Green Goblin Primer
In 1995, Tom DeFalco created a new heroic Green Goblin and the character was given his own series. This Goblin is Phil Urich, the nephew of Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich. To say this series is bad is to be very, very kind. Tom DeFalco has done some good stories but this entire series should be considered one of his biggest shitshows. The main problem with the series is that Phil Urich starts off as a total loser with low self-esteem and ends the series as a loser with low self-esteem. The character never grows as a hero or as a person. He spends most of is time as the Green Goblin never really figuring out how to use his gear. 99% of his fights are all partially due to confusion over if this Goblin is a villain or not. Frankly, making a heroic Goblin was just a dumb idea given the long standing history that the identity has as being one of Spider-Man’s most notorious foes.
This title also come out around the time of the wildly unpopular Clone Saga and despite having little interaction with it, the stink of that story rubs off on this title. Even more egregious is the second last issue, Green Goblin #12, which was one of the least impactful stories of the Onslaught storyline. It also ends with the Goblin’s equipment getting wrecked. The final issue is Phil trying to repair his Goblin gear, failing, and giving up. Which if there is an apt metaphor for this entire series, I couldn’t think of a better one.
The character shuffled around as an occasionally seen supporting character in the Spider-Books shortly thereafter. DeFalco would actually do more with the character in his MC2 book, Spider-Girl. However, in the mainstream Marvel Universe Phil Urich was a minor footnote until the 2010s during Dan Slott’s run on Spider-Man. Slott couldn’t make Phil Urich a more likable character which was fine because they made him a villain instead.
