Who should be Spider-Man's MCU Arch-Nemesis? Green Goblin or Doc Ock?

... I'd rather have it be Osborn who is the arch-foe but I suspect next up will be a "mind switch" storyline so Norman can ruin Peter's life further, and I'm not feeling that at all.. :(

Just decided to read through this topic and I have some things to say.

For one, in an ideal world, I'd choose Norman Osborn/Green Goblin as Spider-Man's core MCU nemesis. I'd portray both sides of him from the insane Goblin to the more calculating Osborn, head of H.A.M.M.E.R. who goes on to directly or indirectly antagonize other heroes and just make things harder in general, but in the end Spider-Man still is the one who ultimately defeats him. I like the idea, a rumor presented before, that they'd wait a bit on having the next overarching big bad of the franchise after Thanos, who many (myself included) believe will be Doctor Doom, and instead do a mini-arc for Earth MCU and another for Cosmic until then. The rumor went that Norman Osborn would be the big bad of Earth MCU, and Annihilus would be the big bad of Cosmic MCU. It looks like that didn't happen, but it's a cool idea.

While, yes, Osborn and Goblin had been done before in the first Spider-Man movie, that is not, in any way, a reason why he can't be used again. Especially since that movie was such a long time ago, and a wealth of stories have been told since (him graduating from Spidey's corner to General MU villain for one) and that the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe setting itself would lend itself to new stuff you can do with both Goblin and Osborn. Not to mention that the way the MCU is structured is way different, he wouldn't die at the end of his debut, but rather he'd be an ongoing villain and threat, kinda like Loki in that regard.

Plus, as cool as he was in SM1, I'd like to see the MCU take on his Goblin suit if only because he looked like a Power Rangers villain there and I feel the MCU costume could look better while still faithful.

The reason we don't have Goblin is most likely because of the Marvel/Sony partnership, and that Sony still holds the movie rights which they can yank from them, which they did once before. They can't tie the MCU storyline to a lynchpin that can be removed at any given moment, because that could spell disaster. That's also probably why very little of the MCU actually hinges on the Spider-Man mythos, because they can't risk making anything too important. If they fully owned the rights, yeah, different story, but until that day comes it's what we must accept.

Finally, having read through the topic, I have to say Jack is right and this coming from someone who's still able to enjoy the MCU Spider-Man movies despite my personal gripes.

The main issue with Iron Man being Spider-Man's mentor, father figure and role model, is that it has little basis in the canon itself, and going before 2005, none at all. Before the New Avengers run by Bendis, Iron Man and Spider-Man had practically nothing to do with each other. At best, they've teamed up on several occasions to fight bad guys, such as in Marvel Team-Up, Spidey guesting on the Avengers, or some event where numerous heroes joined forces. At best, you could say they had a "professional" relationship, in that they can work together as superheroes for a task, but outside of it they weren't friends at all. Why would they be? Tony's a wealthy billionaire industrialist bankrolling the Avengers, and Peter is a working class individual who remains a solo hero associated with, but rarely actually a part of, any team he works with.

Granted, I did say [I]before[/I] 2005, which yes Bendis gave more to the idea of Tony and Peter being close partners and friends, with Peter moving alongside Aunt May and MJ to Avengers Tower and Spidey initially fighting for Iron Man's side in the Civil War. So yes, on a very technical level, Tony being a mentor to Peter has some level of basis. But the funny thing is that it did not end amicably, at all. Spidey turned on Iron Man in the Civil War when he learned of the Negative Zone, leading to a brawl and Spidey switching sides. That was the end of that. That was also seen as a high point of an otherwise very divisive event, so in other words Tony and Peter's most iconic interaction was them at each other's throats. Just look and see for yourself.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/RlOd9Id.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/rRVk6aH.jpg[/img]

This kind of contrasts the whole "Mr. Stark" attitude of the MCU if you ask me.

Overall, it's very random to do, and only serves in the favor of the established MCU rather than Spider-Man. Imagine when they introduce Ms. Marvel, what with Kamala being like a modern, gender-inverted Spidey archetype, but they have her be guided by Black Panther of all people, and that's the defining part of her characterization, to the point where she's cleaning up his messes and fighting villains somehow connected to him and Wakanda. T'Challa and Kamala have nothing to do with each other, and about as much as Tony and Peter in most cases.

Which brings me the point where Tony as Peter's mentor just makes no sense and almost seems fanfictiony, had it not been for the fact that Tony was the crown jewel of the MCU. Iron Man's place in the Spider-Man movies was just off, and I felt uncomfortable with how Tony both talked down on him and Peter just quietly accepted it. We never had a scene where Peter calls him out, and optionally, kicks him through a wall when Tony takes it too far. MCU Peter would never do that.

Also consider that David Michelinie, the definitive Iron Man writer who essentially made Iron Man what we know, eventually wrote Spider-Man for a very good run of his own. He could've easily introduced Iron Man as a major character in his Spider-Man run, like how many writers bring back elements of their past work, and probably do so more organically. He [I]didn't[/I]. The reason why is simple: Tony and Peter have nothing to do with each other, and he knew it.

I think I've gone on long enough but I hope this was informative. Yeah, I may be bumping this up after a month, but what I read was so interesting I had to chime in and hope to contribute to a renewed discussion.

[QUOTE=Hybrid;4894827]I think I've gone on long enough but I hope this was informative. Yeah, I may be bumping this up after a month, but what I read was so interesting I had to chime in and hope to contribute to a renewed discussion.[/QUOTE]

COVID-19 being what it is, reviving old discussions is about all we can do going forward.

I mean the virus has shut down the movie industry. That means no new deals, no new pitches and ideas. All productions cancelled. And with no idea when it would be revived. So that means that when the crisis abates, everyone will have to start from square one. That includes Tom Holland's third Spider-Man movie. That is unless Feige and others find a way to make the next movies remotely or do it entirely on closed sets and green-screen the way they are doing WWE. The current crisis means no extras, no location shooting, small crews and most digital VFX people working at home where the high level digital work they are doing is going to tax the electrical supply of their homes and where the use of internet for communication means vulnerability to viruses and hacks on the public as opposed to the protected servers they use at offices.

That also means that the speculation we had before is meaningless. Pre-COVID, the MCU had a wide-open future where all ideas and concepts are on the table. Post-COVID, the MCU can no longer claim the world to be their oyster. Right now, streaming is most important. And Disney Plus' big streaming projects (Falcon and Winter Soldier, loki, WandaVision) were mid-production so Disney Plus cannot air them now. Which means that Disney Plus has a dearth of content unlike Netflix who have a big backlog and hoard of stuff a lot of people haven't seen and you can sustain yourself on Netflix for the next six months or year or so during the quarantine and still not see it all. So Disney Plus have lost the streaming war, through no fault of their own. When things return to normal, assuming there's still a movie industry (theatrical distribution is almost certainly going to be wiped out for good during the quarantine), the MCU will be in a very conservative and reactionary place, since they would have to recover quick and recover fast, if they can indeed recover at all. The likelihood of their productions picking up right where they left off is impossible. So a lot of the productions and movies that are now cancelled, are most likely going to stay cancelled, or at best converted into made-for-TV one-offs. The actors who signed up and signed on will all be in a different head-space.

So whether Doctor Doom will be the Big Bad? Norman Osborn? And so on? We can kiss that goodbye. This even applies to stuff I am looking forward to like ITSV-2. That can will be kicked forward indefinitely. When the crisis abates, you are going to be looking at essentially a ground-up rebooting of the entire movie industry, heck of society overall.

I wonder if COVID-19 will make Sony/Marvel partial to adapting Spider-Island next, or if COVID-19 means that Spider-Island with its cosier, and jokier attitude to a viral infection that gives everyone in NY spider-powers...will now never be adapted in any shape or form? Much in the way that 90s style disaster movies imagining the destruction of NY landmarks (Independence Day, Armageddon) went passe when 9/11 happened. I mean the Avengers Endgame and Spider-Man FFH skirting off a five-year post-apocalyptic world that magically seems to reset is a little disingenuous now. I can't imagine people suggesting a leap that bold after we live through our own equivalent of the "snap" or "blip".

Yeah, the COVID-19 sucks and I wonder what things will look like by the time it ends. It's done nothing but make things miserable for all of us and it feels tiresome.

Anyways, what did you think of the points I made? It was an argument in response to the debate I saw you having with others, and it reminded me of people who defended it elsewhere. The main issue is that it's both antithetical to Spider-Man as we know, covered in detail before, and that it just has little to no basis in the canon of Marvel itself. Before 2005, how many times did Tony and Peter have any meaningful interactions? Probably not many. Even the basis it does have was short******d, and not seen as a high point for either of them, apart from Spidey calling Iron Man out for a being a fascist of course (which doesn't really support the MCU version). So I doubt that had much to do with it, but was just something created whole cloth.

At the end of the day, Tony as Peter's mentor, father figure and role model was more likely done out of brand reasons first and foremost. As in, Iron Man is what started the MCU and is their signature IP, so Spidey taking after him so much in his narrative was to help to further reinforce that idea. It feels a bit ridiculous when we have two major villains, two iconic Spider-Man villains, that were rewritten to have been connected to Stark. It makes Spidey look like someone cleaning up his messes he left behind, a janitor. Spider-Man's villains are not just iconic, but they're his own. Sure there are examples of Spidey fighting other people's villains and taking in outside elements, but those are the exception, and furthermore, are done more organically than here.

Not only that but his rogues are so iconic, that other heroes often fight them because of the recognition. Think like Sandman to the FF, Rhino to Hulk, Kingpin to Daredevil, Beetle to Iron Man, Kraven to Black Panther, and recently, Shocker to Kamala Khan. The bottom line is that it's rather funny to see Spidey's rogues tied to Iron Man, with their beef mainly with them and Spidey just being in the way, when in the comics it's more the reverse if such a thing happened, as many heroes often pull from Spidey's rogues because many of them are just so much fun to watch and interesting. All the while, Iron Man's rogues are infamously lackluster, apart from a few exceptions, yet they tie many things to him at the expense of others, which is especially true for Spider-Man.

[QUOTE=Hybrid;4895408]Yeah, the COVID-19 sucks and I wonder what things will look like by the time it ends. It's done nothing but make things miserable for all of us and it feels tiresome.

Anyways, what did you think of the points I made? It was an argument in response to the debate I saw you having with others, and it reminded me of people who defended it elsewhere. The main issue is that it's both antithetical to Spider-Man as we know, covered in detail before, and that it just has little to no basis in the canon of Marvel itself. Before 2005, how many times did Tony and Peter have any meaningful interactions? Probably not many. Even the basis it does have was short******d, and not seen as a high point for either of them, apart from Spidey calling Iron Man out for a being a fascist of course (which doesn't really support the MCU version). So I doubt that had much to do with it, but was just something created whole cloth.

At the end of the day, Tony as Peter's mentor, father figure and role model was more likely done out of brand reasons first and foremost. As in, Iron Man is what started the MCU and is their signature IP, so Spidey taking after him so much in his narrative was to help to further reinforce that idea. It feels a bit ridiculous when we have two major villains, two iconic Spider-Man villains, that were rewritten to have been connected to Stark. It makes Spidey look like someone cleaning up his messes he left behind, a janitor. Spider-Man's villains are not just iconic, but they're his own. Sure there are examples of Spidey fighting other people's villains and taking in outside elements, but those are the exception, and furthermore, are done more organically than here.

Not only that but his rogues are so iconic, that other heroes often fight them because of the recognition. Think like Sandman to the FF, Rhino to Hulk, Kingpin to Daredevil, Beetle to Iron Man, Kraven to Black Panther, and recently, Shocker to Kamala Khan. The bottom line is that it's rather funny to see Spidey's rogues tied to Iron Man, with their beef mainly with them and Spidey just being in the way, when in the comics it's more the reverse if such a thing happened, as many heroes often pull from Spidey's rogues because many of them are just so much fun to watch and interesting. All the while, Iron Man's rogues are infamously lackluster, apart from a few exceptions, yet they tie many things to him at the expense of others, which is especially true for Spider-Man.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you about Iron Man being a lead balloon in the MCU Spider-Man.

I think the next Spider-Man movie, hopefully, moves past that. That will be released on streaming of course.

Norman Osborn seems like the perfect arch-nemesis for MCU Spider-Man, but I'm honestly not sure if I want to see him. Based on how the MCU treated Spider-Man so far, I feel like Norman would only double the Iron Man connection. He would constantly gaslight Peter about who is/isn't living up to Iron Man, and this Peter would naturally want to refute that with how great Tony was compared to Norman. It would be like the graveyard scene from FFH but on steroids. I could be wrong but that is honestly the most natural way to integrate Norman with MCU Spider-Man at this point.

It feels weird to say that including a hero's archenemy runs the risk of making that hero feel even less like who he normally is, but that is the weird situation the MCU is in now.

Honestly, THE MCU Spider-man's arch-nemesis is himself. He is his own worst enemy, because HE's so dependent on other heroes that he can't do anything independently for himself. This was one of my concerns when it was first annouced he was coming to the MCU, and lo and behold I was right to be concerned.

I mean think about it. As he is now if he went up against Doc Ock or Goblin he would absolutely get killed. Like instantly. The Disney spidey is the weakest incarnation of Spidey that I have ever seen.

Movie villains honestly shouldn't have arch-nemeses. It forces them to include them in multiple movies which is never a good thing rather than just letting their story arcs play out.

If I had to choose between the two, Doc Ock is way cooler, cinematically, than the Green Goblin, IMO.

But I'd rather they continue mining his rogues gallery for unexpected people that we haven't seen a lot of before (like they did with the Vulture and Mysterio) and use Kraven, Chameleon, Black Cat or someone similar, and not retread what we've already seen this generation.

Agree about Ock being cooler on screen than Goblin. Though Molina helped by not being in a Power Ranger suit.
They've also done the Goblin (kind of) twice with Harry too.

Kraven's Last Hunt is one of the beat Spidey stories off all time and I'd love to see that on screen. But you need to introduce him in a movie first. Much of the story is from his perspective and if the average audience have never seen him before they're gonna be like, whose this guy then. Plus Spidey is gonna need his Black Suit for the iconic grave Rising scene.

Black Cat Slott tried to make her a villain and she sucked at it. She's an anti hero/love interest, seeng as they've done MJ twice and Gwen it would be great to see Felicia on screen and let her have her turn

But for an overall MCU villain then they Dr Doom is the guy they should be using for that.

Hmmm it'll be a hard choice as they're both great spider-man villains. But for my own personal preferences, I would go with Doc Ock. I think he's a fantastic arch enemy for mcu spider-man.

You guys expectations for this franchise cause I highly doubt they will please you even if they tried. I dont see how they can set up a main arch nemesis anyway did they renew their contract yet? Also Goblin been done 2 times already you can give Doc Ock another shot or they can finally do what Sony wants and just get the Sinister Six an opportunity

[QUOTE=Jman27;5041245]You guys expectations for this franchise cause I highly doubt they will please you even if they tried. I dont see how they can set up a main arch nemesis anyway did they renew their contract yet? [/quote]

Agreed. I don't think they are going to bring Doctor Octopus or Green Goblin on-screen any time soon. Certainly not in the next movie.

I think the original plan they might have had would have introduced them when Tom Holland's Peter went to college.

[quote]Also Goblin been done 2 times already you can give Doc Ock another shot or they can finally do what Sony wants and just get the Sinister Six an opportunity[/QUOTE]

Yeah the set-up is leading to the Sinister Six and Doctor Octopus is the historical founder and leader of the Sinister Six. As for Green Goblin he will return when human cloning rises to the level they can clone young versions of Dafoe (because why mess with perfection).

Why not use some villains that haven't been done yet like Hammerhead or Tombstone ?