by White, Mark
Alcibiades is a young and arrogant Athenian noble who is shocked to discover, after his discussions with Socrates, that he knows very little about justice. With a well-crafted series of questions, Socrates reveals Alcibiades’s complete ignorance of the root concepts of things he wishes to speak authoritatively on in public. Socrates attempts to nudge Alcibiades in a more virtuous direction, warning that his greed and thirst for fame are misplaced and result from his lack of self-awareness. Alcibiades compares himself to and competes with his fellow officials in Athens. In response, Socrates points out that Alcibiades is actually harming himself and neglecting the problems facing the city. He tells him that one can only grow through critical self-reflection, typically with a friend who looks out for one’s best interest and will not fall prey to flattery.3
Osborn lacks the insight Socrates imparts to Alcibiades, and serves as a cautionary tale. Like Alcibiades, Osborn seeks to impose his influence anywhere he can, at the expense of more socially beneficial and cooperative options. He approaches his new role with all of his personal vendettas at the fore and yet masked under cover of national security. For instance, in the aftermath of the Utopia event, Osborn seeks personal revenge on Namor by slaughtering Atlanteans in the name of national security.4 Unfortunately, no one cautions him as Socrates cautioned Alcibiades. Rather than cultivate the company of true friends who will keep him in line, Osborn surrounds himself mostly with fellow villains, who will not criticize his goals and actions and are poised to take advantage of his impending failure.
On the surface, Osborn appears to be a sane and stalwart civil servant, but beneath he is just as monstrous as his alternate persona, the Green Goblin. In this way he is like Robert Reynolds, the Sentry, who has a second personality called the Void. For Reynolds (as in physics), for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; any act of good performed by the Sentry results in a commensurate act of malfeasance by the Void.5 An amplified version of the super-soldier serum that created Captain America gave Reynolds the “power of one million exploding suns” but also created the persona of the Void, with whom he struggled for years to maintain control over his powers. It is revealed late in the Dark Avengers series that Osborn offered to “help” Reynolds by giving him a new formula, one that actually gave the Void control of the Sentry.6 It is appropriate that Osborn chooses to corrupt the Sentry, a man whose affliction mirrors his own. Osborn often struggles with the Green Goblin for control of his mind, particularly during times of stress.
During their early missions, Osborn assured Reynolds that there is no Void, but when Reynolds expresses hesitation at slaughtering Atlantean terrorists, Norman tells him, “You don’t have to do anything, Bob . . . We need him for this. We need the hand of God to smite these bastards to hell.”7 It is no accident that Osborn plays with Reynolds’s mind while absolving him of responsibility for the Void’s actions. After learning that the heroic Noh-Varr, his Captain Marvel, has left his Avengers team, Osborn retreats to his private quarters, where he does battle with his Goblin persona: “N-n-no . . . I’m in charge. Me. Not you. Me. I’m in charge,” to which the Goblin answers, “Oh Norman . . . Norman, Norman, stop kidding yourself. I’m here, I’m always here.”8 By releasing the Sentry’s evil side, Osborn may be clearing the way to let the Goblin take over as well, absolving himself of any responsibility for what he does afterward.
Wag the Goblin
You pull this off . . . you are bulletproof. Untouchable. It will take the leaders of the free world decades to come to grips with what you’ve accomplished.
—Loki9
With his Avengers team, and an image of himself as a stalwart hero protecting his country, the only thing missing from the Osborn equation is an inauthentic war. Everything has come full circle when Loki—disguising himself as the Green Goblin persona—goads a mentally weak Osborn into launching an attack on Asgard without presidential sanction.
The Siege of Asgard is the ultimate monument to Norman Osborn’s sophistry, because he purposefully puts the country in danger in the name of national security. In order to appear successful in his duty of securing the nation, he chooses to actively endanger it, creating the problem to which he can provide the solution. Significantly, there are no institutional safeguards in place to prevent him from doing so, a fact driven home when we see the White House crafting its response to the Siege. Fully aware of Osborn’s insubordination, the president questions his staff regarding their options.10 One of his staffers laments that ordinarily they would call the Avengers in such an event, but ironically they are under Osborn’s command.
Before the Siege begins, the Sentry’s wife, Lindy, reveals how her husband was a narcotics addict before the serum made him into the Sentry:
Instead of drugs . . . it became about power. He was addicted to the Sentry. And he had just as much control over that as he did the other. So that answers the question right? Who is the Sentry? Who is the Void? It’s what happens when someone who doesn’t deserve power gets power.11
Lindy’s analysis and judgment of Reynolds holds for Osborn and the rest of his Avengers as well, putting the Siege of Asgard into perspective and highlighting why things go as disastrously as they do. After interrogating the Void, Osborn learns that Lindy is the last remaining source of Reynolds’s conscious control. In order to protect his most prized weapon, Osborn has Bullseye (his fake Hawkeye) indulge his murderous instincts by killing Lindy.12 With all of his weapons primed, Osborn proceeds with his Siege, ultimately destroying the city of Asgard with a raging Void-controlled Sentry.
During the Siege, Ares learns that Osborn has manipulated him into leading the assault against his fellow gods. He is shocked and angered when Heimdall, the Asgardian who sees all in the nine realms, informs him that he was not saving Asgard from Loki’s madness, but rather aiding him.13 In response to his mutiny, the Void literally rips Ares in two, which is broadcast live on television and seen by Ares’s son Phobos (one of Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors). In retaliation, the young god attacks the White House. Unable to confront the president personally, Phobos leaves a note chastising him for the choices he made that led to the current situation with Osborn:
Dear Mortal head of state, I came here today to explain to you the true and total consequences of your actions over the last several months. . . . Surely, fortune favors you and the men I spared enjoy it. But before you wash your hands of my father’s blood I would encourage you to reflect on what brought us to this point. You sacrificed honor for expediency. You traded intent for quick action. You were wrong and we all suffered for it.14
Phobos’s letter speaks not only to the president of the United States but also to the wider system that allowed individuals who did not deserve power and were unfit for it to acquire it. It is also fitting that the Siege provides an opportunity for the heroes of the old guard to put aside their past differences and work together at a critical moment, ending the Dark Reign and ushering in a Heroic Age.
Hoist by His Own Petard
Ultimately, Osborn—the proverbial Alcibiades and Sophist—is defeated by his own avarice when he is betrayed by the very institutions he created (such as the Dark Avengers and the evil Cabal) to secure power. His lack of self-control and destructive addiction to power mirror the Sentry’s, and it is fitting that he is publicly revealed to be under the influence of the Green Goblin after the Void is revealed to be in control of the Sentry.
Osborn could have become a hero if he had reined in his passions and committed himself to a genuine integration and development of his character. Sadly, he had few honest peers like Victoria Hand in his regime, and his opportunities for critical self-reflection were few and far between. When incarcerated after the Siege, he reveals some rationale for carrying out his duty in the manner in which he did, but it is a distorted rationalization driven by an exaggerated appreciation of the dangers in the Marvel Universe.15 Osborn’s Achilles’ heel is his insecurity, which led him to react rashly to diverse and independent sources of powe
r. Instead of integrating and understanding potential and powerful sources of power, he attempted to undercut, possess, and subvert them. Ultimately his ambitions and insecurities eclipsed all of his heroic potential. He had the great power, but he never embraced the great responsibility that came with it—especially to himself.
NOTES
1. Thunderbolts #125 (December 2008), reprinted in Thunderbolts Vol. 3: Secret Invasion (2009), and Secret Invasion #8 (January 2009), reprinted in Secret Invasion (2009). For more on Osborn’s manipulation of the public trust in the Avengers, see the chapter titled “Shining the Light on the Dark Avengers” by Sarah Donovan and Nick Richardson in this volume.
2. Dark Avengers #1 (March 2009); the entire series was collected in the hardcover Dark Avengers (2011).
3. Alcibiades, in Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 132e–135e. Standard pagination is given whenever Plato is quoted, so you can find the relevant passages in any reputable translation.
4. Dark Reign: The List—X-Men (November 2009), reprinted in Dark Reign: The List (2010).
5. Sentry #1–5 (2000–2001), reprinted in The Sentry (2005).
6. Dark Avengers #13 (March 2010).
7. Dark Avengers #6 (August 2009).
8. Ibid.
9. Siege: Loki #1 (June 2010), reprinted in Siege: Battlefield (2010).
10. Siege #1 (March 2010), reprinted in Siege (2010).
11. Dark Avengers #13.
12. Dark Avengers #14 (April 2010).
13. Siege #2 (April 2010), reprinted in Siege.
14. Siege: Secret Warriors #1 (June 2010), reprinted in Siege: Battlefield.
15. Dark Avengers #16 (July 2010) and Osborn #1–5 (January–June 2011, reprinted in Osborn: Evil Incarcerated, 2011).
PART THREE
SHOULD THE AVENGERS DO MORE THAN AVENGE?
Chapter 7
FORGIVERS ASSEMBLE!
Daniel P. Malloy
The very first comic book I ever bought was an issue of West Coast Avengers, a long-running spinoff of the main Avengers book. I don’t remember what it was about or which issue it was. I only remember three things: it cost me 75 cents (!), it ended in a cliffhanger of some kind—and it had a really cool cover, which is why I bought it. The cover featured this great drawing of some guy dressed in purple and sporting a bow and arrow. I didn’t realize it then, or even after I’d read the book (many many times), but that guy on the cover was a villain. Not in that comic, of course, by which time he was a well-established hero, but much earlier in his purple-clad career. Years later I found out that the character whose design and weaponry had gotten me interested in comic books—Clint Barton, the hero named Hawkeye—had actually started his life as a villain.
Hawkeye isn’t the only former villain among the Avengers’ ranks. Several other high-profile team members over the years—the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Vision, Wonder Man, and the Black Widow, to name a few—began life on the wrong side of the law. Certainly other superhero teams have recruited from the ranks of their enemies, but not quite as often or as prominently as the Avengers have. This remarkable fact gives us a chance to explore two of the most fascinating yet troublesome topics in moral philosophy—forgiveness and redemption—issues that must be dealt with together. Without forgiveness there can be no redemption, and forgiveness that does not grant redemption is hollow.
Time Travel, Retcons, and Forgiveness
In the universe of comic books, unlike the real world, it’s possible to change the past. Sometimes heroes or villains go back in time to change or preserve the course of history—that’s Kang the Conqueror’s modus operandi. More often, writers decide that something happened in the past that they failed to mention or that their characters didn’t know about, so they fill in the gaps, not changing history as much as completing it (after the fact). In the most extreme cases, the writers judge that the history of their characters doesn’t work anymore, for some reason, so they just make up a new one. Fans—often in a critical tone—call this process a retcon, short for retroactive continuity, changing past stories to make them consistent with present ones. This fantastic ability possessed by comics creators is one of the reasons very few heroes and villains in comics ever stay dead—if writers can’t find a way to bring them back to life in current stories, they change earlier ones so they didn’t actually die.
Unfortunately, we in the real world are pretty much stuck with the past as it is. Oh, we can deny it or lie about it, but we can’t actually change past events—what has happened has happened, and that’s the way it always will be. This is what philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) called the “predicament of irreversibility.”1 Once an event has occurred or an action has been taken, there is no going back. This predicament affects us most personally when the thing we would like to reverse is some action of our own or one that has affected us. Who wouldn’t want to go back and retract those hurtful words or get in that one great comeback that you only thought of after you’d left the party? Who wouldn’t want to avoid getting mugged or being betrayed? We can’t do it, though. The best we can do is manage how we feel about that event.
Because we’re talking about forgiveness, let’s focus on a case where one person has harmed another—or, at least, where one person feels they’ve been harmed by another. Consider Simon Williams, the Avenger known as Wonder Man and originally, like Hawkeye, a villain. With the help of the villain Baron Zemo, Simon was exposed to “ionic energy” and acquired superpowers in an attempt to exact revenge upon Tony Stark (otherwise known as Iron Man). Stark Industries was in direct competition with Williams Innovations, which Simon’s family owned. Stark did not compete with Williams unfairly—he simply offered better products or cheaper prices or some combination thereof. Nevertheless, Williams believed he had been wronged by Stark, and became Wonder Man to seek revenge.2
There are several ways we can deal with being wronged, but they all start from a basic, perhaps even instinctual reaction: resentment. Resentment is not a bad thing in itself. In fact, it is arguably an important part of self-preservation—at least according to philosopher and theologian Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752). In Butler’s sermons on resentment and forgiveness, he argues that resentment should not be looked on as a moral failing. It is simply a necessary reaction to being harmed or wronged, and teaches us to avoid similar situations in the future.3 It can, however, become a moral failing if we allow excessive resentment to control our actions, as is the case with Wonder Man. Excessive resentment leads to revenge—and the antidote to it is forgiveness.
Butler’s arguments for the link between forgiveness and resentment have been taken as gospel (pun intended—please forgive me) by most contemporary philosophers who think about forgiveness, although they also typically argue that Butler’s definition is correct but incomplete. For instance, excuses pose a particular problem for Butler’s account. By excuses I don’t mean the classics like “the dog ate my homework” or “I have a headache.” In this context, an excuse is a reason for having acted or failed to act that mitigates or eliminates moral (or legal) responsibility.4 For instance, since the Vision was an artificial “synthezoid” created and programmed by Ultron to destroy the Avengers, he was arguably not responsible for those actions, so he has an excuse in our sense.5 The problem with excuses as far as Butler’s account of forgiveness is concerned is that they too suppress or reduce resentment, but in a completely different way. We have to add to Butler’s account that forgiveness does not deny the wrongdoer’s responsibility for his or her actions.
At the same time, forgiveness, like excuses, maintains an aura of disapproval. When I forgive someone, I must maintain that the action for which I am forgiving them was wrong to begin with. It is not made right by my forgiveness—forgiveness does not condone an action. This may seem a fairly obvious point, but that does not prevent people from getting confused about it. For instance, take the case of the second modern Black Knight, Dane Whitman. Attempting to prove
his worth to the Avengers and atone for the misdeeds of his uncle (his villainous predecessor as the Black Knight), Dane infiltrates and then betrays the second incarnation of the Masters of Evil.6 Now, in all likelihood, Dane had to do some pretty unsavory things to join the group—they are the Masters of Evil, after all. At the very least, we know that Dane had to lie to his fellow Masters of Evil. These deeds, however, do not need to be forgiven. We would condone them; whatever evil Dane did was ultimately in the interest of preventing even greater evil by the Masters of . . . well, you know.
Can Cap Forgive the Rest of His Kooky Quartet?
So, forgiveness is the act of giving up resentment against a wrongdoer without denying his responsibility for doing wrong (as excusing him would) or the wrongness of the wrong (as condoning it would). There are (at least) two reasons for offering forgiveness. First, forgiveness benefits the one who forgives, because to hold on to resentment is to allow the wrongdoer more power over oneself than he deserves. Second, by forgiving wrongdoers, we make reconciliation between ourselves and them possible. Offering forgiveness is a step toward reestablishing a relationship between the wrongdoer and the person wronged. This is why answering the question in the title of this section—“Can Cap forgive the rest of his Kooky Quartet?”—is tricky but essential to understanding the infamous second lineup of the Avengers, as well as forgiveness itself.