Norman Osborn’s recruiting drive: Namor

Over the next three days, we’ll explore a different side of Norman Osborn — less pumpkin bomb chucking and more persuasive words with open threats.  If you like your Green Goblin stories with zero combat and solely pages full of conversation, then you’re in luck for the rest of the week.  Please don’t click away, I promise I only choose to highlight comics I like.  After the past two and a half weeks of romance and battles, I figured we could use some good ol’ fashioned character development. Then we’ll return to kissing and punching, but today enjoy a scene from Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1, written by Paul Cornell and drawn by Leonard Kirk.

Following the Marvel event Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn takes over as the reigning government secret agent commander — replacing SHIELD with HAMMER.  Same group, just way more morally ambiguous and with a leader who still has both eyes.  He creates his own team of supervillain Avengers and then in a Pokémon Gotta Catch ‘Em All scenario, he figures he should create his own team of X-Men as well.  If Dark Reign had continued a few more years, he could have had a Fantastic Four and Guardians of the Galaxy too.  Even longer and it’d be a revival of the Champions.  Just y’know, evil.

He starts off by recruiting Emma Frost by essentially promising to leave the X-Men alone if she can beat up any cranky mutants once in a while.  Well, when you have Emma Frost, the fishy Namor isn’t far behind.  Mostly to admire her behind.  With his kingdom of Atlantis destroyed, the mutant Namor aligned himself with the X-Men.  We pick up with the naked Namor showering on a helicarrier, where he stays clothes-less the entire scene.

I should probably explain.  A rogue Atlantean terrorist group attacked Los Angeles, and Namor refused to denounce them despite Osborn’s insistence.  So Osborn sent in the Sentry (schizophrenic with the power of a million exploding suns) to wipe out the group.  He totally did.  Yet Namor is standing in front of the (former) Green Goblin even with Atlantean blood recently spilled.

Yes, Osborn asks a relevant and important question.  But unlike, say, how superheroes phrase their queries, he can’t help provoking a man who could smush Osborn into goblin putty with a single finger — a man who has no issues fighting without first putting on underwear:

And now the real battle begins.  Osborn threw the first jab, and he’s going to finish it with an uppercut or whatever boxers do after jabbing.  Because while poor Namor speaks like the proud royal battleaxe he is, our vulnerable half-Atlantean has only one secret wish (it’s not Emma Frost).

Even when Osborn wins, he still has to rub it in.  If this makes you feel better, Emma Frost and Namor eventually betray Osborn while Cyclops simultaneously establishes Utopia as a mutant safe haven. But for right now, say hello to the second member of the Dark X-Men: Namor.

Tomorrow, Dagger and Cloak!  They’re not even mutants!