Bringing Norman Osborn back from the dead. Good idea or bad idea?

[Shawn Hopkins]

Well, actually it WAS going to be Harry. But then Bob Harras ordered them to make it Norman and to extend the story for 6 more months because he didn't think Harry would be an effective enough villain.

It would have made more sense with Harry. Harry's death was kind of suspicious, given that it was the result of a souped up experimental version of the Goblin serum. He just overexerted himself and croaked. That smelt like a built in reset button to me, maybe with him being in a death-like state and clawing his way out of his grave. It's happened in a Spider-Man comic before.

 

[Anwar]

That was exactly how they were going to do it: The enhanced formula he used was to have put him into a death-like state that rotted away at his body. So he needed a life-support suit to live. He was supposed to be the "Gaunt" guy.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

That was exactly how they were going to do it: The enhanced formula he used was to have put him into a death-like state that rotted away at his body. So he needed a life-support suit to live. He was supposed to be the "Gaunt" guy.

Oh. See, that makes sense. Norman Osborn, however, had a Goblin Glider sized hole in his torso but just "got better."

 

[guerillacropoli]

- Eddie Brock knew his id, but again years after the first Clone Saga. Heck, he wouldn't even have a reason for engineering Ben's creation at the time.

Eddie knew Spider-Man was Peter Parker as soon as the symbiote bonded with him. The symbiote "told" Eddie all about Peter since it viewed Peter, as an ex-host who rejected it, as its greatest enemy. One of the early Venom stories that Todd McFarlane drew actually shows Eddie coming over to Aunt May's house and tormenting him by hanging out with her as an "old friend" of Peter's until he shows up.

 

[guerillacropoli]

Firstly, Norman was doing the evil millionaire thing while lex was still running around in a purple jumpsuit and making time machines out of soda cans. Secondly, pretty much all Norman did in the first decade after his resurection was screw with Spidey's head, crippling Flash, kidnapping Aunt May, the Stacy twins! If anything, it's refreshing to see Osborn developing an agenda that goes beyond picking on Pete.

I still see him leading H.A.M.M.E.R and being thought of as a "hero" for the Skrull war as being in the same vein as the old storyline of Luthor being elected president. It just feels like a re-tread and something that's been done before; an old arch-villain who tricks the masses into giving him massive amounts of power. Give us something new, Marvel!

 

[HadesSphere]

To answer the question.

Imagine for a moment...

The X-Men without Magneto
Batman without the Joker
The Fantastic Four without Dr. Doom.
Superman without Lex Luthor.
Daredevil without the Kingpin

Spider-Man went over twenty-years without his arch-nemesis, and the books lacked something. They tried to give that edge to Venom, and he was a pale imitation. Doc Ock was a great Spider-Man enemy, still is, but was not Peter Parker's enemy too. Harry was nuts, but too decent a guy at heart to go all the way.

No, the comics needed Norman Osborn. In fact, one might say that killing him off in the first place was a mistake.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

They replaced the Green Goblin quite adequately, IMO. With the original Hobgoblin. He really bedeviled Spider-Man for a good while in the 1980s. The way they originally ended the Hobgoblin story was a mistake and bad storytelling and the replacement Hobgoblin was just another cut-rate mercenary in a suit, the kind of schmucky foe Spider-Man has a million of.

 

[HadesSphere]

They replaced the Green Goblin quite adequately, IMO. With the original Hobgoblin. He really bedeviled Spider-Man for a good while in the 1980s. The way they originally ended the Hobgoblin story was a mistake and bad storytelling and the replacement Hobgoblin was just another cut-rate mercenary in a suit, the kind of schmucky foe Spider-Man has a million of.

He did, and I often wonder what might have been. It all went down when Stern was kicked off the book before he could end his mystery.

But, would Kingsley have discovered who Spider-Man was Peter Parker? Who knows. But, Spidey's arch-enemy needs that personal touch, in my opinion.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

He did, and I often wonder what might have been. It all went down when Stern was kicked off the book before he could end his mystery.

But, would Kingsley have discovered who Spider-Man was Peter Parker? Who knows. But, Spidey's arch-enemy needs that personal touch, in my opinion.

It's interesting that the Green Goblin being Norman Osborn is actually another case of someone reaching around for an answer after the person who was guiding the story left the book. Ditko says he was originally supposed to be someone else.

But anyway, they had to kill the Goblin. Because Spider-Man could not get married and so they had to think of some way out of his relationship with Gwen. And since what they came up with was the Goblin, who knew Spidey's identity, killing her, they also had to kill the villain who killed her or the reader would not feel as if they had been adequately punished.

Isn't it interesting how everything old eventually is new again in comics?

 

[HadesSphere]

It's interesting that the Green Goblin being Norman Osborn is actually another case of someone reaching around for an answer after the person who was guiding the story left the book. Ditko says he was originally supposed to be someone else.

Ned Leeds, actually.

Oh, the irony...

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

Ned Leeds, actually.

Oh, the irony...

Ha. That's great. I knew that it wasn't supposed to be Norman but I didn't know that. It's hilarious how it worked out.

 

[Anwar]

Heck, Stan Lee's original idea for the Goblin was for him to REALLY be a Goblin. A being of magic to counter Peter's science.

 

[SpideyFan914]

Ned Leeds, actually.

Oh, the irony...

But wait a minute - Ditko left, not Stan! And Stan "The Man" Lee was the one writing 'em, so why Ditko's leaving make difference?
And I don't buy about him originally intended as a real goblin - Amazing Spider-Man #14, page 22, panel 5 - read it and weep.

Anyway, I would've liked for when someone, say, dies, for them to, you know, stay dead! Death has become completely meaningless in every form of media - someone drops dead, and who cares? You can only bring someone back if (A) it was alluded to/foreshadowed in the same issue/episode/whatever that they supposedly died in, or (B) they died before the start, and so their death was never really given meaning. (No, that doesn't include ones such as Peter's parents - their deaths had plenty of meaning.)

 

[HadesSphere]

But wait a minute - Ditko left, not Stan! And Stan "The Man" Lee was the one writing 'em, so why Ditko's leaving make difference?
And I don't buy about him originally intended as a real goblin - Amazing Spider-Man #14, page 22, panel 5 - read it and weep.

Yes, but Ditko was heavily involved in the plotting of each and every issue. Stan wanted a real Goblin, Ditko didn't and drew the issue as such.

Back in those days, Stan was writing so many books and representing Marvel that he'd just plot a rough outline, the artist would draw it their way and Stan would come back and fill in the text.

Ditko wanted a human villain, hence he drew it that way.

 

[TheVileOne]

I guess bringing Osbourne back was only way Marvel could write themselves out of the Clone saga.

 

[HadesSphere]

I guess bringing Osbourne back was only way Marvel could write themselves out of the Clone saga.

It really was. J.R. Fettinger wrote an excellent thesis here...

And now - all of that had to be reversed again in order to make Peter Spider-Man once again, and Ben the clone. But how? If you read the one-shot 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga, you get an idea of the quandry Marvel found themselves in since they had let this monster get completely off-tangent. They either had to create some huge cosmic event, some new fangled scientific oddity or come up with someone big enough, bad enough, and around long enough, to have been pulling Miles Warren's strings from the very beginning. Not only that, but it had to be a Spidey villain who knew that Peter and Spider-Man were one and the same, and who hated them both to the degree that he would have the motivation to manage the events of the Saga. To have invented yet another new villain to have been behind all of this would have been a huge letdown, and any cosmic events would probably would have made the situation even more complicated and cumbersome to deal with in the future.

So, now you begin to see how limited Marvel's options really were.


Venom couldn't come to the rescue, because not only did the first Clone Saga long predate Venom, but Eddie Brock clearly did not have either the intellectual or financial resources to pull off the Clone Saga. Plus, it just wasn't his style. Doctor Octopus certainly would have had the brainpower and the access to the kind of science required - but he did not learn Spider-Man's secret i.d. until Amazing #397, and even at that, he had just been killed off by Kaine (another dumb move) right after he had made an odd sort of peace with Spider-Man.


The only other classic villain to whom this whole affair would have been feasible for would have been Mysterio, since he theoretically could have induced a super illusion on Spidey for the duration of the Clone Saga - but that would have required Marvel telling fans that the Clone Saga never happened.


So that leaves only two possibilities, and both have the last name of Osborn.


Now, Harry was a fairly probable candidate. In fact, I remember the owners of a comic shop I used to patronize speculating that the mastermind behind the Clone Saga was Harry. Perhaps he would have been a less controversial choice because he hadn't been dead for very long, and his death was not part of a widely revered story.


However, Harry didn't really work, either. For one, he had just been dug up and his identity confirmed in Legacy of Evil. (Not that would necessarily stop him from being brought back to life, I admit. After all, in The Jackal Files didn't the Jackal state that he had confirmed that both Harry and Norman were dead?) Second, during the time that the plot of the first Clone Saga would have been hatched, Harry would not have had the motivation or the wherewithal to have concocted such a scheme. In Amazing #122 he was recovering from another acid trip, and while he was coherent enough to have switched his father's clothing (and pay off the coroner in Osborn Journals), it would have been a bit much to have him be the mastermind behind the Clone Saga. Additionally, he did not confirm for himself that Peter Parker was Spider-Man until issue #134, and after being beaten by Spider-Man in issue #137, he went to the booby hatch where he stayed until issue #151 and by then he had forgotten about the whole Green Goblin gig. In fact, until Harry got his wits back around the time Bart Hamilton became the Green Goblin in Amazing #176-180, he was pretty much a harmless simpleton. Not only that, but he did not even remember that his father was the Green Goblin until the Hobgoblin tried to blackmail him with that information in issue #249. So, yes, it could have been Harry, but that would have required a lot more creative dancing and retconning that the choice that was finally made.


That leaves only one little indian - and his name is Norman Osborn, the only villain who (1)knew that Peter was Spider-Man, (2) had the financial resources (3) had the cunning, and (4) had the motivation to pull this off. After all, we don't have to be told how much he hates Spider-Man. In fact, Harry's recent death actually made Norman's return at that particular time even more plausible, and provided him with a significantly additional motivation to wreck Peter Parker's life.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

It really was. J.R. Fettinger wrote an excellent thesis here...

I don't think those points, as good as they are, mean they had to bring Norman back because it was the best option. There's no reason it couldn't be that Norman had started the clone saga manipulations before he died, Harry found out about the plans at some point and as Gaunt decided to continue his father's work. In fact, I don't remember all the details of the Clone Saga that well, but why does it even have to be masterminded from the beginning? Couldn't someone have simply taken over Warren's work and tech at some later point?

 

[Anwar]

Heck, they could even have had it revealed that the Jackal really DID die in the first saga and it was some backup clone discovered by Harry whom he activated that was the one we saw in the second. Miles would've done his own thing for the first saga and then the second was just his clone who had really been activated by Harry before Harry died (since Harry was pretty friggin evil at the time) and then when Harry revived as Gaunt he assumed control directly.

 

[SpideyFan914]

Well, I haven't actually read the massive cross-over known as the Clone Saga, nor the crazy Harry-Goblin stuff in Spectacular, since I only mainly have Amazing Spider-Man. I've only got the Essentials of Spectacular, and they're so slow it'll be a while - why can't Marvel make all of these back issues easy to buy? Why can't they all be on CDs?

 

[Wolf Boy2]

Bad idea. VERY bad idea.

Which surprises me that I say this, being that "Sins Past" was my first Spidey read and was the story that got me interested in Spider-Man in the first place. I defended the story a lot back when it was so controversial.

...

UNTIL I started reading the classic Amazing Spider-Man. For me, the series ended with the deaths of Gwen and Goblin. The whole thing felt so final, and the romantic arc was pretty much laid to rest with the Mary Jane scene at the end. If you only read the series up to that point, it really does feel final.

Were the Wolfman, Luke Cage, Doc Ock marrying Aunt May and all those other stupid 70s stories worth messing up such an epic ending? Did the 80s black suit or 90s Clone Nonsense or 2000s magic justify continuing the series?

I cannot answer with anything but an emphatic NO.

What made Marvel so great back in the day was that they treated the characters like real people. Time moved in a realistic fashion, without as much of the "sliding timeline" garbage. Peter Parker graduated from high school, attended college and visibly grew up on page. Captain America was frozen in AD 1945, not a vague "past war" like Iron Man's 616 origin. And so on.

New heroes and ideas came out all the time. You never knew what to expect from the Merry Marvel Madmen and their House of Ideas. Nowdays ... you know EXACTLY what to expect. STATUS QUO.

The Silver Age is over. Let's get some fresh new ideas going on. And no, I don't mean create a "new" Iron Man and a "new" Spider-Man and other supposedly hip reimaginings. I mean literally new characters in the Marvel Universe. Not just teens either, throw some new adults in. Original doesn't always have to mean "teen" or "youthful." Let the older characters stick around as elders and advisors (like Peter in Spider-Girl) but don't shine the spotlight on them as much. Ageless characters like Wolverine could remain intact. When sales drop, let the damn book die and move on.

If Marvel had taken this approach back in the 1970s, who knows how much great NEW stuff could have been invented in the 1980s and 1990s. If Marvel had taken Transformers and GI Joe more seriously (and actually given them competent artists and color), they could've reached their current level of quality and notoriety at that time, instead of being dismissed as printed toy commercials. It couldn't have turned out much worse than the dreck they did produce in that same time period. Especially not with Denny O'Neil and Marv Wolfman both involved with the original development of Transformers, before it was handed off to Bob Budiansky's B-Team.

It's not like the writers didn't have ideas, the company just ignored them. Larry Hama wanted to do a "Sgt. Fury vs Hydra" themed comic, but Marvel nixed it. He instead settled for the similar but out-of-continuity "GI Joe vs Cobra" premise, which he made into a very good series (albiet often cursed with cheap, substandard artwork). Who knows where the series could've gone if allowed to be part of the Marvel Universe.

In light of all this .... I think bringing back any villian is a bad idea. But Norman's death had such impact and dramatic meaning that it should be the absolute last Marvel death to ever be undone. And the fact that it was the only way out of the Clone Wars doesn't justify anything. Resolving one bad stroy idea with another? Two wrongs don't make a right.