As far as villains go, none has had an impact on Spider-man as Norman Osborn and his nefarious alter-ego Green Goblin. The menacing Green Goblin has had hundreds of encounters with Spider-man. Most of them have ended with Spidey coming out victorious only for Goblin to rise back from the ashes to terrorize the wall-crawler one more time. Green Goblin and Spider-man share the same relationship, to some extent, as Batman does with the Joker. One is incomplete without the other.
But Green Goblin’s days as Spider-man’s greatest nemesis are going to be over soon. That’s right fellas. Norman Osborn is about to kick the bucket on his supervillain days.
Marvel Comics has recently teased that the next event to shape Spider-man’s days as the friendly neighborhood superhero is going to be a definitive one. Ever since Dan Slott took over the reins of The Amazing Spider-Man since 2010, things have been changing for Peter Parker.
Major Spider-Man events like Spider-Island and Spider-Verse have had a serious impact on Spider-Man’s life recently. Slott has been working on a storyline regarding Norman Osborn. He does not possess the powers of the Green Goblin anymore but his hatred for the wall-crawler is just as pure and vile as it always has been since the beginning.
Marvel Comics has recently released a trailer for the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man arc regarding the final showdown between Spider-man and the Green Goblin. The event will not only flush out Norman Osborn from Spider-Man’s life permanently, but it will also introduce a new goblin into the Spider-verse. Enter the Wicked Red Goblin.
Let’s have a look at the trailer released by Marvel regarding the upcoming arc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taayvDMYGPo
The image of the Red Goblin is menacing and sinister. He has a tail and a forked tongue with fire coming out of his mouth. By the looks of it, this version of the Goblin won’t rely on technology like Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin. The powers of the Red Goblin will be supernatural in nature. At least that is what one will deduce from the trailer dissection.
More importantly, The Amazing Spider-Man 32 revealed Norman is already attempting to gain mastery of the mystic arts. Just like Doctor Strange’s quest to regain back his medical abilities after the accident that stripped him of them, Norman has turned to magic to regain back what he lost as the Green Goblin. He travels to the Himalayas where shadowy benefactors allow him to gain new insight after looking into the mystical Emerald Oracle of Ikkon.
The artifact showed Norman a future where he becomes an evil sorcerer and wreaks havoc on earth. His dark future forces the monks of the temple to forbid Norman from learning any form of magic and asking the other orders to do the same.
But Norman Osborn is not someone that ever takes no for an answer. Later issues see him trying to break into the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange’s magical dimension that houses hordes of otherworldly supernatural artifacts. Maybe this is where Norman gains some kind of supernatural power from a magical object that turns him into the fiery red Goblin.
The Red Goblin has a demonic appearance that looks eerily similar to the Hell Lord Mephisto. Mephisto is the demon king of hell and is a super strong practitioner of magic. Mephisto had minimal appearances in Spider-man arcs until 2007’s “One More Day” storyline.
The Storyline takes place in the aftermath of Marvel’s Civil War. Aunt May is critically ill and is in the hospital. Mephisto offers to save her in return for wiping of Peter Parker’s life and resetting it to how it used to be. Mary Jane would no longer be his wife and the people would never know Peter I Spiderman. Peter agrees and the ending leaves the fans heartbroken.
If Norman and Mephisto are indeed joining hands and forming an alliance in their collective quest to make Spider-Man’s life hell, then a grave threat looms over the Spider-Man’s head. Mephisto already knows the man behind the mask of Spider-man. Norman Osborn doesn’t. If the latter comes to know Spider-man’s secret identity, all hope is lost.
The next issue of The Amazing Spider-Man arrives in March 2018. Only then will we know for sure what and who is this Red Goblin guy that has caught everyone by surprise.
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