Discussion Question Wednesday! #4: Crossovers and the Marvel Multiverse

[salmastryon.livejournal.com]

It is time for another...
Discussion Question Wednesday!
This time we will be talking about crossovers. For the purposes of this discussion, a crossover is when characters from another fandom come into the Marvel universe or the Avengers crossover into another fandom's universe. Crossovers by themselves are interesting enough in most fandoms, but Marvel has a canon multiverse that can be played with as well.


Most members of this com are probably already familiar with the concept of the Marvel multiverse, but I'll give a simple overview for those that want a reminder. Each of Marvel's various titles, shows and movies belong to various different continuities. Marvel has established that all of these realities are different universes that exist and they've got numbers. The original main continuity is Earth-616. Don't ask me why Reed gave it that number, but he did. Other notable continuities used in fan fiction are Earth-1610 (Ultimates), Earth-199999 (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Earth-3490 (fem!Tony and Steve are married), Earth-8096 (EMH), Earth-20051 (Marvel Adventures) and Earth-904913 (Iron Man: Armored Adventures.) Avengers Assembled doesn't have an official number yet.

So let's hear what you think about crossovers. Whether it be fics, art, meta or canon events, what do you like and why? Do you think that Steve and Gandalf need to meet; perhaps MCU!Steve needs to run into Natasha Stark and be jealous of his alter ego; or Tony once traveled with the Doctor?

Panel from Ultimate Comics: Ultimates(2013) #30

Comments

[laireshi]

I love the multiverse and all the possibilities it offers. I love all the crossover fics with many Tonys meeting. I especially love the possibility of 616 Tony meeting constantly drunk Ults Tony. And the "oh fuck alt!me is married to alt!Steve" scenarios.

Tony definitely travelled with the Doctor and flirted with the Tardis.

[salmastryon.livejournal.com]

Which Doctor?

[laireshi]

Ahh, focusing on what's important. Can I just say Ten, because he's my fave?

[salmastryon.livejournal.com]

hmm... that seems a bit of an easy answer though.

[laireshi]

I'm waiting for Mem to see this and write something clever, but . . .

Ten makes sense. He would see Tony struggling to make the world a better place and he would see him thinking he's failing, and still hoping what he does will count for the better, eventually. Maybe they would meet in space, Tony searching for a solution to incursions, and the Doctor knowing he'll find it, and he'll pay a price for it. So he'd take him for a trip and show him the future. The future that is built on Tony's inventions, even if it will have moved far ahead. And it will give him hope in his darkest hours.

(I'm also tempted to say Delgado Master kidnaps him for reasons, and then Tony sees his hopeless courtship of the Doctor and does not think of Steve.)

[dragonofmemory]

Eh. Ten would be entertaining, but come on. Think of the fun Tony would have trying to figure out if Reed jumped him to the 70's or 80's (he never did figure out which decade, which is really weird considering how different they are), annoying the Brigadier, befriending Benton, hitting on Liz/Jo (Liz would be extremely unimpressed with him, Jo would just pat him on the head and think he's adorable), trying to reverse engineer Bessie (because she's a car with character, and she's absolutely gorgeous, and he swears to the god of temporally lost mechanics he'll only try to reverse engineer half the stuff, but that car is a thing of beauty), and then there's Three. Three who reverses tells Tony to reverse the polarity, and Tony's all like, hey, I use that joke too. And then he finds out Three is being serious and tells him no, there's not even a polarity to reverse here.

Then Three does it anyway and Tony ends up both emotionally scarred because the laws of physics shouldn't work like that and in complete awe because fuck, that was cool. Then he proceeds to pester the Doctor until Three huffs and decides to take him home. Only the TARDIS actually likes Tony, because he coos over how beautiful her circuits are, and she detours all over the place. So Tony explores all time and space and has a blast.

Until the Brigadier calls them back (because she loves the Brigadier the best, second only to her thief), and they find a very annoyed looking Steve waiting for them. Jo has dressed him in bell-bottoms so he'd fit in more, and Tony nearly fell over laughing at the shirt. He was not pleased. But they save the world from the Nestine (again), and Steve drags Tony home.

He totally looks up Jo and Liz to hit on them again when he gets back. Because they only got lovelier with age.

Also, I kind of want Tony with Sarah Jane too. Because think of the epic snark fest they could have. Sarah would have none of his flirting and he would just fall head over heels for her, and he'd give her exclusive interviews when he gets back and invites her to all the press events he does while he coos over K-9.

There. My response. You have it. XD

[karadin.livejournal.com]

The trick of crossovers is knowing both universes well, but also taking the main characters from each universe and giving them a reason to interact, bringing out the traits of both characters, I've read crossover fics where one verse is simply a backdrop, with beloved characters just being what amounts to cameos, and that's not very satisfying! I think also that the characters have to change somehow, with the interaction, or else why bother?

[dragonofmemory]

I'm the same. I think that's why I dislike a lot of fusions, because those tend to pick and choose at what they want, rather than using all the rules. Both universes have to blend for me, or it's just not as satisfying. That's generally how I approach crossovers, at least. I haven't written many (though I do a heck of a lot of cross-era stuff in Who, which is basically the same thing at times), but they're interesting. Crossing the Multi-verse in Marvel is fun too. XD I just dabbled in a bit of that and had a blast.

[magicasen.livejournal.com]

I love how Steve and Tony are so integral to Marvel that their relationship is integral to almost every verse they both share. It's definitely a narrative kink for me.

616 is my default, so my favorite is definitely seeing multiverse crossovers involving it and highlighting the contrasts between them.
MCU: the relatively new kids on the block who don't have that history or that sense of team or even identity as a "superhero" quite yet.
MA:A: fluffier, happier, safer and a bit more innocent.
Ults: Uh, ahaha...a grimmer, snarkier world that also doesn't quite have the same sense of "team" as 616 Avengers do.
And, of course 3490 for the WTF we're married stuff :D

I haven't seen any EMH crossovers for the matter, but imo it's because it doesn't really have any distinguishing features in and of itself. It's pretty much 616-lite, and if you wanted to emphasize the happiness you'd go for MA:A instead. I do think EMH is the most team-focused of all the canons, but for the purposes of fic or even the contrast in Steve & Tony personalities it's not the canon I'd go for first.