Norman Osborn as a General MU villain. What do you think?

[Michael Watkins]

Osborn turning himself into a super adaptoid and melting is the lowest point of the run he had as the big bad of MU.

lame endings should be expected when Bendis is involved. but still. he got AIM, The Hand, Hydra, and the remnants of H.A.M.M.E.R to work together. he had the Avengers dead to rights. his eyes were just bigger than his stomach. i'd argue that his showing was better than Storm's performance as an Avenger.

[Huntsman Spider]

right. that's my point. why would he only target Peter? as a businessman, he would logically target his competitors i.e. Stark Industries.

What I meant is if Osborn had so much trouble with a simple teenager I can't see him being a threat to an adult let alone a whole bunch of adults. Add in that he clearly is not very stable and it was a matter of when not if everything would blow up in his face.

Because Osborn has a tendency to fixate and Peter Parker became his fixation when Peter repeatedly beat him as Spider-Man and thwarted his attempts at becoming the head honcho of the New York criminal underworld. Osborn, like so many of his ilk, can't take being challenged by anyone, especially not those he thinks of as beneath him (like a poor kid from Queens, for example). It damages his sense of his own standing in the world, and the resulting humiliation drove him to focus most of his attention on getting Spider-Man/Peter out of the way by any means necessary, including (and especially) causing suffering to his loved ones, figuring that if he can't beat Peter in a straight fight, he can at least destroy Peter's will and ability to fight by taking everything and everyone he loves. Come to think of it, if it wasn't for One More Day removing Osborn's knowledge of Spider-Man's dual identity (until he regained it in Go Down Swinging, of course), we might not have gotten Dark Reign in the first place, since Osborn would've likely kept fixating on Peter. Interesting.

[Michael Watkins]

He seemed pretty fixated in Ellis’ Thunderbolts. But he was on meds.

[Hybrid]

I do agree with the general idea that the standard "Avengers win" against Osborn didn't have quite the impact, whereas the idea of having Spider-Man beat him after pulling out all the stops, would be so much more satisfying and fitting what with Osborn being Peter's archenemy.

[jackolover]

What I meant is if Osborn had so much trouble with a simple teenager I can't see him being a threat to an adult let alone a whole bunch of adults. Add in that he clearly is not very stable and it was a matter of when not if everything would blow up in his face.

Though Osborn was depicted as being obsessed by Peter Parker’s support cast, his abilities to manipulate could be used on anyone. Osborn had the uncanny ability to study his prey, and like with Spider-Man, was able to discover his secret identity within 25 issues of his first appearance. Imagine if he discovered Tony Stark was Iron Man, and tormented Pepper, while manipulating electricity while Tony was trying to recharge. It would be quite simple. You expand that ability Marvel-wide, and no one is safe from Osborn.

No writer wanted to expand Osborn into that general usage as a universal villain, similar to Sinister. Osborn could have no boundaries. Millar’s Marvel Knights Spider-Man stayed Spider-centric, but Bendis expanded Osborn into the another realm by including him in the Jessica Jones/Luke Cage orbits. It could have been left to lie there, but in Frontline Tony Dtark got a hold of Osborn, and inadvertently expanded Osborn’s horizons to look at other super heroes to concentrate on. Osborn achieved this when he had Tony Stark report to him as a subordinate in Dark Reign Iron Man, and Osborn gloated at the irony. It was a supreme achievement of Osborn to manipulate Stark the way he did, to snatch Starks kingship away from him.

I don’t find Osborn’s actions during this period as out of character at all. The man was never used to his strengths in just the Spider Universe.

[jackolover]

lame endings should be expected when Bendis is involved. but still. he got AIM, The Hand, Hydra, and the remnants of H.A.M.M.E.R to work together. he had the Avengers dead to rights. his eyes were just bigger than his stomach. i'd argue that his showing was better than Storm's performance as an Avenger.

Yeah. Osborn deserves a lot more plaudits as a villain than what he descended to lately. My own researches have drawn me to be very impressed by the Sultans of Ottoman Empires, for holding multiple races together in relative peaceful co-existence, compared to what has become of the Middle East today. So something like Osborn bringing such disparate organisations under one umbrella, requires us to be more impressed than maybe we have so far.

[jackolover]

Because Osborn has a tendency to fixate and Peter Parker became his fixation when Peter repeatedly beat him as Spider-Man and thwarted his attempts at becoming the head honcho of the New York criminal underworld. Osborn, like so many of his ilk, can't take being challenged by anyone, especially not those he thinks of as beneath him (like a poor kid from Queens, for example). It damages his sense of his own standing in the world, and the resulting humiliation drove him to focus most of his attention on getting Spider-Man/Peter out of the way by any means necessary, including (and especially) causing suffering to his loved ones, figuring that if he can't beat Peter in a straight fight, he can at least destroy Peter's will and ability to fight by taking everything and everyone he loves. Come to think of it, if it wasn't for One More Day removing Osborn's knowledge of Spider-Man's dual identity (until he regained it in Go Down Swinging, of course), we might not have gotten Dark Reign in the first place, since Osborn would've likely kept fixating on Peter. Interesting.

There was that one moment when Osborn was finally defeated, sometime after 9/11, when Osborn wrote that letter saying he wanted to end his conflict with Peter, and saw him as his son. It was after that, that Osborn was used outside the Spider-verse orbit by Bendis. I think Osborn had made his peace with Peter.

As Post-CW New Avengers unfolded, Peter no longer felt Osborn was his domain alone as other Avengers discussed Osborn as their combined enemy, and Peter just sat back from that. Bendis’ Osborn had achieved complete separation from his solitary Spider universe. It’s interesting. Once Dark Reign under Osborn emerged, Peter Parker had no answer for defeating the Green Goblin. Peter just let him go.

[MichelleDiMera]

Just wanted to see what the general opinion is on the era from the '00s up to the early-mid '10s where Norman Osborn got upgraded from Spidey rogue to big bad to the wide Marvel Universe?

I wasn't sure to post this in the Spider-Man board or here, but it pertains more heavily to the General MU, so I thought this was a better place.

For the longest time, Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin was one of the few examples of an "exclusive villain" in Marvel (known for their willingness to having heroes fight each others' villains). Unlike his contemporaries, such as Doc Ock, Electro, Rhino, Mysterio, Scorpion, Sandman and so on, Goblin never ventured outside the Spider-Man titles and was strictly a villain to Spider-Man, tied solely to his legacy and mythology. Of course, he was dead from 1973 to 1996, where it was retconned, so that might have to do with it not happening sooner.

That changed in the '00s, thanks to Brian Michael Bendis, who over the course of his writing (and Bendis' push to being everywhere himself), built up Osborn as being a Lex Luthor-like figure -- a corrupt and amoral businessman given too much power. He was pushed him away from the Spider-titles and into the center of the MU itself. During this time, he went on to antagonize just about everyone, both directly and indirectly, and was the biggest driving force of villainy in this period, culminating with Dark Reign. However, he still remained a general force even after, and it wasn't until mid-'10s where he returned to being a true Spider-Man villain

So what's the general opinion on it?

I have mixed thoughts. I do think it's cool that Spider-Man's mythology affected the entire universe on an unprecedented level, and I think cool things came of it, but it was flawed. That, and Osborn himself as mentioned was more like Post-Crisis Lex Luthor rather than his previous characterization as a mad man obsessed with killing Spider-Man. It's an interesting take, if a bit jarring when you consider everything. What's funny is that Lex Luthor was inspired by Frank Miller's take on Kingpin, so this is an example of going full circle.

Let me know what you think, and discuss.

Hes weak and stupid. Shocked they did that Gwen Stacy story.
Carnage was always the must see villain to me on that side.

[MichelleDiMera]

lame endings should be expected when Bendis is involved. but still. he got AIM, The Hand, Hydra, and the remnants of H.A.M.M.E.R to work together. he had the Avengers dead to rights. his eyes were just bigger than his stomach. i'd argue that his showing was better than Storm's performance as an Avenger.

That was horrible. He's not smart enough to pull off a Lucky Luciano type commission.

[Agent Z]

I will say that Green Goblin becoming a Marvel-Wide villain could have been executed better in DARK REIGN and Thunderbolts, if
A) Bendis didn't make jokes about the Goblin costume and so on. Respect the Ditko. Respect the costume, and have the Goblin be the scariest, meanest, best version of Osborn.

Even in the original stories, some people didn't take the Goblin seriously because of his costume. It takes a lot of effort to make a guy who calls himself "the Green Goblin" seriously.

[Michael Watkins]

Even in the original stories, some people didn't take the Goblin seriously because of his costume. It takes a lot of effort to make a guy who calls himself "the Green Goblin" seriously.

why? how is it lamer than 'Purple Man' or 'Doctor Doom?' don't think about it as a comic book reader for a second. if your college roommate asked you to call him 'doctor doom,' wouldn't you think he (or she) was a nerd? i always took it as Norman being scary in the same way that a clown can be scary (in the right context). that goblin mask would be pretty intimidating if you saw it in a dark alley. the goofy smile and wide eyes take on a different context when he's flying around throwing explosives, as well. a clearly unhinged person is just scary in general. you're not sure what they are going to do or how to reason with them.

[Michael Watkins]

That was horrible. He's not smart enough to pull off a Lucky Luciano type commission.

keep in mind that the Hood had just done something similar; with a larger and more diverse set of notoriously uncooperative supervillains.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Even in the original stories, some people didn't take the Goblin seriously because of his costume.

What original stories are you talking about? Nobody made fun of the Green Goblin in the Lee-Ditko era. Except of course in the sense of Spider-Man making jokes at all his villains.

[Agent Z]

why? how is it lamer than 'Purple Man' or 'Doctor Doom?' don't think about it as a comic book reader for a second. if your college roommate asked you to call him 'doctor doom,' wouldn't you think he (or she) was a nerd? i always took it as Norman being scary in the same way that a clown can be scary (in the right context). that goblin mask would be pretty intimidating if you saw it in a dark alley. the goofy smile and wide eyes take on a different context when he's flying around throwing explosives, as well. a clearly unhinged person is just scary in general. you're not sure what they are going to do or how to reason with them.

Purple Man has been mocked in-universe and out from what I recall. And plenty of people have insulted Doom to his face.

Like I said, it takes effort to make someone like this scary.

[Agent Z]

What original stories are you talking about? Nobody made fun of the Green Goblin in the Lee-Ditko era. Except of course in the sense of Spider-Man making jokes at all his villains.

I remember one panel (can't recall who wrote it) where the Goblin is proposing his plan to kill Spider-Man to some crooks and one of them is mocking his costume.