So last time we covered Doctor
Connors and the Lizard, a Jekyll and Hyde style character where the kindly
scientist is transformed into an unstable, unstoppable monster. That’s a fairly
standard background story for horror monsters and mad scientist turned
monsters. Next, let’s talk about another staple of the Halloween season, a
Goblin, a Hobgoblin specifically.
Let’s flashback to 1973. That July,
the Green Goblin, Norman Osborn, had done the unthinkable and caused the death
of Peter Parker’s long-time girlfriend Gwen Stacey. In the ensuing battle,
despite being enraged by his nemesis’ actions, Peter didn’t end up killing the
psychopath. Norman accidentally killed himself when he attempted to impale
Peter from behind with his Goblin Glider. This marked the end of one of Peter’s
happiest relationships, which is obviously depressing, but also his long-standing
feud with Norman. Unfortunately for Peter, while Norman remained dead for
several decades, there are never a shortage of copycat villains in the comic
universes. And while there were a few heirs to the Green Goblin legacy, including
Peter’s friend and Norman’s son Harry Osborn, I’d argue none was as effective
as the villain that appeared ten years after ol’ Gobby’s death, the Hobgoblin.
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| He does look good on that glider. |
I should point out most of the background
I’m going to go into didn’t come up until several years after the Hobgoblin’s
first appearance. According to his creators, Roger Stern, Mike Zeck and John
Romita Jr., they wrote and introduced the character of the Hobgoblin and didn’t
have a single idea of who would ultimately be behind the rubber mask. There
were a few possible identities, which included a name you might recognize, Ned
Leeds, but it wasn’t until 1997 that it was officially revealed to be a man
named Roderick Kingsley was the true Hobgoblin. Let’s get into that, now that I’ve
had three paragraphs of preamble.
Roderick Kingsley began his career
as a fashion designing multi-millionaire. While he presented a kindlier face to
the world, like a lot of millionaires in the Marvel universe… and real life if
I’m being honest, he harbored a much darker personality behind closed doors. Kingsley
had ties to organized crime, which he used to increase his business through corporate
espionage and unethical deals. He was also the kind of jerk that strong armed
his timid twin Daniel into doing the day-to-day company work. We’ll get back to
that point in a minute. Kingsley made a few enemies due to his dealings, the
one that started the ball rolling on his fall to supervillainy was a woman
named Narda Ravanna. She was a rival designer that he’d ruined that took up the
costume criminal identity of Belladonna. She tried to kill him a few times, but
he was saved by Spider-Man both times. These incidents made Kingsley begin to
search for… alternative means of protecting himself. One of his minions, a
fella named George Hill, stumbled upon a solution. He found one of Norman Osborn’s
secret lairs, which included all of his Goblin Gear and a cache of weaponry.
Kingsley killed Hill and began looking over his new collection of toys.
Kingsley familiarized himself with
the gear and some of the data that Osborn kept there. He decided that, since
all other previous Green Goblins had (total of 3 at the time, I believe) had been
driven insane, he decided to make a new identity model after the original
Goblin. He created the orange and yellow costume and the alias of The Hobgoblin.
His initial scheme was to use blackmail files that Osborn had compiled to get his
hands on Oscorp. He was thwarted by Spider-Man on this and a few other minor
crimes. Realizing that he couldn’t battle Spider-Man effectively as he was, Kingsley
began trying to recreate the strength enhancing formula that Norman stole from
his colleague Mendel Stromm. He eventually was able to perfect the formula.
Rather than immediately take it himself, Kingsley did the smart thing and test
it on someone else first. He used a mind control device he stole from a former
employee and the formula to turn a small-time criminal Lefty Donovan into a
Hobgoblin that could take a punch from Spider-Man and send the web-head flying
with one of his own. Donovan proved to be a competent opponent for Spider-Man,
so Kingsley killed him by forcing the Goblin Glider to crash. He took a hit of
the gas himself, and becomes a physical match for Spider-Man.
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| Did he buy a Spider-Man suit just to rip in half? I don't get rich people. |
Despite his newfound power, Kingsley
was still regularly defeated by Spider-Man and got onto the $%^& list of some
of New York’s powerful elite, including the Kingpin. In order to keep his
identity a secret, Kingsley kidnapped Ned Leeds, a reporter investigating him
and brainwashed him into believing he was the Hobgoblin. He used Ned as a decoy
for a while, and then had him assassinated so he could retire. He returned from
retirement a few years later, to kill the current Hobgoblin, Jason Macendale,
to protect his identity and remove an unworthy successor. He then captured
Betty Brant, a former Parker love interest and current investigator into the Hobgoblin
case. He tried to kill Peter, but in the ensuing battle, his brother Daniel is
captured and Roderick is unmasked. See, in order to try to keep his identity a
secret, Roderick would often send his twin into locals he’d attack as the Hobgoblin
in order to protect his identity. Yes, this was a retcon in order to explain
how Kingsley could be the Hobgoblin when he was shown to be in places that the
Hobgoblin attacked. Roderick is arrested, Ned is posthumously cleared, and all
is made right in the world. For a while anyway.
Roderick Kingsley has since escaped
prison and continued to fight Peter Parker. He’s formed a bitter hatred with the
returned Norman Osborn, as they both feel the other is the lesser Goblin. More
recently, Roderick has gotten into the criminal arms dealing. He’d get his
hands on the gear of deceased or incarcerated villains and then rented the gear
and names to other would-be villains for a hefty fee. The dude is one hell of a
business man.
Initially, Roderick Kingsley had no
superhuman powers, but was an intelligent, cunning sociopath with an insane
amount of luck. He had the knowhow to learn how to use all of Norman’s old gear
and to upgrade them as he went along. He wears bulletproff mail along with an
overlapping tunic, cape and cowl. He also wears an incredibly expressive rubber
yellow mask to hide his identity. His main weaponry includes the incredibly
useful Goblin Glider, concussive and incendiary bombs in the shape of Jack O’Lanterns,
smoke and gas grenades, and bat shaped throwing knives. He later figured out
how to recreate and improve the Mendel Stromm strength formula to give him
superhuman strength, reflexes and stamina. He also improved it to remove the insanity
inducing effects of the serum.
The Hobgoblin identity has only
been used a handful of times outside of the comics. I imagine that this is due
to the similarities to the Green Goblin, and the other Goblin’s overwhelming
popularity means that ol’ Hobgobby is left waiting. Interestingly, Roderick
Kingsley has only been used once outside of the comics.
Roderick Kingsley appeared in The
Spectacular Spider-Man’s second season episode “Gangland.” In this version
he’s the owner of a perfume factory and also African American. He’s one of several
criminal types, including Doc Ock, Tombstone and Silver Sable, bidding on the
blueprints for Rhino’s impenetrable skin. He wins the bid, but this all turns
out to be an attempt by Hammerhead to set himself up as the new Big Man of
Crime and eliminate his competition. Kingsley escaped unscathed. Showrunners
had revealed that had the series gotten a third season, Kingsley would have
returned and taken up the Goblin mantle.
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| The supervillain equivalent of showing up to a party in almost the same outfit. |
The Hobgoblin appeared in several
episodes of Spider-Man the Animated Series. He’s voiced by Mark Hamill. Interestingly,
in this continuity, he’s the first Goblin, appearing a full two seasons before
Norman donned that Goblin mask. I’d read somewhere that this was due to insistence
from Fox to include Hobgoblin for toy sales or some such nonsense. He appeared
in the Hobgoblin two parter. He’s initially hired by Norman Osborn,
irony, to assassinate Wilson Fisk. The Kingpin had recently gained control of
Oscorp and regularly threatened Norman to get his way. He makes an attempt on
Fisk, but is thwarted by Spider-Man. He makes several other appearances in The
Mutant Agenda, Mutants Revenge, Goblin War, and Spider Wars Part
1. He’s also referenced in Enter The Green Goblin, where Norman
revealed that he’d found the Hobgoblin’s cache of gear in his lab after an accident
and remodeled it for his use. His identity is finally revealed in Goblin War.
They used Jason Macendale as the real identity of the Hobgoblin. His identity
is only revealed when his fiancé and former Peter Parker romantic interest
Felicia Hardy stumbled upon the Goblin gear. I only bring him up in this as the
Hobgoblin has only a few appearances, and I don’t see myself going back and
doing a Jason Macendale version ever.
As far as villain’s go, Kingsley is
probably just in the Okay range. The mystery of who the Hobgoblin was and his
antics were good at the time, but the return of Norman Osborn a few years later
pretty much solidified him as one of Spider-Man’s lesser enemies. There’s
nothing inherently wrong with Kingsley, and against another hero he’d stand out
great, but when you’re being compared to the Green Goblin, it’s hard to measure
up. I will say he’s probably one of the most visually distinctive villains,
though. I can think of only a handful of characters that would think to use orange
and yellow as their primary colors. And his more recent plan as being a
super-villain identity broker is beyond brilliant. Think about it, you supply
the tech and name for some nobody with delusions of grandeur, collect a huge
fee, and yet you’re still physically strong enough to kick their asses if they
step out of line. Or hit the kill switch on their tech. I’ll be honest, were I a
supervillain, this is the sort of racket I’d like to get in on. So yeah, he’s a
Good Goblin forced down to an Okay Goblin by the Green Goblin.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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