Fanfic / Sunshine Superman

And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! The Earth's Mightiest Heroes... well, them, and one other guy...

Sunshine Superman is a Marvel Comics Self-Insert Fic written by Stranger.

Like the author's previous works (such as A Crooked Man) the story focuses on Mr. Sunshine, who finds himself transported to the original and earliest days of the Silver Age Marvel Universe circa September 1963, just before The Avengers are fated to meet for the first time.

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• The '60s: The fic starts in 1963 with Hulk and Iron Man getting into a fight with each other in Arizona. The story also intersects with real world history from JFK in Dallas to terrorist attacks by the White Knights of Liberty.
• Adaptational Villainy: Sandman is much worse here than in canon, as his criminal actions begin to escalate after being defeated by Mr. Sunshine at Midtown High instead of Spider-Man, and he becomes a mass murderer during the attack on JFK's motorcade, as his actions alone result in multiple deaths when he destroys the street and causes a massive car crash. Furthermore, he willingly goes along with Radioactive Man's plan to go nuclear on Dallas and doesn't care about how many people will die.
• Adaptational Wimp: Kang the Conqueror is less powerful and constantly loses to the Avengers and other heroes all thanks to Sunshine and his infinite alternate counterparts in every reality and timeline who dramatically "damaged" his future.
• Alternate History:
  • Sunshine and Captain America succeed in preventing JFK's assassination. However, Cap's presence as JFK's bodyguard attracted the attentions of Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil to attack the presidential motorcade and causing the deaths of Governor John Connally, SLOTUS Lady Bird Johnson, and twenty-two other American citizens.
  • The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was partially prevented in Earth-1897 as Thor and Captain Marvel prevented the second plane from crashing. The third attack on the Pentagon was prevented by Mystique, who was one of the plane's passengers.
• Alternate Universe: The story takes place in Earth-1963.
  • The Dark Sun timeline takes place where the Avengers are never formed and Captain America is never even found. Sunshine failed in saving JFK's life and he becomes a U.S. operative under the new codename Nuke.
  • The Vampire Wars timeline takes place in Earth-1897.
  • In another reality Uatu and Johnny Storm failed to steal the Ultimate Nullifier to stop Galactus from devouring Earth as depicted in "The Coming of Galactus". Instead, in order to save Earth, Sunshine sacrificed his freedom to take the Silver Surfer's place as Galactus’ herald, becoming known as the Morningstar.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The "Por Libertad" storyarc; the Avengers teams up with the X-Men in thwarting Magneto and the Brotherhood from taking over Santo Marco on Christmas.
• Babies Ever After: Several of the Earth-1897 Avengers have children either before or in the aftermath of the Vampire Wars, including Captain America and Diamondback (a daughter), Peter Parker (a son with Mary-Jane born post-Wars and a daughter with Felicia Hardy born pre-Wars) and The Hulk and Jarella (male/female twins).
• Bald of Evil: The Hate-Monger is revealed to be completely hairless under his mask, even missing his eyebrows, presumably to hide that he's actually a clone of Adolf Hitler from his followers. It’s so effective that it works on even Captain America, the literal symbol of things good and virtuous and the one person present who SHOULD recognize him. Sunshine blasting a dark mark about the man's lips to mimic his infamous moustache makes him easily recognizable.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The plot of "A Nightmare Before Christmas", which revolves around Sunshine and Dr. Strange trying to prevent the demon Nightmare from brainwashing Lyndon B. Johnson in his dreams.
• Battle Trophy: Following Magneto's defeat in Santo Marco, Sunshine claims his helmet as a Christmas present for Tony Stark.
• Bedlam House: William Burnside winds up committed to Utica State Lunatic Asylum.
• Berserk Button: Captain America straight up telling Magneto that he is no different from Baron Zemo, a Nazi, sends the Master of Magnetism and Holocaust survivor into an unbridle rage.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • The Masters of Evil have surrounded Captain America and Sunshine, and Baron Zemo brags about how they are outnumbered. Sunshine's response? "Shit, really wish I brought some backup..." Cue the Avengers coming in to save the day, as Sunshine had brought them to Dallas after safely transporting JFK and Jackie Kennedy to the White House.
  • During the battle between the Space Phantom and Thor, the former is disguised as the Hulk and is about to beat up Thor with a piece of metal railing before being stopped by the real Hulk.
• Blinded by the Light: Sunshine use his Light Grenade attack to incapacitate Mastermind and breaking his illusion over Santo Marco.
• Breather Episode: "Bleak December", which is set after the rather dark and violent "Camelot" and "The Man In the High Castle" chapters, and revolves around Mr. Sunshine and Spider-Man visiting the Coffee-A-Go-Go for a break and meeting Bernard the Poet.
• Broad Strokes: The story uses the modern version of certain characters rather than the ones they had when the original comics were made, such as The Hulk using Hulk Speak rather than speaking normally, or Giant-Man's abilities being unrestricted rather than being limited to 12 feet.
• Broken Pedestal: William Stryker is left disgusted and frustrated with his mentor Gerald L. K. Smith over his obsession with his Christ of the Ozarks project (a Christian amusement park of all things, centered around an enormous concrete Jesus statue) and his refusal to listen about the "mutant threat".
• Canon Welding: Following in the footsteps of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla is canonized in the Marvel universe. Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja are also part of the setting.
• Card Board Prison: Averted for Baron Zemo at least. After the defeat of the Masters of Evil, he's promptly dragged to an international war crimes court, convicted for treason and crimes against humanity, and executed
• Card-Carrying Villain: Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Sunshine is left utterly befuddled over Magneto's choice of name for his extremist organization in which the Master of Magnetism claims that the "Evil" part is simply a "naming convention". When the Brotherhood first makes headlines on American news as part of the conquest of Santo Marco, a news reporter visibly looks like he can't believe what he's saying when he calls them "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants".
• Category Traitor: Both Magneto and Quicksilver consider Sunshine to be a traitor to mutantkind because he refuses to join Magneto's crusade and actively opposes the Brotherhood. Taken beyond its logical extreme after the defection of Scarlet Witch and Toad, and Magneto's defeat in Santo Marco, all of which Quicksilver blames on him.
• Comic-Book Time: Averted. The story begins in the mid-60s and progresses from there.
• Composite Character: Dr. Kafka is based on the male version depicted in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe, but is a psychiatrist like the female comic version.
• Deal with the Devil: George Wallace accept the Secret Empire's offer to join them in exchange for their help in his bid to becoming President of the United States.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The story doesn't shy away from depicting the social problems and attitudes of the 1960's such as racism and homophobia.
• Didn't Think This Through: Dracula didn't think ahead when making his blot out the sun plan.
• Disappointed in You: After being imprisoned by S.H.I.E.L.D., the Black Knight, Nathan Garret, gets a ghostly visit from his ancestor Sir Percy, who express his disappointment and shame at his descendant's crimes. Garret stubbornly refuses to acknowledge what he did were wrong.
  Sir Percy: You truly do not see that you've done anything wrong, do you?
  Garret: Wrong is just a word the weak use to comfort themselves. No one denies me. Not you, not anyone.
  Sir Percy: Then my words are wasted on you. I hope what remains of our family can still be salvaged from what you've turned us into. May your own cruel actions one day be made clear to you, but I doubt it.
• Evil Counterpart: William Burnside to Steve Rogers. Ironically, he'd been recruited to become the new Captain America by J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950's, but the flawed serum he was given made him unstable and psychotic, leading to Hoover discontinuing the project and putting Burnside in stasis. In 1963, he's unfrozen by the Hate-Monger, who makes him the symbol of the White Knights of Liberty.
• The Extremist Was Right: Sunshine knows that Magneto isn't wrong about humanity trying to exterminate mutants in the future, as Bolivar Trask, the Sentinels, and others will soon make their appearances by the end of the Sixties. Thus, Sunshine is even more determined to try to prevent that from happening.
  • When Sunshine warned Professor Xavier about the bleak future of "Days of Future Past" Xavier was left suggesting if Magneto was right. Sunshine quickly rebukes that suggestion, stating that Magneto's methods is what caused and exacerbated anti-mutant extremism. He insists that the only way to prevent that future from happening is to support Xavier's dreams of mutant coexistence despite of the long difficulties of achieving it.
• Feathered Fiend: The Scarecrow uses trained ravens during "Hallowicked" to attack the people of Greenwich Village. They also serve as conduits for the fear powers he's been given by Nightmare.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Sunshine has to adjust to living in the 1960s as his modern views are considered too radical in that era.
  • Captain America, who is left to catch up with his twenty years of absence. While not as dramatic as depicted in modern continuities, Steve is struggling with the world that had moved on from the war that he never finishes fighting and grasping the moral complexity of the Cold War.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Some of the Intermission chapters are about episodes of iconic television shows, and how the fantastical elements of the Marvelverse, especially the existence of mutants, have affected real-world pop culture. Examples include:
  • The Mutant, an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959), written by Rod Serling.
  • Of Mutants And Men, an episode of Schoolhouse Rock!, airing in 1975 to fit into the America Rock season and the U.S Bicentennial.
  • Avengers: The Movie, a (non-canon) Omake set in 1987, where Hasbro produces an animated movie, along with an accompanying toyline, parodying G.I. Joe: The Movie.
• For Want Of A Nail: Sunshine convinces Hulk to stay with the Avengers after their fight with the Space Phantom. It is then Sunshine realizes that with Hulk staying on the team, they would never set on course in finding Captain America's frozen body, and prompting him to go finding Cap himself.
  • The Sinister Six never formed; the villains outright rejected Doctor Octopus's plans of teaming up against Spider-Man, who is now a member of the Avengers and has powerful allies such as the Hulk and Thor backing him up. Noticeably the Chameleon would have took over Sandman's place in the Six, since the latter was still missing following the Masters' attack on Dallas.
• The Future Is Shocking: Steve Rogers is left shocked and disappointed to find out about the relocation of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. On a happier note, he's more positively surprised about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball as a player for the Dodgers, and wishes he had been around in '47 to see it happen.
• Generation Xerox: The 2020 Avengers of Earth-1897 consists of the children and grandchildren of the original lineup: the Hulk twins are the children of Bruce Banner and Jarella; a female Captain America (Stephanie Rogers) is the daughter of Steve Rogers and Diamondback; a punkish-looking Spider-Man is the grandson of Peter Parker and Felicia Hardy; and Sunset is the biological son of Sunshine and Raven Darkholme.
• Halloween Episode: The "Hallowicked" story arc.
• Hate Plague: Subverted. The Hate-Ray built and used by the Hate-Monger is nothing but a prop. The Hate-Monger stated that the machine is too preposterous to make, and nor does he have the time to make it into reality. Instead, he used the fake machine to fool racist whites to believe they are being influenced by some outside force to join the White Knights in their insurrection.
  Hate-Monger: Convince a man he isn't responsible for his own actions, and there is no limits to what he can be driven to do. All we did was provide a convenient lie to draw out what was already within them. All the good, god-fearing white men of America are already part of our army. They just don't know it yet...
• Heel–Face Turn: Scarlet Witch and Toad eventually turned their backs on Magneto, refusing to go along with his coup in Santo Marco. For Toad's part, he has enough of being mistreated as the Brotherhood's Butt-Monkey.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Like his canon counterpart, Magneto has long since crossed the Moral Event Horizon, becoming as much of a monster as the Nazis who destroyed his family and his people, leaving only a murderous psychopath who wants to tear down all mankind to make room for mutants. Quicksilver is a lesser example, having been traumatized by the horrors he and Wanda experienced in post-war Europe, and joining Magneto in his mad plans.
• Historical Domain Character: Various real-life people such as John F. Kennedy to Walter Cronkite make their appearances often as supporting characters and seeing from their perspectives on the Marvel Universe.
  • Secret Service agent Clint Hill survives Sandman's assault on the Presidential motorcade and helps Sunshine in rescuing survivors.
  • Barry Goldwater publicly voiced his disapproval of the Avengers and "unauthorized vigilantes" who act against injustices without U.S. jurisdiction.
  • Hunter S. Thompson gets front row seat in witnessing Magneto's takeover of Santo Marco and the battle between the Brotherhood and the Avengers and X-Men. Hunter eventually writes his experience in The Jungle Gin Diaries: The Six-Hour Mutant War.
  • Gerald L. K. Smith is depicted to be the mentor of a young William Stryker. They have a falling out in which Stryker was vocally against Smith's obsession with his Christ of the Ozarks project and his steadfast refusal to believe the existence of mutants.
  • Blues and soul singer Tyrone Davis came at a bad time to revisit his birthplace of Greenville, where the White Knights came close to massacring the town before the Avengers intervened.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Richard Nixon in the Dark Sun timeline is a high-ranking member of the Secret Empire known as "Number One".^note In the comics, Number One was deliberately implied to be Nixon.
  • Samuel Bowers, who founded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and convicted for two murders of civil rights activists in real life, is a minion of the Hate-Monger. After the Hate-Monger is defeated, Bowers winds up recruited into Hydra.
• How Unscientific!: Lampshaded in a conversation between Hank Pym and Bruce Banner over Magneto's speech about mutant evolution; Pym rants against the popular misconception of evolution, but is flabbergast about the randomness of human mutation that goes against everything about genetics. Banner then points out to Pym that the Avengers themselves goes against everything currently known about genetics and physics.
• Immoral Journalist: J. Jonah Jameson, as usual, doesn't write any positive word about Spider-Man to the point of omitting his role in saving President Kennedy alongside the Avengers.
  Robbie Robertson: For all that is holy, Jonah, what will it take for you to admit that maybe you were wrong about Spider-Man? He SAVED THE PRESIDENT, I literally cannot think of a more non-evil act!
  J. Jonah Jameson: Robbie, we've been friends for a long time, so I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. The Allmighty himself could descend down from the heavens, proclaiming Spider-Man the incarnation of virtue on Earth, and I'd still have my suspicions about him!
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: JFK and Bobby Kennedy are discussing about adding extra security for the former's upcoming visit to Dallas.
  JFK: Bring who, exactly? You want me to roll through Dallas surrounded by the National Guard? Bring in the army, maybe? That'll send a really confident message to the voters. The answer to all our problems isn't just going to walk through the door!
  [a nervous-looking aide walks through the door]
  Aide: Er, Mr. President, sir? We got a call from... Captain America. He asked if that job you offered him was still available?
• In-Series Nickname: William Burnside is consistently referred by several characters as "Nazi Cap". Captain America himself is bothered by how they call him that.
• I Was Just Joking: When Electro asks if Doctor Octopus thought he could take on Thor just because he shoots lighting, Doctor Octopus responds that that actually was his plan.
  Electro: You know what, never thought I'd say this, but I think old Bulb Head has a point. I mean, seriously, THAT was your big plan? What, did you expect me to take on Thor because I can shoot electricity?
  Doctor Octopus: See, according to my calculations-
  Electro: [gapes before shaking his head] Unbelievable. And he's supposed to be the genius. Well, you can cross my name off the list too, Frankenstein, find some other sucker to get his head bashed in for your loony plans!
• Keystone Army: Mastermind creates a huge illusionary army, with only a handful of real mercenaries to handle physical tasks, to terrify the people of Santo Marco into not resisting the Brotherhood's takeover, but the drawback is, if he gets taken out, the entire army vanishes.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • The Black Knight, the only member of the Masters of Evil still standing, surrenders himself to the Avengers.
  • Mysterio hears that Doctor Octopus wants him to face off against the Hulk and immediately "nopes!" out of the Sinister Six recruitment drive. When Octavius admits he also wanted to have Electro face Thor, that's the last straw for the rest of them.
• Legacy Character: The Spider-Man of 2020 on Earth-1897 is a third-generation superhero, being the son of Mayday Parker (who operated as the superheroine Spider-Girl), who was the daughter of Peter Parker, the first Spider-Man.
• Legion of Doom: The Masters of Evil (Zemo, Melter, Black Knight, Radioactive Man), as in canon, but Zemo also recruits Sandman and Rhino to counter Sunshine and Hulk.
  • Dracula, Selene, Baron Blood, Deacon Frost and Lilith in the Vampire Wars timeline.
• Light 'em Up: Sunshine's powers allows him to manipulate light and turn into light, which allows him to be intangible to physical attacks, and can travel at the speed-of-light and is capable of bringing along passengers. He can also theoretically turn invisible and form constructs and illusions, but he hasn't mastered these aspects of his powers yet.
• Marry Them All: Earth-1897's Peter Parker developed a polyamorous relationship with both Mary Jane and Felicia Hardy in the 1970s, which continued for the rest of their lives. Felicia would give birth to Peter's daughter Mayday in 1976, and Mary Jane to Peter's son Benjamin in in 1980.
• Modern Stasis: To Sunshine, he notes that 2020 New York City is not any different from his city in the real world and it doesn't look too futuristic.
• Monumental Damage: Captain America destroys the Confederate Soldier monument outside the Washington County Court House in Greenville, Mississippi when confronting William Burnside and the White Knights of Liberty.
• Motive Rant: Time traveler Kang the Conqueror goes into his rant on Sunshine, angry at the superhero's presence in the past that has ruined "his" history, and claiming that Sunshine's changes to history had resulted in a Bad Future in which Kang is allegedly trying to prevent it from happening.
• The Mourning After: Lyndon B. Johnson was left deeply broken over Lady Bird's death from the Masters of Evil's attack on Dallas. This left him to almost being manipulated by Nightmare, who want to set him up as President Evil to persecute superheroes and mutants. Fortunately, Sunshine and Doctor Strange stopped Nightmare and allowing LBJ to find peace with a meeting with his wife's ghost.
• Mutual Kill: According to Sunset, Tony Stark and Obediah Stane ended up killing each other in battle in the late 1970s. Stark was the last man standing before his heart gave out.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The White Knights Of Liberty, loosely based on the real-life White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The name really is the only difference, because their leader is actually Adolf Hitler in disguise, unbeknownst to his followers.
• The Night That Never Ends: The Vampire Wars began when Dracula used The Darkhold to cast an eternal night on the eve of a solar eclipse, allowing his vampire/demon army be roam free from the sunlight and attacking humanity directly in the open.
• No-Sell: A desperate Loki ignorantly blast an angry Hulk with a burst of radiation, which the Gamma mutate simply absorbs. Sunshine describes Loki's foolish action to be like "trying to put out a volcano with a flamethrower."
  • Magneto is unable to affect Thor's Mjolnir due to the hammer's mystical nature, but he can manipulate Thor's Asgardian armor. However, Magneto quickly finds out that he is not powerful enough to warp Asgardian steel to crush Thor and he can only keep Thor in place.
  • Sunshine makes his mind resistant to Professor Xavier's telepathy by turning his body into light.
• Nuke 'em: When the Masters of Evil are losing against the Avengers, Radioactive Man plans to leave a nuclear crater in Dallas along with his so-called comrades. Fortunately at the last minute, Sunshine transport Radioactive Man to an uninhabited Bikini Atoll.
• Older Than They Look: Sunset, who looks barely in his 20's, is 45 years old as he inherited his mother's, Mystique's, shapeshifting powers that slowed his aging.
  • The 2020 Captain America is almost old as Sunshine, but looks to be 21 years old as her aging is slowed due to inheriting the Super-Soldier Serum from Steve Rogers.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • Hate-Monger, aka a literal clone of Adolf Hitler, naturally despises everyone whom he doesn't decide is "Aryan enough".
  • William Burnside is even worse than his canon counterpart; whereas canon-Burnside's racism was largely attributed to his Psycho Serum, in Sunshine Superman, it's adamant that he was a white supremacist all along.
  • William Stryker is not only a anti-mutant zealot, to the point he's introduced reminiscing about murdering an Ozarks woman for the "crime" of giving birth to a human baby, but he's also anti-black and anti-Semetic.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Justified in-universe. In an interview with Meet The Press, Reed Richards explains that all the technologies the Fantastic Four discovered on their adventures are unfeasible for wide adaptation on Earth, as many of them require extremely rare resources that are difficult to find, and others cannot be used at all on Earth due to how they operate in wildly different physical laws. Furthermore, Reed faced legal oppositions from the private sector, who complained that his research and access to otherwordly resources constitute "unfair competition".
  Reed Richards: It would not surprise me. Many underestimate the difficulties in patenting and selling your inventions, especially as we as a society are currently undergoing a very tumultuous time in history, and our technology progressing quickly even without superhuman intervention. A dependable business model can be rendered obsolete overnight. When faced with the loss of their livelihood, I'm guessing some would rather suppress new technologies rather than be left behind.
• Refuge in Audacity: Doctor Octopus literally puts an ad on the news for villains to team up with. Electro actually lampshades how stupid this is.
  (in response to Doctor Octopus saying he "summoned" them) "Is that what you're calling it, Octopus? You put an ad out in the damn newspaper! You're just lucky it was us who showed up and not half the NYPD!"
• Road Trip Plot: Following on Sunshine's advice, Steve Rogers goes on a journey across America to find what it really means to be Captain America.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Sandman winds up becoming Sunshine's nemesis rather than Spider-Man, as Sunshine was the first to arrive at Midtown High School to fight Sandman.
  • Nightmare, an antagonist of Dr. Strange and Ghostrider, also becomes Sunshine's recurring nemesis involving with the supernatural.
• Save This Person, Save the World: Sunshine plans to save JFK, Macolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr from their fated assassinations.
  • Sunshine is successful in saving JFK in the "Camelot" story arc. But the attempted assassination turned into a superhero-and-villain battle due to Captain America being JFK's personal bodyguard inadvertently bringing the attention of the Masters of Evil to attack the presidential motorcade, killing Governor John Connally, Lady Bird Johnson, and twenty-two other people, and wounding over a hundred others.
• Schizo Tech: Inevitably comes up in the story's Silver Age setting.
  • Among the technology used by Tony Stark are computers that uses magnetic tape storage data, though still considered very advanced by the 1960's.
  • The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants are listening to a radio about the botched assassination of JFK from their asteroid base, Asteroid M.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The villains that Doctor Octopus wants to recruit to take down Spider-Man bail in the middle of their first meeting after they learn that his "brilliant plan" has them split up to take down the members of the Avengers individually before taking on Spider-Man together.
• Seen It All: The 2020 Avengers have previously dealt with time travel and they even have a spare time machine that they can use to send Sunshine back to his proper time.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Kang the Conquerer selfishly seeks out to excise Sunshine from time because his presence has dramatically changed Kang's history, while also claiming that his meddling in JFK's survival and among others resulted in a Bad Future. Sunshine does not buy into Kang's so-called warnings as he knows Kang is really mad about how his actions had made Kang's attempt at empire building more difficult than he could handle.
  • Upon returning to the present, Sunshine immediately travels to the ruins of Dracula's castle and destroys him in his crypt, preventing him from ever being resurrected and ensuring that the Vampire Wars won't happen. Downplayed since The Darkhold is still out there, and the best Sunshine can do is warn Stephen Strange about what happened in the future.
• Shout-Out: The title of the story is a reference to the 1966 song Sunshine Superman by Donovan.
  • Sunshine deploys a Light Grenade to incapacitate Mastermind.
  • Sunshine sees 2020 New York City not so different from his New York in the real world as he compares his reaction to Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin The Untold Story.
  • Earth-1897's numeral designation is the publication date of Dracula.
  • Hulk's twin son in the Vampire Wars storyline is named David, after The Incredible Hulk (1977), which changed Bruce Banner's name to David Banner.
  • During an idle moment, Sunshine checks if any other fictional characters he knows about exists in this universe, though he doesn't seriously expect them to. He uses a New Jersey phone book to see if there's a Pines family living in the area, and also mentioned having searched for Shawshank Penitentiary, Gatlin, Nebraska and Derry, Maine.
  • When the Avengers first decides to join together as a team in late September '63, Sunshine jokingly suggests "The Beat-Alls" for the team name. It falls flat because The Beatles aren't as famous in the U.S yet and Beatlemania is just starting.
• Shown Their Work: The solar eclipse that Dracula used as part of his dark magical ritual to cast Earth under eternal darkness is based on an actual eclipse that happened in 1979.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Kang tries to resume his villainous monologue and is shortly told to shut up by Sunshine (who is not in the mood to listen to Kang's ramblings as he is digesting of having a son) and Sunset, who the latter knocks out Kang with his Eye Beams.
• Sir Swearsalot: Sunshine swears causally like anyone from his time. However, the general public, especially concerned parents, very frowned on Sunshine's vulgarity in public and he is subsequently labeled as a bad influence by his detractors on front page news. After heeding Bruce Banner's advice, Sunshine decide to swear less.
• Spanner in the Works: Sunshine, and his infinite counterparts across the multiverse, is a massive hinderance to Kang the Conqueror's plans, who is left completely stumped and frustrated by the existence of "timeline aberrations" like Sunshine for somehow appearing in eras that they shouldn't be there at all.
  Kang: You're not supposed to be here. None of you are! There's no scientific basis for any of it! I've studied every era, from the days of my own empire to the primordial ooze when life on Earth was nothing but some protein floating in the sludge, and nothing! There's no reason for the universe to keep spitting you out, but you keep showing up anyway, with knowledge you're not supposed to have! Whether you're time travellers from timelines that no longer exist, or some sort of glitch in the cosmos, all I know is that this keeps happening!
• Spared by the Adaptation: Lee Harvey Oswald is never killed by Jack Ruby, as he's caught by Mr. Sunshine before he can attempt to assassinate President Kennedy, and is taken into custody at the end of the "Camelot" storyarc.
• Squishy Wizard: Magneto is still physically a vulnerable man. He is defeated by Sunshine, who tackles him at the speed of light, breaking his ribcage, and causing him to fall five stories to the ground with Sunshine landing on top of him, leaving the Master of Magnetism with badly broken bones.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Invoked. JFK and the other members of the UN Security Council believed that publicly revealing Adolf Hitler's survival would rouse surviving Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, and along with the ramifications of Hitler's resurrection. So they decided to publicly frame Hitler as his "long-lost son".
• Taken for Granite: How Sunshine defeats the Sandman during their first battle, by fusing him into a solid mass of glass. Since he's already made of sand, this doesn't kill him, but in his second appearance, he describes it as And I Must Scream, having been trapped immobile, deaf, mute and blind until Zemo broke him out of prison.
• Truer to the Text: Blade's attire is based on his original costume◊ than his modernized black trench coat-clad appearance popularized by Wesley Snipes.
• Trust Password: When Captain America is reunited with Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan, Fury doesn't believe Rogers to be the real Captain America and calling him a knock-off replacement. Cap proves his identity by recalling Wolverine's real name "Logan" and how he, Fury, and Logan worked together on a mission in which only they know about.
• The Unmasqued World: On Earth-1897 the Vampire Wars had left the public fully accepting the existence of the supernatural and the United Nations passing the Sorcery Accords, which formed an agency to prevent future supernatural threats and recognizing the Sorcerer Supreme (much to the protest of religious organizations such as the Catholic Church). Several anti-magic/anti-supernatural organizations, especially with a very religious bent, are also formed such as The Crusaders led by Arthur Blackwood.
• Villainous Breakdown: Magneto goes into a rage when his coup in Santo Marco is unraveled, and he reaches his breaking point when Toad and Scarlet Witch turn against him.
  • His son, Quicksilver starts to lose it not soon after. ESPECIALLY after seeing Magneto defeated in front of Sunshine.
  • William Burnside, who is already psychotic, starts freaking out over losing against Captain America when the latter destroys his shield. He madly refuses to give up and tries to make a lunge at Steve but only to get knocked cold.
• Villain Team-Up: Dracula declared a truce with his vampiric rivals Baron Blood, Deacon Frost, Lilith, and Selene to work together to take over the world in the Vampire Wars.
• Wham Line: "I go by Sunset when I'm in costume, but my actual name is Lars Darkholme!"
• Why Am I Ticking?: Unbeknownst to the White Knights, their costumes are laced with explosives by Hate-Monger. When the Knights' attack on Greenville goes awry against the Avengers, William Burnside activates the bombs on his followers to cover his escape.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • This is Nick Fury's reaction to learning that Adolf Hitler is still alive as the Hate-Monger.
  • Mysterio says this when Doctor Octopus reveals that his plan is for the villains to split up to take on the Avengers individually before joining up afterwards to get revenge on Spider-Man.

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