Gold Goblin #1 (of 5)

Spider Man Crawlspace

This is definitely a series that I will be following well into the new year, as we approach 2023. The character of Norman Osborn has always been fascinating to me, because I believe we all have a bit of him in us. We may not be as extremely troubled or crazy as the Gold Goblin, but I do feel that we all have mistakes or sins in our past that we want to move on from… and while we can be cleansed or even forgiven at times, it is still a daily struggle to keep ourselves on the right track. It will be interesting to see how Peter Parker keeps Norman Osborn on the light side of things. And I am really looking forward to seeing more of their adventures together as a dynamic duo. It was refreshing to see Gold Goblin in action easily take down a villain from his past. And it was a very powerful move to establish himself as the one, true Goblin in town. And now kids love him. Truly… Amazing.

Nerdly

enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. I think Cantwell’s take (and editorial’s obviously, as this spun out of the Spidey books) is excellent. He really gets under the hood of Norman’s psyche, and in a way puts us in his shoes. We see what he sees, feel what he feels. Could anyone of us be ‘normal’ if the ghosts of our victims follow us around, even if they are only in his mind. Well paced, well written. Very human. The art, from Lan Medina, is equally good, with lovely clean lines and interesting layouts. Multi-panel pages never feel cluttered, and there’s some clever design in there. Nice stuff.