How do you think the Green Goblin will return?

[exile001]

[QUOTE=Venomsaurus;6500290]For one, once you're a Goblin, you're just kinda immortal and can come back from anything./QUOTE]

I always liked this page from new Ways To Die.

New Ways To Die.jpg

[Xenon]

But it was always academic, and he always felt he could control the consequences. And I think what you're viewing as 'inconsistent' is rather a deliberate authorial chocice to demonstrate a one step forward, two steps back sense of reversion to type. Otto never really changed until the end, he just adjusted his aims.

Like I said, it's less inconsistent than you think.



There absolutely *is* a benefit to Otto for killing Massacre. He does that for himself. Does he judge it as the right thing to do? Yes, but only as a means of proving himself superior to Parker, 'doing what he was too weak to do'. The entire scene is a demonstration of Otto's hypocrisy and weakness as a person. His dialogue, like it does in the later 'No Escape' makes clear his lack of self-reflection.


Otto has never been portrayed as incapable of doing right by people he cares about, but he just mosty doesn't care about people, obviously, except as an abstract sense of the 'greater good'. (THE GREATER GOOD)



Right. That's the point. He's still a dick.



Correct. He's still a dick, but in fairness to him, he didn't see it as killing Peter a second time, rather, he saw it as putting down a fragmentary, leftover echo born of him accessing Parker's memories, rather than a 'real person'. Otto's justifications are ultimately what spells his doom.



Right. He views himself as entitled to Parker's entire life. He's a bad guy. He just assumes MJ comes with the package and can't figure out why she's just not into him, and after he experiences Parker's memories, he finally starts seeing her as a person rather than something that belongs to Parker and therefore to him. He's horrible.



He *does* pick up the torch, though. He gained a sense of responsibility to his fellow man ... but Otto mostly views people as an abstract resource, with an abstract ideal of the greater good, which he meticulously plans for and is ultimately ruined by since Spider-man can't have it all. His lack of empathy and abstraction is after all what ultimately allows the Green Goblin to ruin everything he accomplished with ease, which is followed by Parker utterly defeating said Goblin with ease. Mind you, the Goblin's realization that Parker was back in the saddle followed by his immediate attempt to nope out was a highlight.

Anyways, I think you're being too hard on it, and coming at it from the wrong angle. You can take issues with a number of things in SSM, but I don't think Otto's characterization under Slott is one of them.

Because I didn't read past 6 I can't really get into gritty detail, so I'll sort of give my thesis here. Dying Wish implies that Otto inhereited Peter's morals, hence the whoel swearing to do right and such. For me, I don't see how you can have a moral code that allows you to be so sacrificial as to engage in superheroics and at the same time have no concern for other people in the manner that Otto does. LIke I know you say he's a dick, but stealing a man's life and leaving him to die alone without any of his loved ones knowing while you try to bang the love of his life is a little bit more than "being a dick". it's like, literally the most heinous thing you could do to a single person. And lest we be too male-centric here, he was also willing to essentially rape MJ, so I think we're well beyond "being a dick". And this is the big disconnect for me. He is on the one hand willing to risk his life in combat, spend his time arresting thieves, and use resources to monitor the city for crime, all these things that are self-sacrificial and imply a strong sense of morals and a desire to to good. But he doesn't feel bad about starting his career by doing the worst thing possible? He isn't capable of treating Mary Jane as a person and not just a body to ****? Like yeah he breaks up with her to "protect" her...but then feels no qualms about reliving Peter's sexual experiences with her. He doesn't read like a moral person at all, because he has no moral questions and concerns. But then, that makes his heroics make no sense to me. His actions require a strong sense of morality and self-sacrifice, but his inner monologue has none of that, and those things just go away when its inconvenient for him. That's why it feels like he ping pongs to me. Because without that strong sense of morality his superheroics make no sense (and again, Dying Wish seems to be telling us he got that strong sense of morality by reliving Peter's early life...even though he already had those memories.....), but with that strong sense of morality a lot of his other actions are unteneble.

[Tendrin]

Because I didn't read past 6 I can't really get into gritty detail, so I'll sort of give my thesis here.

I think you'd find that a whole bunch of your thesis gets addressed in the story itself.

Dying Wish implies that Otto inhereited Peter's morals,

He inherited a sense of responsibility and taste to do good, but he was still Otto Octavius.

hence the whoel swearing to do right and such.

The issue is 'what does Otto consider right'? Swearing to do right is fine, if you have a true-blue moral compass, sure. But Otto doesn't, and so we have an Otto Octavius, a malignant narcissist, compromised by a taste to be a better version not just of Peter Parker, but of Otto Octavius as always. It was always doomed to fail because he doesn't have Peter's moral compass. That's the point, you know?

For me, I don't see how you can have a moral code that allows you to be so sacrificial as to engage in superheroics and at the same time have no concern for other people in the manner that Otto does. LIke I know you say he's a dick, but stealing a man's life and leaving him to die alone without any of his loved ones knowing while you try to bang the love of his life is a little bit more than "being a dick". it's like, literally the most heinous thing you could do to a single person.

I meant it when I called everyting else 'fruit of a poisonous tree', you know. Otto had his own kind of idea of what constituted a moral code, and a different view of responsibility. It's why he was way more willing to leave things to the police and his army of hired mercs, you know? And yes, it's absolutely heinous, and SSM #9 doubles down on that deliberately in what was easily one of the best single issues of the series.

And lest we be too male-centric here, he was also willing to essentially rape MJ, so I think we're well beyond "being a dick". And this is the big disconnect for me. He is on the one hand willing to risk his life in combat, spend his time arresting thieves, and use resources to monitor the city for crime, all these things that are self-sacrificial and imply a strong sense of morals and a desire to to good.

this was mostly done as a play on body-swapping tropes and to make a point of Otto's possessiveness of Peter's life, and his narcissistic entitlement to it. MJ senses something is off pretty fast, but she doesn't presume 'body swaps', you know, because at that point she can still sense the Peter-fragment that's within him, coloring him his perspective. But, yeah, it's intended to be gross, and to show that having a sense of responsibility does not make one a decent person, or have Otto realize what he's done is wrong. His self-justifications are a huge part of the series, and why it turns into a rapidly explosive pressure cooker in each issue after issue.

But he doesn't feel bad about starting his career by doing the worst thing possible?

we see him feel bad a few times, like in #700, but he pushes it down under narcissism. He nearly turns himself in a couple times too. One of the things that happens throughout the various issues and runs is that Otto will doubt himself, come >< close to having a realization, and then he's just smart enough to get away with what he's doing and dispel his own doubts. Narcissists can get along like that until they don't,. and that's happens in the end.

He isn't capable of treating Mary Jane as a person and not just a body to ****? Like yeah he breaks up with her to "protect" her...but then feels no qualms about reliving Peter's sexual experiences with her.

I know it's an article of faith on certain corners of the internet that he's reliving Peter's sexual experiences and that Otto totally rubbed one out, but honestly, that's just the internet for you. He was trying to understand what made the relationship work, which implies a different focus. Slott has always been pretty direct when asked about this, and I think it's fair to take him at his word, off color jokes nonwithstanding.

He doesn't read like a moral person at all, because he has no moral questions and concerns

Well, yeah. He's *not* a moral person. He's never portrayed as one. He is *trying* to grow, but he can't grow while he's a body-thieving murderer. I think the problem is that you're assuming that a bad person can't do good, or wouldn't bother to, because they lack a 'strong moral core', but that's pretty binary way of looking at complicated nuances of behavior. Bad people are capable of doing good things, even self sacrifice, in the right circumstances and conditions. In fairness, Otto does have a moral core, influenced by Parker, but it's a fundamentally Octavian view of what constitutes a moral choice and otherwise, and it's why he pounces on Parker's brief moment of weakness to weaponize his guilt in #9 and equivocate between the two to pretend he's more worth than the actual owner of the body. Otto's self-justifications are legion throughout the book until he can't run away from his own failures anymore. That last bit is what finally promotes fundamental moral evolution and, of course, why he had to die 'coz we can't have a fundamentally morally evolved Ock, now can we?

Anyway, I get your problems with it, but I think the lens you're viewing the series through is fundamentally flawed and that you really ought to read it and Gage's very fun successor series. There's a lot of fun to be had in Otto's camp silver age villainy turned to a skewed try at heroism.

[Xenon]

I think you'd find that a whole bunch of your thesis gets addressed in the story itself.



He inherited a sense of responsibility and taste to do good, but he was still Otto Octavius.



The issue is 'what does Otto consider right'? Swearing to do right is fine, if you have a true-blue moral compass, sure. But Otto doesn't, and so we have an Otto Octavius, a malignant narcissist, compromised by a taste to be a better version not just of Peter Parker, but of Otto Octavius as always. It was always doomed to fail because he doesn't have Peter's moral compass. That's the point, you know?

I think it's fine that Otto may have a different sense of what's right at times. The killing of Massacre is one such example. There's absolutely a strong case to be made that letting these people live just creates more problems (there's also a case that you shouldn't summarily execute people, of course). But we're talking about really basic stuff here. Like hey maybe killing a hero is bad. Maybe don't try to rape his girlfriend after you're supposed to have a conscience. Like he can still be Otto and have a moral compass, and that's what 700 seems to be trying to do to make it ok that Peter is dying, but the series itself feels inconsistent.

I meant it when I called everyting else 'fruit of a poisonous tree', you know. Otto had his own kind of idea of what constituted a moral code, and a different view of responsibility. It's why he was way more willing to leave things to the police and his army of hired mercs, you know? And yes, it's absolutely heinous, and SSM #9 doubles down on that deliberately in what was easily one of the best single issues of the series.

It just makes his motivation to do good unbelievable. It doesn't make sense to me that you could think like Otto does and be willing to do superheroics. That's the fundamental disconnect. It would be different if the set up for the story was different, that Peter tricks him into being a hero out of narcissism or something like that. But the setup in 700 is that Peter forced his own moral code onto Otto and that meant he coudl trust Otto to do the right thing. Which he does....except for the times he just doesn't care.

this was mostly done as a play on body-swapping tropes and to make a point of Otto's possessiveness of Peter's life, and his narcissistic entitlement to it. MJ senses something is off pretty fast, but she doesn't presume 'body swaps', you know, because at that point she can still sense the Peter-fragment that's within him, coloring him his perspective. But, yeah, it's intended to be gross, and to show that having a sense of responsibility does not make one a decent person, or have Otto realize what he's done is wrong. His self-justifications are a huge part of the series, and why it turns into a rapidly explosive pressure cooker in each issue after issue.

MJ thinks he's changed at the end of the issue but in no way does she sense "something off" Or at least that's a generous interpretation of why she didn't let him in considering she doesn't act like she had any idea afterwards. Nonetheless, reagardless of what it was MEANT to show, what it did show is a willingness to violate a woman for his personal gain with no concern for her. It's the furthest thing from moral you can get.

I know it's an article of faith on certain corners of the internet that he's reliving Peter's sexual experiences and that Otto totally rubbed one out, but honestly, that's just the internet for you. He was trying to understand what made the relationship work, which implies a different focus. Slott has always been pretty direct when asked about this, and I think it's fair to take him at his word, off color jokes nonwithstanding.

Well, yeah. He's *not* a moral person. He's never portrayed as one. He is *trying* to grow, but he can't grow while he's a body-thieving murderer. I think the problem is that you're assuming that a bad person can't do good, or wouldn't bother to, because they lack a 'strong moral core', but that's pretty binary way of looking at complicated nuances of behavior. Bad people are capable of doing good things, even self sacrifice, in the right circumstances and conditions. In fairness, Otto does have a moral core, influenced by Parker, but it's a fundamentally Octavian view of what constitutes a moral choice and otherwise, and it's why he pounces on Parker's brief moment of weakness to weaponize his guilt in #9 and equivocate between the two to pretend he's more worth than the actual owner of the body. Otto's self-justifications are legion throughout the book until he can't run away from his own failures anymore. That last bit is what finally promotes fundamental moral evolution and, of course, why he had to die 'coz we can't have a fundamentally morally evolved Ock, now can we?

Anyway, I get your problems with it, but I think the lens you're viewing the series through is fundamentally flawed and that you really ought to read it and Gage's very fun successor series. There's a lot of fun to be had in Otto's camp silver age villainy turned to a skewed try at heroism.

Let me quote you the page "Her taste, her touch, the feel of every inch of her."

The book is pretty clear.

Slott always walks that crap back when he gets called on it. He did it in 699 too with Aunt May. He writes a scene that implies sex, then when people point out its a gross violation he pretends to be innocent.

[Mercwmouth12]

Well it seems we know how now