This used to be a huge rant, but I’ve cut it down because I’m going to nerd rage to my family and fellow Hulk fan over IM and will therefore spare my tumblr followers. 

This is just another unacceptable bloody move to try and inject some life into the abominable comics that Marvel have been releasing recently.

Okay we are done now Marvel comics.  I am gonna read my huge stash of my beloved old Hulk’s and X-Men…but we are done now.  

And in response to anon -  yes, I do indeed love the idea of Riri, but she’s taking over due to Iron Man’s retirement which sounds pretty legit.

this whole cover is obscene, tho

Bruce, what the hell did he do to you? The forced romance, the bastardisation of your characterisation, making you an asshole who does stupid science without thinking of repercussions, and this? Seriously, no. NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOO.

Fun fact: Bruce Banner is one of my favourite Marvel characters. Bruce Banner is complex and layered and emotionally shattered. Bruce Banner’s father was an abusive bastard who traumatised him to the degree that he repressed absolutely every emotion for fear of turning into the same kind of man, to the degree that people believed he didn’t give a crap about anything. Bruce Banner’s whole life is about fighting against the impulse to hurt people, because he doesn’t want to be like his father was.

But sure, let’s just say he’d threaten to strangle a child. Let’s go with that. In the same world where the man who deplores violence and weapons carries a massive effing gun and doesn’t respond to comfort or reassure a woman who says she’s a broken monster, it makes sense.

THIS^^^^

“We’re kind of like a team”

renders credit x x

people who could have calmed down the hulk who were not natasha

1. Steve, our giant dorito of goodness, who was not the person the Hulk caught and saved from death in the first avengers, but who was the first person Hulk ever took an order from. 

Steve respects soldiers; and he respects people who hates bullies, and he was one of the first people to speak to the Hulk and not plead with him. When he tells Hulk, “Thank you,” he means it and even Hulk can tell. When he says, “You’re done, we’ve got it from here,” Hulk believes it. He’s safe. 

2. Tony, who was the falling body Hulk caught, who was one of the few acts of friendship and not destruction Hulk was given in Avengers, who has spent long nights and early mornings with Bruce in the lab now, sharing in something they both love. Tony either:

a. talks science in a soothing tone– “supernovas? the emissions on those things. and mechatronics! omg, let’s talk about nyquist plots, don’t you think they look like butts? they totally look like butts” – until Hulk makes a giant green enraged sigh, puts his hands over his face, and just lets Puny Bruce out to deal with Won’t-Shut-Up-Man.

OR

b. Tony touches down in the Ironman suit and circles Hulk like a particularly irritating gnat. “Hey hey hey Hulk, man, go to sleep. go to sleep okay? go to sleep. go to sleep go to sleep gotosleepgotosleepGOTOSLEEPokaycmonhulkgotosleep” until Hulk finally swats him and does.

(because Tony’s affection always filters through annoyance)

3. Thor, who blasts down and with jovial seriousness begins a brotherly brawl of joint camaraderie. Thor’s one of the few Hulk can’t hurt too easy, and Hulk’s one of the few Thor can’t hurt. 

There are so many frustrations in their lives, these two boys who belong best to simpler worlds and keep getting pulled into machinations and schemes of others–but this, here, is simple. This is just bodies in an empty war zone, all the danger gone. They fight like kittens, like flop-eared puppy dogs, until they roll over panting in the rubble and gasp and laugh themselves to sleep. 

(Steve and Tony, who have finished all the requisite paperwork during this cooldown/beatdown period, come out and carry their snoring allies to the Quinjet– Steve with Bruce wrapped in a blanket, and the Ironman armor lugging Thor.)

4. Probably not Hawkeye, honestly. I love you, Clint, but no. 

5. But not Natasha, who is brave and slippery and terrifying, who is afraid more than almost anything of losing control, whose role on the team is the spy, the killer, the repenter, the manipulator, the blade in the dark, the smile that cuts, the dry wit, Hawkeye’s best friend and Cap’s dose of loyal reality– Natasha, whose role is not to be the girl, the mother, or other people’s peace. 

Clint probably COULD do it. He’d just dance around making hilarious snarky commentary until Hulk laughed ;)

But let’s face it, the absolute, 100% certainty, BEST OPTION?

BETTY. FUCKING. ROSS.

Even if it was only a goddamn video projection. Hawkeye fires an arrow, it lands at Hulk’s feet, and suddenly there’s a holographic Betty Ross standing there.

BETTY ROSS.

Thank you.  Yes.  Yes.  YES.  YES!!!  Why not Betty?  Seriously.  SERIOUSLY.   AH!  I want to scream every time I think of it.   Betty HAS calmed down Hulk in the past.  She loves him.  She loves Bruce.  Like…I was dying, hoping for a freaking after credits scene of like…Bruce walking up to someone’s door, ringing the bell, and it’s Betty, in her robe holding a cup of coffee and she just…drops the cup and you hear her say…”Bruce…”  And my little heart would have been healed.  (Somewhat healed, because Pietro still…*sniff*)  

I seriously wish that Betty Ross would have returned in MCU, like she could have stayed hidden with Clint’s family in AOU. Like I feel like he could have used her comfort after Wanda’s hex.

Let’s not forget that fact that everyone else was terrified of the Hulk, but Betty Fricking Ross slammed him down on his back, sat on his middle, and yelled at him to get him to focus on her, and when he did, she kept him calm enough to get back under control.

None of this ‘lullaby’ BS. Because wow, misogynistic much when you have the sterile woman having a code that is basically a word for songs that mothers/female caregivers traditionally sang to children. Yeah, romantic. Faux mommying your not-boyfriend. Gorgeous.

Thor, report on the Hulk.

people who could have calmed down the hulk who were not natasha

1. Steve, our giant dorito of goodness, who was not the person the Hulk caught and saved from death in the first avengers, but who was the first person Hulk ever took an order from. 

Steve respects soldiers; and he respects people who hates bullies, and he was one of the first people to speak to the Hulk and not plead with him. When he tells Hulk, “Thank you,” he means it and even Hulk can tell. When he says, “You’re done, we’ve got it from here,” Hulk believes it. He’s safe. 

2. Tony, who was the falling body Hulk caught, who was one of the few acts of friendship and not destruction Hulk was given in Avengers, who has spent long nights and early mornings with Bruce in the lab now, sharing in something they both love. Tony either:

a. talks science in a soothing tone– “supernovas? the emissions on those things. and mechatronics! omg, let’s talk about nyquist plots, don’t you think they look like butts? they totally look like butts” – until Hulk makes a giant green enraged sigh, puts his hands over his face, and just lets Puny Bruce out to deal with Won’t-Shut-Up-Man.

OR

b. Tony touches down in the Ironman suit and circles Hulk like a particularly irritating gnat. “Hey hey hey Hulk, man, go to sleep. go to sleep okay? go to sleep. go to sleep go to sleep gotosleepgotosleepGOTOSLEEPokaycmonhulkgotosleep” until Hulk finally swats him and does.

(because Tony’s affection always filters through annoyance)

3. Thor, who blasts down and with jovial seriousness begins a brotherly brawl of joint camaraderie. Thor’s one of the few Hulk can’t hurt too easy, and Hulk’s one of the few Thor can’t hurt. 

There are so many frustrations in their lives, these two boys who belong best to simpler worlds and keep getting pulled into machinations and schemes of others–but this, here, is simple. This is just bodies in an empty war zone, all the danger gone. They fight like kittens, like flop-eared puppy dogs, until they roll over panting in the rubble and gasp and laugh themselves to sleep. 

(Steve and Tony, who have finished all the requisite paperwork during this cooldown/beatdown period, come out and carry their snoring allies to the Quinjet– Steve with Bruce wrapped in a blanket, and the Ironman armor lugging Thor.)

4. Probably not Hawkeye, honestly. I love you, Clint, but no. 

5. But not Natasha, who is brave and slippery and terrifying, who is afraid more than almost anything of losing control, whose role on the team is the spy, the killer, the repenter, the manipulator, the blade in the dark, the smile that cuts, the dry wit, Hawkeye’s best friend and Cap’s dose of loyal reality– Natasha, whose role is not to be the girl, the mother, or other people’s peace. 

“Natasha likes to flirt.”

I’ve been wondering why this line from Steve to Bruce has been bugging me and I’ve realized: Natasha DOESN’T like to flirt. Can anyone name me a moment in the pre-Age of Ultron MCU films where she flirts just for fun? In Iron Man 2, she is professionally distant both while posing as a secretary and while working as the Black Widow. In Avengers, her biggest moments of dialogue are convincing Bruce to join the team (in which she’s terrified) and tricking Loki. In Winter Soldier, most of her non-plot-related dialogue is trying to convince Steve to date OTHER women, which is pretty much the polar opposite of flirting.

Whedon has said that it was the aforementioned Avengers scene between Bruce and Natasha that gave him the idea to pair the two of them up. He apparently misread Natasha’s fear and Bruce’s anger as attraction. This explains why he misunderstood Natasha’s character as “flirty”: He fell into the heterosexual male trap of sexualizing everything attractive women do.

Except...there’s no “misreading” because Joss also wrote The Avengers. He knew that Natasha was terrified. That’s how he wrote it and how Scarlett performed it. No, he took Natasha being terrified of what Bruce could become and with full knowledge read that as having romantic potential. Which I think a lot of us could have entertained, eventually, if it had been handled with some nuance and care and given time to actually develop.

It’s okay. You’re okay.

The RIGHT Bruce ship. 

AOU AU: Part 2, Part 1 

HEADCANON ACCEPTED

yes. Bruce, call Betty!

Why is it that when couples make a new human life, it’s ‘beautiful’ and ‘miraculous,’ but when I make a new human life alone in my basement, it’s ‘a crime against nature’ and ‘morally abhorrent’?

Why Bruce, tho

I have not seen this pointed out yet but it really, really skeeves me out not only that Natasha was reduced to a romantic object for a man in AoU but that the man chosen for this was Bruce. 

Now, I love Natasha/Bruce as a pairing, actually. I think they’re phenomenal, I’m interested in their dynamics, and I like both characters. I’m writing fanfic about them and I’ve already drawn erotic fanart, so I’m obviously not against the pairing. 

But the thing is, Bruce is the most obviously ‘nerdy’ of all the men in the cast. He’s of relatively average build, average in terms of looks, he’s a scientist, and aside from being the Hulk sometimes, he has no superpowers whatsoever. He has no money or home of his own, and he’s living off Tony’s generosity. He is an ordinary cis male homebody who spends most of his time writing equations and doing biochemical research. He’s shy and socially awkward and not good with women. He’s had maybe two or three romantic relationships in his entire life, and he’s around 45 years old by the time we see him in AOU. 

AoU–Natasha’s romance arc with Bruce especially–focuses on those aspects of Bruce. And AoU does it in such a way that to me it seems obvious that Whedon is implicitly saying “All you nerd-boys in the audience deserve women like Natasha. You don’t need to do anything to deserve the attentions of a woman like her. In fact, you’re so amazing that a woman like her should have to chase you down.”

And that frankly disgusts me. It revolts me, because if we know anything, it’s that male (often cis and straight) nerds already have an alarming level of entitlement to the bodies and attentions of women. Gamergate is a very recent steaming mess of misogyny, policing of women’s desires and sexual choices, death threats, rape threats, and horrific privacy violations. Anita Sarkeesian is still getting death threats and rape threats on the regular for her Feminist Frequency series on the representation of women in comics, cartoons, and games. And 4chan’s adult content sections….still exist, in all their abysmal horror. 

So into that environment, Whedon has decided to insert his version of Bruce/Natasha. Which is a romantic arc that not only discards much of Natasha’s previous characterization (which it does, I’m not willing to argue about this, lots of other bloggers have already addressed it) but also acts as an archetypal sexual/romantic fulfillment story for male nerds who like women. A beautiful, talented, powerful, much younger woman completely loses herself in chasing after a nerdy guy who has very little romantic experience and nothing much to offer her. She even says she loves how “dorky” Bruce is. If that’s not wish fulfillment for all the creepy nerdboys in the audience, what is?

This. So much this.

And there’s so much else TO HIM. He’s snarky, he’s brilliant, he’s kind, he’s living with the consequences of his own major hubris caused fuck up (HE is the one who convinced Betty to skip straight to human trials ON HIM: he literally did it to himself), he’s willing to embrace this aspect of himself that not only scares but actually hurts him psychologically (we’re shown very clearly in his movie that because he can’t process his experiences as the Hulk they’re all transformed to MISERABLE chaotic flashbacks) to save other people.

But no, let’s focus on him being a dork.

This kind of formulaic romance also erases what a dork NATASHA is. She’s socially awkward when feelings are involved, brilliant and highly skilled at some things while having no clue how to manage others, and a huge point of identification for many, many superhero-loving geeky girls. Which doesn’t matter at all to the men writing (and planning) the movies.

I read and love all kinds of Natasha pairings (and triads, barbershop quartets, etc.), but I never wanted them to romantically pair her with ANYONE in the movies, because I knew they would do it in a way that made the guy’s* emotions and desires primary and hers irrelevant or inexplicable. Which AoU did.

*And of course it would be a guy. No queer women in this blockbuster franchise!

Marvel keeps spitting on our desire for Natasha’s story and Natasha’s movie and MORE NATASHA OMG, and Joss Whedon has absolutely been a part of that - I have not forgiven him for the interview in which he asserted that Natasha is not a hero.

Now we know what he thinks she is. She’s the prize.

This is brill also, yes, thank you. (I mean, I MEANT it when I said the worst thing that could have happened, for my money, was BlackHawk becoming canon on-screen, for exactly this reason).

I said. Didn’t I say that Natasha would end up being the barefoot waif-fu chick of his fantasies. And lo, she is. 

I was living in serious hope that Natasha’s genuine flirting would be awkward as hell, and that she would make Bruce laugh so much because she was so bad at it, because she’s never really tried flirting on someone she really likes before. I would have liked it if he spent the whole time poking fun at her, and her kicking him under the table, and telling him she’ll kick his ass. Because seriously, if there are two characters who need to have some silly happy fun with a loved one, it’s those two. Just picture it:

“Oh, yes, because you’re so scary, little Miss ‘Hey… uh… you come here often?”  “HEY! There’s a reason it’s a classic!” “So you’re going retro, huh?“ “Well, I’m hitting on you, aren’t I?” “Hey!”:D

THIS! I don’t hate Brutasha on principle, I totally see how it *could* work, but Joss just did not put in the necessary thought or work to make Brutasha flow naturally and not be awkward (in the bad way) and uncomfortable. He sacrificed BOTH characters to force this. Like trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole. If it gets stuck, eventually, he considers it “in” aka “it worked”

You need someone to give the hulk a ‘lullaby’?

You want to give Bruce a love interest he can relate to, and sympathize with?

You want someone to show Bruce he isn’t just the hulk?

You want a love interest that isn’t forced, awkward, and out of character? HAVE BETTY FUCKING ROSS IN YOUR DAMN MOVIE

Can we talk about how Betty’s ASSHOLE DAD is going to be in Cap 3, but Betty herself has been basically fridged (alive!) by the MCU?

My love for this man is reaching an unhealthy level. 

“She is the super super hero.”