Henry Peter Gyrich as the voice of reason

[history79]

Comments

[icon_uk]

Welll... he DID have a point about the Nefaria incident. Anyone could have walked in and accessed a great deal of information. The fact the Avengers left no one to protect their wide open base speaks badly of their tactics.

[beyondthefringe]

I never took you for a Henry Peter Gyrich apologist.

I'm so disappointed. :)

Good old HPG is the Marvel Universe's best example of the career bureaucrat who always gets promoted to the level of his incompetence, and who always rebounds from the worst consequences of his actions. Cockroaches look at him and go "Dude, teach us." If Apocalypse wiped out the human race, Gyrich would still survive and get a promotion. I'm surprised there's never been a "What If... Gyrich Exterminated All the Superhumans?" where he ended up last man standing on a charred cinder.

Honestly, reading his wiki-biography only reinforces the part where he's a monumental asshole, and it's amazing that he doesn't get fired, he just gets reassigned all the time.

[cricharddavies]

He ends up President of the United States in one What If: Civil War story where all the superheroes have been wiped out.

[vspope]

Gyrich is a weapons-grade asshole. Even he wouldn't contest that. But he is consistent here.

He looks at everything and everyone in simplistic terms: Is this a potential threat to US national security? (Every superhuman on Earth = yes, in varying degrees.) This particular stance is no exception; mutants are a threat, but Magneto is a massive threat, and using mutants in the way that is proposed is poking the bear that is Magneto with a very sharp stick. Is a homegrown mutant strike force worth risking a volcano popping up in downtown Chicago?

So it's not like Petey had a sudden attack of empathy or social justice. More like "let's not use mutants, rather let's find a way to wipe out ALL of them at once."

[icon_uk]

I never took you for a Henry Peter Gyrich apologist.

Just because he's a raging asshole doesn't mean he can't sometimes be right.

And, ironically, the promoted to the level of incompetene is known as "The Peter Principle", except in the MU it's known as "The (Henry) Peter (Gyrich) Principle (if he has any)".

Peter David did some work with the character which humanised him a bit, not enough to excuse him some of his actions, but a bit.

[cainofdreaming]

Oh, I thought that principle covered how Kitty picks her boyfriends.

... I do hope I didn't just give some writer or editor any ideas.