| “ | Addresses for half a dozen goblin hideouts across the city! Norman set himself up to be a one-goblin crime wave. | „ |
| ~ Wow Gobby, you are one twisted f-ck. |
"You think I'm in this for the money?"
Wow. just when I thought Hobby would be the last PE proposal from this series, it's surprising how quickly your word can change with new evidence. I have not 1 but 2 proposals: Green Goblin and his alternate reality counterpart from the 90s animated Spider-Man series. Once again, I must copy and paste.
What is the Work?[]
Spider-Man: The Animated Series is a TV show about our favorite wall-crawler that ran from 1994 to 1998. It follows Peter Parker's life post-high school where he is trying to juggle living his everyday life, working at the Daily Bugle, trying to find a romantic relationship, and fighting crime as Spider-Man. Sometimes, his two lives overlap, and it takes a toll on him. But our hero always triumphs.
Who are they? What have they done?[]
Green Goblin is an evil split persona created by accident from Norman Osborn's chemical weapon exploding.
Prime Goblin[]
Upon his birth, the first thing Gobby does is kidnap 6 of the board members who wanted to shut Norman's career down. When he kidnaps one of them, Anastasia Hardy, Spider-Man tries to stop, so Goblin takes her daughter Felicia and throws them both off his glider, forcing Spider-Man to save one. He saves Felica, and Goblin takes Anastasia for himself. He later takes Mary Jane Watson hostage for simply invading his whereabouts to get more info on him. He then has all 7 of them held hostage in his own underground lair, where Spider-Man tracks them down. They engage in a fight, and Goblin destroys the place, which would drown out all of his victims if Spider-Man hadn't saved them. As he and Spider-Man continue to fight, the effects of the chemicals wear off, and Norman passes out without any memory of the Goblin. He is then saved by Spider-Man with the help of his son, Harry Osborn, who all manage to escape before the hideout drowns out.
The Goblin remains dormant for a while until Hobgoblin poses a threat to Wilson Fisk, which prompts Fisk to press Norman for info on Hobby's true identity. Norman gives in once Fisk threatens to kill Harry, and tells him to meet him at Oscorp. However, when he gets there, the Green Goblin begins to take Norman's psych over against his will. The Goblin ambushes Fisk's whereabouts and seeks to kill Hobgolbin because he feels there can only be "one true goblin" in the world. As he is trying to kill Hobgoblin, Hobbie escapes through a portal he makes with his Time Dilation Accelerator. However, Gobbie knows where Hobgoblin lives and breaks into his house, taking both him and his fiance Felicia Hardy, hostage. At his hideout, Goblin hangs both of his victims above a vat of acid, and nearly melts them both, in addition to Spider-Man when the latter arrives to stop them. Spider-Man manages to save everyone, and Gobbie uses the accelerator to escape despite its malfunction.
One episode later, Green Goblin makes Norman Osborn create a more advanced version of the accelerator while ignoring Norman's warning that it could be dangerous for them both. He later ambushes a truck full of money, endangering both of the drivers, just so he can get Spider-Man's attention. This proves a success, and Goblin begins using his accelerator to toy with Spider-Man's spider-sense. Spider-Man goes to an ally and takes off his mask as Goblin watches him from the top of a building, thus discovering his foe's secret identity. He is left insulted about who his adversary is, while Norman shows hesitation to further pursue him due to him being Harry's friend. However, Goblin manipulates him into believing that he's only using Harry to get to him.
Goblin remains active and, disguised as Norman, has Harry invite Peter over for dinner, where he intends to expose his secret in front of almost everyone he knows. Peter catches wind of this and creates an explosion that drives everyone out before Gobbie can do so, thus driving everyone out except for goblin himself. Peter and Goblin both engage in a fight where Goblin nearly kills him, however Peter gains the upper hand as Spider-Man. Goblin then decides he hasn't hurt Peter enough and decides to go after Aunt May. When Spider-Man beats him to May's house, Gobbie changes his mind and decides to go to Mary Jane's instead. He kidnaps her and takes her to the George Washington bridge, where he and Norman briefly fight over each other's psyche, which gives Spider-Man the upper hand. As Norman is left dangling from the bridge, Spider-Man saves him, but Goblin takes him over and tries to kill the spider once more. He later throws one of his pumpkin bombs at him which blows up the top of the bridge, causing his accelerator to momentarily create a portal that MJ falls into. Enraged by what Goblin had done, even the goodhearted Spider-Man contemplates letting Goblin get sucked into limbo through an unstable portal, but only tries to save him for Norman's sake. Once more the Goblin takes over Norman's psyche so he can use his glider to knock the spider into limbo with him. However, Spider-Man averts the glider, which causes it to permanently knock Goblin into limbo by himself.
As time passes, Goblin is somehow able to communicate with Norman's son Harry, manipulating the boy into becoming the new Green Goblin as well as trying to kill Spider-Man in exchange for bring Norman back. In order to find Harry, Peter discovers a secret hideout in Norman's mansion and hacks into his laptop. It is at this moment that Goblin crosses past standard villainy. It is revealed that before his imprisonment Goblin kept various tech arsenals hidden throughout the city with the intent of becoming a "one goblin crime wave", this indicating that he planned to destroy New York if he hadn't been trapped in limbo. Goblin continues to belittle Harry and use him as his ploy before Punisher and Spider-Man stop the boy. However before they do, Goblin reveals himself as Norman to Harry, making it clear that Norman is completely gone and that he never intended to bring Harry his father back. Harry Osborn's sanity is slightly brought back to normal when he sees Mary Jane (whom we all know to be a clone created by Miles Warren).
Harry seems to be recovering at Ravencroft Institute until he discovers that "MJ" and Peter are getting married. Goblin returns in Harry's visions momentarily and once again manipulates the boy, convincing him to use his strength to escape. Harry succeeds and Goblin convinces him to sell his weapons and company to Alistor Smythe and Silvermane, so they may use them against the Kingpin. Goblin is of course uncaring of the fact that this would start a gang war and risk innocent lives. Under the goblin's orders, Harry supplies Smythe with an army of robots and uses them to ambush Peter and MJ at their wedding, putting several innocent lives at risk. Thankfully, Liz Allen manages to appeal to Harry's good graces, and the Goblin's reign of terror comes to an end.
Earth-98311[]
Now on Earth-98311, Green Goblin teams up with Hobgoblin in aiding Spider-Carnage in his quest to destroy New York, and actually succeeding in bringing it down to hell on earth, there's damaged buildings, death and destruction everywhere. As I described in my proposal for Spider-Carnage, it's been turned into a wasteland. When the goblins break into the Daily Bugle, Hobgoblin threatens to drop Robbie Robertson, J. Jonah Jameson's friend and coworker, to his death if he doesn't help them break the security system to retrieve some equipment to help build Spider-Carnage's machine-which they believe is meant to brainwash the entire world, which of course we know is a lie as Spider-Carnage just wants to destroy all of reality.
When J.J gives in to their demands in hopes of saving Robbie, Hobgoblin drops the poor man to his seeming death anyways while Green Goblin forces him to watch, but is thankfully saved by prime Spider-Man. Prime Spider-Man jumps into the building to stop them, but Green Goblin kidnaps Jameson and orders Hobgoblin to "finish the job" who detonates a bomb before leaving, which blows up the Bugle and almost kills Spider-Man.
After that, he and the Green Goblin don't do too much on their own except near the end of the episode, where they try to kill Prime Spiderman and the ones from other worlds once they ambush Kingpin's whereabouts.
Mitigating Factors[]
Prime[]
Here's the thing that made me hesitant to propose the Goblin for a while, the main thing being that Green Goblin supposedly had moral agency issues due to being a personality born from Norman's formula. Here's the thing, there's no evidence to suggest the drugs somehow cloud Goblin's judgment or compel him to do evil against his will. He's not a robot. In fact, throughout the show he makes it clear that his motives lie with the fact that he wants to be the "one true goblin", thus solidifying his ego and being his main drive behind why he does what he does. Despite his insanity, it's clear he knows what hurts people, who goes after Spider-Man's loved ones to hurt him, uses Norman's son to manipulate him into compliance, and he lies that he will bring Norman back should he aid him in his plans.
Now another factor is Goblin's supposed care for Harry and Norman. However, both of these factors fall flat. Despite claiming he wants to help Norman as well as earn his approval, he constantly belittles him and looks down on him, and eventually destroys the Norman persona so he may remain in control, and throughout the show he denies that he is Norman and that he is his own character and own person, which further proves his moral agency. And he clearly doesn't care for Harry. Much like with Norman, he constantly belittles the boy and very nearly breaks his sanity completely. He also falsely promised him that he would let him see his father again, which he clearly never intended.
Earth-98311[]
None. While the goblin does what he does under Spider-Carnage's orders, he clearly chooses to do so of his own volition and takes great pleasure in destroying New York City. Spider-Carnage did not force him into it. And much like Hobgoblin, he shows no evidence he cares for the other. In fact it's even more obvious with him. Green Goblin tells him he make a "real Goblin" out of Hobgoblin and once Hobgoblin is subdued by the Spider-Man, Green is enraged at the Hobgoblin's "bumbling" and blames him for their attack, not caring about what happened to him.
Heinous Standard[]
Prime[]
Obviously Green has some stiff competition with other PEs in the series, but like with Hobgoblin, he lacks certain resources such as Cletus' symbiote powers as well as Baron Mordo and Dormammu's demonic magic. I think what particularly helped him stand out was his plan to destroy New York City in a "one-goblin crime wave". Not to mention he tried to kill 7 people, endangered several others, risked a gang war, and endangered several people at a wedding. And he would have succeeded if it hadn't been for Spider-Man's meddling. While his plans for mass populicide may not seem quite as grand scale compared to Herbert Landon's attempted genocide, I feel his more active role in trying to kill people, as well as how he personally affected Spider-Man by entrapping MJ in limbo adds some extra spice to his evil. Also, there's no need to even consider Norman. His most heinous actions are from the Green Goblin forcing or manipulating him into them, and all the stuff Norman ever did prior to goblin was usually to protect his son.
Earth-98311[]
Again he may not have been aware of Spider-Carnage's true plans but he still willingly complied in destroying New York City and thus created one of the darkest episodes of the show. This imo allows him to stand out alongside Hobgoblin.
Conlusion[]
I'd give both of these bad goblins a Yes.