I reread the Green Goblin series from the late 90's prior to Dan Slotts Hobgoblin story in ASM and I am surprised nobody has mentioned the major continuity error Slott made. Phil Urich gained his powers in a warehouse when he accidentally stumbled upon some goblin gear and became the green goblin. Urich is different from the other goblins because he gained a "Sonic Laughter" attack after his exposure to the chemicals in the warehouse he found the gear in. The original Urich Green Goblin had a major weakness which was his inability to use his powers unless his fancy electronic Goblin mask was applied to his face. Without it he was a normal guy. This is where the problem comes in.
Cut to today, Slotts Phil Urich is able to use his Sonic laughter attack to debilitate, then decapitate Ben Kingsley and assume the identity of Hobgoblin. Urich was not wearing his goblin mask at the time so he really shouldn't have been able to use his sonic laugh. I am curious wether or not this was explained in a previous story that I might have missed or if this was just Slott ignoring an obvious limit to Urichs abilities just so he could use him as the new hobgoblin,
Im curious what other people think about changing or ignoring continuity simply to make a story work when it might not otherwise. Is there a place for it, or should creators do their homework and try to stay true to the characters history?
With that said, this blog post is in no way a knock on Dan Slott. I have really been enjoying his run on Amazing Spider-Man so far and I think he writes fun spidey stories. I am just curious why he chose to neglect that aspect of Urichs origin.
Phil Urich
Character » Phil Urich appears in 303 issues.
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