sholio | Okay, I have more to say about Age of Ultron

Crossposts: http://sholio.livejournal.com/645748.html

Entry tags:

Okay, I have more to say about Age of Ultron

There are two things I wanted to talk about in more depth, one thing I liked and one I did not.

Things I liked: Wanda!

It took me a little while to warm up to her, but by the end, Wanda was one of my very favorite things about the movie, possibly my single most favorite thing, and I was so shocked by that! I went into the movie feeling very uncomfortable and weird about the movie aging her down to barely-out-of-her-teens, and making her the victim of skeevy experiments to boot. It just felt kind of icky and awful. And she wasn't even a character I was particularly attached to in the comics, so basically I went in without much interest in her, and expecting to feel uncomfortable with a lot of what the movie did with her.

But Wanda in the movie was SO GREAT! I loved that ultimately, her arc was so central, and she got so much agency in it. It's all about HER choices and what SHE wants. She starts off letting her hatred of the Starks rule her, and kicks Tony off onto his creation-of-Ultron path because of it. She and Pietro get to have revenge on Strucker for torturing them (off camera, but still). And then she's the one who recognizes what Ultron really is, and has a change of heart, and goes to stop Tony and then ends up reluctantly working with him. (On the same side, at least.)

Then during the battle, she ends up getting overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what they're up against, when Clint finds her hiding and offers her an "out", and then she makes that choice to be an Avenger, and gets her wonderful hero's entrance with the dramatic mood wind, flinging Ultrons left and right. And at the end, she loses the thing that's most important to her, and she's prepared to go down with the ship, but the Avengers won't let her. It almost breaks her, but not quite, and somehow she gets back up and she's ultimately part of the new team, moving forward with the new SHIELD.

I wish we'd gotten to see more of her at the end of the movie, after Pietro's death. But the movie gave her really excellent, solid characterization, and set her up beautifully for exactly the kind of "rising from the ashes" character story that I adore.

Like I said in my last post, I want all the Wanda fic now. ALL THE WANDA FIC. Because there is so, so much story to tell with her! She's only ever been a weapon, and she's only ever been close to one person, and now she has to learn to live without that person and to be something more than a weapon.

And I want ALL the fic about Natasha helping Wanda because she's been there herself, and Wanda making friends with the Avengers and learning how to be part of a team, and Wanda taking college classes to try to figure out if maybe being an Avenger is just a stop along the way instead of her end goal, and Wanda and Vision figuring out how to person together, and Wanda bonding with Bucky over their shared background as Hydra experiments, and Wanda and Tony learning how to be proper allies. Wanda fic! Wanda vids! Pretty much just ALL THE WANDA FOREVER. (Also a Scarlet Witch movie, plz. MARVEL, HERE IS MY MONEY.)

Things I did not like: the Natasha/Bruce storyline.

Which I only disliked mildly while I was watching the movie (aside from a moment or two of pure knee-jerk DO NOT WANT during the scene in which they talk about having babies) but the more I think about it, the more my hatred for it grows. Like I said in a comment to the last post, really the only things I liked about Natasha in the movie were the Natasha + Clint stuff (which nailed my Natasha-Clint headcanon dead on) and the little bits of Natasha + Steve we got. And that's so frustrating! I love Natasha, in both the MCU and the comicverse. But her storyline with Bruce ended up being all the worst things that a canon romance can be. It felt terribly shoehorned in, flat, and graceless. Even her final scene with Fury is about Nat and Bruce, not about Nat and Fury, who really need some closure on their relationship but ended up not really getting it BECAUSE BRUCE. And it ended up sticking Nat into a stereotypical female role -- she's literally the person who is responsible for calming his rage, and she's suddenly out of nowhere torn up about not having kids ... and the thing is, THIS COULD ALL WORK, for a different character or with some graceful tweaks to Nat's existing characterization, but the way it came across in the movie, for me anyway, was just a general pile of awful and DNW.

It's sort of like ... I can see how, with different writing, it could have worked? Like, maybe Nat has worked through enough of her childhood trauma, thanks to her friendship with the Avengers and slowly stabilizing self-concept, to the point where suddenly she's getting hit with a whole new set of trauma, previously obscured by the rest of it, wherein she's realized that she wants all the things she was denied (children, a family, a stable life). But we never got the setup for that. Or maybe getting into her first serious relationship since changing sides has made her want things she never wanted before. But she and Bruce aren't even really a couple yet!

Not to mention the sheer ick of having the Red Room's "graduation ceremony", the thing that all the girls' training is pointed towards, being ... taking away their ability to reproduce. Not that forced sterilization isn't awful, because it is! But there's just something about the way the movie made it central to the Red Room, and to Natasha's memories of the Red Room, that I absolutely hated. I generally dislike plotlines that center around reproductive horror, and while the existence of Red Room-related reproductive horror is entirely in keeping with both the comics and the whole Red Room concept, the sudden central-ness of it is not.

And aside from all of THAT, I am still deeply, deeply frustrated about the scene between Natasha and Bruce in the Bartons' home. Spun in a slightly different way, it could have genuinely hit the notes of poignancy and healing that it was apparently going for. A lot of the emotional notes from that scene are the exact ones that Steve and Tony's final scene at the end is actually hitting, with Steve talking about how he is no longer really the person who wants stability and family. And yet, it was such an amazingly tone-deaf scene. What possible reason has Natasha EVER given Bruce to think that she cares about having babies except that she's female? For a different female character, that's entirely something that might be a central issue with the relationship. But nothing in Natasha's past characterization even hints at it. And, speaking as a woman who worked through a lot of ~feelings~ about infertility and never being able to have kids, I can't quite do justice to the gut-punch of Natasha's "We're both monsters" to Bruce. Her later dialogue softens the blow a bit, talking about her fear that she'll never be more than what the Red Room made her -- because that, that is the Natasha we've been given in previous movies. These are concerns she has! But the whole scene just came across so, so ... aargh. It's like MCU!Natasha, as established, has been replaced by a pod person whose life suddenly revolves around relationships and kids. The thing is, you could put her into situations where those things come up for her, or gently lead her there with subtlety and restraint, but this had all the subtlety of Thor's hammer to the face.

Aargh.

On the bright side, the movie did nothing irredeemable to destroy Nat for me, and since the relationship never really got off the ground and they're separated at the end, it can easily be handwaved or ignored if future writers don't want to deal with it. Which I rather hope they don't, at least if they can't do it in a way I'm more comfortable with.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One thing that bothers me about the Red Room sterilisation theory is that they most likely did a tubal ligation (anything more than that and you risk issues like early menopause, even if you leave the ovaries in place) and there is no reason why someone with tubal ligation can't have children, with a bit of help from reproductive medicine to collect eggs. I mean, I can understand if Natasha didn't want to go near doctors, but there's so many options even for her to have biological children if that's a thing that was relevant to her.

I imagine they may have also done uterine ablation to minimize the potential time out of the field with menstruation.

ha, crosspost. :D Yeah, I think this makes sense as a secondary step, and would make it impossible for her to carry pregnancies. (Not that there aren't still OTHER options, like surrogacy or adoption.)

HA! Okay, that deeply amuses me. Of all the things to crosspost.

Ha, I know. XD But yeah, I hadn't thought about the menstruation thing. It makes sense that if they're creating femme fatales and mucking around in there anyway, they may as well make them that little bit more effective at the job ...

I just had a another moment of "of all the things!" (not cross post, but me saying something to a friend on Facebook just as he was saying the same thing to his wife). It's apparently the night for it. (I had said in his comments that I want to watch My Dinner with Ultron starring Bettany and Spader.)

I will say as one with a hormonal IUD, that whole not bleeding thing has been very convenient, and I can't imagine the Red Room wouldn't want to eliminate all that messy cramping and bleeding.

I agree.

An agent who bleeds randomly is an agent who is just that much more likely to leave a DNA sample at the scene. This is Not Good, if you're in the business of creating infiltrator/stealth agents.

If I were going to add YET MORE furymaking things about that scene, it's the fact that no one seems to recognize reproductive technology or adoption are a thing. >_> I mean, jeez, if they want kids, they can have kids! There are ways! (Not feeling fit to be parents is a whole other issue, and frankly more appropriate for both of them, but it was framed more as NO BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN EVAH.)

... that said, there are some other options for what they did to Natasha. They might have done an endometrial ablation on her, for example, in addition to a tubal ligation -- that is, burned off the uterine lining. (I know about the existence of this as a thing because it was suggested to me as a solution for my particular problem -- I have recurring issues with heavy bleeding, and if we weren't able to control it hormonally, which so far we have been, endometrial ablation was the next suggested step, being less invasive and less likely to cause menopause than a total hysterectomy. Ectopic pregnancies are still a risk, however.)

I guess it's not out of the question that she might have actually had a hysterectomy, or even had EVERYTHING removed. I'm not actually sure if the health issues would be that bad? Hysterectomy is a thing that women have done, after all -- and it's not like the Red Room is that concerned about the long-term health of their graduates. (Though it seems like a ridiculously huge step when a much simpler tubal ligation would do it.)

/is probably overthinking this

Yes, that's possible - though I had endometrial ablation for heavy bleeding and it lasted a whole four months (thanks PCOS)!

The problem with a hysterectomy, even if the ovaries are left in, is that it speeds up menopause (and if they remove the ovaries it's immediate menopause), and the way they were training Natasha it sounds like there was a lot of sexpionage involved - they're going to want to keep their agents looking young as long as possible. And that amount of training looks like they're planning to have them operative for more than a few years.

/is also probably overthinking this

Ah! Sorry to be all Explainy McInfodump about something you've actually had done. (Also - four months! augh.)

Serious question here: how much of an effect would early menopause have? My general impression, I guess, is that the effects would be fairly subtle -- bone loss, for example, which would suck for someone in an active physical occupation but wouldn't start showing up for awhile. Would it actually be more dramatic than that? I guess I'm wondering whather it would be that obvious if Natasha actually did have a hysterectomy or complete ovarian removal. (Not that I'm trying to argue. Just genuinely curious!)

Not Explainy McInfodump! It's good to know what info everyone has.

If she had a complete hysterectomy including ovaries, yes, it should be fairly obvious to a close observer within a few years - skin elasticity, breast shape/firmness and texture/thickness are affected, as well as muscle strength and bone strength. It also means a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. Menopause symptoms start immediately. I just can't see the Red Room doing this when they've trained them so thoroughly.

If she still has ovaries, the effect is usually much slower, more like a normal menopause, but she has a 50% chance of undergoing menopause (chemically defined, not by the usual "no periods in a year" of course) within four years and an 90% chance within 10 years. 8% of women undergo menopause immediately even with one or both ovaries left intact. A small percentage go through menopause and then their ovaries spontaneously start working again for no apparent reason. So she could have had this procedure and not had menopause, but again I think the odds of the Red Room doing this as a standard procedure are fairly low.

And do I think the movie writers thought about this for more than two seconds? Nope!

I admit, I lean toward "hysterectomy, ovaries left in place" as being much more effective (tubals sometimes undo themselves; agents could conceivably bribe or otherwise achieve reversal surgery on the sly; and from what I've read ablation often doesn't completely/permanently eliminate menstruation). My own take on it would involve removing the uterus and implanting a device to bolster oestrogen levels - this being, after all, a universe where fully-functional biomechanical arms exist, and therefore a subdermal slow-release sex-hormone supply would be a piece of cake, technically speaking.

I've seen plenty of fics and meta based on the "scan" image of Bucky which suggest that Bucky has similar implants, generally containing adrenaline and/or incapacitating drugs; why can't the Red Room adapt that to keep their sexpionage agents looking young and sexy? (We pretty much have these now, as birth-control implants! So why can't the Red Room have a more advanced version and have it much earlier? The MCU clearly has a technological development timescale that differs significantly from our universe, so it works for me.)

Or, if we're going with the comics-canon where the Widows have had some serum-esque enhancements, then that's enough handwavium for me. If Steve can freeze solid without suffering cellular destruction and Bucky can fall of a thousand-foot cliff without dying, Natasha can lose a uterus without hitting menopause.

And do I think the movie writers thought about this for more than two seconds? Nope!

Heh, yes, this is ultimately my suspicion, too! :D
Ultimately,

Oooh, I love the idea of a hysterectomy plus some sort of implant! That seems very superhero-universe-ish. :D And you're right that it fits very well with some of the fannish speculation about Bucky's arm. (Or, heck, a version of our world that has the tech to make Bucky's arm in the first place, not to mention the Quinjet and the other cool gadgetry they have, would certainly be able to make something like that!)

Thanks! It seems to me to jibe pretty well with the dual needs of the Red Room, i.e. a form of sterility that can't be easily bypassed (given the tech level in the universe) and the need to avoid potential medical consequences other than sterility.

For that matter, there's every likelihood that the Widows have the same kinds of implants that fans have speculated about Bucky, e.g. adrenaline/endorphin bursts, and/or "emergency shutdown" drugs/kill switches, and/or tracking devices, in addition to a basic hormone delivery system; clearly Hydra and the Red Room have some overlap, given the way the Winter Soldier is associated with both, so why not assume their technological researchers are sharing useful tips? :D They have similar levels of time and training invested in them, so it makes perfect sense to me that their owners wouldn't shy from amplifying them in every possible way... and guaranteeing their compliance.

Yes, once you get MCU biotech into the equation you could have anything...but conversely, also lots more ways to address infertility. In the comics the version of the Super Soldier serum they gave to Natasha directly caused her infertility but she doesn't seem to be particularly bothered about it in particular, only as part of her whole Red Room background.

conversely, also lots more ways to address infertility.

That's actually one more reason I lean toward a hysterectomy being more likely. If the Red Room feels so strongly (in this canon) that infertility is key for their operatives that they deliberately induce it, I'd expect them to take a draconian approach to it - no matter how advanced the tech a Widow can bribe or steal or con her way into acquiring, it's going to be a lot harder to replace an organ on the sly (involving major abdominal surgery) than to undo a relatively minor amount of damage to part of an organ (as with a tubal).

An external piece of tech, along the lines of the uterine replicator in the Vorkosigan series, would probably be the easiest solution for a Widow in that case; I'm sure there are plenty of shady supervillain-esque organisations willing to create an embryo from your stem cell/ovary/DNA sample for the right price, and then you just have to hide the replicator somewhere innocuous for nine months. I don't think such a thing has ever come up, though, even in the comics? I'm not super-familiar with them, but nobody has even mentioned it in all the discussions lately.

the comics the version of the Super Soldier serum they gave to Natasha directly caused her infertility

I really prefer this explanation! It's so much more interesting to me if the serum itself resulted in infertility (and Natasha isn't much fussed), not least because it gives me lots of delicious fic ideas about Steve's possible infertility... But then, I also totally dig the suggestion I saw in a meta discussion about 1940s eugenics notions: that sterilisation was included as a part of the 'deal' that resulted in Steve receiving the serum! Because I have a whole lot of complicated feelings about infertility and voluntary sterility and "voluntary" sterility and societal notions of what people are supposed to want and value. It's like catnip to me, but it's so rarely explored in fic beyond the most shallow and typical approaches, alas.

Ooh, I really like the idea of Cap being sterile either as a result of the serum or as part of 1940s eugenic notions! In the comics, the serum was first tested on African American soldiers, most of whom died, but the survivor, Isaiah Bradley, had one non-super-powered daughter conceived before the experiments and a super-powered son born afterwards (by scientists in a lab via a surrogate, but Josiah was genetically Isaiah and Faith's child). He also passed on super-powers to his grandson Eli with a blood transfusion. With the creation and monitoring of Josiah the military was obviously interested in what the serum passed on, so I can see them being very careful with Steve.

Me, too! I figure Erskine would've had a keen idea whether the serum would affect future progeny or not; if not, there'd be good reason to prevent Steve from breeding and passing on his 'inferior' unhealthy genes. Offering him the serum on the condition that Steve also agrees to be sterilised would make lots of sense. (Because it you fix all his defects, ladies are going to be inclined to make babies with him! Can't let natural selection be screwed over that way!)

Or, if it's a consequence of the serum rather than deliberately engineered, I love the layers and layers that adds to the story, because it's the Super Soldier Serum; what does that say about the concept of "soldier", in the Watsonian and in the Doylist perspective?

I love the idea of "what if the subject had children before being enhanced", but am not so much a fan of the idea that a blood transfusion can pass on the serum! If that were the case, surely there would be a lot more supersoldiers running around, given how much blood they appear to have drawn from Steve in Agent Carter. Not to mention - how often does Steve get captured? And Hydra had Bucky for decades, and yet never drew blood from him? You could argue that maaaaybe the SSR was too squeamish to draw transfusion-quantity samples from Steve, but Hydra wouldn't have had any such qualms, especially not when they could draw it over a period of time that wouldn't endanger the subject. It just doesn't hold up for me. :P

The blood transfusion was explained in the comic as Eli already having the genes and the serum activating them, not as the powers transferring wholesale, so it's not carte blanche to make more soldiers! Though Howard Stark obviously had the idea himself with his sample of Steve's blood in Agent Carter...

I thought of that, but... still! Hydra could've helped themselves to Bucky's relatives, who'd have similar genes; some nobody middle-class New Yorker vanishing wouldn't be hard to pull off for an organisation like that! Or - going back to the "biotech in this universe is far more advanced" thing - they could try cloning, which seems a really obvious approach to me as a science-type! (Broad hypotheses are narrowed down gradually. Zola was disappointed that only one test subject survived the process, so the next logical step would be to see whether that was a fluke, or a specific quality of that subject.)

...I may have basically prompted that on a kinkmeme, once upon a time. :D

Thank you for the info! Most appreciated - I knew there would be effects, but didn't know most of this. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, I have more to say about Age of Ultron

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject