Pete Wisdom

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Character
Name: Peter Paul Wisdom
Occupation: Government Agent, field commander for MI-13; former British Secret Service Agent, spy, reluctant superhero
Relationships: Kitty Pryde (former lover), Romany Wisdom (sister), Excalibur (former team), S.T.R.I.K.E (current team), Tinkabelinos Hardleg (former wife), Maureen Raven (former lover, killed by Pete)
Fandom: X-Men, Marvel Comics
Other: Created by Warren Ellis
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Pete Wisdom is a recurring character in Marvel Comics, largely in Excalibur and currently in the various X-Men comics. He is a former English spy, hard-drinking and rough-mannered, who dresses almost entirely in black suits with a white shirt and a loosely-knotted black tie. His mutant power is to project plasma from his fingertips, which he calls "hot knives". He was a popular character for fanfic in the late 1990s/early 2000s, almost entirely due to the work of Luba Kmetyk and her Fonts of Wisdom archive.

Canon

Pete appeared in Excalibur (Vol 1) #186 in 1985, a co-creation by Warren Ellis and Ken Lashley. Born in London to a Scotland Yard detective and his wife, he has an older sister, Romany, who is involved in the occult; his mother was killed by mass murderer Michael Robert Ryan while waiting for Pete to visit, a visit he had blown off after an argument with her and as a result he and his father both blame him for her death. He joined MI-6 and then transferred to Black Air, where he was predominantly an assassin for the British government. He met (and fell in love with) Kitty Pryde during an assignment to Excalibur and joined the team after destroying a Black Air facility called "Dream Nails". Since then, he has been the leader of an X-Force team and an employee of MI-13, the British government's "weird happenings" division. As of June 2023, he is living on Krakoa, unable to access England as a result of events in Excalibur (Vol. 4) #22.[1]

Fandom

Pete's height of fandom popularity was largely in the 1990s and 2000s when Luba Kmetyk created her fanfiction archive devoted to him and his relationship with Kitty Pryde called Fonts of Pryde and Wisdom. His popularity took off from there, with Luba creating his own section in her archive called "Pearls of Wisdom". Luba's influence in Pete's popularity at that time is best summed up in this quote by Alara Rogers:

Every Pete Wisdom/Kitty Pryde story written today, or for the past four and a half years, is written with the impact of Luba Kmetyk in mind. This isn't the most popular pairing, and Wisdom isn't the most popular character, but given that Excalibur was a rather more obscure book than the mainstream X-titles, the impact is in that so much Pete Wisdom fic gets written at all. Luba's characterizations have become an important part of fanon (maybe not a part I *like*, but an important part.)

 [2]

illustration of Pete Wisdom from the waist up, leaning on a mantelpiece with his left elbow. There's a cigarette in his left hand.
Pete Wisdom by Ashlan, approximately 2004

Since the decline of comics fandom of the 2000s, Pete's popularity as a character has also waned - there are only 90-odd stories on AO3 in which he appears.

Pete has often been compared (and paired with) John Constantine of DC's Vertigo comic Hellblazer - both are scruffy, hard-drinking smokers, who are involved in the occult (Pete via his sister and job, rather than being a magus himself), wear suits all the time and who are considered self-appointed 'guardians' of England and especially London. Both stand up for the "little man" and are ruthless in what they will do to protect their people. For this reason, Pete is somewhat out of place with the regular X-teams, especially given his tendency to mock "the spandex brigade". He is a popular crossover character, often appearing in crossovers involving magic (Harry Potter, The Dresden Files, Hellblazer), strange goings-on (The X-Files, Supernatural, Grimm) or spy-related properties (Get Smart, The Avengers (TV)) based on his canon history of investigating "weird shite" for the English Government and his skills as a spymaster and assassin.

Common Pairings

Het

Canonically, Pete is notoriously unlucky in his relationships, partly because of his job, partly because of his self-loathing and ruthlessness. His relationship with Kitty is considered the most positive thing in his life by fans, who were unhappy when it was ended during Ben Raab's run on Excalibur:

And Peter became a strange, pathetic, cockney-talking shill, playing buddy-buddy with Colossus--a guy who tried to kill him in the classic 'Colossus Agonistes' issue (#92) , suddenly thinking he needed to prove himself by going off on a suicidal mission against Sidrith bounty hunters, and the like. By the time Raab broke him and Kitty up (a move hamhandedly handled and prompted by editorial decision), it became something akin to a mercy killing.

 [3]

Considering his other canon relationships were a forced marriage (and then divorce) to the fairy daughter of Oberon literally named Tinkerbell and an affair with a co-worker who he was later forced to kill to prevent an invasion of Earth, it's no surprise the popular canon het pairing is Kitty Pryde/Pete Wisdom. There were also a number of "I can fix him" type fics with female OCs, but otherwise, m/m pairings are preferred for him.

Slash

Taken from AO3's pairing list, these are the common slash pairings. There is a tendency to pair Pete with fellow scruffy, hard bitten types:

Fanon and Common Tropes in Fanworks

  • Darkfic - stories exploring Pete's darker side and the unpleasant things he had to do with Black Air.
  • BDSM AU - particularly Luba's Idylls of the Cat series, which has both positive and negative portrayals.
  • Forced Marriage - appears with the BDSM AU trope.
  • Casefic - per various crossovers, especially with The X-Files and Supernatural
  • In Vino Veritas (trope) - Pete drinks a lot, and as a result, there's a tendency for him to wind up making... interesting decisions.
  • Age Difference - particularly with Kitty/Pete stories, as she was considered to be only eighteen when she met him.

Example Fanworks

Fanfic

Fanart

Meta

Archives and Communities

Links and Resources

References

  1. ^ Peter Wisdom (Earth-616) Marvel Database
  2. ^ "Never let it be said..." Alara Rogers' Livejournal, Oct 24, 2002
  3. ^ The Pete Wisdom Rehabilitation Brigade Page
✪ This article was featured on the Fanlore main page in 2023
How To & About
Past Featured Articles
Featured Article Nominations
Retrieved from "https://fanlore.org/w/index.php?title=Pete_Wisdom&oldid=2542841"