Ravencroft #1

[history79]

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Well, there's no way this won't end badly. I mean... Mayor Kingpin handing over Ravencroft to Norman Fucking Osborn and half of his former Dark Avengers?

Misty, John, and Dennis should basically just tell their friends, and have the entire hero community come down like a ton of bricks to shut this operation down before it can even get started with whatever misbegotten plan Fisk has in mind. I mean, do not give Osborn another chance, do not let Karla near the villains, do not for a second assume any good will come from this.

I don't care what sort of implausible levels of amnesty are being offered here. There's just no way that any of these people should be allowed within a mile of authority after the last time Osborn was given any sort of power or legitimacy. These aren't the sort of villains who ever reform, these are the irredeemable backsliders.

Sheesh.

[tcampbell1000]

I mean, I understand the analogy to current real-world politics, but if you do that, you've got to take it all the way... if you just replicate real-world crazy, you end up with just a crazy story.

Assuming any method to the madness of Trump's appointments (often unqualified, often corrupt) is a dangerous task, but a couple of theories carry some weight. One is that he simply wants to destabilize any authority that might challenge his; another is that he has a hard time seeing past primitive quid pro quo or trusting anyone he hasn't known for a long time already, and his old friends' network is unlikely to be public-service-oriented.

Since Fisk's not using his own close associates from his criminal days, the first theory seems to hold more water: he wants this exercise either to fail or to be pliable, both of which may serve his later purposes (can't be the law-and-order mayor if there's no disorder to clean up!).

Still, I'm interested to see what Mac Gargan is allegedly supposed to bring to the table. Kingsley and Osborn at least have management experience and Masters and Sofen are brilliant specialists: all of them could actually be useful in an authority structure that kept them in check (i.e., not this one). Aside from beating up super-heroes, Gargan's main qualification seems to have been not eating anybody during that period he impersonated Spider-Man. Maybe he's just there to be a sacrifice.

[cainofdreaming]

I have hard time believing Norman is now a free man after starting a freaking war.

[lordnorj]

He probably blamed his actions on the Goblin serum.

[mastermahan]

"In my defense, I was on drugs" doesn't sound like a winning argument, but this is the Marvel Universe.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

The public seems to forgive everyone but the heroes.

[cainofdreaming]

Especially since the drugs are now inherently part of his system. And it was he who chose to stop taking his medication for them (or to get better ones when the ones he was taking stopped being effective, I forget which).

[tcampbell1000]

I KNOW, RIGHT? I mean, at least when Bane blames some of his bad decisions on the Venom, he has the excuse that he didn't ACTUALLY DESIGN THE DRUG HIMSELF.

[cyberghostface]

Harry actually fucked with the Goblin serum before Norman tested it on himself.

[tcampbell1000]

Fair, that was a bit of Spider-lore I never knew or forgot. Kind of interesting that it hasn't been emphasized much in later stories or adaptations, since it adds a pretty big wrinkle to the usual "Norman Osborn crazy and bad, Harry mostly tragic victim who sometimes performs bad actions" picture.

[cyberghostface]

Yeah it was just in an annual. Harry messed with it because Norman was ignoring him/being a shitty father, he didn’t know how disastrous it was going to be.

Harry looks like Spidey because Peter is experiencing his memories via some VR device Harry invented. I’ll try to post more later.

[cainofdreaming]

I think Mendell Stromm deserves some credit/blame, since it was his designs Osborn stole.

[tcampbell1000]

Sure, but if Osborn stole all the credit, he inherits the blame, and presumably he understood the work well enough once he analyzed it. Harry's involvement (see comment above) is more of a wrinkle, but as Norman would never give any credit/blame to Harry either, that doesn't factor into this hypothetical defense.

[aperturedreams]

This doesn't make much sense...isn't Norman supposed to be locked up and thinking he's Cletus at the moment?

[beyondthefringe]

Sadly, he got better during the Absolut Carnage event.

Which naturally means that he's ready for a position of authority.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I wish two things of modern writers.

1) That they used less contrived ways of bringing villains onto the cast.

2) They grasped the concept 'Less is more'.

[skjam]

Wait, they couldn't get Dr. Faustus?

[agent8]

He's to smart to get involved in this s#%t.