It’s still shocking that Marvel Studios weakened one of Peter Parker’s most iconic and powerful villains when bringing him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. No Way Home’s intense story saw Tom Holland’s wall-crawler come to blows with several supervillains from previous non-MCU Spider-Man movies. This marked the triumphant returns of Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, and, perhaps most excitingly, Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn. Unfortunately, however, No Way Home’s Green Goblin wasn’t what we expected.
Throughout his initial appearance in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man in 2002 opposite Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker, Norman Osborn got many chances to show off his unhinged and violent persona and impressive strength. In one very memorable scene, Osborn uses a Pumpkin Bomb to disintegrate a group of innocent bystanders, including his company’s board of directors, at Oscorp’s Unity Day festival. It would have been brilliant to see this brutal and limitless evil repeated in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but Marvel Studios made the Green Goblin much weaker in the Phase 4 trilogy-capper.
Of course, in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Green Goblin persona did take over Norman Osborn in order to kill Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and turn the other multiversal villains against Peter Parker and his friends. However, May’s death was the only one caused by the Green Goblin, and this wasn’t nearly as brutal as one of his Pumpkin Bombs eradicating Oscorp’s board of directors members’ skin, muscle, and organs, leaving just their skeletons behind. Norman Osborn is perhaps Spider-Man’s best and most well-known adversary, so it’s a shame his MCU debut wasn’t more impactful.
Now, the version of Norman Osborn depicted in the animated Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series, voiced by Academy Award-nomination Colman Domingo, has displayed his more manipulative and scheming persona. He hasn’t yet adopted the Green Goblin persona, but this could occur in season 2 or beyond, and the violence already seen in the animated Multiverse Saga series means this Green Goblin could be incredibly brutal. If Colman Domingo makes the jump to live-action to portray the official Norman Osborn – perhaps after Avengers: Secret Wars’ reset of the MCU – this same manipulation and brutality can finally be delivered.
Spider-Man: No Way Home marked Norman Osborn’s first appearance and mention in the MCU proper, so it’s a shame he didn’t show off all his violent tendencies. He was perhaps dulled down to make the other villains – specifically Lizard, Electro, and Sandman – more powerful, as Tom Holland’s incarnation of Peter Parker would have typically been able to easily take down these less-powerful foes. The MCU’s upcoming reset provides the perfect opportunity for a new Norman Osborn to be introduced, which gives us hope he’ll be just as terrifying as Willem Dafoe’s version from 2002’s Spider-Man.
Do you want to see a more brutal Green Goblin debut in the MCU? Let us know in the comments!
