He acts far, far more serious nowadays to the point he just makes jokes here and there if even that much.
And the personal connection he had with Peter was slim under Ditko, to the point the strongest connection he had with Peter wasn't even Harry (since him and Peter detested each other), but was JJ instead, and ultimately neither connection went anywhere since Ditko left before developing this.
Typical of Bendis lol.Bendis and Slott have sadly brought back the "Goblin formula makes you insane" thing of the 90s show and of the Raimi film. My opinion is that Bendis doesn't like the Green Goblin and/or understand him.
Biggest thing that gets in the way of Dark Reign making sense is that Norman was a known terrorist by that point anyways lol.He has tried to reinvent Norman Osborn twice now and neither of those versions stuck around.
I do think an event on the scale of Dark Reign could have worked with the Green Goblin from Marvel Knights or from the Osborn miniseries.
If it had happened before he was arrested then it'd be more believable, or hell, if he was disguised, like using something like Mason Banks identity (Yes, I know Banks came after Dark Reign, I'm talking about the idea of having another identity to fool SHIELD or whatever).
Man, Spectacular Norman blatantly got the added traits from Revenge of the Green Goblin and Marvel Knights with the way he favors Peter over Harry, so of course those stories being adapted to it would work without looking too weird (Though they would need to have him learn who Spidey is first), Spectacular Norman takes mostly after Ditko, but wasn't dumb enough to avoid the newer traits that could give interesting plot points.He's not very different from the Norman in Revenge of the Green Goblin, Death in the Family, Marvel Knights, and Evil Incarcerated. In fact, I would argue you could have done almost a straight adaptation of all of those in the show (or some mix of them).
Don't remember if I read the other two so I can't comment on 'em.
Anyways, Spectacular Norman has bigger plans than just trying to punch Spider-Man in the face, because they kept his trait of trying to take over the gangs, while 616 Norman got flanderized and generally wants to only torment Spidey or be a terrorist and not much else, and again, Spencer's own run was hinting at him just doing terrorism since he had that device that would basically nuke New York.
Also, can't believe I forgot that, but Spectacular Norman also takes Roderick's trait of using other people, making Harry take the fall for being Green Goblin (Like Roderick did with Flash and Ned), and forcing Mark to be a super-villain, while not something Roderick did, it does sound more like something he'd do and not Norman... Which still makes me wonder what the hell they could do with Roderick besides "More than one person is Hobgoblin".
I mean, Spidey himself doesn't see him as that much of a threat, in ASM#14 he focuses on the Hulk more and even mentions once he could easily deal with GG but is too tired from fighting the Hulk, and then in ASM#17 the battle was unfinished 'cause Spidey decided to leave because he was worried about aunt May, if the intent in those battles was to make GG look like a big deal it didn't really help out much, ASM#27 at least has him actually escaping and building him up as eventually doing something big, but when it comes to how imposing a villain was, Otto looked more threatening than GG even if he eventually lost his battles.Again, this is a myth. The Green Goblin made more appearances in the Ditko era than any other villain, was the one villain to always get away and one-up Spider-Man, and was the first to successfully trick Spider-Man (thereby establishing thematically as the alpha male of his villains). Even as early as ASM #14, it's clear the Green Goblin is seen by Lee/Ditko as the big bad he was always meant to be. It's simply not true that all of that came with or started with Romita.
But the point of the story is to kill him, why would it be fine for him to be brought back without ruining the original?Like I said in my previous post, the point of Norman's "death" in #122 was to 1) allow the reader some breathing room after that intense climax (meaning a break from Norman for at least a while) and 2) it sets up Harry's eventual demise. Once Harry is dead and two decades have past, in theory it seems fine to bring back Norman.
If we say "Oh x amount of time has passed, we can resurrect the villain now", then Grim Hunt bringing back Kraven is fine too.
Norman still dies by the end and now he's out of the picture, that is big no matter if Peter was the one to kill him or not, everything that happened with Harry afterwards was because of Norman's death, him dying there is a huge deal even if Peter himself didn't do it, plus Norman being dead has Peter point out how he should feel happy, but instead feels nothing, so there's that pyrrhic victory angle too.I would add three other reasons to that:
1) Peter isn't even the one who kills him, so his death doesn't mean anything for Peter in the way other villain deaths do. The Night Gwen Stacy Died is a story about Peter choosing to not be consumed by revenge, which can be told with or without Norman dead (Gwen's death however does mean something for Peter and his development, and also for MJ's development).
And you can't say that Norman dying or not doesn't matter for the story and then point out that Gwen's death does, both of those deaths had repercussions, or are you going to say the stories afterwards would be the same with a living Norman? 'Cause again, his death caused Harry's own downfall that made him become Green Goblin.
Spider-Man, while it used a lot of super-hero tropes, was ultimately doing his own thing at times, which's why he stood out so much, just because everyone else keeps their archenemies alive forever, doesn't mean he should do it like everyone else, and he didn't, for a while at least, and those 20 years have shown how Spidey doesn't need Norman in any way, even if we have more story potential with him alive.2) Archenemies having a "final showdown" in your main serialized superhero continuity typically doesn't work. Most archenemies are designed to be ongoing like their respective heroes. It's because archenemies embody the opposite ideals of their respective heroes, and are therefore just as eternal.
And like I said, we got good things from his resurrection, but saying that Norman's resurrection doesn't ruin ASM#122 is just weird, there's problems with the resurrection, and it's fine, even good retcons bring oddities.3) The idea of Norman as an always evolving and growing threat to parallel Spider-Man who is about growth is IMO more interesting and was therefore worth Norman being brought back.
Yeah, and it sticking out is a temporary thing, what happens afterwards and how its judged over time is what'll matter more.Quality has a lot to do with it, that's for sure. That said, OMD was always the symptom to the problem. The actual problem is editors not wanting Peter to be written like an adult. Even if you make a truly phenomenal story where a 25-year old Peter acts childish, it's always going to stick out as a sore thumb in a way that Norman's resurrection never will.
Hell, Peter marrying MJ at all was rushed and awkward, and was only done because Marvel wanted to line up the marriage with the newspaper's version, does it matter that it started awkwardly? Not really, we got good stories afterwards that compensated for the awkward start, in a similar vein, single Peter could've worked even by it happening because of OMD, because it standing out at first doesn't mean much in the long run, if what we get afterwards is worth a damn, it just happens that Peter being single didn't, specially with those awful love interests, and it's not even because Peter being single doesn't work, it's just that the way Marvel tried to keep him single doesn't work, because their attempts made him immature and obnoxious, which didn't work after the marriage had him being more mature and actually developing instead of regressing.
Ultimately changes like that are tools, and a bad story that brings a change, while it'll look worse at first, it's what's done with it afterwards that matters more, OMD just happens to be one of the the worst possible cases, a bad story, that caused a bad change, that ultimately did nothing remotely interesting in the long run besides making fans butthurt for 14 years and counting.