There is No Cabal

[james_davis_nicoll]

Really doesn't need a post where the POD is that instead of Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider, Marie Curie is.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

Comments

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Two possible futures there: one in which Mme. Curie dies sooner from the extra poison of the spider bite, though there might be repercussions (let's call this the Realistic Future), and one in which it is Mme. Curie who gains spider powers, and who decides to don what in those days passed for a skin-tight costume (so immodest! But she's Polish, so maybe that explains it).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Or a compromise between realistic and not, where in a moment of careless passion she drains Pierre of his liquified insides, then lays 3000 eggs that soon hatch into similar human/spider hybrids.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of the Gail Simone column where Peter is trying to convince Mary Jane to bite his head off. "It'll be fun! Please, sweetheart?"

And somewhere, a spider just wants to cuddle....

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

With 3000 super-Curies on the job, we'd have discovered roentgenium by 1921 and be well into the island of stability by now.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

In support of this hypothesis, I note the Curies were a remarkable clan even without benefit of spider-powers.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Nobel sense ... tingling!

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

And...

She and her British side-kick, H.G. Wells, fought her arch-nemisis, Rasputin the Mystic, to keep Europe free from the Czarist menace.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

But what was Wells' power? Time travel? Invisibility? A really nifty dinner menu? Ah: perhaps it was a radium-powered suit with Cavorite inside it so that, by means of clever shutters in the feet, chest, and hands, he could repel anything?

Rasputin, of course, was the Sorceror Supreme of Russia, who was only trying to protect the royal family (as outlined in the deathless documentary, It Came From The Tsars!) Rasputin, as an avatar of Koschei the Undying, turns out to be a formidable foe.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

Ah, but you see, his ability is time-travel and like all love besot time travelers he wasn't able to resist peaking ahead to see how his budding romantic relationship with Marie turned out.

Now, he must live with the knowledge that the power that is saving Europe is coming at the cost of killing her. The guilt of not being able to save her eats at him and drove a wedge between him and her sending her into the arms of her now husband Mssr Curie.

If only he could find a way to bring the super science of the 1960's to the 1990's he'd be able to save his love... if only... and risk tearing the fabric of causality asunder.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

In this example, it has to be an armored suit because Wells was aware of the fact that he is lighter than most of the things he is repelling: therefore, he's the one that moves visibly, and the suit protects him as he is thrown around the countryside. Also, it adds considerable bulk so he isn't thrown around quite so much.

No, this is Victorian times: simply hire a simple Irish labourer to run the suit. A man could get hurt, Wells had money, and there is a nearly infinite supply of Irish labourers....

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

And now, another episode of Victorian-Era Superhero.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

I have no interest in the book he is currently plugging, but I adored Victorian-Era Superhero and Teenage Girl President. Medium Large is one of the few (web)comics I look at (the others being XKCD and Sinfest).

(This is not intended as a slight to all of the other excellent webcomics out there; it's just a measure of where I choose to spend my time. Once I looked at lots and lots of comics, such as Sluggy Freelance and Something Positive and PvP and that-science-fiction-one-set-on-Mars-where-Mad-Science-was-a-known-condition--now I just don't have time, and those three can usually be absorbed in a glance and don't eat up too much of my day.)

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

That last one was A Miracle Of Science, and unlike the others it finished its run and completed. You could also look at 1/0, DM of the Rings, Digger, or Triangle and Robert, if you want strips that are really most sincerely done and finished...

--Dave

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Can I vote for the Male Gaze version where it becomes a Spinnerette knockoff, complete with superhero Time Traveller Ben Franklin?

Ok, I guess not.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well, if there was ever a character tailor-made for a Sanctuary crossover...

[soon_lee]

OTOH, one where Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive Marie Curie? Now that, would be something else.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

He gains her single-minded fixation on lab work, and the world is denied Spider-Man.

"A burglar...shot Uncle Ben! It's that man I could have stopped outside the library! This is all my fault!

"So I must work on...a kind of radiation..that will keep people from killing!"