{"id":23203,"date":"2024-10-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=23203"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:41:55","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:41:55","slug":"rogg-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/10\/19\/rogg-1\/","title":{"rendered":"ROGG 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ladies & gentlemen, please welcome Roger Stern back to the blog! If Norman Osborn has to be alive, this is the person I want writing him, and here he is, reunited with Ron Frenz yet again. We may recall Mackie doing some weird and not-terribly-good foreshadowing for this in PPSM 18<\/a>, and now it\u2019s here. Cool cover, too, kind of a daring choice. Frenz is inked by Pat Oliffe with help from George Roderick, Jr. and colored by Matt Hicks. We open on Frenz aping Gil Kane instead of the Buscemas for a change\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not quite a swipe from ASM 121<\/a>, but might as well be. This is the beginning of a 3-page sequence sort of showing what really happened during the fake out at the end of Vol. 1, when it looked like Norman had killed Spider-Man in TAC 263<\/a> before it was revealed to be all in his head in SM 98<\/a>. Except, if this is all we have to go on, all that happened after the last real moment we say was Spider-Man punched him 2 times and then webbed him up. Not exactly the battle for the ages described in the captions back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Donald Menken! Stern loves that guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Bugle covering Thor 8<\/a>\/PPSM 2<\/a> is a nice touch. Tells us where we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Norman\u2019s bad scan having a face is so silly. He sure seemed to like that nurse. Menken flashes back to how he was one of the goons who busted Norman out at the end of SM 98, absconding in an ambulance to avoid suspicion. Norman was raving and violent, and Menken says they had to restrain him (How\u2019d they do that?). Then they brought in this Dr. Bendix. Stern has Menken fully a member of the Cult of the Scrier here. Nice of him to do all he can to sell the status quo. In the present, Norman demands Bendix find a better way to keep his madness under control so he can go defeat Spider-Man again. Not the best way to approach his recovery, I\u2019d think, but hey, it\u2019s Norman Osborn. A montage shows us Norman following Spider-Man\u2019s exploits as he recovers, Bendix developing a patch for his meds, like a nicotine patch, and then Norman reading the news of MJ\u2019s untimely death with some satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As usual, I don\u2019t really remember this comic. A love interest? I mean, making Norman less of a one-note villain would be nice, but this can\u2019t end well. Well, in short order, Norman moves to the old Osborn mansion, and Kolina shows up to marvel at the wealth on display. Menken is worried about this, but Norman won\u2019t hear dissent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As they dance, Norman has a weird flashback to his awful dad being awful to him as a child, saying his dad taught him to be a man and not to fear the dark. As their romance begins to bloom, we go see someone having a less-than-spectacular time of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As full of callbacks as this was, I wish that was the billboard from ASM, Vol. 2 #2<\/a>. His brooding is interrupted by a good ol\u2019 fashioned robbery, featuring goons in Thing & Hulk masks. After stopping their car and webbing them up, Spidey finds a place to become Peter Parker and walk the rest of his journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter being legit excited about a toothpaste sample is so funny and so perfect. It\u2019s always a pleasure when Roger Stern comes back to this character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A real shame you can barely read the text in that dark panel. Bad choices. Well, Norman\u2019s done the ol\u2019 \u201cdeaden the Spider Sense\u201d bit, so one assumes Peter is in for a rough ride next issue. Stern gets a page to talk about how his first Spider-Man comic was ASM 40, and how he was fascinated by Norman from the beginning. He seems genuinely interested in writing him for the first time. And since I have forgotten all about this, I am genuinely interested in seeing how it goes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ladies & gentlemen, please welcome Roger Stern back to the blog! If Norman Osborn has to be alive, this is the person I want writing him, and here he is, reunited with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[659,1970,40,1789,39,540,117,321,2],"class_list":["post-23203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-donald-menken","tag-george-roderick","tag-green-goblin","tag-matt-hicks","tag-norman-osborn","tag-pat-oliffe","tag-roger-stern","tag-ron-frenz","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23204,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23203\/revisions\/23204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}