Welcome to my new segment, Gobservations. In it I shall examine stuff related to the various Goblin figures of Spider-Man lore. For his inaugural article we shall be discussing the mechanics of Norman Osborn’s resurrection.
Introduction
Norman Osborn was revealed as alive and well in ASM #418, the penultimate issue of the ‘Clone Saga’.
Prior to that it’d been believed that he died in Amazing Spider-Man #122 when his heart was pierced by his own Goblin glider.
In the final issue of the ‘Clone Saga’ (Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75) we are informed that Norman’s resurrection was due to a never before mentioned healing factor gifted to him by his Goblin formula.
Many fans felt that this development came out of nowhere and didn’t make sense.
This is not true and the proof can be found in the case of Lefty Donovan.
Donovan was a small time criminal hired by Roderick Kingsley (the original Hobgoblin) to test out Norman Osborn’s Goblin formula and act as a decoy Hobgoblin. He was killed in Amazing Spider-Man #245 when Kingsley remotely forced his glider into crash.
The formulas were different
The immediate question that comes to mind is if Donovan had the Goblin formula as Norman did why didn’t he come back too? Shouldn’t he have had a healing factor as well?
Well one potential explanation is that Lefty’s formula was a variant, so it might’ve not come with a healing factor. Since Lefty wasn’t exactly a brain box it’s certainly possible that he created the formula incorrectly.
Let’s also consider Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #14 from 1994. In the annual it was revealed that a young Harry Osborn interfered with Norman’s initial Goblin formula experiment.
So Norman’s formula also deviated from the original instructions laid out by the formula.
Both explanations of how their formulas were different are valid interpretations. In fact the idea that Harry inadvertently caused the creation of the Green Goblin adds a very a new layer of tragedy and character development to the Osborn legacy.
However, accepting that Lefty and Norman’s formulas were different comes with some problems.
First of all, initially readers were told Lefty’s formula was the same as Norman’s. The annuals retcon obviously contradicts this. It’s not beyond possibility that Donovan screwed up the formula in the exact same way Harry screwed up Norman’s batch. But that’s a rather massive reach.
However, if you were to argue that their formulas were different after all then you’ve got the other coincidence that they both exploded in the faces of their creators anyway. If the Goblin formula just explodes no matter what then doesn’t that undermine the developments Spec Annual #14 provided to the Osborn legacy?
Thankfully Crawlspace’s own J.R. ‘Madgoblin’ Fettinger provided a potential solution to this years ago.
It’s fairly easy to explain this particular discrepancy. Harry didtamper with the formula when Norman had left the room, but that’s not what caused the explosion. More than likely, when Norman came back to his experiment, he realized that something had happened with the chemicals. However, since he had not been there to document exactly when the chemicals began to exhibit a reaction, the experiment was worthless to him. Thus, he discarded it and started over. And of course, history documents what happened later. Unfortunately, Harry was the one who heard the explosion and found his father, burned and almost mortally wounded, and therefore assumed that it was his tampering that had caused the explosion.
This interpretation really works. It allows continuity involving Lefty Donovan to make sense whilst also allowing depth to Harry’s character.
But doesn’t that put us back to square one? Why is Donovan dead and Norman isn’t?
Could there be another explanation?
The healing factor wasn’t perfect
Whilst Norman had a healing factor it was canonically stated/believed to not be on the same level as say Wolverine’s. Hence why he was only barely able to survive the impalement and it left a big scar on his chest (which far too many artists forget to draw).
It’s therefore possible that Lefty’s injuries were too severe for his healing factor to save him. Since early-mid 1980s comic books weren’t big on graphic gore we never get a clear idea of what Lefty’s injuries precisely are. There might not have been enough of his body in tact for the healing factor to work.
There is an alternate explanation though, and it’s my personal favourite.
The Autopsy
For the sake of argument, let’s agree Lefty Donovan did have the same healing factor Norman had. So he was never dead in ASM #245 or else was in the process of returning to life in or just after that issue; his vitals just registered him as dead.
Given the nature of his death there would inevitably have been an autopsy, something that was confirmed in Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives #2.
It was this autopsy that truly killed Donovan. As grievous as Lefty’s injuries may have been before, an autopsy would’ve finished him off; he couldn’t have healed from that.
This is supported by Spider-Man: The Osborn Journal #1. In it we learn Harry Osborn bribed the coroner to fake the autopsy report on his father’s body.
I think this explanation is the most believable answer to why Lefty is dead yet Norman is alive and kicking.
The Silver Age
As a little tangent I’d like to very briefly I’d like to touch upon a few possible examples of Norman’s healing factor back in Stan Lee’s run.
For instance Norman’s healing factor might’ve helped him survive the ‘full effects of an electro-chemical shock’ he received in ASM #40.
Consequently the times Norman remembered he was the Golin could be (partially) attributed to his healing factor repairing the mental damage.
Neither of these are exactly hard evidence backing up Norman’s return, but they provide some food for thought nevertheless.
Facial scars
Let’s return to the case of Lefty Donovan.
In contrast to the above Donovan’s case actually helps make Norman’s return more plausible.
By combining things we saw in Stan’s run alongside Roger Stern’s we actually have some pretty compelling evidence for the presence of Norman’s healing factor. In ASM #40 we learn that Norman received a chemical explosion to his face.
Realistically this would have left scarring but none can be seen, in fact there was never any mention of chemical burns.
By contrast this is exactly what happened to Lefty Donovan in ASM #245.
It’s pretty clear that Lefty received some pretty severe injuries, particularly to his face. And yet when he switches clothes with the hospital worker he’s able to simply walk out of the hospital. How could he do that if he had such severe facial scars as was very heavily implied earlier in the issue?*
Additionally if Lefty was comatose for as long as the issue implies then he’d have developed bedsores and weakened muscles. However, the issue makes it clear that this isn’t the case for Donovan.
This all adds up if you accept that Lefty had a healing factor as Norman did.
Of course there are potential counterarguments to this.
Firstly, it’s possible that in Norman’s case the formula happened to not injure his face. The distance he was holding the formula from and/or the trajectory of the explosion might’ve been different to Donovan’s. Therefore by luck his accident happened to spare his face of major injury.
Ignoring how farfetched that idea is, it doesn’t address Donovan’s facial scars.
Secondly, couldn’t Norman’s face have been fixed up through cosmetic surgery?
In theory this is true but there has never been any mention of such surgery. If I recall correctly it wasn’t even brought up in Dan Slott’s run on ASM when Norman altered his facial appearance multiple times. Not to mention that in 1966 when ASM #40 was published cosmetic surgery wasn’t that advanced. Plus, although we saw Norman on the operating table in ASM #40, it was implied to be some kind of brain surgery not cosmetic.
It’s very unlikely that a small time crook like Lefty Donovan could’ve afforded such surgery. And even if he could he probably wouldn’t have gotten it because he was considered a John Doe and hospitals don’t just pay for pricey surgery like that for free. It’s possible that the affluent Kingsley paid for such surgery. But why would he bother for a glorified lab rat he was willing to kill off?
The facts simply point more strongly towards the idea that Lefty Donovan’s face healed up just like Norman’s probably did. And it more than likely happened due to the healing factor no one knew about at the time.
Conclusion
Norman’s healing factor might have been established in 1996, but stories long before that provided a foundation for it’s existence.
And by extension a foundation for Norman’s return.
*Spidey does mention that he has some scars on his face but he’s still clearly recognizable to Peter. Given the state of his initial injuries the scarring should’ve been severe enough that Peter couldn’t recognize him so quickly.
Peter had never met Lefty Donovan before and researched him with Bugle over three weeks earlier.
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@David Blyth
Of course there have been multiple terrible Norman centric stories after OMD but that can be said of almost every major Spider-Man character, villain or otherwise.
In context Norman’s return has been overwhelmingly more additive than reductive.
As for growing stale, again, this presumes the cycle you outlined is accurate when its literally occurred just twice, once not even under the control of the Spider offices.
As for him being uninteresting, bad writing makes every character uninteresting and Norman’s been subject to that since at the very least Ellis’ Thunderbolts’ run ended and I personally would say since the end of Marvel Knights: Spider-Man. Peter himself was incredibly boring and uninteresting from 2008-2018 due to systemic bad writing and the same could’ve been said of Aunt May before and after the JMS run. But the JMS run itself proves good writing can (potentially) fix a character. Aunt May never needed a rest during that entire run, not even in the other titles. Her new status quo enabled most everyone to render her a more compelling character.
In regards to outgrowing Norman this is akin to arguing Batman and Superman can ever outgrow Joker and Luthor. In superhero comics the archenemesis, the ultimate enemy and essential representation of evil is an eternal and potent fixture within an individual hero’s series. Batman vs. Joker and Superman vs. Luthor are utterly foundational because they represent two fundamentally opposing philosophies clashing, thus our heroes are pushed harder and what defines who they are shines all the brighter. In essence Batman and Superman are never more quintessentially Batman and Superman than when they duel Joker and Luthor. The same is true for Peter and Norman.
Norman is THE ultimate representation of evil and THE ultimate opposing force to the themes that define both Peter and the Spider-Man mythos as a whole. In short he is Spider-Man’s ultimate adversary. It is thematically impossible for Spider-Man to ‘outgrow’ him unless Peter just fundamentally changes everything that defines him as a hero.
And frankly Norman been unrecognizable for in excess of 10 years in that role when other characters have been (unjustifiably) pushed as occupying his top spot or else Norman himself ha been taken in weird directions under Bendis and Slott.
We have not seen a Peter and Norman as Spider-Man and the Green Goblin (sans symbiotes or cosmetic surgery or Thunderbolts membership) face off against one another and be written competently since 2005. That’s more than a sufficient rest don’t you think?
@David Blyth
I respect you dislike Norman, his return, etc. However, I think you are also doing a massive disservice to the character and the stories that were told following his return.
For starters, you are making it out as though Norman is on a repetitive cycle when that’s not the case at all. He returned in 1996 and since then he regained and lost public trust merely twice. One of the losses and returns of public trust arose specifically due to contrivances outside of the Spider-Man editorial offices and directly due to Bendis. This is a little like critiquing the handling Doctor Doom within the Spider titles.
Bendis systemically never cared about continuity in his works and was actively trying to make his Avengers work evocative of the Justice League, utilizing Norman in Luthor’s role to this end. Indeed Norman’s rise to power under Bendis was often compared to Luthor’s arc in Justice league Unlimited to my recollection. But that’s an example of mismanagement by a writer and editorial group that Norman was never designed to work within. It’s therefore not a fair mark against the concept to bringing him back.
The Lex Luthor comparisons in general don’t really hold up to scrutiny for various reasons, but I have an article on the back-burner about that.
The short story is that post-crisis Lex Luthor was not the first ‘evil businessman with a veneer of respectability’ villain in super hero comics. Indeed that’s an archetype predating superheroes altogether and was prevalent in pulp and noir stories that were the ancestors to the superhero genre. Critiquing Norman for playing into said archetype is tantamount to critiquing Doc Ock for being a mad scientist when that too was a thoroughly established super villain archetype, one that Luthor had also been presented as long before Otto debuted. Every superhero is entitled to have their personal equivalent of each of those archetypes if they so wish, and indeed most do.
True, Norman might be argued to have not originally been that. But the Kingpin was essentially just Blofeld for Spidey before Frank Miller took him in a new direction and cast him into that very same archetype for Daredevil. But for Norman and Fisk it’s not about the originality or the archetypes they occupy, nor even whether they began in them or not. It’s about how effective they are within those roles.
Norman was an objectively improved character and villain in that role and indeed was an objectively better villain, character and opponent for Spider-Man following his resurrection. In fact, he was beyond doubt the absolute most complex, effective and thematically resonant villain Peter ever had by that point.
Preferences must be respected, but we cannot argue with results. The results are bringing Norman back resolved the Clone Saga, did so logically, restored one of Spider-Man’s best villains who’d never been effectively replaced, developed both his character and role within the series and rendered him an imposing challenge for the protagonist to facedown. Between his resurrection and ‘One More Day’ Norman’s resurrection generated 5 godaweful stories but it also generated far more good-great stories, some of which rightfully belong in the conversation for the greatest Spider-Man stories of all time, at least in the top 20.
Kind of tired of Norman being in the series and was glad that Tom D had him killed shortly after his comeback in the MC2 Timeline…although that didn’t quite stop him either, but that was one of my all time favourite Spider-Girl stories also…when what’s left of Norman’s psyche battles Mayday, Peter, April and the spirit of Aunt May all in Peter’s mind, with all of them putting him away for good (seemingly)
Norman’s comeback in the comics effectively boiled down to acting like ‘legit’ Lex Luthor for a time, then on and off bursts where his villainy is known to the public, then forgiven by the public, then he breaks the public’s trust, and he switches back and forth again and again. He’s gotten quite stale and a long rest is well due. I can’t get excited for what Spencer plans to do with him either. He’s just that..uninteresting now, same as Aunt May is, both were good in their day but Peter’s outgrown both.
I’ve always been so glad that Norman came back, he was great as a posthumous character who still affected things even in death, but post-resurrection, he managed to become an even better villain for Peter, getting to him in ways few others could, and giving us a massive streak of great stories for a long time (broken up by garbage here and there!) I’m really tired of people hating on the retcon on the basis that it didn’t ‘make sense’, I’ll be sure to link them to this article the next time such a complaint comes up! I will admit that some aspects were contrived, but no more than is standard for superhero comics.