University of Panels

4: Green Goblin

(Norman Osborn)

 

The most well-known of all Spider-Man villains, the Green Goblin is the one that has brought the most pain to wall crawler's life. The Goblin killed Peter's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, inspired his best friend Harry Osborn to carry on his father's mantle, was behind the events of one of comic's most infamous events (THE CLONE SAGA), concieved two twins with Gwen in an attempt to corrupt what was left of Gwen's legacy, and took over all of New York's criminal empire when Octavius took on the role as the Superior Spider-Man. 

 

Yep... the Green Goblin certainly has affected Spidey on a personal level on more than one occassion. However, a problem I always had with the mainstream version of his character was that he lacked a clear motivation. While his backstory as a corrupt business man was definetly interesting, it seemed that all he cared about was bringing devestation to Peter's life, as well as forming his own criminal empire. While I still enjoyed his character, this did leave little room for making him three-dimensional, which is why I actually prefer his incarnation in the Ultimate Marvel Universe over his mainstream counterpart. In that version the Green Goblin is actually provided justification for his need to go after Spider-Man. In the Ultimate Universe, Norman Osborn was the one behind Spider-Man's creation as his company Oscorp had developed a drug known as "Oz" in an attempt to recreate the supersoldier serum which gave birth to Captain America. One of the first subjects he tested the drug on was a spider, which had escaped confinement and bit young high school student Peter Parker who was on a class field trip. Seeing how the Oz had given Peter the enhanced abilities of a spider, Osborn attempted to use the drug on himself, but in the process, turned himself into a goblin-like monster. Osborn destroyed the lab and killed his wife and attempted to kill his son Harry in order to erase all traces of his previous life. He soon attacked Peter's high school, where he faced off with Spider-Man in a battle that ended up with him supposedly drowning in the East River. Osborn returned to haunt Peter's life again on more than one occasion, m blackmailing the wall crawler into working for him or else he would kill Aunt May and Mary Jane.

 

The Green Goblin in the Ultimate Marvel Universe is actually provided justification for going after Spider-Man, as he believes that he owns Peter Parker. Both of them have the Oz formula running in their blood, as the spider that bit Peter had been injected with the same drug that made Osborn the Green Goblin. He believed that he owned Peter as they shared the same genetic code, and as such, felt he had the right to blackmail Peter and make him his personal slave. This made Spidey's conflict with the Goblin more personal as he had the ability to hurt Peter's loved one's whenever he wanted, as demonstrated when he threw MJ off the Queensborough Bridge when Spider-Man refused to kill Nick Fury for him. Also, this version of the Goblin is cooler as rather than wearing a Goblin costume that looks silly when you really think about it, he's an actual monster with a hulk-like body and possesses the ability to channel fire. Not only does it look cooler, but it also makes him all the more scary!