It happened about an hour ago.
When Norman Osborn received word that Dr. Barton Hamilton had been unmasked as the Goblin King, a profound sense of relief washed over him. The logic was sound. Hamilton was the only man alive who understood the Green Goblin persona intimately enough to replicate it. Furthermore, Norman had personally verified the integrity of his private Green Goblin AI system. The code was locked down. Hamilton was the only loose end.
With Hamilton in custody, the nightmare was finally over. Norman didn't want to share his skull with a parasitic consciousness for another second. He headed straight to Oscorp.
Deep within the subterranean levels of the corporate headquarters, Norman strode into his private laboratory. The cognitive enhancement device—a heavily modified brainwave analyzer—hummed in the center of the room.
A lead technician stepped forward, holding a diagnostic tablet. "The hardware is operating within acceptable parameters, Mr. Osborn. We've stabilized the neural feedback loop at ninety-seven percent." The technician hesitated, swallowing hard. "If you want to close that three-percent margin of error, we'll need several more months of calibrating."
"We don't have months," Norman snapped, his engineered, corporate warmth vanishing completely. "Initialize the startup sequence."
While the technicians scrambled to prep the immersion pod, Norman slipped into a specialized neural-feedback suit. He picked up his smartphone. He dialed Peter Parker first. It went straight to voicemail.
Norman spoke at the beep. "Peter, good news. We don't have to worry about the Green Goblin anymore. After today, he will be permanently erased."
He hung up. He stared at the screen for a long moment. He dialed his son, Harry.
Harry answered on the second ring. "Dad? What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry, Harry," Norman said. He gripped the edge of a steel console. "I'm sorry for everything that happened after your mother passed away. She was a real scientist, and she believed in what she was doing. I lost my way after that. I'm not going to sit here and blame all my failures on an alternate personality, but I need you to know something. After today, that monster won't exist anymore."
"Dad, what are you talking about? I don't understand."
"The Avengers caught the Goblin King. I'm innocent, Harry. The Green Goblin isn't behind this."
"Oh. Uh, okay, Dad."
Norman swallowed hard. "There won't be a Green Goblin anymore. And maybe... maybe then we can finally face your mother's death together."
He didn't wait for a response. He ended the call. The truth was, he needed to face the trauma himself. By carving the Goblin out of his brain, he could finally hit the reset button. He stepped into the immersion pod and let the machine drag his consciousness down into the darkest trenches of his own mind.
The simulation materialized. Norman found himself standing in the cramped, faded living room of his childhood home. The smell of cheap beer and stale tobacco filled his lungs.
His father stood in the center of the room. The old man was a violently bitter drunk with absolutely zero marketable skills, save for one: he had sired a child prodigy. Young Norman had been drafting patentable schematics since grade school. Old Osborn spent his days dragging his son in front of news cameras, lining his own pockets with the boy's genius.
"Why don't you have anything new for the producers?!" Old Osborn roared, his face flushed with alcohol. The television show was scheduled for next month, and young Norman was empty-handed. The old man snatched a heavy glass bottle from the table and lunged at the cowering boy.
Adult Norman stepped into the memory. He caught his father's wrist, twisted it, and drove a brutal right hook directly into the old man's jaw.
His father crumpled to the linoleum floor.
Norman exhaled, a vicious smile pulling at his lips. He had waited decades to deliver that punch. The sheer brilliance of this machine was its subjective malleability. Norman could actively rewrite his own engrams. By altering the foundational memories where the Green Goblin was supposedly born, he could eradicate the persona's reason for existing. He was protecting his younger self so the Goblin didn't have to.
"Get up, you old bastard!" Norman spat. He kicked his father hard in the ribs.
He remembered this exact day. He had finally managed to join a Dungeons & Dragons game with some boys from school. He had picked the one race nobody else wanted to play: a goblin. A green goblin. His father had stormed into the basement, furious that Norman was wasting time on a game instead of drafting schematics, and had dragged him home by his ear for a beating.
"I! Don't! Need! The Green Goblin!" Norman roared, punctuating every word with a vicious kick to the groaning figure on the floor. He was stomping out the weakness. He was stomping out the parasite.
Laughter echoed through the cramped room.
Norman froze. He turned around.
His younger self wasn't cowering in the corner anymore. The boy was sitting at a wooden workbench, carefully assembling a familiar, spherical plastic toy.
"Think about it, Norman," the boy giggled, looking up with eyes that were entirely too cold. "Did I really manifest to protect you?"
Norman's blood ran cold. "What?"
"What exactly did the Green Goblin do?" the boy asked. He held up a completed, glowing pumpkin bomb. "I didn't do it. The Green Goblin did it. The Green Goblin did it."
As the boy chanted the words, he pulled a grotesque, rubber goblin mask over his face. The boy walked over to the bedroom door where his father was sleeping off the alcohol. He tossed the glowing sphere inside and slammed the door shut.
The realization hit adult Norman with the force of a collapsing building. He hadn't created the Green Goblin to endure his childhood trauma. He hadn't fractured his mind to survive the abuse.
Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin. He had murdered his own father in cold blood.
The amnesia—the "multiple personality disorder"—wasn't a manifestation of the Goblin. Forgetting the Goblin was Norman's own desperate defense mechanism to hide from the guilt of what he had done.
"Hamilton lied to me!" Norman gasped, stumbling backward into the wall.
"I lied to you, Norman," a smooth, dark voice echoed.
The boy in the mask morphed. The rubber melted into sickly, textured green skin. Razor-sharp teeth bared in a terrifying smile. The true Green Goblin stood before him, tapping his temple.
"I have always been the smarter one," the Goblin sneered. "Norman Osborn never needed the Green Goblin's protection. Norman Osborn forgetting the Green Goblin... was how you protected yourself from me!"