The Future of Norman Osborn [Satire]

[Chris Lang]

Okay, at the end of the infamous 'Clone Saga', Norman Osborn was brought back from the dead to be revealed as the mastermind behind it all. This, after he had been impaled by his own jet glider and stayed dead for 20 years real world time. It was revealed that the goblin formula which gave him his strength also gave him a 'healing factor' which healed his injuries, even when there was a huge spike stuck in his chest.

Sooner or later, Marvel will probably kill off Norman Osborn again. And what would happen then? Well, the following is a series of excerpts from future Spider-Man comics and future meetings with Marvel writers and editors (only possible futures, mind you). To start:

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt

(Spider-Man is lying on the floor, pinned beneath a fallen crate, after having to alternate between fighting the Green Goblin and Venom every minute. Both villains are fighting each other for the priviledge of being the one who kills Spider-Man)

Venom: Mine! Spider-Man is mine to kill! He ruined my life!

Green Goblin: Spider-Man is mine! It is my destiny to finally rid the world of Spider-Man once and for all!

Venom: Ha! All you got is some fancy gimmicks and a strength formula! (dodges pumpkin bombs, and retaliates with symbiote darts). I've got this symbiote which can do anything I tell it to do!

Green Goblin: You are just a crude thug who happened to stumble upon a shape-changing symbiote. I, on the other hand, am a businessman who used his superior intelligence to climb up to the top of the corporate ladder and become Spider-Man's worst enemy. I was the mastermind behind the clones. I made his newborn child disappear. You haven't the brains to pull off even a THIRD of what...

Venom: SHUT UP!!!! (a huge axe forms from his symbiote arm, which slices Norman Osborn's head off. A huge geyser of blood spews forth from the stump where the Goblin's head used to be, and the head is shown bouncing on the floor for the next three or four panels)

Spider-Man, in caption: My God...

(Spider-Man is slowly pulling himself free of the crates. Venom, meanwhile, pounces on Norman Osborn's severed head. A small round saw forms from Venom's symbiote, which Venom uses to saw open the top of Norman's head. As Spider-Man slowly rises to his feet, the top of Norman's head is removed and thrown to the side, revealing Norman's brain).

Venom: I haven't the brains to pull it off, do I? Now we'll see who hasn't got the brains! (pulls the brain out of Norman's head, and then eats the brain messily on-panel. Spider-Man is shown watching all this in shock. We then see at least one panel of Spider-Man vomiting).

Venom: Yum yum yum yum yum!

Spider-Man, in caption: I'd heard him threaten that so much it'd become cliche, but I didn't think he'd actually...

Flash-forward to some years later, in a Marvel writers and editors meeting:

Marvel Editor-in-Chief: Spider-writers, you've written the Spider-books into quite a corner this time. The only way we can get things back on track is to bring back Norman Osborn.

Spider-writer #1: But he's dead! Venom decapitated him and ate his brain!

Assistant Editor: We saw it happen! On-panel with all the gory details!

Marvel EIC: I don't care! Just bring him back!

(Spider-writers and editors sigh)

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

Norman Osborn: I'm back!!!

Spider-Man: But it can't be! Venom decapitated you and then ate your brains! I should know! I saw it happen. I even threw up all over my Spider-suit because of it!

Norman Osborn: My goblin formula healing power brought me back! Right after you left my remains in that warehouse, my brain grew back, and my severed parts began re-attaching themselves! I then grabbed some homeless man, made him look like me, then decapitated him, sawed off the top of his head, and removed his brain! Then I went into hiding. But now I'm back!

And so Norman Osborn returns to be the principle villain in the next few years' worth of Spider-Man stories. Eventually, however, things reach a certain point again...

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

(Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are fighting each other in a woodcutter's place, with all the dangerous equipment such as sawmills and woodchippers in the background. Spider-Man dodges a pumpkin bomb, which bounces off the wall behind him. Spider-Man ducks again, and it hits the Goblin. It explodes, sending the Goblin flying backwards)

Spider-Man: No! Look out for that...(Spider-Man stops as he realizes he's too late)...woodchipper. (Norman Osborn falls into a woodchipper. Horrible SFX ensue as Norman is sliced to pieces. Lots of tiny bloody pieces are spat out from the woodchipper, splattering all over the ground).

Spider-Man: He's gone. He's really gone. (a bunch of buzzards and crows gather, and begin eating many of the gory pieces).

Flash-forward to some years later, in a Marvel writers and editors meeting:

Marvel EIC: Once again, the Spider-books are so hopelessly screwed up that there's only one way to salvage them. And that one way is to bring back Norman Osborn.

Spider-writer #1: But's that's ridiculous! Last time we killed him off in a way that would guarantee that he's dead, dead, dead!

Spider-writer #2: Come on now! He can't bounce back from being sliced and ground up into teeny tiny little pieces, can he?

Assistant Editor: His healing factor isn't that good, is it?

Spider-Writer #3: I don't see why not.

Marvel EIC: Look, Norman Osborn has to be brought back, no matter what! You figure out a way to make it happen.

Spider-Writer #1: The rest of you can do it! I'm headed off to DC. (leaves abruptly).

Spider-Writer #2: Sigh. We'll see what we can do.

End Part One of 'The Future of Norman Osborn'. There's more, but I'd like to see reactions to this first.

Chris Lang

[Chris Lang]

And now, Part 2 (split into parts due to being limited to 10000 chars)

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

Norman Osborn: I'm BAAAACKKK!!!!

Spider-Man: But you CAN'T BE BACK! I saw you get sliced and diced into itsy bitsy teeny tiny little pieces by a woodchipper! Some of those pieces even got eaten by birds!

Norman Osborn: My goblin formula healing factor brought me back. My pieces started reassembling themselves, and as for the pieces eaten by the birds, they regenerated as soon as the rest of me was re-assembled! I can't be killed, Peter my boy! I'll ALWAYS come back for more!

And so Norman Osborn once again becomes the number one villain in the Spider-verse, until he once again outlives his usefulness to the books (at least as far as the creative team at the time is concerned). And so...

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

(the setting is a distant galaxy far, far, away, where Spider-Man has been summoned to a space station by Norman Osborn to settle their conflict once and for all in a one-on-one showdown. The space station is headed for a sun, which looks ready to go super-nova. Norman Osborn is in new Goblin armor which allows him to breathe in space. Spider-Man is wearing a space-suit colored in the traditional red, black, and blue Spider-Man colors. They fight aboard the space station as the oxygen leaks out, debris falls around them, and it shows every sign of falling into the sun).

Norman Osborn: And so finally you will die, Peter my boy! No Avengers, no Venom, no Fantastic Four or even Ben Reilly to save you this time!

Spider-Man: You're crazy! We're both going to die! Can't you see this place is falling apart around us?

Spider-Man, in caption: Got to keep stalling for time till the Fantastic Four get here.

Norman Osborn: You think I'm worried about being skewered by a bit of space debris? I've survived EVERYTHING you've done to try to kill me! My goblin formula healing factor saves me every time. You, on the other hand, aren't going to come back...

Spider-Man: I guess you didn't hear about the Other incident, then. Didn't Morlun tell you in that place you villains go when you're not really dead?

(Norman doesn't get a chance to reply as the wall of the space station breaks apart, sending them both out into space. Norman continues to attack Peter, punching him, shooting goblin blasts at him. Spider-Man is just trying desperately to stay alive at this point).

Spider-Man, in caption: My God, he's gone completely mad! We're both caught in that exploding sun's gravitational pull. In just a few seconds, we'll both be incinerated! (Norman charges at Peter, who kicks him into one of the flares caused by the impending supernova. Half of Norman's goblin armor is burned off, revealing a half-skeletal, burning Norman Osborn...who STILL comes after Peter. He grabs Peter's leg...Peter kicks him away.) This is it. I never thought I'd die this far from home. Mary Jane, I love you...

(Spider-Man is suddenly surrounded by one of the Invisible Woman's force fields, which is then zapped by a tractor beam pulling the force field -- with Spider-Man in it -- toward a space ship with the Fantastic Four insignia on its side)

Susan Richards, on Spider-Man's radio: You're safe now. Just relax and we'll bring you in. Sorry we couldn't come sooner, but Reed had to talk Galactus out of devouring another inhabited planet.

Spider-Man, communicating with the space-suit radio transmitter: What about Norman? (We see Norman falling into the dying sun, his now-skeletal body gradually disintegrating until finally he hits the sun and is consumed)

Reed Richards: He's history. And so are we unless we go to warp before that sun goes super-nova in 2.7 minutes. (Spider-Man is pulled aboard the Fantastic Four's ship, which then goes into warp. From their new location which is a safe distance away, Spider-Man watches the sun go super-nova for the next three pages, as the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing stand silently behind him.)

Spider-Man, in caption: He's gone. For good. Even his goblin healing power won't bring him back now. His body is now cosmic dust which is even now scattering all over the universe. He'll never harm anyone again. Rest easy, Gwen. Rest easy, Ben Reilly. Rest easy, Uncle Ben.

Yes, by the time this happens, it will have been revealed that Uncle Ben's killer was a hit man hired by Norman Osborn to bump off Uncle Ben because Uncle Ben found out about certain questionable business practices. After this storyline, Marvel sells action figures of Spacesuit Spider-Man and Space Armor Green Goblin for a few years. Anyway, this is the last we see of Norman Osborn...until a decade or two and a half later...

Flash-forward to some years later, in a Marvel writers and editors meeting:

Marvel EIC: I don't know how you guys did it, but you managed to really mess things up in the Spider-books.

Spider-Man Editor: Maybe it's because we all just make it up as we go along, not thinking of the long-term consequences.

Marvel EIC: Anyway, there's only one way we can fix this mess. We've got to bring back Norman Osborn.

Spider-Writer #1(a different one than the one who quit the last time): Are you kidding? There's NO WAY we can bring him back!

Assistant Editor: Not even his goblin formula could bring him back after he got incinerated by a sun going super-nova. He's dead, Jim.

Marvel EIC: I'm not Jim. We fired him decades ago. And I don't care how you bring him back, just as long as you do it.

Spider-Writer #2: That's it! Screw you guys, I'm going to DC! I'm going to take that Superman assignment they offered me after all. (leaves abruptly, followed by Assistant Editor, Spider-Writer #1, and Spider-Writer #4)

Spider-Writer #3: Guess it's up to me, then.

To be continued in Part 3, the conclusion.

Chris Lang

[Chris Lang]

And now, the conclusion of 'The Future of Norman Osborn'...

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

Norman Osborn: I'm back again!!!

Spider-Man: No way! You have to be a robot or a clone or some sort of impostor! You fell into a sun which went super-nova and scattered your dust all over the cosmos! Even your goblin formula healing factor couldn't put you back together from THAT one!

Norman Osborn: It didn't. It turns out that I'm a mutant!

Spider-Man: A mutant? Why didn't we find this out before?

Norman Osborn: I didn't bother to check. Anyway, I didn't know just how I came back until I returned to Earth and had a talk with Magneto. Seems my mutant ability is to always come back. And guess what? Your Aunt May is a mutant with the same ability! Come on, you didn't believe that story about the genetically re-engineered actress, did you?

Spider-Man: Now that I think about it, it did seem a bit far-fetched.

Norman Osborn: You see, Peter. You can't win! No matter what you do, I'll ALWAYS be back!

A few years worth of Spider-Man stories later...

Norman Osborn: You can't win! You can slice me to pieces, incinerate me, send me to the Star Trek universe wearing a red shirt...I'll always come back! Nothing can kill me! Not even God himself can kill Norman Osborn!

God (off panel): Oh, really? (A giant bolt of lighting descends from the heavens and strikes Norman Osborn. There is a flash of light, and when it clears, all that is left is a scorch mark on the ground.)

Spider-Man: He's gone. Thank God.

God (still off panel): You're welcome.

And so it would appear that Norman Osborn is indeed gone for good this time. Then, one day..

Flash-forward to some years later, in a Marvel writers and editors meeting:

Marvel EIC: The Spider-books are at an all-time low. Things haven't been this bad since the third Clone Saga. There's only one way to set things right, and that's bring back Norman Osborn.

Spider-Writer #3: Come on! After the way we killed him off last time, bringing him back now would just be too stupid to even contemplate!

Spider-Writer #2 (a different one than the one who walked out last time): Why not? I mean, we already brought him back four times already.

Spider-Editor: But really? How are we going to bring him back THIS time? I mean, it just doesn't seem possible.

Marvel EIC: You'll think of something. Remember, no one stays dead except for Uncle Ben.

Spider-Writer #3: But after being struck down by God? I'm outta here. I'm going to take that offer to write the Batman part of the AFTERMATH OF EARTH CRISIS crossover. (leaves abruptly).

(insert adjective here) Spider-Man (insert number here) excerpt:

Norman Osborn: I have returned! From Hell itself! (Norman Osborn is now clad in a more demonic looking Green Goblin costume, and his eyes are glowing red. He is not riding a metallic goblin glider, but a giant scaly bat-like demon creature)

Spider-Man: Should I even ask how you returned from the dead this time?

Norman Osborn: I'll tell you anyway. It seems Satan was impressed by my attempts to make your life Hell on Earth, so he's recruited me to bring about your ruination! I cannot die, Peter, and I will not rest until I have done Satan's bidding and dragged your soul down to Hell! (attacks Spider-Man with demonic pumpkin bombs he has conjured up)

Spider-Man: Wait a minute! Isn't this a little too mystical and cosmic for a Spider-Man adventure?

Green Goblin: So was that whole Spider-totem thing Morlun told me about while I was in Hell. What's your point?

Spider-Man: Never mind. Sigh. Here we go again.

And so it goes.

And that's the possible future of Norman Osborn.

Chris Lang

[Citizen V]

Speaking of Norman Osborn,i have been trying to find information and images of him.But i mostly find Green Goblin sites,could anyone provide me with websites that have images of Norman Osborn?Sending information through PM is also welcome.

[Chris Lang]

Speaking of Norman Osborn,i have been trying to find information and images of him.But i mostly find Green Goblin sites,could anyone provide me with websites that have images of Norman Osborn?Sending information through PM is also welcome.

You might try www.spiderfan.org, which has bios for most of the villains and supporting characters in the Spider-books. You might also try www.spideykicksbutt.com, as its owner is a big Green Goblin fan. Other than those, I can't really think of any sites that might have what you're searching for.

Chris Lang

[Venom]

It must have taken you ages to come up with all those ideas Chris Lang.

[Chris Lang]

It must have taken you ages to come up with all those ideas Chris Lang.

Actually, the Venom vs. Norman Osborn confrontation was one I'd thought up many years before I posted this satire. I had this in mind a long time ago, but I was stuck coming up with more really crazy over-the-top ways for Norman Osborn to die and come back from the dead. This satire really isn't my best bit of writing, but I thought it was amusing enough to post anyway.

As for the decision to bring Norman back the first time, I still have mixed feelings about that.

[DoctorDoom]

You might try www.spiderfan.org, which has bios for most of the villains and supporting characters in the Spider-books. You might also try www.spideykicksbutt.com, as its owner is a big Green Goblin fan. Other than those, I can't really think of any sites that might have what you're searching for.

Chris Lang
Those are great sites

[666andahalf]

That was freakin' awesome... the sad thing is that I can really see Marvel doing that too...

[Chris Lang]

That was freakin' awesome... the sad thing is that I can really see Marvel doing that too...

So can I...sigh. So can I. :rolleyes:

[Reggie]

Great great stuff! And I agree, Marvel is capable off pulling this stunt :P

[Chris Lang]

Those are great sites

Indeed. I may not agree with everything on those sites, but I always find their viewpoints interesting.


Great great stuff! And I agree, Marvel is capable off pulling this stunt :P

Ah, if I had written this after 'Brand New Day', I probably would have made some line about 'Europe'. Maybe certain lines would have gone as follows...

Spider-Man: Didn't Morlun tell you about it in Europe?

Norman: Europe?

Spider-Man: Yeah, where everyone goes when I think they're dead but it turns out they're not. Aunt May even gave me a few postcards. I think Gwen and Uncle Ben must have liked it there, since I should have heard from them by now.

These days, I don't put anything past the Spider-books, no matter how absurd. To be honest, 'One More Day' didn't even surprise me that much. I'd do a satire or sendup on that one, too, but I think lots of people have already beaten me to it.

[ViciousX]

Funny, but, because it needs to be said... Venom killing Norman? Never, not in a million years. The Goblin would incinerate Brock and his black tar soul mate.

And I don't get what the complaint about the healing factor is. Of all of the many resurrections in the history of comics, Norman's is far from the most implausible.

TO quote J.R.


One of the interesting things about die-hard comics fans, though, is their willingness to accept certain lapses in logic, but not others.

For example, some readers are willing to accept that a bite from a radioactive spider would give a teenager "spider-powers," that mysterious cosmic rays would give a group of four citizens extraordinary (and all quite different) super powers, and that a gamma bomb could explode and turn a scientist into a not so jolly green giant - with none of these people dying from radiation poisoning or cancer. As far as villains returning from the dead, how about Doc Ock's and Hammerhead's survival while being in the heart of a nuclear explosion back in Amazing #133? Ock survived by encircling himself in his indestructible tentacles. And although Hammerhead had no such protection, he had merely been turned into some form of walking, talking ectoplasm that was returned to human form after Doc Ock zapped him in issue #159. I don't recall a whole lot of controversy about these highly improbable returns from the dead. So, after these leaps of faith, we can't accept that Norman's exploded heart couldn't be healed by the very "Goblin formula" that turned a conniving businessman into a lunatic who wears a green and purple suit and flies around on a glider? I mean, we're talking about fantasy to begin with. Super-villains never stay dead - it's in the union rules. Based on those union rules, it's amazing that Norman actually stayed "dead" for over 20 years.

[RazorBats79]

Haha! Well done!

[littlemaths]

That's...quite a bump.

Look, to be honest, I've actually enjoyed Ellis' Osborn in Thunderbolts lately. If other writers are using that as a template, then I'd welcome all the Norman they can cram in.

[Chris Lang]

Look, to be honest, I've actually enjoyed Ellis' Osborn in Thunderbolts lately. If other writers are using that as a template, then I'd welcome all the Norman they can cram in.

To be honest, I DID find other returns from the dead in the 616 Spider-books to be more implausible and downright ridiculous (Aunt May's return, which I briefly alluded to in that satire above), but I couldn't resist sending up the return of Norman Osborn.

I haven't seen him in Thunderbolts, and I haven't been keeping up with that, so I can't really make any informed comments about Osborn's role in that one.

And ViciousX, that whole issue involving Doc Ock, Hammerhead, and the nuclear plant was also a story that made it hard to suspend disbelief, but that's a subject for another thread . I'll just say here that the 70s had their share of absurd Spider-Man stories, too.