The Sad Cost Of Dark Reign

(Yet another Onomatoepeia essay – This one, let’s charitably say, from March.)

Hey.

Mebbe youse guys remember me. Names’s Peter Petruski, and yeah, yeah, I know that sounds like that guy offa that Heroes show on TV that everyone useta watch, but I was there first, awright? Anyway, youse aren’t supposeta know my real name, oh no. I worked hard so everyone would know – and fear! Don’t forget fear! – me by my work name for alla these years, which is why this whole thing chaps my ass so much. See, Imma certified genius, right? One a those big brains that normally wear white coats and smoke pipes and stuff, but I decided that I didn’t wanna write grant applications and papers and allathatcrap, so I went into business for myself, sellin’ secrets and robbin’ banks and everythin’ was jake for awhile, ya know? And then they got involved.

Like I said, Pete Petruski don’t mean nothin’ to youse, and that’s the way I like it. But I’m sure ya all hearda… The Trapster!

No?

Aw, crap, see, this is my problem right here. But even if that name never really caught on, there’s no way ya ain’t never hearda… Paste Pot Pete!

Yeah, yeah, yuk it up awready. I heard it all before, wise guy.

See, now you just sound like Norman. Norman Osborn, I mean. Yeah, didn’t think I knew him, didja? Well, I do. I known ol’ Normie more than 40 years now, from the good ol’ days when he was still dressin’ up in green and purple and smackin’ around that Spider-Man kid when Ditko was still drawin’ him. Man, those were the days, lemme tell ya. Ditko was drawin’ him, Kirby was drawin’ me, and we all had this sweet life; we’d only haveta show up every few months, grumble and look menacin’ for a few pages and then we’d be taken to jail, but it was an old-school jail, all clean and with access to whatever we wanted so we could be ready to escape and show up again at a moment’s notice. None a’ this “six issue mini-series” crap from today, where ya gotta show up for months of foreshadowin’ and spend whole issues fightin’ with every single thing in so much focus. Jeez, I’m tellin’ ya, I did a Fantastic Four a couple years ago, and that almost killed me.

Where was I? Oh yeah, that’s right, Norm Osborn.

So like I said, me and Norm, we go way back. And I’m on the internet the other week and, lo and behold, there’s Osborn all over everythin’. “Dark Reign,” everythin’s sayin’, “There’s this new Dark Reign and the bad guys have taken over the Marvel Universe, with Norman Osborn takin’ over the Avengers and SHIELD and everythin’” and I see that and I think to myself, man. I gotta get in on some a that sweet action.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that I ain’t been the most popular guy lately, and I been keepin’ myself to myself, but I figger, if bad guys are takin’ over, there gotta be somewhere I can be, right? Like, if we’re in charge now, surely I can get somethin’, ’specially ’cause me and Norm, ya know? From way back. So I call him up, or at least, I try to. He’s workin’ at this new place now, HAMMER? It’s like some SHIELD replacement but staffed by bastards or somethin’, best I can tell. And the receptionist there is like the queen bastard, she’s totally doin’ her best professional gatekeeper mode, all “I’m sorry Mr. Trapster, but Mr. Osborn isn’t available, he’s meeting with the President who looks a lot like Barack Obama but officially isn’t in case we end up in legal trouble for profiting from an appropriated likeness that we have not asked for permission to use,” and I’m all “Jeez, lady, yer killin’ me here, just tell him it’s Paste Pot Pete awready,” and she’s “Perhaps you don’t understand how important our unnamed Obama-esque President really is” and talkin’ about five printin’s for Amazing Spider-Man or somethin. I dunno, it was like Norm had sold out, you know? Become onna the suits already.

So I started ta ask around. I went ta see the Wizard, I figgered that, if anyone could figger out a way for me to get to see Osborn, it’d be the smartest guy around. Little did I know that he was just as bad off as I was. He’d finally worked out this guest star gig in New Avengers where he’d be this flunky to this Hood punk, and he was hatin’ it. We met up for patty melts and he was bitchin’ about how this Hood didn’t have the history we had and wasn’t, like, smart or crap, just had this magic cloak and there was a demon or somethin’ but even then, he had his own series already and was gonna get another one. I was all “Yeah, man, it’s not like the old days,” ya know? Just agreein’ and trynna convince him that Osborn could change all that. All we hadda do was see Osborn and he’s fix us up.

Eventually, he came ’round to my way a seein’ things. I’m not gonna lie, I mighta slipped him some a my magic paste in his coffee to help him along, but that’s what friends do, right? They help each other, even if it includes makin’ him puke a little to see the light.  So he slips me one of his patented flyin’ disks and that night, I take a little trip to the top o’ Stark Tower to see the great Norman Osborn himself.

Ya shouldda seen his face when he saw me floatin’ outside his window like that. He was all “You look some cut-rate Superman” and I was all “Yeah, well you’ve turned into a Lex Luthor with hair, and dumb hair at that” and I think I got under his skin a little with that one. I remember when everyone thought he was dead, we’d hang out and read Superman comics and he was always so jealous of Lex, sayin’ that he shouldda done that in the first place, the whole “Machiavellian Genius Behind The Scenes” thing, and have suits and flunkies and crap alla time instead of flyin’ around on his tiny Goblin glider. I never thought he’s actually do it. But look at him now, runnin’ the world! All he needs is a Kryptonite Ring and he’s classic 1990s Luthor. Ya gotta admire a man who follows through on his derivative ambitions like that, ya know?

So after an hour of pretendin’ to ignore me, he finally opens the window and lets me in, and asks me what I’m there for. He’s got his grumpy face on, so I lay it on the table. I’m all, listen Osborn, we go back a long way, and now that you’re pullin’ all these strings like Phil Masters, I figger ya owe me somethin’. He’s all smirkin’ and doin’ the steeple-fingers thing and sayin’ “Oh, really?” and I’m like, yeah, come on, you’re The Man now, do me a solid.

Mebbe somethin’ I said got to him, ’cause next thing I know, he’s askin’ what it is I want, exactly. I’m all, hey, I know how it works. Just gimme a three issue mini-series of my own to get myself back on my feet and then I’ll be ready for the big time. Just three issues of Dark Reign: The Trapster and then I’ll take on the FF, Spider-Guy or any of the seven million Avengers teams goin’ around these days. I’m like, listen man, I see Elektra and The Hood and Venom and even the freakin’ Lethal Legion gettin’ their own series these days, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I’m as worthy of some schmuck’s $3.99 as the Lethal Legion. Gimme a shot, I says, and I’ll make you proud.

You could see him bein’ unimpressed. He did that whole turnin’ his back and speakin’ quitely and then turnin’ back and shoutin’ thing he does, sayin’ that I didn’t understand the game anymore, that not just any guy gets their own series these days and that I didn’t have “the depth” to go over well to a new audience. And then he got mean. “You’re a joke,” he said, right to my face, “You’re a punchline, today’s audience wants murderers and moral ambiguity and depth and not geniuses that called themselves Paste Pot Pete.” He’s all “Even Dan Slott wouldn’t put you in one of his books,” and that kinda hurt, I gotta tell ya. But I didn’t blink, I was all “Hey! I been in the background of recent Spider-Mans, ya crumb!” and then tellin’ him that I’d worked out this whole new origin for myself so that people would, like, treat me with respect again.

What if, I told him, what if I was, like, sexually abused or somethin’, and my paste gun is, like, a metaphor for my own sexual dysfunction? Like, the paste and my junk… and then he’s all “That’s disgusting” and “We don’t go anywhere near that area after the whole radioactive spider sperm incident of 2007″ and “Who would write that kind of garbage anyway” and I’m all, “Hey, Geoff Johns would totally tear off some other guy’s arm to come up with an idea like that!” Like, it’d make me into a more sympathetic figure, and then I’d be all morally ambiguous and stuff like you want because I’d be doin’ it to get back at my dad or my uncle or my doctor or my priest or society or somethin’, and there could even be scenes where Mr. Fantastic, like, turns into my dad durin’ a fight and I’m all “Ya won’t do it to me again” and cryin’ and crap. People would love that, I’m tellin’ ya.

Normie was havin’ none o’ it. He said that he controlled what happened in the Marvel Universe at least until the next summer event, and then whispered that he was sure that Bendis and everyone else had no idea what to do next, so he figgered he was safe for another year at least, and then he said that as far as he was concerned, I was a bit player in the larger continuity and was gonna stay that way. And then he pressed a button on the Wizard’s flyin’ disk and I shot straight out the window like I was Bruce Wayne’s bat or somethin’. Whammo and glass everywhere. Didn’t stop ’til I hit Brooklyn.

So that’s how I’m here, tellin’ ya all this, ya see? Osborn’s gotta be stopped. I don’t give a crap about the greater good or him tarnishin’ the name of the Avengers or any o’ that, but he’s holdin’ me and my kind down. Used ta be a time that blue-collar geniuses like me had a chance with the big guys, but these days it’s all conspiracies and behind the scenes mental warfare and no fightin’ unless it’s a mass fight scene where nothin’ really happens because there’re too many people there. That ain’t why I got in the game, and I’m bettin’ it ain’t why you did, either. I figger that either we take Osborn out ourselves or just jump ship to DC while no-one’s payin’ attention. I mean, I could totally see myself takin’ on the Flash or somethin’, especially now that Barry Allen’s comin’ back. You think he could outrun a guy with a paste gun? I think you know what I’m sayin’.

You ain’t got Geoff Johns’ phone number, do ya?

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4. Ten Days
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