One Perfect Moment: Norman Osborn

[proteus_lives]

Greetings True Believers! This is my last post for OPM week and it's one of my favorites, for two reasons.

1. This issue of "Spider-Man's Tangled Web" features one of the best parts of any comic-verse. The villain bar. I love scenes of villains just hanging out, grousing about heroes, comparing notes and relaxing. Which is why I included a few scans of just that.

2. This story is an example of the fact that Norman Osborn doesn't need a costume, glider or control of an international martial agency to be one of the scariest motherfuckers on the planet.

Enjoy!





We enter a seedy bar in NYC. A man in a fedora and trench-coat enters, his face in the shadows.






Now, some hilarious bar-talk, villain-style.





Love it.

The man in the fedora is here to meet Adrian Toomes (The Vulture) and Kraven the Hunter (Alyosha Kravinoff).

The main reason they are there is talk about their latest encounters with Spider-Man and to bitch about the Webhead and the supers in general. They shoot the shit for awhile and then they start talking about the ladies.



Kraven then claims to have slept with the Black Widow, Toomes calls bullshit and the man in the fedora says, "Redheads can be very crazy and difficult"

Adrian and Kraven tell about their latest encounters. Kraven is annoyed that Spidey stuck his nose in his business. Adrian's latest rant is how the just hates the fucking jokes and how Spidey never seems to take their encounters seriously.

Kraven makes fun of Toomes, they come close to blows when...













Now, that is a great fucking villain moment.

Comments

[skalja]

God, I love this issue so much. It really is one of Norman Osborn's greatest moments. Also, I know a lot of people didn't like Al Kraven, but I miss him having a different personality and worldview than his father - obnoxious celebrity Al was hilarious.

(BTW, you might want to edit your post to mention the issue's extra-long page count so the mods know you haven't gone over!)

[kingrockwell]

I dunno if I ever read anything with Alyosha outside of Tangled Web, but I did have a kind of fondness for him. doesn't hurt that he's named after my favorite character from Brothers Karamazov

And seconding the page-count mention. I almost noted this post, but I happened to double-check first.

[proteus_lives]

I recounted too. That's one of the things I liked about Tangled Web, big issues.

BTW, Alyosha has a good side role in the BEYOND! mini and the GET KRAVEN mini.

[skalja]

He plays a small but important role in the dumb but entertaining Sweet Charity (Spidey and JJJ have to go camping together for charity) and he was great in Beyond! I haven't read Get Kraven, although I've heard it's where that scene where he criticizes a wisecracking Spidey for being a melodramatic depressive who blames himself for the rain is from, which instantly makes him one of my favorite Spidey opponents.

Really, the entire concept of Kraven the Hunter's son becoming an amoral, hard-partying, snarky millionaire is just awesome.

[goblinthebamf]

I liked Al! ...and now I'm depressed because I just read up on the direction his character was turned. bleah.

[hyperactivator]

Norman never change.

[xammax]

To be fair he was the first to hunt down the girlfriend and kill her.

Then to up the notch, he had knocked her up before hand.

Then he cloned him.

Then he killed his baby.


Seriously Norman... WTF?

[espanolbot]

Well, that's something you can say in favour of Lex and the Joker.

They didn't get their enemies' first love pregnant...

...Except I think that Lex did that to Lana in Smallville when they got married. But eh, she sucks in that show. Part better in the DCAU.

[jlroberson]

Eh. Lana is the DCU's doormat, we all know it, she knows it...

"Motherfucker. Goes to the city and then GOES FOR THE SAME FUCKING INITIALS...

"Why doesn't he ever call?"

I mean, seriously, it's not as though he couldn't have easily visited anytime.

[goggle_kid]

If only Ron Zimmerman dedicated more energy to writing stuff like this than to being the "bad boy" of Marvel's writing crew and picking fights with fans.

But yeah this was one of my all time favorite one-shot stories.

[jlroberson]

This was written by ZIMMERMAN? I wouldn't have expected that, this being so distinctive.

Although it's Phillips that has the best moment. Second to last page, second to last panel of it. That. That is not just one of the best Norman expressions, it's one of the best expressions ever captured in comics, and a hard one to, one that tells you volumes about him just from, well, his eye.

[proteus_lives]

Much motto.

The eyes are the best. WIth those eyes a middle-aged man just scared the shit out of a room full of people who shoot lasers, knock down buildings and fly.

[jlroberson]

And also, I think that's the essence of him, and his insecurity too: he's a self-made villain, and prides himself on it.

[skalja]

Zimmerman has a great sense of characterization and a really fun conversational voice, but he frequently sabotages himself with excessive references to contemporary pop culture (which ... you really have to go overboard to have too many refs in Spider-Man) and juvenile humor. IMO, anyway.

[cypherfdp]

Gotta love that Osborn hair.

[proteus_lives]

Does he style it himself or is it a side-effect of the Oz Formula?

Only his hairdresser knows for sure.

(And he had her killed)

[skalja]

What I find hilarious about Osborn hair is that it's become its own reference. It's pretty clear that almost all modern artists who draw Osborn hair have no idea what the real life hairstyle is and are just copying earlier artistic renditions of Osborn hair.

(For those wondering, it's what happens when someone with extremely curly hair slicks their hair back in that old-fashioned 40's/50's kinda way. As seen here. Alternately, this!)

[espanolbot]

Is this collected anywhere? :) I'd like to read the whole thing.

[kingrockwell]

Spider-Man's Tangled Web vol. 3, but it might be out of print.

[espanolbot]

Neat, thanks. :)

[jlroberson]

Yep, pretty much the pages you want to show to anyone who's starting out writing Norman. This is the stone-cold bastard he is. Excellent scene.

[blackruzsa]

Norman Osborn set the bar for cool when he walked in with those clothes.

And yeah, the barman IS pretty to look at XD

[stig]

It's nice to see old Doom has a bit of softness. I doubt the Red Skull has any sort of retirement plan for HIS head of security.

[goblinthebamf]

this and the naked dictation are my favorite Osborn moments ever.

This is a great Norman moment, but..

[steverodgers5]

I can't help but get slightly irked when reading that comment Norman makes about not liking armour, when he ended up wearing a freakin Iron Man suit throughout all of Dark Reign! LOL!

But I guess this is one of the many classic Spiderman back issues by other writers that Bendis never bothered to read or pay attention to. Though it's by no means his worst offence there. (That would be his making a big moment out of Wolverine somehow only just discovering Spidey's identity in Secret War, when they'd known each others civilian identities ever since Spiderman versus Wolverine, oh about 20 years before! A comic that was referenced in many Marvel titles over said two decades, but hey if it's not wrtten by Bendis, then why would he care about it? Grrrr!)
Sorry, But that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine, how he often disrepects other writers work. Be it through careless ignorance or just not giving the damn. (I used to think it was the former, but given how he ignored what was going on in Ms Marvel whilst writing New Avengers, I've started to suspect it's more the latter..)

But anyway getting back on topic, I've always loved this issue, so thanks for the reminder! This was definitely Norman at his most chilling!

Re: This is a great Norman moment, but..

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought of that, too, but he could simply mean wearing armor for armor's sake, for protection. In the case of Dark Reign, it was more symbolic, wasn't it? Not without its benefits, sure, but just the same...

--LBD "Nytetrayn"