Norman Virgil Osborn is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964) as the first and best-known incarnation of the Green Goblin. He has endured as one of Spider-Man's most prominent villains, and is regarded as one of his three archenemies, alongside Doctor Octopus and Venom.
Osborn is depicted as an amoral industrialist head of science conglomerate Oscorp and the father of Harry Osborn, the best friend of Spider-Man's alter ego Peter Parker. Osborn, in part as a reaction to the death of his wife, maintains a cold disposition and is obsessed with attaining as much power as possible. As a result, he treats his son coldly and openly favors Peter for his intellect, leading Harry to often try and compensate. In his origin, Norman was exposed to an experimental formula which enhanced his physical abilities and intellect, but also drove him to insanity. As the Goblin, he adopted a Halloween-themed appearance: dressing in a goblin costume, riding on a bat-shaped "Goblin Glider", and using an arsenal of high-tech weapons, such as grenade-like "Pumpkin Bombs", to terrorize New York City.
Osborn has been part of many of Spider-Man's defining stories, most notably "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" and the "Clone Saga". While his primary foe is Spider-Man, Osborn has often come into conflict with Iron Man, Captain America and other superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Although Osborn sometimes works with other supervillains such as Doctor Doom and Loki and groups like the Sinister Six and the Dark Avengers, these relationships often collapse due to his desire for unbridled power. Osborn's largest overarching story came during the line-wide "Dark Reign" and Siege comic book events, in which he served as the main antagonist; during this time, he became the original iteration of Iron Patriot.
The character has been in various top villain lists as one of Spider-Man's greatest enemies and one of the greatest comic book villains of all time. The character's popularity has seen him appear on a variety of merchandise, inspire real-world structures (such as theme park attractions) and be referenced in a number of media. He has been adapted to serve as Spider-Man's adversary in live-action, animated, and video game incarnations. Willem Dafoe played the character in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy and reprised the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), while Chris Cooper played the character in the film The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).
Publication history
Marvel Comics editor and head writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko are credited with creating the character; they each collaborated with one another on how the character would be portrayed. According to Ditko: "Stan's synopsis for the Green Goblin had a movie crew, on location, finding an Egyptian-like sarcophagus. Inside was an ancient, mythological demon, the Green Goblin. He naturally came to life. On my own, I changed Stan's mythological demon into a human villain".