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John
Semper on "Spider-Man": The Green Goblin
Interview by Jim Harvey
Toon Zone was able to catch up
with Spider-Man writer John Semper to discuss the animated interpretation
of the Green Goblin.
 "I
think that the whole 'Green Goblin' saga was about as good as it got when Stan
was writing the comic book series," said Semper. "It was intriguing, surprising,
dramatic, exciting -- everything I wanted my Spider-Man series to be. I
remember reading the whole thing breathlessly when I was a kid. It was
incredible. Why wouldn't I want to recreate that? I'm not a big believer in
messing with something that's already 100% right. My ego isn't so big that I'd
want to tinker with it and make it 'better.' God save us from all the 'creative
visionaries' in this business who want to make things better."
One major change that Spider-Man: The Animated Series featured was the
introduction of the Hobgoblin two seasons before the Green Goblin. In the
regular comic books, the Green Goblin was introduced almost twenty years before
the Hobgoblin premiered.
"I, too, was upset that we had to introduce the Hobgoblin first," said Semper.
"It was a dumb thing to do -- so it won't surprise you if I tell you that I had
nothing whatsoever to with that decision. As I've mentioned before in
interviews, I was not the first writer-producer hired to run Spider-Man.
I was preceded by someone who had ultimately been fired before I got there."
"When I arrived on the show, very little creative work had been done and I threw
out what little there was and started over from scratch," said Semper. "But
there was only one creative decision which my predecessor had made that I had to
live with. For some strange reason known only to him, he decided to use the
Hobgoblin as Spidey's main villain instead of the Green Goblin! Of course, when
I got there, I informed Avi Arad that this was a stupid idea. I explained why -
the Hobgoblin is essentially a useless character - and he agreed with me."
Unfortunately it was too late to scrap the Hobgoblin from the first season of
Spider-Man: The Animated Series. It wasn't due to the production of the
series, but the production of a toyline tieing into the Hobgoblin character.
"Then, a few days later, Avi came back and rather sheepishly explained that
because of my predecessor's choice, he had already made a decision to roll out a
toy line around the Hobgoblin," said Semper. "Now it was too late to stop the
toys from being mass-produced. All the while that Avi was telling me this, he
was cursing the very existence of my predecessor, because even Avi now realized
what a dumb decision it had been. So I had to do the Hobgoblin first, or else
Avi would have lost millions of dollars on useless Hobgoblin toys that no kid
wanted. As it was, there were still plenty of unsold Hobgoblin toys on the
shelves at Toys R Us that Christmas. Even with our two-part episode, nobody
really liked the character that much."
"However," Semper added. "I am proud of how I made the Hobgoblin and his Goblin
technology naturally segue into the origin of the Green Goblin by having Norman
Osborne be the one who made the technology in the first place. That made it all
seem rather natural and less idiotic."
This weekend will feature the airing of "Turning Point," a highly acclaimed
episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The episode featured a
Brooklyn Bridge showdown between Spider-Man and Green Goblin, with Mary Jane
Watson's life in the balance. The sequence mirrored a classic sequence from the
regular comics, but featured the character Gwen Stacy instead of Mary Jane
Watson.
"You're right, it is an iconic scene in comic book hisory and I was lucky enough
to be the first to get to bring it to animated life, "said Semper. "So I didn't
want to blow it. Luckily, by that time, I was having a lot of control over what
got on to the TV screen, so things went pretty smoothly. Basically I just wanted
to make that episode as close to the comic book as possible, even with the
obvious changes."
"I had to skirt around the issue of death, which we couldn't do on Saturday
morning," said Semper. "But beyond that, I wanted to bring the comic book to
life verbatim, changing it as little as possible. I think I did pretty well. It
was an exciting challenge and I thought that if I didn't do it, it might never
get done right."
The episode also contained one of Semper's favorite moments, on which stands out
as a definitive highlight for the animated series.
"My favorite part is when, after Mary Jane's 'death,' Peter has his mask off and
is standing on the bridge, thinking and looking down into the water," said
Semper. "It's almost a full minute or more of just interior monologue - more
like Japanese anime than anything American. No corny action, no villains,
nothing. When was the last time you saw that on Saturday morning TV, huh?"
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