Ultimate Spider-Man – Revealed
parksborn
story idea
a superhero story where the villain and the superhero are roommates and they keep making excuses to each other about why they are out all the time and after battles they stitch each other up after battles but neither has any idea that the other is their nemesis and they keep on having to lie to each other why they are covered in scratches and bruises
This is dangerously close to the Peter Parker/Harry Osborn story.
Hmmm, my writing brain has turned itself off, so I’m going to attempt to kick it back into gear by talking about why Parksborn – specifically, Parksborn in the original Marvel 616 continuity – is so important to me.
Okay, first of all: Harry. People generally don’t really know much about 616 Harry, and I wish they did, because most of the time he’s amazing. He parents random kids! He loves his friends like hell! He goes around practically throwing jobs and money at people! And so on. When he was resurrected in 2007 he brought a bit of an ‘international playboy’ element along with him, but generally his alignment remains the same – his father is pure evil, his mental health goes up and down, but most of the time he’s one of the good guys.
And he does absolutely beyond all shadow of a doubt love Peter – this is what I mean really when I talk about Parksborn; it doesn’t particularly matter to me what form that love actually takes – just as much as the reverse is true. They aren’t the most important person in each other’s lives – Harry has children (of whom Peter is godfather to at least one), Peter has May and MJ, etc – but they’re incredibly important to each other. Peter is there to help Harry (more or less) through his bad times; Harry is there to inject a bit of fun and cheerfulness into Peter’s life every now and then. Both of them sort of need each other, and it’s not always healthy, but when it is they help each other be the absolute best they can be.
There’s a really nice quote from one of those guidebooks to the Spideyverse that Marvel puts out every so often that I think very nicely sums up the Peter/Harry relationship and its appeal: “[Peter is] convinced that Harry Osborn is truly worth saving.” That conviction’s lasted nearly fifty years! Not bad.
And lastly- this is made all the more remarkable by the fact that it’s a relationship that should never have worked. Ever! They’re two completely different people from completely different walks of life. (Also, Harry was introduced into the comics as basically one of Flash Thompson’s cronies, so on a meta level the friendship should never have worked either.) Harry’s the son of the person who murdered Peter’s girlfriend, fercryingoutloud, most people would never have gotten over that. But this is the thing, I think, that links Peter and Harry most of all – Norman tried to destroy both of them, in different ways, but they pulled through. Both of them basically serve as a walking reminder to the other that evil can be overcome – that’s sure as hell something worth saving.
…….And that, Your Honour, is why I stole and destroyed the last twenty minutes of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
