Warning! This article contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #88
The new version of the Green Goblin in Spider-Man’s current story arc just made up for the original’s worst movie failure. Since Peter Parker was badly beaten by the U-Foes, his clone, Ben Reilly, has stepped up to the plate as Spider-Man and has been fighting crime with the Beyond Corporation as his sponsor. However, Beyond isn’t as virtuous as it seems by any means and has a dark secret lurking beneath the surface. As Spider-Man is on the verge of uncovering the villainous mystery, he is attacked by the new version of the Green Goblin, a villain who succeeds where the original failed.
In Amazing Spider-Man #88 by Zeb Wells and Michael Dowling, Ben Reilly’s Spider-Man is recovering from a procedure Beyond forced upon him to wipe his memories of company secrets that would ruin the Beyond Corporation for good. However, Ben’s girlfriend, Janine Godbe, has access to those secrets, so the higher-ups at Beyond decide to take her out for good. In doing so, Beyond launches their own supervillain whom they created specifically to fight Spider-Man and aim her at Janine. That supervillain was created from the sins of Norman Osborn, stuffing the essence of his villainy into a mutilated and corrupted host body and creating the all-new villain known as the Queen Goblin.
Janine was taken to the Daily Bugle offices by M.J. so that she could reveal the dark secrets of the Beyond Corporation to the world. Once Queen Goblin is launched, she attacks Janine and M.J. while trying to steal back the flash drive that contains Beyond’s secret files. Before Queen Goblin is successful, Spider-Man shows up and battles the new goblin villain. During their fight, Queen Goblin remotely flies her glider directly at Spider-Man and succeeds in striking him in the chest, giving her the edge she needs to pull off her villainous task. When she hit Spider-Man with her glider, Queen Goblin succeeded where the movie version of the Green Goblin failed, a past failure that cost Green Goblin his life.
In Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film, Spider-Man is going up against Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin. Their conflict results in a final showdown at the end of the film where Green Goblin attempts to win Spider-Man’s sympathy while simultaneously plotting Spidey’s demise. Osborn remotely controls his glider to sneak up behind Spider-Man before commanding it to fly towards him with razor-sharp blades drawn on its front. Spider-Man jumps out of the way but the glider continues on its path and flies straight into Green Goblin’s stomach, killing him right then and there.
While Green Goblin’s worst failure was most recently depicted in the Spider-Man film, he found himself in that same situation in the comics as well. In Amazing Spider-Man #122, the Green Goblin also misses his mark with his glider while trying to strike Spider-Man and it seemingly kills him the same way it did in the film. However, it is later revealed that Green Goblin survived that event and went on to torment Spider-Man from the shadows. Since he survived in the comics, it is clear that the movie version's failure was way worse since he was killed off for good in the movie. Despite those failures, Green Goblin’s successor, Queen Goblin, redeemed the original and actually struck Spider-Man with her glider, thereby succeeding where the Green Goblin so miserably failed.