The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 32: The Smark Avengers Talk About Hobgoblin

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

It's Spooky Month which means it's time for the Smark Avengers to decorate the clubhouse with cotton spider webs, pumpkins, 12 ft tall skeletons, and that one Halloween decoration of a pumpkin-headed guy that says his name is Lewis (remember that?). What better way to celebrate the first week of October than by talking about a goblin? Ned Leeds... Roderick Kingsley... Lefty Donovan... Jason Macendale... Daniel Kingsley... Phil Urich... Norman Osborn... all of these men have worn the mask of the Hobgoblin at one point or another. Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as the Smark Avengers do a deep dive on the Hobgoblin!

I think last time we talked about how we were going to turn on you. I remember doing that very recently. Me? Yeah. Why would you guys want to turn on me? I'm an angel. See, I think this is exactly how that conversation went. Well, maybe we should...

What if I turn on both of you? I feel like that would be ill-advised. Hang on, whoa, Corey, what did you say? I think that would be ill-advised. Okay, cool, because I like that job with that you fucking try it. I feel like it would be very akin to Seth Rons turning on the shield Are you hitting John in the back once

Or by the one that's getting eat a bunch of chair shots Look how that turned out Seth Rallens won the heavyweight championship And then had the backing of Triple H Right That seemed pretty good What if I burn one of your houses down? I don't live in a house

What if I burn both of your houses? down. I don't live in a house again. Yeah. Well, if I burn down the building that you reside in down. It's a very big building. We're living a house. You live in a structure of some kind. I can burn that down.

Hi, everybody. This is Spark Avengers. My name is Corey, and this is Dylan and John. Hi. Hello. We're just making noise. Yeah, we're just, you know, that's all this is. It's just mouth sounds. I just make a noise.

I wish... Boop boop boop boop. Boop. Hello All right We're so good at this Professional Yeah 32 episodes That's not bad

Hello Fresh You don't want to sponsor this Corey you've even Hobgoblin I bet Boy that would be really I'd be the worst Hobgoblin

considering I know next to nothing about the hobgoblin I think me and John can both corroborate this and say Corey you're probably not the worst hobgoblin So if you've not

guessed based off of the fact we've said the word hobgoblin multiple times. Today's episode is going to be a deep dive on the hobgoblin, which one, probably all of them, because I think there have been a handful of them. Corey is the hobgoblin. Yep. John, real quick, have you had the beer called Hobgoblin? I have.

What do you think? It's not as good as the cider called Green Goblin. Really? I've never seen the cider. We have Hobgoblin all the time in every shop. I've never seen a cider called Green Goblin. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That's a shame. That's a shame because we're going to get into the Hobgoblin, of course, but I always... I always... I've had the stuff before. Sorry? I've had Hobgoblin before. The drink. Isn't it lovely?

It's okay. It's nice. I've never had the Green Goblin, though. And I think that that's appropriate because... For me personally, and we've heard other opinions from John in the past, but for me, my favorite goblin is the hobgoblin. And so I think it's kind of appropriate that I've never had the green goblin drink, but I have had hobgoblin, whereas John thinks the green goblin drink is the better of the two goblin drinks. Yeah, I think that's pretty appropriate. The label looks cooler.

Yeah, but is the person cooler? yeah i mean norman osborne or harry or peter whoever the fuck's green goblin right now can this whole show just be me and john like are you going to bite which goblin is better yeah by all means please do you the thing is wait hang on hang on hang on i i like the hobgoblin though he's before the green goblin ever came along on like the animated show i was all about the hobgoblin and then it was only after the show and and I started reading it more about the Green Goblin and Norman Osborne and all the terrible things that he did. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, this guy's pretty good.

See, I think that's pretty funny because I did a similar thing, but what I read up about both of them, I always ended up thinking, and I'm sure we'll get to this at some point, but like every time, and there was a point, there's obviously a cutoff point for this, but I thought that Marvel were very smart about how they used the Hobgoblin. as opposed to how they use the Green Goblin. And this definitely will come up in,

because the story of the Hobgoblin is very convoluted. But I really like a lot of the way they teased who it is and what he does and the reveal and all of that stuff. I found the Hobgoblins' appearances to be very impactful. Whereas part of the problem I had with the Green Goblin was that you already knew. that it was Norman Osborne. Well, no.

Do you mean? How does agree? When he was introduced, there was like about two or three years worth of comics where you didn't know who the Green Goblin was and he was like popping up all the time. And it was a mystery who was under the mask. So it was only after like the big reveal that obviously, yeah,

everyone knows is Norman Osborne. But then that added like a whole. brand new dynamic to stories as well because, you know, he was obviously Peter's best friend's dad. He had like a psychotic break where he keep forgetting he was the Green Goblin and then things would trigger him and, you know, push him over the edge. And obviously he ended up knowing Peter's secret identity as well. So that ended up, you know, bringing plenty of drama into the comics as well. Okay, well let me clarify real quick. I'm not, again, I'm not going to try to have a goblin off with John. You guys are always goblin over there. We're always goblin something.

That's for the Patreon. But what I mean is like, you know, obviously like part of the draw by the original Green Goblin was once we knew it was Norman Osborne, that is out of the level of intrigue. But I mean, like, after that happened, the intrigue was that every time you see Norman Osborne, the Green Goblin is right around the corner. Like that happened. And that happened for 30, 20, at least 20 to 30 years before the Hobgoblin even appeared. But when the Hobgoblin appeared, they had a lot of mystery for a long time. And again, we're going to cover this. This might be to their detriment, but there was so much mystery about the Hobgoblin was, even when they revealed who the Hobb Goblin was, that wasn't even true.

There was still mystery. People still weren't sure if that was correct or not. They left a lot of trials. Every single story with the hobgoblin meant something. It had a lot of little trialed breadcrumbs to it that made you want to stick around and see what happened next. Which, like I said, with the Norman Osborne one, is once you knew Norman Osborne was the Green Goblin,

then you got the expectation that once you saw Norman Osborne, you're going to see the Green Goblin. And I feel like the Hobgoblin story through like misdirection or through bad publication decisions or whatever, could be whatever you want, quite similar to the clone saga where they didn't know what they were doing. Maybe it made it seem like haphazard at the time. But like reading it back now,

it all like plays out really, really, really, really. well because it adds so much mystery to who the hobgoblin is until they even when they finally reveal who the hobgoblin truly was they're still mystery about it every single time after that the true hobgoblin turns up it's a bangor of a story but i will say to this to you jod every time after that that the green goblin is turned up it's not always a bangor story i mean Hold on. Every time the hobgoblin showed up pretty much since the Roderick Kingsley reveal. The true hobgoblin.

It's been awful. There's not been a... The true hobgoblin? Yeah, there's not been a decent hobgoblin story for a long, long time. I don't like Ben Urick as the hobgoblin. Mm-hmm. But I like Roderick's as Hobgoblin. and every time he's come back, it's been fun.

Can I request real quick, we just kind of level set. No. I'm just going to say, like, from somebody who does not know anything about the Hobgoblin, which would be me, obviously nothing about this character. Let's start at the beginning. Who is the Hobgoblin? You are. Not just who's under the mask, but like, what's the deal?

How is he different from the green goblin? When did he first show up? Let's, let's start a trail. Okay. Because I feel like right now we just paratroopered into the jungle. Yeah. Like shots are coming out of us from all directions. Correct.

We really went straight into like, which is the better goblin, which was probably the wrong direction. You're passionate. I like it. We're both passionate. about our favorite goblins. Corey, who's your favorite goblin? Gray? I like Shaza,

who's a goblin in Baldersgate 3 that you find in a cage. Corey. I like the goblin queen. Corey. I'm not a Spider-Man person. What can I tell you? Pick a goblin.

I mean, I like Norman. I think that's great. That's fine. that's fair enough. At least you pick this on. Honestly, I really like Harry as well. I kind of liked the idea of Harry. I like the idea of Harry as I feel like they didn't really do enough with it though.

Right, I agree. I feel like they killed them off too soon. I think that there was like a really good story they could have told there. Because that would have been perfect. I mean, didn't they just resurrect him and then they killed him again? Kind of. Yeah. It's complicated.

Yeah, this is about the hobgoblin. Yeah. Speaking of Neary. complicated. Here's the story of the hobgoblin. So. Oh, dear. So he, as a character, debuted in 1983, in Amazing Spider-Man 238, created by Roger Stern and John Ramita Jr.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically, what happened was like a run-of-the-mill bank robber, like, escaped from Spider-Man into the sewers and stumbled upon one of Norman Osborne secret green goblin hideouts, complete with all the weapons and gears and old journals and stuff like that. So he decided to sell that information to some shadowy character who he like, you know, took to this hideout and then helped. clear out all the stuff. And then no sooner had he done all that, then this shadowy character killed him. So it was to make sure that there was nothing to, you know, like connect him to all this stuff

that had just been stolen and what he might do with it. So basically what he did was jazz it up, change the color scheme, add a cape and a hood, because why not? and yeah he created the identity of the hobgoblin and figured he'd uh you know pick up where the green goblin left off uh only trouble is he fought spider man and got his ass kicked because uh you know spider man's got superpowers and this guy did not so he started going through all the old norman osborne journals and found out about like the the goblin syrin and so he started experimenting with that

trying to perfect it so if he used it it wouldn't like turn him insane like it did with Norman but just give him like the super strength and super speed and all that kind of thing so to do that he he basically brainwashed a guy called lefty Donovan who was just like a small time career criminal used a machine to like, you know, make him do his bidding basically, dressed him up as the hobgoblin, gave him this experimental version of the goblin serum,

and yeah, sent him off to fight Spider-Man. And somehow, lefty Donovan held his own. and it was only because the brainwashing started to slip that he, you know, started to lose the fight, at which point this shadowy figure sent the goblin glider crashing into a building to kill him. Again, just to like, you know, make sure there's nothing leading back to him. But once he knew that this new version of the serum worked, he was like, okay, now I'll inject it into myself and become. super strong as well at which point he starts like trying to amass like a criminal empire like blackmailing all these prominent individuals in new york and trying to use like this battle van

that norman had built to take out spider-man um and yeah he sort of held his own for a bit again with like the mystery of his identity carry on all throughout But eventually, like, he fights Spider-Man and then the battle van that he'd, you know, been using, ended up, like, crashing into the Hudson River. And, you know, it seemed like Hobgolitan was dead, maybe. But clearly he wasn't because this is comic books. And, yeah, so then he came back and started teaming up with the Rose, who was another massed, character with like a mystery identity who uh spoiler alert was richard fisk aka the kingpin's son and yeah they started like buddying up and trying to take over uh the kingpings territory basically

which you think about it is a really good idea like the hobgobgoblin is killed like some sort of uh branch away from the green goblin And the rose is clearly a branch off of the kingpin. So you can see that kind of like, that new generation kind of like, why wouldn't they team up? Like that makes sense, you know, as opposed to the Green Goblin and the Kingpin who would never have teamed up just because of their own like ideological values. Whereas if you think about the Kingpin, oh, sorry, the Rose and the Hobgoblin, their entire career is just built on like being the most powerful. person that they can be makes sense to like symbiote against each other you know yeah yeah so uh around this time roger stern left the book uh after having you know uh co-created the hobgoblin and written all

of his stories up to that point um and tom de falco came in uh and picked up the the mantle and that was sort of covering hobgobloom sort of playing hobgoblin sort of playing and second fiddle to the rose and yeah like he's not quite got as much agency of his own anymore he's like more working with the rose and or under the rows even so he's yeah he's basically become a bit of a lackey at that point um but then like there's he's still got like storylines going on like the there's this whole situation with the flash thompson who was having a bit of a rough patch after coming back from I think I guess it was Vietnam

but this must have been years after So did he lose his legs in Vietnam? No. No, that was later. Yeah. Okay. That was Afghanistan, right? I guess so.

I think so. It was that kind of time frame. Yeah, that slight in time skill becomes a fucking bitch when you start naming specific countries. So yeah, Flash was having a rough time. He'd split with his girlfriend. And then he started pretty much seeing Betty Brandt. And like they were both leaning on each other because Betty Brandt had split from her husband, Ned Leeds.

But, oh, it turns out that Ned Leeds was the Hobgoblin. What? All along? he seemed that way and he wasn't too keen on seeing his estranged wife like getting close to Flash Thompson. So he decided to frame Flash as the Hobgoblin, like luring Spider-Man into like a situation where like an explosion went off and there's the Hobgoblin's body like lying on the floor and he pulls off the mask and it's Flash. and then planting evidence in Flash's apartment as well so it all looks as if it's you know him who's

who's always been under the mask so like yeah for for reference the audience doesn't know no the audience that Ned Leeds was supposedly the Hobgoblin indeed whenever he's

whenever Spider-Man finds out that Flash Thompson appears to be the hobgoblin that's what the audience also appears to realize. So like what? Like like I mean I think if you read the comments you can tell that there's probably something else going on. Yes. There's a lot of mystery. Like obviously flash Thompson isn't the hobgoblin. There's framing going on. But you don't know who could be the hobgoblin. There's no other visible explanation. I do want to point out that New York is a city with like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. And it's so interesting.

Like all this shit happens around Peter Parker. Seven people that he knows. Yeah, like the same. The seven people he knows are all coincidentally, also villains and or heroes. Oh, Flash Thompson again. God damn it. You know. Yeah, like, Jesus Christ, Flash. Keep your nose clean.

You've been Bob Goblin, Venom, anti-Venom. What's he going to be next? Anti-Hopoldin. Who? Anti-hope goblin? Anti-hop goblin? Anti-haubblin? Wasn't there like a cyber, like a cyber hobgoblin at one point?

Yes, we'll get to that, don't we'll get there, we'll get there. I remember I had a trick part. We actually, I think we actually talked about cyber hobgoblin before. Quite possibly. Because I talked about it for sure. I 100% talked about it, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Okay.

Anyway, so, yeah, Flash was framed, but then, like, I think the real hobgoblin or at least his stand-in was like still flying about. So that kind of made it obvious that, yeah, he wasn't really the hobgoblin. But yeah, then there was some more behind-the-scenes movement when Tom DeFalco got moved off the book. And his plans for the reveal kind of gotten done as well. So I think at this point, Marvel's editorial staff were just like we need to

reveal this because it's been too long now it's been like three or four years at this point it's been a long time yeah and we've had a lot of red herrings but we've not given the people what they want how long had it been what did you say you came in he debuted in 1983 and we're up to I think

late 1986 7 yeah we're getting close to yeah okay yeah we're talking three or four years yeah um but The reveal doesn't actually happen in Amazing Spider-Man. It happens in a Spider-Man versus Wolverine one-shot, where Spider-Man or Peter Parker and Ned Leeds sent to Germany on assignment for the Daily Bugle. And Peter's out investigating this or that. He comes back to their hotel, and he finds Ned tied to a chair.

his throat slit and he's like wearing the hobgoblin's outfit so all evidence points to Ned being the hobgoblin and Spidey even like goes and confronts the kingpin

when he gets back to New York who shows him some sort of file which seems to corroborate that story and so yeah it seems like oh well Ned leads with the hobgoblin all along I mean can I just like really quickly say

that, you know, if they were really obviously going to plant Flash Thompson as a hobgoblin, which they did, and then the way that they reveal Ned Leeds is the real hubgoblin is to just plant him as the hobgoblin. Do you know what I mean? Like, they dressed up a dead body in the hobgoblin suit. You're like, well, that's all the evidence I need. You know what I mean? In the next edition of the next issue of Spider-Man,

man 289, which was written by Peter David. They did sort of expand on how he died. And like, it turns out it was these sort of mercenaries slash assassins who worked for a guy called the foreigner who had been hired by Jason McIndale, Masondale. I would say McIndale. McIndale. We'll settle with that. Well, I think for now, because he's going to come back. clear, we'll stick with McIndale.

Yes. So he had hired the foreigner to basically kill the hobgoblin, not knowing who he was or anything, but he wanted to assume his identity because up until that point, McIndale had been a guy called Jacko Lantern. Yes. Sort of. Real low-level, low-level mercenary kind of guy, like really like. pretty like down the totem pole of Spider-Man villains.

I mean, he just wore a big pumpkin on his head and like jumped on some sort of springy thing. Yeah. Yeah. But he wanted, he wanted more. Maccadale wanted way more. And that's important as well. Like that's,

we should right now make it very clear that McIntyrella wanted to be a bigger deal in the villainary sense. Yes. So he, he went from Jack O'Landron and he just, decided, you know what, I'm going to be the new Hobgoblin. So he went to try to find out who the real Hobb Goblin was. He assumed he found it.

And he said, we're going to free him that guy. We're going to steal his costume, kill that guy. He didn't say, frame him. He said, I'm going to kill that guy. I'm going to take his costume. I'm the new Hobb Goblin. Mm-hmm. And so Jason McIndale.

And now we're talking like 87. Yeah. I think, idiot, 87? Mm-hmm. Jason McIntyle upgraded himself from being the Jackal Lantern who nobody gave a fuck about to the Hobgoblin who as we've established for the last four years people have been talking about. So that would seem to give McIndale that push that he needed. Only it didn't really work out for him because he was still the same loser. He was still Jason McIndale.

Yeah. Correct. And this, you know, this is, this is a wonderful thing I love about, like, comics and, like, um, like other media is that like, it's not the, it's not the suit that makes the character. You know what I mean? Like, we've talked about this with Venom. You put Venom and Eddie Brock, that's Venom. But you put that suit on somebody else, that's not Venom. You can dress it up like that.

You can pretend it's by something. it's not venom, it's Eddie Brock. And I think this is a very classic case of that. And that's kind of what I love about McIdle is that you could give him whatever suit you want, but it's just not going to work. He's just not that guy. Funny you should say that because once he realizes that, you know, being Hobgoblin wasn't working out for him,

he basically struck a deal with a demon. during the inferno crisis where like New York was I think partly merged with limbo and yeah he got imbued with all these new powers like possessed by a demon and it still didn't work he basically was still a loser because what he wanted to be the most powerful villain and so then he's because he went from like a low level like fucking asshole and then he went to the hobgoblin

which is what he wanted but what he didn't realize was that being the hobgoblin took a lot of work and effort and like manipulation the hobgoblin didn't just become the hobgoblin he didn't just survive as a hobgoblin right there was a lot going along with it

he's saying he's the hobgoblin but just saying you're the hobgoblin doesn't make you the hobgoblin that we saw years before that because the hobgoblin Goblin that we saw years before that would take the fight to Spider-Man and this new Hopgoblin wasn't doing that and that's why

he thought it was necessary for him to make a deal with the demon during the inferno crisis where he thought I'm going to get this guy this demon to like make me more powerful so therefore people will take me as a

big deal. That's one thing I really liked about old Spider-Man comics was there was a really big idea where people were like, I want people to think that I'm a really big time villain. I don't think you see that much anymore, but they're used,

I don't know if it's just Spider-Man or other comics, but there used to be a big ideal where people thought, I want you to think of me as a big-time villain. And Jason McIndale all the way through his career, always wanted to be

a big-time villain. I kind of love that about him. He had ambition, you know? Yeah. He's a lover loser. He's a loser, but he tries. And that's why you kind of want to root for him in a way, you know? So he decided to bond his soul to a demon to make himself more powerful.

And that's how we got the Demo Goblin. Yeah. Well, essentially, you know, him, he didn't realize that, you know, being possessed by a demon, the demon might, you know, not play ball, basically. Yeah, right. So, yeah, like, they sort of battled over his soul and his body, and then the demo goblin basically split off into its own entity. Yes. And McIndale was back to square one. so this is where he gets the cybernetic enhancements after allying with Gaunt

who was our old friend Mendel Strom who we talked about in the Ben Ryrie Clownsaga episode go back and watch that episode if you want to because this is why I know we talked about Jason McIdle as to Hobgoblin before because But we also talked about him in our pick the, um, pick our Sinister 6 because in my, uh, all-goblins team, I needed one. And I'm like, Jason McAdel sounds like a name. He is a name. Yep.

But that was the effort I put into it. That's the trick. If I could, um, throw something out that, do you know, like, behind the scenes if the whole, like, make a deal with a demon, get cybernetic parts? was it like a conscious effort of like we got to make hobgoblin different than green goblin because it's going to get confusing if we don't i think at the time no i'm sorry to cut you off john but i would say at the time no because at the time the green goblin had been dead exactly what i was going to say yeah like harry has definitely died by this point yeah he'd been dead for years What they were doing was trying to make this hobgoblin different from other hobgoblins. Honestly, I think that's what it was. I think they were trying to make a distinction between this hobgoblin

and to make them a big deal against the new threat of Ben Riley as opposed to other hobgoblins that were fighting Peter Parker. I think that they weren't even thinking about that kind of thing because even at the time of the clone saga, they hadn't come up with the end game idea that Norman Osborne was going to be the big boss at the end of it. They had no idea that, like, when they introduced Jason McIllale as a hobgoblin

with the cybernatic enhancements, they had no idea that the end game would eventually be Norman Osborne with the Green Goblin identity. Otherwise, that would have probably tied into it somehow. Do you mean? Yeah, yeah. Sheathed goblins. Because one of the things people were begging out for for a long time, the reason the hobgoblin existed, like John said, he ravaged the green goblin's caches of weapons. We only had one goblin at a time. So it wasn't until after the clone saga when we had two goblins. Well, we did have a brief storyline in the 80s where I think it was McIndale's Hobgobbobb.

went against Harry's Green Goblin. Well, what happened then? I think it was a stalemate and no one really won. Right, because that wasn't part of the plan. And that was part of what I don't like about them making Harry Osborne the Green Goblin is that a lot of it didn't seem like they had a plan for it. And they should have and they could have and it would have been great. But like I always thought that the reason they brought in the Hobgoblin was to fill in the Goblin

Cole that Norman left. And it's quite clear. I mean, it's just the way the writing was. It's quite clear that Harry didn't fill in that gap. The Hobgoblin did. The hobgoblin felt like a legit villain right off the bat. Whereas with Harry as Green Goblin,

it felt a retread of all ground, a B, a betrayal of the Harry Osmond character. And I don't necessarily buy that. I think that Harry Osborne as Green Goblin could have been a really good idea. But I feel like the fan consensus was that it was just a retreadable grind and it was betrayal of

the Harry Osborne character. Whereas when you get earlier into the 90s, the Hobb Goblin is the only goblin around. That's just the way it is. The common knowledge is that Norman Osborne has been dead for years. And by the 90s,

Harry Osborne has been dead for a number of years as well. The only goblin left is the hobgoblin. So I think them, given him cybernetic abilities, wasn't a way to differentiate him from the other goblins. It was really just a way to kind of jazz up the hobgoblin for the 90s. That's what I think it was. It wasn't like to make him different from, the other goblins. It was really just

to like, it was a night, we've talked a billion times about the 90s about how different it was and how we had to make everything different and super fucking over the top. You know what he mean? Superman died, Batman died.

Ben Riley was new Spider-Man. They had to make something different. And so they had the hobgoblin come out with like all this cybernetic stuff. And again, I'll tell you this. He was mostly drawn by J.R. Jr. And it looked beautiful.

And when I started reading comics in the Clone saga, the hobgoblin, I think it was Carnage and then it was a hobgoblin were like the two main villains that I ever got to see. And around this

time is probably around the time I was watching the TV show where the hobgoblin was a very big, prominent character. And so, I fell in love with that hobgoblin. The cybernetic hobgoblin, I wanted him to come back

a million times over. I loved him. And they used him for like twice. Yeah. You know what you mean? They used them twice. And then they killed him off. Then they killed him off. And I

loved the hobgoblin. I loved him. But again, the problem with that was, that was the Jason McIndale version of the hobgoblin. Yeah. As we've established, he was a loser. As we've established, one, he was a loser,

and two, he was not the Hobb Goblin. Indeed. We have established that Gis McIndale stole the identity of what we thought was Ned Leeds.

But he stole the identity of the Hobb goblin for himself. And the whole reason about the Hope Goblin being Ned Leeds was a big deal because it made

a little bit of sense. Why wouldn't a guy like the hobgoblin, like he would have all of this knowledge about leads about criminal activity and stuff like this. Doesn't it make sense that it might be somebody

that like has a lead into this stuff like a journalist? It falls apart when you think about like Ned Leeds physically. He doesn't look at Hobgoblin. But then if you think about the goblin serum and what it does to you, like doesn't make sense that you could make a guy like Ned Leeds

appear to be himself, but be physically much stronger than he is with the serum? That makes sense. Doesn't it make sense that he would have access to a lot of records that maybe a lot of other people wouldn't have access to because he's a journalist?

Yes. Doesn't it make sense that he could get access to all of this stuff as the Hobb Goblin and then later on report on it as NetLeads? Yes, it does. Like, they were doing a very good job of leading you down a path. to like let's be honest none of us believe that flash thompson was the hobgoblin no no it's pretty clear that he wasn't correct but the ned leeds thing it seemed unlikely but it didn't seem unbelievable no right and then once jason mackendale became the hobgoblin that was unbelievable like a hundred percent he was the hop goblin they amassed him it was it was him he's a hundred

Hobb Goblin. So like, okay, cool. We now were at the point in the mid-90s where we know the Hobb Goblin was Jason McAdale. And before that, it was Ned Leeds. And then... That should put the point on things

perfectly, shouldn't it? Well, it should do. But then Roger Stern came back to Marvel and was like, hey guys, I want to tell the story. I wanted to tell 10 years ago, but... I think, by the way, I think that's the perfect way to do things.

The way they did things is like the beaten switch. You know, you start off, you write a character, you leave all the dread, like the breadcrumbs, leave the trail, leave for a little bit, watch everybody else fucks it up. They come back 10 years later, I go, let me just connect the dots for you. You know what you mean?

because I feel like, and I honestly believe this because I have the, I don't have a whole lot of actual comics in my possession, but some of the ones I do have are the actual, like the Hobb Goblin

reveal comic, I have them. I have the Hobb Goblin reveal comics in my possession. I fucking love them. I love the way they did it. I'm just hyped about it. So, John, if you want to go ahead.

Okay, doke. Well, yeah, basically Roger Stone came back and got to tell the story you wanted to tell, which involved the real Hobgoblin showing up and basically killing Jason McIndale

because he was such an embarrassment as the Hobgoblin. He was like, okay, I'll just take back my identity then. Yes. And yeah, so he starts you know doing all of his hobgoblin

the things he likes to do like you know messing up people shit and whatnot feeling yeah but at this point Betty Brandt is like investigating like the true identity because she wants to

you know clear the name of her estranged dead husband And, yeah, like, it all leads to the uncovering of the real identity of the hobgoblin, which was... Corey. Yeah. After all we revealed about this, Hobgoblin, can you decipher who the real hobgoblin truly was? Is it somebody that we've never been introduced to you before?

Kind of. Okay. I would not know. I will say that it's somebody that you and me and John have not been introduced to in this conversation. But if you read the comics, you have been introduced this man. But at the same time, he was a pretty forgettable character when he was introduced. Correct. I think possibly on purpose.

Yes. Oh, 100%. Basically, it is a fella by the name of Roderick Kingsley, who was a prominent fashion design. in New York who I think Mary Jane worked for him. Yes, he's a bit of a snob and a bit of effeminate and like a bit of a diva basically, I think. But I think it turns out that that was just him putting on a bit of an actor, you know, I guess throw people off the sense. but yeah so he was the original guy who

you know stumbled upon Norman's hideout and messed with the goblin formula to get rid of the insanity and then framed Flash Thompson and then Ned Leeds and used lefty Donovan as like a puppet

and he was the master manipulator so much so that he was even manipulating his own twin brother, Daniel, into kind of taking on the goblin identity as well at certain points. And yeah, so his identity is finally revealed. Spider-Man captures him, sends him to prison. Seems like it's game over. but then, as we've talked about, who should reappear at the end of the clone saga, but Norman Osborne. And yeah, Kingsley sort of took it as an affront that Osborne was back and claiming that he wasn't the goblin, but like a victim of the goblin. and he threatened to reveal

a journal which had all of Norman's secrets including all of his time as the Green Goblin to the world basically so Norman as the Green Goblin when confronted him they had a bit of a to-do and yeah eventually Norman basically takes over all of Kingsley's companies and fortune whilst Roderick escapes to the Caribbean and essentially

retires as the Hobgoblin, which is basically where we leave the character for about 10 years or so, not until much later in the day when it seems like the Hobgoblin is planning his return to New York. He shows up at one of his safe houses. and starts getting his gear together. Only what should happen, but a fellow by the name of Phil O'Rick shows up, who was briefly the Green Goblin in the 90s as a hero. I think we talked about that, didn't me?

Yeah, yeah. It was the changes that didn't stick episode. Indeed. Yeah, so Phil Yorick shows up and seemingly kills Roderick Kingsling, but it actually turns out it was his twin brother, Daniel who got murdered. But yeah,

Phil steals his identity and becomes a brand new hobgoblin with some brand new technology. And, yeah, essentially he has about as much luck as any of the other hobgoblins, which is to say, not much luck at all. Nope.

But, yeah, that again draws Roderick back to New York after being in semi-retirement for a while. And yeah, he fights Phil Oric and I think he basically wins and tells him, okay, you can continue being the Hobgoblin, but now you have to give me a cut of all your profits or else, basically. So, yeah, that was the Stats quo for a little bit until Oric basically couldn't pay him anymore

because he wasn't making enough money because he sucked so bad as the whole. Goblin. And yeah, what happened next? So he got arrested and sent to prison and then busted out by Norman Osborne and drafted into the Goblin Nation.

Goblin army. Yeah, and given a new identity as the Goblin Knight. Yes, the Goblin Knight, sorry. The Goblin King was Norman. That was Norman, yes. Yes. But that basically... They thought it was a good idea to bring all the goblins together.

Yeah, yeah. Which makes a sort of sense, I guess. Because they had so many goblins. They had the green goblin. They had a hobgoblin. They had menace that wasn't not a goblin, but they pretended it was a goblin. Yeah, well, she'd taken the goblin serum, and it had a weird effect on her. And that was it?

That was the three goblins. I'm sure there was more. So then the Goblin Nation? but whilst they were doing their goblin nation thing, Roderick basically became Hobgoblin again. And he also, at this point, like inspired by his, you know, partnership, if you can call it that, with Oric and getting the cut of all of his profits, he started selling off other criminal identities to, like, low-rent criminals

and, you know, making money from that as well. Yeah. And then eventually he gets sort of drafted into the Axis event where... Yeah, I am not sure how he ends up being drafted into this. That's what annoys me about this. I think if you look at this, this is, this really like gets me because what I loved by the whole Hobb Goblin thing, Roder Kingsley

through this whole thing has been the most smart man in the entire Marvel universe. He's been so clever. He's played everything perfectly. He framed Ned Leads. He's framed Flash Thompson.

He's become the Hobgoblin. He framed himself as his twin brother, Daniel. He has done got a cut of all of the Hobgoblin stuff. has played everything. This is what I,

this, John, whenever I said I loved everything about the hub goblin, every hubb goblin stories been good. This is what I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, like after Axis,

I don't know anything but happens after Axis, right? But this is what I was talking about. I mean that like, we talk about his introduction up to Axis. Everything has been played perfectly. If you think about one man playing the chess pieces of life, he has done it so well.

He has just been able to like, manipulate everything so that he just ends up with a bank roll of money and he does practically fuck all. That's what I loved about the hobgoblin. It's all been played perfectly. And then what I don't understand and maybe somebody can explain it to me, maybe John can explain it to me, I don't know, but I'm saying up to Axis, it's been perfect, right? Then Axis comes along and then he just is Hobgoblin again.

despite the fact that he has willingly said he will franchise out the hobgoblin to make himself money while he sits in a Caribbean beach and smokes weed forget that just out of nowhere he decides yeah I'll hang out with a Red Skaull or whatever the fuck I'll just be here

like why why why why would Roderick out of all the smart stuff Roderick Kinkley has done why wouldn't he send some other fucking guy to be the hobgoblin at that exact moment. Right.

If you were to say, listen, Magneto was coming up to you and said, dude, Onslaught come back. Remember Onslaught? The biggest fucking deal of the 90s? He's back,

but he's also back with a red skull. What do we do? If I was Roderick Kingsley, I'd be like, yeah, okay, give me five minutes to train up a guy. Yeah. Right? And then he can,

fucking be the hub goblin. What benefit do I? Like, the, again, the thing about Roder Kingley was, he always had a benefit to it. He always had monetary gain or something to gain from it.

What the fuck would, why would he go into fighting onslaught? There's no monetary gain for him. He always had a, like, a dummy to take his place, basically. Yes. He wouldn't put himself in danger.

he could brainwash someone and stick them in the costume and have them do the job for him. If he had to fight Spider-Man or if he had to fight Green Goblin, he would do it because of his own ego, right? Fair enough. But if he didn't, then he wouldn't. So why the fuck would he fight whatever the fuck onslaught was? I would, if I was him, I would stay the fucking well away from that. And that's what he should have done. I don't understand why they thought it was a good idea to write the Roder of Kingsley,

especially after the fact that they did a really good job of establishing that Roder Kingsley always fucking hands that shit off to somebody else, right? They made a really big deal of establishing that Roder Kingsley hands all their shit off to somebody else so they can worry about that and he can just smoke a cigar in Cuba. I just don't understand why I thought, yes, the hobgoblin that turns up at Axis

is going to be Rotter Kingsley so I will admit that this is a low point for the Hobgoblin as Rotter Kingsley Mm-hmm That's what I got to say with that

Well yeah and there's not a lot much else to say really like the Axis event sort of turned him into not a good guy, but he was more well, he somehow became more of a hero to the people of New York. So yeah, he was basically turned into a good guy.

It became like a hero in New York somehow. But I don't know the specifics because I've not read the comics. And I tried reading the Wikipedia page and just, yeah, like it didn't grab me at all. like zoned out. But yeah, he eventually like gets drafted by Steve Rogers to help fight Red Onslaught and, well, not even Red Onslaught at that point. I think it was to fight the X-Men who were going to do something to kind of kill everyone on

the planet who wasn't a mutant because they'd obviously become evil at that point. Because that was the whole point of the access. storyline um but yeah you know long story short he got switched back became evil again uh continued to sell costumes and identities of other costume criminals to you know new clients uh most recently we've seen uh that ned leads came back to life as well because nobody dies nobody dies in fact he came back to life twice because he was resurrected as part of the clone

conspiracy story now I think it was called. Sorry, dead no more. Yeah, clone conspiracy, yeah. Yeah, and his clone was rocking around for a bit until it got

killed and then all of a sudden The real Ned Leeds showed up having apparently before him and Peter had gone to Berlin, he'd found one of Norman Osborne's safe houses in Europe, which is where Norman was hiding out at the time. And then he'd managed to take some goblin formula, which didn't have an effect on him right away. But then when the foreigners, assassins killed him,

that sort of activated it and he came back to life and then spent the next however many years hiding out until he I guess figured it was time to come back to New York and yeah so he's sort of become the hobgoblin again sort of working under Roderick Kingsley I think like I think both of them at some point worked for the goblin queen but yeah that's basically where we are now we're two hobgoblins. What do you think about Ned Leeds becoming the real Hoggoblin? I think that's... Well, I don't know.

Okay. Because I think the Roderick Kingsley reveal was great. Yes. And then everything after that, I'm not that big of a fan of at all. Okay. But the Ned Leeds reveal sort of made sense as well, even though it was kind of like thrown together. and not the original plan.

I think it sort of worked. But I'm not super keen on the idea of going back to the well of making Ned the Hobgob Goblin again after all these years. But I guess I need to read those comics and kind of form a better opinion on it, really. Right. Like, I'm not super into that idea, but then I have read the comics from the hobgoblins inception all the way up

until whenever Philarek became not the hobgoblin I read all of those comics and I've loved them I always thought that there were so many twists and turns in such a fun,

unique way that I always thought whenever I saw the hobgoblin turn up it was something different you know and that's to our earlier argument about an hour ago

when we started this show I always loved the hobgoblin because there was always the air of mystery even whenever Philarek killed the hobgoblin he didn't really kill the hobgoblin

and I really liked that there was so much mystery about it and once you bring in uh Ned leads who used to be the hobgoblin that was part of the mystery and then you make him one of the goblins that works for rhodo kingsley you're like i'm sure that might again i haven't read those issues so i'm not sure how that works it might work it doesn't sound like it works but to their credit a lot of the stuff we've said up to this point doesn't sound like it works

but it does this is why i love the hobgoblin the death is because when he came in until up until the Phil Eric run that I've read it's all been great even the Jason Magidale stuff has been great because that's part of the

hobgoblin mythos him being a shitty hobgoblin is part of the hobgoblin storyline you know what I mean it's like Harry Osborne

being a shitty green goblin it's part of that storyline um so I like I've loved it all for like a long time. I don't know what they're doing with Hobb Gleblen right now. But then again,

I don't know what they're doing with a lot of like Marvel characters these days. I'm very, I'm not as up to date as you guys might be. I'm very like set in my ways, I will say. I haven't read a whole lot of stuff after maybe like 2015, 16. Maybe a little bit later than that, but like the last two or three.

years I've not read. And I'm okay with that because to me, Roder King's Eve will always be the Hobboblin. And then a close second is Jason McIndale because that was the Hobb goblin that I grew up with in the comics. That's

bizarre guy that wanted to make himself a goblin demon and then wanted to make himself weaponized and like a cyborg. I love the ambition of Jason McIndale. And it's so funny that he didn't, he had the ambition,

but he just didn't have the psychology to be a goblin, you know? And I really like that about him. So Hobgoblin, if we can put a fine point on this, which we probably should, because I think we've got to pretty much the point of

the Hobb Goblin story and I will say this for me at least and then you guys can talk but for me the Hobgoblin is one of my most favorite Spider-Man villains I think I read the Hobb goblin

very highly and it's because of like a lot of different things I think that like I've said the Hobgoblin from his inception until the Phil Eric run have been very full of surprises that twist and turn but not in like a fucking oh what the fuck

kind of way but like more and I'm like all right well what happens next kind of way I will admit that the more recent stuff has been a little bit more oh okay kind of way and not

you know what I mean and not like a fun surprise but like a like oh um like finding out that if I may bring back the title of our show again to the Smart Avengers and say that it's like finding out

that Vince McMahon's son was Horacewagel. You're like, oh, really? You know what I mean? That's why I feel a lot of like modern hobgoblin stuff is, whereas

old hobgoblin stuff I adore because they kept your toes and it didn't wear it out of its welcome. even though it probably should have. So that's what I think. And I'm going to open the floor up to you guys. You can see your pieces of bite.

The wonderful hog goblin right now. Well, yeah. I mean, I think my opinion is he was a great character up until the reveal of Roderick Kingsley, where that was sort of where the mysteries sort of went out of it. I think. Like, even when he showed up and seemingly got killed off and replaced by Phil Oric, like, as soon as that issue came out, people were already saying, oh, I bet it was his twin brother.

And lo and behold, it totally was, yeah. Yep. So, like, yeah, I think once you... But that's part of... By the, that's part of the story. Yeah, but, I mean, like, that's the thing, though. Like, it was interesting until, like, it got a definite reveal. And then it was just like, okay, so where do you go from here, though? Right.

I mean, the good thing about a lot of the Hobb Goblin stuff was that they didn't have a proper definite reveal. Like you said, it started in, what, 84? 83. 83. And the proper reveal of the Hobgoblin as Broadway King's there, I think it was like 1997. Yes, I believe so. So there's a big gap there. They didn't just like fucking switch it up and reveal it.

They had bait and switches all the way through it. But it didn't give you the full reveal. And like we said, part of that might have been problems within like the actual workings of the comic book industry, the writers, whatever. But also like when you look at it from a reader point of view, It works perfectly. To have this wonderful reveal

that takes, you know, 20, what, 15 years to reveal? Like, it's, it's fun. You want to, you want to revel in that. And I really like, I love that about the Hobgoblin, that they don't just

throw you out the reveal straight away. They make you work for it and the way they did it actually works. You know what you mean? and I know that John might not be super into what happened after that but I will say that from after that

up until the Philharic stuff I did enjoy the hobgoblin every time I saw the hobgoblin I did pop I was like I loved it after that I didn't like I mean I will say that I didn't like Phil Eric as the hub goblin but then I didn't like Phil Eric as

the Green Goblin so should we count that You know what you mean? Like, does that kind? So I want to know, after all this, what do you think of the hobgoblin? Now that you know his entire history. Corey, what do you think? What do you think about the hobgoblin?

Who's your favorite hobgoblin? And other questions, you have a hobgoblin. I mean, I feel like you guys painted a very biased picture towards Roder at Kingsley, for one. Everybody else. No, no, we didn't. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. I was very clear that I loved Jayz McIndale as a hobgoblin. Yeah. But see, that's the thing is like, I won't lie a lot of, like John said, up until that buildup of the reveal, after that reveal, he kind of became a jobber for the most part, but it sounds like.

No, I'm not a jobber. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, I'm sorry, Dustin, it's an enhancement talent. Enhancement talent. Yeah. Please. Show some respect. We haven't even talked about the hobgoblin in the TV show. Yeah, I know. No, no, we didn't. Should we? By Mark Camel.

Mark Camel. Yeah, let's, if we can make it quick. Let's do it really quick. So, when you watch the animated television show in the 90s, the Hobb Goblin is the Mian Goblin in the TV show, despite the fact that if you read the comics, the main goblin before that was the Green Goblin. Part of that was because at the time,

the green goblet was dead. So the main goblin was the green goblet. The main goblin was the hobgoblin in the comics. And so it became the main goblin in the TV show. And then I think part of it was because you guys can correct me. But I think part of it was because they'd done like a toy license that said that, you know, we have to make toys based on the TV show. and they had started to make toys on the hop goblin.

Again, I think because of the comics, they had, you know, the comics had the hobgoblin in them because the Green Goblin was dead. So they had a deal with the toy publisher where we have to make hobgoblin toys, so you have to put Hobgoblin in your TV show. I think it worked for the TV show

because it made it like flipped the story on its head by having hobgoblin first and then you get to build to Norman Osborne's fall from grace. Well he wasn't even in grace to begin with like he was always a shady character in the show but he still like you know loved his son and stuff but he was involved with Kingpin and like yeah I think he had something to do with the spider slayers as well and yes all this business but yeah. Like, because Hobgoblin got introduced first, that meant that, you know, Norman already had all that, like, Hobgoblin gear on hand, which when his experiments went wrong and he got infected with the goblin formula, like, it was there to kind of take advantage of and, you know, you become like a version of the Green Goblin. I think it worked really well. Yeah. really well because you have the hobgoblin as like what do you think it's going to be the main villain

of the piece. Because the hobgoblin ends up being like the guy that does a lot of damage and then like works with like the kingpin and stuff like this. He seems like the big bad but that's why you establish Norman Osborne as a separate character

because then later on you can have Norman Osborne turn to be goblin after that doesn't that make so much more sense? Yeah, and it made for a great episode as well when you had Hopgoblin versus Green Goblin. Those are closing your remarks on the Hom Goblin. Well, thank you for listening. Yep.

Thanks everybody for listening to our Deep D-Dive on the Hobgoblin. The first of our four more Halloween-centered episodes for the month of October. We hope that you're having a great spooky season out there. enjoy it. John, where are you at in your movie watching? You just saw Alien Romulus recently, right? I did. Which was pretty good.

It wasn't the best alien movie, but it wasn't the worst. So good for them. Yep. But now I'm up to number 548 for the year. That's like double where you were last week. Holy hell. Well, not double. Double since you went from 520 to 548.

Yeah, I mean, I did say last time, because we were sort of guessing where I'd be. I think I said I was going to be on 539, so. Yeah, you did well. Yeah. All right. John, where can they find your reviews of Alien Romulus and many other movies? On Letterboxed at Big John Bowsky. Still one word.

And Dylan, what's going on in the world of Exploity? Please. I have good news for you. By the time we were recording this episode, I have finished recording all of the episodes of Pickman. So that means by the time you're listening to this episode, which I assume you are listening to this episode, and then also watching all of our other accurate, circular stuff.

If you go to Exploited Place, there will be episodes of Pickman already available right now on your show, because this should be coming up in the first week of October. So if you go to ExploityPlays. That YouTube.com forward slash Exploeyplace slash YouTube.com forward slash. org. com slash Explodity Plays.

I will have some episodes of me playing Pikmin already up available for you all. Ready to go. It's all finished. I finished Pikmin 1. It's good to go. So check that show. It's going to be amazing. It's the worst thing I've ever done.

And it's available for everybody to watch because I think that, you know, people need to see true tragic terror. You know, they need to experience that. And I would like to think that I could show people just the worst time anybody's ever had any video game. and it's available right now ExplorityPlays.com on YouTube

Explorityplace.com slash YouTube. I don't know how it works. Explodyplace slash YouTube. I don't know how it works. Just go to YouTube and then search for ExplodyPlays and then that would

I guess that's it. Yeah. You'll see my face. Yeah. Just look for Pikmin. Just look for a Pikmin. Just look for Pikmin. And that's it.

And, And if you don't find it, but you should find it by now. But if you don't mind it, just watch the old Animal Crossing videos that would make me happy. Yeah, those are great. And then we'll work on people find you, Corey. If you want to listen to more of me just talking, I have a second podcast called Large Old Cup. It is a stream of consciousness where I go in every episode not knowing what I'm going to talk about and kill about 20, 28 minutes as I kind of just go with the flow and see what happens. No edits, nothing.

I record straight into audacity and load it up the second I've done recording. So there is a new episode up now because I just finished before we started recording this one. Is it about the hop goblin? No, but it is about movies, John. Ooh, I will give this a listen. But yeah, thanks for listening to us. If you're listening to it's on Spotify. If you're on YouTube, check it on Spotify.

we'll be back next week with another spooky October themed or Halloween themed topic. Until then, goodbye. Ooh. That almost sounds like the poltergeist theme. I thought he's going for Doctor Who. Yeah, we're going to be a bit. Or the little song that Gizmo sings in Grimlins. I remember that.

Goodbye. everybody. Bye. Everybody.