Green Goblin - Publication History

Publication History

According to Steve Ditko, the Green Goblin, as we know him, was entirely his creation. He claims:

Stan's synopsis for the Green Goblin had a movie crew, on location, finding an Egyptian-like sarcophagus. Inside was an ancient, mythological demon, the Green Goblin. He naturally came to life. On my own, I changed Stan's mythological demon into a human villain.

The Green Goblin debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #14. At this time his identity was unknown, but he proved popular and reappeared in later issues, which made a point of his secret identity. Apparently, Lee and Ditko disagreed on who he should be. According to one theory, Lee always wanted him to be someone Peter Parker knew, while Ditko wanted him to be a stranger, feeling this was closer to real life. Ditko has refuted this rumor, however, claiming:

So I had to have some definite ideas: who he was, his profession and how he fit into the Spider-Man story world. I was even going to use an earlier, planted character associated with J. Jonah Jameson: he be the Green Goblin. It was like a subplot working its way until it was ready to play an active role.

Ditko left the series with issue #38, before he could reveal the Goblin's identity, and Lee subsequently unmasked him in the next issue as Norman Osborn, a character who had been introduced two issues earlier as the father of Harry Osborn. John Romita, Sr., who replaced Ditko as the title's artist, recalls:

Stan wouldn't have been able to stand it if Ditko did the story and didn't reveal that the Green Goblin was Norman Osborn. I didn't know there was any doubt about Osborn being the Goblin. I didn't know that Ditko had just been setting Osborn up as a straw dog. I just accepted the fact that it was going to be Norman Osborn when we plotted it. I had been following the last couple of issues and didn't think there was really much mystery about it. Looking back, I doubt the Goblin's identity would have been revealed in Amazing #39 if Ditko had stayed on.

After the Green Goblin killed Peter Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, writer Gerry Conway decided that the Goblin had to pay a heavy price. Osborn accidentally caused his own death in the course of a fight against Spider-Man. Others, such as Harry Osborn, later adopted the Green Goblin identity, and writer Roger Stern later introduced the Hobgoblin to replace the Green Goblin as Spider-Man's archenemy.

However Obsorn would loom over the history of the Spider-Man franchise. In particular, the character (originally portrayed as a loving but distant workaholic father who gave his son money and material possessions to make up for how he was never there for his son physically) would be recast as a physically and emotionally abusive father to Harry. One whose disdain for his son would lead to Harry suffering crippling mental problems, leading to him becoming Green Goblin and ultimately his own demise.