We’re now four issues into Misery and the way Harry is presented is interesting. And getting interesting-er by the minute, really. (Spoilers ahead, obviously.)
And also Lily Hollister is back, just like I wanted!
I can’t wait to see her and Lily fight, probably literally, for custody of Stanley. But before that…
In Misery #2 we got a look at Harry and Liz just before Normie was born. Harry is presented sympathetically here as he tells Liz she should cut and run if he ever becomes the Goblin again.
This is picked up again in Misery #4, which does a deep dive into Harry’s behavior towards Liz when he was the Goblin. If you’ve read Spectacular Spider-Man #200 as often I have, you’ll remember it. It wasn’t pretty.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? Liz has never admitted that Harry’s behavior towards her was abuse, but thanks to her symbiote, she’s forced to.
So obviously as someone who is extremely attached to Harry (hence the blog) this makes me feel rather uncomfortable and sad, but that’s my issue to deal with really. And I mean, it’s not at all an inaccurate statement! Harry got physical with Liz, grabbed her and pushed her and all sorts, and that’s very much abuse.
It turns out Liz felt relief when Harry died (the first time) which is totally legit.
But then he came back, of course, and here’s where continuity gets all tangled, because nowhere is it mentioned here that this Harry was a clone. (You probably already know what I think of that.) Does Liz even know that?
She sure doesn’t seem to know that!
So far, so complicated, to say the least.
And you know, despite how it makes me feel, I know full well Harry abused Liz when they were together, it’s right there on the pages of the comic book that changed my life forever. However, I do wish there had been some mention of Harry’s schizophrenia as well. That factors into his behavior, even if it doesn’t excuse it, and it’s never really mentioned these days.
Also, this isn’t the fault of writer Sabir Pirzada, since we’re talking lots of different writing teams here, but this all makes Liz’s cordial relationship with Norman, a man who abused his entire family and threatened Liz’s children, extra weird (there’s a reference to his “heroics” in the above panel), and Norman’s continued rehabilitation in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man VERY WEIRD INDEED. But more on that some other time.
Has anyone else been reading Misery (be you Harry fans or not Harry fans)? What do you think?
harryosborn.net 
So far, I think I would have killed to have this writer tackle Norman. It’s… uncomfortable… when he calls abuse what it is but I feel like he wouldn’t have pulled his punches as much as say, Wells has undoubtedly done. He also does actual research on these characters before he writes them which very good for a modern Marvel writer. I also agree that he should have had more mention to Harry’s schizophrenia.
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Oh man. What an issue. I read it and immediately thought “My fellow Harry enjoyers aren’t going to like this one” so I’m pleasantly surprised at how… non-defensive this article is.
I will say this: I’m not yet sure how much of the Misery/Liz therapy session is supposed to be taken at face value. Misery pushes Liz to “admit” many very self-hating things before she reaches this conclusion, and it’s immediately followed up with manipulative love-bombing. (You’re a failure and you hate yourself Liz, and everyone else hurt you, so just give up and rely on *me.*) This writer clearly read a lot of Harry’s material, which is dense with character moments where cruel, cynical self-talk drives him further into a villain identity.
Still, I hope the idea isn’t totally dropped or disproven. (Remember when hallucination-Peter tells Harry that Norman was a horrible evil abuser and Harry should feel glad he’s dead? The manipulative mental voice isn’t fully *wrong*, though it’s horribly reductionist and chosen to be hurtful.) Liz was left out of so much of the conversation that she didn’t get the “justifications” the audience has, and fans have continued not to think much about the pain in her side of the story.
I’m rather glad that schizophrenia didn’t come up here. Comics have already done every variation of the “morally grey” violent psychotic imaginable, and there’s a bigger picture here. Liz was not taking advantage of Harry’s delusions or memory issues; Harry was not responding to a hallucinatory version of her. His behavior came from the sadly common “rational” worldview that men need to maintain ultimate control in a family unit. Of course he would not do that if he wasn’t also under massive, personality-warping levels of stress! We know that because of all the years in which he didn’t treat her that way!
But haven’t we had this conversation enough? Did we spend TCW wondering if Norman had a psychological excuse for the things he said to Harry? It’s time to light the pile of emotional firecrackers Liz is sitting on and then duck and cover, a time-honored tradition with traumatized Spidey civilians. Call it selfish but I’m glad that Liz’s “I’m glad my husband is dead” phase isn’t taking the time to insert the word “schizophrenic” into that phrase. (*Especially* if my gut feeling is wrong and we’re supposed to take all this at face value after all.)
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Yeah on second thought you’re totally right about the schizophrenia thing. Jeez this issue has gotten me all messed up because I’m projecting my own mental issues onto it (as you can probably guess.)
Honestly Harry’s abuse of Liz had to be dealt with at *some* point if she was gonna stick around in the comics. The ideal time for it would have been after Harry’s resurrection in Brand New Day, really. Liz got a pretty short stick post-BND if I remember correctly.
And well, this series so far does seem to be giving a fairly, I don’t know, nuanced take on the Harry-Liz relationship when you look back on the scene from #2 of Harry telling Liz to leave him if he relapses.
For me personally I guess it sort of hurts to see all this (which I imagine is autism and hyperfixation rearing its ugly head) but it had to happen sooner or later I suppose,
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Honestly, trying to figure out if Misery is nuanced or just incoherent is giving me a headache. (Is it *supposed* to be so jarring that Liz is unbothered by her own dismemberment and ready to tear a living being in two?) It’s difficult to figure out what’s going on within the comic, even though it’s so clearly connected to so many threads of Liz’s life outside of it.
This does sting! But I believe you’re right to say that it stings in a way that’s a very straightforwards reading of JMD’s writing. To frame Harry’s death as a story where he hurt nobody but himself is to write Liz off as nobody. That’s not something I’m willing to do, even though it requires stepping out of the popular and comfortable narrative of our favorite traumatized guy escaping the cycle of abuse and admitting that he tried to hide within the cycle for long enough to deal serious misogynistic damage. I’ll be disappointed if it’s walked back.
I say I feel selfish to feel relieved that schizophrenia went unmentioned because some of that fearmongering energy is being redirected towards drug use (I assume the meaning of “relapse”, and Liz’s last excuse for Harry before she breaks down). And… as personally important as Harry is to me as a character with psychosis, and as important JMD’s work is to that interpretation… *and* as uncomfortable to me as it would be to connect that to harming Liz, that’s another pretty surface reading of JMD. Two panels included in that link (if it works) are reused in Misery #4, even. Saying “it is important that Harry is schizophrenic” but also “um not in this context though” is to have my cake and eat it too, you know?
It is a painful phenomenon, especially IRL, that consequences for abuse or mistreatment only seem to stick to perpetrators who are vulnerable in some other way. It always feels bad in ways I don’t have answers to.
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I’m not gonna lie. This last issue put me down a little as a fan of this couple. However… Despite it’s true Harry’s behaviour wasn’t the best during his last time as GG, many others Spidey side characters relationships (and comics in general) were total messed up or even worse! (CoughNedBettycough,cough Flash and ShanShan cough) Speaking of this last one I totally despised how many ignored that Flash was a cheater and HIT directly ShanShan’s face when she confront him!
In case of Liz, she passed by a long phase of negation about Harry’s illness and subestimated how grave it was (thing that she recognized telling she was weak to deal with Osborn’s legacy, something that after Harry’s death not going to let her down again) as a result we had a Liz colder and rougher after Omd 😧
Off topic: I’m glad you’re back with your reviews 😉 and I’d like to know if you’ll post some thoughts about Spider-Man Lotus as your oppinion of Harry there.
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Thanks for commenting! :) Heh, I’m glad I’m back too!
I went back and read the comic containing the Flash/Sha Shan incident and WOW that’s uncomfortable reading. Especially when you take the racial aspects of it all into consideration. (In the same comic Hobgoblin goes out of his way to call Sha Shan unattractive, which just felt kinda weird and unnecessary) I wonder if it’ll ever be addressed again.
I probably won’t be doing Lotus because all the terrible goings-on behind the scenes really soured me on it. I always have my eyes open for other fan films starring Harry, though!
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:/ I feel like it’s not fair to act like everyone is ignoring Flash and ShaShan on purpose though? That’s from one random issue nobody likes and even the writers say was forced because of editorial meddling, and also Flash and ShaShan haven’t been together for 40 years. But the stuff in Misery was from a bunch of issues even ones that are recommended as having “good characterization”, and they were trying to get Harry/Liz back together super recently but still not talking about it. IDK it feels weirdly mean to go “well what about Flash” like it’s a contest
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I wasn’t trying to do this a contest :P Only to put that mostly of those couples had many issues and I wonder if at some point were questioned in the same way by her victims (like ShanShan) Even if the infamous issue you mentioned was forced(?) the truth is Flash cheating ShanShan was a thing long before and he wasn’t under the effects of any serum or mental control.
I don’t strictly follow Flash’s adventures, but I can remember he and ShanShan tried to get together, even when, again, he still was attached to Betty. Recently Ned and Betty are back together and even had a child, but some of tgeir issues seems to be complety ignored or forgotten too xP
Again, this is not a contest if that’s the impression you had. I feel complety valid and valuable that characters can reflex and think about the good and bad things of the past like Liz did here
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Overly Devoted Archivist:
I didn’t remember that part of Hobgoblin’s comment, but that part of Flash and ShanShan was so shocking and mean that stayed into my mind until today Dx
Oh, I see. I saw the movie knowing that was a fanfilm, and only later I knew about the controversies… It’s a shame cuz I think the film had potential, but the mess with several scenes didn’t give the best result. Anyways, I liked the idea they tried to put Harry having problems to deal with drugs, but again this wasn’t very well treated with so many other subplots and scenes.
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Poor Sha Shan! She goes through a lot of awful stuff. (Plus I’m not sure anyone really knew how to write her at the time.)
Yeah it was REALLY disappointing what happened with Lotus. It was just terrible revelations one after another when the film came out. But I have hope that someone will do a good fanfilm with Harry in it one of these day!
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[…] despite the rollercoaster of last issue, and the revisitation of the violence Harry inflicted on her, Liz sits up and listens at […]
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