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This Pure Evil was Headlined on October 2024. |
"Mature Content Warning!" |
“ | You think this ends it, Spider-Man? Not a chance! Never! Never! Never! You think you can kill me? You can never kill me! I'm the thing that haunts your dreams -- gives you no peace! And I will be back! I will always be back! Besides... I've already won! Take your pyrrhic victory! You have no idea what I've taken from you! NONE! HAHAHAHAHAHA! | „ |
~ Norman Osborn at the end of The Night of the Goblin after killing Peter Parker and Mary Jane's baby. |
“ | Take a look, Parker--a good, long look--it's the last face Spider-Man will ever see--it's the real face of the Green Goblin--the face of Norman Osborn! | „ |
~ The Green Goblin revealing his true identity of Norman Osborn to Peter Parker. |
“ | HA HA HA! You're outmatched, Parker! Outsmarted, outgunned, and sh-t out of luck! And look at you. Still holding back. Afraid of the full power that suit could give you! That's your problem. There's no killer in you! Now, me? I have that edge! Which is why this shall be my greatest moment of triumph! Finally, the day has come! Behold… Norman Osborn! Victorious! | „ |
~ Norman Osborn as the Red Goblin to Spider-Man. |
Norman Virgil Osborn, better known as the Green Goblin and also known by many other identities, is one of the main antagonists of the Marvel Universe, specifically serving as the main antagonist of the Spider-Man franchise.
He is the head of the multinational corporation Oscorp and the father of Harry Osborn, who became the first and most well-known incarnation of the Green Goblin after ingesting a serum that increased his physical abilities, yet in the process drove him to insanity. He is widely recognized as Spider-Man's greatest, most persistent and personal arch-nemesis, even more so than Doctor Octopus, Venom, Carnage, and Morlun, having been responsible for more hardship and grief in the hero's life than any of his other villains (most notably the murder of Gwen Stacy; the first woman he ever truly loved).
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- While he has an unfortunate backstory in which he was abused by his father Ambrose, after he lost the family fortune, Norman manages to turn his life around and be successful but still relishes in being evil for the sake of evil and enjoys bringing misery on being Spider-Man's most personal foe - thus subverting any possible sympathy for his tragic past.
- Although he has several comedic moments, they never detract from his villainy, with the misery he has brought onto Spider-Man and everyone else being taken fully seriously. Furthermore, most of them only highlight how insanely sadistic he is during his Green Goblin persona, lacking this whenever he is presented as Norman Osborn.
- When he was seven years old, he beat his dog to death as a way to gain control and save money and food, and after killing his dog, he developed his socially darwinistic outlook on life.
- It was revealed that Norman had sold Harry's soul to Mephisto for business success, simply because he was jealous of his more successful business partner, and the fact that he chose to consign him to an eternity of suffering in Hell when he was just a few years old only serves to exacerbate the situation. Harry's soul wasn't released from Hell until years after his death.
- Before becoming the Green Goblin, he supported supervillains as part of a corrupt business cabal and tried prototypical versions of the Goblin Serum on one of his employees, transforming him into the Proto-Goblin, a crazy monster.
- He was such an abusive husband that, upon knowing what he truly was, his wife Emily had to fake her own death and try to take Harry with her to get away from Norman, as she knows the monster he truly is.
- Even when Doctor Octopus injected Norman with a high dosage of Goblin Serum in an attempt to turn him evil again, it failed, with Norman explaining that, prior to having his soul cleansed by the Sin-Eater, he was evil because he wanted to be and not because of the Goblin Serum itself, proving that he does have a very clear moral agency even if he's insane.
- Throughout the series, he has consistently tormented and tried to kill Spider-Man/Peter Parker for his own sadistic amusement, for example.
- He gave him a toothpaste loaded with chemicals, which dulled his spider-sense and made him have nightmares reminiscent of Green Goblin.
- He broke into his house and left a Green Goblin model behind, which incited Peter to beat him up in his office. This was seen on camera, which serves to debunk the myth that he was the Green Goblin and also to turn the public against Spider-Man.
- Blackmailed Peter into breaking him out of prison by kidnapping his Aunt May and ambushing him with the Sinister Twelve when he was free.
- Tried to turn Peter into a Goblin heir through torture, causing Peter to give in.
- Framed him for murder and put $5 million on his head.
- Buried Aunt May alive and faked her death to spite him.
- The most famous of all his crimes was when he threw Spider-Man's first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, off the Brooklyn Bridge to her death, scarring him for life.
- He has regularly caused the deaths of countless people and destruction as Green Goblin, such as blowing up buildings with his bombs.
- He often abused his son, Harry. While it was shown he once cared about his son, this was a manipulative tactic so Harry would avenge his death. Later in one story, he even attempted to murder Harry to earn public sympathy.
- He orchestrated the Clone Saga, convincing Peter he was a clone for a short time, and murdered Ben Reilly, Spider-Man's clone, simply to hurt him.
- He formed the Dark Avengers, a group of supervillains intent on destroying the Avengers, and kept them in line by using the lives of their loved ones, from family to friends, as bargaining chips. He makes it clear any step out of line, all their loved ones will die in horrific ways that will make even them apalled, and then after that torture them to death with relish.
- He turned Carlie Cooper into a monster using the Goblin formula. Even after being cured, she was never the same.
- He poured alcohol down Flash Thompson's throat, causing him to have a car accident. What makes this worse is that at the time, he was a recovering alcoholic.
- He performed heart surgery on Luke Cage and had a bomb tracker implanted in his heart as insurance.
- He kidnapped Peter and Mary Jane's baby, making them think they died. He then poisoned and killed the baby.
- He made Dr. Octavius endure the same emotional torment he did; he tracked down his old fiancée, drove her car off the road, and poisoned her with AIDS.
- He ruled over a large criminal syndicate as the Goblin King and crushed all opposition.
- He vowed to Otto Octavius during the latter's time as Superior Spider-Man that he would kill everything he considered precious to him.
- He wanted to exterminate all superheroes in the Marvel world.
- He triggered a war between Asgard by having the U-Foes attack Asgardain warrior Volstaag, causing thousands of casualties.
- When a prison guard requested advice on his wife's illness from him, he offered her a treatment that temporarily improved her condition before triggering a breakdown in neurological functioning, increased agony, and blindness, eventually putting her in a coma from which she would never recover.
- He tried to kill Mary Jane the same way he killed Gwen Stacy.
- He fused his own grandson, Normie, with the Carnage symbiote and later tried to kill him with an axe. In the same story, he also attempted to kill his son and his daughter-in-law.
- He killed Flash Thompson after bonding with the Carnage symbiote to spite Peter and went on a killing spree.
- He tortured the original Avengers Academy cadets both physically and emotionally.
- He unleashed a chemical that transformed everyone in the nearby region into mutants, including everyone at a school.
- He murdered Terri Kidder, a Bugle reporter who questioned him about the many missing Oscorp employees. When cops arrived to arrest him for the murder, he caused a big explosion at his Oscorp office. Which put Jessica Jones' unborn child at risk as she was working with them.
- He used Namor's seemingly dead wife as a weapon to kill Namor and the X-men.
- He ordered Bullseye to kill Sentry's wife. This kill contributed significantly to Sentry losing control of Void and consequently participating in a war on Asgard in Siege.
- He developed a treatment for cancer, only to use it as a weapon to murder Deadpool.
- Despite being "cleansed" of his depravity and evil by the Sin-Eater, leaving him with a deep sense of remorse and recent efforts to pursue repentance, Norman has not chosen this path freely, and this loss of his evil self was merely forced upon him.
- Even his mourning of Harry was simply a result of this rather than truly feeling such a way, in which the aforementioned action of selling Harry's soul happened in the same arc.
- His evilness was so strong that it transformed Doctor Ashley Kafka, who was forced to bear Norman's sins, into the vicious and psychopathic Queen Goblin. Norman's darkness eventually corrupted Spider-Man, turning him into a violent madman who brutalized and nearly killed several people before being expelled and partially reabsorbed by his cleansed self.
- Immediately after Norman's sins had returned to his original body, he reverted back into being the Green Goblin. He left some program in Peter's head and turned him into Spider-Goblin again. Corrupt Peter then attacked Sinister 6 members, only to be stopped by Chasm to seal the Goblin program in Peter's head temporarily. When Peter confronted Norman in an attempt to transfer the program into Norman's head (as it's essentially a copy of his evil mind), Norman instead used the mystical spear they were both in contact with to transfer his sins and evilness back into Peter's body to corrupt his soul along with his mind. As Norman arranged for Peter to inherit his new corporate empire should anything happen to himself, he clearly intended to possess Peter's younger and more powerful body and then kill his original body to prevent his "cleansed" self from returning and intervening as the Gold Goblin.
Trivia[]
- Originally Norman Osborn was rejected as Pure Evil due to his supposed love for Harry. However, it was decided that for most of his appearances, Norman doesn't see Harry as an independent individual but rather as a continuation of his legacy and an extension of himself-perfectly willing to even kill him, even selling his soul to Mephisto since the day Harry was born.
External Links[]
- Norman Osborn on the Villains Wiki
- Norman Osborn on the Marvel Wiki
- Norman Osborn on the Spider-Man Wiki
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