Summary
- Normie Osborn is succumbing to his villainous legacies as the Red Goblin, even though he wanted to be a hero.
- The bond between Normie and the Rascal symbiote has been difficult due to their differences and Rascal's violent nature.
- Normie is inheriting the legacies of both the Green Goblin and Carnage, and is on a path to cause even more damage and violence than his predecessors.
The following contains major spoilers for Red Goblin #8, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
Ever since Normie Osborn bonded to the Rascal symbiote, he has struggled to maintain control over both his new alien ally and his own worst instincts. All of this has only been made more difficult by the return of the Goblin Nation, not to mention their attacks on him and the people he loves. Now, those very same enemies have driven Normie past his breaking point, and doing so may have cost him everything by ensuring he lives up to both of his villainous legacies.
Red Goblin #8 (by Alex Paknadel, Chris Campana, Roberto Poggi, David Curiel, and VC's Joe Caramagna) finds Normie Osborn and Miles Morales working their way through the sprawling tunnels beneath New York City where the Goblin Nation has established their stronghold. Although Normie knows he is leading Spider-Man down the wrong path, he is willing to do so if it means clearing the way for him to take revenge without the Wall-Crawler getting in his way. As much as Normie would have liked to have become a genuine hero in his own right, he is now ready to give in to the darkness that has been brewing within him, even if it means becoming the monster he always feared he would be.
Normie Osborn Just Embraced the Red Goblin's Dark Side
In spite of the seemingly close bond between Rascal and Normie, their differences have made cementing that bond all but impossible up until now. This was due in large part to Rascal's origins and connections to the Carnage symbiote which had previously terrorized Normie on multiple levels. Though Rascal was born an offshoot of the hulking Bedlam symbiote, it was merged with a portion of Carnage after being transported to the modern day. With these two symbiote personas informing its own, there was never a chance of Rascal having anything close to a cool or calm demeanor.
Thankfully, Normie has been able to keep Rascal from doing any irreparable harm so far, though not without great strain on his part. Apart from Rascal's inherently violent nature putting it in direct opposition to Normie's desire to be as nonviolent as possible, the symbiote's human host and his experiences with symbiotes in the past lend a great deal to the issues between them. It was in 2018's Amazing Spider-Man #799 (by Dan Slott and Stuart Immonen) when Normie bonded to the Carnage symbiote and emerged as the Goblin Childe. That experience alone was enough to inflict deep psychological scars on Normie, yet even they were only the latest in a long line of such traumas heaped upon the younger Osborn.
Red Goblin is Inheriting Two Supervillain Legacies at Once
Rascal might be tied to two of the most indelible symbiotic legacies in the Marvel Universe, but Normie is tied to its darkest thanks to both his father and grandfather, Harry and Norman Osborn. During his earliest years, Normie developed a deep disdain for Spider-Man, even though it was the Green Goblin and his successors who constantly put the young Osborn's life in danger. At numerous turns, Normie was caught in the middle of battles between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man, or the Wall-Crawler and his then late father's robotic Goblinettes. Even Norman went so far as to kidnap his own grandson at one point, seemingly confirming the fear that Normie would never truly be safe under any circumstances.
With so many personal tragedies and tribulations behind him, bonding to the Rascal symbiote was simultaneously a horrifying and hopeful experience for Normie. Even if it meant reconnecting with a piece of Carnage, it was also the means by which he could take control of his own life for what felt like the very first time. More importantly, Bonding to Rascal meant getting a chance to make up for all the death and destruction that his father and grandfather had sewn and, ultimately, the Osborn legacy that was synonymous with those horrors. Now that he has given in to the worst of himself and his symbiote, however, Normie has effectively given up on all of that while ensuring that the next generation's infamous Osborn is worse than both that came before him.
How Red Goblin Could Make Marvel's Darkest Legacy Even Worse
As bad as Norman and Harry both were as the Green Goblin, it is hard to imagine either could do as much damage as Normie is poised to do today. Besides his vastly enhanced strength and all the other powers afforded to him by the Rascal symbiote, the presence of two inherently murderous personalities within the same form is more than enough to drive the Red Goblin to acts of gut-wrenching violence. Worse still, Normie accepting this as his influence on the Rascal symbiote breaking through means that there is no fight left in him when it comes to reigning in his symbiote's worst tendencies. If nothing else, Normie is still willing to make sure that Rascal's claws are aimed squarely at those he deems as deserving of such a fate, yet that doesn't make things any better.
If anything, this makes the situation that much more grim, as Normie has convinced himself that this is the best thing that he will ever be able to offer the world. This isn't to say that every Marvel superhero doesn't rely on pointed violence in their efforts, but rather that seeing them embrace such overtly lethal methods is a rarity. Even among those who do have a proclivity for fatal forms of justice, the idea that any of them are actually literal children would be laughable, while the idea that any of them would be actively cannibalistic would immediately call into question their status as a hero entirely. Now, Normie Osborn is going to learn whatever the fallout of both of those ideas being true happens to be. His best result: the sad truth doesn't kill him.