He's going to abuse his power and kill people. If the Earth is a safer place for it, then that's only because it suits Osborn's purposes for it to be so.
Well, let's not kid ourselves. Nick Fury and Tony Stark also abused their power and killed people (though not necessarily together) all the time as directors of SHIELD. It's par for the course with institutions like SHIELD or HAMMER. The context depends on whether you think it's right or that the world is a better place for it.
He's going to abuse his power and kill people. If the Earth is a safer place for it, then that's only because it suits Osborn's purposes for it to be so.
Well, let's not kid ourselves. Nick Fury and Tony Stark also abused their power and killed people (though not necessarily together) all the time as directors of SHIELD. It's par for the course with institutions like SHIELD or HAMMER. The context depends on whether you think it's right or that the world is a better place for it.
And I doubt that at any point Osborn is going to do something for the greater good as opposed to his own good.
I don't think good and evil is as clean cut in Marvel anymore as some of you guys think it is.
Osborne is the same. He's a selfish dick, but he's still going to do his job.
osborn is, uh, pretty fucking evil. not to mention crazier than a sack of jumping beans. all he really wants is to eat spider-man's brains. he's just good at pretending he wants other, more normal things.
i mean, maybe murdering an innocent girl in cold blood and then giggling to yourself every time you think about how fun it was to toss her helpless body off a bridge doesn't seem terribly evil to you, but osborn is basically the original evil-ass marvel villain (non-nazi)
I don't think good and evil is as clean cut in Marvel anymore as some of you guys think it is.
Osborne is the same. He's a selfish dick, but he's still going to do his job.
osborn is, uh, pretty fucking evil. not to mention crazier than a sack of jumping beans. all he really wants is to eat spider-man's brains. he's just good at pretending he wants other, more normal things.
i mean, maybe murdering an innocent girl in cold blood and then giggling to yourself every time you think about how fun it was to toss her helpless body off a bridge doesn't seem terribly evil to you, but osborn is basically the original evil-ass marvel villain (non-nazi)
yeah he is pretty much fucking evil.
He's not as crazy as he used to be, though. The only time he actually went balls-out was when the telepaths were messing with him at the thunderbolts mountain. and when moonstone was stealing his meds.
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143999Tellin' yanot askin' ya, not pleadin' with yaRegistered Userregular
I don't think good and evil is as clean cut in Marvel anymore as some of you guys think it is.
Osborne is the same. He's a selfish dick, but he's still going to do his job.
osborn is, uh, pretty fucking evil. not to mention crazier than a sack of jumping beans. all he really wants is to eat spider-man's brains. he's just good at pretending he wants other, more normal things.
i mean, maybe murdering an innocent girl in cold blood and then giggling to yourself every time you think about how fun it was to toss her helpless body off a bridge doesn't seem terribly evil to you, but osborn is basically the original evil-ass marvel villain (non-nazi)
I don't think good and evil is as clean cut in Marvel anymore as some of you guys think it is.
Osborne is the same. He's a selfish dick, but he's still going to do his job.
osborn is, uh, pretty fucking evil. not to mention crazier than a sack of jumping beans. all he really wants is to eat spider-man's brains. he's just good at pretending he wants other, more normal things.
i mean, maybe murdering an innocent girl in cold blood and then giggling to yourself every time you think about how fun it was to toss her helpless body off a bridge doesn't seem terribly evil to you, but osborn is basically the original evil-ass marvel villain (non-nazi)
yeah he is pretty much fucking evil.
He's not as crazy as he used to be, though. The only time he actually went balls-out was when the telepaths were messing with him at the thunderbolts mountain. and when moonstone was stealing his meds.
I don't agree. He's on some heavy meds right now.
Case in point -
Oh, yes. The Steel Spider. Man. Steel Spider, man. No. Steel Spider. The Steel Spider. The Steel Spider Man. Steel. Spider. Man. Spider. Man. Heh. Spider. Man. Spider-Man. Heh. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Oh God. Heh. Spider-Man. Heh. Ha. Ha ha ha ha.
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited December 2008
Frankly, Osborne's position in the MU is one of the only thing that turns me off, mostly because they tell us that he's in this great position, but they don't show us how in the fuck the American public would tolerate a murderous psychopath cop-killer. Of course, they've been doing this throughout the Thunderbolts run (honestly, it was really jarring to me there, as well) so they've consistently been hammering that the public simply loves Osborne. But they won't adequately (IMHO) tell us why.
They did in SI: Front Line #5. Urich goes to the press conference where Obama announces Osborne as Stark's successor, and starts to hammer away at Osborne (noting that he has written a book, Legacy of Evil, all about how Osborne is an evil murdering psychopath). Osborne turns his criticisms it back onto Urich and the crowd loses their shit at Urich, who is forced to sulk away with his tail between his legs.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
They did in SI: Front Line #5. Urich goes to the press conference where Obama announces Osborne as Stark's successor, and starts to hammer away at Osborne (noting that he has written a book, Legacy of Evil, all about how Osborne is an evil murdering psychopath). Osborne turns his criticisms it back onto Urich and the crowd loses their shit at Urich, who is forced to sulk away with his tail between his legs.
I saw the scans, but they made no fucking sense. Would any member of the media react positively to a colleague being treated like that? Not even Fox fucking News would applaud that shit. It also missed the entire point that what Urich saying was correct, AND somehow did a major retcon with "alleged", which I don't know may be from BND, but it's still stupid. Osborne was shown, on live television, on a murderous rampage killing innocents, while destroying a part of New York. And he was convicted of murder, among other things. One innacurate snark does not cover that. Also, how the fuck would he even get the security clearences for that kind of thing? That is not good writing. Now, the setting of Osborne being in charge is pretty exciting, but the way the wrote to get there absolutely sucked.
Also, the fact that you have to go to Frontline just proves my point.
Oh, yes. The Steel Spider. Man. Steel Spider, man. No. Steel Spider. The Steel Spider. The Steel Spider Man. Steel. Spider. Man. Spider. Man. Heh. Spider. Man. Spider-Man. Heh. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Oh God. Heh. Spider-Man. Heh. Ha. Ha ha ha ha.
I will never, ever get tired of that moment. It is wonderful.
They did in SI: Front Line #5. Urich goes to the press conference where Obama announces Osborne as Stark's successor, and starts to hammer away at Osborne (noting that he has written a book, Legacy of Evil, all about how Osborne is an evil murdering psychopath). Osborne turns his criticisms it back onto Urich and the crowd loses their shit at Urich, who is forced to sulk away with his tail between his legs.
I saw the scans, but they made no fucking sense. Would any member of the media react positively to a colleague being treated like that? Not even Fox fucking News would applaud that shit.
As opposed to the media's reaction to Stephen Colbert's roasting of W at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which was icy to put it mildly. You are asking if an outsider would be defended by the incestuous, self-absorbed jerkoffs that are the WH press corps? No, not for a second.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
They did in SI: Front Line #5. Urich goes to the press conference where Obama announces Osborne as Stark's successor, and starts to hammer away at Osborne (noting that he has written a book, Legacy of Evil, all about how Osborne is an evil murdering psychopath). Osborne turns his criticisms it back onto Urich and the crowd loses their shit at Urich, who is forced to sulk away with his tail between his legs.
I saw the scans, but they made no fucking sense. Would any member of the media react positively to a colleague being treated like that? Not even Fox fucking News would applaud that shit.
As opposed to the media's reaction to Stephen Colbert's roasting of W at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which was icy to put it mildly. You are asking if an outsider would be defended by the incestuous, self-absorbed jerkoffs that are the WH press corps? No, not for a second.
Colbert was attacking the media as well, and that doesn't really count anyways, because most people consider him (correctly) to be a comedian first and foremost.
Listen, just accept that they didn't do the legwork, because the situation itself is preposterous. There is no rational reason for Osborne to be given control of anything. It makes for an interesting setting, not a consistent one.
The people of the Marvel Universe are idiots. They fear and hate everything that's good until the world is threatened, and then they spend a few months being grateful before they distrust anyone who's smarter and more powerful than them all over again.
So yeah, it's weird, but it's not exactly unprecedented.
I agree with Robos. People in the Marvel U are ginormous idiots. But frankly I don't care how he got away with it. I care about what happens now that he has power.
The people of the Marvel Universe are idiots. They fear and hate everything that's good until the world is threatened, and then they spend a few months being grateful before they distrust anyone who's smarter and more powerful than them all over again.
So yeah, it's weird, but it's not exactly unprecedented.
Swallowing the Osborn thing without Marvel having justified it is asking the reader to be an idiot as well, or at the very least to not care about suspending disbelief. And yeah, this is superhero comics, but that isn't reason enough for wildly inconsistent writing of this kind.
Basically OsCorp has been dumping tons of lead into the water supply over the years. Now all of the Decisions people make in the Marvel universe make sense. Tony, Reed and co are the only people who stick to bottled water.
Think for a second about the mental state of the typical 616 American:
1. They've had, not one, but TWO massive invasions by Alien forces in the last year, which involved countless deaths and warfare in the streets of their major cities.
2. They've had their entire nation of superheroes fighting in a bloody civil war - one which claimed the lives of many innocent civilians, and caused millions or more in collateral damage - all over whether those 'heroes' could remain anonymous vigilantes.
3. They've had their memories screwed with by Mephisto to forget a MAJOR point in that very civil war.
4. They've had all of their smartest heroes - Stark, Richards, Pym, etc. - either get totally whupped intellectually, or be revealed to be aliens.
Frankly, I'm not surprised they're not acting fully rationally. I'm more surprised they haven't elected an outright dictator, at this point.
I think it's easy to forget - and Frontline was initially supposed to talk about this - how freaking insane life is for a normal 616 American. They effectively live in a USA-sized Baghdad, constantly under attack, with pointless conflict rippling into the streets. Their popular vote elected the character Stephen Colbert, a rapid conservative who is by very definition nearly insane, to President and were only 'saved' (depending on your perspective) by the electoral college (which, we can only assume, voted against their electorates).
While I loathe the authorly decision to give the Norman Obsborne character power, and don't like that people just don't believe he's the Green Goblin, it still seems reasonable within the context.
Once you start writing realistic implications of the average year in a Marvel citizen's life you are effectively ending superhero stories as they currently stand. The USA would be an insane asylum after the, what, twenty gazillion alien invasions it's suffered in its lifetime. It's part of the accepted suspension of disbelief that the citizens bounce back quickly from disaster, or are at a level of general fear and paranoia that is always roughly analogous to our own in spite of Galactus crashing the party last week. It's the specific stupidities like 'Osborn suddenly wildly popular' that we can't swallow because Marvel haven't done enough groundwork. 'Green Goblin in charge of security in the US' may well lead to interesting stories, but so would 'Galactus starts a disco dancing troupe'.
It's the same argument many had against the SHRA and it's insistence that superhero fights cause real collateral damage that means dead bystanders. Of course it would, but if you're going to do that then the big fun superhero fights in New York can't be done without every hero stronger than Stilt-Man becoming an accidental murderer. Marvel managed to cleverly avoid this problem by ignoring it the second Civil War was over.
Speaking as a dude who apparently doesn't keep up with Marvel as well as I used to: I never realized Osbourne got unpopular? That's his whole shtick, being a gigantic asshole but New York still thinks he's a philanthropist and Spider-Man is a jerk criminal.
Speaking as a dude who apparently doesn't keep up with Marvel as well as I used to: I never realized Osbourne got unpopular?
He's been convicted of murder and publicly tried to assasinate Atlantean diplomats to start a war (not actually his fault, but the public don't know that), and that's just off the top of my head.
Speaking as a dude who apparently doesn't keep up with Marvel as well as I used to: I never realized Osbourne got unpopular? That's his whole shtick, being a gigantic asshole but New York still thinks he's a philanthropist and Spider-Man is a jerk criminal.
He got caught on a killing spree and unmasked on national television, live.
Once you start writing realistic implications of the average year in a Marvel citizen's life you are effectively ending superhero stories as they currently stand. The USA would be an insane asylum after the, what, twenty gazillion alien invasions it's suffered in its lifetime. It's part of the accepted suspension of disbelief that the citizens bounce back quickly from disaster, or are at a level of general fear and paranoia that is always roughly analogous to our own in spite of Galactus crashing the party last week. It's the specific stupidities like 'Osborn suddenly wildly popular' that we can't swallow because Marvel haven't done enough groundwork. 'Green Goblin in charge of security in the US' may well lead to interesting stories, but so would 'Galactus starts a disco dancing troupe'.
It's the same argument many had against the SHRA and it's insistence that superhero fights cause real collateral damage that means dead bystanders. Of course it would, but if you're going to do that then the big fun superhero fights in New York can't be done without every hero stronger than Stilt-Man becoming an accidental murderer. Marvel managed to cleverly avoid this problem by ignoring it the second Civil War was over.
I'm afraid I just don't understand your point: you're upset that they haven't done the 'leg work' to establish why Osborn is being accepted, but when I argue that in fact that have if you just read the stories, you complain that what I'm talking about is "ending superhero stories as they currently stand."
Assume you're right; that the people in 616 America bounce back pretty well. Okay, but that's still WHY they're happy with Osborn. He's helping them bounce back.
It probably helps if you read Thunderbolts, where all the leg work was being done.
He fucking saved our nation's capital.
He's Marvel's version of The Great Machine, at this point.
Screwing around like that isn't sufficient. He's a convicted copkiller, and a murderous psychopath with a creepy obsession for an anthropomorphized arachnid. Shooting a few Skrulls doesn't change that.
It probably helps if you read Thunderbolts, where all the leg work was being done.
He fucking saved our nation's capital.
He's Marvel's version of The Great Machine, at this point.
Screwing around like that isn't sufficient. He's a convicted copkiller, and a murderous psychopath with a creepy obsession for an anthropomorphized arachnid. Shooting a few Skrulls doesn't change that.
He didn't just shoot a few Skrulls. He proved he was a bad enough dude to save the president.
I'm afraid I just don't understand your point: you're upset that they haven't done the 'leg work' to establish why Osborn is being accepted, but when I argue that in fact that have if you just read the stories, you complain that what I'm talking about is "ending superhero stories as they currently stand."
Your reasoning is the no-prize version of why Osborn's being accepted. Sure, it's nice, but it sure as fuck isn't what Marvel is selling.
Bendis in the latest Marvel podcast compared Osborn to McCarthy in those first few years when he came to prominence in the 50s. Basically everyone is scared and can't trust who's who and now you have this guy that is a "war hero" (they say his kill shot is played over and over again) saying "I can't help you feel safe again, I know who the bad guys are" and everyone is like "Alright I just want to feel safe again"
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Bendis in the latest Marvel podcast compared Osborn to McCarthy in those first few years when he came to prominence in the 50s. Basically everyone is scared and can't trust who's who and now you have this guy that is a "war hero" (they say his kill shot is played over and over again) saying "I can't help you feel safe again, I know who the bad guys are" and everyone is like "Alright I just want to feel safe again"
So basically, he completely avoids the problem. Like I said, the setting is pretty neat, and cool stories should come out of it, but in no way internally consistent.
I'm afraid I just don't understand your point: you're upset that they haven't done the 'leg work' to establish why Osborn is being accepted, but when I argue that in fact that have if you just read the stories, you complain that what I'm talking about is "ending superhero stories as they currently stand."
Your reasoning is the no-prize version of why Osborn's being accepted. Sure, it's nice, but it sure as fuck isn't what Marvel is selling.
I disagree: I think it's exactly what they're selling. Look at Osborn's speech where he humiliates Ulrich, and combine that with the comments by HAMMER agents to Iron Man in the latest preview: Americans are pissed off at the way 'heroes' have run things, due in no small part to the damage and cost of the Civil War/SHRA/Skrull Invasion. Osborn is bringing change: HAMMER run by normal humans, for normal humans. Now, I'd like to see that unpacked a bit more, but the problem is simple. Other than Frontline, there are no Marvel comics about normal people living in 616 America. We're always going to have to view normal 616 Americans through vignettes.
(BTW, just as a rant: I hate that we're losing extremis).
IGN Comics: Some readers have questioned whether a man as evil and psychotic as Osborn could ever be accepted by the public like he appears to be now. What are your thoughts? Will your Thunderbolts stories serve as an outlet for any sort of social commentary on those lines?
Diggle: I think the bigger the lie, the more likely people are to accept it. If J. Jonah Jameson can make even Spider-Man look like a villain, the reverse must be possible -- villains can be made to look like heroes. As the infamous Nazi Hermann Göring said at the Nuremberg trials, "All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." If a monster like Adolf Hitler could rise to power on the basis of a fictional threat, imagine how a monster like Norman Osborn could rise to power in the aftermath of a massive, global and very visible threat - like, say, a Skrull invasion!
In times of peril, people want to see a hard man in charge because they care about being protected more than they care about being good. Loss of civil liberties, judicial process, right to privacy, you name it. They think the ends justify the means. But that's a slippery slope; and you know what waits at the end of it? Norman Osborn.
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Well, let's not kid ourselves. Nick Fury and Tony Stark also abused their power and killed people (though not necessarily together) all the time as directors of SHIELD. It's par for the course with institutions like SHIELD or HAMMER. The context depends on whether you think it's right or that the world is a better place for it.
And I doubt that at any point Osborn is going to do something for the greater good as opposed to his own good.
osborn is, uh, pretty fucking evil. not to mention crazier than a sack of jumping beans. all he really wants is to eat spider-man's brains. he's just good at pretending he wants other, more normal things.
i mean, maybe murdering an innocent girl in cold blood and then giggling to yourself every time you think about how fun it was to toss her helpless body off a bridge doesn't seem terribly evil to you, but osborn is basically the original evil-ass marvel villain (non-nazi)
yeah he is pretty much fucking evil.
He's not as crazy as he used to be, though. The only time he actually went balls-out was when the telepaths were messing with him at the thunderbolts mountain. and when moonstone was stealing his meds.
Yeah, okay, I'm stealing that.
For a debut in a shitty series, that is an awesome entrance picture.
I don't agree. He's on some heavy meds right now.
Case in point -
Also, the fact that you have to go to Frontline just proves my point.
I thought he was revealed during Bendis's "The Pulse" series but I don't remember him fucking up the whole city or anything.
I will never, ever get tired of that moment. It is wonderful.
As opposed to the media's reaction to Stephen Colbert's roasting of W at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which was icy to put it mildly. You are asking if an outsider would be defended by the incestuous, self-absorbed jerkoffs that are the WH press corps? No, not for a second.
Listen, just accept that they didn't do the legwork, because the situation itself is preposterous. There is no rational reason for Osborne to be given control of anything. It makes for an interesting setting, not a consistent one.
So yeah, it's weird, but it's not exactly unprecedented.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Swallowing the Osborn thing without Marvel having justified it is asking the reader to be an idiot as well, or at the very least to not care about suspending disbelief. And yeah, this is superhero comics, but that isn't reason enough for wildly inconsistent writing of this kind.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
1. They've had, not one, but TWO massive invasions by Alien forces in the last year, which involved countless deaths and warfare in the streets of their major cities.
2. They've had their entire nation of superheroes fighting in a bloody civil war - one which claimed the lives of many innocent civilians, and caused millions or more in collateral damage - all over whether those 'heroes' could remain anonymous vigilantes.
3. They've had their memories screwed with by Mephisto to forget a MAJOR point in that very civil war.
4. They've had all of their smartest heroes - Stark, Richards, Pym, etc. - either get totally whupped intellectually, or be revealed to be aliens.
Frankly, I'm not surprised they're not acting fully rationally. I'm more surprised they haven't elected an outright dictator, at this point.
I think it's easy to forget - and Frontline was initially supposed to talk about this - how freaking insane life is for a normal 616 American. They effectively live in a USA-sized Baghdad, constantly under attack, with pointless conflict rippling into the streets. Their popular vote elected the character Stephen Colbert, a rapid conservative who is by very definition nearly insane, to President and were only 'saved' (depending on your perspective) by the electoral college (which, we can only assume, voted against their electorates).
While I loathe the authorly decision to give the Norman Obsborne character power, and don't like that people just don't believe he's the Green Goblin, it still seems reasonable within the context.
It's the same argument many had against the SHRA and it's insistence that superhero fights cause real collateral damage that means dead bystanders. Of course it would, but if you're going to do that then the big fun superhero fights in New York can't be done without every hero stronger than Stilt-Man becoming an accidental murderer. Marvel managed to cleverly avoid this problem by ignoring it the second Civil War was over.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
He's been convicted of murder and publicly tried to assasinate Atlantean diplomats to start a war (not actually his fault, but the public don't know that), and that's just off the top of my head.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I'm afraid I just don't understand your point: you're upset that they haven't done the 'leg work' to establish why Osborn is being accepted, but when I argue that in fact that have if you just read the stories, you complain that what I'm talking about is "ending superhero stories as they currently stand."
Assume you're right; that the people in 616 America bounce back pretty well. Okay, but that's still WHY they're happy with Osborn. He's helping them bounce back.
He fucking saved our nation's capital.
He's Marvel's version of The Great Machine, at this point.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
He didn't just shoot a few Skrulls. He proved he was a bad enough dude to save the president.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Your reasoning is the no-prize version of why Osborn's being accepted. Sure, it's nice, but it sure as fuck isn't what Marvel is selling.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I disagree: I think it's exactly what they're selling. Look at Osborn's speech where he humiliates Ulrich, and combine that with the comments by HAMMER agents to Iron Man in the latest preview: Americans are pissed off at the way 'heroes' have run things, due in no small part to the damage and cost of the Civil War/SHRA/Skrull Invasion. Osborn is bringing change: HAMMER run by normal humans, for normal humans. Now, I'd like to see that unpacked a bit more, but the problem is simple. Other than Frontline, there are no Marvel comics about normal people living in 616 America. We're always going to have to view normal 616 Americans through vignettes.
(BTW, just as a rant: I hate that we're losing extremis).
Also, so... Superhuman identities is the final secret Tony has that he won't give to Osborne. I can't imagine why.
I mean, jesus, people voted for Bush twice.
::flipflipflip:: "Slapstick, Spector (Marc), Spellbinder, Spider-Woman...DAMNIT!"