Harry and Norman Osborn’s first ever on-panel (Amazing Spider-Man #37) interaction sets, shall we say, a certain tone for their interactions.
It’s bad.
I mean its *really* bad.
For context, Norman was at the time being written specifically as an Ayn Rand-ian ‘parasite’, a man who had only gotten where he was through theft and guile, and the writer wasn’t one for giving nuance to characters he was portraying as bad guys.
But still.
Harry is nothing but on his father’s side, and Norman is just… there’s no other word for it. Mean. He’s mean an abusive.
It sucks.
Harry: “I don’t get it, why would Spider-Man try to burn down your plant?”
Norman: “Don’t believe everything you hear, Harry. It wasn’t Spider-Man! Someone else was behind this!”
Harry: “But who?”
Norman: (internally) “I can’t tell the kid how I cheated Professor Stromm out of his inventions and then railroaded him into jail when he began to threaten me? It has to be Stromm who’s after me!”
Harry: (continuing his previous thought) “Wouldn’t it be somethin’ if Spider-Man is trying to work a protection racket?”
To say they’re not exactly friends from the start would be an understatement. Pete’s usual standoffishness is only made worse because Aunt May is sick at the time.
Harry reacts about as well as you expect, calling him a square, and trying to prank him. He extends the olive branch, at Gwen’s behest, inviting Peter out for a coke; but Peter blows him off for Spider stuff as is his pattern.
As an aside, the way Ditko draws Harry’s face in this issue makes him look like a skeleton.
“Hold still,” Otto hissed. He held the needle and medical thread in his gloved fingers, while his tentacles hovered nearby with gauze and alcohol.
Sabretooth growled as the doctor neatly sewed up the long slashes in his back. “I hate this, doc.”
“Is it *my* fault that your healing factor is suppressed?” Otto chided. “No it is not. So hold still and let me make sure you don’t lose all your damned blood.”
“Yeah yeah,” the big man grumbled huffily. But he held still and let Otto work.
Otto’s tentacles wiped Sabretooth’s neatly stitched wounds with alcohol soaked gauze, and Sabretooth drew a breath like a hiss.
“I thought you didn’t care about pain, Victor,” Otto tutted, giving him a rather fretful look.
“Well that’s when I know it’s healin’ right,” Sabretooth complained. “Besides, it stops hurting real fast, usually.”
“You big baby.” Otto shook his head fondly. “Well its done now, and I promise it will heal right. I am a doctor after all.”
“Uhuh,” the big cat man gave him a teasing look.
Otto cupped Victor’s broad chin fondly with a bloody glove. “Trust me.”
“I’ll try.”
Otto kissed him on the mouth. “Imbecile. Try not to get hurt next time.”
⛔ Write about sharing a moment of defeat with your villain F/O.
We sat there, the both of us battered and bleeding. The blood loss would have killed lesser men, if not the ragged wounds peppering broken bodies.
But we were mutants. Homo Superior, and even as we huddled in the dark of a forgotten apartment complex, we were healing. Bones and flesh knitting together through shapeshifting and healing factors.
It was supposed to be an easy job. Get in, take out the bigoted mayor-to-be and his wretched cronies before they could take office. As a bonus ? He had everything we needed on him to bleed his corpse dry of not than just blood, but everything he was worth as well.
A win-win for Sabretooth and I, social justice with a payout. But it’d gone wrong. Horribly wrong. Not only was the mayor a little too well armed, but we forgot to count that maybe a certain X-man favored the bar’s darkest corner for his own.
When the bullets flew, quick-healing flesh caught the rounds instead of my target. When tooth and claw sunk into skin, it was met with bladed claws and the snarling of an age old rivalry gone nuclear.
When the night was over, the wretched politician and his little buddies ran home scot-free, and Victor and I were left licking our wounds in an abandoned apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.
Defeat, again. Not only did a bigot live another day, but we had nothing to show for it. Not even a new scar.
I look at Victor, giving him a wry smile. It’s no cold war bunker, I say. He laughs, though maybe the reminder of happier times wasn’t the best move right now.
Still. He looks around with a few colorful words. The place is a fucking dump, he says. I laugh, and wave my hand dismissively, only for him to catch it.
Yanking me to my feet a bit harder than my knitting wounds would like, he pulls me to his chest.
“I’m no Charles Trenet” He says “But it’s what we got, Mystie”
As he hums La Mer, I stifle a chuckle. It’s far from perfect…but it warms my cold black heart anyway. As he leads me through the steps of the dance, we heal together. To the sound of a familiar melody, we resolve to try again.
Dark Web: X-Men #2 – “Dupe” (December 28, 2022) [part of the Dark Web tie-in event]
Written by: Gerry Duggan Artist(s) [pencils & inks & colors] by: Rod Reis and Phil Noto Lettered by: VC’s Cory Petit Edited by: Jordan D. White (editor) & Lauren Amaro (associate editor) Published by: Marvel Comics
His name is Warren Worthington the third, and he"s called Angel.
He’s one of the original X-Men from the 60s.
He’s the son of a wealthy industrialist who is ashamed of him and rejects him because he’s a mutant, and tries to hide him and make him not a mutant. There is a lot of ‘gay conversion camp’ style narrative and imagery associated with Warren.
Warren also feels a lot of shame and self loathing for not fitting in.
Despite being beautiful and angelic, from a wealthy and well known family, he is still branded a freak and an outcast by society for the crime of being a mutant.
