years, his magic had weakened, which Dr. Fate knew all along.

In the story in issue #66 Inza attempts to contact Dr. Fate to ask him to help a friend of hers, but nothing happens, which makes her say, “It’s no use! I can’t summon him! Perhaps my mind isn’t attuned to his yet-” But then Inza is attacked, and she cries out to Dr. Fate for help, and that he hears from his tower in Salem and says, “I seem to hear Inza calling me from a great distance! She is in danger!” The standard opening to the Dr. Fate stories up to this point has been Inza being attacked by something weird and Dr. Fate hearing her cry for help from his tower.

At the end of the story in issue #66 Inza remarks, “Young love! I wish-” to which Dr. Fate responds, “You wish you knew someone besides and eerie old sorcerer like me, eh? Well take a look,” and removes his helmet in her presence for the first time, which is also the first time the readers have seen his face. Inza is shocked, and the unmasked Dr. Fate tells her, “It’s a long story, how I became what I am. Someday I’ll tell it to you! Meanwhile, I’m a human with remarkable powers!” The reveal of Dr. Fate’s origin story ends up being the beginning of the story in issue #67, and then that story depicts Inza and Kent Nelson spending time together casually for the first time before the start of the adventure that requires him to take on the role of Dr. Fate. Following this, the Dr. Fate stories begin with Inza and Kent Nelson already being together when the weird thing that requires Dr. Fate happens.

Since Dr. Fate’s powers and background hadn’t been explained yet before the story in issue #67, the narration was doing the heavy lifting of explaining the character. For example, in the story in issue #65 another character says, “Wonder who he really is? And where he gets that awful power from?” The next panel is just narration and reads, “An answer to the officer’s query- Doctor Fate is a man possessing the knowledge of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and those races that dwelt before our written history begins- Atlantis the lost- Mu the sunken- magic and the lost arts, the secrets of nature and the universe are his! He uses them to combat secret evils abroad in the world!”

Also, I believe that the story in issue #68 is the first time Dr. Fate was been shown to be able to hypnotize people.

Fawcett Comics:

the Captain Marvel stories in Whiz Comics (1940) #81 and Captain Marvel Adventures (1941) #68 and The Marvel Family (1945) #7

In this batch of 7 stories I read through the Captain Marvel appearances in December 1946, according to the issue cover dates. These stories ranged from 7 to 11 pages.

The story “Captain Marvel and the Ghostly Ghostwriter” (written by Bill Woolfolk; possibly drawn by Pete Constanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #68 has Billy assigned to take over Station Whiz’s popular “Ghost Tales” program because the previous writer was hired by another station and “Billy’s programs are always popular!” But Billy, coming from a news background, struggles to write the ghost stories. Captain Marvel investigates various supposed haunted houses in order to find inspiration for Billy, but they all turn out to be phonies. In the end Station Whiz is able to rehire the old writer, who turns out to actually be a real ghost, which is why his ghost stories were all so great.

The story “Captain Marvel and the Missing Red Suit” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Constanza) in Captain Marvel Adventures #68 had a similar premise to the story “Captain Marvel’s Most Embarrassing Moment” (writer unknown; drawn by C.C. Beck) in Whiz Comics #50. In that story Captain Marvel’s suit is stolen while he was skinny-dipping and Billy Batson, unable to get clothes in an adult man’s size, has to run around trying to get it back while only transforming when there’s something available for Captain Marvel to cover himself with. For example, jumping into a bush before transforming. In this story Billy has to get Captain Marvel’s suit dry-cleaned after a crook throws a bottle of ink at him, but the dry-cleaning place accidentally sends him someone else’s masquerade costume instead. Captain Marvel has to wear the costume because he has nothing else to wear, and meanwhile the man who was supposed to get the masquerade costume and got the Captain Marvel suit instead looks remarkably like Captain Marvel and is able to impersonate him. Nobody takes Captain Marvel seriously when he’s in the silly costume.

The story “The Marvel Family Reaches Eternity” (written by Otto Binder; penciled by C.C. Beck; inked by Pete Constanza) in The Marvel Family #7 featured the first appearance of the Three Faces of Evil. In this story they escape from the Rock of Eternity and each of the three main Marvels is needed to recapture them. Later, in “The Captain Marvel of 7,000 B.C.” (written by E. Nelson Bridwell; penciled by Don Newton; inked by Dave Hunt) in World’s Finest Comics (1941) #262, which was published by DC Comics in 1980, it is revealed that the Wizard Shazam created the Rock of Eternity to imprison the Three Faces of Evil back when he was the champion Vlarem. This was maintained in the Post-Crisis continuity as this same backstory of the creation of the Rock of Eternity was portrayed in a flashback in The Power of Shazam! (1995) #10 (written by Jerry Ordway; penciled by Peter Krause; inked by Mike Manley), which was published by DC Comics in 1995, though the event occurs differently.

#comics read this past week #my posts

[buck-nialled]

Confidential - P. Parker Imagine

NOTE: hey everybody...so...this is new. I have not written anything about tom holland nor peter parker until now but this concept came to mind today and I just had to get it out on paper--or, in this case, tumblr. this was actually supposed to be a surprise for when i reach 1k followers (which has already happened btw, big thank you to everybody for that) but im trying to complete all of the requests left in my inbox before i continue on with the celebration!!! I’m not sure if a lot of my followers are fans of tom holland and I dont’t know much about him outside of the Marvel movies he has starred in, therefore, i will only be writing for Peter Parker as of now. anwyas, let me know if you’d like to see more of these and maybe i’ll write some :) thanks!

You give the wooden door three solid knocks before beginning to rethink your entire walk over to Peter’s complex. It was not the fact that you were wearing a white top and are nearly drenched all over from the downpour occurring outside, but the thought of inconveniencing Peter or his aunt was something you always tried being conscious of. Especially when you and the boy took your friendship to a new level of intimacy was where you let him initiate each date or meeting. He made it clear from the start that the internship lined up for him by Tony Stark was a top priority of his, and that his schedule would always be fluctuating due to his constant reliability in the program. One of Peter’s larger qualms, in the beginning, was that there would never be enough time for the two of you to spend together and would result in a hideous split. Still, he finds himself astonished after each raincheck or “maybe later” in a less than affirming tone that you are still supportive of his decisions.

But the way Peter evoked his undying love for Tony Stark’s excellence and his loyalty to his internship made the situation appear much worse than it was. You were always more attentive to Peter now, considering what a large sum of your heart he had taken, and realized he was not MIA as often as you would have expected. Which is not to sound like a complaint, just simple curiosity. Your racing thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open in front of you, revealing Peter’s aunt.

“Hello, Mrs. Parker.” You unhook one of your arms from the other remaining over your chest and offer a small wave.

“Honey,” She sighs, “I’ve told you a million times to call me May.” It was a playful whine, but still, one that rang in your head as a reminder.

“Right. Sorry, May.” You correct yourself, lacing your arms back together over your damp torso. This movement caught the woman’s eyes immediately as they finally drank in your soaked frame and dripping hair.

“Oh, Y/N! You must be freezing. Let me go get a towel.” Mrs. Parker declares, swinging the door wider for you to enter. The air conditioning nearly brought you to the floor with its hard bite, and you felt goosebumps rise on every inch of your skin. You managed to squeak out through chattering teeth that it was not necessary.

“I was wondering if Peter was here. I left my jacket the other day and was wondering if he might have put it somewhere.” May hummed, eyes flicking back and forth in thought through the round-lens glasses.

“I think he went over to Ned’s today,” she wandered into the petite kitchen nearby and the rattling of a fridge door caught your ears, “something about building a Lego death ship…” She murmurs, eliciting a chuckle from you. The conversation you witnessed the two boys sharing comes to mind, and while it sounded enticing in the way Ned’s voice grew higher in his explanation, all you could find yourself focusing on was Peter’s bulging eyes and giddy smile.

“You’re welcome to go check for yourself if you want.” May offers her voice echoing about the apartment walls. A protest almost fell off your lips but was halted by another cool breeze of air conditioning rattling your body and cueing your lip to tremble.

“Thanks,” is all you can manage to murmur out before pacing towards Peter’s bedroom. Stepping into the quiet room should not have made you as nervous as it did. It was not even your first time witnessing the semi-neat vicinity. What was unfamiliar, was the lack of your boyfriend’s presence with you in the room.  Nevertheless, your desperation shuffled you about the floor to scope any item which could somewhat resemble your forgotten jacket. Unfortunately for you, Peter’s room was not in the tidiest shape it could be, which resulted in you snooping for quite some time. When finally coming up fruitless, the air around you remained nippy and relentless and finally, led you to Peter’s wardrobe.

Snagging one of his jackets for a day or two would not be the worst thing in the world, you justified. In fact, anything he owned that would keep you fairly dry for an extra couple of blocks would double in their efforts of keeping you warmer, unlike your jacket. Amidst dragging different graphic tee shirts and sweaters on their hangers, you pause and marveled an odd piece of fabric. It was a mismatched blue and red sweatsuit with a hood that could not have been sewn more horrendously. You pinched it in between your fingers and raised your brows at how soft it was. Removing it from the closet for further inspection, you cringed at the poorly illustrated spider drawn in black marker on the chest, before realization dawned on you.

“Y/N, what are you doing?”

After spinning on your feet, you freeze at the sight of Peter in his bedroom doorway. Clutching the fabric tighter in your grip, you struggle to find words for a few seconds.

“I-I uh…found this?” And when you finally did say something, all you could give after was a string of chuckles. “So…big Spider-Man fan, huh?” He gulps and reaches a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, eyeing the poorly constructed suit with fearful eyes.

“That-that…w-w-where did you find that?” He lifts a finger slightly, eyes never moving from the cloth secured in your hand. You ignored his question and took a few steps closer to him with an assured smile.

“Peter it’s okay. I think it’s kinda cute that you have a little suit of your own.”

“Huh? No, Y/N, you don’t understand—”

“I mean, you could have made the fabric a bit more breathable, but other than that—”

“Y/N, it’s not like that—” He was having a difficult time battling the consequences out inside of his head. Would it be worth telling you? Should he just nod along and let you make silly assumptions as you please? Before he could try to give any logical—and less humiliating—the reasoning for the costume, a gasp leaves you.

“This is that cosplay stuff you and Ned were talking about one day!”

“What? No, I don’t even—”

“Peter, it’s fine! I mean, I dressed up as Black Widow for Halloween one year. Granted, I was eleven but—”

“There’s something you should know about m—” he keeps trying, but this finding just has you rattling off sentences you weren’t even sure were true. All Peter could do was sit back and observe your facial expressions, which, by this point, were not too revolted, or pale.

“You know, it’s weird. I’ve never heard you mention Spider-Man before…I mean, I guess it makes sense, though. With the whole Tony Stark thing, you must meet people like him all the time.” Seating yourself on his mattress, Peter observed your longing expression. All you were was curious, and who could blame you? This internship was something that never left Peter’s mind (with exception to when you cross it). He knows you would never ask for intel after making it clear multiple times that sharing about his adventures with Tony Stark was forbidden. “So, have you met him?”

“Spider-Man?” You nod. “Yeah, we’ve met a couple of times?” Peter shrugs. He hears a sharp intake in your breath, and you scoot further on the edge of the mattress.

“Really? What was it like?” Peter’s lips quirk down, and his eyes begin flicking around the room for something to inspire his next fibs. But he is drawn back to your disappointed figure when you clear your throat.

“That’s okay. I get you can’t say anything…” you mutter, not daring to meet his gaze and rather, fiddle with the strings of the top to the suit. “Sorry if I got too snoopy.”

“I mean, it isn’t all totally confidential…there are a few stories I can share.” Your head snaps up immediately, and he can see the excitement floating in your eyes. He almost told you right there, just to keep the look on your face a continuous sight.

“Really?” He nods with a soft smile coming to graze his lips. You mimic the curve of his lips, before sparing a glance down to your body, still very much in need of warmth.

“Hey, Peter…” he blinks, “do you think I could try on your suit?” The ask leaves you both with sheepish grins and your boyfriend nodding furiously.

“Absolutely. And then I’ll tell you anything I can after.” Eventually, there would be no second-guessing or double-checking. There will come a day where Peter will tell you the truth about himself, the suit you were currently shimmying into behind his bathroom door, and the one just recently gifted to him by Tony Stark himself that he was smart enough to keep hidden elsewhere. However, he was going to take baby steps to appease you and your curiosities about him, becaise he at least owes you that much. And judging by how long you have stuck by him, he knew, for now, it would be enough.

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MCU Phase 4 and 5: What the Multiverse Means for the Future of Marvel Movies and TV

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This article contains Loki spoilers and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

The ending of the Loki season finale made one pretty substantial change to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The introduction of a full multiverse, caused by Sylvie killing He Who Remains, is an enormous shift in the cosmogony of the MCU. And it opens up some fascinating story possibilities for Marvel’s film heroes. So what does the introduction of a full, unlimited multiverse mean for the future of the MCU?

Hopefully, everything. Literally.

There are obvious near-term implications to Loki’s finale. It answered questions that Spider-Man: No Way Home (with its purported multiversal Sinister Six) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness asked back when Loki first premiered. Specifically: “What do you mean there’s only one universe?” 

The beauty of time travel is that now, there is and has always been a full multiverse in the context of the MCU. Because whatever Kang War happened far in Loki’s subjective past (because the timelines were left to run wild when Sophie killed He Who Remains), the entire history of the MCU is now potentially subject to retcons as necessary. So the strong implication from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse that that movie and all its various spider-people existed on Earths parallel to Tom Holland’s MCU can now be considered accurate, even though the movie came out years before Loki was even a twinkle in Kevin Feige’s master MCU spreadsheet. 

Time travel is a trip, man. It’s also beautiful. Literally anything is possible now. 

What Does the MCU Multiverse Mean for Marvel TV?

This sort of thing happens all the time in comics. The slang is “retcon,” comics-speak for retroactive continuity, where creators reach into their characters’ pasts to change something that impacts their present. 

Loki’s infinite multiverse sets up the entirety of Marvel history for any number of retcons that the folks in charge might deem necessary. It allows current MCU casts and crews to cherry pick what they liked from old MCU projects and fold them into this new normal. All those times Agents of SHIELD didn’t quite line up with what the movies were doing? The show was on an alternate Earth! Want Ghost Rider back without the TV baggage? Blame it on a Kang!

And grabbing the stuff that worked from old projects means porting in the good actors, too. That means people like J.K. Simmons, the Platonic ideal of J. Jonah Jameson, can continue playing the role across from three different Spider-Men, or Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio can show up as Daredevil and Kingpin in Spider-Man: No Way Home while Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings nukes Netflix’s Iron Fist continuity from orbit.   Wondering how Ms. Marvel could potentially deal with concepts from the Inhumans without ever mentioning that disastrous TV show? Now we know. 

Could the MCU Multiverse Retcon Marvel Movies?

This same ability to pick and choose the continuity most appropriate for the story applies to decisions the movies made, too. A full multiverse lets future filmmakers bring back Chris Evans as Captain America or Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow (OK…maybe not ScarJo) without burdening the MCU with yet another time paradox. As far as we’re concerned, pre-Marvel Studios curiosities like all those crazy old live action Marvel TV shows or Howard the Duck or Dolph Lundgren’s take on The Punisher are now officially canon somewhere within the multiverse.  

Phil Coulson could show up in Phase 6 leading a Squadron Supreme (just like in the comics), out for vengeance against the Avengers because they let his Earth 20085 brother die. Hell, if they really wanted to get dirty, Nick Fury could hire Deadpool to kill Coulson in retaliation, like in the comics. Wait, that was Secret Empire,wasn’t it? Never mind, don’t do that. 

Anyway, you get the idea.

The possibilities are as infinite as the imaginations of the writers, limited only by Kevin Feige’s patience/sense of humor. Don’t expect anything too crazy: the time travel solution in Avengers: Endgame was wild, but before Loki, that was far and away the most ridiculous comic book science the MCU had trafficked in. Typical MCU adaptations include much more modest nods to comics’ wackier elements – Eternals pending – like secret societies that had taken over SHIELD or Kurt Russell being Chris Pratt’s dad. So that ultra-maxi series that starts out a movie, moves into a TV show, has a comic tie in that directly crosses over with the show, and wraps up in Avengers 6 that we’re all hoping will come to pass is probably not on the horizon.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths Problem

An infinite multiverse doesn’t just mean possibility. It has a trap built in, too. The biggest multiverse story of all time, probably the one that set the template for future interactions with the concept, was DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths. That book set the standard for multiversal destruction, collapsing DC’s infinite comics timelines down to one single Earth and one single timeline. Gone were the separate Earths for the modern Justice League and the World War II Justice Society, replaced by one, unified timeline. And while the comic itself was a masterpiece, miraculously balanced by Marv Wolfman and beautifully drawn by George Perez; what it wrought on the DCU was 30 years of explainers why the Green Lantern of World War II still looked 35, or why Batman has only been operating for five years but went through six Robins in that time.  

The cautionary tale here is one of inward looking stories versus expansionary choices. Post-Crisis DC retcons were about fixing problems the writers and editors perceived with the new timeline, and not about telling the best story they could with the characters and continuity they had. This is an easy trap for a new, expanded (but not all the way expanded) MCU to fall into. There are key pieces of the comics that haven’t been ported to the films yet. 

The Fantastic Four

The temptation is likely huge to use this new, beautiful, infinite multiverse to introduce the Fantastic Four and the X-Men to the MCU. That’s probably half of a good idea.

The cosmogony of the multiverse is ingrained in who the Fantastic Four are. Their story begins as explorers of the unknown – Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm are bombarded with cosmic radiation after an unauthorized space launch. That origin is very of the time when they were created, and would probably hit different now when the only unauthorized space launches are led by giant assholes. So why not take a page from the end of Secret Wars and have them get their powers exploring the new multiverse? It makes so much sense to do it that way that one is almost suspicious of this entire retcon. But that doesn’t make it any less cool.

The X-Men in the MCU

While introducing the Fantastic Four to the MCU by saying they’ve been off exploring the multiverse would make a certain elegant sense, if Marvel tried to introduce the X-Men that way, it would be hugely problematic. 

The core concept of the X-Men is the mutant metaphor, the idea that mutants are hated and feared because of who they are. On a completely superficial level, this is nonsense: what’s the difference between Cyclops’ eye blasts and Captain Marvel zapping Kree ships with fist beams? Why are mutants singled out for scorn and bigotry when someone like Doctor Strange has MUCH more terrifying abilities?

The difference is the idea that mutants are humanity’s destiny. There’s no concern that the majority baseline human population is going to someday be replaced by handsome super-soldiers or radioactive Catholic lawyers. But that genetic distinction – the idea that Magneto and Apocalypse and Pixie and Skids all share a distinct identity, while Captain America and Daredevil and Dr. Druid and Tigra do not – creates tension that allows real world out groups to superimpose their struggles onto X-Men comics and makes them infinitely relatable.

As superficially attractive as the idea of plopping the mutants on their own parallel Earth might be (and trust me, this definitely seems like the simplest justification for keeping Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool in the MCU while jettisoning anything else that is less appealing for audiences or studio execs), putting the mutants on their own separate Earth strips that struggle from the story and makes them just another cape crew.

Worse, using the multiverse as justification that suddenly mutants are here because they came from a parallel timeline disrespects the marginalized people who identify with the X-Men who, like left-handed people, have been here the whole time. Whether society noticed or not.

The Sony Spider-Man Problem

What keeps me up at night about the new Marvel multiverse is the Spider-Man family. The Marvel/Sony relationship has always been…complicated. 

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While the new multiverse provides creators with endless storytelling opportunities that could expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it also sets up an easy out for the studios to separate the Spider-Man movies from the rest of the MCU. Cleaving off the Spider-family movies wouldn’t be great – I don’t need to be reminded of complicated business deals while I’m at the movies. Dedicating all of a future Spidey movie to explaining why Pete isn’t in the master MCU and can’t talk about Iron Man anymore would almost certainly be a nightmare.

But these inward-looking continuity fixes are the types of stories that Marvel, on page and on screen, has generally avoided (before you jump in the comments to shout “CLONE SAGA” please take into account how much work “generally” is doing in this sentence) with its big multiverse stories. Hopefully they’ll keep making those wise decisions going forward.

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