Greetings Shippers welcome back and it’s time to take a look at a small ship that actually
managed to emerged out of endgame a film that has been dubbed by some as a ship killer.
However it also gave some ships life and for many shippers canon holds very little bearing
over whether their ships live or die.
Today we will be examining Parley the pairing of Harley Keener and Peter Parker.
Before we get started if you haven’t already please do follow on social media to stay up
to date know when we’re streaming and just come on over to chit chat about fandom it’s
a good time I swear.
Now onto the pairing.
This one is highly conceptual and one of those ships where the couple in question have not
truly shared any screentime.
In this pairings case they were in one scene together but nowhere near each other.
So how exactly did this come about well for that to make sense we must first meet the
players.
Starting off with Harley Keener.
Some MCU fans actually forgot about Harley Keener the young boy who played a large role
in Iron Man 3 when he helped Tony repair his armour and also come to terms with some of
anxiety and PTSd that was manifesting quite intensely during that film.
Mileage varies on how effectively the latter plot was handled.
Comic fans were likely unsurprised to see the character or at least those fans familiar
with Earth SD01 wherein Harley Keener teamed up with Vic Stark after he was defeated by
the Mandarin and helped him defeat his arch foe eventually becoming the superhero Iron
Lad.
Some fans felt that this multiverse story was being incorporated into the MCU as the
MArvel Cinematic “universe pulls from many corners to construct it’s narratives alongside
doing it’s own thing.
Harley in this film is well a child and one in a film at that, a bit precocious, very
helpful but charming and not overly abrasive or grating though mileage varies some cannot
stomach the helpful child character at all.
Still fans initially believed that the character must be there for a purpose have some meaning
but the character vanished after this one appearance only to appear 6 years later in
Avengers Endgame.
Next up Peter Parker a.k.a Spider-Man of your friendly neighborhood variety.
The Peter Parker of the MCU is tweaked to make sure he fits into the narrative though
personality wise he stays true to spidey’s past.
This Peter Parker is a young man man striving to do good.
He is earnest, loyal, nerdy and feels things extremely deeply.
He is still apt to make mistakes, but does his best to learn from them while still awkward
and a little insecure he is coming into his own and has proved himself a hero many times
over.
He has a close parental relationship with Tony stark lovingly dubbed Iron Dad and/or
SpiderSon by the fandom.
From whom he has learned even more about great power coming with great responsibility, even
if some are salty about how much of his tech he has gotten from Tony.
So what was the scene that these two shared, well these two appear together or rather are
both at tony’s funeral . although for Harley there were some articles detailing who exactly
“the kid” at Iron Man’s funeral was.
So how exactly did shippers get from point a sad funeral scene where the two never interact
to b ship these two belong together.
Well in actually while Endgame has brought this ship to the forefront it has been around
for longer but largely because of announcements that the actor playing Harley would be returning
Post Endgame.
Though some were already there making some leaps.
For as mentioned for many it was conceptual.
Some couldn’t believe that Tony has simply not been in contact with Harley particularly
after how close he was with Peter and so developed the headcanon that the two had been talking
all the time in one of the Russo brothers favourite places offscreen which in fandom
terms falls into the realm of fanon however when creators say it it becomes canon though
some will never accept it.
So what fanons have been built around these two well some centre around these two having
met beforehand at some point, probably during one of Stark’s teaching reprieves as a large
part of tony’s character both in comics and the mcu is preparing and working with
the next generations great minds.
So some engineered scenarios for these two to meet in that capacity.
The length of time one can go back varies some take it as far back as age of Ultron
as it had been retconned as canon that Peter was the child that Tony had saved in Iron
Man 2 which also gave fans some wiggle room to play with a new first meeting for those
two.
There were scenarios where Tony had to adopt Harley through plot convinienceitis and he
would meet Peter that way, or of course fun secret identity porn shenanigans.
Really because this ship has no on screen canon basis though the canon can be used as
a support to back it up it is free to do what fans of these two please meaning the works
vary.
Though post Endgame a big thread has been these two bonding over the loss of Tony and
helping each other recover.
What some enjoy about this pairing is that so much of it needs to be charted and one
could essentially develop the relationship from scratch without having to worry about
going to far off base, as one already had to leave canon behind to get there.
Others felt these two would match though admittedly much of Harley’s personality was generated
by fanon.
For many the dynamic was that of a snarky confident harley bouncing off a shier, but
still competent peter who can give as good as he gets in the banter department.
That these two would be intellectual equals and what a treat that would be for them, and
that the could bond over their pasts and their shared similarities i.e single mothers or
mother figures and parental figure tony stark.
In the realm of ships this one is small smaaaall to the point where some feel it’s almost
a fandom secret you have to be in the know to find out about it.
The fact that it needs to be pretty much built from the ground up is unappealing to certain
shippers and some have a hard time getting invested in what looks like it will always
be an extremely rare pair.
Others of course have alternate pairings in this case almost exclusively for peter as
many forgot Harley existed, as the years passed after Iron Man 3 which already was not the
best received of the MCU films.
In short for some it’s too much of a reach.
Going off of that some feel Harley isn’t enough of a character to do anything with
and that there are other more fruitful ships to explore.
Some don’t feel that what is presented would work and that the connections are tenuous
at best and full of shipping goggle fancy at worse, actually that is not the at worse
more an at middle.
Endgame has given these two a tiny surge in interest and a proper ship name.
However it remains to be seen what the future holds from the Russo’s J.K Rowling style
discussions it appears that Harley’s presence was more homage than portend.
Sidenote there were some who speculated that Peter’s role in Civil War was initially
going to go to Harley but that was scrapped when Disney obtained the rights to Spider-Man
and needed to incorporate the character into the film.
There is no proof of this, and some feel it is an example of fans giving more credit to
the inter-connectivity of the mcu than it in fact deserves.
While some feel the mcu is playing 4d chess and the rest of the world is playing checkers
others will point to loose threads, dropped plots and plot holes to highlight it’s not
all entirely planned out.
Even the spider man far form home writing team mentioned they wrote the multiverse plotlines
pre endgame so while some want to believe there was a grand design for Harley it was
potentially not the case at all.
Though anything can be retconned in for that is the true magic of comics.
Is this a pairing you ship, could you see yourself getting into it if you don’t why
or why not?
Do you wish they had done more with the character of Harley Keener?
Share all your thoughts down below and you know the drill numbered if possible.
Cause I love a good essay comment.
Thanks so much as always for taking some time out of your day to spend it discussing shipping
with me I always appreciate it.
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There are as always more videos coming soon and I will see you again when I can so stay
tuned for there are as many ships out there as there are stars in the sky.