Victoria Hand's ex-girlfriend

[stolisomancer]

It's come up on here before that, since not a lot of people in S_D read Dark Avengers, not a lot of people know that Victoria Hand is lesbian or bisexual. In keeping with the daily theme, since I think Hand's pretty cool overall, here are the pages from Dark Avengers #11 that detail Hand's past life as a SHIELD accountant.








Fun fact to know and tell about SHIELD: they appear to not only not have cared whether or not their agents were gay, but allowed them to cohabitate aboard the Helicarrier.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

She knew Norman was crazy. she couldnt take him out of power, but she could manage him. so she did the best she could. there is no doubt that Norman is brilliant. he's certifiably insane, but he's also a genius. And he was put in power. she managed him as best she could and with some success. but in the end she was a levy and norman was katrina....

[warpedhand]

The least she could have done was to give Fury, Stark, and Bucky everything she had on them. She could have been a mole for the actual good guys, as opposed to helping Osborn.

[stolisomancer]

If you read Dark Avengers, Hand believes Osborn is the best possible choice for America and the world right up until the moment Osborn goes completely off the fucking rails in Siege. She isn't privy to most of his truly maniacal backroom deals, she doesn't know about his strong criminal ties, and she actively tries to make him a better leader by acting as his conscience. She's an idealist who's being manipulated by a master.

She did not give Fury and Stark information on Osborn because she didn't think Osborn was wrong until he was in custody. You're mistaking what you, the reader, know for what Victoria, the character, knows, and it's coloring your opinion thereof.

[warpedhand]

She should have known he was absolutely insane. At the very least she knew he was a cop-killer, but she was in SHIELD, so she should know more. And she should know that his team was a bunch of amoral murderous thugs. As I implied, she's in completely over her head, and if the country were so damn important to her she'd be watching out, and making plans to neutralize Osborn from the beginning. Unfortunately, she's absolutely not cut out for the job in any way, shape, or form even without Osborn's interference, so she comes of as a whiny hypocrite, to me at least.

[stolisomancer]

Your opinion is based on who you think she should be, not who she is. As such, your opinion is wrong.

[bittercupojoe]

[stubbleupdate]

Why would, in your own words, an accountant with no previous command experience be privy to SHIELD confidential information and be in a position to "know more" about Osborn?

[da_reap]

...Because she should be able to google him and get reporters calling him 'Known murderer Norman Osborn' as late as early Civil War press conferences? Because he's been outed as the Green Goblin for close to a decade? Because HE SHOT AN ATLANTEAN AMBASSADOR AT A SHIELD-VETTED EVENT and that shit generally makes the work grapevine as well as international TV?

Basically, because she's SHIELD and SHIELD is who they call to pick up the bigger nasties. Any amount of clearance should be enough to find out that Norman Osborn is/was/is bad news.

[stolisomancer]

That's common public knowledge. Osborn has publically acknowledged his murdering Terri Kidder and, during Dark Reign, successfully passes it off as the unfortunate consequence of Goblin serum, which is safely behind him. It's in every other comic with the Dark Reign banner.

He uses his good PR from the end of Secret Invasion to turn his fortunes around, and in the eyes of the public, he's a reformed supervillain who's now the bastard keeping them safe from the other bastards. This is really blatant stuff, right there on the page, plain as day to anyone who was reading the comics.

[da_reap]

That's the fundamental problem. When did he 'turn his fortunes around'? When did he make all this work out?

Secret Invasion, Dark Reign. How was he able to get all that good PR to work it? Because he headed up the Thunderbolts.

Guy goes from a maximum-security prison, to shooting an Atlantean Ambassador in front of the entire world, to Director of a team of superhumans working for the federal government. (Oh, and murdering a crapload of his own people there and passing it off as hallucinations; 'People claim they saw The Green Goblin, sir! Isn't that crazy?') There's a goddamn ginormous disconnect there.

Yes, they tried to patch the foundation after the fact. But the house of cards that was Norman's rise was missing about half of the bottom layer, and Victoria Hand should have easily found that out before he could put her to work maintaining his image.

Is, was, and shall remain a bullshit premise.

[thehood]

Except it wasn't.

He got this good PR because of his time as Leader of the Thunderbolts in Ellis's run. The Public loved him.

[stolisomancer]

It's been ten months. Are you working your way back through the archives or something?

[da_reap]

Yes, that's exactly what I said. He got the PR leading up the Thunderbolts.

From maximum security prison at the start of Civil War (Quoted in press conferences as 'convicted murderer Norman Osborn'), to shooting an Atlantean Ambassador in front of the entire world (including people going 'Hey, isn't that Norman Osborn?'), to Director of the Thunderbolts.

B-U-Double-L-SHIT.