A slightly pointless doodle

[fpb]

A man crossed the threshold. He wore a costume made mostly of chain mail, which jingled slightly as he walked, in a simple design of red, white and blue, with a white star on his chest. His face was partly covered by a blue helmet with a great letter A inlaid in white metal, and wings on each side. He carried no aggressive weapon, and none were

Comments

[capnflynn]

Oh, now, that's just too cool!

[inverarity]

I'm not a big fan of cross-overs, myself, but that was amusing.

Incidentally, you have probably heard of Harry Potter and the Invincible TechnoMage? It's a Harry Potter/Marvel crossover where Harry was raised by Tony Stark before coming to Hogwarts.

It has its moments, but it fails for the reason that most cross-overs fail: when you have two contradictory universes colliding, one of them must yield, and in the aforementioned story, naturally it's the wizarding world that ends up looking lame and silly. (How impressive can Voldemort be in a world where you have mutants, aliens, and gods running around?)

[fpb]

I stopped at the third chapter of that. I hated the notion that Tony Stark, of all people - Stark the lush, the weapons maker, the playboy - should be dictating morality to Albus Dumbledore, and I could think of about twenty ways that Dumbledore could have made him regret his arrogance on the spot. In fact, I have an unfinished ficlet in mind where Snape goes and gives Stark the lesson which, in Technomage, Stark obviously so badly needs.

I do admit that I have tended to increase the powers of wizards in line with superhero universes. In my The First Nymphadora, the central duel is definitely a superhero clash with the heroine and Voldemort ripping the landscape apart and calling on cosmic fires. But I do think that JKR has left space for this sort of thing; the duel between AD and Voldemort in the Ministry is no joke, either.

[eliskimo]

Thanks. I occasionally indulge in RPGs and a couple years ago was playing in "Heros" system "Golden Age" (1930s through WWII) campaign as "Amazing Girl" the world's most powerful "psychokentic" (the term "telekinetic" being out of period). Our GM eventually had us (the "Justice Brigade") up against magic users. It was fun imagining the reaction of superheros who don't consider their abilities magical encountering those who consider their (similar) abilities completely magical.

Incredibly cool.

[anonymous]

Darn well-written, too. I *like* this Captain.

Re: Incredibly cool.

[fpb]

What may surprise you is that Cap was my favourite superhero since I was a child in Italy and had almost no English. It may have to do with the fact that I got to know him through the unforgettable Lee-Kirby incarnation, with the most bizarre machinery and villains imaginable - at a time when one had a real sense of new worlds opening.

[soonest_mended]

I... absolutely did not expect this. And what's more, I absolutely love it.

My exposure to comics in general is quite limited, but you'd have to grow up under at least five rocks not to recognize Captain America when you see him. Or, possibly, in Wizarding Britain.

(This raises fascinating questions in my mind about American wizarding attitudes toward superheroes. In a real life/Heroes crossover fanfiction I once read, the world-hopping Sylar remarked that our world had an almost ridiculous proliferation of media and literature; everyone read different books, watched numerous TV shows, and was constantly inundated with advertising. The "real" character replied that the Heroes universe was more or less created by the imaginations of people who hadn't bothered to put in a vast body of literature, a wide variety of media, or any more advertising than they were being paid for. This idea has stuck in my head like a rock in my shoe.)