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Background
Harold "Harry" Osborn had a lot going against him from a young age. His
mother, Emily Osborn, died shortly after he was born, which left him in the
custody of his violent and mercurial father, Norman Osborn.Emily had been
a stabilizing factor in Norman's life and in his grief over her death, took out
his anger on Harry, sometimes beating the boy. Norman always regretted what he
had done, and apologized to Harry, leading the boy to think that deep down,
his father was a good and kind man.
He was part of the popular crowd in high school, and was friends with his
schools "It" girl, Gwen Stacy. Harry and Gwen both attended Empire State
University after high school, where they met Peter Parker. Peter, being the
diligent student that he was, seemed distant and arrogant to Harry and Gwen
and they enjoyed trying to bring him down a few notches. Despite feeling blown
off by Peter, Gwen felt an attraction to him, even though Harry felt that he
was a jerk. Harry didn't begin to feel differently about Peter until after he
visited Norman Osborn in the hospital. Unknown to Harry, Peter Parker was the
Amazing Spider-Man and Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin. Peter had finally
managed to defeat Norman, whom had suffered from selective amnesia after their
previous battle.
Appreciating the sympathy that Peter showed to his father, Harry became his
best friend and they became room mates. Peter got to know Gwen better and
through Peter, Harry met Mary Jane Watson. Harry was quite enamored with
MJ, but she was really more interested in Peter. The pressure of keeping MJ
as his girlfriend and keeping his father happy and healthy got to him,
however, and he began taking drugs.
It was a long, slow road to recovery, replete with backslides. It was during
such
a period that Harry witnessed the battle between his father, the original Green
Goblin, and Spider-Man, that resulted in his father's death. The shock started
to
drive Harry towards insanity.
After discovering Spider-Man's costume in Peter Parker's room, Harry assumed
the identity of the Green Goblin and tried to do in his roommate. Peter
defeated
Harry, only after Harry kidnapped Mary Jane, Flash Thompson and Aunt
May. Harry wired one of them with a bomb and held them in different parts of
the city, but didn't tell Spidey which one had the bomb. With only minutes until
the bomb was set to explode, Spider-Man didn't have time to save all of them.
Peter took a guess and went to Aunt May. Naturally, she was the one that was
trapped with the bomb. The arriving authorities refused to believe that either
Peter was
Spider-
Man, or that Harry himself was the Green Goblin, despite Harry's rantings. They
handed Harry over to a
psychiatrist, Dr. Barton Hamilton, who successfully treated Harry's
insanity but
who also learned everything Harry knew about the Green Goblin. Dr. Hamilton
eventually went on to become the third Green Goblin after kidnapping Harry,
who defeated Hamilton with the help of Spider-Man. Harry was hurt in the
battle and lost parts of his memory.
Harry's life began to calm down after he married Liz Allan and had a son,
Norman Osborn, Jr.. He inherited OsCorp Industries from his father
after Norman's "death" and lived a happy, wealthy life with his family and
friends.
This peace and calm began to erode when the original Hobgoblin, Roderick
Kingsley, offered him proof
that Norman Osborn was his father. Hobgoblin demanded access to more of
Norman's journals of his criminal exploits and kidnapped a pregnant Liz and
Mary Jane until Harry turned them over. Harry tried to use some of his father's
weapons on the Hobgoblin, with dismal results. He was again saved by Spider-
Man.
Harry stayed away from super-powered types for a while. During the Inferno
crisis, he became the Green Goblin again and battled the second Hobgoblin,
Jason Macendale. The new Hobgoblin also demanded to know about the secrets
of the original Green Goblin, specifically the Goblin's strength enhancing
formula. Harry barely managed to defeat the Hobgoblin. Unfortunately, the Osborn
Chemical branch of OsCorp was destroyed by the demonic events of Inferno.
While at first Harry was too concerned about his wife and child to seriously
think of becoming a crime fighter in his own right, he quickly began to miss
the thrill and excitement that he experienced as the Green Goblin. He helped
Spider-Man and his brother in law, Mark Raxton (aka the Molten Man) stop a
robbery of an experimental plant preservative called DIOX-3 from Osborn
Chemical. The chemical was sought after by Tombstone, who wanted it to
preserve the drugs that he was smuggling from South America. Harry, emboldened
by his success against Tombstone, began to put together plans to be New York's
newest crime fighter, but was persuaded to change his mind by Spidey.
Harry and Peter remained close friends, and Harry became Peter and Mary Jane's
land lord after they moved into his Soho apartment building. (They had been
evicted by Jonathan Caesar after Mary Jane refused to marry him.)This living
arrangement would later cause trouble for the Parkers. Peter left Harry alone
after convincing him to stay a non-superhero, but he
was unaware that Harry's memory of Peter's secret ID had returned.
Harry began to imagine his father's spirit, goading him to revenge. Despite
his best efforts to ignore Norman's "ghost" and put his violent history behind
him, the fact that his best friend was involved in his father's death became
too much for the emotionally fragile Harry to bear.
Combined with years of abuse at his father's hand, the drug use from his youth
and his all around stressful life, Harry suffered an emotional breakdown. He
obtained
and used a modified version of the original Green Goblin's strength formula.
Harry
taunted Peter and Peter's wife, Mary Jane, with his knowledge of Peter's secret
identity and threatened to expose his secret to the world. He openly jetted
about in his Goblin attire, even publicly confronting J.
Jonah Jameson. His determination to extract vengeance caused him to try and
blow up the Osborn Foundation with himself and Spider-Man inside. However,
the presence of Mary Jane and his son, Normie, shocked him into a semblance
of sanity. He got everyone out safely before collapsing. He died shortly
thereafter, apparently from an unexpected side-effect of the modified Green
Goblin
formula.
Even death didn't stop Harry from tormenting Peter and his family. Just before
his death, Harry created robotic duplicates of Peter's long dead parents with
the help of the Chameleon. Their
mission was to convince Peter that they were the real thing, gain his trust and
then kill him. Peter stayed skeptical of them for a long time, but eventually
he trusted them. The "father" robot went about its mission to kill Peter with a
vengeance, but the "mother" robot considered Peter to be "such a positive
human," that she refused to attack him and went so far as to destroy
her "husband." Peter and the robot didnt have time to mourn his passing or to
become a family, as the Vulture used the remaining robots artificial life
to power his rejuvenator device and become young again.
Harry's final attack involved the kidnapping of his own son. He sent three
robotic Goblin women to kidnap Normie and to expose him to the Green Goblin
Formula, unaware that it was toxic. Spider-Man tracked Normie down with the
help of Bugle reporter Ben Urich and the Molten Man, and the complex that held
the computer containing Harry's final instructions was destroyed.
Spider-Man got to see Harry again, in a way. A rebel Scrier kidnapped Normie
after Norman Osborn returned to America. Normie was kidnapped in order to draw
Norman out and kill
him. A hologram of Harry was created to keep Norman Jr calm and cooperative.
After the Scrier was defeated, the hologram took Normie aside and told him that
his grandfather was not to be trusted, that Spider-Man was his friend and had
nothing to do with Harry Osborn's death. Before it disappeared, Spidey
asked "Is it really you, Harry?" "As close as it comes, buddy" was the answer.
They embraced and the hologram faded away.
Like a good comic book character, Harry didn't stay dead. He was returned to
life after Peter made a deal with the demon Mephisto to save Aunt May's
life. Peter woke up to find that May was out of a coma after being shot by a
sniper hired by the Kingpin to kill the Parker family. He also was no
longer married to Mary Jane and had no memory of ever having been so. Harry
returned, claiming that he had been away in Europe. Peter accepted all of this
without question.
Harry seems to not be married to Liz, as he is dating Lily Hollister, the
daughter of New
York's District Attorney. He no longer knows that Peter is Spider-Man and he
has promised the D.A. that he wants nothing to do with his father. In fact, he
has no memory of ever having been the Goblin.
His alter ego may be gone, but his temper isnt. After finally seeing his father
again after years away, it was the clear that the relationship had not improved.
Norman was on assignment in New York with the Thunderbolts to capture
Spider-Man and he visited Harry at the Coffee Bean. Norman had left Harry in
charge of OsCorp but was disappointed to see his son serving drinks instead.
Harry intended to make the Coffee Bean into a franchise, which did nothing to
impress his father. After Norman left in disgust,Harry took out his frustration
on Lily.
Thanks To:
Some of the above information is extracted from the various
versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent
Marvel Encyclopaedias.
The assistance of the
Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.
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