Comic Info
Comic Name: Green Goblin/Web of Spider-Man (Volume 1)/Spectacular Spider-Man (Volume 1)/Amazing Scarlet Spider
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Tom DeFalco/Terry Kavanagh
Artist: Scott McDaniel/Mark Bagley/Sal Buscema/Steven Butler/Josh Hood/Kevin Kobasic/Darick Robertson
# of Issues: 16
Release Date: 2011
Green Goblin #1
Reprints Web of Spider-Man (1) #125, Spectacular Spider-Man (1) #225, Amazing Scarlet Spider #2, and Green Goblin #1-13 (June 1995-October 1996). When Ben Urich and his nephew Phil investigate a former hideout of the Green Lantern, Phil finds himself a superhero and trying to reform the name of the Green Goblin. This new Goblin is a good guy, but not everyone sees the Goblin in that light. As Phil navigates being an intern at The Daily Bugle and being a superhero at night, he’s going to find that it isn’t a laughing matter.
Written by Tom DeFalco and Terry Kavanagh, Green Goblin: A Lighter Shade of Green is a Marvel Comics superhero comic book collection. Featuring art by Scott McDaniel, Mark Bagley, Sal Buscema, Steven Butler, Josh Hood, Kevin Kobasic, and Darick Robertson, the collection includes the Goblin’s first appearance in Web of Spider-Man (1) #125 (June 1995) and the complete run of the Green Goblin series. Issues in this collection were included in Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic—Book 4 and Spider-Man Clone Saga Omnibus—Volume 1 among other collections.
I read Green Goblin from the get-go and followed it to the end. While it wasn’t the best series, I kind of liked the character and the “Peter Parker” path it took with Phil own’ “Uncle Ben” as a guiding force. Rereading the series, the weaknesses are there, but in comparison to other series that survived (and even thrived at points), Green Goblin isn’t the worst.
Green Goblin #13
The story has a decent blend of Spider-Man folk and classic Marvel angst. Phil has his Daily Bugle crush (plus an admirer) and finds he can’t balance stuff. The series mixes in and out of the Clone Saga which was raging at the time and features some Scarlet Spider appearances. The collection introduces a couple of new baddies in Angel Face (meh character) and Joystick (who I kind of like)…but nothing really gets to develop due to the thirteen issue run which ends with Onslaught.
The best part of this story is tied to the Green Goblin. The Green Goblin has such a legacy (mostly bad) and ties to a bunch of characters. The book started branching into this before cancellation, but it never felt fully fleshed out. It was an unfortunate by product of the comic market at the time (there is even a reference in the book about there being no collectors at the time).
Green Goblin: A Lighter Shade of Green is a relic of the time it was produced. It was a pretty specific period with storylines that were kind of hard to follow with the just starting internet and very few comic book collections. Urich appeared in the Spider-Girl series, and Dan Slott returned to explore Phil Urich during his run on Spider-Man…but wasn’t as kind of Phil which also was a turn off. Here, you get Green Goblin at his nicest…just don’t expect it to last.
