1994 Spider-Man episode #40-“Goblin War!” Review

The season’s penultimate episode comes to a head when the Hobgoblin is finally unmasked to be…Felicia Hardy’s fiancé?

Credits
Story By: John Semper
Written By: Robert N. Skir & Marty Isenberg, Mark Hoffmeier and John Semper
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)

THE PLOT: Hobgoblin returns to strike up an alliance with the Kingpin to use the Time Dialation Accelerator to their mutual benefit. But Kingpin has learned from his past dealings with the Goblin, and seeks out the secret of his identity from the only man who knows it, Norman Osborn.

LONG STORY SHORT: Osborn has a nervous breakdown and becomes the Green Goblin once again. The battle concludes at Oscorp, where the Goblin is defeated and arrested, having been unmasked as Jason Phillp Macendale, Felicia’s husband to be.

MY THOUGHTS: This a fine episode, closing off plot threads from the past while bringing back others for the near future. It conclusively ends the Hobgoblin’s story, and brings back the Green Goblin for the ultimate showdown in the next episode. There’s really nothing at all wrong with anything in this episode, so much so that I fear I won’t have very much to say besides the bare necessities. It’s a solid episode, very much so. Honestly though, it doesn’t excite me nearly as much as others have in the past and “Turning Point” is sure to do next time. Why is that?

I don’t know, it could be just me. It may well be due to the excitement for seeing “Turning Point”, I feel like this one was marking time for that, which isn’t fair to this one. This episode is well plotted and very well animated. The animation is different from most every other episode I’ve seen in this series, being really rubbery and…animated. (I tried not to use that word.) The models were consistent and while we’ve reached the point of no return with the repeated animation appearing in each episode, there was very little that was noticeable here.

One of the things about this episode which has since become a private joke between myself and another member of the site is the random flashbacks MJ has at the beginning that were meant to serve as some sort of tension between her and Peter. It’s funny for a couple of reasons, one being that she lists the attacks from Hydro Man and Venom out of order. Of course technically she did she Eddie Brock recently which had been a while after the Hydro Man incident, yet the flashback not only was from Venom’s first episode but from a scene that she was no where near proximity. It didn’t make any sense. The second thing about this was that Peter pretty much hand waves her fears away, saying that all her troubles are due to the fact that they live in New York. A lame excuse to be sure.

 This scene also reminds me of something mentioned in J.R. Fetinger’s “Why did it have to be you Mary Jane?” article in which he talked about the lovey dovey aspect in writing Peter and Mary Jane. The scenes with them together were rather vomit inducing because they were so cheesy. It’s about this time that Mary Jane’s vivacious personality from the first season really has dissipated, to where she’s now just the girlfriend. As much as I like the pairing of Peter and MJ, some variety into the couple’s love life would be appreciated.

Also present is the second out of three scenes in three consecutive episodes where Harry Osborn gets the jump on Peter, guilt trips him for a few seconds, and exits stage left. As funny as it is I have a problem with Mary Jane just standing there and watching Peter get talked down like he was, only talking about it after Harry walked off. Peter could just as easily have said “A little help here?”

This was yet another episode with the Kingpin, but the majority of his appearances were well written and this one is no exception. I liked that he showed intelligence and immeidately tried to get some dirt on the Hobgoblin behind his back. He could have pressed Osborn a little harder, but this was the Kingpin that remains to be one of the more memorable villains in the show, especially when he began to snap Spider-Man’s back in the fortress.

It was cool to see the Hobgoblin back in action, with him being Spider-Man’s most frequent enemy after the Kingpin, but once he was found out by both Felicia and Green Goblin he almost instantaneously became a wimp. This was done less than a year before the excellent three part “Hobgoblin Lives” miniseries came out, so the Goblin being Jason Macendale makes about as much sense as it resonably can. Going by that same logic, I’m wondering if Macendale jobbing so badly to Green Goblin was done for correlation to the comics (He was seen by many to be a loser Goblin) or just because the writers hated him. Either way, it was somewhat dissapointing that such a cool villain in the series went down so incredibly easily. Then again, who else could show him up but the true Goblin?

I feel that this episode would carry slightly more significance if Hobgoblin or Macendale were both somehow in the season a little more. It’s an almost impossible thing to request given the number of subplots going on, and they do build it up a little bit here and there. Still, there’s almost the sense that Hobgoblin shows up for the first time in a while only to get immediately defeated, which is a shame. That same goes for Felicia’s relationship with Spider-Man. We know Peter has made his mind up about not just leaving Felicia alone but being with Mary Jane, yet the conflict would have been ramped up if she just jumped on top of him after her whole “I’m a black cat!” speech to Spider-Man. (IRONY ALERT) If you think about it, Spider-Man has been the only guy there for her like she said back at the end of “Enter the Green Goblin”, and either him rebuffing her advances or somewhat giving into them would have been a lot more interesting. The latter probably wouldn’t fly on a kids cartoon, but more tension between the two I felt could have been needed, especially after Macendale was arrested.

Still, those are personal quibbles and really the only things keeping this from getting a near perfect score. This was a perfectly solid episode, and it only gets better from here in the next one. Oh man, does it.

4/5 “FELICIAAAA…”s

Best Quote Contender-

Spider-Man: *Webbing Green Goblin’s mouth shut* You know, that laugh is really getting on my nerves.”

Images taken from drg4.wariocompany.com and marvel.toonzone.net respectively.