Okay, but what if not all mutations (a la X-Men) are actually helpful? The powers supposedly come from an evolutionary mutation, after all, and some of those hit dead ends – not everyone ends up ‘the fittest.’
And what if this is actually the explanation for Peter Parker’s extraordinarily bad luck? He actually is a mutant, but he has a terrible power that only causes him pain and grief, and the only reason he’s still alive is because he got those spider powers. And no one’s figured it out because they’re distracted by the spider powers and don’t notice that the luck is literally unnaturally bad.
I was talking to my sister about this, and she put forth the suggestion of Peter getting a mutant power suppressant collar put on him and I just… that would be amazing? Like, no one knows where Peter’s powers came from for the most part, we’re got all these mutants running around, it wouldn’t be a stretch for some anti-mutant jerk to just assume that he’s a mutant, catch Peter, and toss him in with all the other mutants they’ve captured for whatever purpose.
Cue Peter announcing to the rest of the captives “Don’t worry, guys, I’m not actually a mutant – my powers still work just fine!” and breaking everyone out. Except, as they get farther and farther into the escape, Peter starts getting more and more concerned because. Nothing is going wrong? At all? This has been shockingly easy? Everything’s going according to plan? What? By the time they’re out the door, Peter’s started actively trying to distance himself from the rest of the group and be annoying and unlikeable, because this is too long without something going wrong, someone’s going to die if this keeps up.
But no one dies. They get back to the X-mansion with minor fuss, Professor X runs some tests because Peter’s freaking out and it turns out, oh, you actually were a mutant, your power is just the worst power ever.
Peter: “Soooo… what I’m getting out of this is, if I keep wearing this collar, I won’t have such constant crappy luck?”
Professor X: “Well ideally it would be best if you learned more about your power now that you’re aware of it and-”
Peter: “Sorry, just remembered that you wouldn’t let me join your super-team so I don’t have to listen to you byeeeeeee~!!!”
And he makes it home in time for supper and life just gets better. Though Peter keeps getting surprised by stuff. Ex:
Peter: Wow, I haven’t stepped in gum in, like, a week. Weird.
MJ: That’s… actually pretty normal for most people?
Peter: What, seriously? Wild.
(snorts) A+ additional content, can’t stop picturing Peter somehow acquiring more of those suppressant collars, so he can learn how they work and build either build himself a new one if the first one he gets breaks or stream-line the design to make it more comfortable and less obvious to wear, because he is high-key Not Going Back To That.
It would also be interesting to see peoples’ reactions to that sort of thing, especially if this is in one of those universes where normal people know at least vaguely about the suppressant collars, not so much from a superheroing standpoint (he can always wear the thing under his costume and just say “yeah, trying a new look”) but from people in school.
‘cause I can see that covering a wide spectrum of reactions, from the people who have no idea what it is and think it’s just some new ‘look’ to the people who do know and approve (because that’s the ‘responsible’ thing for a mutant to do) to the people who think it is high-key disgusting that he’s wearing that thing for various reasons (either under the impression that he’s being played by the system or forced to wear it (I’m not saying MJ is ready to cut someone when she first sees it, but hoo boy, I’m not saying she isn’t, either)). If even a small fraction of the school knows about those collars, wearing it in public means he’s basically come out as being a mutant, and that news will travel fast, it’s high school.
The thing is, though? It’s also happening in a situation where Peter’s supernatually bad luck isn’t in play, and it’d be really interesting to see this play out in a situation where the worst-case-scenario isn’t automatically the most likely.
Also it’s canon that mutant suppression collars cause terrible headaches, so Peter could potentially solve that problem
Oooh, yeah! And if he can’t do it on his own, it’s also canon that he knows a magical surgeon who could potentially help him figure it out!
Peter: EYYYY, DOCTOR STRANGE! My favorite doctor-type person! Help me figure out how to make these stop causing migranes so I never have to take it off again, pretty please? I’m not quite sure which bit of me head it’s causing to hurt.
Dr. Strange: (is so shocked that someone’s asking after his medical knowledge as opposed to his magical knowledge that he’s halfway through a consultation before he realizes what he’s doing)
Steve Rogers uses voice to text to send texts and formats them like a telegram
HEY BUCK STOP SAM AND I ARE OUT SHOPPING STOP WANT US TO PICK UP SOME TAKEOUT STOP
Steve rogers fully understands that this is not the correct way to text. He just likes the absolute outrage it causes every time someone receives a text from him and wants to see how many times he can make the same people explain texting to him until they realize. Sam is currently at 14 times, beating out tony who’s at nine. Twice now shuri has facetimed him after reading bucky’s texts. He’s also managed to convince thor that this is the Earth Way to text and it’s great
(This Jewish headcanon is a joint @intosnarkness and @allofthefeelings production, and is about death, and also contains Infinity War spoilers.)
Peter Parker
is miserable the week they sit Shiva for Uncle Ben. He spends the days eating
nothing but cookies that feel like dust on his tongue and fruit that has spent
so much time in bowls together that everything tastes vaguely of strawberry. He
wants to do something, do ANYTHING (but that was what caused the problems
before-), and every time he gets up to wash dishes or introduce people Aunt May
has to remind him he isn’t supposed to host the guests, sit down, Pete.
On the fifth
day, Peter says he needed a break, and May says of course- no one is there, it’s
just them alone in the cozy living room that suddenly feels cavernous without
Ben being there, of course Pete can take a nap.
Ten minutes
later, Spider-man shows up, pulling nervously at his mask.
“Hello, Mrs.
Parker,” he says. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t save him.”
And May is already
crying, has been crying nonstop for a week, but- this superhero. He’s a kid. (He’s her nephew, some part of her
knows, but the part of her brain that recognizes that is going too fast and too
slow all at once for her to call him out.) He’s a kid, and he is a hero, and he
took time out of his day to show up and give his regards.
Iron Man,
she thinks as she hugs him wordlessly, would not have done this.
She asks him
to say Kaddish with her. Spidey says “I’m not Jewish?” (if May were in her
right mind, she would notice how unconvincing he sounds when he says it) and
she says “just repeat after me,” and he does.
Years later,
after Thanos- after everything- it feels like everyone is sitting shiva, and the
house is empty because there are so many families in mourning that how can
anyone attend them all? People form minyans that travel from house, trying to
spend some time with each person’s grief.
There is so
much grief.
May sits in
the living room (it had come to feel like home again, even without Ben, but now
without Pete-), mirrors covered, thinking about how she can’t seem to keep
anyone safe. And then she hears a noise on the fire escape.
It’s Iron
Man. His gauntleted hands go to his faceplate, like he’s not sure if the right
thing to do is to take it off or leave it on. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,”
he says finally, and it breaks something inside May to hear it.
She wants to
know if Peter was alone. If he was scared.
She invites Iron
Man in. She offers him dry cookies and damp fruit.
She invites
him to say the Mourner’s Kaddish with her.
“I’m not
Jewish,” he says. “my girlfriend is- was- but I’m not, I don’t know, I can’t-”
“Yeah,” May
says. “That’s what all the heroes say.” She smiles through her tears. “Repeat after me.”
Because, like. On the one hand it’s just fun and funny and silly in the way we want Spidey to be- him being young and naive enough to take a command (like “You’re an adult in the Jewish community now” farther than it’s maybe intended.
But on the other hand, this is exactly what’s intended. Superheroes- at least, the best ones- are basically the living embodiment of “If not me, then who?” They’re trying to make the world a better place than it was. And that is the responsibility of any Jewish adult. Peter getting bit by a radioactive spider and saying “Well, shit, looks like my only option is tikkun olam” is SUCH A FUCKING RIDICULOUSLY JEWISH CHOICE.
Like- if Peter was already comfortably Spidey in Civil War, in the MCU he had to be pretty close to his Bar Mitzvah when he became Spider-man. Which means that it happened right in that time where you’re taking the idea of what b’nai mitzvot means super seriously. You’re suddenly expected to view the world as something you can fix. You’re considering what it means that you’re suddenly an adult, and that you have these new responsibilities, and how can you live up to them.
In that context, with great power comes great responsibility isn’t just about being a superhero, it’s also about being called to the bimah, and permission to read the Torah, and the ability to join a minyan. In that context, developing fucking spider powers must feel like a sign of how being a Jewish adult encompasses so much more than you could ever imagine, both in terms of pivilege and in terms of obligations.
Maybe “Spider-boy” could walk past someone who needs help, but “Spider-man” could not. In choosing that name, Peter is unequivocally embracing the power and burden of Jewish adulthood.
NO BUT GUYS.
Consider:
Peter’s congregation does not, officially, know that he’s Spider-man. It is definitely his secret identity and that has not been breached, he is VERY SECRETIVE, etc.
Except.
Except that they’re a community and they all know about the tragedy that took his parents, and then to lose his Uncle Ben (z’’l) on top of that.
When he started acting odd, they all thought it was grief, made it a point to keep an eye on him.
When he started asking questions about the morality of certain things- they took notice.
The way he disappeared some afternoons, even if there was a youth group meeting (and he used to be pretty good about attending those when he didn’t have clubs after school), and those always happened to be the same day Spidey footage showed up on YouTube.
The way he’s always offering to run errands and just happens to be able to do things faster than anyone else can.
The way Spider-man doesn’t seem to work on Shabbas unless there is something that really cannot be solved without him.
They see the Bugle articles about him and, as a community, reject them. The rabbi says it in his sermon: Spider-man is not a menace, he is a mensch.
In the pews, Peter Parker’s sigh of relief is loud, and everyone pretends not to hear it.
Peter asking his religious school teacher REALLY BIZARRELY POINTED QUESTIONS. Peter bringing up weird fringe Jewish theories he found on Reddit and YouTube and being like “Is this true though? IF I GOT BITTEN BY A SNAKE-” “Peter, did you get bitten by a snake? Forget religious concerns, do we need to take you to the hospital?” “DO NOT TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL”
Man, but this is actually a really interesting question! Because health and well-being takes priority over basically everything else in Jewish tradition, how does developing superpowers factor into that? Are they enhancing health and well-being, or compromising it? If it’s the former, would doing things to support superpowers be considered not just good because helping people is a mitzvah but also because it is using his body the way it was intended? By biting Peter, did the radioactive spider inadvertently perform a great service in more ways than one?
“Do aliens count as life? Would killing them bring repercussions upon me? Hypothetically speaking.”
“Am I a bad Jew if I teamed up with a non-Jew, like a…a spider or a gentile god or a sentient raccoon or something in order to fight said aliens? Hypothetically speaking.”
“Could non-kosher animals that perform a good service for a Jew be rewarded? In what ways?”
“Is it Jewish of me to get the urge to crawl into a ceiling corner and wait for flies?”
“What if I could help people, but the way in which I helped them didn’t match up with Judaism? I could follow Jewish teachings, but then I’d be helping less people…”
I think what I love most about this is that so many of these questions have halachic precedent, some even in our world, but ESPECIALLY in the MCU.
Because you know that the second Tony Stark stepped up to that mic in 2008 and said “I am Iron Man,” Jewish scholars started EXPLODING with discussions and hypotheticals about this new world they were suddenly occupying.
Plus, by the time Pete was bitten by the spider, the Chitauri attack already happened, which means rabbis in New York were at the FOREFRONT of figuring out what the shit is going on with their world and how that intersects with Jewish custom.
I’m unclear if SHIELD being infiltrated by Hydra ended up known or if they covered at least some of it up, but if it was public knowledge, that is such a huge additional thing for Jews- that this group historically associated with the Nazis is not just still around, but infiltrating the highest aspects of government. I think that would fundamentally change how Jews approach superheroes and superpowers. In fact, I think that would be a pretty big topic in youth groups and in religious classes, both dealing with kids’ fears and figuring out how to make the ones who AREN’T scared realize how deadly serious the whole situation is. And that, in and of itself, would probably change Peter’s response to becoming Spider-man; the great responsibility of it takes on new resonance in that climate.
I kinda like to imagine what it would be like if it just… did not occur to Loki that Hela was gonna be genuinely evil about taking over Asgard. Anywhere else, sure, fine, he doesn’t care, but that’s not what you do with Asgard.
(Of course, on one hand, it absolutely did occur to him, he’s cowardly in many ways but not ignorant. On the other hand, following this thought thread for the pure amusement of it, Hela basically seemed to be the sincerely evil conqueror this chaotic neutral dandy been trying to be for the past few years but better, he would absolutely throw a fit and not think about it.)
Like, Loki landed on trash planet and was like, “Welp, I have been sorely, embarrassingly outmatched by a sibling I never knew I had, who is me but better at it. I live here in this trash heap now. I’m going to become the kept floozy of a madman until I murder him and also get smashed at 8 am for the rest of my millennia-long life while wallowing in my misery.”
Then Thor shows up and is like, “Loki, get your ass out of someone else’s bed, we need to go back and save Asgard from our villainous sister.”
Loki’s desperately like, “Uh no, you embarrassed me in front of everyone? I would kill everyone in this room and then myself before I ever went back to Asgard now. Go away. I’m plotting to rule this trash heap, where I now live.”
And Thor replies, “It suits you perfectly. One problem. Our villainous sister’s usurpation of the throne involves actually killing our people. She didn’t take over Asgard just to build great golden statues of herself, flirt with the entire court, eat grapes languidly, drink of all Dad’s good booze, and watch glorifying plays about herself while wearing Dad’s fanciest bathrobes. She’s not like you. She’s actually killing our people.”
And Loki’s just… completely flabbergasted, despite the fact that Hela’s first action was to make a very good go at trying to kill them both (completely normal thing to do in the Asgardian royal family, really).
Loki: “…She’s what?”
You know what, I just realized that Hela probably honestly could not give a shit whether her subjects are dead or alive. She’s the Goddess of Death. It’s straight-up not a concern for her. In fact, undead subjects are probably better for her, because then her control over their will is absolute.
Like, even if her resurrection abilities are limited to “relatively mindless zombie armies”, I think it’s pretty clear that Hela hates people. Like, sure, give her some rebels or enemies to conquer, torture, terrorize, and so on every now and again, just to keep things interesting, but otherwise? Do you know how much backtalk and small talk you get from the undead? Zero small talk from undead minions. Hear that? Zero whining or talking about new diets or baby showers.
So, Thor’s saying stuff like, “You can’t kill our people! It’s wrong!” And Loki, deeply insulted about how she’s going about this usurping the throne thing compared to him, is trying to reasonably point out that, “You can’t kill everyone in Asgard. What will you do once they’re all dead? You’ll have no one left to order around and act in your plays. You can’t rule over dead people.”
And Hela’s just completely unimpressed like, “…You’ve lost me. Oh. Oh, little brothers, you mean you can’t rule dead people. That’s cute.”
thor (2011) is an interesting movie to me because i think, despite a few flaws, the reason it never really took off the way iron man or cap:tfa did was because the audience it reached didn’t match the intended audience. the intended audience was so confused by what they saw because it didn’t reflect their ideal in terms of what they thought a thor movie would be, while the audience it ended up attracting claimed the empty spaces and turned their “sub-fandom” into something that practically rejected the fandoms of mcu!iron man and cap at that time
what i’m trying to say here, in essence, is this:
thor (2011) is a chick flick
to prove my point, i went to the world’s most trustworthy database on film analysis, urban dictionary, and found a few definitions obviously written by men
A film that indulges in the hopes and dreams of women and/or girls. A film that has a happy, fuzzy, ridiculously unrealistic ending.
word which refers to movies characteristically geered at young females in their twenties and late teens. Must include: love scenes, kissing, something sad, a happy ending
A sappy film that is generally geared towards women. It is always a love story, usually a comedy, and nausea inducing in men.
Term for a movie geared for women. Quite often seen on cable TV like The Hallmark Channel and endorsed by people like Oprah. These movies make women the heros and show life from a woman’s perspective. Most men hate these films cuz they are cheezy and dumb. Pussy-whipped men like them…or pretend to.
A movie that embodies all that is wrong with the world; a movie which displays a gross over-indulgence into, and exploration of, the workings of the female psyche and the accomanying emotional tendencies.
Pornography for women.
every complaint i have EVER seen about thor (2011) was about anything contained to earth: jane, darcy, not so much selvig, thor being hammer-less and learning to calm down and be gentle, women only liking it because hemsworth is a 6′3 outback steakhouse victoria’s filet mignon with twinkly dream eyes
but i think that’s because that’s the sentimental part of the movie, the emotional part. it’s driven by a romance and the intellect of a woman (arguably two). thor has to learn to get in touch with his softer side in a world that’s a bit more fragile than his own, furthermore there’s no other steaks– i, em, i mean men like him to balance out. there’s no male audience vessel in this movie
none
oh, you’re thinking selvig? i’m thinking not! there’s no male audience vessel.
men can’t relate to this movie
oh, you think they can relate to THOR? in the words of drax, “this is not a dude, you’re a dude. this… is a man”. thor is the ideal boyfriend figure, he belongs to everyone who wants a boyfriend, all the thor stans i know are women and/or like men, if you’re a thor stan and a straight guy i automatically have my suspicions and my eyes are guarded by red flags
so i saw some people discussing how loki in ragnarok shouldn’t have been at all phased or subverted by dr. strange – which i agree with, but also, hey, it’s comedic and you can argue that he was taken off-guard, but upon re-watch, something stuck out to me –
there’s this moment when they appear at the bottom of the stairs and thor rolls down the last couple and stands up and he says
we could’ve just walked.
and it made me think of how magic works in terry pratchett’s novels, how (to paraphrase) the hard part wasn’t turning someone into a frog, it was not turning someone into a frog when you knew how easy it was.
like, the whole scene with dr. strange is just. all magic. all pointless magic. unnecessary magic, when, well. they could have just walked.
whereas loki doesn’t really rely on magic overmuch in the movie – he uses it as a tool, when he needs it, but if the job can be done with plain old non-magical trickery or a knife, he just uses those. he resorts to magic when he’s cornered by valkyrie, he uses it when his goals are most directly accomplished by using magic rather than by other means.
whereas dr. strange is using magic all over his scene, just to use it. just because he can. magic was unnecessary for ninety percent of what he did in that scene, the only time he needed magic was to whisk them away to norway. but he teleported all over the place even when he only needed to move a few feet, gave thor an ever-refilling beer that just spilled everywhere, floated around to make a show of how ~magical~ he was, when…
he could have just walked.
i mean, i’m very sure that the filmmakers intended it for comedic effect, but there’s also a layer there of dr. strange being much less comfortable with magic than loki is – loki doesn’t need to bust out the magic at every opportunity, it’s simply a skill, a tool that is completely under his control and at his disposal. whereas dr. strange (at least in his scene in ragnarok) is showing off, which reeks of insecurity.
i guess i’m thinking… if you take the magic away, loki is still a deadly, formidable opponent with many tricks up his sleeve, but dr. strange is just a guy in a cape.
blackash26 