Our protagonist. Please ignore the Glowing Eyes of Doom.
A Twelve-Step Program to Omnipotence is a Marvel Cinematic Universe Self-Insert Fic by Bakkughan which tries to answer a single question: how far is your average Joe willing to go in order to survive half the universe being wiped out? What is he willing to do? The answer: a lot. The fic spans several years as Michael McCole starts from nothing (contrary to many other SI Fics) and through guile, outsider knowledge and just plain cold blooded murder starts gathering powers and allies in his quest to beat Thanos to the punch. Or Snap, as it were.
Can be found on ff.net
and SpaceBattles.
"SPOILER ALERT" Spoilers are currently unmarked, read at your own risk. Late Arrival Spoilers for the Infinity Saga and most of the television serieses are also present.
A Twelve-Step Program to Omnipotence provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Jessica's and Trish's mom. When she tries to reinsert herself into her daughter's life, nobody takes it well and she's promptly kicked off Michael's island.
- Adaptational Heroism: Many of the MCU's (minor) villains are barely evil in this fic, mostly because Michael has a tendency to snap them up before they can really go off the rails and then just gives them what they wanted in the first place, which usually just boils down to funding and/or scientific breakthroughs.
- Affably Evil: Michael, despite being a power hungry and murderous villain, is very much a polite person as long as you are not his enemy, or got in the way of his quest to gain more power. He treats his subordinates with respect and rewards them generously when they do well to the point that his inner circle at least can almost be considered to be his family. He even remains polite with his enemies if they don't majorly piss him off or are unspeakable interdimensional nightmarish horrors, often preferring the fastest solution requiring the least amount of unnecessary violence.
- A God Am I: Michael's ultimate goal and something that has become more prominent in his attitude as the story progresses and his power keeps increasing.
- Alcoholic Parent: Subverted by Jessica, as she quits the bottle the same day she learns of her pregnancy and states that she will never drink again.
- Alliterative Name: Michael McCole. Jessica Jones. Samuel Sterns.
- And the Adventure Continues: In the epilogue, when Michael outlives everyone he knows, he drains his power into a spear and travels to The Hobbit universe for more adventures.
- At Least I Admit It: It was once pointed out that what Michael is doing is immoral and illegal, Michael answers that yes, what he is doing is immoral and illegal, but that the government agencies such as SHIELD are doing the exact same thing. At least Michael doesn't excuse his actions by saying he is part of the government, or that he is doing it for the good of the nation.
- A Truce While We Gawk: During the Chitauri Invasion, Michael manages to lasso a space whale and ends up riding it into battle. As he's barreling through the sky, he notes how Thor and the Chitauri he was strangling both pause their fight to stare open-mouthed in shock as he flies past.
- Armor-Piercing Question: While guiding Michael on his vision-quest, Queen Ramonda tries to give him several of these. By either acknowledging them, dismissing them or even coming up with an Armor-Piercing Response Michael manages to pass her tests and gets to keep his soul intact.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Due to manipulating a desperate Cross, Michael manages to get his hands on Pym Particle research, which his Think Tank then manages to perfect. Queue the 50 foot tall, firebreathing dinosaur.
- Later Michael himself becomes this during the second invasion of New York by incorporating Pym Particles into his armor.
- Author Appeal: Michael's own appearance, which some readers have found off-putting. Bakkughan himself has a tendency to make his SI's massive and muscled in his other stories as well and has stated that this is simply what he'd like to look like.
"I was the type of kid who never understood why Beast wanted to go from badass wolf-bison-lion-bear hybrid to boring regular human like everyone else, and always thought Belle did him dirty."
- Author Vocabulary Calendar: Bakkughan has a tendency to use parentheses A LOT, to the point multiple will show up in the same paragraph and occasionally even in the same sentence.
- Badass Boast:
- Michael manages to get one in against Dormammu. His armor is ruined, his ammo is spent and his weapon is broken and to top it all of he is rapidly succumbing to poison. Yet when Dormammu leans in to gloat about how he's going to enjoy Michael's suffering, he just laughs in his face and responds with "No. You won't. You really won't." He's proven correct.
- Michael and Carol Danvers also exchange a couple of noteworthy ones.Michael: You are aware of the fact that I've fought off entire armies before, right?
Carol: So have I.
- Badass Longcoat: Michael himself tends to incorporate them in his earlier armors, as shown in the image. Jessica is also almost always seen wearing an impervious leather duster.
- Battle Couple: Michael and Jessica, ‘nuff said.
- As of the latest chapter, Stakar and Aleta Ogord count as well, fighting off half of the Black Order together.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Jeri Hogarth often ends up getting Michael's crazy schemes dumped in her lap and told to sort out the paperwork and make it profitable, before he immediately portals out of her office again. Phineas is helping her out, but she still grouses over barely getting any sleep in trying to make SCIENCE! marketable.
- The Big Guy: Michael himself is this after injecting himself with the Gamma-ray augmented Super Soldier serum. He shoots up in height and width to the point he's towering over every other humanoid in the fic and often uses that to his advantage during negotiations by looming over his opponents. His height has been somewhat inconsistent, though the author has stated it to be well over the two meters mark. For illustration, when Thor comes to confront Michael, he notices that the Norse God only reaches the middle of his chest.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: Jessica, after punching the head off of Kilgrave, gets a dose of this. After helping her release some steam and with some sage advice, Michael helps her move on.
- Breast Expansion: Part of Jessica's power upgrade caused her to gain a figure straight out of a Marvel ''comic''. Trish is less than pleased that Jessica is now the more developed of the two of them. This is somewhat justified due to the explanation that, because of the way her powers work her body has essentially atrophied due to never having actually used her muscles for anything. Extremis fixes this by reversing the damage and bringing her to peak physical health. That being said, boobs generally speaking aren't made solely out of muscle, so why Extremis felt the need to add onto them is anyone's guess.
- That actually might’ve been an indirect side-effect of Extremis. See, Estrogen is a multi-functional hormone, responsible for regulating cholesterol metabolism, calcium absorption, antioxidant activity, breast development and growth, etc. Perhaps Jessica’s estrogen levels were consistently low, despite the periodic fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, maybe from chronic Hypoestrogenism, and Extremis brought them up to normal, causing breast development.
- Breath Weapon: Michael and Susan are fond of this thanks to their Extremis, as are some of the other enhanced in Michael's employ. It also applies to the young Inhuman child at Othrys.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: While certainly friendly/flirty when Jessica begins working for Michael, the two don't hook up until after Jessica gets an Extremis-powered make-over which includes a rather noticeable increase to her chest. It's only then that Michael sees her in a romantic light.
- Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Averted. Not only does Michael choose a name for himself. He takes the name of "Hyperion"note . Effectively telling readers he's chosen to be the MCU's equivalent to Superman.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Michael's short fight with Carol Danvers. Though she manages to get one or two licks in, Michael demolishes her in less than 10 minutes and takes away her powers for good measure, leaving her bruised, bloodied, beaten and broken.
- Cuteness Proximity: Noah Burstein manages to create a T-Rex. Her name is Susan, she breathes fire and has near-human levels of intellect and is totally adorable, being doted on by everyone around her. Oddly enough, this remains the case even after she's fully grown up, at least in the case of the Hulk who for some reason keeps calling her "kitty!".
- Deadpan Snarker: Considering just how much crazy is going on at Michael's base at any given time and it almost seems that all of his employees end up developing into this just as a coping mechanism.
- Death by Adaptation: Michael isn't hesitant to step over bodies in order to get what he wants and it shows. While his victims consist mostly of villains and common criminals, several heroes have been cut down as well, either directly or through the butterfly effect.
- De-power: By the end of the story, Michael revisits Bast and uses his godly abilities to strip her of all her power and intelligence.
- Designated Girl Fight: Aleta Ogord ends up dueling Proxima Midnight after taking out Corvus Glaive in an epic hit-and-run.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Michael literally and figuratively tells Dormmammu to fuck off from Earth, and unlike Strange who merely trapped himself in a Time-Loop with Dormmamu, Michael also uses loads of bullets, missiles, laser beams and scythe to the face to do it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Shuri. Michael killed her mother. So in return, Shuri sics two dimensions worth of demonic horror on him, uncaring that this devastates New York and is likely to doom the entire Earth and perhaps even all of existence.
- Doorstopper: As of chapter 50, the story sits at 600k words and still has to resolve its Endgame arc. As noted by the author, that makes the fic longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
-
Dueling Works: In May 2018, another MCU fic called Gems of Infinite Potential was posted which opened with: "I saw A Twelve Step Program to Omnipotence and frankly I thought it did pretty much everything wrong with an SI story. So I decided to do it better." During the fic's existence, there were some discussions on the internet which of the SI fics was superior, though both author's remained out of the debate. The last update to Gems was in June of that same year however, and now it's a dead fic. - Eldritch Abomination:
- Dormammu qualifies, as do the higher ranked lords of Hell. Surtur also is one on account of his age and power.
- Interestingly enough, several persons within the MCU such as the Ancient One and Dormammu himself consider Michael to be one. His nature as a dimension hopper from reality into fiction means that his soul is far "heavier" than it has any right to be and it's downright weird, with the Ancient One stating she has never felt anything like it before.
- Elemental Powers: Fire seems to be rather prevalent with Michael's forces. Additionally Michael himself is using more and more (sun)Light based attacks in his arsenal.
- Eye Scream: Transforming into the Ghost Rider usually comes with the eyes literally burning away. Jessica does the same to Klaue when she tracks him down in Belgium using the Penance Stare.
- After Nebula's fight with Ebony Maw, it's revealed that he ripped out one of her eyes using his telekenesis. Being a cyborg, Nebula powers through it.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Michael tries to minimize civilian casualties, and absolutely refuses to murder children, as seen when he spared Shuri's life even when it was clear it would end up biting him in the ass later.
- He's also pretty disgusted at what Hydra has put Bucky through mentally speaking, even though he himself has done something similar and even worse. The difference is that Bucky was a good guy, whereas the people that Michael has mentally enslaved/ripped apart were Super Nazi's.
- Evil Overlord: The canon MCU examples, such as Thanos, Surtur and Dormammu apply. Much of the conflict on Earth between Michael and the Government/SHIELD is the fear that Michael is planning to become this and merely playing nice for now. The fact that they're not entirely wrong (just about the Evil part) doesn't help matters.
- Face Death with Dignity: After Michael ascends to Omnipotence and Thanos is beaten, he willingly walks through a divide between Life and Death to exchange his soul for Gamora's, with the narration noting that he held his head high and didn't falter for the entire time, despite having been nearly destroyed during his previous fight with Michael.
- Friendly Enemy: Michael and Tony remain civil (if snarky) with each other despite being corporate rivals and with a possible lawsuit hanging over their heads. And when a bigger threat shows up, they have no qualms in teaming up and trading barbs and even compliments back and forth.
-
Genius Bonus: When Loki confronts his father Odin, many readers noticed that their dialogue seemed to reflect the conversation between Shifu and Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda during their climactic showdown. Bakkughan later revealed that this was done intentionally: Tai Lung is voiced by Ian Mc Shane, who plays Odin in the American Gods show. Meaning Loki in a very round-about way got to throw his father's own words back in his face. - Global Ignorance: Initially, the story claimed that Chernobyl was located in Russia, before being hastily corrected to Ukraine following incredulous comments and reviews.
- Godhood Seeker: The main premise of the fic, and Micheal's ultimate plan.
- He Who Fights Monsters:
- One of the main questions of the story. How many corpses is Michael willing to leave behind, how many immoral acts is he willing to carry out in his attempt to be ready for Thanos?
- Shuri, in trying to avenge the Accidental Murder of her mother, ends up allying with Klaw, swearing fealty to Dormammu and taking up both the Darkhold and Ghost Rider against humanity.
- I Have Your Wife: Shuri tries to pull this on Michael during their battle. It doesn't end well for her...
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Heavily inverted with Michael himself. After various serums and enhancements, Michael has lost all his hair, has grown to an immense size and doubled his weight in sheer muscle mass. Additionally, he also now has some more extreme modifications, such as a raised ribcage and spine like pre-transformation Blonsky and glowing eyes that gets him labeled a demon in Africa. Michael not once considers trying to find a way to revert to a human appearance, even stating that his old body now looks weird and off-putting to him. The same applies to Samuel Sterns who now sports his iconic Leader-sized head.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Trish did not react well to Jessica going from an anonymous mess of a woman hiding some low-level powers to one of the most powerful, famous, wealthy, and beautiful women on the planet. Enough that she lands in a mental ward.
- Immortality Immorality: The Hand just like their canon counterparts, qualifies here as well.
- Immortality Seeker: Michael's sole motivation at the start of the story and what drives the plot forwards. He absolutely refuses to die. Ever. Not to heroes, villains, or Thanos snapping his fingers or even just plain old age.
- Informed Ability: Michael supposedly has comic book-genius level intellect, but this is rarely shown in the fic itself.
- It Has Been an Honor: During an invasion of both Hell and Dormammu, Tony Stark puts aside his previous antagonism towards Michael to tell him that "you're a dick, but even so, it has been a genuine honor", with Michael reciprocating the sentiment.
- Ki Manipulation: The Hand and The Chaste are of course chi-users.
- McCole becomes one when he accidentally fulfills the requirements to become an Iron Fist by punching the Extremis-infused/semi-dragonified Alexandra Reid in the heart. He and his crew then proceed to do science to it like they do every other MCU power source.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Samuel Sterns is usually a happy go-lucky guy who just wants to dedicate himself to SCIENCE! So when he gets a dead serious look on his face and starts going for his sonic screwdriver-copy, even an angry Michael is halted in his tracks. Considering Sterns manages to collapse a part of the Hell-dimension in on itself (along with a chunk of its residents) that seems to be the smart move to make when he gets serious.
- Mental Time Travel: Using the Time Stone seems to involve something like this, depending on the required task.
- Mortality Phobia: Michael is consumed by this, to the point that his best friends consider this his defining feature. Alexandra of the Hand is also this, so when Michael denies her his own Immortality Inducer she becomes desperate enough to start messing around with Extremis herself... to disastrous results.
- Mundane Object Amazement: While trying to help Tony clean up his tower after the Chitauri Invasion, Thor thinks that he has found a human's artwork. Tony has some trouble keeping his cool when explaining that the sparking hunk of shredded metal leaking oil all over his floors is in fact not art but actually a powerful generator. Thor then asks if it still works.
- Non-Indicative Name: The titular "twelve step program to omnipotence" actually has more than just twelve steps; it's a bit of a Running Gag that more steps keep getting added.
- No-Sell: After surprising Pierce in his own home, the aged Hydra leader whips around and shoots Michael straight in the middle of his forehead. The bulletproof Michael is more amused and slightly impressed Pierce managed to make such an accurate shot at his age and in the dark than angered, even letting the flattened bullet fall from his head into his hand and returning it to Pierce with a smug smile.
- Off with His Head!: How Michael gets rid of Killmonger sitting on Wakanda's throne, assisted by a telekinetically swung scythe that enlarges and shrinks fast enough most people didn't even see him act beyond a sudden metallic flash.
- Old Shame: The author has stated that the Wakanda Arc is this to him.
- Physical God: The usual Marvel characters apply, such as the Titans and Asgardians, but after a few years have passed in his quest, this now also applies to Michael himself.
- Pragmatic Villainy: While he is power hungry, Michael doesn't bother with Stupid Evil tendencies. He will only do villainous things if it benefits him, he avoids civilian casualty as much as possible and he will also do good things such as fighting to defend Earth because of the good will it will earn him and the fact that he lives on Earth means staying out of the fight is not an option.
- Pregnant Badass: Jessica in the later parts of the story, as she's still flying around busting alien and/or demon heads without issue.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Due to Extremis, whenever Michael gets worked up his eyes automatically light up as well.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Naturally occurs whenever Michael and Tony Stark share a scene. Jessica Jones gives a rather good showing as well.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Michael restores Peggy's mind, health and youth, preventing her death.
- Surreal Horror: Michael's experience in the Dark Dimension. His first attempt at directly interfacing with the Mind Stone also is this, until he manages to come to his senses again.
- Villain Has a Point: Despite being a selfish and power hungry villain, Michael has a lot of good points in that what SHIELD is doing is hardly any different then what he is doing: hoarding power, doing immoral and even illegal acts to get the job done, and the fact that they had government backing doesn't excuse what they have done.
- Villain Protagonist: Michael acknowledges the fact he is in fact by all definition a power hungry, murderous, villain that wishes to become a god. He is not under any delusion that he is a hero or that he is a good guy or that he is doing it for the 'greater good'.
- Villanous Valour:
- The last stand of Ulysses Klaue against the Ghost Rider. Even McCole had to admit that: "Well... at least you died as you lived. You were always a dick, Klaue, but no-one will ever say you were a coward."
- Murakami never had a real chance against Michael, especially after the Power Stone gets used, but he goes down fighting.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Michael calls out Nick Fury and Carol Danvers when they tried to arrest him after he already saved Earth twice, pointing out that what they're doing is barely legal, and they had to do it just after Natasha's funeral.
- During a vision trip with the Queen of Wakanda as his guide, she asks him why he doesn't use his power for the betterment of others, instead of hoarding it all for himself. Michael doesn't hesitate to throw the question right back in her face, asking how many other Africans Wakanda could have saved if it hadn't turned its back on the world. It is the only time in their encounter that the Queen is left speechless and she eventually concedes the point to him.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Michael theorizes that other immortals require an obsession, such as the Grandmaster with his gladiator games or Tivan with his Collection, in order to stave this off. This has led him to decide that guiding and defending humanity will become his obsessions, once he has achieved godhood.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Dormammu takes on the appearance of a sky-sized head. Bast appears as a huge panther made out of smoke. Both only appear this way to all who observe them, their true self is far too complex for mortal minds to comprehend.
