Heroes of the Squared Circle 19: Sanity Clause

[mithen]

Title: Sanity Clause
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, Big Barda, Scott Free, Jack Napier, Oliver Queen, Lex Luthor, Selina Kyle
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 2900
Summary: The JLI

Comments

[rdfox]

Oh lawd. Even before I read it, the instant you said "contract signing," I knew it was gonna end in mayhem. So saying this as someone who hasn't read it yet... the odds that someone's going through the table at the signing? About 125%.

It's like the Cake Rule ("If a cake is seen on a wrestling show, then a heel WILL end up having his face smashed into it before the end of the show.") and the Trophy Rule ("If a face wins a trophy on a show, a heel WILL use it as a weapon to attack him and destroy the trophy.") If there's a contract signing, violence will ensue. Heck, ask CM Punk, he even brought that up during a contract signing in the "Summer of Punk"!

EDIT: And now that I've read it, it's just about perfect on that note. The setup makes just about as much legal sense as anything involving contracts in wrestling, and the payoff is exactly what you would expect of this sort of angle.

Man, Jack has got to be PISSED that Harvey and Clark got to bust out the Marx Brothers line *with him in the ring*! (Then again, he might be impressed--witness "Slayride," where Joker actually chooses to turn away from a group he was going to run over with an SUV at the last instant, because Tim impressed him by busting out that same line, when he's a huge Marx Brothers fan. Still, I'm expecting he'd still be angry that they got to crack the joke instead of him...)

Had to laugh at Lex channeling the Million Dollar Man! (I'm in a wrestling-themed roleplaying game, playing a longtime heel who's now a 50% owner of the company and semi-retired, and DiBiase's always been a major influence, to the point where my guy always dresses as him for the company Halloween party.) Did you know that the kid who DiBiase actually made kiss his foot on television that one time grew up to be Rob Van Dam? Interesting coincidence.

I *cackled* at finding out Lex wants to incorporate the Halle Berry Catwoman into Selina's gimmick. That is SO Vince. (HBK once said, "He's the best boss in the world to work for, because he's an idiot.")

I suspect that Lex doesn't want to admit he likes Bruce even at the same time he's afraid of what Bruce might end up doing. He clearly sees how smart Bruce is, and how capable he is at the business side, and even if he doesn't agree with him, he can't help but respect the man for it.

I *love* how you're having Bruce put hints of reality into his work when he's against Clark. Not only does it tie in nicely to the angle they worked in the JLI, AND give us some hints of the "real life" UST between them, it'd work for someone completely unfamiliar with their JLI history, too, as an "Even Evil Has Standards" thing. (Brucie may be a slimeball, but even he finds it uncomfortable to take advantage of an innocent like Country Clark.) It gives him a subtly different flavor of heel from Lex's "pure evil" persona, thus giving them a reason to dislike each other in kayfabe (I love it when the faces and heels aren't monolithic blocs that always stick together, but instead have their own interpersonal dynamics, and there's some in each who just plain don't like each other), and gives him a subtle tweener vibe that could allow for his eventual transition into the Dark Knight persona.

Besides, it makes it even more effective when Lex does something beyond the Moral Event Horizon and even heels like Bruce can find it repugnant. (Witness when Randy Savage "crushed" Ricky Steamboat's larynx in 1986, to set up their Wrestlemania 3 match. EVERYONE was shocked and horrified by it; even pure heels like the Iron Sheik were refusing to associate with Savage, and no less of a heel than Jesse Ventura left the commentary booth to check on Steamboat and ride to the hospital with him. This did an awesome job of selling Savage's act as being beyond the line of what even a heel would do, something so vile that even people as evil as Jake Roberts considered it beyond the pale and something you just don't DO, even if only for reasons of what you might face as punishment for doing so...)

[mithen]

Even before I read it, the instant you said "contract signing," I knew it was gonna end in mayhem. So saying this as someone who hasn't read it yet... the odds that someone's going through the table at the signing? About 125%.

I have actually been saving the Cake Rule for an epigraph at some point! If I can just find a scene where I can work in a plausible cake...well, at the very least there will be a faux-wedding one day, I do know that! I absolutely love the incredibly obvious setups in wrestling--yes, let us put a bunch of tables around, nothing will come of that...

Man, Jack has got to be PISSED that Harvey and Clark got to bust out the Marx Brothers line *with him in the ring*!

Good point! I imagine a rankling growing hatred of anyone else who actually gets a chance to be funny in the ring and gets an actual laugh for it...

Did you know that the kid who DiBiase actually made kiss his foot on television that one time grew up to be Rob Van Dam? Interesting coincidence.

I--I don't think I knew that, but it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever! And I just will never get enough of the Evil Boss Requiring Ritual Humiliation... :)

I suspect that Lex doesn't want to admit he likes Bruce even at the same time he's afraid of what Bruce might end up doing.

The evolution of their relationship has been one of the biggest surprises so far--but it makes so much sense, there has almost always been an undercurrent of respect between them in comics, two non-superpowered guys surviving on their wits and tenacity...

I'm glad the beginning of Bruce's transition into tweener is making sense here! Things are about to get pushed in different directions, but I was hoping he'd start to feel more like a tweener before that happened. And yeah, non-monolithic heel motivations are love! It fits with the way that comic-book villains can never work together for long because they all tend to have their own personal motivations (admittedly, most of them boil down to "I insist on putting my desire to kill X superhero first!")

"When Jake Roberts thinks you've gone too far, you are in some pretty dark territory" are words to live by!