Fanfic Linkage

[selenak]

Following a recommendation from rozk, I started to read Alias, a comics series collected in four volumes which has nothing to do with the tv show of the same name and is written by Brian Bendis. It's basically Marvel Noir, as Jeph Loeb puts it in the introduction to the first volume, with ex-superhero Jessica Jones as our swearing, drinking and no-crap-taking private detective in the Chandlerian style. Jessica, who has a backstory trauma that's hinted at and slowly revealed, was invented for this saga, but her attitude towards and relationship with various established Marvel superheroes are very credible, and Jessica herself is a great character. For a quick impression, have a look at one of her days. My only current problem is that the comicstore which ordered the four volumes for me just got I and III from the US, with II and IV coming next months. It's tough to be a German fan, I tell you.

On the other hand, thaks to the internet's globality, I get the joy of fanfic. resolute wrote an absolutely fabulous X-Men ensemble story, set after the current Unstoppable arc on Astonishing X-Men is finished: Mending. Scott and Logan, Kitty and Emma, Hank and Peter do just that. In their, ahem, unique ways. (Just to avoid misunderstandings, that doesn't mean sex in all cases.) My own favourite is the Kitty and Emma section, but Hank and Peter are adorable, and Scott and Logan are so very them. No spoilers beyond the end of the Torn arc.

Another fanfic rec I meant to post earlier, Dexter this time: Devil Caught Your Eyes: portrait of a teenage serial killer and his sister. Dexter and Deb, dearly disturbed in their adolescence as well.

Lastly: cleolinda did a fabulous take on The Prestige in 15 Minutes , which is just the thing to make you smile when you need cheering up. By, you know, summarizing lethal obsessions and the like. I also looked for fanfic and basically just found prestige_slash, from which I learned that the Borden twins were originally called Albert and Frederick (Freddie), hence "Alfred", and that the expected thing happened when you let loose a movie with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in double roles. To wit, there isn't just Angier/Borden, there is twincest galore, and Angier's unrelated (and surviving) doppelganger, Root, is paired up with any of the above as well. I think about the most combinations were in this story. Gen Prestige fanfic, otoh, seems to be next to non-existant!

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

It probably says something that in this case twincest actually doesn't strike me as an icky and implausible perversion of the canon ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I, um. Thought that twincest strikes me as actually more plausible than Angier/Borden....

[resolute.livejournal.com]

Alias, the tale of Jessica Jones, is one of the best tales out there. I asked for it for yuketide, but no one else seems to have read it.

What I love, and this is so ME, is the way it deals with the consequences of superheroing. I love all those tales; I love the law firm She-Hulk works at, I love the Idnetity Crisis story over in DC, I loved all the bits in the 1980s marvel U about the Mutant Registration Act.

I am given to understand we can that the British Comics New Wave for some of this. Not in any direct sense, but the punk/new wave sensibilities of the creators who whorked in the 2000 A.D. format, the Alan Moores and Dave Gibbonses, they could not bear the cheery, consequenceless nature of the superhero format. their dark shadow fell into the Marvel U, and the creators there pushed and shove to make things a shade more reality-based.

At least, that's how I understand it.

[resolute.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I lost my train of thought.

So, Alias.

One of the joys and delights of the Runaways comic as written by Brian K. Vaughan was the story in whichwe see the support group for failed child superheroes. I saw that and my jaw dropped. Julie Power, man . . . I just re-read the Mutan Masaacre storyline, in which Power Pack tries to fight off the Mauraders. I was fourteen when I read this story. I never really noticed that half the mutants, that Power Pack, I never noticed they were children. The stories look very different to me now. I wonder how the teens and kids who are picking up the Runaways tpbs in Barnes and Noble, I wonder how they see Runaways. I wonder if they noticed that these are children.

But Julie is a failure. Jessice Jones is a failure. Not everyone makes it as a hero or even makes it as a villain. Jessica Jones broke herself on being a hero. She failed so hard, with such flailing spectacular trajectory . . . But the impulses to do some small rightness in the world are still there.

This is a noir story in many ways. Film noir and the noir books frequently had as the protagonist as former cop or soldier, often one who had served in World War II and come back unable to live a normal life. These noir protagonists seemed helpless in the face of being asked to do something right. They tried to beat the desire out of them, trired to kill their own nature, but the noir tales most often has the protagonist unable to do the sensible thing, compelled to try and do the right thing.

And then half the time, they fail anyway. Because they ARE weak, and that's what broke them in the first place.

Jessica Jones. With her drinking, and her poor sexual choices, and her burning desire to not be in her own head, in her own life. And when kicked into actually making some sort of choice, she can't help being a good guy.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

but the noir tales most often has the protagonist unable to do the sensible thing, compelled to try and do the right thing.

Yes, precisely, and few writers pull this of in a way that ignores what broke the noir hero to begin with. Not Bendis, as far as I can see.

...now I want a story where Jessica is hired by Emma (who doesn't know he's in Genosha) to track down Charles Xavier because her inner Cassandra wants to know where he is late in the Gifted and during the Dangerous arc, and ends up getting in difficulties with SHIELD and SWORD both....

[resolute.livejournal.com]

oh my.

That would be an AMAZING story.

And you would be writing it soon . . . ?

:)

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

::has still written that Alias story::

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

I adore Alias and Jessica Jones. That totally sucks about the issue getting problems.