*I appreciated that Harry, a character who has been haunted by the love for his father and yet felt unappreciated because he never seemed to live up to him, FINALLY stood up to Norman Osborn. The scene in which Spidey tells Harry that if he kills Norman, he'll be giving him exactly what he wants was certainly the best moment of the issue. Couple this with the flashback scene of Peter and Harry in college and how they became like brothers and it does suggest Harry has progressed as a character (even though, once again, Peter has remained static).
*Last issue, I thought it was very out of character for Norman to suggest that he'd be willing to arrange his own son's death to advance his own agenda when he's done pretty much everything to protect him as a form of misguided parental love. Here, I think Kelly better articulated Norman's rationale--in that since Norman now is about to be a father of a child whose parents both have the goblin formula coursing through them, and thus is a "genetically purer" offspring in his mind, he no longer needs Harry to carry on his legacy (of course, this then begs the question why even bother giving Harry ANOTHER chance if Norman already made up his mind before hand and he, in the context of this story, saw Harry as expendable anyway). And the last page in which Norman talks to his unborn son while Lily realizes in horror that she's nothing more than an incubator to the man whom she thought loved her really does underscore what a creepy and demented guy Norman really is.
However, aside from Norman and Harry disowning each other, nothing has actually changed. "But wait," you say, "What about Harry learning that his best friend, Peter Parker, is actually Spider-Man? He clearly saw Spidey unmasked, didn't he?" Are you sure about that? Because the way the scene was depicted, it's actually ambiguous as to whether or not Harry does actually know Peter is Spider-Man. Maybe Kelly believed that the readers would be smart enough to figure out Harry learned who Peter was without explicitly stating so, but this was certainly one of those times in which he shouldn't have cryptic and subtle. And if he doesn't know, then not only did--surprise, surprise--the solicit for this issue which clearly states Spidey's identity would be revealed to someone outright mislead it's potential readers, but it shows just how utterly ridiculous the whole "psychic blindspot" aspect of how Spidey's identity remains secret really is.
Also, if Norman is still alive and Harry clearly wants to have nothing to do with his father, what reason does Harry have in hating Spider-Man now? Is it because, like Norman, he's tired of Spider-Man also "interfering" with his life and how it's a mess because of it? It's understandable, but to make that the basis of hating Spider-Man to the point of wanting to kill him is bit of stretch. Likewise, since Harry no longer has to worry about trying to win over his father's approval, what is his motivation as a character now going to be? The issue suggest that Harry is going to fall of the wagon, AGAIN, this time possibly becoming addicted to Oxycontin. So his future as a character is being developed, or rather regressing, into being a junkie once again for Spidey to save? And folks wonder why BND seems like it's rehashing old stories.
As for the whole Norah subplot in her trying to get the dirt on Norman Osborn, what bearing did this have on the overall story other than to show what readers already knew--that Norman Osborn was evil and vindictive? Yeah, like we couldn't tell that already in the main storyline. And since Norah is clearly not going to publish her story, aside from making Norah scared out of her wits, it makes her entire contribution to American Son come off as completely pointless.
And don't get me started on how Peter winds up in the hospital under the pretext of being caught in a "hit and run," making this the second Spider-Man story this month that ends with Peter in the hospital. Yeah, real original guys! Not to mention, it once again shows how ridiculous the psychic blindspot is when the doctors completely buy this story, even though logically Peter's wounds wouldn't probably correspond to a hit and run, especially the friggin arrow wounds in his legs. I know Peter has enhanced healing, but it's not as fast as Wolverine's so the injuries, even after less than 24 hours, would still be clearly visible.
Finally, the fact that there were four different artists on this one issue really hurt the consistency, which has been a problem on the illustrations throughout this story. Now, folks were under the impression that Phil Jimenez couldn't do the entire arc due to personal reasons. Well, thanks to Wacker's note in the back of this issue, we finally learn that the real reason Jimenez couldn't do the arc was because he was doing the artwork for future issues of Astonishing X-Men. Well, if the braintrust/webheads knew Jimeniz had a prior commitment to another book, why even bother having him do the first issue? Because it comes across as a real bait-and-switch on their part, which I don't believe readers will appreciate.
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