Review by Frank Plowright

Norman Osborn was once a billionaire industrialist. Then he was the Green Goblin. Then he saved the world and was appointed over the heads of all recognised security organisations to oversee American safety. However, his true personality manifested, he over-reached, and as Kelly Sue DeConnick’s story starts he’s languishing in a high security prison. This has become somewhat the problem for the authorities, their ethical concerns effectively laid out over a high level meeting in the opening chapter. The solution is to place him deep away from humanity among some very dangerous people.

DeConnick also involves Norah Winters, then Peter Parker’s girlfriend, and a tenacious reporter for an independent newspaper. She’s written as driven, but also seeking redemption, feeling had she not been intimidated by Osborn she could have revealed him earlier and saved some lives. Rogue geneticist June Covington has a large supporting role, and she’s explained in a separate short story from Warren Ellis and Jamie McKelvie, explaining her background and complete lack of ethics or conscience. Not quite as intriguing is Senator Sandra Muffoletto, also prone to eccentric pontifications, these seeming contrived in service of an unconvincingly wacky side at odds with who she’s later revealed as. Osborn is the central character, and here DeConnick is far more certain in delivering his brand of egotistical insanity.

Emma Ríos has given some thought to the art, not least giving Osborn a pair of spectacles, which somehow make him even more chilling, but she’s a good artist on the wrong project. The art is suitably spine-tingling, but overly fussy and it can be difficult to make out what’s happening in some panels, although studying them for clarity reveals demented horrific touches such as loose ears and eyeballs.

The opening two chapters are spent moving people into place to create suspense before all hell inevitably breaks loose, but from there DeConnick surprises by heading into a unpredictably cynical finale. Realpolitik hits Marvel, and it’s very satisfying.