Damn the Marvel machine.  I was completely uninterested in the "The List" one-offs as I have been completely over-saturated with Dark Reign. It is everywhere. I keep finding it scattered around the car and my house, like sand after a trip to the beach. Let's just give Osborn his comeuppance and move on, shall we? Then I saw some of the artists: Alan Davis, Ben Oliver, JRJ. Then I saw that the true first Daredevil Diggle story was going to be The List. And then I hear something major happened with Hawkeye/Ronin, so I grab that one, too. Before I know it, I have gotten almost all The List stories. And finally, can I pass up Spider-man vs. Green Goblin? Crap.

This story pays off a couple of minor Spidey/Osborn plotlines from the past year, so it does tie in with the ASM, but I strongly doubt you need to read it for anything happening in ASM. If you are looking for a little Osborn getting what is coming for him there is some of that in here. We will have to see how important it actually ends up being to the whole Dark Reign storyline. It could be a key first piece of Osborn's downfall or it could be mostly ignored. At no point was this story all that surprising -- both the twists and ending were fairly easily forseeable -- but it does have some nice moments. It is certainly not the big, final smackdown, which I can only assume will come from the combined punches of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Spider-man all at once knocking Norman into a giant Oscorp Food Processor (The OsCoMatic). Then the Hulk drinks him. You read it here first.

Peter's victory is a bit more subtle and comes with a big self-righteous speech. If you put yourself in the right frame of mind it is fun and slightly cathartic, as the good guys at last win one. It might be important to the resolution of Dark Reign, but I think a one sentence summary of what happened will probably contain all the info people will really need from this issue. The story is solid, but nothing special. And seriously, what kind of magic is Spidey using to keep his identity secret (seriously, I think they have hinted that it IS magic)? He is definitely edging into Superman/Clark Kent glasses territory lately.  

As an odd choice for a back-up story they chose a Spidey/Goblin/Alias/Cage story from 5 years ago. This was not only strange because it mostly focused on Alias and Cage, but because it reinforced the biggest continuity problem caused by Osborn's rise to power. A mere year ago (Marvel-time) Osborn was outed as the Green Goblin and connected to a grisly series of murders. I don't care if the Thunderbolts personally saved the president while Osborn blew up the Skrull homeworld on live TV. The public can't forget that only a year ago he was a vicious, crazy killer -- red, white, and blue armor or not.  This is the sort of story that Marvel should be pretending doesn't exist. Pretend Osborn was never conclusively linked to the Goblin or that it was ancient history. Don't broadcast in loud "The List" fashion that the Marvel Universe makes no sense.

I mean, it doesn't. It is a comic book world. But no reason to rub our noses in it.