10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Green Goblin

7. Norman And Harry Weren't The Only Goblins

Green Goblin Phil Urich
Marvel Comics

The Green Goblin may have started out as Norman Osborn's supervillain alter-ego, but he's by no means the only person to have donned the glider and battled it out with Spider-Man. A troubled Harry Osborn would take on the identity in response to his father's death, adding a whole new kind of terror to the dynamic between the Goblin and Spidey, but that's another storyline fans will be familiar with.

To this day, Norman and Harry's time as the Goblin remains the best use of the supervillain in Marvel's history. However, even after both characters were killed off in the early seventies further figures would take on the mantle. Unsurprisingly, none managed to make the same impact.

The next person to take on the Goblin identity after Harry's demise was Doctor Bart Hamilton, who served as the younger Osborn's therapist during his time as the Green Goblin. Hamilton is later killed by Harry during a battle with Spider-Man, never to return.

After Hamilton came Phil Urich, the nephew of Daily Bugle reporter and Daredevil confidant Ben Urich. Phil recovers Harry's tools and uses the identity to become a superhero, but later retires the mantle after a battle gone wrong. A fifth Goblin was then created by Norman after his return from the dead in order to deflect suspicion from the public, but it disintegrated during a confrontation with Spider-Man.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.