Is the Hobgoblin overrated as a villain?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

If you can have more than one Spider-Man, you can have more than one Goblin.

I can see Hobgoblin working as a Miles villain. They both have artistic tendencies like Peter and Norman have scientific tendencies. Both struggle with living in their predecessors' shadows.

[LordMikel]

If you can have more than one Spider-Man, you can have more than one Goblin.

I can see Hobgoblin working as a Miles villain. They both have artistic tendencies like Peter and Norman have scientific tendencies. Both struggle with living in their predecessors' shadows.

To go even one moire step, I wonder if a Hobgoblin League would work. We could get 3 or 4 Hobgoblins out there at any one time.

[Alan2099]

That's a good kind of villain to have, but the successor to the Green Goblin should have carried more gravitas than that.

Don't confuse what Green Goblin is now with what he was at the time.

Norman wasn't nearly the big deal back then that he is now. I'd say up until the clone saga saw the need to revive him, that his legacy was bigger than the character himself ever was.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Norman wasn't nearly the big deal back then that he is now. I'd say up until the clone saga saw the need to revive him, that his legacy was bigger than the character himself ever was.

Norman Osborn/Green Goblin made more more appearances than any other villain in the original Lee-Ditko run and featured heavily in many classic issues that were formative to emerging writers. Roger Stern and J. M. DeMatteis are both on record saying that ASM#39-40 "Green Goblin Unmasked" was their first Spider-Man comic. So he was always a huge deal, even before he killed Gwen Stacy, even before the Clone Saga. Green Goblin was intended to be and established by Lee and Ditko, Ditko especially, as Spider-Man's greatest enemy, and that was always true and that status is independent of him being tied to killing Gwen or anything. I mean the reason Conway and Romita chose Goblin to kill Gwen was that he was already established as Spider-Man's greatest enemy and they didn't think it was right for Gwen to die at the hands of the Gibbon.

I mean the fact is that Green Goblin's "death" did not lead to Doctor Octopus or other Spider-Man rogues suddenly being elevated to #1. It led to a series of pretenders out to fill the Batglider shaped hole in the Rogues Gallery. When someone else took #1, it was Venom, an entirely new villain as opposed to someone established.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Norman definitely benefitted from a spam of good stories he got between the Clone Saga and the late 2010's. He also had two very successful adaptations (Raimi and The Spectacular Spider-Man's).

While he was always Spider-Man's #1, he was arguably not seen as menacing as he is today. There is also more of an understanding of why he is Spider-Man's #1 than from before he was resurrected.

[Lee]

Don't confuse what Green Goblin is now with what he was at the time.

Norman wasn't nearly the big deal back then that he is now. I'd say up until the clone saga saw the need to revive him, that his legacy was bigger than the character himself ever was.

He was depicted as the most slick and cunning of Spider-Man's villains in the Ditko era, the one who always managed to get away. Macendale was more of an Electro or Sandman type, a dangerous thug who wants respect, but not a slick schemer.

[Triniking1234]

Hobgoblin is OK but the dude actually being some random business man with crap setup doesn't work.

I was introduced to Hobs in the 90s cartoon and they ended up using Macandale which works since it's just some merc who went mad with power and decided to overthrow Kingpin and Osborn.

[Pav]

To go even one moire step, I wonder if a Hobgoblin League would work. We could get 3 or 4 Hobgoblins out there at any one time.

I've long thought something similar should be done with the Jack O'Lantern identity, but a Hobgoblin Gang could be cool.

Hobgoblin is OK but the dude actually being some random business man with crap setup doesn't work.

I was introduced to Hobs in the 90s cartoon and they ended up using Macandale which works since it's just some merc who went mad with power and decided to overthrow Kingpin and Osborn.

The problem with Kingsley is that his character really makes no sense -- a fashion designer who decides to become a flying supervillain? The menace emanating from a mysterious Hobby hasn't carried over when we know that Kingsley has long been the mastermind of the Hobby identity.

The problem with Macandale is he has no real character, no real motive -- especially in terms of being meaningful to Peter Parker's life. He had a cool look and that was about it. I wouldn't mind seeing him return, but not as the sole Hobgoblin.

Honestly? My favorite version is Phil Urich as the Hobgoblin, specifically in the initial Big Time run during those first stories where Slott was 100% going for a "Spider-Man: the Animated Series" feel with the likes of Kingpin and Hobby being prominent. I don't necessarily prefer Phil as a straight-up villain; I'd much rather see him as kind of a "chaotic neutral" character who doesn't do evil stuff but definitely isn't costuming up to save lives: even when he was a "hero" in his original series, he admitted a lot of his actions were just for kicks. Regardless, I think Phil works as a lone player who's hard for others to handle because he's so chaotic and youthfully naive. He provides an incredibly different goblin from Norman to the point where both could exist without stepping on each other's toes in Spidey's rogues gallery, which I don't think can be said for Kingsley. In fact, I can imagine stories where -- despite their adversarial relationship -- Peter and Phil team-up to take on Norman. That'd be pretty great.

Of course, I may be biased: the Scarlet Spider-Green Goblin two-part team-up against Joystick in '95 remains my favorite team-up to this day.

Plus, I always loved the Lunatic Laugh.

-Pav, who liked the flame sword too...

[Mistah K88]

The problem with Kingsley is that his character really makes no sense -- a fashion designer who decides to become a flying supervillain? The menace emanating from a mysterious Hobby hasn't carried over when we know that Kingsley has long been the mastermind of the Hobby identity.

The problem with Macandale is he has no real character, no real motive -- especially in terms of being meaningful to Peter Parker's life. He had a cool look and that was about it. I wouldn't mind seeing him return, but not as the sole Hobgoblin.

...Hmm, you know the only thing that made sense with Kingsley as he was was the fact that he was wealthy, and the Hobgoblin's costume alterations...but once you get past that, everything starts to fall apart. This man had no expertise in chemistry...and while he was a crooked businessman, his specific niche didn't make all that much sense in what he was doing. I think the leasing of super villain identities actually made more sense with what we've known about ol' Roddy.

It makes sense that when we've seen Kingsley adapted to other media (the man behind the mask, not the Hobgoblin), they tried to connect some dots so it'd be a cleaner transition. He was a perfume mogul rather than fashion, implying he had SOME chemistry acumen. He was interested in organized crime (which is why he was bidding with crime bosses; something Peter notes didn't make sense), and got screwed over by Norman at the end (which can add some kind of personal grudge). To this day I'm wondering how that mess of a identity crisis would have been streamlined.

[David Walton]

I do prefer DeFalco's take with Richard Fisk being Hobgoblin and Ned Leeds as the Rose.

I've never minded the idea of Leeds as Hobgoblin, either. I think the Rose is a better fit but either way it makes sense that Leeds' crime reporting might lead him to believe it really does pay.

As far as the Hobgoblin being a saner contrast to Norman Osborn, I think that was never meant to be taken as gospel but more Hobby's ego talking. Taking up the Goblin persona clearly wasn't a sane decision, and his madness became more apparent as time went on. In the beginning he was really in pretty much the same place as Norman was, using the Goblin identity to take over the underworld. It was only after repeated frustrations that Norman became obsessed with Spider-Man, especially when their connection became personal. But until readers knew that Norman had something of a split personality, he was considered perfectly sane too (relatively speaking, in a world where taking on a costumed persona isn't that odd).

So really, the only big difference is that Stern was setting up the twist that this Goblin has no personal connection to Peter Parker (with readers naturally suspecting it would be someone like Ned Leeds or Lance Bannon whom Peter knew).

[Revolutionary_Jack]

...Hmm, you know the only thing that made sense with Kingsley as he was was the fact that he was wealthy, and the Hobgoblin's costume alterations...but once you get past that, everything starts to fall apart. This man had no expertise in chemistry...and while he was a crooked businessman, his specific niche didn't make all that much sense in what he was doing. I think the leasing of super villain identities actually made more sense with what we've known about ol' Roddy.

It makes sense that when we've seen Kingsley adapted to other media (the man behind the mask, not the Hobgoblin), they tried to connect some dots so it'd be a cleaner transition. He was a perfume mogul rather than fashion, implying he had SOME chemistry acumen. He was interested in organized crime (which is why he was bidding with crime bosses; something Peter notes didn't make sense), and got screwed over by Norman at the end (which can add some kind of personal grudge). To this day I'm wondering how that mess of a identity crisis would have been streamlined.

A lot of that can be traced to Roger Stern. Stern created Kingsley as a throwaway character in his run on Spectacular Spider-Man before he worked on ASM. In Kingsley's original story he was an unsympathetic scummy fashion designer who was being targeted for revenge by Belladona after he swindled her inventions. The25n Stern worked on ASM and he decided to create a new mystery villain and he said that when he created Hobgoblin in his first issues he didn't have an identity in mind. But as he wrote it, he felt that Hobgoblin's voice was most like Kingsley's (a character that had hitherto not made his ASM debut). The thing is even if you look at Kingsley's Pre-ASM Spectacular appearances, the character established there was a slimy coward and liar, he wasn't some cunning murderer that Stern established in Hobgoblin's introductory issues. So there was always a divergence or dissatisfaction with the two identities.

So the issues with Hobgoblin and Kingsley and his identity was baked in from the get-go. Stern set the train off without fully laying down tracks and then he shifted tracks midway to a much smaller gauge. Stern said that he planned to extend the Hobgoblin mystery for one issue longer than the original Green Goblin mystery. The original mystery started in ASM#14 and ended with the reveal of Norman in ASM#40, which is 27 issues (or 2 years and 2 months). So Stern was aiming to spin the mystery for 28 issues. The Hobgoblin mystery began in ASM#238, and by the time Stern left the title it was ASM#252, so he had finished 15 issues, and had Stern continued, we would have known the Hobgoblin's identity by ASM#265. I am sure that Stern had he stayed would have answered and resolved all the issues with Kingsley. But the fact is not enough was set up by the time he left the title and handed it to Defalco/Frenz. Having said that, I don't think Defalco/Frenz made the right decisions with the character. I think spinning the wheels with that mystery was a mistake, and their choice of Richard Fisk/The Rose and introducing all these other versions weren't good, and then Owsley came in and ruined everything with the Ned Leeds thing which was a terrible resolution.

I think Hobgoblin now has a future as a villain for Miles Morales.

[Lee]

As far as the Hobgoblin being a saner contrast to Norman Osborn, I think that was never meant to be taken as gospel but more Hobby's ego talking. Taking up the Goblin persona clearly wasn't a sane decision, and his madness became more apparent as time went on.

Roger Stern says that Roderick Kingsley was sane.

[Obeythemoderators]

Well, he was definitely more effective when you didn't know who he was, and solving the mystery of the character was the majority of the fun. I just don't know if, 36 years later, fans would still have appreciated it.

Perphaps it would have been better if his true identity was never revealed.

Design wise, Hobgoblin looks like Etrigan the Demon with an orange vest and hood.

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Ditko's Goblin has the more original design however silly it looks to some people.
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In fairness Etrigans design was itself taken from the first Prince Valiant story.

[Lukmendes]

He honestly feels underrated if anything.

Kingsley was fun enough since he had a decent amount of pragmatism Spidey villains kinda lacked, and there was how he was still a novice at first trying to improve, since he severely underestimated Spidey and took note of that, but his pragmatism is redundant now that Norman ironically stole this trait from him, and Norman can get more varied stories both because of his more personal story with Peter and being a way bigger businessman, so his position of power can be used in different ways.

It sucks, but there's not much point to Kingsley now, Norman got some of the few stuff that made Kingsley stand out, Norman also got other traits that make him barely have anything in common with his Silver Age self for his threat level to be bigger than just "This douchebag knows Spidey's secret identity!", which does give him more varied stories potential since Norman being able to attack Peter's family and lose his memory got old really fast, but that came at the price of making Kingsley redundant, so yeah.

[PCN24454]

He honestly feels underrated if anything.

Kingsley was fun enough since he had a decent amount of pragmatism Spidey villains kinda lacked, and there was how he was still a novice at first trying to improve, since he severely underestimated Spidey and took note of that, but his pragmatism is redundant now that Norman ironically stole this trait from him, and Norman can get more varied stories both because of his more personal story with Peter and being a way bigger businessman, so his position of power can be used in different ways.

It sucks, but there's not much point to Kingsley now, Norman got some of the few stuff that made Kingsley stand out, Norman also got other traits that make him barely have anything in common with his Silver Age self for his threat level to be bigger than just "This douchebag knows Spidey's secret identity!", which does give him more varied stories potential since Norman being able to attack Peter's family and lose his memory got old really fast, but that came at the price of making Kingsley redundant, so yeah.

This is honestly what made me appreciate BND Norman more.

While pettiness can be entertaining, it shouldn't be a character's sole defining feature.