Norman Osborn

[hippie_hunter]

What was really weird about the Reed thing was the fact that Authoritative Action had just taken place. Reed took over Latveria because he didn't want Doom to just "rebuild'. It was very Anti-Establishment and then a few months later Reed was Dr. Mengele.

Not only did he choose the SHRA over his family, he did so because his uncle took a stand against the unjust laws of the early Cold War era, which Reed somehow saw as a failure on his uncle part, since he went to jail and died alone. So, basically, Reed was a fascist ass**** for the duration of Marvel's Civil War.

Actually it kinda makes sense that Reed chose the SHRA. If you think about it, every time Reed went up against the establishment he and his family suffered for it.

Think about the time that he took over Latveria. He was forced out and was punished by having to sign over all of his patents which were the source of his families income. And Ben Grimm was killed as well.

Or the time that he took his family and tresspassed onto government property and stole a rocket which resulted in their powers. Ben Grimm looked hideous as a result and Reed feels guilty over what happened.

And then there's the uncle he mentioned.

Think about it if he went against the SHRA. His new patents and fortune would have seized. The Baxter Building would have most likely been taken over. And the public would have hated the Fantastic Four, which goes against Reed's efforts to make them celebrities. This is a man who has two children who were powerless at the time as well.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, you're right. It's way more heroic for Reed to help mastermind the oppression of others because it'd be inconvenient to stand against unjust laws.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I can see where the temptation would play a factor. He did however finally bow down to the almighty *****. Sue took the ***** away and **** went downhill for Reed. Like it always does. If Sue ever leaves Reed for Namor... the heroes of Earth are going to have a hard time taking down Reed. He's going to lose it and destroy the oceans.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Or the Hulk could just get really mad and bludgeon him nearly to death again.

But you do bring up a good point to refute hippie further with: Reed didn't do his family any favors by supporting the SHRA. In fact, he strained his relationshp with them so much that they nearly fell apart. His entire family saw that the SHRA was a cause worth fighting against and Reed supported it anyway, so in a way he was still living up to his uncle's example, only by doing the wrong thing instead of the right thing.

 

[Franklin Richards]

Or the Hulk could just get really mad and bludgeon him nearly to death again.

<fingers in ears> Nah! Nah! Nah! Never happened!!!

 

[hippie_hunter]

But you do bring up a good point to refute hippie further with: Reed didn't do his family any favors by supporting the SHRA. In fact, he strained his relationshp with them so much that they nearly fell apart. His entire family saw that the SHRA was a cause worth fighting against and Reed supported it anyway, so in a way he was still living up to his uncle's example, only by doing the wrong thing instead of the right thing.

Which actually made Reed's role in Civil War rather interesting as opposed to downright ******ed like Spider-Man's who should have never been on the pro-registration side to begin with.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Reed sorta made sense in civil war until clor raised his ugly head, that was going too far for him.



As for spider-man villians being big league most aren't but there are a few notable exceptions:

Electro- just for his sheer power level.

Sandman- immortal and unkillable.

Norman- genius/madman/considered the MU's best chemist.

Octavius- very nearly conquered the world a few times, second smartest expert in radiation.

Miles Warren- Best geneticist other than Sinister and High Evolutionary in the MU. Clones *****es, clones.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Anyone else considered the idea that maybe Norman also made a deal with Mephisto, probably before Spider-Man's deal? It would explain his rise to power and the return of Harry. Norman may have made a deal not only to help himself but to further Spidey's misery.

I know it may seem like a bit of a stretch but hey... we're talkin' about marvel here. Anything's possible.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I think he just made a deal with an extraordinarily stupid government.

 

[moraldeficiency]

devil, extraordinarily stupid government...tomato, tomoto.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Robato, Roboto.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Stupid government or not, it still seems like a possibility. I've heard lots of people complain, "What did everyone forget this guy is a known killer and former super-villain!"
And you know... maybe they did forget. Around the same time they forgot who Spider-Man was. Only Norman asked that certain people remember, so they would get pissed off by his new position.


... I like Norman Osborn.

 

[BrianWilly]

Actually it kinda makes sense that Reed chose the SHRA. If you think about it, every time Reed went up against the establishment he and his family suffered for it.

Think about the time that he took over Latveria. He was forced out and was punished by having to sign over all of his patents which were the source of his families income. And Ben Grimm was killed as well.

Or the time that he took his family and tresspassed onto government property and stole a rocket which resulted in their powers. Ben Grimm looked hideous as a result and Reed feels guilty over what happened.

And then there's the uncle he mentioned.

Think about it if he went against the SHRA. His new patents and fortune would have seized. The Baxter Building would have most likely been taken over. And the public would have hated the Fantastic Four, which goes against Reed's efforts to make them celebrities. This is a man who has two children who were powerless at the time as well.

So why didn't this stop him every single other time he didn't do what he was told by the government, with some instances being as recent to the Civil War as one single arc before it? This guy opposes the government practically as a hobby, including that other time they tried to register superhumans as well, but we're to accept that this one single time is completely different?

Well okay, right, that's not a horrible idea for a story. It certainly would be interesting to see this one event as the tipping point that finally broke Reed's rebellious will, forcing him to accept that, after all these years, him not towing the company line has done more ill than good for his family. He would probably have a lengthy and ongoing discussion about it with his family, explaining it all to them in terms they could understand and then beg for them to understand what he knows they ultimately wouldn't. It would be a dramatic and significant arc for Reed, changing the character status quo that readers have known from him pretty much all his existence...

...that is, if that was the story that Millar and JMS actually told. It wasn't. The reason we were given for his heel face turn is...because of SCIENCE, and McCarthyism. That's all. There was no breaking point. There was no dramatic dismissal of all his past rebellions as having been useless. We saw no single moment where Reed finally comes to terms with it and reluctantly signs on the dotted line that goes against everything he ever believed in. He never explains anything to his family, just expects them to follow his awesome brain like it was the most normal thing to do. Hell, he spends less time with these people that he's ultimately trying to protect, alienating them all in the process of being government weapons.

What we saw was "People who opposed McCarthy were idiots" and "Math that no one else could come close to understanding tells me that I must be fascist" and "Wowee, look at this clone I made! Look at this prison I made! This is gonna change everything for the better! Why isn't everyone else as excited as I am? Oh ****, everyone's gone." That was Reed's story from Civil War.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Stupid government or not, it still seems like a possibility. I've heard lots of people complain, "What did everyone forget this guy is a known killer and former super-villain!"
And you know... maybe they did forget. Around the same time they forgot who Spider-Man was. Only Norman asked that certain people remember, so they would get pissed off by his new position.


... I like Norman Osborn.

Norman's too smart to make deals with the devil.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

So why didn't this stop him every single other time he didn't do what he was told by the government, with some instances being as recent to the Civil War as one single arc before it? This guy opposes the government practically as a hobby, including that other time they tried to register superhumans as well, but we're to accept that this one single time is completely different?

Well okay, right, that's not a horrible idea for a story. It certainly would be interesting to see this one event as the tipping point that finally broke Reed's rebellious will, forcing him to accept that, after all these years, him not towing the company line has done more ill than good for his family. He would probably have a lengthy and ongoing discussion about it with his family, explaining it all to them in terms they could understand and then beg for them to understand what he knows they ultimately wouldn't. It would be a dramatic and significant arc for Reed, changing the character status quo that readers have known from him pretty much all his existence...

...that is, if that was the story that Millar and JMS actually told. It wasn't. The reason we were given for his heel face turn is...because of SCIENCE, and McCarthyism. That's all. There was no breaking point. There was no dramatic dismissal of all his past rebellions as having been useless. We saw no single moment where Reed finally comes to terms with it and reluctantly signs on the dotted line that goes against everything he ever believed in. He never explains anything to his family, just expects them to follow his awesome brain like it was the most normal thing to do. Hell, he spends less time with these people that he's ultimately trying to protect, alienating them all in the process of being government weapons.

What we saw was "People who opposed McCarthy were idiots" and "Math that no one else could come close to understanding tells me that I must be fascist" and "Wowee, look at this clone I made! Look at this prison I made! This is gonna change everything for the better! Why isn't everyone else as excited as I am? Oh ****, everyone's gone." That was Reed's story from Civil War.

If this were an '80s teen drama, I would be starting a slow clap right now.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Norman's too smart to make deals with the devil.

Yeah you're probably right. Unless he thinks he's smarter than the devil and will somehow come out on top. He could have been desperate enough also, like maybe Mephisto said "Stay in prison your whole life or make a deal with me and you'll be leading the Super Heroes!" or something.

Either way, I need to stop all this fan-boy nonsense and get some work done.

 

[Doomed_hero]

I like Norman but am unsure of this upgrade. It would once again be a better story if OMD never happened and norman knew Peter was Spider-man and no Harry.

 

[CantThinkOfAName]

Actually, Luke beating Norman up in The Pulse sort of bugged me because Norman was a Spider-Man villain and I actually still cared about Spider-Man back then. It was sort of like, "Well, why doesn't Peter do that every other day, when Norman threatens his family?"

But he has done that. He did it one time and Norman secretly taped it to make Spider-Man look like an *******. He did another time and then realized Norman would always threaten his family.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Or the Hulk could just get really mad and bludgeon him nearly to death again.

But you do bring up a good point to refute hippie further with: Reed didn't do his family any favors by supporting the SHRA. In fact, he strained his relationshp with them so much that they nearly fell apart. His entire family saw that the SHRA was a cause worth fighting against and Reed supported it anyway, so in a way he was still living up to his uncle's example, only by doing the wrong thing instead of the right thing.

Reed strained the relationship with his family on the way he supported the SHRA. Not because of his support of it. Sue didn't like Reed building a prison in the Negative Zone and creating Clor that killed Bill Foster.

The only problem Sue had with the SHRA was that it rounded up her friends like Captain America. Johnny followed his older sister. And Ben refused to fight against the SHRA because he didn't want to be a criminal.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Either way, if his wife had serious misgivings about the act, the fact that he basically spearheaded the campaign to implement it alongside Tony and Skrull-Hank didn't do their marriage any favors. The rest is just semantics, really.

 

[Spider-Gnome]

Getting back to the topic of Norman Osborn:

I posed this question in another thread in the Spider-Man: Comics area of these boards, but never really got an answer. I am a long time reader, but still a little confused how Norman got to this point, and what the actual public knows or thinks of Norman.

OK (sorry if this gets long), Norman's id as the Green Goblin is secret before his "death" after killing Gwen. Harry takes the costume so Norman is just found dead. In the years after this, we had Harry as GG, and known as such as he gets psychiatric help (from the future GG 3, Bart Hamilton, I think his name was), Kingsly finds Norman's lairs and journals, and Ben Urich writes a book exposing that Norman was the Goblin. So, at this point, I assume Norman as Goblin was public knowledge. Add to this Harry "dieing" while in the goblin costume.

Then, Norman and the Goblin reappear from the dead, to end the whole clone saga. Norman explains he faked his death to escape his enemies and was in hiding in Europe. He calls libel on Ben Urich and then uses someone else in a Goblin costume to say he wasn't the Goblin. Did they ever say who that was? I can't remember. It seemed like for a while they were hinting it was a brain washed Flash. So, I guess that makes the public doubt Norman was/is the Goblin.

But, then he IS caught red handed by a combo of Spidey and Luke Cage? (See the Pulse and 1st issue of Marvel Knights). So, then he is in jail and known as the Goblin, right? Then Spidey & Black Cat help Norman escape, only to be double crossed. It ends with a battle between Norman & a drug controlled Doc Ock. The result: Doc Ock is recaptured, but Norman disappeared. So, Norman aka the Goblin is at large?

But, then, during Civil War, Peter unmasks and we see Norman is in prison again! He's mad since he lost the one thing he had over Pete. So, now he's in jail (how did that happen again?) and I guess known as the Goblin.

Then, all of a sudden Norman tries to assassinate an ambassador from Atlantis, and grabbed by authorities. Supposedly he was somehow made to do this by the government (why?)? And then, while questioning him, the government comes in, takes him, and makes him the director of the Thunderbolts (why?)?

So, now, under this authority, he joins the battle against the Skrulls. Ironman has an armor malfunction and has to go fix it, and Norman ends up shooting & killing Spider-Skrull aka the Skrull Queen. So, from this, Stark is out and Norman is in charge.

Now am I missing anything? Isn't he still known (and therefore wanted and/or convicted) as the Green Goblin?

I actually like the direction this has taken with this power given Norman, but I'm a little confused. I just hope Norman doesn't forget his Spider-Man obsession. And I hope he doesn't suddenly becomes Ironman's main nemesis the way the Kingpin became Daredevil's. Anyway, any help straightening me out would be appreciated.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Then, Norman and the Goblin reappear from the dead, to end the whole clone saga. Norman explains he faked his death to escape his enemies and was in hiding in Europe. He calls libel on Ben Urich and then uses someone else in a Goblin costume to say he wasn't the Goblin. Did they ever say who that was? I can't remember. It seemed like for a while they were hinting it was a brain washed Flash. So, I guess that makes the public doubt Norman was/is the Goblin.

That was an artificial lifeform posing as The Goblin for Osborn, iirc...the same kind that Peter's returning "parents" were in ASM #365...

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Apparently, Norman's gonna have the Thunderbolts hunting down a new Green Goblin in the new team's first arc.

 

[The Geek Vault]

Apparently, Norman's gonna have the Thunderbolts hunting down a new Green Goblin in the new team's first arc.

By new Green Goblin do you mean Menace? The red haired Goblin in ASM?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I don't know, I just saw in a preview or interview or something that a new guy takes up the Green Goblin name and Norman gets pissed, so he sics the new kill-squad T-bolts on him.