Another
great Marvel friendship here – this one doesn’t even need superpowers to be
awesome. It’s too bad that Peggy and
Steve didn’t get their dance, but if she’s going to be kicking ass and taking
names somewhere without him, I’m glad she has Jarvis to back her up.
The
unwanted sidekick who ultimately proves themselves invaluable is a
tried-and-true archetype, and Jarvis (not to be confused with J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s intelligent
computer system) fits the bill. When
Peggy agrees to help Howard recover his stolen inventions, she’s in a fairly
solitary place. She’s still privately
grieving Steve’s loss, and she’s silently seething at the way the SSR treats
her like a secretary and wastes her skills as an agent. She’s not in the mood for a tagalong, and
she’s very insistent about handling
things herself. The last thing she wants
is Howard’s butler, Jarvis, foisted upon her to help with her secret mission.
And at
first glance, Jarvis doesn’t seem like he’d be much help even if Peggy did want it. He doesn’t give off the air of being made for
the field, and he’s used to a routine and neatness that belies the grime and
unpredictability of spy work. It’s
understandable that Peggy would look at him and only see a stuffed shirt. However, Jarvis isn’t just anyone’s butler –
he’s Howard Stark’s butler, which inevitably means that he’s dealt with grime
and unpredictability plenty of times.
And, as ill-suited as he seems for the task, he’s more than willing to
do whatever will help Peggy in any way he can.
Not that he’s a spy extraordinaire, but he’s hard-working, fastidious,
loyal, and extremely eager, all of which are good qualities to have in a pinch.
So,
slowly, they start to become partners.
It’s still definitely a hero-sidekick type of situation – Jarvis never condescends to Peggy, which is a
major point in his favor – but Peggy comes to value Jarvis’s support. As she fights for her worth, she recognizes
Jarvis’s as well, learning to appreciate a punctual get-away driver, a, extra
pair of eyes applied to a problem, and someone who has her back when things get
dicey. She doesn’t always show that
appreciation very well, partly because it’s hard for her to open up to someone
again (albeit 100% platonically) and partly because, like most Marvel heroes,
she doesn’t always listen to other people’s advice as well as she should. Over the course of the (too-short) series,
they come to mean a lot to each other.
They don’t always see eye-to-eye, and when they fight, it’s hard, because each knows how to get to
the other, but when it really matters, they’re always there for each other.
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