Warning: Contains a preview for Amazing Spider-Man #2
The movie Spider-Man: No Way Home showed Peter Parker reforming some of his most famous villains, but in the comics, the Wall-Crawler has clearly taken this lesson too far. A preview for Amazing Spider-Man #2 shows Peter doing the unthinkable and being friendly with his worst enemy, Norman Osborn (aka the Green Goblin).
Spider-Man has a memorable cast of villains, who are as instrumental to the success of his stories as Peter Parker himself. No one, however, has had such an impact on Spider-Man’s life as the Green Goblin, the deranged criminal identity of Norman Osborn. A wealthy businessman who developed a formula that gave him superpowers at the cost of driving him crazy, Norman is Spider-Man’s most relentless enemy. He is responsible for Peter’s greatest tragedy and failure: the death of Gwen Stacy, pushed off the Brooklyn Bridge by the Green Goblin in one of the most iconic stories in comics history. Despite all that, however, it seems that Peter has forgiven Norman for his past sins.
Spider-Man’s continuity can be complicated and confusing due to the character’s frequent reboots, the most famous one being the One More Day story. Marvel’s most recent Spider-Man series, Amazing Spider-Man, also starts with a pseudo-reboot, showing Peter Parker months after an as-yet-unrevealed tragedy, dealing with the consequences of this event and the fact that Mary Jane is, somehow, married with children. A preview for Amazing Spider-Man #2 by Zeb Wells, John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, and Marcio Menyz shows Peter receiving a friendly visit from Norman Osborn and even accepting doing him a favor, which turns out to be babysitting Norman’s two nephews.
Norman’s personality changed after a supernatural creature called the Sin-Eater “cleansed” him of his sins, making him develop a sense of repentance. Since then, Norman has not shown any signs of regression, but as the Green Goblin, he is still a person with a history of mental instability, personality changes, and deception. The fact that Peter trusts him so easily, and he even asked Norman for help in the recent past, is shocking to say the least. Even if Norman has really changed, and Peter’s duty as a hero is to give him another chance, it is really hard to understand how Spider-Man can tolerate looking in the face of the person who killed his girlfriend (and made his life a living hell for years), and actually be friendly with him.
After everything that Peter has seen in his life, it would be more sensible to suspect Norman or at least stay as far away as possible from him. Instead, Marvel has revealed that Spider-Man will soon work with Norman Osborn and even start using Goblin-inspired tech. It’s true that heroes should always be willing to give a second chance, but considering that the Green Goblin killed his girlfriend, Spider-Man is definitely taking this good intention too far. Amazing Spider-Man#2 will be available May 25.
