The Smark Avengers - The Smark Avengers Present Goblin Month - Roderick Kingsley

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!It’s Week 3 of Goblin Month and the Smark Avengers are dedicating it to the clever, tactical mind of the original Hobgoblin Roderick Kingsley! Unlike perennial loser Jason Macendale who held the Hobgoblin persona for a majority of the 80s and 90s, Roderick Kingsley showed that there was more to being a goblin than flying on a glider and tossing pumpkin bombs! Whether it’s brainwashing the likes of Ned Leeds and Flash Thompson to pose as the Hobgoblin to get the heat off of him or dipping out of the country while the rest of the world thought he was dead, Kingsley was a thinking man’s goblin who relied on his wits thanks to never having gone insane like the various other goblins in the Marvel Universe! 🎃Sit back and relax as the Smark Avengers walk through the life and times of the first and best Hobgoblin Roderick Kingsley including:His bizarre & humble origins as a cutthroat fashion designer/career criminalStumbling upon one of Norman Osborn’s secret labs and finding all of his goblin paraphernalia Using Flash Thompson, Ned Leeds, and Jason Macendale to separate the association of himself with the HobgoblinKilling Macendale to reclaim the role and his identity finally being revealedHis apparent death at the hands of Phil Ulrich before allowing Ulrich to keep being Hobgoblin for a cut of his profitChallenging Norman for the title of Goblin KingAll of this and more! 💬 Join the discussion: who is your favorite of these assorted goblins? 👍 Like the video if you enjoy comic book related discussions and humor🔔 Subscribe for more comic deep dives, reviews, rankings, and debatesClick the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/Click the link for Opal City Archives: A Starman Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HOmxNarYtSrhRsUZQk5IF?si=71ccb9317ef44e79 Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f Also be sure to check out New Number Ones posted every week on this same channel!

That's what you did. Yeah, exactly. It's, oh, you son of a bitch. This is what this feels like. That's what you did. Somebody more important. And you got away with it. Yeah.

Hi, everybody. Welcome, Spark Avengers. My name is Corey. And with me is Dylan and John. How's it going, guys? Hello. Very good. Well, it is week three of Goblin Month.

As we have talked about way more than three goblins at this point between Jason McIndale and the and the rest, the professor and Marianne of the Gilligan's Island cast of Goblins that's out there. So we're going to be discussing a favorite of the show. We've actually kind of already done an episode on Roder King's Lee, but this is going to be more of a deep dive on him. The first, I suppose, first Hobgoblin? Yeah, first Hobgoblin, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to say yes. technically. With the time lines you're a little confusing, but yeah. So as I mentioned before, Dylan and John are very big fans of Roder Kingsley. And we'll definitely probably have a lot more glowing things to say about him than we did about everyone's favorite reluctant loser Jason McIndale. Is that correct? I still have a soft spot for McIndale. You got to have a loser.

But he is a loser, though. There's no escape in that fact. He certainly is. I think if you look at the way the hobgoblin has been written, for the majority of the hobgoblin stories, one of the hobgoblins comes off really well. And I feel like... Someone's got to eat shit, you know? Wow. A lot of the other hobgoblins seem to do that. Whereas one hobgoblin in particular kind of gets away with a lot.

And I feel like you're a bite to hear which one of those goblins that is. I mean, in the three stooges, right? They can all be mo. someone's got to be Larry someone's got to be curly exactly someone's got to be yeah

it's comeuppins yeah that time Moe could hit by a car in green damage remember that time where a younger guy found Moe's

garage in his closet full of his mo outfits and then cut his head off in the plane of the sword and now I am Mo and now I'm Mo

Howard Oh, boy. All right. Let's get started with the story of Roderick Kingsley in our deep dive of Goblins. What if the thumbnail is that and it has nothing to do with the thumb? Howard.

It would look suspiciously a lot like your, your Gagsy thumbnail. He did look like that. Gagsy had a Mo Howard-esque ability to him. You think that's where they got the look from. Probably. Probably. Yeah.

Short with a bull cut? Absolutely. Have you ever seen that video of Mo Howard Exposed in the business? Exposed in the business. Yeah, yeah. He's going for a... He stumps them out. Exactly.

It's like an interview. It's like a television interview or something. It's him and Larry and I think Curly Joe at the time is the third person in the group. And he's like showing them like how. they work the body and like how the other guy sells it to make like their gags like they look violent but I would never hurt this guy look I love him to death I would never hurt him and it's like I mean he's exposed the business fucking Undertaker'd be so pissed I think I'll take her be pissed if the three Stooges weren't the only people in the

three Stooges business yeah because the other person always died yeah because you're like exposing the business to who nobody else is picking that mouth of and be like I I accept the guy to put the mohat on. Yeah. The Phil Ulrich of the group comes in and takes the Mo Howard. There you go. He'll pop up. All right.

Let's go ahead and get started on our deep dive into Roderick Kingsley. Okay. So, Roderick Kingsley, big bad of the Marvel universe. You know, pretty big deal. He's a hobg out, as we know. and he's kind of like a big criminal player. So obviously the first time you see Roder Kingsley, he is introduced as a fashion designer.

So that's pretty badass, pretty like scary. I think like Mary Jean actually like work with him a little bit as a model. Because he is a fashion designer, but he's a ruthless fashion designer. He gets a reputation for having a ruthless attitude and always gets his way. That probably will come up at some point. And because of this, he ends up building up his own kind of network and ends up coming into contact with, let's say, some unsevery characters

and ends up knowing a lot of people that are questionable at best. It's good to have a lot of contact. And one of those people is a character called George Hill who is like a bank robber A common criminal Far below our man Roder Kingsley

But George Hill is in the middle of robbing a bank And is escaping from Spider-Man Who fronds upon bank robbers Not a fan of him Because he's... So George Hill

tries to escape from Spider-Man And ends up in the sewers and get this, Corey, you'll never guess what happens next, but he accidentally stumbles upon a cache of

hidden goods that used to belong to Norman Osborne. It kept it well hidden that some fucking guy just find it. So George Hill found this. Yeah. So George Hill finds it.

Okay. So I have a question for you. I imagine we'll get to this when we, in week five, when we talk about Norman, but what's, is the green goblin active at this time? He's dead. All right, Godlin's dead. Yeah. Okay, cool. Norman is dead. I believe Harry is around at this point, but he's had like the, uh, like the kind of spells as being the green goblin and then being cured and forgetting all about it again. So, right. I, I, believe the intention of bringing

in a new goblin is to fill the gap left by the Osbournes because Norman's long dead and Harry at this point has I think he's dead by this point is he? No no no he's definitely still

alive he's I think he's married to Liz Allen and I think they may have had the son Normie at this point I'm not a hundred sure on that though. But he's essentially out of the goblin business. Yes.

Okay. But you know Marvel fan. We love a goblin. So George Hill, just some guy, finds a goblin cache. Now, the question I have for you is, how is this presented in the comic? Like, are we, like, whose perspective

or like this random cutaway in this issue of Spider-Man, just this random bank robber that's tied to this fashion designer, finds the goblin cache. Is that right? Well, we don't know anything about Roderick Kingsley or who he is, what his job is, anything like that. It's just

a shadowy figure who George Hill kind of contacts and says, hey, come check this out. And then they go and check up the cachet. And then the shadowy figure's like, let's take all this stuff to my warehouse. And so they do that. And then he's like, hey, George, get rid of

this van for us and George is like oh yeah sure boss and then the van blows up because of course this is Roderick's M.O. He basically doesn't want anyone knowing his identity and anyone

that does find out or you know has that knowledge is seen as a threat so he'll probably kill him. This is a thing. Yeah, hard to work for him. Yeah, not easy. Well, he's a ruthless fashion designer.

Yeah. We've all seen the devil's. The worst kind of fashion design. Absolutely, the worst kind. So that's where we're at now. George Hill is the kind of crowbar that has allowed somebody in the shadows to access the goblin attire and the whole chabang. You know what the good thing is about being a fashion design? as it means you can

pimp out that costume and you know, make it your own. No longer green. Nope. Yeah. Green and purple, that's yesterday's news. But you know what's really cool? Orange and blue. Can I say this is a critique of the Hobgoblin costume?

But I've had a critique of this whenever they do the same thing to Green Arrow. I'm not a fan of the hood as part of the costume. I don't like it on Moon Night. I don't like it on Hobgoblin. I don't like a green arrow. Because you turn your head wearing a hood the hood's not coming with you. You're just looking at the inside of your hood

from this angle. And I feel like for a guy who's flying around on a glider, losing your peripheral vision is a bad idea. That being said, I think a weird, I think a weird one is a keep. The cape? Cape is a choice. He went from a costume that had no, like, issues.

Because the Green Gobble costume when you think about what it's for, no issues with aerodynamics, no issues with visibility. He's able to turn his head, no problem. nothing's getting dragged in by the air. But Roderick Kingsley's like,

let me take this outfit and make it worse. He just wants to look like a pimp, that's all. It's a fashion designer. He's not thinking about like efficiency. He was tired of how the green goblin look like he's wearing hot pants. He's like, I got to put some respectable trousers on him. I mean, he didn't really change that, to be fair.

Hot pants. He doesn't have yellow legs. He has blue legs. And it's orange yellow. So it means that he's wearing pants. But the pants are yellow. No, is there not? He's orange trunks.

Yeah. His blue legs, yeah, but it's his, what we would call the underpants. Yeah. Yes. Well, I'm saying his legs are, his legs are not exposed like the green goblins are.

Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. Well, yeah, well, you know, in the Eadies, we were covering up. You don't need to see that. Oh, hot pants, you know. It's a different time.

You know what you mean? And he thought, listen, a hood is better than a little pointy goblin hat. You know what I mean? It's true. Not wrong. No, no room. There's a lot of stuff.

You're like, you can tell he wasn't seeing. Yeah, exactly. You can tell. You can tell. Sure. Of course you are, you know, chemical magnet, Norman Osborne. Sure, knock yourself out, you know.

Be a little green goblin. So somebody has acquired the goblin suit. But he's also aware that there's some sort of issues with the original Green Goblin. Yes. Do you know what I mean? We could all tell that there was a couple of issues of Green Goblin. So at some point, this character who was that we know is Roder Kingsley, at the time, this is like the early the mid-Eadies.

80s, yeah. This this Hobb Goblin was. So this Hobgoblin puts the suit on and fights Spider-Man and gets his dick kicked in and realizes that the original Green Goblin must have had something else that would help him be able to fight Spider-Man so often.

There must be something else. He goes through the files and realizes that there is the infamous Goblin formula. and Roder Kingley being a smart man thinks it's pretty stupid to me to just inject some random-ass formula into me without testing on somebody else. I'm not a fool.

So this is where we get our good friend, Lefty Donovan. Again, a low-level criminal that Roder Kingsley has contacts with and he thinks, well, what if I just dressed Lefty Donovan up as not Goblin, inject him with the serum, and just see what happens to him.

him and then if it goes weird this is a thing right because I'm like if it goes weird well we'll just kill Lafdey and I'll tweak the 4 minutes yeah it works then I'm like fuck no he's a hobgoblin shit not gonna be a third goblin

I don't have time you know I have a fashion show exactly but I'm on Project Runner Tim Guns pissed and then Hobgobgoblin is like today's fashion is hood and hip

blue trousers orange pants or tights what do you call them trunks what we call them trunks yeah there you go anyway

so it turns out whatever was wrong with that goblin serum fucked up left Donovan so this is a bit that

kind of falls out with me what happens is Kingsley kills Levedy Donovan and it's like all right I'm gonna I'm gonna change the serum

so it works but I'll remove the insanity part of it I think he did that before because like the whole idea was he was testing out the tweaked version of the formula on Lefty

Donovan to see if he would go crazy like Norman did and when he didn't go crazy that's when Roderick was like oh cool that worked let's kill this guy and then I'll, you know, shoot myself up with this stuff. Right. But my point is Norman Osborne came up with this chemical because he worked in a chemical factory

with other scientists who knew chemicals. And Roder Kingley is a fashion designer. Now, do we know that's his, was that just a cover? Or is that like legitimately his like, his main business is fashion design? Okay. Yes. So how did he, on his own, do enough science to be able to take out the insanity part of this thing that Norman Osborne and a team of scientists couldn't do?

When we talk about removing the insanity part, we talked a bit about this in their Miscellaneous Goblin episode when we were talking about Lefty, and also when we were talking about Jason McIndale in the lead up to McIndale becoming Hobgoblin. When we talk about removing the insanity thing, I just get this clear mental image of a geysing at a microscope. scope and like you zoom in on the the chemical and the little microbes and you're just like there's like all these different little little atoms then there's one wearing like a little jester hat and you're like that that's the one got to get rid of that one it pulls that with a pair of tweezers how did they not see it right there right there you know yeah so i was swimming away

like the goblin sperm on the yeah thumbnail you did that one thumbnail we can't do a second thumbnail avoid goblins firm. Technically a third. Because we had one of the tombstow just said death by goblinses or whatever. Death by goblinses or whatever is the name of my new rap album. Nice. Thank you. It's really bad.

Fair. So yeah, I always find that weird that like Roder Kingsley could like out science. a team of scientists Yeah, because see when you were talking about that I was like, oh, so the fashion designer thing, that was just his front. Like, that was just like the made-up persona he had out there. But no, apparently it was his real gig.

Well, again, at the time, nobody knew that the hobgoblin was it was somebody in the shadows. We didn't really know who it was. And the whole deal around this was that there were a lot of characters introduced at the time that were around the hobgoblin or like, had some kind of like you know secondary ties to it so part of the fun of reading this at the time was the mystery of who hobgoblin actually was because you knew it was going to get revealed at some point which ironically it didn't for a long time but it was you know at the time sure of course

the mysterious man fixed the serum and took out the insanity part that's the thing that happens so where was I on the page two so at some point um Roder Kingsley discovers that or the Hobgoblin

discovers that a reporter called Ned Leeds is tracking him is is reporting trying to find out information about who the hobgoblin really is Hobgoblin doesn't like this

if you know I don't know about Roder King's day he likes having six degrees of separation from the hobgoblin identity doesn't like people snooping around with him so what he does he finds ned leads snooping around and he kidnaps him and then he brainwashes ned leads into thinking that he is actually the hobgoblin

that's king's he take another step back he's now proved the second point so i think well part of the reason why he wanted to do that as well is because he had that fight with spider-man where he had his battle wagon and that ended up in the hudson and yeah like I think Kingsley kind of recognized that even with this super strength he was like yeah I'm putting myself in quite a lot of danger here when I could be putting someone else in danger in my place so not only did he you know have like a reason for going after Ned Leeds because of his investigation into him but he figured well here's a patsy I can use to kind of put in danger in my place.

Spider-Man could beat up Ned Leeds, that's fine. Yeah. And yes, that's true. You'll remember that we talked about Jackal Lantern. Yeah. Trying to steal the battle van, as they called it.

Which Hobgoblin lost when I fell in the Hudson River. And it had a lot of his stuff in it. So he thought, I'll step back and that Ned Leeds take the fall. If it comes to that, Ned Leeds can be the guy and I'll hide in the shadows. But then, at some point,

Flash Thompson is on the news. He's been, I don't remember why, but he's just like on the news. Like, you know, they're doing like talking head things, whatever. Flash Thompson says that the Hobgoblin is a big fucking was. So, yeah, paraphrased that a little bit. So Kingsley thinks, all right, here's three degrees of separation.

Why don't I try to, like, frame Flash Thompson as the hobgoblin because in that way no one's going to suspect Ned Leeds to be the hobgoblin Flash Thompson is the hobgoblin and Flash gets arrested and put in prison now

we had talked two episodes ago about McIdle who wanted to be the hobgoblin or wanted more power and wanted to be seated player so while he was bantering with some of the guys in the gang wars

in New York at the time thinks it's a really good idea for him to break Flash Thompson out of prison in order to make people think he's a bigger deal than he is he's like, look, I help the hobgoblin Kingsley did not like

because he was like, you fucked it off. That was the whole plan. Take the hit and then I can like continue to do my stuff unawares. So that started a bit of a beef between Roder Kingsley and G.S. and McIndale.

But of course, a lot of it, sometimes whenever they would interact, it was actually Ned Leads as the Hobbel and who is. Remarwash, this starts to get a bit muddy because then you're like, how many of these people are actually Roder Kingsley? And how many of these people are somebody else doing something? How many people are actually wearing the costume and how many of it do we know could have just been him at the time? It starts to get very complicated.

get it. Mm-hmm. So, because of this, he, um, Kingsley knows that McIndale wants some sort of revenge against the Hopgoblin.

So he is the one that covertly leaks that Ned Leeds is the real hop goblin. McIndale finds this out. McIndale sends the foreigners people to kill him. Ned Leeds, well-dressed as the hop, There was like some sort of subliminal message in Ned Leeds' head, which is where I think Kingsley, like, sent him the costume in the, in the post, in the meal.

Yeah. And subliminally, whenever Ned Leeds sees the costume, he has to put it on and become the Hobgoblin. That's part of the brainwashing. Oh, that has to be awful. That has to be awful. Like, how many Hobgogling costumes is he going through? Mm-hmm. I don't know.

So whenever he's in, whatever hotel he's in, he gets a package. It's the costume. He starts to put the costume on. The foreigners, dudes come in, see Ned Leeds dressed as the hobgoblin and go, that's good enough for me. Has to be him. And then just like, shoot. Yeah. How many other people are wearing that costume?

Exactly. Nobody else. Nobody else has put a costume on. That's ridiculous. So then they kill him. And they go, that's evidence. Done and done. And for a long time, people just buy that as evidence.

Right. I mean, it's pretty damning evidence. Like, it's the whole reason why. when Norman Osborne got impaled by his own glider they made sure to remove the goblin costume because if the police had found him in the goblin costume

dead then naturally they're going to assume he was the green goblin I agree with that because I think in that circumstance that's correct because that green goblin was fine dead in the police with the green goblin died

however the hot problem was just in hotel room. My point is in Germany as well. If I started to put on a Spider-Man costume in a hotel room and then somebody shot me in the head, I don't think people are going to be like, well, that's Spider-Man, but Stapley Spider-Mine. We, okay, years ago

at this point, we made a joke about how we would write an armless Tiger Man story about how he killed the Avengers, but he was in reality just at a comic convention and just killed some like nerd in a costume. Is that what happened here potentially?

They just walked in on some hobgoblin cosplay in Germany, busted his ass. I mean, like, yes, I know. Like, it seems like it, but also, like, the implication is that Ned Leeds was actually the hobgoblin. Yeah. Like, he was brainwashed and he did at some point.

So I'm going to ask you a really weird question. At the time, because we're talking about this retrospectively, where we know that this is Roder Kingsley, at the time these comics are getting released, is it apparent that we know that that's not actually the hobgoblin? goblin.

Like, at the time that they kill Ned Leeds is the assumption he's actually the hobgoblin and not a retcon. Yeah, at this point, I'd say all evidence points to Ned Leeds being the Hobgoblin. I think at the time, there was still, there were a lot of people around. There were a lot of players that could be the Hobgoblin. Ned Leeds was one of them. Okay. Well, the thing is, as well, like, because Roger Stern had been right in the series up to a point,

And he was the one who was seeding in all these different potential candidates for who the hobgoblin could be. And then I believe it was Christopher Priest who wrote the storyline with the Spider-Man Wolverine miniseries in Germany where Hobgoblin is killed and is revealed to be Ned Leeds. So I think maybe Roger Stern got taken off the book. or he'd left of his own accord or something before he could make his own reveal. And so this is why Marlowe just kind of went with what was at that point the most obvious candidate. Well, that's the thing is that Roger Stern-Dapney got taken off.

I don't remember if he left or was taken off the book, but he was not there. He was removed from the book before the conclusion of the story. And so they went with Ned Leeds at the time. So maybe as like a, you know, as a way to transition to McIndale, maybe they were literally just been like, oh, it's, it's a red herring. So at this point, at this point, Roder Kingsley, who has been priding himself on separating him from himself from his actions as the Cobb gobglin for years at this point, months,

maybe, what is his feeling about Ned Leeds getting taken out and also in McIndale taking the role? Is he like, oh, thank God, I don't have to keep, you know, that. charade up any longer. I'll let this asshole be hobgoblin. Yeah. I'll just do what I'm going to do outside of that. Is that like the vibe? Is it more like how dare somebody do this? No, no. I think he was sort of orchestrating it to a certain degree because Ned was kind of, all the brainwashing that he'd done to Ned was kind of causing him to get a bit paranoid and a bit of a loose cannon. So I think Kingsley was at the point where he was just like,

like, I cut my losses with this guy. So he was the one who actually leaked the identity of Ned as the hobgoblin to the foreigner. So when Mason Dale put the contract out, all roads led to, you know, Ned Leeds. And then when McIndale kind of took over the role, that just allowed Kingsley to, you know, take his ill-gotten gains and head off to, I think Belize is where he, ended up in the comics just like sipping my ties on the beach and enjoying retirement basically There are a couple of themes you need to remember about

Rado Kingsley. Number one, he is happy to let other people take the fall for him. Number two, doesn't mind brainwashed people. Number three, he fucking loves retiring. So whenever he found out, there was obviously beef between him and McIndale but he thought if McIndale wants to become the hobgoblin that takes the heat off me.

Yeah. So I can kind of take a step back and let him fuck it up. And again, I think it's also important to know that at this point, obviously the reader knows that Ned Leeds was the hobgoblin and then McIntill became the hobgoblin. The general public doesn't. Yeah. Spider-Man knows and Betty, you know, Betty Leeds knows. Betty Brandt knows that her husband was the fucking hobgoblin. Yeah, her husband's dead.

But that kind of, everybody just sees the hobgoblin as the hobgoblin. Yeah. And I think it's also worth noting, I don't think Betty believed that Ned was the hobgoblin at all. I think she always thought he was framed. Yes. Yes. What's fun is that Betty also had a thing with Flash. Yes, she did.

Yeah. Without a hoblin tactically. Betty loves a goblin. is what we've learned. He does. She loves a goblin. So, so Roderick, Roderick's enjoying retirement in Belize. How long does his retirement last?

As long as McIndale is, um, the Hobbawc, core. So we talked about McIndeele being the Hobgoblin quite extensively. And that runs from like the mid to late 80s up until I would say the mid-90s. Whenever that's the labrionic. enhancements, he fights Ben Riley Spider-Man and is captured and is put in prison. And he stays in prison for quite a while.

I would imagine the way the timeline works, technically he stays in prison for the Cohn saga until Peter Parker comes back to be Spider-Man. And then once all that nasty business is finished,

then McIndale, after having been tried for some crimes and stuff like this, reveals that he can't be tried for all of the Hobgoblin's crimes because he wasn't always a hobgoblin. This is the first time it's been publicly said, but he says, I can't be held

responsible for all of the stuff that the hobgoblin did. Ned Leeds was a hobgoblin before I was. So the crimes had happened then, that's on him. And this is the first time publicly that has been revealed that there's been more than one.

one hobgoblin. Okay. So this is when Kingsley is like, I won't like this at all. King's like, damn it. Because once you know that there's been more than one hobgoblin, you have to go, well, then how many more have there been? All the threads. You can say it was the first, but where does the trio start?

You're putting suspicion in people's minds. Where do we start? Where do we end? What's going on? Plus, Ned was investigating the hobgoblin before he was brainwashed. So he has all these kind of notes and stuff, which could potentially lead back to Kingsley as well. Yeah, if it was enough to make Kingsley want to abduct Ned Leads

and brainwash him into becoming Hobgoblin, then there's enough that made Kingsley nervous. But if you publicly say that the first Hobgoblin was the guy that was investigating the hobgoblin, then you're like, okay, that's the red flag right there. It doesn't at all. It does it. Yeah, it's very weird. So, actually, the public, the public doesn't know this.

Though to be fair, the guy who takes the best pictures of Spider-Man is Spider-Man. So, I mean, there's a precedent. The public doesn't know that, then. Continue. The public don't read who takes the photos. That credit, Peter Parker, no one reads that. Nobody looks at the fine print, you know, it's a newspaper. It's a dilly bugle.

They're not looking at that ship. so Kingsley visits McIndale in prison as we discussed in a few episodes ago and fucking just kills him in prison yeah incinerates him yeah rough way to go so he's like that's the end of this this storyline that we're talking about was written by hard our Harder Stern because this is a hard Stern that's not right by Howard Stern written by Howard Stern written by Roger Stern because he came back and was allowed to finish up his original story. They were like, tell the Hobgoblin storyline the way you wanted to.

Because for me, one of the fun things about the original Hobgoblin storyline was that they did keep you on your toes. It was a really fun mystery. You never knew who the Hoggoblin really was. It was always a mystery to it. I really liked that. So they were able to finish that up and tell the story that he wanted to. and whenever Roger Stern was

coming back to write that he asked I think it was Howard Mackey he was like I know you guys have been doing something with the previous Hobgoblin how do I get around that in my story and they were like

I can just kill him yeah he's like all just fucking kill Macandale and again lovable loser who gives a shit about him they'll like just kill him

fucking who cares so now Spider-Man and Betty Brandt are on the trail for who could be the actual Hobgobboblin because they're not satisfied that it was Ned Leeds was the original Hobgoblin and Spider-Man even thinks about

some of the times what is the bit where he finds out that there's a reason I have it here oh so Spider-Man realizes that the hobgob Goblin as Ned Leeds as the Hobb Goblin

was just killed by the foreigners man but if Ned Leeds had taken the Goblin formula he wouldn't have been so easily incapacitated by a bunch of regular dudes and he thought that was very strange. Flash Thompson had also mentioned that he had knocked out Ned Leeds at one punch

once and I'm like well if he were the Hobgoblin. Yeah, Spider-Man's punching him then high school of all-American football hero Flash Thompson, you know. There's a lot of clues there that We're like, well, maybe he was on the hobgoblin. Maybe he was being set up.

So the hobgoblin kidnaps Betty Brandt because she says that she has Ned Leeds' old files that explain exactly who the hobgoblin really is because he was investigating him. The hobgoblin kidnaps Betty Brandt and is like, I'm going to fuck it. And so he tells her his life story because he doesn't think he's going to get caught.

And then in the middle of it, Roder Kingsley comes in. And he's like, you better tell this reporter lady the whole truth, motherfucker. And the hobgoblin doesn't seem happy about that. Spider-Man finds him because daddy had like a spider tracer in her pocket. Sure, why not?

It's a comic. Don't worry about it. And Spider-Man on the hoblin. Goblins start to fight while Betty assaults Roderick Kingsley in the Hobblegolton's hideout. They do this wonderful bit where they kind of reveal some stuff at the same time. Betty starts to have a fight with Roderickley and realizes that Roderick is wearing a wig and isn't really Roderick at all.

It's Roderick's twin brother, Daniel, who put a wig on and some flump clothes to pretend to be So not an identical twin. They are identical twins. Yeah. Why didn't have to wear, oh, different hairstyle probably. Because Roder Kingsley has long hair and Daniel did not. Got it. He had the, you know, the, like, balling with like the, what do you call it?

The Hulk Hogan. The power going. Yeah. And at the same time, Spider-Man over Paris, the hobgoblin, grips his mask off and realizes that it's Roder Kingsley under the mask. And that what's been going on is that Roder Kingsley has not only been used in other paths that used to be Hobgobb, but has also been dressing his brother up as himself to make it seem like

Roder King'sley can't be the Hobgoblin because there he is walking around time. That's him. And it's pretty clever. And I love that. I really love that storyline. I think it's a very good bookend to the Hobb Goblin stuff. And I also think that like it's been a really fun, clever ride. I don't know if you get the chance to read it all,

but it's even with the twists and turns and the kind of, you know, editorial stuff they have to do, I found it a lot of fun to keep you on your toes and guess who is the hobgoblin and the way that they kind of work things out and tease things and bring stuff up. I think it's a lot of fun,

and that's part of why it doesn't have a problem so much. So after that, Roder Kingsley is arrested and put it in the, of the same Giel cell that McIndale was in whenever he killed him. That's just a scorched mark on the ground. Yeah.

He's moving his little jaw, you know, his little skull. So, Roder Kingsley kind of hangs out there for a while because he's in prison, doesn't need to worry about stuff. Now, as we discussed, this is after the clone saga

had kind of wrapped up, and the most infamous thing that happened in the clone saga was that Norman Osborne came back. And Norman Osborne started to do like a public campaign to prove that he was a good guy and that he wasn't the Green Goblin. The Green Goblin died, but Norman Osborne

very much alive. This is when Norman Osborne had that, what did we call him, the goblin construct or whatever, that would appear to feel people because he's like, why I can't beat the Green Goblin? Because that's him over there. during this time

Roder Kingsley was like hey funny story I happen to have a whole lot of documents that would absolutely implicate Norman Osborne into being the original Green Goblin so I just thought

I'd put that out there and Norman Osborne is not happy with this so he and his goblin construct I think while they're transporting Kingsley somewhere they kidnap Kingsley and break him out of prison basically and have some words, which eventually, wonderfully, leads to Norman Osborne versus Roder Kingsley, Green Goblin

versus Hobgoblin. Now, this is that the first time this happened. Rematch. Yeah, because didn't Harry and Jason fight? Yes. Okay, so this is like, it's the second time, but not really the second time, because there's two entirely different people in the costumes. This is the original too.

This is a big deal. This is what people wanted to see. Also, two people that may or may not be clinically insane. How an little bit scrap, you know, and it's a lot of fun. I don't think Kingsley is insane. I mean, he's not on the level. I think he's pretty smart as far as goblins go. Yes, I would say in terms of all of the other golands, he's pretty far up there.

It's pretty, it's a thing. divide. McIndale and Flash Thompson, then Kingsley is fucking kicking ass, man. I mean, the goblins in general, they all have a bit of a screw loose. He seems to be the only one with his fucking head rate.

Yeah, well, they all have a lot of scruous loose, to be fair. So they have a bit of a fight, and Spider-Man, of course, gets involved.

And during this whole skirmish, Kingsley just kind of sneaks away while they're all distracted. Because this was, again, another one of his plans, he's a smart man. I've discovered. Kingsley knew that if he said

that he had documents that would tie Norman Osborne to be in the Green Goblin, Norman Osborne would interfere. He didn't have any of that shit. He lied about it just to get out of prison. And then it worked, and he retires to a beach somewhere drinking Mai Tai.

As he often does. I think that's the second time, or maybe the third time. It's not going to be the last time. So, that is, like, from my normal Spider-Man knowledge, as far as I got with... No, I got a little bit further, I guess, because then Philharic becomes the Hobgoblin. Yeah, basically... Yeah, yeah, but we didn't know it was his brother to begin with. I mean, I imagine most of the audience guessed it wasn't really...

Yes. Really, Roderick Kingsley. But in terms of the story and the way it's presented, that was Roderick, who Phil Oric gapitates and then steals the costume and takes over the identity. But, yeah, I think in storyline terms, Roderick had basically you know retired to the Caribbean and Daniel was like

oh well if he's not going to be the hobgoblin maybe I'll be the hobgoblin which is why he goes back to New York and starts looking for the cachet and you know getting ready to take on the mantle the cachets that Hingsley had left so now we're no longer in

Green Goblin cachets now we're in hobgoblin cachets this is his own in New York there are two different multiple hideouts one for the Green Goblin and one for the

Hobgoblin they're all over New York but they're all in different places and Daniel goes back to one to try to get some information and then Eric I think just kind of stumbles upon it again

right? Well I think he knew where it was based on his knowledge of like Norman's cachets. Like there was some sort of connection there because he was trying to prove to

or like impress. I think Nora Winters was the reporter at the Daily Bugle who he was trying to like hook up with and he was trying to get some goblin information that he could use to impress her.

Yeah. So he went to this new highlight, find Daniel Kingsey, who he assumed was Roder Kingsley, killed him and became the new Hobgoblin. So at this point, for some reason,

Roder Kingsley was in South America as the, I believe the devil spider. Yeah, I figure he was just bored at this point and just like, you know, needed something to do. Beating people up as the devil spider. Then he heard

that his brother had died and thought, well, I'll know, a good time as Annie to go back and get some revenge. So he goes back to New York and they have a bit of a tussle, as you would imagine they do. But if you know anything about Roder Kingsley, he's very happy to let other people do the work for him

so long as he gets some money from it. So he says, you can be the hobgoblin as long as you give me a cut from your money. Hopgoblinery. Sure. Yeah. And Phil's like, yeah, that's grand.

Yeah, do worry about it. Yeah. What's still his primary motivation in this? Just he's crazy? Power, I think. He wants to be... I mean, absolutely power corrupts absolutely, Corey. You know this.

I live in America. What more power can you get than being a goblin? We got an orange one in office right now, brother. He is no hobgoblin. No, he is a goblin. No, he is a godbron of the D&D standards. Sure, but he's not a hobgoblin. He's one of the shit.

He's a gray goblin. He's bored Hamilton. But he's not... Is Bart Hamilton shitting himself a lot? I mean, if you're flying around... If that's your first time being a green goblin, and you're flying around in New York and a fucking thing, I would shit myself probably.

We talked about us. A lot of bravado to be, like, therapist to jumping on a fucking, like, jet-propelled surfboard for all of its purposes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, if you're doing that, and like, I'm going to fight Spider-Man, I would be a little bit like, ah,

I don't know about this, but I'm a little... We're checking that doctor's credentials. Where'd you go to school? I'm a little queasy. I don't know if I can fight Spider-Man right now, you know? So I would say, yeah.

Okay, so Rotter and Kingsley is like, Phil, you can keep on being Hobb Goblin, brother. Just give me a cut of whatever you're doing. Let me skin them off the top. Yeah. Which I think is really fun, because it shows a lot of it, Roder Kingsley,

like, yes, you killed my brother. you killed my brother and stole my identity, work away so long as I get money from it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he didn't ever seem like, it seems like the hobgoblin identity isn't like a part of his identity. Like, he doesn't associate with it the same way that like Norman does with the Green Goblin. But he's also not fucking crazy, which is probably a factor in it as well. Well, it depends, because I feel like he does have some sort of affinity to the,

Hobb Goblin. That's why he chased Bill York down to begin with. That's why he killed, not necessarily why he killed McIndale, but he has some sort of affinity for the goblin costume that he himself made. Yeah. I think he was definitely embarrassed enough by McIndale that he

that was part of the reason why he was pretty... Yeah, it seems like the main reason... I think, I feel like the main reason was just that it was starting to come back on him that he was the original and he was like when he silenced this motherfucker up where he says him more shit but dude honestly like that's the way they framed

it but honestly I feel like the main reason he killed them is because you're in a barriced off golf it like you suck dude and as we've covered rightfully so Jason tried really hard he tried really hard he did so much shit I'm gonna make deals with demons I'm gonna get some cybernetic implants and none of them's gonna work he tried his best man a for effort f in execution you know I would give him a D

an execution yeah he was he killed dead leads I guess you know that's this big claim yeah well he'd far and killed yeah oh Jason still just the butt of the joke I thought you're like he killed an innocent like harmless man like well I don't even really it was his money that paid the guy

that did it. You know what do you mean? What the fuck were away? So I think at this point, yeah, he's basically taking cuts from Phil Oreck as the hobgoblin in his place. I guess this gives him the idea

to set up a side hustle where he can sell off the identities and equipment of villains who have either died or retired and, you know, like, create new villains using those identities and then take a cut from their profits as well.

He's really into, like, getting people to do the work and then taking the money from them. Yeah, he's the businessman. He's a bit... See, this is a thing. Originally, you're like, well, it's a fashion designer, I don't know. He knows business. Mm-hmm.

That's what he knows. And obviously fashion sense. You know what I mean? Goes with that same. Absolutely. so he does this for a while but I think historically we've kind of proven that

it's really hard for two goblins to kind of coexist at the same time you know what I mean it's pretty difficult so eventually Kingsie is like I'm not super happy with this and I kind of want to be

the hobgoblin because I'm the best hobgoblin and Yurik as well while technically like more efficient than McIndale still was like

too headstrong and too kind of you know he wasn't as tactical and as thought out as the original hog wobbling um

which I think is fun as well you can see the difference between like you know um Kingsley is quite methodical thought out and would put a lot of thought to his stuff um whereas Phil York was a little bit more

kind of haphazard and scattershot and McIndale was Jesus of McIntyell. So they're... What can you do? They're all out. They're all out. They're little quirks.

So this is... This comes along whenever they're doing the goblin nation, kind of the Goblin King storyline with the Goblin King was Norman Osborne, which I think we can all agree. If you had to pick one, Goblin King, probably going to be Norman. Probably Norman. Hard to pick it.

I would say you would pick, Norman first, probably Kingsley second. Yeah. Harry always struck me as unwilling or unwitting. He didn't really want to go this route in his life. Yeah. So yeah, I can have money by Rodder could be second. Which again, the originals are the best.

Yeah. There you go. So after this, Kingsley is like, I want to, we've got to sort some stuff by it. We need to kind of have a fight over like, territory over who is the real hobgoblin. And this kind of naturally leads itself to Norman Osborne getting annoyed at the hobgoblins fighting. Yeah. And he was like, let's settle this once a brawl again.

Why don't we have Roder King's Lee versus Norman Osborne in a little tussle, a little tete-a-tete. You know, if Norman Osborne wins, all of Hobgoblin stuff becomes his. if hobgoblin wins, he's the Goblin King. Fair deal. Isn't that? So they have a little bit of a fight, and Norman Osborne beats the Hobgoblin.

Now, Corey, given everything we've talked about for the last seven and a half hours. Yeah. What do you think the true outcome of this fight was? Norman Osborne beats the hobgoblin

kills him kills the hobgoblin kills Roderick kills the hobgoblin kills Phil kills the hobgoblin kills some guy kills Terry

he kills Roderickley smart man was thought I fuck I ain't fighting Norman Osborne fuck that I did this before But didn't care for it. Jeeves, get your ass out there. You're in the game.

And I would argue his butler, probably not great at a hand-to-hand combat, but he's like, fuck it, off you go. Get you a tee if you'd like, you know? Have you ever used the Goblin Glider before? Because that's part of your butler, Judy. How good you're throwing arm? Well, I'm in the summer softball league. Can you throw overhand?

You'll be all right. just blah you know so once again Roder Kingsley smart man that he is hiding in the shadows smart enough to not go one on one with Norman Osborne not a good idea no so also who gives the fuck about your butler nobody he just a Hitler to die

and then Norman Osborne of course you know takes all of the the the gang members that the Hobgoblins had acquired that point into his goblin nation into his goblin army i guess and this once again lets rudder kingsley just fucking retire and hide because he's like well everybody thinks the green the hobgoblin is dead so i can just go back to fucking i'm somewhere else now where is you know i like harris now

yeah he's in france he just fucks up to france now and again for like the third or fourth time you would think, all right, he's probably happy enough to just be retired, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you think that would be a great way to end this episode? Just stay retired and fooled everybody. Wow. If that is what you thought, well, what I wrote in my notes is being a goblin is like pro wrestling

and that nobody ever retires. Yeah. So guess who came back? Well, John, do you want to talk about this next run? Because it involves somebody you are a big fan of. Oh, well, indeed. So this is around the time of Axis, where Magneto is trying to take down the red skull, who at this point has Charles Xavier's brain attached to his own, which for some reason

gives him Charles's powers as well. That's how that works. Yeah. That's how it works. If you get somebody else's on top of your brain two brain, double brain Yeah

Can't argue with that So Magneto decides he's going to put together a team to help him Take down the Red Skull, a team of villains So he's like drafting In the likes of Dr. Doom,

Loki, Carnage, Sabretooth, Mystique, you know, like all these kind of heavy hiters. A literal murderer's row. Yeah. And he basically forces Hobgoblin

along as well for some reason. With all the villains out there. Yeah, no, Hobgolin has no interest in this whatsoever, but he's kind of coerced into it. That was the thing that I got, because I'm like, Kingsley had retired to France. So, Magneto

went out of his way to fucking flying game. I'm like, I need this, con. Specifically him. Like, he went out of his way. The carnes you can find, easy, right? There he is, killing people. He went out of his way to find.

I'm like, how do you find him? Magneto is like, listen. Angel is been notorious for hiding in the shadows and not being fine. And then Magneto was like, oh, there he is. Magneto is like, listen, this is a Nazi. This is why I've been preparing for my entire fucking life. I'm going to go whatever routes I need to go to get the best people for the job. And last time I checked.

Rolodex of like retired villains. I'm sure that it comes up, you know. It's like, I got to get the hop-gobble. He was in the brother. I was in the brotherhood of evil mutants. I got added to a lot of those villain newsletters, you know. I don't know. Well, whatever.

It happens. So anyway, they go to Genosha, confront him, the Red Skull, and then, like, that's when all the hero show up as well. And we have the Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom casting the inversion spell to kind of make the Professor X side of Red Skull's brain, a double brain, I guess, like take over and make him good again. But in doing so, it inverts everyone who's in the area, so all the good guys become bad guys, or the bad guys become, well, not necessarily good guys, but in the Hobgoblins case, more kind of altruistic. So he's like, it's not heroic, but he's not quite as greedy and selfish as he once was.

The way I wrote in my notes was that he still finds ways to make money off being the Hobgoblin, but it's more, it's less villainous and more kind of legit. Yeah, because instead of, you know, creating these franchises of people taking over villainous identities, he sets it up so like just normal everyday people can pick up like heroic identities instead and give them a chance to do good and yeah that kind of puts him you know like in the path of Lily Hollister who we talked about last time was formerly menace so she becomes the

Queen Cat, who's kind of like a rip-off version of the Black Cat. You love their royalty back then, didn't they? Yeah, absolutely. We had the King of Cats in DC Comics, so it's nice that we have a Queen Cat over at Marvel. And the Queen Cat clashes with the Goblin King, who is now Phil Oric, because

Norman's been taken down. Bill was like, hell yeah, another identity to usurp. Yeah. so well I guess another one because he was previously the Green Gobblins

he was Goblin he was Lobboglin and now he's King Goblin that's three practically King Goblin is different from Green Goblin but it's the same it's the same deal

nobody can say they ripped off Norman twice it's a different outfit so I'd say it's a different identity different goblin yeah

okay but yeah so yeah they all start fighting each other basically Kingsley beats Fear Oric again, makes him his bitch. But then Steve Rogers shows up and recruits the Hobb Goblin to help him stop the X-Men, who evil at this point, remember, from detonating a gene bomb, which is going to kill everyone on earth who isn't a mutant.

So they all go to do that. Quick question regarding Steve Rogers. Is this old man, Steve Rogers, still? I believe so, yes. I believe that's the reason why he wasn't on Genosha when the inversion happened. So I think he's just, exactly. So yeah, so they go, they stop the X-Men,

the spell is cast to, you know, undo the inversion, and now Bob Goblin is back to being his old evil self again. Yeah. So from there he's like, well, I'll go back to my villain franchises again. But I guess he gets, well, he feels sort of betrayed by the fact that the porcupine has gone straight. and he's now working with Spider Woman. So

Kingsley has his goons basically beat up Porcupine. Oh, Porcupine. Yeah, they like seemingly kill him as well.

So that kind of sets Spider Woman, Jessica Drew, after Kingsley. And yeah, they clash a bunch of times. Roderick discovers that Porcupine survived his

assault, so he kidnaps him to kind of lure Spider Woman into a trap and is seemingly about to kill her and Porcupine and basically win the day, only for Captain Marvel to show up and basically

take out everyone except for Roddy who manages to escape once again because yeah, he's not going to put himself in a fight with Captain Marvel. Yeah, that seems like a sudden jump in difficulty. It just all of a sudden you have the power cosmic that is Captain Marvel coming

into your little foray. I'd bail to. Yeah. I'd bail to. Because he'd be able to be able to be flying. You're like, that seems unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah.

That's an overstatement. This is please brutality. It's a porcupine. Come on. Couldn't have sit Frogman after me or something. We could probably be it at the porcupine. Yeah. I think the three of us that jumped on the porcupine, we could probably beat them up.

Well, I wouldn't jump on it. I mean, porcupine after all. No. No, jump on the front of him. The back of him is bad. The front of him is all right. Yeah? Maybe. You see the headshot?

The back's bad. The front's all right. I'm pretty sure he's got pins or spikes all over him, no, but. I don't know. We'll save this for the porcupine episode. There you go. Oh, dude. It's so long away, though.

Or a deep dive on the parkerine. Which is just in time for Arbor Day or whatever holiday we decided to dedicate to him. Sense Worthen's Day. Yep, there we go. All right, so Roderick gets confronted with Captain Marvel and Bales, because he's like, fuck that. Ain't messing with that shit.

Mm-hmm. So next on the agenda is he gets recruited into a new version of the Sinuses 6. This one was put together by, Aaron Davis, who is Miles Morales's uncle and the former prowler. But he's at this point taken on the identity

of the Iron Spider, using, you know, a modified version of the same costume Peter War when he was the Iron Spider. So that is yeah, the Iron Spider, Hobgoblin, bombshell, Electro, Sandman, and the Spot.

So not exactly a team of All-Stars, but, you know. It's a terrible. Yeah. Foss a winner in my book. So what does I and Spider want? He wants

to take over a helicarrier so he can basically sell it and make some money from that. Right away, Kingsley is out for himself and basically tries to sell out the entire team. Kingsley realized that's a dumbass idea.

Hey, who's buying a helic carrier? Oh, yeah, yeah. I would say, Kingsie's probably like, listen, I know how to sell a helic carrier. You don't know dick, dude. I can sell it. I got connected. You used to be the prowler, sir.

Yeah, yeah. You used to be the prowler. I just would put that out there. Yeah, used to be. You're not even still the product. You're just some fucking guy. You're another asshole in a shirt. We got a lot of those around here.

have you seen Spider Island a lot of those fucking guys not going to rhyme yeah well anyway that didn't go well for Kingsley he gets kicked out of the team I believe he gets thrown off the and the carrier as well

but he survives it because he's a smart guy and I don't know he probably yeah he probably did some goblin stuff to survive that he next shows up when Wilson Fisk

is in there and Fisk opens a newly restored Ravencroft Institute which had been run down or you know destroyed or something but he basically fills it with a bunch

of supervillains as the kind of heads of staff so I think Norman Osborne is in there past master, scorpion Moonstone so I'm not sure that you know, inmates of Ravencroft are going to get the best.

Or he doesn't look convinced. I mean, some of them makes sense. Like, Moonstone makes sense. I mean, she was a therapist. Yeah,

yeah. Osborne has leadership experience, but like, right, that makes that as to me. I mean, he's pretty familiar with insanity as well. Taskmaster,

you know, he'll train a bunch of people. That's what they had him in the Avengers initiative for. Right, but that's not what you want and in the Sin Asylum, no.

You don't want the guy who can, like, That's the photographic memory to be able to teach anyone how to do anything. Nope. Well, I guess the idea was Fisk was not really looking to rehabilitate criminals, but maybe... Yeah, like, maybe, you know, turn them into an army or something. Either way, I don't know what even happened in this storyline. It seemed to get thrown out, you know, pretty quickly.

Like, most of those staff members just abandoned their roles. Hobb gobblin included. So... What was he... What did he do? Was he the janitor? What did he do? I'm not entirely sure

what his position on the staff was. I imagine he was like their benefits person because the guy knew how to retire. Either that boy... Maybe he was like designing their, you know, prison costumes as well. Lay to your strengths. Absolutely.

So yeah, he... The Gene Gray School. So there's a janitor in the villains' place. Toadze, he got the experience for it. Yeah. And after that, basically, he lays low again for a little while. And we don't really see him until after Norman has had, like,

the sins perj for him by the sin-eater, and he's kind of, you know, trying to get away from his goblin passed. So him and Roderick are kind of negotiating for Kingsley to be able to buy back the companies that Norman basically stole from him when he was the green goblin.

But that's when Ned Leeds suddenly shows up alive and well and crashes the scene. You thought that Lee was dead out of this completely. No, we thought well, let's bring it back 35 years later. No reason. No reason at all.

as we talked about last week and yeah this is all part of the the Gobbling Queen's big plan to manipulate both Roderick and Ned leads

into basically being Halakis but once again as often happens in the Marvel universe Spider-Man saves the day Ned is arrested Kingsley escapes

once again because that's his jam. He likes to do it. Get the fuck away. And so, yeah, he disappears off. And he's soon breaking into the Beyond Corporation, looking to, you know, steal some valuable tech to boost his kind of abilities because there's a gang war, which is threatening to erupt all over New York.

And he wants to be prepared for it. this point this is like the fourth at least a third gang war that a hobgoblin has been involved in I would say at least a second I'm not sure if there's

been a third the original the hobgoblin was trying to be involved in gang war McInther was definitely involved with the gang war the Goblin Nation was a gang war yeah I guess if you count the Goblin Nation as well yeah this is at least number four

yeah yeah um so yeah basically that puts him into the path of mars morales and his girlfriend starling uh but um he escapes again and he's basically one of the the gang bosses in new york at this point i believe controlling part of brooklyn um but uh you remember aaron davis who he worked with in the sinister six he was working for the hobgoblin at this point only to turn on him and yeah basically kick him out of his own gang

why would you turn on the hobgoblin well it's about time someone turned on him yeah historically yeah do not he'll kill you yeah this is true so from there

we get a team up with a character called Itsy Bitsy, who was basically created from genetic samples of both Deadpool and Spider-Man. And she was somewhat insane. But the two of them worked together to distribute this, like, hallucinetic drug in Harlem in something called Queens Cola. so they would make people, you know, start feeling anxious and paranoid and stuff. And then they would sell them like the antidote drug called Xentylene.

And so this was, you know, Roddy's latest business plan was to try and make money from this antidote. And one such person who was affected by the drugs. this Queen's Cola was the Rhino who Spider-Man manages to save and then when he realizes what's happened he comes after the villains

but then he gets infected with this drug as well and he's like you know fighting against all this paranoia and hallucinations and all that kind of jazz because he's Spider-Man he fights it off

and pretty much wins a day when he smushes a magic mushroom in Hobgoblin's face, which causes him to then start hallucinating thousands of spiders crawling all over him, making him go crazy and then running away for his life. And I believe that is the last time we've seen the Hobgoblin in the comics. Real quick, I want to just say this, because while you were describing that last storyline, I was looking at Corey's camera. And Corey had this, like, look in his eyes that was very much like, you, I, you have lost me.

What? I, like, like, dead behind the eyes, like, okay, whatever you say. And then whenever you said, Spider-Man mushes. A magic mushroom into his face. Corey was like, no. I, I, I, I, I, it was, it. bitsy that got me there for a minute. I was like, what the fuck is

is itsy bitsy? Corey, you have no idea how bad is what he is. So I was going to say this, and I feel like it now's as a good time as any. It definitely feels like the spider office has devalued what Roder Kingley's history is. If this is kind of the weird misadventures

he's been getting up to post-goblin war. I will say this. I think that I would assume John's going to agree, I couldn't possibly know, but I would assume that John will agree with me in saying that the beautiful thing about the Hobgoblin

for a long time wasn't just the mystery, but was the way that they were able to write Kingsley into being a winner even when he lost. He was very, very good at still coming out on top, even being like a, technically, the loser.

Yeah. I think that, when you saw when my commentary ended is kind of when that prevailing idea seemed to also have ended. I feel like

I mean even the Axis stuff like I feel like whenever they did the bit where he was fighting even if you want to do the goblination stuff and say he killed his butler called Claude and then he rode off into the sunset sure

right. After that it just became the hobgoblin is a character yeah it wasn't the hobgoblin was a character the hobgoblin is just a guy we can use and i feel like that's a real problem they i would say from his inception up until goblin nation they recognized the person they had and what they could do with him and how they could use him maybe in the years they just thought he's got nobody else to pretend to be the hobgoblin he's already killed his butler and his brother and that leads. There's nobody else to kill.

We just have to kill the Hobgoblin. But I feel like the leader years of me and him seem sillier than he was. And the beautiful thing about the original story was that Roderick Kingsley always came out on top. And I don't think you can say that about the last 10 to 15 years of stuff. I got really confused about a lot of this stuff. I didn't because I read the original Itsy Bitsy. storyline, which sounds ridiculous to say out loud, but I didn't. And he wasn't in it.

So this must have been like a, they brought Itsy Bitsy back, which is disappointing to you. Corey, if you want, we can talk about Itsy Bitsy. It's a, it's a Spider-Man Deadpool collaboration, which I'm going to say is deeply unsatisfying. So I feel like, yeah, I mean, it definitely feels like they have lost the ability to use Kingsley like they used to. That he's no longer, he's no longer the mastermind in the shadows. He's no longer the guy who's always like slipping away at the last minute.

No longer the guy snatching victory from the jaws of defeat or seeming defeat. And he's just now a guy. Do you think that that has to do with, they don't value him as a character because they've not, they're not using him in movies? No. I think that the people are writing him. I just don't understand him. Yeah. I think they're just seeing the hobgoblin as the hobgoblin and just assuming that the bumbling nature of the hop goblin is what the character is and not, they're writing the hobgoblin.

They're not riding Roder Kingley. Okay. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. right me. So they're writing him as if he's macadale. But not writing him like he's getting me. Yeah.

Because I'll be honest to you. A plot that involves poisoning people soda is not what I would expect from this guy who was like playing fucking 40 chess and making people think that Hobgoblin was some other dude. Correct. I agree. The guy that was so meticulous by making sure five other people were ahead of him in the Hobgoblin Cheon. wouldn't just go I'll just put chemicals in the water right

there's levels to it and I agree with that like they just kind of that's why I just stopped taking notes because at the end of it I just wrote and some really uninteresting stuff happens so they don't understand

and I have no intention to find you out and that's just what I wrote because like in the notes there was some weird fucking bullshit about that Spider-Man of the Venom

like the timeline yeah yeah yeah i am to read what the fuck this is supposed to be so this isn't why the fuck with the hobgoblin have anything to do with this so so you guys are obviously very big fans of the original uh rogers stern portrayal of the hobgoblin and his original story um we we talked about this previously that you know there was a lot of there was a lot of people like fan speculation that because they introduced a character named Ned Leeds in the MCU, that that character was going to become the Hobgoblin. And it does not seem to be the route they're taking with it at this time. But we have talked about how Hobgoblin is kind of underrepresented when it comes into

other media portrayal of Spider-Man. He had the Mark Hamill run on Spider-Man 94 when they weren't using Green Goblin. And I think he showed up in one of the more recent Spider-Man cartoons from the 2000s. And it was Roderick Kingsley. But it is a character that doesn't, that it has potential for like good long running story, but maybe not good long running story for a movie. Well, I think if you're going to do that, the potential is to, the end game is to have the goblins play against each other.

I don't, if you do it in a film, I don't see how you can. have an end game without having two goblins fight each other. And I think that... They are tied together for sure. They are tied together. And I think the part of the problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is properly getting those goblins over. They were able to get the original Green Goblin over very well.

But they did not get Harry Oswald. They tried twice. Yes. That just hasn't worked. And so now your problem is we have the original Norman Osborne in an alternate universe that is probably the definitive Norman Osborne. If they tried to bring a Green Goblin in now, and they will have to put it, like, compare it to the previous, that's not going to work. So they need to make a new Goblin if they're going to do it, which is prime real estate.

for them bringing in the hobgoblin. But I feel like if they are going to do that, that means that they're going to bring in the new goblin and therefore not do a goblin versus goblin. Yeah. Because I was thinking about it because, I mean, how Norman was in the MCU world for a period of time, it could very well be, you know, stated that there was,

he left behind, you know, blueprints, plans, data, something that someone could stumble upon in true hobgoblob, goblin fashion and assemble their own take on the goblin stuff with it. It could be done because they have introduced, you know, Willem Defoe as Norman Osborne. He got sent back to his own world. So you wouldn't have that goblin versus goblin clash, but you would have the blueprints to create a new goblin. Yes.

I think the grind work is there. You can easily do something or even if you had like a Norman Osborne character that intended to be a superhero with the Green Goblin. It's a fun superhero, but he's never going to run to make it, but he left all the stuff in the on the grind laboratories, whatever,

then have somebody to stumble upon that and think, I can do this and then turn it into a villain character. That could work. Yeah, I think you can I think the problem that you run into is that the MCU

Spider-Man doesn't really tie in well to the comic Spider-Man. And we talked about this previously in that whenever they have had Spider-Man villains, they've had more of a grudge with like Tony Stark or someone unrelated. And we even, you know, it's been a good bit talking about in the last Spider-Man movie that the villain wasn't even a Spider-Man villain. It was Gene Gray. And then some dude from damage control.

Uh-huh. So I don't know if I trust him to do it Because it doesn't seem like they've had any interest in doing it yet I feel like that could be an avenue I think the good thing about Spider-Man is He has so many like villains that you could You could do 10 15 films without repeating yourself And they've done a pretty good job so far

Of like introducing new villains and not repeating themselves No. There's been no sequels. They've done a pretty good job of, like, showcasing a lot of villains. And there's still, like, plenty more that they can do. They've got plenty of time to do a proper Hyderman, for example. I mean, we did a whole tier raker of 25 different villains. Exactly. And there's loads more.

So, Hobgoblin, I would imagine it. I think, no, like, Hobgoblin's probably a fair possibility. Do you know what I mean? Because I feel like everybody is so. the green goblin with Norman Osborne. If you don't have Norman Osborne, you got the Hobgoblin. Yeah.

And that's what happened in the animated show. We don't, we have to do, we have to have a goblin that's a rind. We need the goblin. Even though they did have Norman Osborne, you know, but you know what I mean?

Like, we need a goblin right now. This fucking Mac and deal will do. So I have a question. I'm going to pose to both of you. This is our final hobgobobloven. related episode for right now. We have done a dive on the hobgoblin in general.

We did a dive on Jason McIdle. We did a dive on the various other people who are Hobgoblin, and now we have spent a good bit of time talking about Roderick Kingsley. Is there any sort of like final comments you would like to have on Roderick Kingsley or the Hobgoblin in general before we wrap this up for today? I think we've been pretty clear about stuff. I think that if you're talking to the hobgoblin, your definitive hobgoblin is Roder Kingsley because of the twists and turns, the fun aspect of writing that character, the mystery, the, I will, again, I will say this, like, up until, I stopped reading after the Goblin Nation stuff. so up until that point

Kingsley always find a way to come out on top and I always loved that about the character they always respected that the writers always respected that about the character where Kingsley always came on top and I thought that was a really fun character trail so for that reason

it used to always be a joy to read the Hobgobgoblin stories because you want to see how he got away with it you know what you mean you always wanted to see how Kingsley came up in top. And like, oh, he said his butler was talking, fair enough. But he always came out on top. And that was a lot of fun.

I, like I said, the more recent stuff, access and beyond, I don't know anything about that. So I, I, but I feel that they have let the character down. But before that, the fun of it was just seeing how he gets away with it. And he always did. And it was always fun. John, what about you? I mean, I'm of the opinion that if you're not going to use the Kingsley version of Hobgoblin right, then just don't use him at all. There's no point whatsoever in having him show up just to look like a chump or, you know, be treated like an idiot.

When we know that this is a pretty smart character who is generally, you know, like two steps ahead of everyone else. So, like, yeah, don't put him in situations where you're kind of betraying that well-established trait and making him look like a loser because in terms of the hobgoblins, he is definitely not a loser, compared to any of the one else who's worn the mask. So, yeah. I think after having done a whole episode about the other goblins, and haven't done a whole episode of my Jason McIntyle

I don't think you could ever say that Roder Kingsey is a loser because of how they used to portray him but if you look at modern comics people would say that because they haven't been portraying him as can I? Like we said he's not Roder Kingley he's the Hobb Goblin I would like to I'd like to

posit an idea if at some point two three years however me years down the line we go and Marvel gets I'll say Nick Spencer because he likes to recant a bunch of shit. It comes out that. That's actually the since Goblination,

it's not been Roderick Kingsley, but a resurrected Jason McIndale posing as Roderick Kingsley, posing as Hobgoblin. Would that make the last few years of storytelling makes sense in context? Because poisoning soda and getting thwarted by a magic mushroom

sounds like a Jason McIndale storyline to me. I will say that what you just said sounds like a Nick Spencer storyline. Yeah, right? So, speaking of, go ahead. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, you say your thing.

Speaking of Nick Spencer and Jason McIdle, I feel like if they hadn't killed him off, he'd have been the perfect leader for the inferior foes of Spider-Man. Because he'd been like the big name guy bullying the other dudes around, even though he's just a bit of a loser, like Boomerang? I feel like Boomerang's a bigger loser. Oh, yeah, but that's why he would be the leader. To McIdle's credit, I feel like Broomerang is much more of a loser. Oh yeah, like you said, he'd be like, this is my new sinister sex.

And it's these assholes. Maybe. Yeah, I get to that. I don't think it would work only because we've seen Hobgoblin en masseed over these last few years as well. So unless, yeah, unless McIndale's had plastic surgery to, you know, look like. Kingsley. That's what I was going to say. There is a point, I think it is in the Goblin Nation

or like right before that, where Spider-Man unmasks the Green Goblin and it's some fucking guy. Spirre, like, what the fuck? And then the guy's like, oh, I'm Norman Osborne, but I had plastic surgery to look like I'm

not Norman Osborne. And you're like, what? Just in case. What? Just in case. He looked like Shamus. Like, like, oh really?

He looked at the way, like, he looked at the way, and then like the ginger hair. He looked like, Shamus. I'm like, what? What?

So I think if they were going to say, oh, Magadale had surgery. Don't worry about it. There you go. Yeah. Done.

I mean, he made a deal with a demon. He got cybernetic implants. I think change in his face wouldn't be the worst thing he'd done. Seriously, like he could easily do that. If he came back from the dead

with a different face, we'd be like, well, that's weird. Like, he came back from the dead. Yeah. Sure. You know? I would buy that. Honestly, like, if they did that,

whenever we ride for Spider-Man, which should be pretty suit, I can imagine. Yeah. We can retcon all the fucking weird hobgol and stuff, and then make new hop-gelf and stuff that's really cool,

where he has a skateboard. Yeah. There's a skippery, the goblin glider has wheels on the bottom of it. That way you can do cool tricks. Like a healy, you know what you mean? Yeah, like a healy.

Yeah. Just add more wheels to the costume. You know, he's a fashion designer. He'll work out. Sometimes we got the hoggling he dabs. That's cool, right? Yeah, that's what the kids do these days, right? Yeah, that's what they do.

Isn't it that they dab? Yeah. Oh, man, he sounded like poochy now. He's got, whenever hotgoglasses on and a backwards hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Well, speaking of references to, two television shows. Movies are also on screens. John, were you out in your movie watch for the year? Wow. You guys are going to be either really impressed or horrified because I am now

up to 1001 movies for the year so far. Oh, 101. Wow. Wow. That's impressive. That's pretty good. What was your last one?

What was the one? Well, the last one was Toy Story 5. And then the 1,000th one was 28 years later, The Bone Temple. God, you're just watching the long-awaited sequels. What, like, stylistically, what's the difference in the two of those films? I mean, there's way more violence in Toy Story 5. Yeah. Yeah.

What, okay, I have questions. I haven't seen Toy Story 5 yet. I want to. I've seen all the other ones. I miss seeing the film in the cinema. I've seen all of the other toy stories in cinema, which I think probably dates me. But I've seen all the up to this one.

I never got to run it to see this new one in the cinema. A feeling that the previous Tory story stories are toys get lost and then find the way home and that's all of the toy stories so is Toy Story 5 good? Is it a different kind of a film? You might be surprised to hear that

there is a toy that gets lost and the other toys are looking for her but I mean the thing is I will say this kind of does kind of feel a bit different because it's dealing with you know like

tech toys like you know how kids are on their iPads and phones and stuff and like they don't really have time for playing with dolls or action figures or whatever it kind of addresses that sort of shift in

you know I guess like what kids are playing with these days, which it gives it a different feel to the previous movies. Even though, like, the message is a bit

kind of mixed and I don't know, like, a bit forgiving of, like, tech is a toy. Like, it's still pretty enjoyable. What did you give it out of

five? I gave it four stars out of five. War stars? Yeah, I mean, I'm easily pleased, man. Give me some Woody and Buzz. I'm there, man. Give John a Woody and he's there. It's pretty easy.

I'm with you, man. I love a bit of Woody and a little bit of Buzz, and that helps me to the day. That's a good day for me. Oh, well, to hear more about John's thoughts on Woody, you can, John, working that you go to read your review on Toy Story 5 and 28 years later the Boneyard. Or the Bone Temple, not the Boneyard.

That's what I called my Woody. Sorry. Oh, dear. They can find me letterboxed at Big John Bowsky, or one word. And John, what have you been getting up to lately? Well, when I'm not at the Boneyard, I sometimes... stream on Twitch and Spooka the Root

and I animate a lot of stuff and I put it on YouTube at TeamCros and I on TikTok at TeamCrow Studios. We put some stuff up recently. It's done really well somehow I don't know why. So there'll be new stuff coming out pretty soon and

I hope you like it. There you go. As for me, I have the other shows that I do, new number ones, on our YouTube channel as well. Last week, I read an erotic thriller by Gia March called Onifusa

that featured a woman doing a strip tease on the hood of a car before pissing on the windshield. So that was the thing I got to read. Speaking of the Boneyard. There's a lot of nude women in that book. Holy shit. Hello. What's it called again? Onifusa.

Check it out, kids. Yep. Not kids. Rate it for, rated M for mature. Yeah, we also have a large old cup, which is my podcast that's

for stream of consciousness, kind of like a, what's going on in my head kind of deal, which is always great. I'm going to be jumping back into that, probably this weekend, actually.

And finally, there is Opel City Archives, which is a Starman retrospective podcast. So if you like listening to us to us to talk about comic books, this is me talking exclusively about the 19, 1990 Starman comic by James Robinson and Tony Harris on art.

We're going to do issue zero through 81, I think. Every, so a new issue, a new episode a week, and it's going to run that long, hopefully. And yeah, it's just sort of a deep dive on what's happening in the comic and opinions on it and what was going on in the cultural zeitgeist at the time as well. And it's a bit of a passion project of mine. So I'm very happy to get it off the ground finally. Links for everything. Yep. Links for everything in the description of this video and for the audio.

Like us on YouTube. Like us on Spotify and other audio platforms. That's where we are for that as well. And we'll see you guys next week where we're going to finally jump out of the Hobgoblin world and into the green goblin world with a deep dive on Harry Osborne. We'll see you guys later. Yes. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Bye. Bye.