Avengers Academy- Hazmat and Mettle
May. 7th, 2012 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishSo the relationship of Hazmat and Mettle is kind of fascinating to me. Let's go through why.
Ken Mack is a half Jewish POC* Hawaiian surfer who, we are informed, is a big damn guy, but incredibly sweet-tempered. Deeply relaxed and totally laid-back in a nearly laughable Hawaiian sort of way, but too earnest in it to be laughed at and too big to tempt him anyway, Ken's sixteen when he gets smacked in the face by a rogue surfboard and wakes up to have the skin of his face falling off in chunks to reveal a red metal iridium skull underneath. He looks like a red metallic skull with eyeballs, and for a while he stays that way.
Not too long, though, because this backstory is all taking place in the age of superhero registration and Normon Osborn's HAMMER. Osborn find Mack, picks him up, and Ken, desperate to get back to normal, goes with him. Osborn, instead of searching for a way to get Ken back to normal and grow back his face, pushes this defensive ability to its max by the simple tactic of hurting Ken over and over and over until his body sloughs off all its normal skin and replaces it with the same iridium body. It's not just a skin- it's a bone deep transformation of his body that leaves Ken a solid chunk of iridium, totally numb to the outside work, invulnerable and stuck with an expressionless skull for a face. He doesn't have to breathe, and can withstand incredibly physical punishment and radiation without pain or damage. (Plot point!)
Needless to say, Ken's famous chill takes a beating, but he remains remarkably well-grounded for a sixteen year old who's been tortured and had most of his chances for normal relationship and private life destroyed. He tries to stay laid-back, but it's a tough slog to ignore the fact that your face makes children scream. He's a bit uncertain, incredibly sweet, and the fact that he's now incapable of seeming nonthreatening makes him a bit desperate. He's highly sensitive to the feelings of others, quite modest, and still generally forgiving of other people's poor reactions to first meeting him, but there's an edge of desperation to his interactions now. He could easily end up cut off from the rest of the world, and while he's got a good sense of what's right, he's also easy to manipulate and a bit predictable.
I want to stress the fact that, among the kind of people who are used to the idea of a human being who's made of living metal, people generally consider Ken AKA Mettle to be sweet, thoughtful, and a viable boyfriend, despite the fact he has no lips at all. He can't get beyond his own face some days, and has major insecurity about his new appearance, and yet all indications point to him eventually being perfectly accepted and well-liked in the superhero community. However, Ken's caught up on the idea that someday, he'll be cured and be able to return to a normal life. As time passes, and he gains more connections in the Avengers, he seems to accept more and more his situation as a superhuman, and adjusts to be more happy.
Jenny Takeda starts her life out as wealthy, popular, and successful. Her parents (Japanese-American dad, White mom) are well-off, she's got a scholarship coming to her (for college, I believe) and she's got a long time boyfriend, with whom she's just about to start a sexual relationship. Her first! When she talks about her old life, she talks about the surrounding more than about herself. She's seemingly very concerned with being a success, not just being normal.
She's already a bit cynical- she describes her relationship with Greg her boyfriend as "I don't know if we were in love, but as close as you can get at sixteen in the twenty-first century." Clearly, she's analyzing things as part of her main mode of thinking pretty much all the time. She pays attention to her surroundings and connections a *lot*, and the irony comes up a lot when she talks about the stuff that she's lost to the onset of her powers.
She's lost a lot. Her powers make her physically toxic on several levels, to the point where she's both radioactive and her bodily fluids can kills a lab rat. "All-American girl one day, walking WMD the next." As a result, she was desperate for Norman Osborn to fix her, so that she could go back home without hurting her parents. But. She doesn't get it. Osborn increases her toxicity, making her more powerfully dangerous but without giving her better control. As a result, she is now so toxic that she must wear a containment suit for the safety of everyone around her.
She has adapted pretty badly, actually. She's incredibly unhappy being stuck in the suit, and while she's probably away that her anger is based around her situation, that doesn't stop her from lashing out at the people around her. She's angry and sarcastic to most people, prone to reacting without thinking, and makes it clear that she's stuck the way she is temporarily. She conceals some of her powers from her teachers, and pushes other students into risky and violent behavior that, if she stopped to think about it, she would had rejected in her previous life. She's lost a lot, and she wants it back, so every day she doesn't have it makes her miserable.
Needless to say, she's not adapting well.
When we first see them in Avengers Academy #1, Jenny lashes out verbally at Ken about his face, and he defends himself by saying it's only temporary. They are immediately linked in our minds by this fact- they are both biding their time until they find a cure for their conditions. They are both cut off from the world and have lost a lot. They fight a good deal, because Ken is still more naive and trusting while Jenny tends to drag him into things that he later regrets. They are linked by their desires to push for more research into their physical conditions, but divided about how to do that.
At first, they're part of a trio: another student, Maddy Berry, AKA Veil, has the power to take a gaseous form that has been pushed by Osborn's experimentation to the point where she's slowly losing molecular cohesion. There's one issue where the similarities between Jenny and Maddy are drawn out by showing how their morning routine (Maddy has to check her molecular cohesion, Jenny has to put on her suit) remind them both that they are stuck in situations they hate, with bodies they can no longer trust.
Things change for Maddy during a plotline where the Avengers in training have to confront a godlike opponent they can't hope to beat. To increase their fire power, an ally pushes each of them into the body of a future self, who has more physical power and an instinctively better grasp on their powers. Maddy finds herself in the body she can expect ten years down the line: she's a ghost who literally passes through the world. Jenny is still trapped in her suit. Ken is bigger, buffer, but still a metal chunk with a skull for a face.
During the story, Maddy manages to save herself by phasing in to the god-ish villain's body and using her powers to shift her molecular structure to stop her slow disintigration. She's much more confident in herself, and has a much longer life to look forward to at the end of the story.
The same story ends with Ken and Jenny alone on a couch together, mourning the fact that the cures they've been holding out for will never come. She's stuck in the suit. He's stuck as a monster. Ken's savvy enough to realize that they're stuck together, so he reaches out to Jenny while she continues to snark and snipe at him, but he can see through that to how hurt and scared she is.
Shortly after this, they start dating.
Why I like them:
As a couple, they are one of those comic book pairings that make sense in terms of complementary powers: she can't touch anyone! Except for him! He's got a face that scares children! But she's desperate enough to take him anyways!
Except, of course, that this is an *incredibly fucked up* basis for a relationship. The whole thing just reeks of despair and making-do. It could easily set itself to be really, really self-destructive, where neither of them actually really like each other but can't find anyone else so they just soldier on, hurting each other and getting more and more unhappy.
It also contains the seeds of its own destruction, because while Jenny, as Hazmat, really does have some incredibly limited choices in terms of sexual partners, Ken does not. Ken's face is a bit offputting, but once you get to know him, he's an utter sweety and a good guy to the bone, and there's several instances of Ken's sweetness being quite attractive to other superhero-types. There's a troubling pattern: Ken, totally convinced that no-one could love him, starts talking to another girl and if she seems at all interested, Jenny swoops in to break things up and be rude to the girl. Ken goes along with her, because he thinks he has no choices and wanting to make sure that Jenny's not upset.
Jen's behavior is wrong. This could so easily become an abusive relationship, and I kind of love that the writers, instead of making the easy computation that "Complementary powers=true love!" recognize how incredibly hard and screwed up it can be to be in a relationship based out of desperation and co-dependency. Ken and Jenny fit together in terms of powers, but only on the surfaces. Because while Jenny can touch only Ken, Ken can touch *anyone* but he won't feel anything physically either way. His options are open, but there's no reason for him to seek out another girlfriend because he can't feel anything with them, either, and he can't think of himself as attractive since his powers transformed him. His loyalty to her is based out of desperation, and a character trait of liking someone else to be in charge. Her loyalty to him is based out of the physical limitations of her power.
The thing that saves this relationship from being really destructive is the way that Ken and Jenny relate to each in private, as people. Ken grounds Jenny a lot, making her less miserable and more thoughtful as she becomes less desperate. She also sincerely cares for him, and she's able to set aside her own issues to make sure he's being taken care of. When Ken quietly freaks out about killing a villain who's in a mechanized gun turret and questions what kind of person that violent acts makes him, Jenny seems to honestly not give a damn about the villains. She can't offer Ken the kind of comradely advice and support he needs, but she gets that he needs it and she pulls a friend in to provide that friendly shoulder when she knows that she can't do it. Later in the relationship, she's willing to break up with Ken in order to work for a villain, so long as the villain is willing to work for Ken's cure. While Ken is unsure of himself as a romantic partner to anyone else, he's not subservient to Jenny in their conversations. When she's wrong, he tells her, even if he's unsure at first and feels pressure to go along.
Over time, as they get more comfortable with their new powers and limitations, Ken and Jenny seem like they are becoming more settled, more of a solid team within a team, and more comfortable with each other. While it's a long haul, and they are both only sixteen, it seems like they might be in it to win it.
*EDIT: I edited Mettle's ethinic background to add the Person of Color note. In Avengers Academy #4, Mettle talks about his life and the illustrations show him as distinctly browner than his white Jewish mom, and with short dreads. His dad is shown in one image (off in the corner, in no detail at all) as being a brown/dark tan person with long dreaded hair. I read this as Black American, making Mettle one of many many characters of color whose race is invisible due to his superhuman powers. This is a problem, because he mostly looked like the Red Skull, who partied with Hitler and makes a point of calling some people less than human. The Black Jewish kid looks like the most prominent Nazi of the Marvel universe- FAIL or attempt at interesting character development?
Ken Mack is a half Jewish POC* Hawaiian surfer who, we are informed, is a big damn guy, but incredibly sweet-tempered. Deeply relaxed and totally laid-back in a nearly laughable Hawaiian sort of way, but too earnest in it to be laughed at and too big to tempt him anyway, Ken's sixteen when he gets smacked in the face by a rogue surfboard and wakes up to have the skin of his face falling off in chunks to reveal a red metal iridium skull underneath. He looks like a red metallic skull with eyeballs, and for a while he stays that way.
Not too long, though, because this backstory is all taking place in the age of superhero registration and Normon Osborn's HAMMER. Osborn find Mack, picks him up, and Ken, desperate to get back to normal, goes with him. Osborn, instead of searching for a way to get Ken back to normal and grow back his face, pushes this defensive ability to its max by the simple tactic of hurting Ken over and over and over until his body sloughs off all its normal skin and replaces it with the same iridium body. It's not just a skin- it's a bone deep transformation of his body that leaves Ken a solid chunk of iridium, totally numb to the outside work, invulnerable and stuck with an expressionless skull for a face. He doesn't have to breathe, and can withstand incredibly physical punishment and radiation without pain or damage. (Plot point!)
Needless to say, Ken's famous chill takes a beating, but he remains remarkably well-grounded for a sixteen year old who's been tortured and had most of his chances for normal relationship and private life destroyed. He tries to stay laid-back, but it's a tough slog to ignore the fact that your face makes children scream. He's a bit uncertain, incredibly sweet, and the fact that he's now incapable of seeming nonthreatening makes him a bit desperate. He's highly sensitive to the feelings of others, quite modest, and still generally forgiving of other people's poor reactions to first meeting him, but there's an edge of desperation to his interactions now. He could easily end up cut off from the rest of the world, and while he's got a good sense of what's right, he's also easy to manipulate and a bit predictable.
I want to stress the fact that, among the kind of people who are used to the idea of a human being who's made of living metal, people generally consider Ken AKA Mettle to be sweet, thoughtful, and a viable boyfriend, despite the fact he has no lips at all. He can't get beyond his own face some days, and has major insecurity about his new appearance, and yet all indications point to him eventually being perfectly accepted and well-liked in the superhero community. However, Ken's caught up on the idea that someday, he'll be cured and be able to return to a normal life. As time passes, and he gains more connections in the Avengers, he seems to accept more and more his situation as a superhuman, and adjusts to be more happy.
Jenny Takeda starts her life out as wealthy, popular, and successful. Her parents (Japanese-American dad, White mom) are well-off, she's got a scholarship coming to her (for college, I believe) and she's got a long time boyfriend, with whom she's just about to start a sexual relationship. Her first! When she talks about her old life, she talks about the surrounding more than about herself. She's seemingly very concerned with being a success, not just being normal.
She's already a bit cynical- she describes her relationship with Greg her boyfriend as "I don't know if we were in love, but as close as you can get at sixteen in the twenty-first century." Clearly, she's analyzing things as part of her main mode of thinking pretty much all the time. She pays attention to her surroundings and connections a *lot*, and the irony comes up a lot when she talks about the stuff that she's lost to the onset of her powers.
She's lost a lot. Her powers make her physically toxic on several levels, to the point where she's both radioactive and her bodily fluids can kills a lab rat. "All-American girl one day, walking WMD the next." As a result, she was desperate for Norman Osborn to fix her, so that she could go back home without hurting her parents. But. She doesn't get it. Osborn increases her toxicity, making her more powerfully dangerous but without giving her better control. As a result, she is now so toxic that she must wear a containment suit for the safety of everyone around her.
She has adapted pretty badly, actually. She's incredibly unhappy being stuck in the suit, and while she's probably away that her anger is based around her situation, that doesn't stop her from lashing out at the people around her. She's angry and sarcastic to most people, prone to reacting without thinking, and makes it clear that she's stuck the way she is temporarily. She conceals some of her powers from her teachers, and pushes other students into risky and violent behavior that, if she stopped to think about it, she would had rejected in her previous life. She's lost a lot, and she wants it back, so every day she doesn't have it makes her miserable.
Needless to say, she's not adapting well.
When we first see them in Avengers Academy #1, Jenny lashes out verbally at Ken about his face, and he defends himself by saying it's only temporary. They are immediately linked in our minds by this fact- they are both biding their time until they find a cure for their conditions. They are both cut off from the world and have lost a lot. They fight a good deal, because Ken is still more naive and trusting while Jenny tends to drag him into things that he later regrets. They are linked by their desires to push for more research into their physical conditions, but divided about how to do that.
At first, they're part of a trio: another student, Maddy Berry, AKA Veil, has the power to take a gaseous form that has been pushed by Osborn's experimentation to the point where she's slowly losing molecular cohesion. There's one issue where the similarities between Jenny and Maddy are drawn out by showing how their morning routine (Maddy has to check her molecular cohesion, Jenny has to put on her suit) remind them both that they are stuck in situations they hate, with bodies they can no longer trust.
Things change for Maddy during a plotline where the Avengers in training have to confront a godlike opponent they can't hope to beat. To increase their fire power, an ally pushes each of them into the body of a future self, who has more physical power and an instinctively better grasp on their powers. Maddy finds herself in the body she can expect ten years down the line: she's a ghost who literally passes through the world. Jenny is still trapped in her suit. Ken is bigger, buffer, but still a metal chunk with a skull for a face.
During the story, Maddy manages to save herself by phasing in to the god-ish villain's body and using her powers to shift her molecular structure to stop her slow disintigration. She's much more confident in herself, and has a much longer life to look forward to at the end of the story.
The same story ends with Ken and Jenny alone on a couch together, mourning the fact that the cures they've been holding out for will never come. She's stuck in the suit. He's stuck as a monster. Ken's savvy enough to realize that they're stuck together, so he reaches out to Jenny while she continues to snark and snipe at him, but he can see through that to how hurt and scared she is.
Shortly after this, they start dating.
Why I like them:
As a couple, they are one of those comic book pairings that make sense in terms of complementary powers: she can't touch anyone! Except for him! He's got a face that scares children! But she's desperate enough to take him anyways!
Except, of course, that this is an *incredibly fucked up* basis for a relationship. The whole thing just reeks of despair and making-do. It could easily set itself to be really, really self-destructive, where neither of them actually really like each other but can't find anyone else so they just soldier on, hurting each other and getting more and more unhappy.
It also contains the seeds of its own destruction, because while Jenny, as Hazmat, really does have some incredibly limited choices in terms of sexual partners, Ken does not. Ken's face is a bit offputting, but once you get to know him, he's an utter sweety and a good guy to the bone, and there's several instances of Ken's sweetness being quite attractive to other superhero-types. There's a troubling pattern: Ken, totally convinced that no-one could love him, starts talking to another girl and if she seems at all interested, Jenny swoops in to break things up and be rude to the girl. Ken goes along with her, because he thinks he has no choices and wanting to make sure that Jenny's not upset.
Jen's behavior is wrong. This could so easily become an abusive relationship, and I kind of love that the writers, instead of making the easy computation that "Complementary powers=true love!" recognize how incredibly hard and screwed up it can be to be in a relationship based out of desperation and co-dependency. Ken and Jenny fit together in terms of powers, but only on the surfaces. Because while Jenny can touch only Ken, Ken can touch *anyone* but he won't feel anything physically either way. His options are open, but there's no reason for him to seek out another girlfriend because he can't feel anything with them, either, and he can't think of himself as attractive since his powers transformed him. His loyalty to her is based out of desperation, and a character trait of liking someone else to be in charge. Her loyalty to him is based out of the physical limitations of her power.
The thing that saves this relationship from being really destructive is the way that Ken and Jenny relate to each in private, as people. Ken grounds Jenny a lot, making her less miserable and more thoughtful as she becomes less desperate. She also sincerely cares for him, and she's able to set aside her own issues to make sure he's being taken care of. When Ken quietly freaks out about killing a villain who's in a mechanized gun turret and questions what kind of person that violent acts makes him, Jenny seems to honestly not give a damn about the villains. She can't offer Ken the kind of comradely advice and support he needs, but she gets that he needs it and she pulls a friend in to provide that friendly shoulder when she knows that she can't do it. Later in the relationship, she's willing to break up with Ken in order to work for a villain, so long as the villain is willing to work for Ken's cure. While Ken is unsure of himself as a romantic partner to anyone else, he's not subservient to Jenny in their conversations. When she's wrong, he tells her, even if he's unsure at first and feels pressure to go along.
Over time, as they get more comfortable with their new powers and limitations, Ken and Jenny seem like they are becoming more settled, more of a solid team within a team, and more comfortable with each other. While it's a long haul, and they are both only sixteen, it seems like they might be in it to win it.
*EDIT: I edited Mettle's ethinic background to add the Person of Color note. In Avengers Academy #4, Mettle talks about his life and the illustrations show him as distinctly browner than his white Jewish mom, and with short dreads. His dad is shown in one image (off in the corner, in no detail at all) as being a brown/dark tan person with long dreaded hair. I read this as Black American, making Mettle one of many many characters of color whose race is invisible due to his superhuman powers. This is a problem, because he mostly looked like the Red Skull, who partied with Hitler and makes a point of calling some people less than human. The Black Jewish kid looks like the most prominent Nazi of the Marvel universe- FAIL or attempt at interesting character development?
