Original Hobgoblin Saga Archive

Lo, there shall be an ending! After spending my entire summer writing about the “Original Hobgoblin Saga” in full, I have reached Amazing Spider-Man #251, the final chapter in the story that was originally introduced by Roger Stern in ASM #238 and then fleshed out over the course of

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Reading Amazing Spider-Man #250 is like watching the season finale of a television show where the showrunner  or writer knows he or she is leaving the show (either willingly or acrimoniously) and thus decides to introduce a ton of big ideas into the final script that are impossible for

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After months of planning, plotting and misdirection, Amazing Spider-Man #249 shows an invigorated Hobgoblin who is finally starting to make his master plan of conquest apparent to his intended victims. Beyond the Hobgoblin’s initial introduction in ASM #238, this issue and the two that follow (marking the end the

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As the only non-Amazing Spider-Man issue grouped in to the “Original Hobgoblin Saga” storyline – and the first one not to be scripted by Roger Stern – Spectacular Spider-Man #85 reads like it has two separate agendas. It marks a very critical moment in the development of the Hobgoblin

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Amazing Spider-Man #245 reminds us of a period of the Hobgoblin’s existence where his secret identity was not the source of such hand-wringing and controversy. As he did for the character’s three previous appearances in ASM, writer Roger Stern plants small clues along with some serious pieces of misdirection

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Despite only making his first appearance a handful of issues ago, Hobgoblin’s rapid ascension to power in both the fictitious world of Spider-Man comic books, and the real world of public perception is on front and center display in Amazing Spider-Man #244. Showing how much confidence he has in

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What’s so unique about Amazing Spider-Man #239 is how writer Roger Stern takes his new creation, the Hobgoblin, and expertly crafts the villain as a legitimate physical and psychological threat to Spider-Man, while also exposing the character’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses. In the 20 years of Spider-Man comics that preceded

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Granted, I’m aided by the power of 20-20 hindsight, but there’s something about Amazing Spider-Man #238 that just comes across as being “special.” Even from a collectability standpoint – when I first started buying pricier back issues in the 1990s, I remember looking up ASM #238 in my Wizard

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I wanted to do something “special” to mark Superior Spider-Man month beyond just writing about all the new titles Marvel is currently pumping out. While I’ve recently started to retro-review/wax poetic about some story-arcs in full (as opposed to what I was doing when I first launched Chasing Amazing,

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