There was a time yesterday when almost every single hashtag trending on Twitter was Spider-Man related in some way.
So clearly this latest news has hit a nerve somewhat. I don’t know what to make of it, beyond, “wow, it was a pretty ballsy move to end Far From Home on a massive cliffhanger, then.” Actually no, wait, I have a few other thoughts:
This whole situation has really solidified my dislike for Venom. Goddammit, why’d you lot have to make his solo movie a hit?!
Great, now we’re going to get bloody Jared Leto playing Morbius while poor Tom Holland, if he even keeps the role, will be awkwardly shoehorned into the background. If that method-acting asshole sends the poor boy rats there will be hell to pay.
3. Some days I hate being a fan of primarily just the Raimi Trilogy and the comics. This is….not one of those days.
So it is perhaps inevitable that Spider-Man’s greatest enemy, the Green Goblin, will pop up at some point. Lemme tell you about him. GG is much more frightening when he’s Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn is a power-hungry abusive misogynist with weird hair, almost like… you know… someone else. (Yes, Marvel really did kindasorta call it. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so depressing.) Woman-hating is built into his character, and was ever since he threw Gwen Stacy off that bridge.
So, what actors can pull off the Goblin’s particular brand of villainy? Obviously Willem Dafoe did it first and he did a great job. But try as I might I can’t quite see him as the casually demonic Norman of the 21st century Spider-Man comics. This ultra-manipulative bastard right here.
But you know who I think could pull it off? Bradley Whitford.
I’ve been watching him every Sunday in The Handmaid’s Tale and I’m constantly impressed by him. I keep seeing him in things now and damn, he is really good at being evil. But perhaps more importantly he’s good at being quietly evil. The sort of evil you don’t fully understand until it has its hands around your neck, which is exactly what Norman is.
But, I hear you say, Bradley Whitford doesn’t… actually look like that anymore. He got older and the Osborn-like red hair is gone. Well, yes. That’s true, and it’s rather unfortunate that it’s true because West Wing-era Whitford would have been pretty close to the character physically.
Obviously that’s not neccessarily a problem since Marvel is spookily good at de-aging their actors via CGI, but I reckon that 59-year-old Whitford could still do an incredibly good job. I mean I don’t know about you but to me this picture alone has major “I’m totally going to kill Spider-Man” vibes.
And if all the above hasn’t convinced you here are 20 seconds of Whitford being completely pissing terrifying in Get Out (a film I haven’t actually seen because I’m too scared, but I have at this point seen enough clips of it to be able to hold a conversation about the plot:)
Which leads in neatly to the other thing about Norman: his privilege. Dude is privileged on almost every axis: race, class, wealth. And boy, does he know it and boy is he not interested in discussing it.
And that’s something else Whitford can act very well.
So that’s my pitch! And don’t worry, I have considered the question, “No matter how good an actor he is, isn’t Bradley Whitford going to look pretty silly in a bright green goblin mask?” The answer is, if current events have proved anything, I don’t think the character really needs a mask anymore.
I decided to check up and see what my favourite Spider-Man characters were up to in the comics!
Well alrighty then.
Okay, let’s check in on Harry Osborn, I figured! As he has so far been untouched by the MCU (which is probably a good thing) he’s not exactly in the comics much, so I guess he might be ok-
WHAT HAPPENED?!?! He died again in almost the exact same way!?!?!… Oh. It’s an alternate universe. Or an alternate retelling? Either way my second-favourite fictional character of all time lives to fight another day, hooray! This is DOING MY HEAD IN.
I do love comics, I really do! But I haven’t actually read one in ages because they’re impossible to keep track of. There’s reboots and reimaginings and alternate futures and retcons and it’s ridiculous. Great, but ridiculous. I still haven’t seen Far From Home yet (tomorrow hopefully!) but I worry that them introducing the “multiverse” into the MCU will take things into a more, well, comic-y direction, and suddenly there will be Earths-[insert number here] all over the place. Because I kinda feel it was that sort of thing which helped sink the X-Men franchise, the constant going back on things and retconning and throwing in different universes, it just got waaaay too confusing for people who weren’t massive fans to begin with.
But we’ll see! Also I still hope the MCU never brings in Harry because there’s sooooo little chance they’ll get him right. Look at all that going on up there! That’s not even the half of it!
and it reminded me of how much I love, love, love that movie, and particularly this scene.
Throughout Spider-Mans 2 and 3 I’ve noticed Ursula serves as a sort of stand-in for how Peter treats women. I once did that PUBLISHED PIECE (aaaaaah) about how that much-maligned dance scene in Spider-Man 3 is actually Peter Parker straight up partaking in street harassment. He’s not trying to catch the attention of men, just women. Bothering them in a public place.
And throughout that whole infamous montage Peter mistreats Ursula, too, demanding she bring him stuff and generally being totally rude to her. He’s stopped being a gentleman and turned into an obnoxious, inconsiderate douche. Before, she brought him food because she clearly wanted to make a connection with him, and now he’s taking advantage of her good nature.
I know, I knoooooow. Spider-Man 3 is considered one of the worst films of all time, was disowned by its own director, etc etc etc. But I still really and truly love it for its “every mistreatment of women is UNEQUIVOCALLY WRONG” streak.
(Also because it’s the only good film adaption so far of Harry Osborn, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY)
Anyway! I’ll be seeing Spider-Man: Far From Home this weekend, probably, but no matter how good it is I don’t think I’ll ever love a Spider-Man movie as much as Spider-Man 2. Does it have a chocolate cake scene? Does it have Ursula? Does it?!?!?
If you’ve been around my fanfiction for long enough, you might remember Faith In Humanity, my 30-odd chapter ode to the Spider-Man verse and the original trilogy in particular. Among the main characters was Emily, Harry’s late mother. Back then (this was the ’00s) she didn’t have a surname or much characterisation at all really. She was essentially the founding member of my Dead Fictional Mothers Club. I was fascinated by how heroes and protagonists never had mothers. Why were they always the ones to die?
So imagine how gleeful I was to realise that in the comics she is now not dead! It happened ages ago, but I only heard about it now. It’s funny, she looks exactly how I imagined her.
And the dyamic between her and Norman (he’s red now, whattya know) is pretty much how I always thought it would be. I love this panel here:
She’s finally got a last name, Lyman. Harry has it too now! And all the Osborn-Lymans (Norman 100% does not count) have gotten to be together:
And I don’t know what happens after this particular story. I know Harry, rather understandably, refuses to call her ‘mom’. But hey! She’s alive!
I’ll always love Harry and the Osborn story. This new (uh, new-ish) development is so pleasing to me, you have no idea. (Emily also features quite a lot in the new Spider-Man game, which is also very pleasing to me, although she’s definitely dead in that one.)
tom holland just posted a video on instagram like “I’m sorry that there’s no new news on the spiderman sequel but I just got the script I’m about to read it!!” and he held up the script and it said “spider-man: far from home” so yeah he just spoiled the spider-man sequel title while announcing he had no news on the spider-man sequel,, good job tom
