so, then, what IS up with miguel o’hara’s moral backbone?
lol sorry if y’all’re sick of my 2099 soapboxing. anyways.
while i understand where the reading of “miguel is a morally bankrupt evil scientist and his spider-man is just a violent shitheel” comes from, i just... really can’t ever get behind it, based on what we see in the text of SM2099 v1 (1992-1996) itself.
like, don’t get me wrong-- from our first introduction to the guy, we very quickly learn that he has been a cog in the machine for one of the 2099 imprint’s Big Bads, the ruthless megacorporation in charge of the United States’ East coast: Alchemax.
..but. like.
the whole point of his origin story is changing that. the initial catalyst for his Spidering--getting roofied by Tyler when he tries to quit his job--would not have happened if he had no moral compass to speak of.
narratively, it’s less that miguel himself is changed, after he gets his powers, but that his perception of the world has changed.
just-- just bear with me, yeah?
see, for a lot of his life, miguel was a perfect cog in a shitty machine, and he did everything he was expected to without even thinking to stray from the path set down for him by his biological father and by alchemax overall.
and, then, suddenly, that’s all ripped from him in an instant. and miguel’s left floundering in the water.
he’s no longer on the winning team-- more than that, he realizes that he probably never even was on the right side of things, to begin with.
miguel o’hara’s most-quoted line is his response to the infamous “great power,” bit: Great responsibility? No. With great power comes great guilt.
he’s repressed, and he’s a hypocrite, but a guy can only turn a blind eye so far when something he knows is wrong is happening right in front of his face.
as soon as it’s even suggested to him, he immediately steps out of line and tries to put his foot down on absolutely not using a human test subject for his personal spider-man project. when stone brushes him off and makes them go through with human testing anyways, and then the subject dies, miguel doesn’t hesitate to turn up his nose and walk out right then and there on the spot.
his reward for it, of course, is an ice-cold dose of Reality.
from there, his blinders get pulled harshly off his face, and mig realizes that he really doesn’t want to keep being the person that he has been. his life has been wasted sitting idly by and letting bad things happen because all he knows is helpless compliance, right up until he goes and gets himself The Fly’ed into spider-man.
and once that happens, and he Realizes it, he starts to fight back.
that’s how the run is kick-started, in the very first three issues!
the first ten issues of spider-man 2099 (1992) follow miguel stumbling from a very sheltered life, having been thrust head-first into navigating a world that is not only deeply, deeply unjust, but also wants him very, very dead.
he don’t got a dead uncle to motivate him! all he’s got it his own fear and an inner desire to use his new abilities to try and make the world a better place.
hell, the first time he put on the costume, ol’ miggy boy wasn’t even doing so for the purpose of becoming a superhero in his off-time-- it was just an old spare in his closet that he threw on in a desperate attempt to Not Fucking Die as a bounty hunter tracked him to his home.
it’s only later on, after he’s had time for it all to sink in, that miguel realizes that he can actually meaningfully help the people who had been cast aside by the same society that had previously lifted him up above them.
as much as he whines and bitches and moans about it, he never seriously considers throwing in the towel and hanging up the costume for good. he may hate what has happened to him, but he never once seems to hate what he can now do with his powers, vis-à-vis challenging injustice.
mig’s often stuck between a rock and a hard place, what with the kind of world he lives in. it’s why he don’t work well when he’s stranded away from his dimension. peter can get his villains locked up just fine and dandy, but miguel’s world isn’t like ours like that. it’s brutal and it’s very very much established across the imprint that earth-928 (marvel 2099) is a kill-or-be-killed place to live.
despite how people harp on him not having a no-kill rule, miguel honestly hasn’t even killed enough people to count on one hand; the first was completely by accident, even, and the second told him to his face that if spider-man let him live he’d just keep being a cannibal gang-boss because no one else ever has or would try to oppose him.
is killing people the answer? not if you have any other option. but. mig ain’t a friendly neighborhood superhero. he’s just doing what he thinks is right in the moment while scared absolutely shitless for his life most of the time.
now, i don’t mean to defend his every action--miguel o’hara isn’t a saint, and, good god, but he’s made some questionable choices--but. at the end of the day, he’s still shown throughout the run to be trying to be better.
and, i dunno. maybe i’m just a sentimental little sap, but a story about somebody who finally “wakes up” and struggles to build a life worth being proud of after years of having shut down from heavy early-life trauma? that hits, man.
hits real close to home, to be honest. learning to Live after so long simply Surviving is fuckin’ hard, man.
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do u love the colors of the comphet
When it’s over, when Henry Creel is dead and dust and they’ve emerged battered and triumphant. When she and Jonathan have ended things. When there is no more fighting to be done, she and Steve give it another go.
She knows he’s going to ask the same way she knew in ‘83. There’s no waiting this time, no need to wonder if Jonathan might want her too. They gave it the old college try (He lied to her. He was lying to her for months, and she knew something was wrong before that. She thought they could work it out. She’s so fucking sick of lying to herself being lied to).
He asks with wide, hopeful eyes, running a nervous hand through his hair. He doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She made up her mind before he even asked.
She can do it right this time. She can love this boy the way she wants to. The way he wants her to. They’ve both grown in the years since. She’s going to do this right.
That’s the mantra she keeps in her head when he picks her up and spins her. I can do this.
She can’t do this.
It’s somehow the same and different from when they dated the first time. They’re going through the same motions, but there’s something lacking. They’re both older, more jaded. They’re not kids anymore, and it shows.
They rarely kiss. He hesitates now in a way he didn’t before. Sex is something they don’t bring up at all. Eddie makes a crude joke once, something or other about what Nancy is like in bed, and she and Steve make eye contact. There’s something there, something like mutual understanding, before Robin smacks Eddie upside the back of the head and the moment breaks. She keeps thinking about it long after. Whatever it is that they shared, they don’t talk about it.
Maybe they’re lying to themselves, both of them. Puppets going through the motions, too stubborn to admit they’re play acting as real people. Still, she can’t give this up. She can’t make the same mistakes all over again.
Robin corners her two months into the relationship. Part of Nancy is surprised it took her this long. The rest of her is angry she brings it up at all.
Saying she’s cornered might be doing her a disservice. They’re having a sleepover, painting their nails and talking about boys. Everything a girl is supposed to do. Except Robin is awkward and fumbling, and every name she brings up sounds like a question. Nancy only has Steve to talk about, and barely talks about him at all.
Finally Robin sighs and puts down the nail polish. “I feel like this subject is making us both miserable,” she declares. “I don’t want to talk about boys, I was just doing it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do at girl sleepovers. I haven’t actually been to a sleepover since I was in middle school and the other girls decided I was weird, but I’m pretty sure the point is to have fun. This is not fun. This is agonizing. We should talk about something else.”
“Steve isn’t making me miserable!” She snaps, before realizing she sounds way too defensive.
Robin peers at her. “Yeah, see, that’s not what I said. That’s not even a little bit close to what I said. Maybe we should talk about this instead. What’s the deal with you and Steve?”
“What deal? There’s no deal.” She turns around and rummages through the nail polish selection. Robin doesn’t exactly have a variety. Her options are red, dark red, and black. She chooses the brighter red with the absent thought that the black would look good on Robin, with her long fingers and dark eyeliner. Then she banishes that thought away.
“There’s definitely some kind of deal.”
“There isn’t.”
“Nance.”
She can’t help but turn around then, drawn in by the tone of her voice. There’s a glass wall inside of her, and someone is pounding on it, trying to get out. She wants Robin to see it. She wants someone to see behind the glass. There’s something in her trying to get out.
“Nancy,” she says again, eyes searing into her soul, “are you happy?”
She smiles, fake and fixed on her face. The glass stays firmly in place. “Of course I am,” she replies. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The next time Robin wants to hang out, she’s busy with college preparations.
It’s not just Robin. She thinks everyone can tell something’s wrong with her. Eddie gives her these looks every time she and Steve are in front of him, like he’s putting together a puzzle. Her mom keeps trying to talk to her. Jonathan keeps trying to talk to her.
They know, she thinks wildly, every time. She doesn’t know what it is they know. She doesn’t want to find out.
She avoids them all.
When she and Steve go to dinner, the waitress captivates her.
Long, dark hair in braids. Long fingers tapping against the notepad. Dark eyes in a dark face. She’s always loved brown eyes. Nancy has never been one to be jealous of other girls (lie, lie, lie), but suddenly heat floods her body. She wants to be as gorgeous as this woman. She wants her full lips, popping gum. She wants the woman’s swaying hips as she turns and leaves their table. She wants— she wants—
She tears her gaze away to find Steve already looking at her.
The heat is dosed by the ice that fills her veins. All her senses go on high alert until she realizes he’s actually staring past her. She turns around to see the bartender. He’s handsome, she thinks, tall with tan skin and brown hair carefully styled. He’s talking to a customer, teeth shining as he laughs.
When she turns back, Steve has firmly fixed his eyes on her. She could almost believe he’d never been staring at the bartender at all.
There’s something there. Something just out of reach, something she could put a finger out and touch if she were braver. She doesn’t. There’s no gun in her hand here, no adrenaline to keep her going after it all falls apart.
“What did your dumb boyfriend do this time?” Mike demands, storming in her room. Nancy has half a mind to yell at him to knock first before she registers his words.
“Steve is- Steve is fine,” she says, startled. “He’s great, actually. Nothings wrong.“
“Then why are you so miserable all the time?” Mike accuses.
“I am not miserable!”
“You are! You both are, and neither of you will tell anyone what’s wrong, or why-“
“I don’t know why!” She shrieks. Mike falls silent, eyes wide, and Nancy suddenly realizes she’s crying.
“I don’t know why,” she repeats. “Everything is fine. He’s like, the perfect fucking boyfriend. It’s me, I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me. There’s a beautiful boy who loves me, and I’m- I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to love him back, but I can’t. I can’t. There’s something wrong with me.” She’s desperate now, wiping away tears as she curls into a ball. She feels pathetic, crying in front of her little brother. She’s the oldest, she should be keeping it together, she shouldn’t let him see her like this. But she can’t help it. There’s something in her screaming to get out.
Mike, with all the grace and bewilderment of a newborn deer, gingerly pats her shoulder.
“Have you…talked to Steve about it?”
She gives him a cutting look. It’s probably not as effective as she wants it to be, with her red eyes and tear streaked face. Mike holds his hands up.
“I’m just saying! He’s your boyfriend, you should talk to him. And if you don’t want him to be your boyfriend, you should really talk to him.”
“I want him to be my boyfriend, I just need to get past whatever this is—“
“Nancy,” Mike says. “It’s not just you. He’s miserable too.”
“Because of me. I just need to—“
Mike shakes his head. “I don’t think it is. If it were because of you, he’d be acting different. More…kicked puppy, or whatever. He’s just being weird, and won’t tell anyone why. Dustin said he asked Robin, and she doesn’t even know.”
Nancy doesn’t have anything to say to that.
“I think you need to talk to him,” he says again. “I think you need to talk to each other.”
“When did you get so smart?” She asks, instead of crying again.
“I’ve always been smarter than you.”
She kicks him for that blatant lie.
“Are we holding onto a dead thing?” She asks out loud.
He rolls over and looks at her. She’s worried she’s hurt his feelings, broken his heart again, killed any chance they have at a relationship, romantic or not. Then he snorts.
“Robin got to you too, huh?” He asks, flopping back onto his back to look up at the sky.
“Mike, actually.”
“Mike? That shithead? What does he know about relationship problems?”
“Are we having relationship problems?”
“I mean,” he says, wry twist to his mouth, “we haven’t had any arguments.”
“Nope.”
“Or general drama.”
“That might be debatable.”
“There’s no need to spice up our sex life.”
She snacks him for that one, and he laughs. She props herself up to look him in the eye. His face is more open than she’s seen it the entire time they’ve been dating.
“I think you have to be in a relationship to have ‘relationship problems,’” she tells him. “Are we in a relationship?”
He visibly considers this. “I mean, I asked you out, and you said yes. And we never broke up.”
“We haven’t kissed in at least two weeks.”
“Did you want to?”
She takes a moment to think about it. “Not really,” she admits, and his face splits into a grin.
“Not that you’re not still wonderful, Nancy Wheeler,” he says, teeth shining, “but I don’t think I want to kiss you either. Isn’t that weird?”
When they dated in high school, it was like he couldn’t stand being away from her. He spent every moment he could kissing her, wherever he could. Sometimes it felt almost like a performance he put on for the people around them, lifting her up and spinning her just so everyone would know how in love they were. It was stifling at times, feeling like something to prove. Still, it was how he was, so in love he could burst with it.
Now, she wonders if it was always a performance. Maybe they’ve both been on a stage, and neither of them noticed the lights blinding them until now.
“It is a little weird,” she says finally.
“Right?!”
He holds out a hand to shake, the other one firmly in his pocket. God, she wishes she could love him. “Good go, eh Wheeler?” He asks, smile crooked and shaky.
She snorts. “We made ourselves and everyone around us miserable,” she points out. But she takes his hand.
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