Hobgoblin

Gallery

Real Name

Phillip Ben Urich

Current Alias

Hobgoblin

Aliases

Goblin, Darkhawk, Green Goblin, Gobby

Relatives

unnamed paternal grandfather;

Arnold Urich (father);
Mindy Urich (mother);
Ben Urich (paternal uncle);
Doris Urich (aunt-by-marriage, deceased);

Ken Urich (older brother);

Affiliation

The Kingpin, The Hand; formerly Excelsior

Base Of Operations

Los Angeles, formerly New York City

Status

Alignment

Bad

Identity

Secret Identity

Citizenship

American

Marital Status

Single

Occupation

Former Journalism Intern at the Daily Bugle

Education

Some College

Characteristics^[1]

Gender

Male

Height

5' 7"

Weight

140 lbs (64 kg)

Eyes

Green

Hair

Brown

Origin

Origin

Stumbling upon the abandoned hideout of then deceased Harry Osborn, Phil was bathed in an experimental form of Goblin Serum. Donning the Goblin's mask and costume meant for Harry's use he becomes the fourth, but first heroic, Green Goblin.

Universe

Earth-616

Created by

Terry Kavanagh, Steven Butler

First appearance

Web of Spider-Man #125
(June, 1995)

HistoryEdit

Born to Arnold and Mindy Urich, Phil took to the wing of his uncle Ben who worked as a journalist with The Daily Bugle.

On a journalism assignment, Phil joined his uncle Ben in an investigation on an Osborn Industries building. When his uncle was besieged by attackers in the building, Phil hid and tried to find help. Stumbling upon an experimental new Green Goblin costume Phil also fell into a chamber of the Goblin Formula.

Quickly dressing up in the suit, he scared off the hoods. Later on, he decided that the costume and equipment were worth using.

After his discovery of the Goblin arsenal and equipment, Phil ran into the Scarlet Spider, Rhino, the Hobgoblin, Joystick and others. Many were unsure of his purpose and motives as they were also curious about this new Goblin on the scene.

It was not until a corrupt judge targeted Ben and sent the assassin Purge to kill him that Phil decided to take on his new persona with responsibility. Teaming up with Daredevil, the pair was able to stop Purge.

This act gave the new hero a lot of attention and he developed a small but devoted following. Liz Allan asked Ben for information on who was using her husband's former identity. She later gave Phil her "blessing" after he saved her and her son Normie from Angelface.

During Onslaught's attack, the Goblin costume was heavily damaged after battling Sentinels. Phil soon decided to retire as an active hero.

He joined Excelsior, and after a mental meltdown, Phil attacked Mickey Musashi and Chris Powell, stealing the Darkhawk amulet and giving in to his psychosis. Afterwards, Phil is depowered, but escapes with Hollow.

Hobgoblin

In New York, Phil helped out his uncle at the new Front Line offices.^[1] Having a crush on his co-worker Norah, who was looking into "Goblin gangs" for a story, Phil ran off to one of the old Goblin hideouts, hoping to find something there to impress her with. Phil encountered and murdered Daniel Kingsley the twin brother of Roderick Kingsley, who was Hobgoblin at that time. After killing him, he became the Hobgoblin. Operating as a supervillain, he attacked a local think tank, and was confronted by Spider-Man. Catching the hero off-guard with his Goblin laugh, Phil attempted to decapitate him.^[2] One of the think tank workers was able to disrupt the sonics to save Spider-Man, but Phil escaped with the experimental metal he came to steal. He delivered the metal to the Kingpin and became one of his operatives.^[3] Spider-Man and Black Cat fought Phil and the Kingpin to retrieve the experimental metal. During the fight, Phil's "Lunatic Laugh" caused the building to collapse, and he saved the Kingpin from falling to his death.^[4]

Phil gave Norah tips about possible Hobgoblin sightings so they could watch together in an attempt to woo her away from Randy Robertson. Phil was jealous of Randy for dating Norah, so when Alistair Smythe's minions attacked the Front Line offices Phil broke a support beam. This, along with the damage caused by the attack, caused the ceiling to collapse on Randy. Randy survived the collapse, but he was seriously injured.^[5] Phil, as the Hobgoblin, fought Hercules after he defeated a gang that worked for the Kingpin. His pumpkin bombs caused debris to fall on Hercules, but he managed to escape the rubble. He then resumed the fight as Hobgoblin filmed the fight with hidden cameras which aired the footage live. Hercules won the fight, ironically boosting his popularity, instead of Phil's as he originally hoped. The Kingpin managed to convince Hercules not to hand him over to the authorities.^[6] Phil attacked Spider-Girl after Norah talked about how impressive she was and he wanted to show her that he, as the Hobgoblin, was more impressive. He lured her to him by leaving a destructive path for her to follow. As the fight ensued, Spider-Girl was on the verge of defeating him. However, Spider-Man saw what she was doing and since he thought that she was still too inexperienced to fight such a powerful opponent, decided to intervene. However, by doing this, he only caused the Hobgoblin to get away.^[7] Phil finally broke up Randy and Norah through stalking and a confrontation with the couple in his Hobgoblin persona. Norah then kissed Phil shortly after, knowing exactly what to say to seduce her unbeknownst to her, having instigated the break up.^[8]

Under orders from the Kingpin, Phil teamed up with Spider-Girl to fight the Sisterhood of the Wasp during "Spider-Island".^[9][10][11] Phil infiltrates a prisoner transport headed to The Raft to kill the Human Fly for stealing money from the Kingpin, but Agent Venom is on the transport and they fight. Agent Venom and Phil fight to a stalemate and the Human Fly escapes during the fight.^[12]

During a confrontation with Spider-Man, Hobgoblin used a weapon designed to disrupt Spider-Man's spider-sense. Although it initially appears to have failed, Peter later realized that it had sent his spider-sense to become intense, reacting to the most minor of threats. Peter's dazed mental state, along with a wrongly delivered message from Madame Web, Phil captured him while he was still dazed.^[13]

Peter later finds out that Phil and the Kingpin do not know his secret when Phil proclaims "Peter Parker, Spider-Man's best friend". Phil and the Kingpin try to get Peter to tell them who Spider-Man is but fail. Meanwhile Roderick Kingsley gets dressed in his old costume to go searching for him. When Kingsley engages Phil, Max Modell gets in and helps peter escape. Peter using his webshooters breaks the disrupter weapon and escapes. Kingpin then orders the two Hobgoblins after him. Both the Hobgoblins end up fighting Spider-Man but ultimately give up as Roderick Kingsley decides to just kill Urich instead. He ends up changing his mind at the last moment though, letting him stay as the Hobgoblin, but only if he gives Kinglsey a cut of the profits he makes.Reluctant, Phil agreed to the arrangement but quickly began to conspire to kill Kingsley so that he won't get in his way.^[14] When Mayor Jameson announces an effort to crackdown on super-villains, Phil debates if it's still worthwhile to be the Hobgoblin because he pays so much to the Tinkerer for his Hobgoblin gear and to Kingsley for being allowed to be the Hobgoblin.^[15]

Powers and AbilitiesEdit

Powers

• Lunatic Laugh: A sonic attack he called the Lunatic Laugh. Initially thought to be part of the mask, the laugh seems to be an actual power of Phil's
  • Lunatic Laugh resistance: Phil seems to be immune to his Lunatic Laugh. It's unknown, if he is immune to other sonic attacks too.

Strength level

Superhuman. It is unknown how his strength compared to other Goblins.

ParaphernaliaEdit

Equipment

Goblin Suit

• Goblin Mask: The Goblin Mask causes a chemical reaction with the Goblin formula, giving Phil superhuman strength and durability while wearing it.

• Goblin Gloves: The gloves contains finger blasters which could shoot electricity or a blinding flash.
• Goblin Boots: The Goblin costume's boots have small jets that let him hover, although he mainly used the Glider for transportation.

• Goblin Glider

• Glider Cam: A Camera fixed onto the nose of the Goblin Glider

  Transportation

• Flight, Goblin Glider (formerly,) Goblin Boots (formerly), Wings
• The Excel, a Rick Jones-designed hovercraft, controlled in the same fashion as Phil's Goblin Glider.

  Weapons

• Bag of Tricks filled with pumpkin bombs, gas ghosts, razor batwings.
  

NotesEdit

• Beset by haunting dreams of Norman and Harry Osborn telling him those who wear the costume are doomed.
• Much like Peter Parker, Phil has an uncle named Ben, and works for the Daily Bugle by taking pictures of his alter-ego and selling them.

LinksEdit

• 76 Appearances of Phillip Urich (Earth-616)
• 12 Images featuring Phillip Urich (Earth-616)
• 5 Quotations by or about Phillip Urich (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Phillip Urich (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Phillip Urich (Earth-616) 
• Characters killed by Hobgoblin

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Footnotes