Spider-Man: How you'd reboot OMD

[Mario Di Giacomo]

In retrospect, I bet the Seer IS Odin. Disguising himself and acting as a catalyst for heroism is just the sort of thing he liked to do, in the myths.

[paulpogue]

Anders: Yeah, I did some switching around of exposition -- oh, let's face it, it's ALL exposition -- and ended up moving a reference to the Trinity and Other without explaining the ENGLEHART Trinity and other just yet. Soon to be fixed.

[paulpogue]

SEER: You spoke of Spider-Man as the “Other.” Perhaps you get ahead of yourself, Loki …

LOKI: Indeed I do. The universe is divided along axes of two and three. Groups of opposing forces exist in threes, and each of those three has an “Other” that is like them, but also unlike. The three faces of the Living Tribunal. Eternity, Death and Galactus. Myself, my brother and our father. Even the human ideals of Id, Ego and Superego. Everything lined up in trinities. And each has their Other. An other is not an opposite, but a counterpart. Flip sides of a coin, so to speak – serving the same purpose but in a different way. Eternity and Infinity. The blank fourth face of the Living Tribunal. Death and Oblivion. Galactus lacked an Other and so created his own – the Silver Surfer, the sole mortal above all others he treats with respect. My father’s Other was Surtur – a king, a destroyer, a ruler, so like him in many ways, but opposed. And circumstances created for my brother an Other in the form of Beta Ray Bill.

And so, like many other times, I was jealous. What he has, I desire. What he gains, I try to take, and if I cannot take, I recreate. Bad enough there was one Thor running around the universe. So I wished what any other cosmic being had – my counterpart, my other. And like my brother, I would find or make one. And so I looked out amongst the Midgardians to see a suitable recruit.

And there he was! The trickster personified. Spider-Man has no goals except to upset the plans of others. He sows chaos where once there was order, and laughs every moment. Oh, he works on behalf of what he perceives as the greater good, but make no mistake – the Otto Octaviuses and Norman Osborns of the world seek to impose their own sense of order on the world, and Spider-Man revels in upsetting that order. And he taunts them and enrages them as he does it. He was ideal.

He existed on one level as the Other already, the counterpart to the team spirit personified by the Avengers. But the cosmos is nothing if not flexible. As Mephisto would do well to remember, there can be many devils – and so there can be many trickster gods.

SEER: So you chose him as, what, your avatar? It seems unfit for him, one who has been pulled this way and that by so many forces. Animal totems, devil gods, even Lord Chaos and Master Order have all claimed him for their own. In many cases to their detriment.

LOKI: Perhaps that may be, Seer, but Loki delights in doing things his own way. Not avatar, but Champion. The forces that have claimed him all had ulterior motive and goals. I have motive, yes, but no goal save that it pleases me. And I gave him no powers, no mission, not even awareness of my involvement. It would miss the point entirely for him to serve as my champion if I actually gave him anything. The many Midgardians to whom I HAVE given power were merely tools. With Spider-Man, I did naught but watch and mark him from afar, and bestowed upon him no gift save my favor.

SEER: Except perhaps for the matter of Tess Black. Your … daughter.

LOKI: Ah yes. Ironic that the one thing I did give Spider-Man was – responsibility.

[Mario Di Giacomo]

Interestingly, in the almost immediately retconned Marvel Tarot, the writer argued rather persuasively that the Marvel Cosmos actually operates in quaternities.

[paulpogue]

I think you could apply just about any numerology you want to Marvel and make it work, since there's so many freakin' characters out there with so much backstory that with a little creativity and a lot of rum, you could make a plausible argument for an octological cosmic axis based on the Scarlet Witch, Leech, Drax the Destroyer, Howard the Duck and the kids from Power Pack.

I actually liked Marvel Tarot a great deal and was sad to see it didn't really go anywhere.

I have a particular affinity for Steve Englehart's 3/2 axis for a couple of reasons: He clearly put a lot of thought into it; he spent most of Silver Surfer #31, which was at the time the most awesome comic I had ever read, having the Living Tribunal lay it all out for Norrin; then he never mentioned it again, but Mark Gruenwald and Jim Starlin picked up the ball and ran with it to the ends of the earth for the better part of the 1990s.

Plus, it summed up the Surfer/Galactus relationship more elegantly than anything else I've ever read. Englehart grasped the grudging respect that exists between Norrin and Galactus on a level that strongly informs both characters to this day.

[Mario Di Giacomo]

Mar 13, 2010 8:19:02 GMT -8 paulpogue said:

I think you could apply just about any numerology you want to Marvel and make it work, since there's so many freakin' characters out there with so much backstory that with a little creativity and a lot of rum, you could make a plausible argument for an octological cosmic axis based on the Scarlet Witch, Leech, Drax the Destroyer, Howard the Duck and the kids from Power Pack.

Actually, the Pack was on the table of correspondences. ;D

[joegualtieri]

Opening page of Siege #4. Giant close up of Spider-Man, with the eyes wide to convey shock.

p 2-3 Double page spread of all the heroes, and villains gazing up at the Sentry's transformation from the last page of #3.

p4, medium shot of Spidey, between Stark and Cap. "Jeeze, what the heck is going with Bob? That... thing he's turning into doesn't look how the Void did the last time. Why does he look kind of like Carnage? You don't think that... wait, has the transformation stopped?

slightly wider panel: Spider-Man notices that no one else is moving or speaking, either. "Has... every else kind of stopped? Are we playing some sort of game and no one else told me?"

repeat panel, but with Loki in front of Spider-Man. Loki, "Hello, Spider-Man."

p5 (and beyond this, I'm not sure of the page breakdown)

Spider-Man: Um, hi? Say, aren't you Thor's ev- er, mischievous brother?

Loki: Aye, and that you do not remember me is a testament to the strength of my magiks and those of my associate.

Spidey: OoooK. But why have you frozen everyone else?

Loki: So that you may make your choice.

Spidey: Choice, what choice?

Loki: You see mortal... I... owe thee a boon.

Spidey: A boob? No thanks, I saw the ones you gave yourself and wasn't impressed. Sure they were big, but they kind of hung there like-

Loki: A BOON, mortal, a BOON.

Spidey: Oooh! Well, why would you that? And from what I understand. Your boons shouldn't be trusted any more than your boobs.

Loki proceeds to recap the events of that JMS story for those who haven't read it (like me).

Loki: Of course you are quite right not to trust me. It is not in my nature to be completely honest. I am, after all the god of lies. I have manipulated this entire scenario so that you may choose your boon. As a show of good faith, however, I have decided to grant thee two, the first of which thou hast already claimed without realizing it.

Spidey: What was that?

Loki: This time, 'twas thee who stuck the final blow against Osborn, and exposed him to the world, rather than standing there impotently, as my brother Thor would when before a woman.

Spidey: Man, you and Thor really have some issues you need to work out. Well... thank you, I guess. So what about my other boob?

Mephisto suddenly appears in a cloud of brimstone.

Mephisto: Well, to do that, you need to understand just how much Loki manipulated vents to bring you here.

Mpehisto and Loki proceed to explain the events of One More Day, how they manipulated everything so it seemed no one could help May, and how Mary Jane made a deal with Mephisto to save her life-- giving up her love of Peter to save May's life. Why did Mephisto do this? Because his role in the Judeo-Christian pantheon is similar to Loki's in his. He was merely helping his "brother." The tow of them, in tandem were able to create a strong reality warping spell that even made Parker believe he was responsible(with help) for erasing everyone's knowledge of his secret ID.

Mephisto then went to Osborn and made a deal with him, exchanging his soul for power, for a time. Osborn, like Faust, new his bill was coming due soon, which is why he was so willing to respond to Loki's manipulation. Osborn wanted to be beloved, and the Siege was his final chance to do that. Through Osborn, Loki was able to push the Sentry over the edge to the point where he's threatening the Earth (and using Osborn as a proxy meant Loki could keep his distance from the Sentry).

Loki: And so Spider-Man, thou has thy choice of boons. Say the word and Mephisto and I shall release thy wife from her contract, and all they memories shall return. Or, together, Mephisto and I shall cleanse the Void from the Sentry once and for all.

Mephisto: So which will it be? Save your wife from my pits or allow the greatest terrestrial menace of all time to destroy the Earth?

I think we all know which way Peter Parker would pick.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To be clear, I'd prefer MJ and Peter to be together, but how Loki manipulated events in Siege seemed to good to pass up, and my understanding is that MJ is the one who made the actual deal with Mephisto, making her problematic. I also love the possibly Pogue-originating theory that Osborn made a deal with Mephisto, too.

[jessebaker]

Or go the route that Seige ends with the following: Loki teleports Norman away just as he is about to be arrested, to his secret lair, where Norman sees the imprisoned Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange, both stuck on a bondage rack and screaming in pure agony as Loki misuses Wanda's Nexus Energy Powers and Doctor Strange's magic powers, to alter reality.

Lokie gloats about how Norman's invastion has officially cost Balder control over Asgard and allowed Loki to take the throne on an anti-humanity wave of hatred for the people of Earth for the invasion and that soon, one day, Loki will enslave humanity with the full army of Asgard and will force the people of Earth to worship him as their one and only God.

Norman is horrified and disgusted at how he has been used, but Loki's not done. Loki's been doing horrible things behind the scenes: kidnapped Strange and Wanda around the time of the Austen Avengers run, he's been hurting everyone. He destroyed the Avengers and blamed Wanda for the murders he committed, used his magic to cause Tony Stark to turn evil and cause Civil War (thanks to time travel, as far as going backwards in time while in female form to create the identity of Miriam Sharpe), depower 90% of mutantkind (as revenge for the events of the Asgardian Wars) and making Dr Strange seem to be such a collossal failure that his superiors appointed Brother Voodoo as his replacement as Sorcerer Supreme.

Norman vows to expose what Loki has done, but Loki then drops the bomb on Norman: Shapeshifting into the form of Mephisto, we get the BIG bombshell: One More Day was Loki's scheme.

Loki wanted to remove the one stumbling block standing between him ruling Asgard and enslaving humanity: Spider-Man. Loki discussed how he ended up owing Spider-Man a favor, one that could have halted EVERYTHING he has been working towards and was now on the verge of obtaining. Using Strange and Wanda, he fundementally ALTERED the fabric of reality to erase a critical aspect of Spider-Man's life that would ensure that he would lose all memory of the debt Loki owes him. And he did this all while disguised as Mephisto, for added shits and giggles of making one of the most virtuous heroes effectively make a deal with the devil.

Norman's in full-on HP Lovecraft nervous breakdown mode, at which point Loki decides to restore Norman's memories of what REALLY happened prior to him warping the timeline to hurt Spidey. Touching Norman's forehead, Norman remembers EVERYTHING.

Last page of Seige is Norman in a mental institution, as a mysterious figure talks to the doctor taking care of Norman.

Norman is ranting that his son is dead and that Spider-Man is Peter Parker and that he was married to Mary Jane Watson and that an evil God coming, and is going to enslave humanity and that it's all his fault. Via a one-way mirror, Doctor Doom is watching and the series ends with Doom taking in all of this and is contemplaiting what he'll do with this information seeing as restoring the timeline (and Peter's debt to Loki) may be the only way to save humanity from the coming evil that is Loki.....

Cue the next major crossover as far as Loki preparing to enslave humanity and Doom has to restore the timeline to ensure Spider-Man saves the day.....

[K-Box]

Good to see you back, Joe.

[paulpogue]

Gonna finish my bit up sooner or later; life is ... nuts, as you can well imagine. (Armand is doing fine -- lots and lots and LOTS of tests, though, and we had a big scare on a false positive over the weekend.)

Anyway, probably the best take-that to OMD has already been done:

scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2218368.html

[paulpogue]

Okay, been a year and a half and I have a bunch of half-finished notes. But dammit, we're closing this place up, and I'm going out on a high note and finishing this damn fic for the five people who might still care. Because I want to give Peter closure in my own mind if nothing else. More to come.

[paulpogue]

ART FOUR!
And here we are back again, true believers! On a rooftop, where the Amazing Spider-Girl and the Hapless Spider-Man are dealing with the exposition …

SPIDER-GIRL: That’s the easy part – YOU told me. Okay, Dad, buckle up – here’s where it gets complicated … I had been Spider-Girl for about a decade, and some strange stuff had been going on that, erm, maybe you don’t need to know about just yet, and I started to realize just how in over our heads we ALL were, when you sat me down for a talk. Explained how it had all gone to hell. Heroism itself had died. Thor was dead. Captain America, whom they could never destroy, had been killed, and all he stood for was quickly dying with him. Tony Stark and Reed Richards had hopelessly compromised themselves and gone so far past the line that they could never hope to redeem themselves. And then there was you, and there was Aunt May, and there was Mary Jane, and there was … Mephisto …

MEANWHILE, AT THAT VERY MOMENT IN THE FUTURE, ALL THE WAY IN THE YEAR 2025!!!

MIDDLE-AGED PETER PARKER: (Caption! “Middle-aged Peter Parker. Gimpy. Proportional strength and abilities of a middle-aged spider. With three legs.”): And that’s how it had all gone down, darling. Everyone told me that they couldn’t help. Here’s what people forget about me, hon. All ego aside, I’m smart. Really smart, when I apply myself, which I admit isn’t often. But life happens so fast, fights happen so fast, EVERYTHING happens so fast that I never had time to just … think. Even my greatest skill, my spider-sense, was completely grounded in the moment. Just another tool to improvise with.

But this was different. I had two things at hand. I had 24 hours in which to do whatever I wanted … and I had a spell from Dr. Strange that created a time wrap so I could do things over and over again in the same time period. I used it at first to go to every magician and scientist I could and beg for help.

Dr. Strange had told me straight up that it was hopeless. That he’d given me the spell only so I could go and find out for myself how hopeless it was. One after another. Doctor Doom, Hank McCoy, the Black Panther … all I got from the smartest and most strong-willed people on earth was a ‘Sorry, kid, nothing we can do.’ All of them had very good reasons to help me. The heroes – well, they were heroes. Even Victor Von Doom would just love to have an Avenger owe him a favor. And yet there it was. Not a one of them even took a look at Aunt May. Right around then I started to suspect, but I didn’t say a word, because that would let it out.

Everything was planned out, starting with the most uncontrollable and dangerous factors. They completely neutralized the X-Men by forcing them to focus on their species survival. They broke up the Avengers, and when that didn’t work, they broke them up again. They got the Hulk – the single most dangerous and unpredictable individual on the planet -- out of the way in about the most permanent way possible. Thor was dead, as far as we knew. Reed Richards and Tony Stark were hopelessly compromised AND cut off from their best allies by the Civil War. The Black Panther, maybe one of the only people who could have seen through the scheme, was disgusted by the whole thing and refused contact with his old allies. Atlantis was shattered, the Inhumans caught up in their own turmoil. And then they killed Captain America.

CUT TO:

LOKI: And with that, there was only one left. And because he is so humble, he truly did not understand until too late. If they wanted to put a stake in the heroic age, they had to destroy the Amazing Spider-Man. Not just neutralize him or kill him or get him out of the way – they had to DESTROY him as decisively as possible. With great power must also come great responsibility. Get Spider-Man to turn his back on that, and he is finished.

AND BACK TO:

MIDDLE AGED PETER, VOICE OVER: But a world that had fallen apart that much? It was all too perfect. We were being hunted. And none of us suspected a thing, and the mastermind behind it was perfectly hidden. Until the cracks showed. Right up until the point the world’s smartest people simultaneously, spontaneously and unanimously declared themselves unable to treat a gunshot wound.

They’d all told me this. All at once. I saw them all at the same time, thanks to Strange’s time-warping spell that let me visit them all simultaneously. And all said the same thing. And they all knew what I was doing there. Too conveniently.

And I had that spell. There was still a trace amount of magical energy left for one more shot. It wouldn’t allow me to change time; I’d already tried that. It wouldn’t allow me to go for more help or to go learn medicine or anything like that. But what it gave me was time. It was bouncing me all over the place and it existed outside of time. That’s where I got the idea. I had the energy for one last trip …

TODAY, THE ISLE OF SILENCE: LOKI and the MYSTERIOUS HOODED SEER continue their conversation as well.

LOKI: One last trip, Seer, and he used it wisely. He came to see me. Using my own icon given to him months before to summon me if need be, bringing him right here in this place, as it happens. In my own sanctuary. Which is also timeless. You see, I was as caught up in the inescapable web as anyone else, equally forbidden to speak to him what I knew of the truth … but my nature is mischievous and contrary, and crafty Loki always finds a way …

BACK THEN, DURING THE ONE MORE DAY, NINETY DEGREES SIDEWAYS OF SPIDERS MAN AND GIRL:

LOKI: I know why you are here, old friend. And I cannot help you.

SPIDER-MAN: Can’t, or won’t?

LOKI: (They regard each other for a long, long silence.): Cannot. (Equally long pause.) I take my leave of you, champion of mine. Rest here, in my sanctuary. You will no doubt need it.

BACK TO THE FUTURE!

MIDDLE-AGED PETER: And then, like that, he was gone.

FUTURE SPIDER-GIRL: Just like that? What about the debt? What about what he owed you? Didn’t that matter? Couldn’t you have pumped him for information?

MIDDLE-AGED PETER: No need, kiddo. He’s already told me what I need to know. In such a way that whoever was forbidding it didn’t realize it. Aunt May WASN’T dying of a bullet wound. She was dying of something bigger. A higher power that had suckered all these forces into its way of thinking. We were the last dominoes. If there’s one thing a spider knows – it’s when a web is drawing to a close. And Mary Jane and I were caught tight in that web. The whole world was a trap and we were completely, utterly finished.

Except the other thing a spider can do is wriggle right out of a web. And Loki had left me, with the final traces of a magic time-warping spell, in the one place in the universe it could do the most good. I didn’t have any more jaunts left; when I left there, it was done. And I couldn’t do anything from there … except think. And thinking? Well, that’s something I can do pretty well too. Plus I had one advantage …

ELSEWHERE! T-MINUS FIVE DAYS TO ONE MORE DAY! Mary-Jane Watson-Parker’s bedroom, where a cloaked figure has come to see her by night ….

UNKNOWN VISITOR (Speaking in a soft, lilting feminine tone): He can see the future.

MARY JANE WATSON-PARKER: (Tired as hell. In her bedroom. Wondering if her husband is out there getting killed by his former friends. Talking to an old friend) The future? I don’t recall him telling me about THAT one …

THE VISITOR: The spider-sense. He sees danger coming instants away. It is among his greatest gifts. But it is also a curse – it tells him the choices available and the ways out of the current situation, but they’re not always nice, and sometimes they are merely the least worst scenario. Soon, very soon, to resolve all you and he face, he will use that ability as he never has before … to see all possible resolutions, to apply his sense to the entire universe around him and spin out webs of possibility spanning generations, until he sees the entire problem clearly. And then, Mary Jane Watson-Parker … and then you and he will decide.

MARY JANE: He’ll win. He always wins. Peter never gives up, ever.

THE VISITOR: No, he does not. Nor does he ever truly lose – but there’s always a cost, isn’t there? Consider poor doomed Gwen Stacy. She died, yes, but her death saved many lives, your own included. It placed Norman Osborn on the path that took him out of crime for decades. And it taught Peter the need to hone his skills even further so that, whether or not his own webbing was responsible for her death, there would never be doubt again. And never again was there even a question of whether his webbing rescues would be as injurious as the fall itself – which you have benefited from many times. But Gwen Stacy was still dead. Tell me, Mary Jane – would you accept that yourself, if it meant others could be saved? Would you risk all your tomorrows, everything that matters in your world, knowing that you might well be finished but at great benefit to all?

MARY JANE: Are you saying I’m going to die?

THE VISITOR: No. I am saying you MIGHT. And Peter – and you – may have to decide which it will be.

BACK TO THE FUTURE!

SPIDER-GIRL: Wait, wait, wait, TIME OUT, Dad. Mom had her own Jiminy Cricket feeding her info, too? How MANY were involved in this whole thing?

MIDDLE-AGED PETER: Your mother was talking to someone she knew very, very well. I wasn’t the only one someone had taken an interest in. Loki was fixated on the way one uses chaos to take things apart. This one – this one was interested in your mother’s gift of holding things together. Maybe she’ll tell you who it was someday.

And the visitor was right. Because I had a plan, all right – stay there, as long as it took, in the Island of Silence, with nothing more than myself, my spider-sense, and all the time in the world. I had consulted with plenty of smart men except one – myself. And so I thought. And thought. And thought.

And ultimately, it became clear. The whole web became clear. Everything going back years – the conspiracy to destroy heroism itself – had split off its own separate universe. It was something Reed Richards could talk about endlessly, the “What If” worlds. We were stuck in one. And one thing Reed was always certain of was that once you’re in a time track like that, there’s no way out. Even if you go back in time and change things, you’re just creating a new track where you THINK you changed them, and the other one goes on its merry way. I couldn’t accept that. There HAD to be another way. I didn’t know who the enemy was, although I had a pretty good guess. They’d created a time loop, going back to my marriage that was no longer going to be, and we were stuck in the loop.

And so, daughter of mine … here’s what we’re going to do …

T-MINUS ONE MORE DAY

SPIDER-GIRL (To Spider-Man): Here’s what we’re going to do …

T-MINUS FIVE MORE DAYS

THE MYSTERY VISITOR (To Mary Jane): Here’s what we’re going to do ….

ELSEWHERE:

MEPHISTO (To himself): Here’s what we’re going to do …

SIMULTANEOUSLY
MEPHISTO: We are going to kill heroism stone dead.

SPIDER-GIRL: We are going to beat the devil at his own game.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[K-Box]

(Waits for the continuation.)

[paulpogue]

Pulling the notes together as fast as I can. All wrapped up by Saturday .

[michaelpaciocco]

Also waiting.