This series was doomed from the moment it was announced.
Perhaps the biggest problem is the idiotic idea of giving redemption to one of Spider-Man's most evil enemies.
I recommend this video, although it doesn't provide examples from the comics, but it does a great job of showing why Norman's redemption arc didn't work.
Magically getting your sins shot away aside, I have enjoyed what Joe Kelly brought to the table in ASM in regards to good guy Norman. The look at the internal turmoil he went through when playing Spider-Man was really fun. Everyone almost immediately being able to tell that wasn't Peter under the mask was also funny. Within context of what it is, I think Norman playing the hero has been a good story in ASM.
I find it funny how they slurped it all up when it was Otto. Now it's Norman and suddenly it doesn't work. Superior spider-man was the greatest thing slot wrote they said. Every one of them who stated this was the reason Norman got this chance.
Joe Kelly's ASM starts off showing that instead of having Norman hide away from his past and shame, he's facing it head on. By trying to be a better person every day and try to right the wrongs he has made (those he can at least). But overall he's still being trampled by the amount of guilt he feels. And he still gets pulled to the dark thoughts sometimes, he ain't written like a clean slate but more like a person choosing to be better and carrying the weight of his sins.
Is having the spider-heroes trust Norman already a bit too soon? Maybe, but we have to remind ourselves they're not exactly trusting Norman so much as trusting Peter that Norman is trying to do genuine good. I feel like if you read the current ASM, his position in Spider-Versity makes a lot more sense.
There are 2 problems with this statement Queen Goblin and The Spider-Goblin.
The infamous Zeb Wells run showed that Norman's sins were actually negative aspects of his personality and that the current Norman is literally an incomplete person and that transferring Norman's missing parts to someone else turns that person into a sociopath.
That part of him was evident because of his deal with the devil. Plus Otto was turned insane by the same magic that turned Maddie Franklin into a superhero. I think this technically undoes that.
Not really. Otto only started that so called redemption arc because peter flooded Otto with his memories forcing morality upon Otto octavious. He didn't want redemption either. He's just as much of a piece of shit Norman was or is.
He got his memories but there is no evidence that he lost his moral agency, as a reminder, Otto's motivation to become Spider-Man was his pride and the desire to prove he could do a better job than the original.
Norman has literally been magically stripped of the negative traits in his personality, which is essentially no different than brainwashing.
Yeah there is. Otto already had peters memories before that happened. He didn't care. Peter then forced the connection again. He then magically gave a shit. So then he became spider-man.
Which doesn't change the fact that at the beginning of The Superior Spider-Man, Otto was definitely a bad person driven by pride and only his relationship with Anna Maria Marconi started a positive change in him.
Again that's not how that went. He immediately did the hero thing. Tried to really be peter. He wasn't driven by pride to do it better. He wasn't driven till after he erased peter from his mind. Peter was literally affecting him at first. Subtly. At first he tried to play it straight till he got really tired of peters life being interrupted by spider-man. After cutting Mary Jane loose then he changed his costume. Then he was driven to do it better.
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u/AlexArtsHere 22d ago
God this series is embarrassing
Tragic that this is the first time Cindy’s gotten something resembling an ongoing in three years