Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Could Be Earth's Mightiest Hypocrites, Am I Right?

On my way out of the boonies back at the beginning of November, I stopped along the way at a store to look through the back issues. While I was there, I also skimmed through a recent issue of Superior Spider-Man. I've said previously I don't have any interest in Octavius as Spider-Man, but they had the Black Cat on the cover, and I was mildly curious to see how they were playing off each other.

As it turned out, Ock caught her robbing a place, kicked her butt, and left her webbed to a wall for the cops, her swearing revenge under her breath. That along with a few other things that started to go wrong for him in the issue, reminded me of a post on the Legion of Doom several months back. The idea was that Slott's whole plan with this is when Parker inevitably gets his life back, Octavius will have ruined it. Peter Parker's rep will be destroyed - because he looks like he's stealing Octavius' ideas, and siphoning money from Ock's hidden offshore accounts - and so will Spider-Man's, because Ock will screw up something catastrophically, or just do something villainous he thinks is heroic. Which means that Parker will be back to the old status quo: single, broke, no steady lady in his life, the other heroes unsure of him, the public against him.

Octavius destroying Parker's life I can see easily enough. His ego is burning bridges left and right.  In a vacuum, I can see the Avengers not wanting anything to do with him under certain circumstances. The problem is that I don't see how the Avengers don't cut him some slack if he just goes to them and says, "Hey, Doc Ock had control of my body for the last several months." Wolverine gets let off the hook every time someone mind controls him into killing a boatload of people, which is funny considering Wolverine kills boatloads of people even when he isn't mind controlled. I've harped on Tony Stark's actions during and after Civil War for years, but he seems to have been welcomed back into the fold, and all it took was him rebooting his own brain so he doesn't remember what he did. Hawkeye was a crook at one point, the Black Widow a foreign spy, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were terrorists originally, who have both had mental breakdowns that pitted them against their friends from time-to-time. They all seem to get welcomed back eventually. Stark, Hercules, and Carol Danvers have all been guilty of trying to fight crime while intoxicated. Hank Pym seems to catch more flak than most anyone, but even he gets let back in eventually. None of those folks can claim their arch-foe was running around in their body committing those acts, which really ought to cut Spidey some slack.

Maybe that's not what Slott's going for. It might be sufficient for the public to distrust Spider-Man, but the Avengers know the score. Or perhaps he's going to have Ock piss off the other heroes so much they won't even listen to Spidey when he tries to explain. That would be hard to believe for certain characters, but it could always turn out Spidey doesn't get a chance to talk with any of those. I think Carol Danvers would be a receptive audience - certainly she understands having your life stolen from you - but she's going to be out in space more, so not much overlap there. If it does turn out like that, it may be one of those things where the reader just has to treat the book as existing in its own little world. Ock-Spidey was a jerk, so all the Avengers hate Real Spidey, and just don't look at the fact most of those Avengers don't have any moral high ground for their behavior.

2 comments:

SallyP said...

You have the right idea, most likely. Peter can never ever win, so your scenario makes the most sense.

He can be company for Cyclops, who was also mind controlled, but everyone seems to be mad at.

CalvinPitt said...

Ugh, Spidey lumped in with Cyclops? It's Doc Ock's ultimate revenge.