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

[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.