Why am I so merrily writing superheroes fic now? you ask

[rileyc]

OK, probably you haven't, but I now have an official answer that goes beyond the obvious: Because there are things you can do in superheroes fic that simply would not be feasible almost anywhere else.

For instance, could I ever introduce dragons into the world of Sherlock Holmes? (Well, yes, one could, perhaps in some homage to Naomi Novik's

Comments

[chikkiboo]

Haha, see, I don't feel those restrictions myself. I'll merrily write myself little stories like that. I like AUs.

Now I'm on a tangent wondering what Marlowe would have as his daemon

[rileyc]

See, I couldn't. I'd find myself wondering what the point of this was, since I had strayed so far afield from anything really Marlowe, and might as well be writing Original Character fiction.

It's something I've wrestled with a lot in Oz fandom, where almost everything I wrote about Chris Keller and Tobias Beecher was so far away from canon that almost the only connection was the names after awhile. That bothered me more than I ever lot on.

But, different strokes, as they say.

[chikkiboo]

I care more about the characterization than the rest of it; as long as the characters are still themselves then it's fine. And I don't have a problem dissociating the characters as people from the settings they're in. Marlowe is a person with a white knight complex which wars with his growing cynicism, and a tendency toward depression probably caused by that contrast between his idealism and what he sees as the crushingly cynical reality in which he lives. This is the important part of Marlowe; whether he's solving crimes in 1930s Los Angeles as it already existed, or solving crimes in a version of 1930s Los Angeles that's Dieselpunk With Dragons, is far less important to me.

[rileyc]

Are they themselves, though, if transplanted to a radically different setting?

I've wondered about that a lot, and have never come up with a good answer.

I've read Sherlock Holmes stories with a science fiction premise, for instance, and only one, using a time travel idea, actually worked. The worst of the batch was this series of stories by Manly Wade Wellman, positing that Holmes and Conan Doyle's other series character, Professor Challenger, co-existed in the same world, and that world was currently experiencing H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Now, sounds promising, right? It might have been good, in other hands, and I will say the problem wasn't so much the addition of SF elements as incredibly bad writing and a complete inability to grasp Holmes and Watson. (Watson is portrayed as a complete moron, practically mentally impaired. And Holmes ... Holmes is having a passionate affair with Mrs. Hudson. To site just a couple of reasons why it's so very, very bad.)

That was also why an anthology called Shadows Over Baker Street,

[bradygirl_12]

Welcome to the wondrous world of superhero fic! :)

It's amazing what is just matter-of-fact in the DCU or the Marvel U, isn't it? :)

Ooh, a 1930s murder mystery plot! I like the sound of that. :)

[rileyc]

It is way too much fun!

The only other time I've had this much room to move around, so to speak, was in Doctor Who fandom. With the comics too, there's an in=built alternate universe factor that is very appealing. (Although maybe the DCU more than Marvel?)

I adore those old mysteries so any chance to try and recreate something in the style of The Thin Man (in this instanace) is a major treat. Got stuck on the plot a little bit, but remembering it was supposed to be superhero fic helped kick everything loose.

[bradygirl_12]

Interesting discussion on AUs up above. I've always found the fascination of AUs to be: how much is nature vs. nurture? Do characters like Clark and Bruce retain their essential personalities, and usually the answer is yes, but what parts must adapt to different circumstances? DC gives us those answers (somtimes successfully, sometimes not) in their Elseworlds all the time. Endless fun! :)

[kleenexwoman]

if one desires to remain true to Preston & Child's creation you have to offer up some sensible sort of, real world, explanation at the end.
oh...dammit.

Could Philip Marlowe be hot on the trail of a vampire?
I actually wouldn't find this entirely implausible. But then, I have very dear friends who claim to be several different kinds of vampires, with perfectly straight faces, and I'm not going to openly doubt them because I don't have the desire to deal with the aftermath of telling a vampire that they're not really a vampire.

[rileyc]

Awww, no, that's just how I approach it. Your mileage can vary. In fact, I encourage it to!

With Pendergast, I think you can push the envelope quite a bit. I mean, they've got mutant monsters rampaging through the New York City subway system. And immortality serums, and out-of-body astral projection stuff, and almost-zombies, and cornfields so scary Stephen King would wet himself. So I think fan writers can reasonably explore a lot of what-ifs and why-nots.

Philip Marlowe: Vampire Hunter could work, using the idea that it's someone playacting at vampirism. Although I'd still probably want to pursue that with original characters. (By the way, have you ever read P.N. Elrod's series about Jack Fleming? He's a 1930s reporter who gets 'turned' and then, as a good guy vamp, kind of goes the private eye route. I knew her when she was first writing them and wound up with a lot of inside info.)

[kleenexwoman]

Yeah, there is a LOT of reality-fudging in it. I think that stuff tends more towards quasi-science rather than anything supernatural, which is an important distinction to some writers.

I need to read that series ASAP. Noir with vampires seems like a perfectly natural thing.

Hindermonkey says:

[oddmonster]

Would one ever find Lord Peter and Bunter battling zombies in Mayfair?

This is basically the only way I'd like to read zombies.

Re: Hindermonkey says:

[rileyc]

I'm amazed someone hasn't done it, given all the other stuff out there in a similar line.

I had to stop looking up titles, though, after coming across one where the Little Women gang were all werewolves. Just ... no, I could not possibly deal with Jo ripping out Laurie's throat on top of rejecting his proposal.

[mithen]

That's definitely one of the things I love about comics, that ability to write anything you want and feel pretty comfortable it fits canon! The fact that there are canon Elseworlds where the characters are pirates or ninjas or rock stars makes it even easier to write AUs--though oddly enough, I really haven't written many full-on AUs with these two! In part it's because there's SO MUCH canon to riff on and so much that's available to play with that the "Clark and Bruce are ship captains during the Napoleanic Wars" AU is still languishing (I totally know the outline of it, though!) :)

Plotbunnies sound wonderful!