Pretty, Fizzy Paradise

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Team-up Thoughts

As you've probably noticed on account of me posting very little else, I've been on a massive Nick Fury kick lately. What can I say? I like my men insane, prone to replacing themselves with robot duplicates, and apt to blow shit up. It's a kink.

One thing I've noticed about my massive mainlining of various series and one shots and the like is that...I've actually been really enjoying Wolverine.

This is a fairly big thing for me. See, I don't really like Wolverine. I don't hate him, mind you. Not like I bask in my hate of Nightwing, or even my more general and genuine hate of certain other characters. I think Wolverine's a nifty idea and agree that in the issues where he was first prominent, he was remarkably badass and I can see why so many fans imprinted on him.

Me, though, I've always thought he was kind of overused and overrated. Part of it's probably that I've always been somewhat more sympathetic to the over-responsible, repressed, stick-up-their-ass leader types than I am the renegade bad-boy. Mostly because I think it's a lot EASIER to be the renegade bad-boy than it is to be the responsible leader. Anyone can go half-cocked and be a bad-ass. Being the leader takes work.

I like the interaction between Wolverine and Cyclops, because I like Cyclops, but in the end I find it immensely predictable. Except for the occasional moments of unexpected bad-assery from Scott, or the flash of mutual respect that occasionally drifts its way in there, the encounters seem to follow the same basic pattern they did for the past, what, twenty years? And 9 times out of 10, it seems, Wolverine gets to come out on top and as cool as ever.

It gets awfully tedious, you know?

In contrast, the one shots or crossovers where Wolverine and Fury team up? They don't tend to fit that same pattern for me. Possibly the difference is that Scott Summers, for all his angst and brooding and multitude of issues, is a relatively sane man. Nick Fury, it must be said, really really isn't.

It's hard to be the stereotypical renegade rival bad-boy when your "responsible leader" counterpart is pretty much batshit insane.

Besides, you can't out-renegade Nick Fury. You can try. You can do your whole "Well, if you can't handle it, I will!" type gritty spiel at the end of the whole monologue of deep past connection to the villain of the story, that's when Nick will look at you over his cigar and go "I put a tracer on him when I saved your ass," and then the wind'll be taken from your sails nicely, won't it?

(I enjoy the fact that Nick will force his ally to sit through a monologue of "how I'm connected to this villain" before revealing that he can track the twit the whole time. Because he's a jerk.)

Wolverine doesn't get to coast in his usual interaction patterns when opposite Nick Fury. He's still Wolverine, but the dynamic is a lot less predictable to me. I'm really enjoying it. I may have to hunt down more team-up issues.

...

And on a tangential note, has there ever been a Namor/Nick Fury team-up issue? Because that just strikes me as funny. Especially as both characters seem to grow more kick-ass with the less clothing they wear. The book would essentially be a giant strip-tease. And I would be Amused.

5 Comments:

  • At October 07, 2008 8:02 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    Well, apparently the whole premise behind the House of "M" story was that the Mutants were able to become whatever it was that they secretly wanted. And what Wolverine secretly wanted was to be...Nick Fury.

    Frankly, if you picture them like Guy and G'nort, with Nick being Guy and Wolverine being G'nort...with little hearts in his eyes, it is a whole lot funnier.

     
  • At October 07, 2008 8:14 AM, Blogger LurkerWithout said…

    Both Nick and Namor were active in WW2, so maybe theres some Howling Commandoes/Invaders team-up out there...

    As for Wolverine, I somehow manage to keep a glimmer of fandom alive for him. Mostly because I first met the character during Fall of the Mutants when he had to be in charge. And watching him hurl himself into a small army of time-lost barbarian raiders was just freaking bad-ass. Also he was the cheapest and easiest character to play in the original X-Men fighting game...

     
  • At October 07, 2008 10:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sally P: That Way Fury/Wolverine story was SLASH-TASTIC!

     
  • At October 08, 2008 9:01 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    Dan, it DOES put a whole new spin on things, doesn't it?

     
  • At October 08, 2008 6:22 PM, Blogger Diabolu Frank said…

    Wolverine was my absolute favorite super-hero... when I was ten. I can't stand the guy anymore, outside of quality back issues. One of my favorites was a Classic X-Men back-up story where Logan and Jean are trapped in a diner with some flesh eating amorphous blob thing. They find themselves in tighter and tighter spots. While Jean is doing her level best to survive, Logan is a total leach, rubbing on Jean and being generally disgusting. The boozing, short, hairy, smelly, cigar-chomping, hard living, scumbag Logan was the one I loved. Unbeatable Super Samurai Berserker Fury Wolverine-San can suck an egg.

    As for the Scott/Logan thing... Cyclops was John Byrne's favorite X-Man. John Byrne wanted to take plotting credit away from Chris Claremont, then left the book acrimoniously. Claremont proceeded to run Cyclops down, often using Wolverine, for the next decade. Now everybody hates Cyclops to this day.

    I LOVE Nightwing. However, I prefer the "over-responsible, repressed, stick-up-his-ass leader type" Nightwing of the Titans circa 1981-1992, not the sissy bitch that got his own series.

     

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