Green Goblin II (Harry Osborn)
Attributes
| Eyes: | Blue |
| Features: | Apart from wearing a green latex outfit and jetting around on a goblin glider, none. |
| Hair: | Reddish Brown |
| Height: | 5' 10" |
| Weight: | 170 lbs |
Powers
| Abilities: | Harry ran his company efficiently |
| Equipment: | The vertical-thrust goblin glider, which was powered by a miniature turbo- fan. It could go up to 90 miles per hour and support 400 pounds. |
| Limitations: | Prone to crippling self-doubts and recriminations. |
| Powers: | Harry has been exposed to the Goblin Formula, so he has all that strength/agility/stamina that comes with the serum |
| Strength Level: | For most of his career, Harry had normal human strength. Near the end of his life, he was able to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man without either winning a clear victory. |
| Weapons: | Concussive, smoke, gas and incendiary bombs. Gloves capable of conducting pulses of electricity upwards of 10,000 volts. |
Summary
| Citizenship: | U.S. |
| Created By: | Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia, David Hunt |
| Current Occupation: | Manages and owns the Coffee Bean, a Manhattan-base coffee house |
| Dual Identity: | Known at time of death; secret for many years before. |
| Education: | College graduate |
| Former Occupation: | Owner and president of Osborn Industries, Inc. |
| Known Allies: | Spider-Man, the Molten Man |
| Known Confidants: | Harry at times confided in his best friend, Peter Parker. |
| Known Relatives: | Norman Osborn (father); Emily Osborn (mother, deceased); Liz Allan Osborn (ex-wife); Norman 'Normie' Harold Osborn (son); Lily Hollister (mother of Harry's second son); Lily's child (to date un-named)(son) |
| Legal Status: | No known criminal record |
| Major Enemies: | Hobgoblin II, Spiderman, and himself |
| Marital Status: | Harry's been divorced three times (Liz and 'two 'others'), he proposed to Lily Hollister, but they have since split. Harry is currently single |
| Place of Birth: | New York City |
| Real Name: | Harold "Harry" Theopolis Osborn |
| Usual Bases: | New York City |
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, when Mary Jane became sick with "SoHo sickness," caused by Corona. 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. During this 'haunting' from his father's ghost, Harry came to grips with the fact that his father had killed Gwen Stacy, however he could still not forgive Peter for killing his father. Harry succumbed to his internal pressure to don the Goblin costume and avenge his father's death against Peter. When Peter surrendered himself to Harry, Harry could not bring himself to kill Peter, leaving Peter unharmed. Harry warns Spider-Man that he won't stop hating him. He proves it by hiring the Rhino to attack Peter Parker.
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 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 found to be alive after Peter made a deal with the demon Mephisto to save Aunt May's life. Peter woke up one morning 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. Later, Harry told Peter that he had been the Green Goblin and had been beaten by Spider-Man. He hadn't died however. That had been a trick put together by Norman and Mysterio.
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.
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.
Their relationship didnt improve when he and Peter went to visit Liz and Normie in New Jersey. Liz had divorced him the moment she knew he was alive and Normie was afraid of him. Harry had come to sign life insurance papers, but quickly got the chance to help Liz when her step brother, Mark Raxton, showed up. The Molten Man had been getting treatment for his worsening condition at the house and went into and got protective when he heard Liz and Harry arguing.
Peter got all three Osborns out of the house and Spider-Man distracted the Molten Man while Harry got a surprise out of the trunk of his car. He had meant to make things up to Liz by telling her he had been working on a cure for her step brother's molten powers. He had found a cure by doing experiments on Charlie Weiderman, the second Molten Man. In the end, Liz considered everything even.
After returning to New York, Harry proposed to Lily at the top of the Statue of Liberty, who declined. Harry nearly lost his temper again, but held it in check and let her go to her father, who was waiting for the election results to arrive. Later, he went to Lily's apartment to talk to her and saw her in her Menace costume. She then explained to him how she discovered the Osborn family's connection to the Green Goblin (she found one of Harry's journals) and the lair hidden in Norman's mansion. She then accepted his marriage proposal, all despite Harry's insistence that she was sick and needed medical help.
Harry went after Lily as the Goblin, determined to cure her of the enhanced Goblin Formula that transformed her into Menace. He found her at her father's home as Menace, trying to help a friend being arrested by the police. She grabbed the cure dart out of the air, but was cured by force by Spider-Man and arrested. In jail, she met Norman Osborn, who welcomed her to the family.
She was soon out of jail (escaped with help from Norman, I assume) and confronted Harry, revealing to be pregnant. Harry had just been offered a place on the Avengers, headed by his father. He had rejected Norman's offer but later accepted it to help pay for the expenses of having a new child. Harry joined the American Son program, created by Norman to make Harry in his own Iron Patriot image. (Norman had claimed all of Tony Stark's Iron Man equipment after Stark had been disgraced following the Secret Invasion. Norman had since taken the name of Iron Patriot.) Naturally, things didnt go as planned.
Before Harry could cure Lilly of the Goblin Formula, she had a bombshell for him. It wasnt his baby. (Quick! Call Maury Povich!) It was Norman's. (Call Jerry Springer!) She never loved Harry, but was much more impressed by Norman. Harry was enraged again by his father's betrayal and used the American Son armor against him.
A four way battle ensued between American Son, Iron Patriot, Spider-Man and Menace. Harry managed to hold his anger and not kill his father and walked away. The Osborns now consider each other to be dead.
Essentially homeless, Harry lives out of the Coffee Bean restaurant. He was soon targeted by the Chameleon, who was impersonating Peter Parker at the time. Chameleon knew of Harry's connection to the head of H.A.M.M.E.R and hoped to use that to his advantage. Harry had been happily at the May Parker home with Peter's attractive cousins, at Chameleon-as-Peter's instructions. Chameleon's code of "honor" demanded that he "help" the person he was currently impersonating. He considered Peter to be irresponsible to his friends, and thus told Harry to move in with May.
Harry took a liking to Peter's cousin and started dating her. He still had a soft spot for for Lily and was at her side as she gave birth to Norman's son. Of course, she flew through the restaurant window on a goblin glider, where Mary Jane, Peter and Carlie Cooper were meeting. She was trying to escape from Doctor Octopus and his gang, who wanted to experiment on her baby. Harry tried to protect her from Octavius, which didn't exactly work.
Spidey rescued the baby but was tricked into handing it over to the Chameleon, disguised as Harry. While en route to delivering the child to Octavius, baby Stanley was taken from Chameleon by the Lizard. Spidey caught up to the lizard-man, and deduced from the child's blood work that Harry, not Norman, was the father. Spidey returned the baby to Harry, telling him the news. Harry decided to go into hiding, to protect Stanley from Norman's goons. They also feared being found by any of Octopus's cronies. Before Harry and Stanley left, Peter threw them a going away party.
Vin Gonzalez (Peter Parker's former roommate who had recently spent time in jail) arrived at Harry's going away party. He had a Green Goblin tattoo on his arm, showing his allegiance to Norman and told Harry to take good care of Norman's grandson. After all, little Stanley was the heir to the Osborn name. Harry returned to the party later without Stan, and beat Vin to a pulp, telling him to pass the message on to Norman Osborn. Harry then left for parts unknown, taking his son with him.
"The Fall of Parker"
After being trapped with Liz during the Secret Empire catastrophe, they became a couple again. Harry had the unenviable task of dealing with the fallout of the collapse of Parker Industries and while he kept Peter out of prison, he did say that Parker was bankrupt. (Amazing Spider-Man #789) With Liz's help, Harry bought a bankrupt company called Humanitech and their robot intellectual property. At home, their nanny claimed that Stanley and Normie had gotten into a minor fight, explaining the bandages on their arms. She had actually taken blood samples from them. (Amazing Spider-Man #791)
Image Gallery
Appearances
Thanks To
The assistance of the Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.
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.