written by Zeb Wells
drawn by Patrick Gleason
colored by Marcio Menyz
Ever since Nick Spencer purged Norman Osborn of what can best be described as, well, the evil inside him, Marvel has made an interesting game of "what will make him evil again?" It's a storytelling schtick that may get old at one point, but I have to say, for the moment, I am genuinely enjoying it, much, much more than I did after Dan Slott lobotomized him at the end of his run, the effects of which were almost immediately and quite predictably undone. It's also given Norman the chance to grow as a character the same way the remarkable "Superior Spider-Man" mega story arc did wonders for Otto Octavius. As messy as it got towards the end, in my opinion Nick Spencer's run will be fondly remembered for righting a lot of wrongs in Spider-Man's canon, and for giving readers this interesting little story tidbit.
In the last four-part story arc it was Otto Octavius who took a crack at restoring Norman to his former evil self by injecting Norman with a hyper-dose of the Green Goblin serum, but now it's the turn of Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter and Ashley Kafka aka the Queen Goblin...(or clones of those people) to take their shot. Kraven and Kafka have a markedly different reason for wanting to restore Norman's evil ways from Otto, who simply wished to defeat his nemesis as he had remembered him; Kafka became the Queen Goblin because she had been infused with Osborn's evil essence. Through witchcraft, Kraven has extracted it and imbued a spear with it, but the story posits that for Kafka to truly be free, the evil has to be restored to its rightful owner Norman. Also, by restoring Norman to his former self, the Kraven clone intends to give himself a quarry to hunt that would make him worthy of his late father's legacy: the Green Goblin. Kraven sets out for Osborn Industries to accomplish his mission, but Spider-Man intervenes (because of course he would)...and things take a turn.
After the positively flaccid Ms. Marvel story, Marvel has set about to hype up the next big status quo shakeup for Spider-Man, and the developments of this issue must surely play into that. It's nice to see Wells taking the story threads Nick Spencer left by restoring Kraven's death and cleansing Norman Osborn of his evil and weaving something interesting with them. I was a little disappointed at how abrupt Kraven's and Kafka's hookup was (unless it was explored somewhere else), but this story definitely shows promise.
Also, it is great to see Patrick Gleason back on art chores, and I'm glad to know he'll be around for more than just one issue this time.
8.5/10
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