Harry Osborn in Cult of Carnage: Misery #5

If you’re wondering why I didn’t do this post earlier, I had Covid! Yep, I read Misery #5 in a haze of Covid. It gave me exactly what I wanted, which was Liz vs Lily! But I was sort of left with a feeling of oh, that’s it?

Big shout out to the cover artist Skan though! I love this cover!

So, onto our story. Lily wants her son back and she’ll stop at nothing to get him.

LILY: And yet he calls you Aunt Liz... Because he knows you're not his mother.

Don’t worry, Liz. The Spiderverse is full of women who are called “aunt” by the children in their lives but are really more like mothers.

Liz’s choice to raise Stanley post-Harry’s death has never actually been explored until now, I think. Raising a child that age is incredibly difficult as a single parent with another child in tow, but she did it anyway.

(Thanks God she didn’t give him to Norman to raise.)

Liz asks the very fair question of why her husband had a secret phone with another woman on the other end, and Lily explains where she’s been all this time.

But how has she regained her memories? Lily isn’t saying exactly.

LILY: Not that it matters. I'm better now. I bet that's all Harry wanted. To know I was okay. And if he didn't tell you about me, it was probably out of respect for my privacy. Not some slight against you. LILY: Harry had his issues... We all do. But he was a good person. And he loved you. LIZ: Why are you helping me?

“If he didn’t tell you about me, it was probably out of respect for my privacy. Not some slight against you,” Lily tells Liz. “Harry had his issues… We all do. But he was a good person. And he loved you.”

And despite the rollercoaster of last issue, and the revisitation of the violence Harry inflicted on her, Liz sits up and listens at that.

LILY: You're important to Stanley. Just because I want to be back in my son's life doesn't mean I want to erase you from it. LIZ: I appreciate that, but I'm not letting you anywhere near him. LILY: I get it. I wasn't fit to be Stanley's mother before. But I got better. Isn't that what you live for, to give people second chances? After all, Mark Raxton's still an uncle to Normie, isn't he? LIZ: That's different. What you're asking for - you'd be disrupting Stanley's life. He doesn't even know you. LILY: You can't keep him safe, Liz. He's been attacked twice this month alone. And I've seen other things... dangers, lurking so obviously close to you, and you have no idea they exist because you're not paying attention. LIZ: What are you talking about?

Lily makes the reasonable suggestion that both she AND Liz should be in Stanley’s life. Alas, this is another scene in this miniseries that falls completely flat when we remember that Amazing Spider-Man and all related titles have completely forgiven Norman for his child abuse, murder and war crimes, and show him looking after Stanley and Normie, unsupervised, all the time.

(This inevitably leads us to: Wait, a Black single mother with a bad past can’t get custody of her child, but the child’s white grandfather with a far far worse past can? This would be a really great piece of social commentary if it was intentional, but I don’t think it was.)

Lily implies that something out there is looking for Stanley, but Liz thinks her new powers can keep him safe.

A few pages later…

Doesn’t this remind you of something?!

Those wacky Osborns, always getting impaled on things. (Apologies for randomly throwing the most insulting Harry story in existence back into your face there.)

Lily is actually fine! But we don’t learn that until the end of the issue. First, Liz defeats her enemy Madness and then Carlton Drake, who has something interesting to say to her:

DRAKE: Others would be tempted to say that you have changed, Liz Allan. That this is the symbiote talking, not poor sweet Liz. She'd never threaten to kill someone as a business maneuver. But I know the real you. You really were the perfect fit for Harry Osborn, because you're just as twisted as he was.

Does anyone else remember when Liz captured and experimented on her son’s best friend, Eddie Brock’s son Dylan?! I was wondering if that would come up in this miniseries but it didn’t.

A week later Liz puts an end to all symbiote experiments at Alchemax Labs, and then she goes to visit Harry’s grave and Peter joins her there.

What date is it though? The anniversary of Harry’s death? Ur… which one?

This conversation between Peter and Liz is a great one, and should’ve happened many years ago! Also, this probably isn’t intentional, but the last panel there reminds me of Harry’s Spider-Man 3 death scene.

But, sorry to keep harping on about this point, it just feels off when considering where we are with Norman in these comics, you know? Everyone, Peter and Liz included, haven’t just forgiven him for what he did to them (and what he did to Harry! Peter should know Norman sold Harry’s soul to the devil!) but have seemingly forgotten. It’s so bizarre.

Anyway, back to Lily.

Wait is that-?! That’s KOLINA! From Revenge of the Green Goblin! (Here’s her bio on the Marvel fandom wiki) She’s the one after Stanley? Her and the Scriers? Aw cool! I can’t wait to see where this goe-

Aw crap.

Well, hopefully this all will find its way into another comic and I can see where it all ends up. What I would really love to see is Lily and Liz working together against Kolina. (Okay, what I would really love to see is a resurrected Harry fighting his dad, but we can probably assume that won’t happen any time soon.) Depending on how it goes, perhaps the two of them can team up as superheroes, Misery and Queen Cat. After all… Misery loves company. (Yeah, I’ve been waiting a while to make that joke.)

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