Easily My Favourite Moment In Epic

Spider-Man/Deadpool (2016) #14

I'm thinking of Symphony of the Sixth Blast Furnace by Evgeny Sedukhin again...

drew this, forgot to post, and then slept for 18 hours straight (i still feel like i haven't slept at all ughhh)

[Reference]

Inspired by Existential Crisis Mode written by @luciaintheskyainthi

discussing the character with mutuals moodboard

Inspired by Dr. Po-Shen Loh explanation of Euler’s identity. https://youtu.be/IUTGFQpKaPU?si=CgfuZ7vuyzFR21wX

The chilling part about "Odysseus" is that the operatic Vocals in the background are Chanting "Old King, Save/Spare Us" and that's important because their old King Would have done that.

Except Odysseus isn't their old King anymore.

Their Old King was who Odysseus was at the beginning of Epic. The one who had Polites at his side, his men at his back, Eurylochus as a loyal friend and Brother, and Athena as his Best Friend Mentor. He was a king who knew when to strike but was, like Polites, greeting the world with open arms. And the people of Ithica remember their old King, see their old King in his son, Telemachus, and mourn his loss from their kingdom to his ventures in the war with Troy.

But now, he's back, and he's killing all the people who were openly chanting about killing his son and Raping his wife, both things that he would be justified for killing them for. And all these Suitors can think of is, he is still their Old King, so once he has killed our leader rallying us to action, he will be amicable to Open Arms talks to deescalate the situation.

Except, he's not the old King. The old King died with Polities. He was still alive as a hollow version of himself, but his heart of "Open Arms" died with Polities. But there were still remnants of him, Asking Aeolus for wind to get home, pleading with Poseidon for Mercy, and pleading to Circe for Aid to evade Poseidon. But it was the Underworld that put the nail in the coffin for their old King. Seeing all his dead men in the river Styx, finding out his Mom had passed while he was at war, and hearing the prophecy from Tyresias that "He" will not be the one to make it home to Ithica, to his Wife and Son, but that a Haunting man with a trail of bodies will stand before his wife.

And that's when their Old King Dies, and their New King is being forged in his Remnants. When he declares he will become the monster, adopt the very mindset of his Enemy Poseidon, and use Ruthlessness to get home.

But there's still a trace bit of their old King left, the parts that love his family, and the part that trust his men. And then the part that trusts his men kept getting attacked and chipped away at by his sole desire to get Home, and the betrayals that befell him after becoming a monster.

Finding out that Eurylochus was the first one to betray him, the one that directly lead to 515 of his men being killed because he didn't trust Odysseus's word and directly disobeyed his orders to not open the wind bag. I imagine that before he found that out, he intended to try and bargain with Scylla, to kill as little of his men as possible, if not be able to talk her out of killing anyone at all. But immediately after finding that out, he tells Eurylochus to lite up 6 torches. Because now he's been betrayed, and he will just pay the Toll to pass through.

And then immediately after, Eurylochus tries to lead a Mutiny against him, and he ends up stabbed through the back by the rest of his crew, tied to the mast, and has to watch as Eurylochus literally pisses off every god in the area by killing the Sun Gods Divine Cattle and having Zeus sicked on them.

And now Odysseus two remaining halves of the old king have to choose. His family back home, or the crew who has betrayed him twice and chiseled away at his remaining trust and loyalty to them ever since Polyphemus? He now has to kill off more of the old king. And he does.

And then, he has to deal with Calypso.

I'm not touching on Calypso, because if I do I'll be here for a lot longer, but she breaks him mentally and forcefully breaks his physical purity to his wife by SAing him. And then once he leaves, he mentally snaps and stabs Poseidon.

So, all that is left of their old King is a Monster who wears the few tattered scraps of their old kings clothes, who clings desperately to the final piece of his old form, his family. And they have the audacity of asking him for mercy after openly threatening to harm it? To destroy it? To defile it as he has been for the past 20 years?!?!?!

No. He's had enough.

And his family (Penelope, Telemachus, and Athena) are the only one's to recognize that Odysseus is still their old King, just beaten, bruised, abused, abandoned, and betrayed. But he's still the same person, and they will fall in love with him again.

the trend of shrinking hans capon into a submissive, feminized “twink” is so regressive and creatively lazy. 

the idea that hans’ theatrics or needing rescue in-game automatically code him as a “bottom” is a stereotype literally rooted in misogyny. since when do drama, sass, or vulnerability—traits routinely gendered as “feminine”—equate to sexual submission? 

this is a really reductive take. it weaponizes patriarchal baggage to pigeonhole queer dynamics: softness = weakness, flair = passivity. it’s the same toxic logic that paints flamboyant men as punchlines or prey in mainstream media. 

capon’s theatrics aren’t a surrender of power. they’re tools of a cunning nobleman. queer history shows us that femmes and flamboyant individuals have always been leaders, provocateurs, and survivors—not passive accessories. reducing capon to a “bottom” because he’s extra not only severely misreads his character, but regurgitates the old and tired lens that equates femininity with inferiority. 

fans can argue it’s “fiction” and “preference” and “harmless fun”, but when these stereotypes dominate, they reduce gay men to hollow fantasies for straight and heteronormative audiences instead of fully realized people. personal preferences in fiction aren’t inherently harmful, but when entire communities default to flattening queer characters into hetero-adjacent roles… it reinforces the idea that same-sex relationships must mimic heteronormativity to be legible.

let characters be messy, loud, and authoritative without straitjacketing them into roles that confuse personality with sexual position.

brought some fruit for the potluck