#donald menken

[montanashocker]

[kzele]

TSSM What If. . .Ock Triggered The Bomb Earlier?

Summary: For once, Peter Parker is in crosshairs and is forced to become the hero. Naturally, this puts him back in the crosshairs by reminding him just WHY he has two separate IDs.

Peter was used to being dismissed by adults. They took one look at his face and saw his age instead of him as a person. So when Mr. Osborn politely told him to get lost, he would've normally taken it stride. If it had been about normal business stuff, that is. Norman had practically superglued himself to Peter's side whenever they were in the same room for just about everything else he forced the teenager into. Be it brain-frying corporate meetings or neat trips and lab experiments.

Heck, considering he had been essentially browbeaten into accepting this "apprenticeship," Peter might've been ecstatic to get away and, you know, RELAX AROUND CHRISTMAS. But, noooo. Not with Norman Osborn. Because Norman Osborn doesn't have fun. He has money.

Alright, maybe that was a bit unfair to think about the senior Osborn like that, because he was and has always been MUCH nicer to Peter than apparently everyone on the planet. (Which brings up its own problems where Harry is concerned.)

But that's not the point here.

The real point is that Norman's assistant/flunky Donald Menken, who either doesn't like Peter or ignores everybody with an income below 250k as standard procedure, was going to say something about Toomes aka Big Bird's goth grandpa.

Ever since the guy escaped from prison along with his buddies, he's been laying low for some time. Which is quite an accomplishment if we're taking into account all his very public past murder attempts. The first of which he literally screamed at his target before attacking. Despite his flight suit being almost completely silent in use. And having the element of surprise already. It sucks to know that his villains were learning subtlety. Or just learning in general.

Annnd since the Vulture is nowhere to be found, any information about the jerk is necessary. Unfortunately, arguing the point with Norman isn't going to get anywhere. Not unless you can count ticking him off as "getting somewhere." And Peter would rather not do that. . .Especially when he could just sneak back in and eavesdrop, regardless of his marching orders. Lots of pillars to hide behind plus his enhanced hearing will hopefully equal one enlightened spider.

Peter produced the expected agreement and made it about two steps before-

His brain was on fire. Spider sense!

"Nonononono, countdown activated! Thirty seconds to implosion!"

The teen whipped his around to see Morris the demolition guy frantically inputting what could only be the deactivation codes.

Norman was firm, "Shut. It. Down."

The timer didn't even slow.

Well, crap.

He basically teleported himself next to the panicking blond right at that moment.

Okay, focus and then think. It didn't seem likely that this was an accident but even if this was supreme bad luck, the codes were shown to not work. Bomb squad would be clean up by that point. Revealing himself as Spidey and saving everyone would endanger his loved ones regardless of whether he survives this or not. But Peter couldn't do this. He couldn't save everyone in time as just plain, old Peter Parker. He couldn't. . .

Wait. In time?

Of course. The timer.

Peter was done thinking in seconds and relayed his thoughts, "Mr. Bench! Can you reset the timer?!"

"I'll-I'll try," the frazzled man nodded as he worked.

But the machine was only on the new time for moment before it reverted back to half a minute. Somehow, it felt almost mocking in its false hope.

"It-it wo-won't-"

"Is there a manual way to disable the timer so it can't revert back," Peter asked in a voice calmer than he felt.

Morris' voice was almost inaudible, "Blue wire at the bottom right of the screen. Pull that when I go again."

And then there was waiting. . .

Waiting. . .

. . .

. . .

Now!

"NOW!"

And then there was silence.

29:59. . .29:58. . .29:57

He would've collapsed onto the old and dirty tenement floor right then like Morris. (And Menken, too, if the gasping sounds from behind were an indication.) But his adrenaline hadn't worn off and the danger was still present the longer they stayed here if the muted buzzing in his cranium meant anything.

"Well done, son."

Norman Osborn's approving smile followed Peter the rest of the way out of the building.

End of Part I

Next Time (possibly) : Ock Goes WTF happened and Peter Receives the Credit for All The Things. Also, Stalking Ensues.

[realdonaldmenken]

Sorry to him, but if I was Green Goblin, I simply wouldn’t have exploded

[vvizardz]

[thevividgreenmoss]

Matthew Weiner grasped at something beyond his daily-historical consciousness with Mad Men, which on one hand is part of the reason for making/sharing/experiencing art, but on the other hand the missapprehensions embedded within that consciousness play a huge part in him misapprehending his own* art as well as his role in its creation - the environment he cultivated within the writers room he administered, his documented harassment of the women he worked with, his incomprehension of the fact that Pete Campbell raped that au pair, that the wistful little etymology lesson that sets it up does nothing to obscure or negate the deeply fascistic impulse ingrained within Rachel Menken's claim that Israel "simply has to be", that the ending of his* show is not and can not be nearly as optimistic or hopeful as he-we might like to think.

The third quarter of the Clippers-Bulls just ended and I have neither patience for nor interest in American sentimentality.

Various notes of grace may play individual characters off the screen in the final episode and yes that may allow us to leave them a bit more at peace with themselves and each other than we found them in the pilot but the American society & nation to which they belong they belong is if anything far less at peace with itself in 1970 than it was in 1960 and all the way through 2024 it will continue along those same lines while also - although this part is probably a matter of lesser import to Weiner (but also likely the majority of his collaborators and audience) than things that primarily directly affect/ed real people ie American citizens whether it be the dissolution of the keynesian welfare state or the election of Donald Trump - continuing to inflict the most savage and brutal imperial horrors upon the rest of the world.

The game has ended, Clips won.

What inner peace drops a man back into the corner office from whose window he flung himself in the first place? If the fall was broken by an armchair behind the desk where he'd settle back in to launder the public image of a multinational conglomerate that steals water from indigenous people and pays mercenaries to murder those that dare to identify the theft might it not have been preferable to keep falling?

[ultraericthered]

One Villainous Scene: *Twist* Ending

From one kind of "twist ending" involving a supervillain to another, and this one is super appropriate for the coming of spooky season!

The tragically, criminally shortly lived, desparately in need of a revival The Spectacular Spider-Man, probably the best animated Spider-Man series ever made, gave us a rather unusual approach to Spidey's greatest foe, the Green Goblin. Rather than be just a costumed villain with a secret identity looking to take over the criminal underworld of New York as he was in the comics, this Goblin was still that but with the mystery of his identity played out in a way more reminiscent of how the Hobgoblin's arc in the comics was like. Red herrings, misdirections, fakeouts, making you question if what you thought you saw is what you really saw, etc. Back in Season 1, the mystery of the Green Goblin seemed to be solved with the reveal that Peter's friend Harry Osborn had been taking his father Norman's "Globulin Green" formula as a drug to enhance his performance as school, and had overhead Norman's dealings with the Big Man of Crime that made him want to take out the Big Man to help his dad....but it never quite seemed right. The Green Goblin was far more knowledgable, ruthless and devious than Harry had ever been shown to be, and the part about why Harry would challenge the Big Man as the Green Goblin came from Norman's mouth rather than Harry's own. So despite us seeing an unhinged Harry in the Goblin costume, overcome by the aftereffects of the serum (including super strength as he fucking hurled his dad across the room), and even with a limp that the Goblin got from his last fight with Spider-Man, there was always something that felt wrong with this picture.

So when Season 2 saw the surprise return of the Green Goblin as he manipulated a gang war that led to him successfully ousting Tombstone from his position as Big Man of Crime, which the Goblin took over, it was time to revisit the events of the previous season and get clarification that no, Harry is not, and never was, the Green Goblin. The suspicion thus falls to Norman Osborn, but we already saw the Goblin and him in the same place, and we see it again in this season finale, so that rules him out. The suspect list is finally narrowed down to Oscorp's president, Donald Menken....but NOPE! The Green Goblin shows up, knocks out Menken, and takes Spidey on a wild ride across an entire city district that he's had rigged with death traps! During this final battle, the Goblin's mask comes off, unveiling none other than Norman Osborn, mastermind behind many of the Big Man's supervillain creations and crimes, the current Big Man, and the Green Goblin the entire time. The "Norman" we saw both times the Goblin was on the scene was actually the Chameleon in disguise (revealed in a perfect way: Harry recalls something that might've gone missed by the audience, how "Norman" had earlier said the words "I'm sorry" to Spidey, and as was repeatedly stressed in Episode 1 alone, Norman Osborn never apologizes!)

And then we get the above scene, where Norman just reveals everything. A big exposition dump in the middle of a fight should not work, but here it just feels so natural and so exciting, like a mystery has finally come to the solution phase, and the switch from Steve Blum's manic Green Goblin to Alan Rachins' stern and cold yet still totally deranged Norman is so jarring yet somehow feels natural enough that it gives me shivers. But of course, the part that stands out the most is the part about the limp. Norman had faked limping as the Goblin intending for Spidey, who'd accused the Goblin of being Norman Osborn to his face during that fight, to go pursue Norman only to find him walking just fine without any limp, which would put him off his trail...but by happenstance, Norman returned home to find his son passed out from having drank too much of the formula. So Norman improvised with a better tactic - dressing Harry up in the Goblin costume and twisting his leg in order to give him a limp, framing his own son for the crimes he'd committed. Norman, of course, rationalizes this by saying that if he'd been found out and sent to prison for his crimes, Harry would be left without a father around to "make a man out of him." Shortly afterwards, Spidey webs one of Norman's own pumpkin bombs to his glider. The bomb goes off, which sends Norman's glider hurling towards a water tower he'd rigged with a whole supply of pumpkin bombs. There are explosions, and the night sky rings with those horrible scream sounds that the bombs make when they go off. Norman Osborn has perished.

The whole thing just absolutely haunts you long after the show has wrapped up, and to throw one last cruel twist at you (aside from Norman's never-to-be-explained survival that the show ends on), we get that scene at the funeral, where in a moment of grief and mad desparation for comfort and love, Harry straight up emotionally manipulates Gwen into staying in a relationship with him rather than leaving him for Peter like he figured she was set on doing. It seems the pumpkin doesn't roll too far from the patch in the Osborn family.

[sepublic]

I wonder how Morris Bench would’ve appeared in S3. I have to assume he’d be blacklisted from the industry; Dude is supposed to be a demolitions expert reliable enough to be hired by a huge company and handle explosives in the same building as his own client… Only to somehow screw it up without any extenuating factors or circumstances to justify it (as far as anyone knows) nearly killing him and his client (and two others, one of them a minor) had a superhero not shown up.

There’s no way Norman’s vindictive ass didn’t sue Morris into oblivion. Guy hates feeling helpless, it’s his core motive and trauma after the Vulture incident, and even with Globulin Green, I doubt he’d have been fast enough to escape on his own without the glider. He was genuinely going to be screwed over by what he thought was the incompetence of the most random, undignifying incident ever.

So in S3, I can imagine Bench being really down on his luck, forced to take on risky jobs that would lead to his transformation, and then hey! Another villain who wants revenge on Norman. Except he’s “dead” so maybe Oscorp and Donald Menken, who was also involved in the incident?

[theaawalker]

His Little Lamb [Harry Osborn x OC]

ACT I. Snippet "What's your name again?" "Demetria. Demetria Jones." "Tell me, Demetria, what's a little lamb like you doing in a wolf den like OsCorp?" -- HARRY OSBORN, DEMETRIA JONES

ACT II. Synopsis Demetria Jones is your classic model citizen. Smart, helpful, organized, sophisticated, and above all innocent. But that changes when she gets a new boss, Harry Osborn. She's not looking for trouble, but that might be what she's in for. Unless, maybe, she can change Harry... that is, if he doesn't change her first.

ACT III. Cast Dane Dehaan as Harry Osborn (aka the boss) Cara Delevingne as Demetria Jones (aka the employee) Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker (aka the superhero) Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy (aka the best friend) Jamie Foxx as Max Dillion (aka the coworker) Joel Kinnaman as Cole Blanchard (aka the ex-boyfriend) Colm Feore as Donald Menken (aka the a-hole attorney)

ACT IV. Chapters chapter i | chapter ii | chapter iii | chapter iv

[axnewxera]

// A snippet of a scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2:

Donald Menken: Much of the scrutiny may fall on you now. We felt that plausible deniability was your best option. Harry Osborn: Sure, sure. I get it. Twenty-year-old kid, $200 billion company... What was Dad thinking? I mean, you're all lawyers, right? Surely, someone must have questioned his sanity in the end. Someone must have thought about having him declared legally incompetent. It would have made this conversation a lot easier. Donald Menken: Harry... Harry Osborn: It's Mr. Osborn. We're not friends.

This scene is SO Rufus Shinra it's ridiculous. Rufus and that portrayal of Harry Osborn seem to be a lot alike.

Rufus Shinra: Great though he was, my father was old. And in his dotage, he became rash. But while we're on the subject, there's something I've been meaning to ask all of you regarding those decisions. Why is it that none of you even tried to stop him?

And then there's this to top off the comparison to that scene:

Heidegger: Mister Vice President! Rufus Shinra: ...... Tseng: Mister President. Rufus Shinra: That's right.

[onebadpunspoilsabunch]

well that escalated

[montanashocker]

I hate my son + I'm high

[hellomystraightlacedfriend]

Amazing Spider-Man #260

[realdonaldmenken]

If there was a vampire that was into me I would simply let him do what he wanted.

I have blood. I make a lot of it. Why can’t he have it? Clearly, if he’s so thirsty, he doesn’t have enough.

Dr. Michael Morbius, if you’re out there-

[vvizardz]

I need to make more TSSM autism creatures !! send some more names over I've already done Electro, Mysterio, Doc Ock, and Donald Menken

[incorrect-tssm]

Norman: Ok, I’ll be back soon.

Norman: If Harry calls tell him I died but make sure you really sell it. It’s a funny thing we’re doing.

Menken:

Menken: How is that funny?

Inspo post :)

[thevividgreenmoss]

Also riotously funny and perfectly fitting that Donald Draper spends so much of season 7's home stretch chasing the ghost of Rachel "Israel simply has to be 🥺" menken ultimately culminating in him devising a sales pitch for America's greatest number one most iconic zionist funding soft drink