10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Green Goblin
3. That Hobgoblin Pretty Much Replaced Him, And It Worked!
It could be argued that Spider-Man has way too many Goblins. There are green ones, red ones, and (in the films) even 'new' ones, but perhaps one of the more successful is that of the Hobgoblin, who was first introduced in 1983 by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr.
He was conceived as the Green Goblin's replacement by Stern, who was reluctant to reintroduce either Osborn into Spidey's books after their deaths in the previous decade. Romita Jr. then designed the character, and though it's fair to say that Green Goblin is certainly the more iconic foe, there's no denying just how menacing Hobgoblin looked when he first burst onto the scene.
The first arc that saw Hobgoblin introduced could potentially be considered as being slightly derivative of earlier Goblin-centric Spidey stories, with Stern and Romita framing the character's introduction as a mystery by refusing to unveil his true alter-ego, but it worked. Come the nineties, Hobgoblin had cemented himself as one of the web-slinger's most formidable adversaries, even being voiced by Mark Hamill in the much beloved Fox Kids Spider-Man cartoon as Spidey's first villain.
Hobgoblin has only made sporadic appearances since Norman's return, but he could've easily attained more notoriety had that not been the case.