After more than 50 years, Spider-Man has developed a cast of deadly foes from Doctor Octopus to The Walrus. Over time, though, the Halloween Express-themed Goblins have proven themselves as some of his deadliest, most tenacious, and most numerous foes. There are so many that not all of them have fought Spider-Man.
As a result, some, like Spider-Woman’s “Fury, the Goblin Queen” are ineligible for this list. Similarly, the ret-con created “Proto-Goblin,” while powerful, disappeared into Marvel’s wilderness following his only appearance and never actually fought the Web-Slinger. With Goblin Gangs, the Order of the Goblin, and Goblinettes in the mix, who have proven the most dangerous to Spider-Man, his allies, and Marvel’s many Earths?
10 Gray Goblin
After all that’s happened to Gwen Stacy—the clones, the mind control, the bridge—one would hope Marvel could let her rest. Nope! In a painful ret-con, she had a secret family with her eventual murderer, Norman Osborn. Her twins, Gabriel and Sarah Stacy, were raised by Osborn. They had their mother’s looks and their father’s Goblin-contaminated blood, aging them almost 3 times as quickly as normal children.
The resulting emotionally-stunted young adults blamed Spider-Man for their mother’s death, hatching an anti-arachnid plot that eventually led Gabriel to inject himself with more Goblin Serum and becoming the Gray Goblin. Gabriel showed all the signs of being a tenacious foe and almost killed a blood-loss weakened Webslinger before his sister crashed his glider, inflicting some of that trademark Osborn family amnesia.
9 Hobgoblin 2211
The Osborn family isn’t the only one with crazy in its bloodstream. Spider-Man 2211’s daughter, Robin “Hobby” Bourne, proved that. Traveling back from the future with advanced Goblin technology including “retcon bombs” that erased her victims from history, Hobby resented her father’s choosing superheroing over parenthood and wanted revenge. She went mad in virtual reality prison and traveled to the 21st century. Hobby’s ability to alter timelines made her extremely dangerous since she could wipe out entire generations with a single underhand toss. Hobby was a danger to herself as well as others—she was retconned out of existence by one of her bombs.
8 Menace
When Bill Hollister was running for mayor of New York City, his daughter Lily was exposed to a new Goblin Serum. She grew horns and attacked her dad’s campaign events, a buck wild attempt to garner support for his electoral bid. During her rampages, she not only almost killed a wounded Spider-Man but came very close to murdering Norman Osborn with his own Goblin Glider.
Smart enough to realize that Osborn’s obsession with a single superhero squandered his considerable intellect, Lily was also physically stronger than the original Goblin, and her deadly manipulative streak made her a menace in fact as well as name.
7 Jason Macendale (Jack O’ Lantern/ Hobgoblin III)
The CIA-trained mercenary Jason Macendale began his career as Jack O’ Lantern. As a part of his shaky alliance with Roderick Kingsley (see below) he stole the Hobgoblin’s Battle Van and ended up adopting the Hobgoblin identity as well. In addition to the standard array of Party City-style Halloween weapons employed by the Goblins, Macendale was willing to use other tactics. He hired the super-assassin known as The Foreigner to murder Kingsley’s brainwashed proxy Hobgoblin, Ned Leeds.
Macendale wasn’t innately superhuman, and after several defeats, he made a bid for powers. He tried and failed to steal Osborn’s Goblin Serum formula, and afterward was willing to sell his soul for superpowers, defeating and almost killing Spider-Man via demonic empowerment. He later had the willpower to force the demon out of his body, accidentally creating the monstrous Demogoblin.
6 Demogoblin
A demon from Limbo once forced into and then out of residence in Jason Macendale, Demogoblin claimed to be a “Righteous” demon. It killed “sinners,” which is to say anyone old enough to understand good and evil. To this end, it even joined Carnage, Shriek, and Carrion in Maximum Carnage, but found the mass murderers’ company distasteful and abandoned them.
Demogoblin had a range of demonic powers. It could summon Hellfire as well as magic pumpkin bombs, fly, and even instill crippling depression via “black pumpkin bombs.” Demogoblin did have a weak spot for kids, whom it regarded as innocent. It finally died in battle with Jason Macendale, crushed while rescuing a child from a collapsing church.
5 Phil Urich
Phil Urich began his career as a heroic version of the Green Goblin, but over time, he grew into an impressive villain. His good-guy status was jeopardized both by his obsessive “nice guy” tendencies and by a slowly-developing madness stemming from his exposure to a version of Goblin Serum. Working as a reporter, Urich became a true villain when he encountered Daniel Kingsley, the brother of the original Hobgoblin. When Urich's life was threatened, the former hero stole Kingsley’s weapons and decapitated him.
Urich replaced Kingsley as the Hobgoblin, then became the Goblin Knight, and finally the Goblin King of the Goblin Nation (New York City). Urich’s downfall was monumental, suffering first defeat at the hands of the original Hobgoblin and then death courtesy of the Red Goblin.
4 Roderick Kingsley
The original Hobgoblin was a corrupt fashion designer with a talent for making enemies. He stole from the original Green Goblin, brainwashed Ned Leeds into living as an ersatz Hobgoblin (Hobgoblin II), flat-out killed Jason Macendale (Hobgoblin IV), kidnapped Norman Osborn’s son Harry, and even earned the ire of the Kingpin.
When he was magically transformed into a good guy, the “Hob-Heroes” team he assembled was turned against him by Phil Urich. In spite of all the guns, lasers, and pumpkin bombs aimed at his heart, Kingsley is a survivor. He defeated Urich at the latter’s height of power as the Goblin King. He even briefly joined The Avengers before writers pushed the magical reset button and the first, best Hobgoblin had his alignment changed back to Neutral Evil.
3 Ultimate Green Goblin
Like Earth 616’s Green Goblin, the Green Goblin who faced the Ultimate Universe’s Spider-Men, was also named Norman Osborn. A mean-spirited scientist trying to replicate Super-Soldier serum for the U.S. government, he was caught in a lab explosion. The resulting hulking monster didn’t need to wear a mask.
Enormous and green, with claws, fireballs, and a massive amount of physical power, this malicious creature retained Osborn’s intelligence and flair for leadership. Ultimate Green Goblin later challenged The Ultimates (read: Avengers) with his team, known as the Ultimate Six. Though defeated and captured many times, Ultimate Green Goblin appears unkillable. Well, roughly as unkillable as his primary foes Peter Benjamin Parker and Miles Morales, aka Ultimate Spider-Man 1 and 2, but beggars can’t choose.
2 Red Goblin
The most powerful character on this list, the Red Goblin was Norman Osborn’s chosen name when he merged with the homicidal alien symbiote, Carnage. Each were powerful on their own, and with the symbiote hopped up on Goblin Juice it developed an immunity to the heat-and-sound based attacks heroes relied on to defeat it.
True to form, this version of Norman Osborn threatened Spider-Man’s friends and family, requiring an alliance of heroes like Silk, Miles Morales, and the Human Torch to protect them. Even then, the Red Goblin managed to kill Peter Parker’s longtime frenemy, Flash Thompson. That said, this was one of those cases where giving a character more power didn't make him more effective. The Red Goblin lacked the subtlety and long-term planning the original Green Goblin excelled in. He was also defeated by hubris. Called out by Spider-Man as dependent on symbiotic enhancement, Osborn discarded his alien advantage. He immediately begged for it to return to him when Spider-Man soundly thrashed him. The Wall-Crawler incinerated the helpless alien before it could return to Osborn.
1 The Green Goblin
The OG—Original Goblin—is truly Spider-Man’s arch-enemy, consistently pushing the Webhead past his limits and handing him his most crushing defeats. When physical challenges were no longer sufficient, the Green Goblin challenged Peter Parker’s sanity first with psychedelic gas, and later by murdering Peter’s loving girlfriend, Gwen Stacy.
Even Osborn's gnarly death impaled on his Goblin Glider didn’t keep the first Goblin down. He murdered spider-clone Ben Reilly, led the government-sponsored Dark Avengers, and conquered New York City, converting it into the Goblin Nation. Dangerousness is about results, and the first Green Goblin has always been results-oriented.