Throughout Peter Parker's superhero career, Spider-Man comics thrived by introducing an ever-growing array of ever-changing, colorful supervillains. While plenty of villains have made Peter's life horrible, no malicious mastermind proved better at that task than Norman Osborn, who's most recognizable as the Green Goblin. Though he started out as a generic Halloween-themed menace in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man #14, Osborn grew into Spidey's deadliest and most menacing adversaries.
In fact, his role grew even further past Spider-Man until he became villain too big for any one hero. Over the past several years, Osborn has terrorized Spider-Man and the rest of the Marvel Universe outside of his Green Goblin suit as much as he has with it. In fact, Osborn may be at his best when he's not the Green Goblin at all.
When Norman was first introduced, he was a fairly standard villain for Spider-Man to face off against. Although his early schemes involved taking over organized crime in New York, the backstory behind the Green Goblin became far more engaging when it turned out that he was the father of one of Peter Parker's college acquaintances, Harry. As Peter and Harry's friendship grew deeper, so too did the rivalry between the Goblin and Spider-Man.
An early story involving Norman's discovery of Peter's secret identity began to really push the green fiend into the role of mastermind and a manipulator who posted a greater threat to Spider Man's emotional and mental well-being than he ever did physically. Increasingly, that became Norman's main role over the years, with seeming fits of amnesia or supposed deaths only offering Peter a temporary reprieve from the looming threat Osborn posed. From killing Gwen Stacy to framing Spider-Man for murder and convincing him he wasn't even the "real" Peter Parker during "The Clone Saga," the Green Goblin's machinations grew to ever more ambitious and dastardly heights.
And somewhere along the way, Norman grew out of the need to be a costumed supervillain altogether. Although Norman would appear periodically in his Goblin garb, his primary role in Spider-Man stories over time became more about pulling strings and setting up intricate plans than getting in knock-down-drag-out fights with Spidey directly. It wasn't until the wake of Marvel's superhero Civil War that his new status really came to the fore, as Osborn managed to leverage his role leading the anti-heroic Thunderbolts team into a position of immense power and influence.
Convinced of Osborn's reform and capability manipulated by his PR team, the public accepted Norman as a bureaucratic leader who put a sinister smile on the face of global super politics. Osborn gained even more power in the Dark Reign era, as his H.A.M.M.E.R. organization replaced S.H.I.E.L.D., and he sat at the center of groups like the Dark Avengers, Dark X-Men and the Thunderbolts. Impressively, he did all of this while keeping his cool and cultivating increasing amounts of power. Still, the Green Goblin persona lurked under the surface threatening to bubble up, and he never lost his obsession with the spider who first caught him in such a tangled web.
Occasionally the Green Goblin same persona would come roaring back with a vengeance, confirming that Osborn's cool and collected demeanor is just a facade hiding a full-blown psychopath. The two seemingly disparate roles Osborn plays vie for control not only in his mind, but also raise the question of how he best serves a story. Does Norman Osborn work better as a mastermind in a business suit, or a bomb-tossing psycho in a costume?
Osborn's vacillated between the two roles quite a bit in recent years, posing a physical threat to Spider-Man as Red Goblin and serving as a mastermind in the Ravencroft series. Now, he's set to return in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, wearing his classic Green Goblin suit.
Even though Norman has evolved so much throughout the years, and his most engaging stories cast him as a puppet master, Norman Osborn just can't outrun the Green Goblin's shadow. Ultimately, Osborn's versatility is something that makes him one of Marvel's greatest villains. His charming facade will always hide the cackling maniac who lingers just beneath the surface.
Both of these personas make Norman Osborn a stronger character, and they balance each other out. Norman Osborn provides the plot and the character and the drama, but the Green Goblin provides the excitement and the action and the physical catharsis of a bloody brawl. Osborn may have grown extensively throughout the years, but Norman is never too old to dress up in a creepy costume.