Sony & MCU Missed An Opportunity For A Green Goblin For Each Spider-Man

Each live-action Spider-Man could have had his own respective Green Goblin, but that opportunity is long gone. By the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Willem Dafoe cemented himself as the perfect Green Goblin. His sweet, paternal take on Norman Osborn contrasts with his unhinged performance as the scientist’s evil counterpart. This made him the ideal villain for Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, and across the multiverse, for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as well.

Translating the Green Goblin to live-action is no easy task, partly due to the character’s cartoonish attire and his unapologetically evil demeanor. Yet, Spider-Man: No Way Home found the right balance between comic accuracy and realism. Willem Dafoe’s partially-armored Green Goblin embodied the character’s defining traits without the need for a mask. But the cackling villain who rides a glider is not the only Norman Osborn in Marvel comics. Osborn is transformed into a huge monstrous version of the Green Goblin in Marvel’s Ultimate universe (where he kills Peter Parker), and he takes up the identity of the Dark Avengers leader Iron Patriot to become an evil version of Iron Man.

These alternate angles on Norman Osborn almost made their way to live-action. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a dying Norman Osborn informs his son Harry about his disease, which leads Harry to seek a cure from Spider-Man and subsequently transform himself into the Green Goblin. This Norman’s hands had long, dark nails that teased an eventual transformation into the hulked-out Green Goblin from Marvel’s Ultimate universe, who could have battled with Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man in a sequel. Years later, with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man now part of the MCU, an MCU-born Norman Osborn could have opted to use Iron Man technology to become the sinister Iron Patriot and tarnish Tony Stark’s legacy.

Green Goblin’s Ultimate counterpart and his Iron Patriot persona add nuances to Norman Osborn’s troubled mind. The beastly Green Goblin, capable of killing Spider-Man without a second thought in the comics, would be an interesting archnemesis for Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, who has more than enough personal reasons to confront his father’s possible killer and the father of his girlfriend’s killer. Similarly, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man would be forced to face a dark version of his deceased mentor, possibly persuading him from trusting any mentor figure ever again. The Amazing Spider-Man‘s Green Goblin could have doubled down on the animalistic ruthlessness of the villain, and the MCU’s Iron Patriot could have revealed just how twisted the man behind the goblin really is.

The return of Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, and Thomas Hayden Church’s Sandman in Spider-Man: No Way Home means that they likely won’t be brought back in any form anytime soon. Unfortunately, this means that these Spider-Man villains won’t be explored any further in the future, despite all their iconic stories from the comics. But on the bright side, it also means that there is only one true live-action Green Goblin — Willem Dafoe.