FEAR ITSELF: THE HOME FRONT #1: Miriam Sharp vs. Trish Tilby

[starwolf_oakley]

FEAR ITSELF: THE HOME FRONT has a seven part story by Christos Gage and Mark Mayhew starring Speedball. After helping the Avengers Academy take down from crooks, Jocasta shows Speedball a debate between Trish Tilby and Miriam Sharpe.



Marcy Pearson is an old IRON MAN supporting character. She had a romantic relationship with James Rhodes but also tried to frame Rhodey for Tony Stark's murder.
http://www.comicvine.com/marcy-pearson/29-29342/

Trish Tilby first showed up in X-FACTOR, having (somehow) figured out that X-Factor, the "human mutants hunters" were in fact the original X-Men. She appeared in X-MEN with an on/off relationship with Hank McCoy. (Grant Morrison broke them up with Hank saying he was gay. Hank later told Cyclops "I might as well be gay.")

Miriam Sharpe first appeared in CIVIL WAR #1, spitting in Tony Stark's face and saying Stanford blowing up was his fault. She also showed up at Goliath's funeral to give Tony her son's Iron Man action figure, which somehow made the Registration Act okay.



Tony Stark's amnesia isn't public knowledge. It makes sense some people are angry the Superhuman Registration Act was repealed, even with the whole "Norman Osborn should not have been put in charge of everything."



The rest of the story is Robbie volunteering undercover at Miriam's charity, then getting discovered and attacked (thus triggering his powers) as THE FEAR breaks out. And a lot of the narration-boxes are Twitter posts.

The world has changed between CIVIL WAR and FEAR ITSELF. Back then, the disgruntled masses were worried the country was run by money-hungry plutocrats. Now, the disgruntled masses read a lot of Ayn Rand.

Comments

[thanekos]

In a universe without as much of a POV on the heroes themselves, I'd be more inclined to sympathize with her past a certain point.

Here, though, after that.. she just sounds really really.. petulant, I guess?

(in this first issue, at least.. the second eases off on that, and atleast her fellows can be explained by Fear Itself's odd effects.)

[stolisomancer]

Yeah, that's something Marvel consistently doesn't do as well as it ought to. If you sit down and think about it, life on the street in a superhero universe is absolutely goddamned terrifying, but we have never gotten a book that gives a consistent man-on-the-street perspective. Every story in every book is written from the viewpoint of somebody who's at least affiliated with superheroes.

[starwolf_oakley]

If you sit down and think about it, life on the street in a superhero universe is absolutely goddamned terrifying

FEAR ITSELF: HOME FRONT #2 does have some people saying things like this. Only they are whacked out on THE FEAR and thus think killing Speedball will fix it.

Speaking of THE FEAR, I hope Nightmare shows up at some point in FEAR ITSELF. Nightmare could angry about THE FEAR. People are too scared to fall asleep, and when they do sleep their brains are so fried they *don't* have bad dreams.

[bruinsfan]

Did he get reconstituted at the end of that Chaos King mess like practically everyone else did?

[stubbleupdate]

even Marvels, which did the mutant scare stuff well, was about a man who followed superheroes.

[stolisomancer]

Yeah. I've said on here before that this was one of the major flaws in the Dark Reign meta-arc; everybody with even a tangential connection to the superhuman community knew Osborn was hilariously full of shit, but he would've looked like Laser Jesus to the ordinary frightened dudes down below. Same deal here, really; the only superhero Miriam's ever really talked to for any length of time was Tony, and Tony agreed with her.

[roguefankc]

If you sit down and think about it, life on the street in a superhero universe is absolutely goddamned terrifying[quote]

But then wouldn't the alternative be true as well? Life on the street without superheroes can also be terrifying? Look at our universe where we have terrorists, greedy industrialists who rob hard-working people blind, casual disregard of civil rights due to their race, religion, or sexuality (and in some cases, it's justifiable and accepted by society and/or law), people in power who abuse their authority to cause mass genocides and killings, hundreds of species under the threat of extinction, etc.

It's not the same level, I agree, but real life history can be a different kind of terror, and a very potent one at that.

Plus, if we were in the 616 universe, and there were no superheroes, but there were supervillians...well, forget "up the creek without the paddle". We won't even have a canoe. So as terrifying as being with superheroes can be, you have to admit there are worse outcomes.

[stolisomancer]

All very true, but that's entirely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make, which was that we don't see life from an unbiased, non-superhuman perspective ever if at all in the Big Two superhero universes.

[roguefankc]

Ah, sorry about that, then. I wasn't attacking you or anything. =)