Seriously, I never read Osborne as a Spider-Man villain, so maybe being a cackling maniac with no depth was what made him one of the arch-nemeses of one of comics’ standard bearers, but, man, I’d like to think that there was some characterization at work that made him a loathsome counterpoint to the naïve, morally-driven Peter Parker. Even in the movie, he was an aggressive, dominating figure who loved his family, but took it (well, just Harry) for granted in his quest to remain powerful (perhaps even powerful enough to protect them, which I don’t think was the angle from the movie, but it could have been, given that if they did explicitly cover what happened to his wife, I’ve long since forgotten.). That’s a hero.
Taking out a hit on Punisher because…? Too small-time to be top-tier super-villain material. Trying to keep Professor Xavier hidden from Emma Frost in your mutant-depowering concentration camp? Too stupid to be top-tier super-villain material. Trying to harness the destructive, negative personality of your omnipotent, schizophrenic sun-god? To ballsy for The Marvel Universe. I get that he was supposed to be the central figure for a brief storytelling foray about a transition period in the universe; the story was supposed to be about someone unstable wielding centralized authority to explain why centralizing that authority would be bad, like making The Absorbing Man the nation’s Drug Tzar (Do we still have a Drug Tzar? And how good would that comic be?) or replacing The US Army with Cain Marko hauling a sled of Cable-guns. I guess they just teased me with a fascinating concept that was played well in exactly one comic and I’ll have to wait until they dig back into it ten to fifteen years later to see more on it (See “Spider-Man & The Secret Wars,” “X-Men: Deadly Genesis,” everything “Crisis,” and “Nextwave.” “Nextwave” isn’t related; you should just read it because it’s good.)
Narratively, Victoria
Hand is balance; grounding a story that (because they are stupid) many fans
wouldn’t have swallowed otherwise (and most[for the same reasons] didn’t go
along with anyway). She wasn’t any of the straw men who were trying to present
the pro-registration side in “Civil War,” because Marvel seems to have better
plans for her. Maybe she’ll continue to serve as a “regular person’s”
perspective on things (do regular people meet The Avengers with Cable-sized
guns? Now that I think about it, most people we see meeting The Avengers do just
that.). Her outspoken normality is what can make her good for a book; she
spares Spider-Man (and others) the “What the fuck is happening!?” response that
some writers think is obligatory for what most heroes should be calling Tuesday
morning. Seriously? Time is coming unraveled, loosing dinosaurs, zeppelins, and
flying saucers in New York City. This is the kind of thing that should make
Spider-Man or any hero of larger scale sigh, roll their eyes, and start looking
for the nearest freaky-looking calm dude for the next page of exposition. As
much as it pains me to say this, she could be...The Avengers’…Troi, the
exposition character who prompts the heroes who should know all this bullshit
to explain said bullshit to the reader who just started reading this thing.
She can also provide the
characters with an average person’s perspective. She can play devil’s advocate
and even bring them to heel when the comic book answer to a problem just
doesn’t make any sense. Now, this probably won’t happen; people read comics for
comic book answers and if Luke Cage needed hipster S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to tell
him how to do his job, odds are pretty good we wouldn’t be reading an Avengers
comic with Luke Cage as their leader.
Flawed B-string characters need to have their compasses whacked to make
them do the right thing. Heroes caught up in the passion of the moment need to
be reminded that they’re heroes. In all likelihood, Victoria Hand will end up
handling a lot of outsourced internal conflict (because seriously, I’ve only
seen one superhero team bicker more than The New Avengers) and occasionally
convince the team to do something against their nature that’s convenient for
the plot. Good day? She’ll probably come up with the clever solution of the
month every so often.
But no matter how she
ends up acting as a narrative device, as a character, she’s an opinionated
‘normal,’ and while I’m reiterating here, her outspoken normality is what makes
her so compelling. As long as it’s not played so faithfully that she becomes as
stupid as the rank-and-file populace of the Mavel Universe (which isn’t a swing
at Marvel’s handling of its average civilian population; most ongoing universes
have their populaces who aren’t the main characters act as intelligently and
consistently a helium-filled kiwi fruit, which includes DC and [because it’s a
free swing] Battletech). I like that she sticks to what she believes and won’t
back down on it. Despite that, her loyalty is to her beliefs, which, like
Batman, drive her to find new solutions to problems. If she’s backed the wrong horse to lead her
and others to fulfill her goals, I’m sure there’s some soul-searching about her
methods and some of her choices, but not her objectives. If she made the best
decision she could at the time, she has no regrets over that either. She’s got
a resolution and self-confidence on par with Batman, and while she is sensitive
to bloodshed, most of his moral prohibitions are things that she seems to
accept as both part of her duty and sometimes necessary for her goals.
It’s that larger moral
picture and her duty that really separate her from the heroes. As a soldier,
she lives in a world where death and deceit are necessary compromises. They
aren’t something she necessarily likes, but they are options she’s willing to
explore. As I’ve said before, the morality of mainstream superhero universes is
such that the ends do not justify the means, and indeed ‘more violence’ rarely
ever solves a problem permanently, a theme of “The Dark Avengers” run.
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