10 Crazy Things You Just Have To Accept To Enjoy Spider-Man

8. Norman Osborn Hates Spider-Man

When fictional characters have an arch nemesis, there's usually a good reason for their intense rivalry and/or hatred of each other. With Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty there's the respect for each other's intellects balanced with the differences of their approaches, one on the side of the law, the other against it. With Batman and The Joker it's a similar, two-sides-of-the-same-coin deal. With The Punisher, he wants to gun down every criminal he comes across because his family were killed during a mob war in Central Park where they were having a picnic. Spider-Man has a pretty great rogues gallery (despite all the symbiotes) but the one villain you could look at as his actual mortal enemy is Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. Osborn's the one who's usually behind all the grand, overarching schemes to destroy Peter Parker's life. Osborn's the one who killed the love of Spidey's life. Osborn's the one who made it his life's mission to kill the wall crawler sooner or later. The thing is...why? We've never really gotten a real reason for why the Green Goblin hates Spider-Man so much. We know that he's a crazy person, owing to the doses of patented goblin formula that give him some heightened strength and senses but also affect his mental state. We know that he holds him somewhat responsible for the death of his son, Harry, who was the Goblin for a spell when everyone thought Norman had kicked the bucket. But that doesn't add up to a forty-odd year campaign against one individual, never wearying, never deciding to lay off or chose another target. Norman Osborn has seemingly been killed and come back from the dead countless times, always with the Spider in his sights. We're not sure why. That's just how it is. And time and again, Spidey has to deal with it. Better him than us, eh.