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As Green Goblin prepares to menace Spider-Man on the big screen again, here’s why the supervillain is more than a match for the webslinging superhero.
One of the supervillains set to return to the big screen in Spider-Man: No Way Home is Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, nearly 20 years since audiences last saw him portray the web-slinging superhero’s emerald-clad antagonist in 2002’s Spider-Man. Of all the villains that Spider-Man has tangled with, the Green Goblin is easily one of the most formidable and has personally cost Peter Parker more than any other recurring member of his rogues gallery.
More than what the Green Goblin has done to Spider-Man, the supervillain has his own surprising set of superpowers and is physically stronger than his arch-nemesis, making him a truly dangerous villain in Spidey’s extensive cast of enemies. But what are those powers, and what can he actually do?
Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1964’s Amazing Spider-Man #14, the original Green Goblin is Norman Osborn, a successful businessman and scientific genius. In a desperate bid to take a greater degree of control over his company, Oscorp, Norman develops a serum to enhance human strength and intelligence, which does indeed succeed on those parameters, but also causes him to descend into violent insanity. Creating the supervillain alter ego of the Green Goblin, Norman intended to use his new persona and powers to become the head of New York City’s organized crime, only to develop a deep grudge against Spider-Man after the wall-crawler constantly thwarted his various schemes.
After being dosed with his experimental serum to become the Green Goblin, Norman got raw strength, endurance and speed approximately on par with Spider-Man; while not depicted consistently, the Green Goblin can lift around nine tons. More than a match for Spider-Man in hand-to-hand combat, the Green Goblin also has a healing factor, which has saved him from injuries that would kill most, including being stabbed in the abdomen by his bladed glider and pinned to a wall, fully recovering despite being presumed dead.
Norman has temporarily had his physical abilities augmented on multiple occasions, including memorable instances where Norman’s body was genetically enhanced to resemble a Super-Adaptoid, and another where he became the host for the Carnage symbiote. As a Super-Adaptoid, Norman could replicate the powers of any super-powered individuals in the immediate vicinity around him, making him able to take on the Avengers singlehandedly until his replication abilities overloaded his body and caused the Super-Adaptoid traits to permanently burn out. While bonded to the Carnage symbiote, Norman referred to himself as the Red Goblin and boosted many of the powers associated with other symbiote hosts like Venom, but enhanced with new abilities like self-replicating pumpkin bombs.
Even before ingesting the Green Goblin serum, Norman possessed a keen intellect that enabled him to craft a plethora of genetic and hardware advancements that rivaled some of the Marvel Universe’s best and brightest minds. This and Norman’s billionaire fortune has led the Green Goblin to be armed with an especially deadly arsenal of weapons and gadgets that keep Spider-Man on his toes, but also means that Norman is one of the most devious supervillains around, orchestrating the entire Clone Saga as part of a longstanding vendetta against Peter Parker and using his wiles to rise to power on multiple occasions.
While Norman Osborn has risen to become a threat for the entire Marvel Universe, including memorably heading the government-sponsored organization H.A.M.M.E.R. to replace S.H.I.E.L.D. and hunt down any heroes that opposed him, the Green Goblin always has a twisted soft spot towards menacing Spider-Man. From discovering his nemesis’ secret identity to murdering those close to him — most notably including his longtime love Gwen Stacy — the Green Goblin is, in many ways, Spider-Man’s worst nightmare. In a pitched battle, even Spidey’s incredible abilities can’t give him a decisive edge against the Green Goblin when the supervillain comes calling, just like he will in No Way Home.
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