We’re back to end this little torment with yet another artist stepping in. Stephen Segovia takes the first 5 pages, while previous contestants Checchetto and Siqueira handle the rest. Also Christ Chuckry is back to help color. What is going on with this book lately? “We hired an artist who’s too slow, get someone else.” “Well, he’s too slow, too.” “Maybe they can share issues.” “Still gonna miss deadlines.” “Maybe 3 issues a month was a mistake…”
Not the last time Joe Kelly will inject some random dark event into Peter’s past.
In fact, this whole past scene is feeling too similar to something he’s done quite recently, as I write this. Oh yes, friends, they still let this guy write Spider-Man, for some reason.
I’d give someone in the Spider-Office one American dollar to tell me when this flashback took place. Slot it in between two 60s issues. One whole dollar. This is some real “I watched the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie” characterization. Well, anyway, the Armored Osborns go at each other for a few pages, Norman speechifyin’ the whole time, as Peter’s mask finally completely vanishes. And just his mask. If the zapper stabilizes the Unstable Molecules, shouldn’t his whole suit be crumbling? Answer: no one cares, apparently. Harry accuses Norman of setting all this up just to kill Spider-Man, while Norman insists he was offering Harry a great life and trying to kill Spider-Man.
We hates it, precious. Norman goes flying through the door, past Lily, and somehow right out the side of the building. The logistics of this don’t make sense to me, but that is far from my biggest complaint, here.
I would like to read Norah’s story, because I’m not sure what all she could have gotten out of pretending to work here for the last 5 issues, but I’m sure Joe Kelly will tell me it’s a lot more than I would think. Lily flies out of the building to make sure Norman’s ok, and Harry flies out of the building to keep beating up his dad. His dad does some semi-classic Norman about how he needed a viable heir, but in doing so, he really makes me question the timeline here. When did he meet Lily? How long has Lily been Menace? He says he only knocked her up because she had his serum in her. Could that possibly have been 9 months ago? She’s extremely pregnant. Which, of course, begs the question, why was she not extremely pregnant in all her previous appearances? Are we really gonna do some lame “The goblin serum makes a baby age faster” garbage? This feels like such a dumb retcon, and especially after so much of Brand New Day was apparently a carefully crafted arc, awkwardly bolting on something that doesn’t fit immediately feels almost disrespectful.
Is that supposed to be a web mask? Is he meant to have ripped some of his indestructible suit which shouldn’t even exist anymore off to make it? Does anyone care about anything? He did rip his sleeve off, according to the next few pages. The suit stood up to a wide variety of lasers, fire, sonics, etc. without a scratch. Why do I care if they don’t? Fight fight fight, Spidey incapacitates Menace, Harry apparently rolls a 20 on initiative and start whupping Norman, ripping his helmet off.
So, Harry takes his suit off and walks away. Here’s another thing that sucks about Dark Reign: Making Norman Osborn the villain of almost literally every comic book for 18 months means you lose count of how many of your favorite Marvel superheroes (And Harry!) personally deserve to take him down when all this ends. When the time comes for Norman to be brought low, Spider-Man, obviously, Harry, Iron Man, basically each individual Avenger, the Punisher, Namor, Nick Fury and so many others will be in a story arc that all-but demands they bring him to justice. But it can’t be a crowd of 50 people beating up one guy. Almost no one can have a satisfying conclusion here.
I’ll say this for this arc: It’s over. Next time, something highly unusual for me in this period, and a ridiculously huge oversized 600th issue…