Title: The Amazing Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin
Author: Roger Stern
Artists: Mike Zeck, Marie Severin, John Romita Jr., Al Milgron and Ron Frenz
Genre: Superheroes / Action / Adventure
Year Published: 1983
Year Read: 2013
Series: The Amazing Spider-Man
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Source: Library
Content Rating: Ages 11+ (Some Intense Moments)
Buy or Add on: Amazon // Goodreads
Introduction:
After reading “X-Men” and “Batman” comics for so long
now, I wanted to try something new, so I decided to jump into the “Spider-Man” comics and behold, “The Amazing Spider-Man: Origin of the
Hobgoblin” was my first introduction into the “Spider-Man” comics and now I am actually geared up to read more
from the famous web-slinging superhero!
What is this story
about?
Basically, this comic takes place after the events of “The
Death of Gwen Stacy” and after Spider-Man had defeated the Green Goblin, Peter
Parker decides to finish up his studies at college. Unfortunately, it turns out that a mysterious
man has somehow found the lost journals of Norman Osborn and discovers that
Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin!
Using Norman Osborn’s notes on how to improve the weapons he used as
Green Goblin, the mysterious man then created weapons similar to the Green
Goblin’s and becomes known as the Hobgoblin!
Can Spider-Man defeat this new foe and find out who this foe really is?
What I loved about
this story:
Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo and Tom DeFalco’s writing: I
have to admit that when I first went into this graphic novel, I thought that I
would never understand what was going on in this series since this was the
first time I had ever read a “Spider-Man”
comic. However, not only was the writing
by Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo and Tom
DeFalco extremely interesting to read through, but the story was easy
enough to get into since all the writers took great care in explaining to the
readers about what happened in previous events and how they all tie into the
current storylines. What I loved about Roger Stern’s interpretation of
Spider-Man/Peter Parker is how Peter Parker is portrayed as being good-natured
and intelligent and I really enjoyed the scenes where Peter Parker is shown
working on a new type of technology, such as his Spider Tracer which works like
a tracking device, that could help him defeat his enemies much easier. I also loved the way that Spider-Man is
portrayed as being a wisecracking superhero while at the same time is extremely
aware of the situations going on around him, which makes him a well-rounded
character. The mystery surrounding the
identity of the Hobgoblin was done extremely well as readers will be sitting on
the edge of their seats trying to figure out who the Hobgoblin really is and
how he knew about Norman Osborn’s notes on being the Green Goblin. I also loved the way that the Hobgoblin was
not being written as just being a copy of the Green Goblin, but proved to be an
extremely difficult opponent for Spider-Man for he was extremely intelligent
and used Norman Osborn’s notes to his advantage.
Mike Zeck, Marie Severin, John Romita Jr., Al Milgron and
Ron Frenz’s artwork: With many
different artists in this graphic novel, the artwork was extremely brilliant to
look at! I loved the way that Mike Zeck’s artwork had a retro 70’s
style look as the characters look extremely realistic and the outlining for the
characters are nice and bolded, which really made the characters truly stand
out. Marie Severin’s artwork makes a brilliant transition from the late
70s to early 80s style artwork as the characters are drawn in much brighter
colors and have more details on their facial expressions. John
Romita Jr.’s artwork is somewhat similar to Marie Severin’s artwork as the characters’ appearances are vastly
improved and I loved the images of Peter Parker having wavy brown hair and
gorgeous brown eyes.
What made me feel
uncomfortable about this story:
Since this comic came out during the early 80s, I knew that
I was going to be reading a ton of dialogue coming from the characters. This graphic novel actually took me two days to
finish because the dialogues with each character, especially Spider-Man, were
extremely lengthy. Even though I enjoyed
reading the characters’ inner thoughts on a situation, I found it a bit
difficult to get through this graphic novel in one day because it took so long
to read through the dialogues. Also,
another reason I gave this volume a four star rating was because the first two
stories at the beginning which dealt with Roderick Kingsley felt a bit out of
place for this volume since they barely dealt with Hobgoblin.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, even though this volume was extremely lengthy and some stories
felt out of place, “The Amazing Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin” is a great introduction
to the Hobgoblin and “Spider-Man” fans will definitely
enjoy this volume!
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