Drive-by recs concerning hated characters

[selenak]

Feeling more drained by the day (but all in a good cause!) and incapable of either intelligent ramblings or roleplay, I bring you, briefly, fanfic recs which have in common that they're dealing with (at the moment) hated very unpopular characters.

Firstly, Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, early on during the Civil War storyline. As I understand it - via fannish osmosis and being handed the occasional scan and issue, one of the problems with the whole Civil War event in the Marvelverse is that sometimes, the writers go for a thinly veiled Bush Administration/Guantanamo versus Human Rights depiction, and sometimes, they go for two sides who actually both have a point and aren't evil versus good. As always, fanfiction is a good way to try and make a complete whole of this very different characterisation. likeadeuce does this here for Tony Stark:

Into the Valley of Death Rode the Six hundred


Secondly, over at Torchwood, we have Owen Harper as Mr. Unpopular. Jossverse aficiniaodos, imagine Warren Meers written as (barely) one of the Scoobies, but being completely Warren, and you get the picture. Now, as I found Warren very interesting (as evidenced by the fact I wrote my first Five Things Which Never Happened... about him), this wasn't a bad thing for me - which, needless to say, does not equate approval of his actions. Either Warren's or Owen's, who imo ended up as the most fleshed out character during the first season. (Not nice, not good, not a charismatic ubervillain, either - but three dimensional and interesting.) Which is why I was delighted to find this story which captures his development during s1 and general messed upness very well indeed:

Five things Owen Harper Remembers and One Thing He’ll Never Forget

Comments

[owl]

I find Owen the most interesting character, too.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

First, thanks for the rec. I don't have any idea where I picked up this "championing characters everyone else thinks are assholes" tendency. *peers at you*

And yeah, sadly, Marvel couldn't seem to get on the same page about what story they were telling and even most of the editorial accounts of what the ending was supposed to be don't jive with what actually got on paper.

And say, Spider-man? I think JMS intended his arc to be something akin to Stan in Supreme Power -- the guy who can see everybody's point of view and makes some poor decisions while trying to negotiate the sides.

What his story ended up looking like, in a nutshell, is illustrated here (http://kristindrake.livejournal.com/83051.html).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

He he. Guilty as charged.

LOL about the icon. I use this one for Marvelverse entries that don't deal with the x-men because it is actually taken from early in JMS' Spider-man run. Where, btw, he gives Peter a Kosh-like mentor figur, too. Who happens to share a few traits with Tony as well, now that I think of it, and this was years pre-civil war!

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Oh, JMS, never change -- I'm trying to imagine, now, a character who shares features of Kosh and Tony Stark.

I actually haven't read any recent Spider-man prior to Peter joining the New Avengers (and before that have only read ANCIENT Stan Lee stuff, and a wee bit of the Ultimate series).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, this guy

a) specializes in cryptic utterances, ambiguous warnings and Merlin acts, and both mentors and manipulates Peter shamelessly

b) is a millionaire - he has spider abilities, too, something similar happened to him as a young man as it did to Peter, only he took the commercial path instead - who sometimes likes a drink too much, as he's haunted by some dead bodies in his past.

How would you describe him? And I really like JMS' opening arc, which deals with this guy and also Peter trying to make a difference as Peter Parker, too, not just Spiderman, by being a high school teacher in the old run down neighborhood.

[iron-tony.livejournal.com]

Mr. Stark scoffs at the notion of himself as a mere millionaire (http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/20/tony-stark-money-tech-media_cx_mh_06fict15_iron.html).

As for myself, I'm annoyed enough at Civil War Peter (which probably marks me as heartless, since he's ostensibly the victim of everybody else's manipulations) that I might be tempted to go back and read older stuff to see if I can find the love.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Start here (http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Spider-Man-Vol-Coming-Home/dp/0785108068/sr=1-1/qid=1172473618/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1858629-6675909?ie=UTF8&s=books). I do have a soft spot for Peter, and oh, btw, JMS does a far better job with MJ than the movies because he started his run when they were separated, and he didn't have her dating someone then dropping him as soon as Peter wants her back again, he had her going on with her life.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, will be on the lookout for that one --

Spiderman is a character I've never really been able to warm to -- I don't dislike him, just never loved and I'm never sure if it's because I'm lukewarm to the actor (in the movies), or because I always liked other characters around him better (Harry in the movies; Tony and Logan and to some extent MJ in the New Avengers-era comics) -- Possibly, it's just because the character seems like such an obvious geeky teenager wish-fulfilment (science nerd who's so much cooler than the people who make fun of him, if only they KNEW -- and he gets the girl, and he always has the perfect quip). Don't dislike him, just don't have the love.