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yellowocaballero · 4 months

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please tell me about untitled document gravity falls transcendence au. what?

The minute I saw this from Ami I was like "omfg of course you can have it queen <3" and the minute I saw it from you I was like "wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy."

Anyway, I really loved the Transcendence AU when I was younger and looking back it really was (and still is! people still write for it!) a beautiful thing to exist. The setting itself was so expansive and ripe for worldbuilding. The basic rules of the universe were so simple - 'the near future, with supernatural creatures and demons and magic!' - and opened up so much room for creativity and fun. The timeline was on such an expansive scale literally everybody could have an OC and they didn't even need to rub shoulders. Reincarnation topics meant that everybody got to write their favorite character AND make them an OC. The big creators made such great OCs that they became part of the universe and lore of the series. And for me, specifically, it was SO GEN and very family and worldbuilding oriented with almost NO shipping. I think at least some of the mods were ace and it was just the most ace-friendly fandom I'd ever seen. Haven't found that again lately.

I reread 'Return Rebirth Rewrite' and got nostalgic. I always had a mental image of how Lionel's deal with Alcor went, and then I decided to experience the absolute joy of finally having the skill to put to paper something that's always been in your head.

If you HAVE read RRR it's been a while, so TL;DR in a way that preserves the fun of the story underneath- RRR is about a normal twelve year old kid Dipper living with his reincarnated sister and loving father and discovering that he was actually a demon named Alcor in a past life.

Very short transcendentally self-indulgent fic under the cut. Hey, as it turns out, Alcor is FUCKING HARD to write.

Was it fate?

One class taken to satisfy a college requirement, chosen because it didn’t conflict with his Book-Binding class, spiraled into a certification. A high school ex-boyfriend that bought her cigarettes and induced a lifelong habit. Parents were dead - nobody to talk him out of it. Maybe it was a storm of factors that blew one decision into motion, a decision that would have stayed unmoving and silent if he’d taken the nurse’s advice and gotten some rest. Or maybe Lionel was just the sort of person who would always end up here, crouched in a motel room far from home, summoning a demon. Maybe he was weak.

Maya would have said that the love was too strong. But Maya was gone, and an oak tree grown too large collapsed under its own weight.

Lionel bought the supplies from the occult store in a daze. The past two hours had been a blur - he barely even remembered making the decision. A certification to archive the occult meant that he’d read dozens of books on demon summoning. He could do it in his sleep, and was practically doing so. He chose the best demon for the job with a distant, unaffected logic, and borrowed the motel office printer to print out a reference picture for a summoning circle.

This was the stupidest possible thing to do, but he wasn’t stupid. It was a good summoning. He chose the best demon. An informed insanity. The only thing he didn’t do was write down his script for the deal. No need. It wasn’t exactly complicated. And writing it down would have made it real, and he couldn’t afford for anything to be real right now, so the resolution would have to stay in the making.

The summoning circle was drawn with a steady hand. The candles were lit with a decisive lighter tab. The summoning invocation was recited in a clear, firm tone. Passive voice. Dr. Gomez would have taken points off this essay. Would have taken points from his brain. Was he insane? Was he going insane? Was this insanity?

Lionel only really snapped back to reality once he was confronted with it. The candles flickered, then extinguished. Shadows bubbled and rose, snapping free of their outlines and leaking forward in pure blackness. Sulfur blew into the room on a gust of cold wind, as if standing by the shores of the sea. Lionel opened a portal and brought a demon into reality, and brought his own mind with it.

He only properly realized what he had done once Alcor the Dreambender loomed before him. Maybe that was the first cruelty of a demon. Now he was going to bargain away his soul knowing exactly what he was doing.

Alcor was black and gold, a humanoid figure of shadow latticed with blocks of gold thread. Imprints of wings patterned the motel wall behind him, extending his presence in the room until he was almost crowding out Lionel. The top hat floating above his head was, incongruously, a regular top hat. Maybe? Lionel had only read about the top hat. Was that what top hats looked like? Why not a powdered wig?

“Who dares summon Alcor the Dreambender?”

A desperate man, Lionel thought frantically. But he couldn’t exactly say that.

Power stances, seem in control, take a stand. But Lionel wasn’t in the mood to pretend he was fooling everybody. His legs gave out from under him, and he slumped to his knees. Alcor angled his head downwards, somehow visibly unimpressed and bored.

He should have prepared a script, but he would have forgotten it instantly. Lionel ended up speaking from the heart. The books said Alcor liked that sort of thing, but it wasn’t really a calculated move. He didn’t know how to do anything differently.

“Maya’s dead,” Lionel said plainly. “Maya’s - she’s my wife. Dead. Um - the baby.”

Alcor’s unimpressed air tripled. Lionel couldn’t even muster shame.

“The baby’s not going to make it. Respiratory distress syndrome and pulmonary hemorrhage. Respiratory failure, soon. I need - I need your help. Alcor. Please save my baby, Alcor.”

Alcor was unmoved. He crossed his arms and sighed, like a particularly exhausted doctor who had seen one too many desperate patients that day and honestly couldn’t give a shit anymore. “Another day, another little sob story. Let me guess, you’ll do anything?” His tone turned a little nasally and mocking. “You’ll even sell your soul, Mister Demon, just save my special little baby?”

The pointless mockery jolted Lionel back down to earth. Every piece of literature warned about demonic games and cruelty. Was this cruelty? It just sounded like somebody who didn’t even care.

“Yes,” Lionel said. He wasn’t the kind of person who took the bait. Used to drive Maya mad during arguments. “Heal my baby. Make her strong and healthy and never sick. And - let me live the rest of my natural life, then take my soul. That’s my terms.”

Bored, Alcor said, “I can give you ten years of life before taking your soul.”

Lionel’s head snapped up, and he met Alcor’s eyes for the first time. At a certain point, the demon had crossed his legs and began floating in midair, one elbow propped on a folded knee and chin buried in his hand. His shadows had lightened somewhat, and now he appeared only like a man covered in shadow. “I can’t do that. Ten is too young to lose a father.”

“That’s your issue?” Alcor tilted his head, dark eyebrows arching upwards. “Not ‘thirty five is too young to die?’”

“Am I here because I give a shit about myself?” Lionel cried. Wasn’t that obvious? If the worst moment of Lionel’s life was tedious to Alcor, shouldn’t this be obvious? “I can’t leave her without anybody to love her. She won’t have anybody else. Please, come on - I know you don’t - don’t understand, but I can’t leave her alone.”

“Trust me,” Alcor said, flat and bored, “if there’s one thing I understand, it’s parents abandoning their kids. See it all the time. Your little girl would get along fine without a father.”

Demonic negotiations weren’t supposed to go like this. Lionel was too emotional, too confused. And despite Alcor’s boredom and distance, the topic seemed oddly - personal? Could that possibly be correct?

“That’s not what I want for her! I’m giving up my soul for her life, I want - I want it to be perfect. I want to tell her how much we wanted her every day. I want her to grow up with a dog. I want swimming lessons and birthday parties and vacations and - and all of it, Alcor. I have to be there.” Lionel took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Thirty years. That’s the maximum I’ll give. The life I want for her needs me in it. It’s already missing Maya. I won’t take any more from her.”

Alcor was silent for a second, long enough to make Lionel’s heart leap in his chest, before he finally sighed. “You’re one of those people who loves too much, aren’t you? People like you always lead unhappy lives.” He straightened, dropping down onto the floor and walking forward. The shadows slowly receded, and a man’s face began to emerge within Alcor. “Fine. Let me see the baby first before we shake on anything. An angelic act like this takes up a lot of energy. I’m not being hard on the price just to be mean, you know.”

Lionel stepped backwards. He knew that binding circles didn’t work on Alcor, but it was another thing to see him casually step outside of it. He was wearing the same antiquated clothing as in the illustrations, like a mannequin from a museum come to life. Like a haunted piece of the history Lionel loved so much, pulled from its rightful place by his sheer desperation.

He looked like anybody else. A complexion like Lionel’s own, mud brown hair gravity defying and framing a young face. He looked as old as Lionel. It put his exhaustion into sharp perspective - not an ancient demon wearing the form of a human, but just an old man seeming much younger. Or a young man grown too old.

It was even worse to look up at him now, and Lionel scrambled to his feet. He looked around the hotel room, as if the baby was about to roll out from underneath a bed. “She’s not here. She’s in the NICU. Please don’t teleport into the NICU, you’ll cause a panic.”

“Bossy. Don’t worry, this is perfectly safe.” Alcor held out his hands in front of him, like a child waiting for a treat. “And…tah-dah!”

Lionel’s baby dropped from midair into Alcor’s arms. He almost screamed.

They said she’d die without intubation. Her tiny presence in Alcor’s arms should kill her. But Alcor quickly pressed a blunt finger onto her forehead, and a warm blue glow wrapped itself around her body. She slept soundly, swaddled in thin blankets, so tiny and skinny and red that she could barely be mistaken for a human baby at all. Lionel looked at her and saw a premature animal that would never grow up and become a person - a life form that would never even wake up. Seeing her in Alcor’s arms was stressful, but in a sideways way she seemed to fit.

“Let’s see the damage,” Alcor muttered to her. Bizarrely, he held her carefully and well. “You’re like a can of beans, you know that? Few hundred years ago you would have been DOA. Now look at you. Wrinkly cutie -”

Alcor halted. The last of his shadows fell away, and his eyes widened.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alcor whispered.

The only thing worse than a premature baby at death’s door was a premature baby at death’s door that surprised a demon. Lionel stepped forward, hand half-outreached. “What? What’s wrong?”

Alcor didn’t respond. He just stared at the baby, eyes wide and frozen still. His lips mouthed something, but Lionel couldn’t make it out.

“Alcor?” Lionel asked hesitantly. “Is there something wrong with her?”

That jolted Alcor back into awareness. He looked between Lionel and the baby several times, shoulders drawn back, almost with new eyes. Suddenly and strangely, he seemed a lot more human. “Do you believe in fate, Lionel Sterling?”’

There was only one way to answer that question truthfully - with any sort of certainty. “If this is fate, I must have done something horrible in my past life.”

“Not how that works.” Alcor’s eyes were locked on the baby, as if he couldn’t tear himself away. He seemed almost dizzy. “Lionel. You really want her to live a long and healthy life?”

“I - of course.”

“You’ll be the best father you can?” Alcor held the baby a little closer to his chest. “She’ll be the happiest kid in the world?”

“That’s what I want,” Lionel said helplessly. “I want that more than anything.”

“How nice.” Something heavy and frantic was churning in Alcor, and Lionel began to have the worst possible feeling. “I’ve been bored, you know. So bored. So bored I’ve been pretty depressed. Things just seem meaningless, you know? My last friend died years ago. I’m not really close with anybody right now, not even family. I’ve been wondering what to do about it. When I get bored I get a little weird. Maybe I’m a little weird right now.” Alcor looked up at Lionel for the first time, and Lionel realized with a cold shock that his eyes were just as wild as Lionel’s. “I feel so far beyond weird right now it’s almost funny. But it’s not boring, so it feels like a good idea.”

“Can you give me back my baby?” Lionel asked quietly.

“New deal.” Alcor’s face split into a grin, wild and insane and light. “I’ll heal your baby. Perfect health guaranteed. And! She will have certified, bona-fide Alcor protection her entire life. Nothing lethally unfortunate will ever happen to her or to you. Protection for both of you and good luck for all. Double and! You’ll keep your soul. Hell, you’ll definitely live longer.”

For a second of complete stupidity, the deal seemed fantastic. The deal sounded amazing. Any deal that didn’t include losing his life or his soul was better than their first arrangement. But Lionel was desperate, not stupid. “What’s the catch?”

Alcor looked down at the baby, rubbing his thumb against her forehead. Quietly, he said, “I’m going to reinvent reality to give her a twin brother. Your end of the deal is to take care of him like you take care of her. Raise him as if he was your own son. That’s it. Easy.” Alcor paused a beat. “Well, not that taking care of kids is easy, and I can guarantee that this one will be a bit of a brat, but probably easier than dying. Dying’s pretty easy too, actually -”

“Like a changeling?” Lionel asked, alarmed. “You’re not taking her away, you’re just - adding a child?”

“Yup. Like a buy one, get one free sort of thing. I guess it’s like a changeling!”

“That’s it?” That still sounded too good to be true. “Will the child be evil or anything? Will it hurt the baby? What species will it be?”

“Who cares! This is a sweet deal and you know it. You can’t afford to say no and we both know that too.” Alcor shifted the baby into one arm and extended his other hand, wreathing it in blue flames. “So do we have a deal?”

Alcor was right. The extra child situation was bizarre, but two sets of diapers was infinitely better than a ten year lifespan. This was probably the best deal anybody had ever gotten for such a big favor. He couldn’t afford to press it.

“Is this going to fuck me over?”

“Lionel,” Alcor said, and for some reason he seemed dead serious, “I’m trusting you here. More than I’ve trusted anybody in hundreds of years. You’re a good person. I promise you’ll only regret this a little.”

And Lionel knew that was the best he was ever going to get, so he reached out and shook on it.

The blue flames enveloped him, a brief second of white-hot chill, before they extinguished. Lionel shuddered, and he felt something strange deep in his soul - as if something and hooked a chain around it, or bolted it to a surface and let it squirm.

Alcor unceremoniously tossed the baby in the air, letting her blink out of existence and hopefully back into the NICU. He clapped his sparking hands, grinning maniacally and remarkably human.

“Time to wrap up my affairs! Better write a goodbye note to Mike, leave a few emergency charms for little Alice - oh, give them Lucy Ann’s contact information for emergencies, let her know where I’m going too. She hovers. The Flock bleat and bitch if I don’t tell them where I am, so I better elect a president or something and let them self-govern. This is going to be fun! And bizarre! Don’t worry about a thing on your end, Lionel. Get some rest, and your reality and memories should be completely rewritten by the time you wake up in the morning.” Alcor reached out and clapped a reassuring hand on Lionel’s shoulder, as if the reassurance would actually make him feel better instead of a lot worse. “Trust me, you don’t want to remember this. It’ll make your life a living hell. Unless you like that sort of thing?”

Inanely, Lionel could only say, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“Really? I’m a Dream Demon, I can help! I want to be nice to you.” Nobody who actually wanted to be nice to somebody said that. “Here, close your eyes. I’ll knock you out. You’ll sleep right through the restructuring of the universe, promise!”

“Wait,” Lionel said, “on second thought, I really -”

“Night night!”

A soft index finger pressed against Lionel’s forehead, and all went dark.

#my asks #my writing #what the hell was with the gravity falls fandom why was it so nuts and creative #sincerely. very good times. we all should live like that.#a fandom where the main character doesn't fuck. can any of us imagine.#gen....gen fics as far as the eye could see....

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queen-of-deans-booty · 4 years

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Swan Song: Part One

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,729

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Your plan of getting Dean to trust you again isn’t going so well. He won’t even look at you, much less be in the same room as you. The only way he’s willing to work with you right now is because you’re dealing with the devil, and he knows your magic will come in handy. It’s kind of hard to get him to trust you when he won’t even give you the time of day.

Instead, you decide to rant to Sam about what’s been going on since he’s on your side. He’s the only one right now who you can freely talk to about this. Your dad would only try and side with Dean since they were close growing up.

“I acted on impulse, Sam. I never should have done what I did,” you whisper painfully.

You and Sam sat on the hood of Baby while drinking alcohol. He had a beer while you had bottled wine. You’ve had beer before, but you like wine better.

“I know,” he nods.

“If I can’t defeat Lucifer, Dean’s going to leave me. I can feel it. He won’t even look at me.”

“It’s not your responsibility to defeat Lucifer.”

“I’m the oldest, Sam. When Dean didn’t, I looked after you. Hell, I looked after Dean sometimes. It’s why Dean and I don’t want you to say yes to Lucifer. I look at you and see the six-year-old boy who was scared to sleep with the lights off. I see the boy who could only fall asleep when I sang to him. I keep forgetting you’re an adult now. My maternal instincts started with you, and I regret not passing them onto my daughter. I have to defeat Lucifer if Dean’s going to trust me again. I don’t know what else to do. I’m losing him.”

“We’ll figure this out together. You always got me, remember?” he says and brings you into a side hug.

“Yeah, I got you,” you sigh lightly and rest your head against his chest and close your eyes.

“Hey,” Dean calls as he approaches you two.

You turn back around so that you’re facing away from him. You know he’s going to talk to Sam and only him. Dean reaches down into the cooler to retrieve a beer for himself. He leans against the passenger’s side door with his back turned to both of you.

“Hey,” Sam replies. Dean takes a long pause as he plays with the cap of his bottle. “Dean? What's going on?”

“I’m in.”

“In with…?”

“The whole ‘up with Satan’ thing. I'm on board.”

“You're gonna let me say yes?” Sam asks, swinging his legs to the side so they are hanging off the side of the car.

“No. That's the thing. It's not on me to let you do anything. You're a grown—well, overgrown—man. If this is what you want, I'll back your play.”

“That's the last thing I thought you'd ever say.”

“Might be. I'm not gonna lie to you, though. It goes against every fiber I got. I mean, the truth is... it’s always been my job to watch after you. But more than that, it's kinda who I am. You're not a kid anymore, Sam, and I can't keep treating you like one. Maybe I got to grow up a little, too. I don't know if we got a snowball's chance. But I do know that if anybody can do it, it's you.”

“Thank you.”

“If this is what you want... Is this really what you want?” he asks and looks at his brother from over his shoulder.

“I let him out. I got to put him back in.”

“Okay. That's it, then,” he shrugs and takes another swig of his beer.

If only he can use that logic and reasoning towards you. While you understand the gravity of your mistake, and how it’s affecting him, he has to take some initiative towards you. He hasn’t even tried to put himself in your shoes which is the most upsetting. It’s like he doesn’t want to try and work this out—like he’s given up on you.

It’s not like you haven’t made grave mistakes in the past. He’s forgiven those. Why is he holding onto this so strongly?

Your dad found a demon hideout because if Sam is going to defeat the devil, then he is going to need all the power he can get. No one likes this, but that means he needs to drink buckets of demon blood. Your magic isn’t going to be enough to take down Lucifer, but it may work with Sam’s power.

You just finished drying out the last demon, and you cap the gallon bottle full of his blood. It’s grosses you out to every extent, but it’s necessary. You take two jugs out to the car, and Castiel and Sam take the other four. Dean isn’t happy about this and leaves to go to your father’s side. You place the two jugs in the trunk of Baby, wipe off your hands, and head over to the duo.

“What do you got?” Dean asks, getting down to business.

“Not much. Do these look like omens to you?” he hands Dean a newspaper, and passes one to you since he knows you’re hovering. “There’s a cyclone in Florida, a temperature drop in Detroit, and wildfires in L.A.”

“Wait, what about Detroit?” you ask with a frown.

“The temp's dropped about 20 degrees, but only in a five-block radius of downtown Motown.”

“That's the one. Devil's in Detroit,” you say with certainty.

“Really? As far as foreboding goes, it's a little light in the loafers. You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. He told us himself… in 2014,” you say and make eye contact with Dean for a few seconds.

“Good enough for me,” your dad shrugs and packs up his stuff.

“I really messed up, you know,” you say to Amara.

She stands in front of you with a calm exterior. It’s been a while since you’ve dreamt of her, but you’re glad you are now. It’s weird to say, but you feel safe with her right now. No one is telling you how she’s evil and trying to take over the world. Right now, it’s just you and her and no one else.

“I know. But don’t think it’s the end for you.”

“The only person I want a kid with is Dean.”

“Good things come to those who wait. Sometimes, it’s necessary to fall in order to climb. Things happen for a reason.”

“Like Sam saying yes to your nephew?”

“That’s one of the things, yes,” she says and puts an arm around your shoulder to comfort you.

“Can he do it? Can he shove Lucifer back in his cage?”

“I don’t have the answer to that. Just know that everything is going to be okay. I may be locked away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still make a difference.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, but she’s already fading. Your consciousness is starting to take control. “Amara?”

The drive to Detroit is long and far, so you thought you better get in a good nap before the big fight. You’re going to need all of your energy if you’re going to defeat the devil in a few hours. Since Castiel doesn’t have his powers anymore, he’s napping with you in the back seat. His head is resting on your shoulder, and your head is on his. Dean went over a bump which is why you woke up.

“Sam, I got a bad feeling about this,” Dean sighs.

You don’t make it known that you’re awake because you want to know what they talk about when they think you’re not listening. So, you keep your eyes close and wait.

“Well, you'd be nuts to have a good feeling about it.”

“You know what I mean. It’s about Detroit. He always said he'd jump your bones in Detroit. Here we are. Maybe this is him rolling out the red carpet, you know? Maybe he knows something that we don't.”

“Dean, I'm sure he knows a buttload we don't. We just got to hope he doesn't know about the rings,” Sam sighs. He turns his head to look at you before turning back to normal. “Hey, I have to ask you something.”

“What?”

“What are you really afraid of?”

“What are you talking about?”

“With Y/N. She’s been working her ass off to try and make things right, but you’re not giving it the same attention.”

“Why are we having this conversation again? Seriously, leave me alone about it.”

“I might die today. Sue me for tying up loose ends.”

“Well, I appreciate you looking out for me, but stop it.”

“I’m serious, Dean. You’re not treating her fairly.”

“What can I say? She’s not the person I thought she was. I can’t forgive her this easily. Now, I don’t want to talk about it anymore so stop asking me.”

“Okay, on another note, if this thing goes our way and I triple Lindy into that box… y-you know I'm not coming back.”

“Yeah, I'm aware.”

“So, you got to promise me something.”

“Okay. Yeah. Anything.”

“You got to promise not to try to bring me back,” he says slowly, and the whole car is just silent.

“What? No, I didn't sign up for that. Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland. You want me just to sit by and do nothing?” he exclaims but lowers his voice when he remembers that you and Castiel are sleeping… well, Castiel is.

“Once the Cage is shut, you can't go poking at it, Dean. It's too risky.”

“As if I'm just gonna let you rot in there,” he scoffs.

“Yeah, you are. You don't have a choice.”

“You can't ask me to do this.”

“I'm sorry, Dean. You have to.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Make it work with Y/N or you find someone who’s dumb enough to take you in. You have barbecues and go to football games. You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean. Promise me,” he urges.

Dean doesn’t answer because he’s too emotional to even think. The thought of Dean being with another woman just breaks your heart. You have to defeat Lucifer so that you can restore your relationship.

Wanna get tagged? Add yourself to this document! If your tag doesn’t work, find out why!

@sing4mejensen @essie1876 @gh0stgurl @redsalv20 @superrandomnatural @scarletmeii @babypink224221 @gaveherhearttotheliontattoo @akshi8278 @a--1--1--3 @kendlemariee @miraclesoflove @earthtokace @teamfreewillsstuff @fandom-princess-forevermore @kiwihoee @jennazeise @phantomalchemist @posiemax @22sarah08 @tricksterdean @andi-mendes-barnes @put-my-favorite-record-on @countrygal17a @whit85-blog @sammypotato67 @knowledgefulbutterfly @fandomoverdose666 @sharp-cheekbones-locked @deanloveboi @dream-believe-and-love @brokenheartscrybrokentears

#supernatural fanfiction #supernatural series rewrite #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #season 5 episode 22 #s5e22 #spn #supernatural

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

Text

Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1 Thoughts

Well...this was odd.

I’ve never read a Round Robin before, not in comics or any other medium.

I think the first thing to acknowledge is that this wasn’t intended to be taken strictly seriously (let alone canonically) and certainly wasn’t treated as such by the creators. It’s more a creative exercise or experiment, the reading equivalent of a theme park ride I suppose.

That makes critiquing it weird and tricky. Thus I’m going to treat this more like an anthology book than one big story as the creative teams were not put in the best position to make everything hang together. I’m going to briefly talk about if I liked the art, the characterization of Spidey (and any other regular characters who pop up) and really that’s it. I don’t think it’s fair to lambast a this comic for taking Spider-Man into space or into a mystical direction as it’s supposed to be weird, wacky and fun, not taking itself seriously.

Also I’ll be writing about each part immediately after I’ve read it and before I’ve read the next part.

Awaaaaaaaaaaaay we go!

Part 1

Didn’t care for this one. Perhaps it’s because it’s the opening chapter and gets to set the stage, I can’t give it as much slack as everything else.

I’ve never liked Hickman and whilst the stuff about his work that annoys me wasn’t present here, his characterization of Spider-Man was very off. It felt ripped straight out of Brand New Day in how buffoonish and infantilized Spider-Man was (he even unmasks in the corner for no reason), the art not helping in this regard.* The art itself wasn’t very good because...well it’s modern day Bachalo and he’s literally leaving panels blank for no reason. Plus in some scenes I genuinely couldn’t tell what was happening.

The final thing to not about this part is that it might be set in the 1980s as Spider-Man is wearing his black costume and the recap page claims this to be an untold tale for Spider-Man. plus it features Hasslhoff Fury instead of Jackson Fury.

Big take away.

Hickman shouldn’t write Spider-Man in the future.

*Not to mention other people were treating Spider-Man as a joke.

Part 2

I liked this one much better. There was one moment of buffonishness with Spider-Man where he was in his underwear, but the other gags (like Spider-Ham and Fury shooting a ferret) I thought were earned enough. I also liked that Duggan provided a way to allow for the black and the red costumes to appear in the story. I adored the reference to the Florida Spidey theme park ride and the art was beautiful.

The only questionable parts were Spider-Man’s webbing working in space (how, there is no gravity?) and the werewolves kind of coming out of nowhere. Maybe that’s a little too harsh on my part given the nature of this story though.

My takeaway is that Smallwood should draw more Spider-Man and Duggan might deserve another shot at Spider-Man as this wasn’t all that bad.

Part 3

Wow.

In a project that was supposed to just be silly fun Nick Spencer put in way more effort than he had to.

First of all the art is lovely even if the human faces are a tad stiff.

Second of all, if you were in doubt that Spencer is qualified for the job as ASM writer, this should dispel those reservations.

Whilst the story has some wacky comedy ala Superior Foes it also has a dash of depth and plot development too.

In a story that thus far has featured Spider-Ham, falling from space and wacky hijinks, BAM, Spencer organically brings up Spider-Man’s origin in a way that’s logically consistent in a story inherently illogical in the first place.

More than this he throws in another brief yet organic reference to Man-Wolf and even uses the continuity of the book itself by referencing the previous two stories.

He ties this all together with the theme of choice and the random unintended consequences of those choices, thus delivering a meta commentary upon the inherent premise of this comic book. It’s actually rather ingenious and he did it in like 10 pages!*

Also I hope and suspect that werewolf MJ will become a fondly referenced moment in the future of the fandom.

*It also touches upon similar themes of quantum theories present in the current 2099 centric storyline in ASM.

Part 4

Mixed feelings.

I really liked Thompson’s Rogue/Gambit mini-series and whilst I’ve not gotten around to checking out her Mr. And Mrs. X ongoing, I made a point of buying the book.

But she’s never written Spider-Man before to my knowledge and whilst this isn’t awful...my eyebrow was raised.

Putting aside how we’re in Forest Hills when the last story clearly didn’t leave off there, there are some lines early on which don’t ring true to Spider-Man at all.

Case in point.

Spider-Man treats his problems like nails he has to hammer because he’s an Alpha super hero. Um...what character has Thompson been reading for 55 years? How many times has Spider-Man NOT tried t resolve problems via simply punching it, even in the Ditko days?

Peter feels like he’s always been alone? Aunt May and Mary Jane are literally in this story!

And where did the man in the box’s psychoanalysis randomly come from?

A part from that the art was beautiful here and I loved Peter’s upset over werewolf MJ and his consideration in subduing her. I also really liked the ending and the main action set piece.

Maybe Thompson could do better with a second bite at the apple, but this wasn’t a strong first impression for her grasp of the character.

Part 5

Holy shit that was awesome.

Al Ewing to my knowledge has never really written for Spider-Man before but goddam I’d love for him to do it more often!

This was fantastic, the first story in this comic book to dive into who Peter Parker is.

It retained the wacky humour the rest of the comic possesses via the inclusion of the Spider-Hams, but it used them for deeper purposes.

Classic Spider-Ham represented Peter’s more positive impulses, or positive assessments of himself.

Black Spider-Ham represented the more negative impulses, the times Peter has questioned himself and wondered if he’s nuts or doing the right thing.

Bag-Ham represented Peter’s humours side.

Seeing Ham and Black Ham argue over Peter’s nature was rather meta as it has often been debated in fandom about whether Peter’s driven by guilt or by the desire to be good, whether he’s fighting the good fight to make him feel better about Ben’s death because he can’t move on, or if he’d do it regardless. There is an answer to that, but I’d rather not dive into it here.

But it is simply brilliant writing on Ewing’s part to include it at all, and he continues the character exploration in the form of Peter’s conversation with ‘the man in the box’. Apart from some funny dialogue and the further debate about Peter’s life style, the conversation lays new layers of intrigue into the story. Could the Man in the Box be the weapon? Or could it be Peter? What if the Man in the Box isn’t real at all?

Ewing also takes the weird wacky situation thrown to him and actually brings things together a little more with a plan for world domination and world order that, whilst comic book mad science, kind of makes sense. It’s impressive that he made such great lemonade out of the lemons handed to him frankly. I also liked he made the werewolves thinking and rationalizing rather than feral animals, as that’s something you rarely see in werewolf stories.

Aaron again, brings it all back around to Spider-Man’s character though because Peter’s presented with a situation that echos his origin story. He has the chance to stop bad people doing a bad thing, but this time the end result could be something positive.

Like Spencer’s story it’s just brilliant and demonstrates a writer who cares enough to put in way more effort than they had to.

The art was quite nice too.

Part 6

Nice art off the top.

And a funny ending.

Considering this was Zdarsky this wasn’t that bad. The worst stuff I could say involves the idea that Peter was psychoanalyzing and second guessing himself earlier, but of course those stories were not written with the intention of being a future version of Peter.

I guess that makes Zdarsky bad for retroactively screwing stuff up but really I’m not holding that against this type of story.

What did make me confused though was that the idea of Nick Fury being an imposter beginning at the end of Part 3 seems weird because, the story lines up. Fury’s eyepatch was on the wrong eye but does that mean this comic was more planned out that it was letting on??????????

I don’t know.

I do know that I’m not fond of Fury and Logan turning this into a Marvel team-up/Zdarsky Spec Spidey story.

Also I don’t get why Fury was unaffected by the transformation and why Peter randomly reverted to normal.

Finally...fuck...I hate the High Evolutionary in Spider-Man stories. I really do.

Part 7

I don’t know how to feel about this one.

I’ve never been fond of Aaron, and his take on Spider-Man is very much from the BND era of ‘he’s a loser we can trash on’ camp.

He does however embrace the Round Robin nature of this comic book like perhaps no other author before in this story.

He does this by simply upending half of everything up until this point (the man in the box is retconned again and dispatched with little ceremony) and then he throws a hell of a cliffhanger for the next person to resolve.

Essentially he did random stuff that ignored the random stuff before him then did more random stuff to make it harder for whoever to bring it home.

You also got the impression that he was throwing shade at how dumb and insane everything had been up until this point, hence he summed up most of it in the final lines of his story.

All of which can be forgiven due to his utterly hilarious Kraven’s Last Hunt homage.

It totally doesn’t jive with what came before but it’s so great I do not care.

The art though, whilst getting the job done, is the weakest after Bachalo’s.

Part 8

Jesus Christ!

I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Walking into this I thought I might get some good art with some funny moments and wackiness upon wackiness due to everything becoming deliberately convoluted.

I wasn’t expecting great craftsmanship like Spencer’s story or a an outright GEM like Al Ewing’s story.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting a grand summation about Spider-Man as a person or life in general.

Now look...it doesn’t really make sense, let’s not pretend it does. There are plenty of loose ends.

But whilst I was never expecting this story to deliver a coherent narrative (that was if anything the opposite of the point), I was equally not expecting the whole thing to wind up being as good as it was.

Al Ewing’s story set up a debate about the nature of who Spider-Man as a person is and as weird as it is to say once you’ve read through the whole comic book, this final instalment essentially answered it. It folded in the convoluted nature of it’s premise and tied it in with Spider-Man’s origin.

Having read the e-mail chain at the back of the comic the resolution to the story makes a lot of sense.

Essentially Ewing provided the basis for a resolution that Spencer tweaked and then made work via Spider-Man’s character and emotional journey. The hypothetical dialogue he proposes as a resolution is almost identical to the finished product.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the best element of this final part, the part that nails Peter as a person, came from Spencer but there you go.

This story, whilst honestly not worth $10, is very much worth a read.

#spider-man #peter parker #mjwatsonedit #mj watson #Mary Jane Watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Aunt May #May Parker #Nick Fury #Spider-Ham #Peter Porker #Nick Spencer #Al Ewing #Gerry Duggan #Mark Bagley

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