>>150823045
it's just a coda for 80s ASM

>>150823045
I don't think Spider-Man is for me. I haven't liked any of his comics.

>>150824907
What have you read?

>>150824950
Some Ditko, including Amazing Fantasy #15 and "If This Be My Destiny", some Denny O' Neil, some Stern including "The Boy Who Collects Spider-Man", some Bendis USM, some Jenkins, some Hickman USM.

>>150823045
That's comics for you.

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Most comic book writers don't know how to write an ending which is also why Stern never bothered to end the Hobgoblin story in the 80s in the first place.

>>150827351
true

>>150823045
Shame.

>>150823045
>Fans of original Hobgoblin ridiculously over-sell how much better he was than other villains
>Particularly over-sell how much better he was than his successor
>Literal hivemind copypasta about how the second Hobgoblin was A JOKE AND A LOSER
>Original Hobgoblin actually just had massive plot armor to keep his mystery running
>As soon as the mystery's over he jobs like everyone else
>He's unmasked as Literally Who?
>An irrelevant side-character from a few 80s stories
>Fans pretend this is good just because it's the original writer's idea, and so you can't think critically about it at all
Honestly the original end with the mystery where Peter David had to make something out of how badly Marvel had botched things all made for a more memorable story where the villain got killed by other villains. It was more memorable than this generic battle and a Scooby Doo-tier unmasking as a random evil old guy.

>>150824907
Lies

>>150831259
>>Literal hivemind copypasta about how the second Hobgoblin was A JOKE AND A LOSER
Macendale is a joke and a loser
There's no other possible interpretation

>>150831259
Wasn't Roderick Kingsley originally intended to be the Rose, while Hobgoblin was going to be Richard Fisk?

>>150832695
Get a new routine, you retards have been running the same copypasta for decades. If he's "a joke and a loser" so is 99% of the Spider-Man rogues gallery. Do you screech and reee about how Vulture, Electro, Shocker or Scorpion are "a joke and a loser"? No. Then shut up. They're villains, their role is to lose to Spider-Man.

>>150832882
That was Tom DeFalco's plan, which fell apart the moment he was fired off ASM. It's a long story, but it appears he'd told everyone else in the Spider-Man office that his plan was for Hobgoblin to be Ned Leeds, to prevent his real plan from leaking out, but while he did a lot of work setting up Ned as a red herring, he'd done nothing at all in his years on the book to set up Dick Fisk as a suspect.

>>150833248
>Do you screech and reee about how Vulture, Electro, Shocker or Scorpion are "a joke and a loser"? No.
Because they're not, not to the same extent anyway
Even if it was just for their debuts they each managed to get one over on Spider-Man
The first time Spidey and Macendale cross paths Spidey swats him without a second thought
Then every time Macendale tries to get more power it blows up in his face because he's an idiot and a loser. And people acknowledge that in-universe too
There's really no defending the guy

>>150827351
Making endings sort of goes against the general nature of an ongoing comic where nothing ever ends, stories are endlessly repeating, and every character will live forever because we want merch sales.

>>150831259
It's not too hard to come to those conclusions when the OG Hobgoblin constantly got away, was never actually defeated by Spider-Man at all, and the book repeatedly beat readers over the head informing them that Macendale was a loser. Pretty much every single Hobgoblin story from 88 until 95 or so was all about how Macendale was some loser.

Things at least made some level of sense before they decided to stick Kingsley into things in 97. That did not really make sense and just made the plot annoying complicated for no real payoff. Macendale was getting some comeuppance in the mid 90s anyway when he got the Kraven strength treatment and killed Demogoblin.

>>150833248
It's not quite the same. Most of Spidey's villains are just ordinary dumb lugs with superpowers. But a lot of Macendale stories will have him to to a bar, and half the guys there will make fun of him for being a dumb loser. Then he leaves and broods for a while calling himself a dumb loser.

>>150833672
>there are times he's won fights or made good showings against whoever he was fighting
>but that doesn't matter
>all that matters is his first fight with Spider-Man
>written by one of the few guys at Marvel at the time who cared at all about muh power levels and really playing up how Spider-Man was a mid- to high-tier superhero playing in the street-level area
>that's all that counts, that one guy's take on things
After that, he's a perfectly cromulent villain when not being written by someone nursing a NOT MUH HOBGOBLIN hateboner and trying to work his opinion into the story. The "every time he tries to get more power it blows up in his face" thing isn't even accurate, that only happened one out of three times. Frankly if you look at his backstory, anyone writing a guy who'd done all that as an idiot is themselves an idiot.

>>150834039
Hobgoblin was upgraded to saturday morning villain around 94 in Spider-Man Unlimited. He has a super secret lair full of rayguns and jetpacks too.

>>150831259
I think part of the problem is that no writer can remain settled on what Hobgoblin's whole deal is.

>He's some super plotting scheming background villain
>He is a friend of Peter's with a bone to pick
>Then he's a super tough ex mercenary wanting in on the local organized crime
>Then he's a wannabe supervillain searching for other objects of power
It's a little worse in the modern era, no one can really decide why Kingsley is doing the Hobgoblin thing at all. They toyed around with he makes gadget villain costumes and sells them to people.

Is the real Jason Macendale posting in this thread?

>>150834039
>It's not too hard to come to those conclusions when the OG Hobgoblin constantly got away, was never actually defeated by Spider-Man at all
Most of those stories involve him realizing he's losing to Spider-Man and running away, with his plan thwarted. The mystery gave him the plot armor to get away, but he didn't win nor accomplish anything. The lack of mystery simply put Macendale in the same category as the rest of the Spider-Man rogues gallery where he could just go to prison when he lost, instead of there being a need for him to get away to keep a mystery plot running. "Always loses...but gets away" isn't that huge a flex, especially when it's just situational plot armor for the sake of a mystery.

>Pretty much every single Hobgoblin story from 88 until 95 or so was all about how Macendale was some loser.
You're conflating "wanting to become more powerful" with "being some loser". And about half of those interim years between 88 and 94 were taken up with him becoming a demon, going crazy, splitting with Demogoblin and feuding with each other, all of which had nothing to do with wanting more power, nor "being a loser". Those years also developed him and gave him personality, motivation, etc, which is more important in a villain than "always gets away" or a win/loss record.

>That did not really make sense and just made the plot annoying complicated for no real payoff.
The payoff is just "this is who the first Hobgoblin writer planned it to be". If you don't know or care about the behind the scenes drama from 80s Marvel it's not much of a payoff.

>But a lot of Macendale stories will have him to to a bar, and half the guys there will make fun of him for being a dumb loser. Then he leaves and broods for a while calling himself a dumb loser.
That's literally one issue in the Spider-Man: Mutant Agenda mini, not "a lot of stories", and it's setup for him to beat up those guys, he didn't just go "yeah, they're right" and walk off sulking like you think.

>>150834200
>>150834200
>no writer can remain settled on what Hobgoblin's whole deal is
Most people do not really want to compare him to the common Spidery rogue since half of them are random joes from off the street that got superpowers one day and decided to rob banks. But that origin works so well with the first initial Hobgoblin stories since for all we know he was some guy off the street that accidentally stumbled into one of Norman's weapon stashes and decided to be a supervillain. It's simple and easy, some guy finds a few million in special supervillain hardware and thinks maybe he can put on some laser gloves and knock over banks too.

But the Hobgoblins that appeared in the books were all very motivated guys what went out of their way to build a villain persona, looked for more Norman stashes and notes, and spent half their time plotting crimes. So he's closer to guys like Shocker and Beetle who spends lots of time and effort to make themselves into this big time supervillains, who is really one of the more secondary guys Spider-Man faces from time to time. From a reader's perspective they all failed since none of them are A-List characters so it's effort wasted.

>>150834328
I think that would be a lot more fun actually. Rather than Hobgoblin's reveal be some huge dramatic event that shows he was someone close to Peter all along, he really was just some John Q Nobody who happened across one of Norman's caches and decided to level up his life and be the next Goblin. Harry already had the close contact of Peter's moonlighting as a villain at times angle anyway.

Meanwhile John Q Nobody found a 5 million dollar goblin glider, and decided to use it to steal hundreds from ATMs so he can pretend to be a big shot supervillain.

>>150823045
I just read the Wikipedia rundown of Hobgoblin’s history and literally the only thing more convoluted is attempting to explain which decade the UNIT era of Doctor Who took place in.

>>150832537
?

>>150833968
Yeah, but arcs do come to a conclusion and a lot of writers are simply bad at it. So many long running plots end with an anticlimax or a whimper.

>>150823045
Long-running comics were a mistake.

>>150823045
I don't know, selling us some smarmy fashion designer as the next Norman Osborn "bUt BeTteR" and a convenient twin brother to justify having both guys together doesn't work as good as Stern might think...

An enjoyable limited series but animated Hobgoblin still reigns supreme...

>>150835809
I think a lot of it are them running out of time and editorial interference.

I've said it before but they should have said "fuck it" and immediately undid Ned's death first chance they could. Hell, Ned as being behind the Clone Saga could have worked especially if they let him rack up a body count so you could do a new status quo for Peter and MJ (everyone at the Bugle dies save Jonah).

>>150827351
Why would the stories end? You need to introduce the next story during the current story so you can transition into it. Never give your audience a jumping off point because they will. It's all soap opera, kid.

>>150836868
At least in the case of Dark Phoenix, editorial interference gave it a great ending instead of a whimper.
But then the same Editor-in-Chief undid it a few years later, the double-edged blade of editorial mandate.

>>150837229
No one on earth will ever like the clone saga ir anything from it.

>>150823045
it made sense in hindsight, but it did feel underwhelming/out of nowhere after all these years.

Okay. Lets settle this. Imagine there was no Ned Leeds death or Hobgoblin Lives. Who SHOULD be The Hobgoblin?

Roderick Kingsley
>logical, would do the things hobgoblin was established to have done given what we learn about him in his spectacular spider-man stories
>has the finances to do what he would do
>hobgoblin being an evil fashion designer is admittedly creative
>somewhat of an obscure character, which may be an underwhelming reveal, but it can be changed by giving him more scenes/stories. do remember that norman osborn was barely established and wasnt even named until 2 issues before GG's reveal
>has an established relationship with one of the major characters (mary jane)
>kingsley characterization is admittedly inconsistent on the surface. sometimes he is a flamboyant wimp other times he is menacing

Richard Fisk
>logical, motivation lines up with the original character for the most part
>would be an interesting reveal, brings back a character that has not been seen in years in a huge way
>has the riches to pull off being the hobgoblin
>changes the rose to roderick kingsley
>ties him to 2 villains which could be too much and might bog him down

Ned Leeds
>would be a popular reveal, long-running member ot the supporting cast
>has a strong connection to a major part of spider-man's supporting cast (bugle) which adds some drama
>probably the most emotionally impactful choice to be the hobgoblin
>does not really have the financial backing or underground connections that hobgoblin and his alter ego are shown to have in early stories
>motivation ill-fitting/unclear, would ned really do the things hobgoblin has done?

>>150837925
Would make it Harry Osborne.

>>150837806
A lot of people like Ben and Kaine. The problem people had at the time was that it went on too long, and they tried too hard to sell "Peter Parker is a clone" as a permanent change.

>>150837806
wizard tanked it publicly, but it was massively popular at the time. fans were engaged and sales were popping to the point accounting demanded they continue it and extend it longer and longer and added all the hologram covers and maximum clonage nonsense and scarlet spider/age of apocalypse title changes, etc. the first half or so was very well done and doesnt start to go off rails until the interference and demands to extend story. asm400 still one of my favorite single issues wtih death of aunt may. very strong and well done. the clone forced to sit alone on roof as only one he cares about in world dies and cant even be with her very strong scene. peter with the peter pan send off for her very nice too. and all culminates with peter arrested for what his clone did and ben coming down ominously was great ending for drama and effect.

lot of other good issues and the different tone between ben/scarlet spider books and peter's were great juxtaposition of the 90s grimdark peter they had driven books towards with his parents storyline and chameleon/green goblin stuff. made the ben stuff a breath of fresh air/back to basics and remind us what was missing for years. most on comicboards, etc were under impression clone would eventually die and peter realize whats wrong/learn from his clone and wed get back to normal peter and spiderman again. not the insanity they eventualy progressed towards.

but even as bad as it got, it was never as bad as jms era spiderman that destroyed the character completely with entire top 10 of worst comics ever produced on the resume or the modern cuck peter diluted with 85 pseudo clones like miles and gwen.

>>150837925
Richard Fisk being Hobby fucks with his motivation. Fisk has a personal connection with Fisk and wants to drive out his criminal empire. Hobgoblin just wants to rule that empire for himself and wield power.

>>150838085
Isn't that the same problem as making him The Rose? DeFalco never meant for him to be that guy. Priest did it to spite him.

>>150838845
If Roderick is Hobgoblin and Fisk is elsewhere... is Daniel Kingsley The Rose?

>>150838932
That wouldn't work given their dynamic. He'd just be some random guy then which is what he was initially.

>>150834446
Huh? Care to extrapolate?

>>150840371
The tldr is that due to cockups by successive production teams, the UNIT era ended before it started and there’s no way to reconcile it.
It’s way more complicated than that and a crazy rabbit hole to go down though.

>>150837806
Some people like that shit, come on.

>>150823045
It sucked.

>>150823045
Does he Hob?

>>150837229
The first Clone Saga being before the whole hobgoblin mess (and Ned actually being the hostage in the finale) kind of puts a crimp in those plans.
Also killing off the entire Bugle cast would have been completely retarded

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>>150837806
I will always defend the Clone Saga

>>150824907
Me too

>>150823045
Why is Hobgoblin 70 years old?