Monday 19 November 2007

The Hobgoblin returns!




Woo hoo. More comics featuring my favourite spidey villain in the 1980's - The Hobgoblin.

In these two issues of the Amazing Spider-man Roger Stern with help from regular artist John Romita Jr. show us just what a great villain he is - and he never even meets Spidey face to face. Instead he manipulates another crook (obviously not the brightest fella) and gets him to test out the potion which originally gave the original Green Goblin his super-strength.

It's a good job he did test it too as the potion explodes and even though the sap survives and gains some semblance of super-strength he's very unstable. The Hobgoblin learns from this experience and moves on.

Some nice sub-plots develop as well regarding Pete's love life and all in all two great comics.

My only nitpick would be that neither Klaus Janson or Dave Simons seem to ink JR Jr very well giving the art a bit of a rushed look.

One other, historical point to note that September 1983 was the last month to see the Marvel Comics Group banner spread across the top of the cover. Although the replacement in the corner box is certainly neater and allows more room for the art, I still miss that banner for nostalgic reasons.

Rating for issues 244 and 245. 8/10 (due to the inking)

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