Norman Osborn/YMMV

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: While majority of comic book fans believe Norman to be utterly evil, this is not the exclusive point of view in franchise. Some people view him as a tragic figure like he was depicted as in the animated series and, to a lesser extent, the movie. Others debate how much of his crimes is owed due to evil or insanity.
• Complete Monster: As of now he can be viewed as one of the most evil, cruel, despicable, vile and mean villains in Marvel, almost on par with The Red Skull. Let's see, he:
  • Killed Gwen Stacy.
  • Killed Peter and Mary-Jane's baby possibly.
  • Buried old and weak Aunt May alive. After that he hired actress to play May for Parker and killed her to hurt Peter.
  • Got Flash Thompson drunk and put him behind the wheel of a truck (after hiring the unwitting Flash to be his driver, just to mess with Peter), resulting in Flash being brain damaged after Osborn made the truck crash into his school (oh, and class was in).
  • Tried to murder everyone who was connected to either Peter or his son (he felt that those friends had "betrayed him" and indirectly caused Harry's death by making him a weakling) after orchestrating The Clone Saga, a convoluted plot to drive Peter insane (meaning he nearly got Marvel bankrupt, which means he is guilty of both Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking and being an Omnicidal Maniac).
  • Attempted once to murder every living thing on the planet by turning them into prehistoric goo (he was more crazy than usual at the time thanks to some messing with magic, which convinced him he was a Physical God and mistakenly think he would survive such a scheme, but the plan was clearly set in motion before that occurred).
  • Gave a prison guard advice on how to cure his wife's illness, that actually made the woman die a faster and more painful death (because the guard came to him).
  • And after Brand New Day, he tried to murder his own son just because the public would feel sorry for him and give him more support, since his son was dead.
  • This list is not even the half of what Norman "achieved".
    • Let's put it this way: the only thing he truly sympathizes with is an Eldritch Abomination on a cosmic level, that wants to kill, torture and maim for the lulz. They become best friends
    • Also his friends (though, not best, but still) include monstrous cannibal Mac Gargan (Venom III) with whom he has understanding; mass murderer Bullseye; Dark Beast and many other cool guys. And yes, Red Skull and Normie respect each other too.
    • His status as this trope carries over into the Sam Raimi movies and The Spectacular Spider Man animated series.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: He was the one who killed the Skrull Queen Veranke at the end of Secret Invasion. Of course, Osborn being Osborn, he quickly parlayed his moment in the spotlight into the opportunity for more efficient villainy.
• Foe Yay: At uncomfortable levels.
• Magnificent Bastard: On his best days. He's a Smug Snake every other day.
• Moral Event Horizon: The murder of Gwen Stacy is almost universally agreed to be when Norman crossed it, and perhaps the second most infamous murder in Spidey's history (Uncle Ben's is the most infamous). It was extremely jarring to readers at the time because it was the permanent death of a main character.
  • Though if you want to get technical, since he was still very much in Ax Crazy mode and it wasn't really any worse than what the Goblin tried to do on a regular basis, Norman could still be excused for it. The Moral Event Horizon for the character probably occurred shortly after that, when he woke up in the morgue for the first time with a measure of sanity- and promptly murdered some vagrant who looked like him and put his corpse in his coffin. Or when he went to Europe and set up/ joined a major crime syndicate and immediately started using it to create the Clone Saga, just to mess with Spidey and possibly as an elaborate plot to destroy Marvel Comics as an industry.
• Newer Than They Think: Thematic example. In Revenge of the Green Goblin Osborn, his son Harry then long dead, started to realize that Peter himself was everything he ever wanted in a son and heir- smart, resourceful, tough, and able to live through everything life throws at him. This was since retconned out of existence (partly because Harry is back, partly because Norman no longer knows who Spidey is), but it was well received and became an integral part of his character in other media, such as the movie and the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. So successful some more recent fans thought it was always an integral part of the character.