The Goblin Declares War!

SPOILER ALERT — Until now, Norman Osborn (aka the Green Goblin) has been acting as a puppeteer behind the scenes in the Spider-Man universe. With Spider-Man having shut down the Kingpin’s operations in Shadowland, the Goblin has been acting as the new underground kingpin of crime. He has been making small, but strong power moves controlling crime and building an army, but recently, the Goblin has chosen to expose himself to Spider-Man as the master planner.

Meanwhile in the shared mind of Peter Parker and Otto Octavius, the broken remnants of Peter Parker has begun experimenting with new ways of trying to retake control of his mind. It has been revealed that Octavius has kept exactly 31 memories of Parker’s that he feels really define both Spider-Man and Peter.

Because he had been blind to the Goblin activity around the city for so long, it has all amounted to being too much for Spider-Man to handle. He had attempted to put a stop to the madness but he became overwhelmed by the amount of crime taking place in the streets. However, because of Otto’s unwillingness to give up and be defeated, he along with the aid of Uatu Jackson, found a way to trace the spider-bot technology that the Goblin tampered with back to the Goblin himself. Uatu Jackson was the developer of the facial recognition software that Spider-Man had been using in his spider-bots to track crime, which made Jackson the perfect person to ask for help in this situation.

After tracking the Goblin down, there was a very intense confrontation between Spidey and the Goblin, who decided to flex his muscle at our superior hero by showing him a small sample of his newly formed, very deadly army of super villains. In this brief sit down meeting between our hero and his arch nemesis, the Goblin extended an offer to Spider-Man to join him as his close second…and he also revealed that he knows that Spider-Man’s mind was switched with that of Otto Octavius (but it is not revealed if the Goblin knows the physical face of the person under the mask, which is still that of Peter Parker)! Of course Spidey denies the offer and the all-out war between the Spider and the Goblin had finally taken off as the Goblin attempted to kill him.

With a surprise twist, Spider-Man revealed that he had used a machine used by the supervillain Stunner in Superior Spider-Man #21 to project a hologram of himself to meet with the Green Goblin. Meanwhile, Spidey thought he was safely strapped into his machine on Spider Island, but the Goblin was prepared for such an incidence, seeing as how he had Goblin Knight (aka Ben Urich, aka the former Hobgoblin-in-training of Roderick Kinglsey, the original Hobgoblin) infiltrate and gather intel on Spider Island. The Goblin then immediately launched a full scale attack on Spider Island, making this the second consecutive attack on Spider Island in the Goblin Nation story arc if the Superior Spider-Man Team-Up comics are taken into account (the Goblin launched a previous surprise attack in Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #10).

With the return of the Peter Parker looming in the near future according to Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, this can mean serious changes for  the new Amazing Spider-Man. All that we know remains of Peter Parker is stored within those 31 memories that Otto has decided to keep. What will this mean for Spider-Man? What will this mean for Peter Parker? Who will emerge from the depths of Peter Parker’s memories? Only time will tell as Slott has said that major events are sure to transpire with every new issue of the Superior Spider-Man that will change the future of Spider-Man forever.