Reaper fans are furious about Overwatch’s newest short story

polygon.com:

The newest Overwatch in-game Challenge, Reaper’s Code of Violence, debuted onto live servers yesterday. The Challenge was accompanied by a lore novella, depicting one of Reaper’s earlier missions with Talon to recruit the scientist Sigma. He works alongside Sombra, but most of the short story is spent in his head as he reflects on his old life as the Blackwatch operative Gabriel Reyes, and how it brought him into his current circumstances.

Unfortunately, a number of Reaper fans don’t like how the novella depicts Gabriel Reyes, who they have been creating fanfiction and headcanons of for years. (The fandom’s version of Reyes is a scorned ex with complicated feelings towards Soldier 76, a deeply petty man who revels in being both extra and extremely violent.)

And many fans have taken tosocial media to note theirannoyance with thedevelopments in Code of Violence. Some dislike the characterization of Reyes, while others have pointed out lore inconsistencies, like the fact that Gabriel Reyes knew Talon was a mega-corporation backed terrorist organization well before the events of Code of Violence due tothe events of the Retribution comic.

We learn a lot about Reyes in Code of Violence. He used to be a cop who lived in a bungalow in Echo Park with his wife Martina and their son. He still thinks of Martina often, and it’s why he wears a mask and the name Reaper. One complaint is just how much time Reaper spends wistfully imagining how his wife would see him now, but we’ve only seen her in a single panel in a comic. At one point, he ponders “Would she smile now if she knew what I’ve become? Could she ever feel that way about me again?” We still know very little about their dynamic, whereas people have been shipping Reyes with