Marvel recs

[selenak]

Bruce Banner themed Avengers recs:

Flavor Name Pending: takes a bit of amusing trivia from Infinity Wars - the ice cream flavors named after various Avengers - and uses it for a lovely character study of Tony Stark and his friendship with the absent Bruce Banner.

Examination of the Hippocratic Oath: one of my ongoing frustrations is that the post-Age of Ultron movies never deal with Wanda's actions, specifically, her mindmessing with Bruce that released the Hulk in Johannesburg (which was all Wanda, not Ultron). (Instead, Civil War gives her something to angst about that wasn't her fault. Which is narrative cheating.) I also doubt that subsequent movies will show us Bruce dealing with it, while a recent rewatching of Age of Ultron reminded me how deeply angry he was with Wanda about this in the one scene they shared ("I could kill you now without even turning a different shade"). So I was delighted to find this AU from the end of Age of Ultron which, with a small twist, gives Bruce and Wanda more interaction and Bruce the chance to work emotionally respond to Steve's decision of basically adopting Wanda into the team.


Gradual Lightness: A post-Thor Ragnarok , pre Infinity War look at Bruce on the ship. (Also on Valkyrie.)


And one rec from the X-Men verse. Logan made me realise that ever since Days of Future Past, I've become invested in the relationship between Logan and Charles Xavier. This story covers all the decades:

X marks the spot; X marks my home

Comments

[sovay]

Examination of the Hippocratic Oath

Thanks for this link; I enjoyed it.

[selenak]

I'm glad!

[jainas]

Ho, this is totally relevant to my interests. Thank you!

[selenak]

Glad to share!

[chelseagirl]

Thanks for the links. The Hulk is the least interesting Avenger to me, but Bruce Banner is my favorite. (Mark Ruffalo is so my type and I love his conflictedness.)

(I think I love Cap as much because Peggy does as for himself.)

[selenak]

Re: Bruce vs Hulk - same here. Back when Avengers was released, I remember one particular insightful review noting that the reason why this version of Bruce Banner clicked with audiences in a way the two previous efforts had not was because aside from Mark Ruffalo being superb, Joss Whedon's script managed to avoid the quintessential problem of any Hulk movie. Which is that in a Hulk story, the desire of the protagonist (NOT to become the Hulk) and the part of the audience the creators tried to appeal to (fanboys who wanted to see the Hulk) were directly in opposition to each other, and the "will or won't Bruce manage to avoid Hulking out?" question wasn't an interesting one, because of course there would be a Hulk. Whereas Avengers was the first movie in which Bruce Banner was a) part of an ensemble where he formed relationships that weren't about "will he Hulk out?", b) taken seriously as a scientist in a way that wasn't about him Hulking out, either, and c) able to choose one of the two times the Hulk did show up, thus having his own agenda for the most part of the movie. Which made for a far more interesting character than either of the two previous movie Bruces were allowed to be.