Monday, June 29, 2009

Place Your Bets For The Great Downfall!

Who is going to bring down Norman Osborn? It has to happen eventually. The New Avengers are after him. Spider-Man as a solo player is gunning for him. Throw in the Agents of Atlas, Moon Knight, Songbird, Iron Man, maybe Deadpool in a roundabout way, and I'm sure the X-Men will take notice of him now that he's going to start screwing with their reputation. Maybe Speedball gets out of wherever Moonstone shipped him off to and brings the hurt. Then there's the villains like Doom, who at some point will have to be fed up with being ordered around by a loon.

Maybe it will be a plucky reporter*, like Ben Urich, who will (again) have to educate the citizens of the Marvel Universe that hey, Norman Osborn is evil, and crazy, and it is a bad thing for Osborn to have any power, let alone as much as he does. Or Betty Brant, she's been working hard to be a big-time reporter, right? Maybe Peter Parker will bring down Osborn through the power of the camera. That would be pretty sweet actually. Norman's (mostly) hung up the Goblin costume, and trying to present a legit face to the public, so Pete beats him through his civilian occupation.

Norman could always just self-destruct, but that would be a weak payoff. After all he's done, I think it would be better for the readers if the heroes actively defeat Osborn, rather than essentially stall until his house of cards falls in on itself.

Maybe it will be some unforseen factor. Perhaps Rocket Raccoon will zoom down from space, shoot Osborn in the face, then teleport back out. Problem solved, and once again we are reminded that when you want something done right, call Rocket Raccoon.

* Please do not let Sally Floyd be the savior of the Marvel Universe. If my choices were between Ms. "Captain America is out of touch because he doesn't use MySpace" ending Osborn's Reign, and Osborn staying in power indefinitely, I will take the guy with stupid hair running the show. And this is coming from someone who has reached the point he really wishes they never brought Norman back from the dead.

4 comments:

SallyP said...

I would love it to be Squirrel Girl.

Seangreyson said...

Well the Marvel pets are going to have the power of the infinity gauntlet...just saying. :)

But seriously how this guy expects to survive by pissing off every superhero on the planet is a little stunning. The Avengers, sure he had to deal with them since he was taking over Shield. But going after the FF and X-men just seems ridiculous (of course he's being helped by the entire X-family acting completely out of character).

Reed Richards is literally the smartest man alive. His family regularly deals with galactic level problems. I'm reminded of The Doctor (Dr. Who) bringing down the british government with 6 words. Richards couldn't do that?

As for the X-men. They're both the largest, and most lethal of the superhero teams. The Avengers and the FF wouldn't really kill anyone even the members of the Dark Avengers.

The X-men have been killing their enemies since the 80's. They've got the most dangerous man alive on their team (Wolverine obviously). The world's best telepaths, and a couple of the better strategists and tacticians (with Cap currently dead you could argue that the X-men have the best).

Osborne's plan made sense when he brought the White Queen into his cabal and promised to stay out of the X-men's way. Intentionally picking a fight just seems stupid.

As a last aside. Marvel was promoting Utopia as the first Avengers/X-men crossover in 15 years. What do they call all the other crossovers over the last 5 years or so?

CalvinPitt said...

sallyp: Were Squirrel Girl to focus her attention on Osborn, I might almost pity him. Almost.

seangreyson: I wouldn't mind seeing Reed bring Osborn down with just a few words. He's certainly smart enough to think rings around Norman (unless Doom's helping Osborn).

As for that Avengers/X-Men crossover statement, the best I can figure is they mean this is the first exclusively Avengers/X-Men crossover, since all the recent ones involved Spider-Man, or the FF, or Dr. Strange or some other character not belonging to those groups?

Anonymous said...

I think it would be interesting if Gwen Stacey were to come back from the dead to finish off Norman Osborn seeing as how she was his most well-known victim.