How does history changed if the original Hobgoblin was revealed to be the mastermind of the Clone Saga instead of Norman? With his secret identity still being a mystery and the Ned Leeds thing being revealed to be a set-up.
Green Goblin>>>Hobgoblin. Never understood the appeal of the latter
>>150333208That's because you don't really read much
>>150333147>How does history changed
>>150333230Let's not start that bullshit.
>>150333147Makes the ending even more retarded. As absolutely ass backwards making Norman the big bad was at least he had the motive and means to pull it all off. Having it be Hobgoblin would be pathetic, especially not since Macendale had so thoroughly ruined any credibility the role had
>>150333147By 95 Macendale was the pathetic whiny loser of the Spidey rogues, who liked to cross his arms and talk like a saturday morning villain. I'm not sure anyone at Marvel would want to bother with him, or readers care much either. At best the cartoon was trying to sell him as Marvel Joker. I cannot think of a way for him to be the mastermind here and make it believable. Unless someone at Marvel was trying to reinvent the guy for a third time as one of the big master plotters of the villains. It might have worked out with Dock Ock, but he was killed early in the storyline.
>>150333208>. Never understood the appeal of the latterThe cartoon, I know nothing about the comics but I remember being upset when Green Goblin started upstaging Hobgoblin he was a much more fun villain.
>>150333147No, it needs Ned to stay Hobgoblin for maximum punch, combined with Ned killing more than just Ben and the baby. IE he needs blow Flash, Betty, Liz, etc into a million bloody pieces with pumpkin bombs to give it maximum shock horror given how Peter fucked Ned's wife and then passed her off to Flash and helped cover up the affair.
>>150336128This. Ned coming back and being responsible for the Clone Saga would have made up for the bitch way he went out AND make Hobgoblin an a-List villain again
>>150333147When the Clone Saga happened Ned Leeds was the accepted Hobgoblin, you couldn't just hoist Kingsley onto the readers, a character most of the audience didn't knowAt least with Stormin' Norman there was a parallel Good Guy Green Goblin book going on at the same time which helped clue in younger readers to the legacy of the Purse Swinging Maniac.Kingsley is just not a viable character without Hobgoblin Lives.
>>150336892Yeah, at the time there was a fight at Marvel of should it be Norman or Harry who's behind it. In Hindsight both were stupid and they should of just made it the Jackal but no one can replace Norman's goblin, not Harry and not any of the kirkland brand goblins. So making it be Norman at least served the purpose of bring Norman back. Making it Harry just shits on his last minute redemption before he died.
>>150335341Why did Marvel never give Macendale the goblin formula anyway? They acknowledged over and over again that someone just using the gadgets is still no match for spider-Man. They did that way early on in the first appearances.
Green goblin was lame in that 90s cartoon. Hobogoblin was better
If they ever adapted Ned Leeds Hobgoblin they should have had Jeff Bennet voice him as an allusion to Jack Ryder becoming The Creeper.
>>150335341OP wasn't talking about him.Also, I care about him.
Yo
>>150336128>>150336374>>150336892What if Ned was the mastermind then?
>>150333208Green Goblins entire shtick was being a dude with split personality, who is either docile and knows nothing, or is full psycho and knows & abuses Peters identity. And by the time of the clone saga we already had Norman long dead and Harry having his own meltdown + death arc. Bringing back Norman was complete bugfuck retarded last minute ass pull.Hobgoblins idea was that he is a criminal mastermind who found Normans cache of weapons & chemicals, improved on them, and he isn't an obsessed schizo so he does not fuck things up, and he guards his secret identity that even Marvel editorial didn't knew who he was. The latter was admittedly because of EIC changes, Hobgoblins reveal was one of the things lost in transition.The problem is that Marvel fucked up Hobgoblin by turning him into Jason Macendale who did a really pisspoor job. So the only way they could do it was by mixing it together with that LATER story that explained how Kingsley was brainwashing 3-4 other people to act as hobgoblins to act as patsies. And that would be retarded retcon ass pull on top of retarded retcon ass pull.Clone Saga was really something where Marvel dug itself into the ground and had no way to come out of it.With that said, Hobgoblin started out far better than Green Goblin, until they mixed Macendale into it.
>>150333147A lot of the appeal of original flavor Hobgoblin is wrapped up in him being the "nothing personnel, kid" guy who doesn't want a personal rivalry with that one superhero he fights all the time. So making him the mastermind behind a deeply personal attempt to destroy Peter Parker's life would be even more nonsensical than anything Marvel actually published during the Clone Saga.>>150337612There are a lot of Spider-Man villains who just have gadgets and no powers, and even a lot of the guys who do have powers aren't superhumanly durable, so some writers probably didn't consider it a big deal, and it was only an issue to the Muh Power Levels autists. The problem was that we went from a Hobgoblin who was pushed as a top-tier villain to one who was a villain of the month tier guy, and a lot of readers were so butthurt about this that they exaggerate it and talk like he was a White Rabbit or Walrus tier character, and still do to this day. There was an issue with some writers also being butthurt about the change in Hobgoblins, and seeming to take it out on Macendale, when on paper, a guy with his backstory should be someone who's very good at fighting even before he becomes a supervillain. Eventually he got powers from various other sources instead of the Goblin Formula, maybe just to subvert expectations.
>>150337612Macendale actually finally got super strength shortly before the start of the Clone Saga ( the same arc that introduced the Grim Hunter). He got infused with an enhanced version of Kraven's potion and promptly used his new power to kill off Demogoblin.The problem with Macendale is that he's always just been a glorified thug. Ironically gaining super powers meant he lost his most interesting character trait, his inferiority complex and desire to gain super powers. He spent his last few appearances before his death in Hobgoblin Lives as a filler villain and henchman.
>>150333147>pic
>>150333147How Hob is this Goblin?
>>150342807>The problem with Macendale is that he's always just been a glorified thug.Not a thug, a merc. What you see as a problem was actually a strength, he was one of those Marvel villains who could just show up in any book at any time with no explanation needed beyond someone hiring him to fight a superhero, or because someone put a contract out to kill someone in the book's cast. I'd argue that villains like that are actually of more value to Marvel than they'll ever get credit for.>Ironically gaining super powers meant he lost his most interesting character trait, his inferiority complex and desire to gain super powers.Not really, because he (and every other villain) is not going to be allowed to actually kill Spider-Man, so whatever powers he gets are never going to be enough to satisfy him. That's how you end up with him getting powers from Kraven's potion and then getting cyborg enhancements on top of that.>He spent his last few appearances before his death in Hobgoblin Lives as a filler villain and henchman.His last few appearances were him taking something of a dominant role in what was left of the Sinister Six after Otto died, and trying to organize the Spidey rogues gallery to defend themselves from Kaine, then a heist plot in the Phil Urich Green Goblin book, followed by him being hired by Stromm, in his Gaunt identity, which in turn set him up as one of the few other Goblins that Norman didn't object to existing.He got a lot of characterization and personality in those stories, and many others, and that's more important than a win/loss record in fictional stories in which most villains don't get wins.
>>150333208I like his design better
>>150342615How to say you never read shit a single book that included Hobgoblin without ever saying you never read a single book that included Hobgoblin.
>>150341297There's 4 major problems, they way Ned was killed and the story device they to identify who was a clone in the clone saga and Ned's motive as to even being the Hobgoblin, and finally the timing of ending of the Clone Saga.Ned was found dead, tied up with his throat slit on panel with Wolverine present to confirm death, it doesn't get more deader than that in MarvelAlso in the Clone Saga the only to tell a clone apart is that they turned into goo instantly upon death, it's the device they used to prove to the reader that Ben Reilly was the clone. Ned just did not have a motive to be the Hobgoblin, he was killed off in Spider-Man vs Wolverine and a month later, they told us, "Oh yeah, he's the Hobgoblin by the way" it wasn't a revelation that anyone bought, which brought on the additional Hobgoblins, Ned didn't have the money or the intelligence or the knowledge that Peter was Spider-ManFinally the timing, Marvel went bankrupt and pulled the parachute to get Peter back as Spider-Man, they only used 1 comic book to resolve the Clone Saga, bring back Norman, Kill Ben, repower Peter, move Peter and MJ back to NY, have MJ go into labor, lose the baby and set up the next arc of "Where is Spider-Man's baby" that's already a very tight book without retconing Ned's death, the way clones work, Why Ned is the Hobgoblin, how did a reporter get the money to finance, The Jackal, Judas Traveler and the Scriers. Also Ned was killed in 86, the Original Clone story is 1975 meaning he couldn't have been manipulating the Jackal all along.
>>150342615>so some writers probably didn't consider it a big deal, and it was only an issue to the Muh Power Levels autists.Yeah no, the character bemoaning his not having powers and having problems matching Spider-Man goes back to his first encounter with Peter in amazing Spider-Man 239 when he was manhandled and then spent the last few pages realizing he needed powers. That is why Kingsley started looking up the goblin formula immediately after.Also Macendale had the same conclusion which led to his begging N'Astirh for demon powers during Inferno. This acknowledgement of Macendale needing superpowers to handle Spider-Man is how we ended up with Demogoblin in the 90s. It did not come from forum based powerlevelfags. It was a major aspect of the character since his second print appearance.
It's funny they originally made Ned Hobgoblin when they initially established the original Hobgoblin rented out a mansion in Long Island for Lefty Donovan.
