The Osborn Supremacy

Peter Parker returns home to his apartment to find Norman Osborn and his Thunderbolts waiting for him. With Parker subdued, Osborn demands that Peter tell him where he can find Spider-Man. At first, Peter is confused but reminds himself that nobody knows that he is Spider-Man anymore, not even Norman Osborn.[1] Osborn knows that Peter has a working relationship with the wall-crawler,[2] but Peter refuses to talk. When Peter refuses to talk, even with Venom wrecking his belongings.[3] Norman warns Peter that when he comes next he won’t be treating him so gingerly. That’s when Norman is informed that Peter’s roommate — Vin Gonzales — is on his way home and the Thunderbolts quickly leave. When Vin arrives home and sees the mess, he thinks Peter threw a party and yells at him for trashing their apartment.

At that same moment, Eddie Brock arrives at the FEAST Center and excitedly tells Aunt May and Martin Li that his doctors have just told him that he no longer has cancer.[4] Everyone is delighted to hear it, and this convinces May that there are miracles happening at FEAST, something that Martin Li has to this point dismissed.[5] Martin takes Eddie into his office to talk about it some more. Li tells Eddie that in his experience, you don’t question the miracles you experience in life. For example, he shows him a game of Go that he has set up in his private office. He says that he is the only person who has access to this room yet, somehow, someone has been moving the black pieces on the board.

Meanwhile, at the city hall, there is a press conference being put on to honor Norman Osborn for his work as the leader of the Thunderbolts. This celebration is hosted by both mayoral candidate Randall Crowne and DB published Dexter Bennett. While Bennett announces that he is publishing a full retraction of all of the Daily Bugle’s past accusations that Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin, Randall Crowne is awarding Norman with the Crowne Foundation’s man of the year award.[6] Norman addresses the audience and takes the opportunity to get support to his teammates in the Thunderbolts and vows to the people of New York that he’ll bring Spider-Man to justice.[7] When Ben Urich tries to ask Osborn some questions for the Front Line, he is ignored in favor of entertainment reporter Sandy Stone. Later that day, Harry Osborn has a visit from his father at the Coffee Bean, where he introduces him to his girlfriend Lily Hollister and to reveal that he is planning on franchising out the Coffee Bean.[8] However, Norman reveals that he is very aware of Harry’s pet project and is disappointed to see an Osborn serving coffee to the effete and storms out. When Lily tries to console Harry, he snaps at her and storms out of the room. His sudden outburst of anger disturb both Lily and Carlie Cooper who have never seen Harry act this way.

Norman later returns to his newly constructed New York penthouse where he has set up a base of operations. He checks in on the Thunderbolts who are scouring the city for a sign of Spider-Man. He also has Peter Parker under observation but is annoyed to learn that Peter has managed to disappear from sight. This is because Peter has slipped away to change into Spider-Man. He now breaks into Osborn’s home and with is spider-powers manages to slip past all of the security systems. Entering the room where they have Bullseye contained just in case he is needed, Spider-Man knocks out the guards and Bullseye and then kills the power to the entire building. Spider-Man then knocks out the soldiers in the control room and confronts Norman Osborn. He tells Norman that times have changed now that Norman no longer knows who he really is. Osborn couldn’t agree more since now he is on the side of law and order. That’s when the emergency back-up kicks in and the alarm go off. As more soldiers storm the control room, Norman orders them to take down Spider-Man, dead or alive. As Spider-Man deals with the guards, Norman orders the Thunderbolts to come back., while Songbird and Radioactive Man comply, Venom ignores it as his symbiote draws him toward the FEAST Center. However, before they can arrive, Spider-Man flees the scene. However, Osborn is unphased by this attack, as he is confident that this time he will capture the wall-crawler.

Having overheard that Venom is at the FEAST Center, Spider-Man races to the homeless shelter, fearing for the safety of his Aunt May. At that moment, Venom comes crashing through the wall and comes for Eddie Brock. However, instead of killing Brock, the symbiote attempts to bond with him again. This comes to a shock to Mac Gargan who doesn’t want the symbiote to leave him. Unfortunately, the symbiote doesn’t get its wish as a strange white substance begins oozing out of Eddie’s skin that burns the symbiote at the touch. To everyone’s horror, Eddie Brock undergoes a transformation into as he grows a new symbiote that is white with a black spider pattern on it — the opposite of Venom’s symbiote. Considering the symbiote nothing more than a blight that must be removed, Eddie Brock vows to be the one to do it, and calls himself Anti-Venom.

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man, Thunderbolts (Norman Osborn, Songbird, Radioactive Man, Venom, Bullseye) Anti-Venom, Aunt May, Martin Li, Harry Osborn, Lily Hollister, Carlie Cooper, Ben Urich, Vin Gonzales, Dexter Bennett, Sandy Stone

Continuity Notes

1. Why Norman Osborn doesn’t know Peter Parker is Spider-Man here is quite complicated.

   • For years, Norman Osborn knew Peter Parker and Spider-Man were the same people when he discovered the wall-crawler’s secret identity in Amazing Spider-Man #39.

   • However, Osborn and virtually everyone else who knew Peter’s secret identity had this knowledge wiped from their memories when Mephisto altered reality in Amazing Spider-Man #545.

   • As detailed in Amazing Spider-Man #641, In this altered reality, Spider-Man went to Doctor Strange to have the memory of his identity erased from the memories of virtually everyone who knows them.

   • It’s further explained in Amazing Spider-Man #676, the spell prevents anyone from making the connection between Peter Parker and Spider-Man unless Peter reveals his identity to them.

2. In order to explain how Peter Parker manages to get photos of Spider-Man all the time and protect his secret identity, he has led people to believe that he and Spider-Man have a working relationship. Peter came up with this ruse in Amazing Spider-Man #42.

3. Venom jokes about getting his cut for all the photos Peter took of Spider-Man fighting him when he was the Scorpion and of his symbiote while it was bonded with Eddie Brock. Mac Gargan originally became the Scorpion in Amazing Spider-Man #20. While the symbiote was brought to Earth when Spider-Man wore it as a costume in Amazing Spider-Man #252. After Peter discovered the costume was alive in Amazing Spider-Man #256, he rejected it. It later bonded with Eddie Brock, as explained in Amazing Spider-Man #300. After years of being bonded to Brock, Eddie sold the symbiote it bonded to Gargan in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #9.

4. Eddie Brock was led to believe he had cancer in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #4. It is later revealed that the symbiote actually manipulated Eddie’s biology in order to make him think he had cancer as a means to maintain Eddie’s dependency on the symbiote. Not exactly the most well thought out plans TBH but whatever. That was revealed in Venom (vol. 4) #11.

5. There have been miracle cures happening at FEAST since Amazing Spider-Man #563. Nobody is aware that it’s Martin Li’s secret powers as Mister Negative that are healing people.

6. There is a lot of history here regarding the Daily Bugle and it’s outing Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin.

   • Bennett mentions how the DB — formerly the Daily Bugle — used to be owned by J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson was the owner of the Bugle until he suffered a heart attack in Amazing Spider-Man #546 and his wife later sold the Bugle to Bennett in the following issue.

   • The Daily Bugle has outed Osborn as the Green Goblin on two different occasions. The first time was through Ben Urich’s book “Dynasty of Evil” which was published in Spider-Man: Legacy of Evil #1. The Bugle later published a retraction in Spectacular Spider-Man #250 after Osborn bought part ownership of the Bugle. Osborn maintained this ownership until Spider-Man #98.

   • The second time was when a reporter Terri Kidder stumbled upon Osborn’s double identity and he murdered her. Thanks to an investigation by Jessica Jones and Ben Urich in The Pulse #1-5, Osborn’s identity was exposed a second time.

7. Norman refers to Spider-Man as a serial killer here. This is because Spider-Man has been accused of being the spider-tracer killer since Amazing Spider-Man #547.

8. Carlie Cooper’s laptop has a Colbert ‘08 election bumper sticker on it. Comedian Stephen Colbert pretended to run for president during the 2008 US Presidential Election. This should be considered a topical reference.