Originally Posted by WB
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The Time Trust:
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WB:
My nominee WTF storyline was where whoever was scripting the book around 1988-1989, (Tom Defalco? David Michelinie? ) revealed (in total contradiction to all the past clues given to the character's identity) that Hobgoblin was [ XXXXXXXX ] (issue 289 )
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GAH! Spoiler warning!
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Ooops !! Sorry TTT.

Since it's a story that's over 15 years old, I didn't put up the usual spoiler warnings.

In the future, I'll be more careful, for anyone who hasn't read a story referred to yet.

Believe me when I say your money is better spent elsewhere than on AMAZING SPIDERMAN 289.

Roger Stern eventually came back to Marvel and finished the story HIS way, but it was still pretty lame, and not up to usual Roger Stern standards. (In a three-issue HOBGOBLIN LIVES miniseries. Really dull, about two thirds of the series is incredibly dull and wordy flashback sequences, that really suck away any ability to get into the story.)

[Linked Image from milehighcomics.com] [Linked Image from milehighcomics.com] [Linked Image from milehighcomics.com]

Finally explained...

How Marvel Comics' Editors Ruined Hobgoblin - Comictropes


WTF, times a billion!

First book editor Danny Fingeroth drove Roger Stern away, ruining the original intended revelation of the Hobgoblin's identity by Stern, the only writer who really knew how to tell the story in a compelling and satisfying way.
Then Tom Defalco tried to salvage the plotline and take it in a new direction.
Then Jim Owsley (apparently a pen name used by Chris Priest in his early years as a writer and editor) took it in a completely different direction than Defalco intended, just to spite Defalco, who for some reason Owsley hated.
And Tom Defalco never trusted Owsley, so he didn't tell Owsley who he really intended to reveal as the Hobgoblin. So when Owsley revealed the Hobgoblin's name in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 289 (and in Owsley's pre-emptive reveal before issue 289 in the SPIDER-MAN VS WOLVERINE one-shot), the joke was on Owsley, because Defalco never intended it to be that character, Defalco just misleadingly told Owsley that was who he intended Hobgoblin to be.
And then future writers and editors tacked band-aids on band-aids on band-aids, trying to re-tell the Hobgoblin storyline into something salvageable, that could never in retrospect be salvaged.

I've always hated storylines hammered out by a committee of editors and writers, and crossover stories that run through multiple titles featuring the same character by multiple writers and artists. It only works when orchestrated by one person or creative team that truly care about the series and characters, such as Jim Starlin's CAPTAIN MARVEL and WARLOCK, or O'Neil/Adams' BATMAN, or Levitz/Giffen LEGION, or McGregor/Russell KILLRAVEN, or Jack Kirby's Fourth World series and KAMANDI runs.

Would that Roger Stern could have carried it out in his intended 26-issue storyline, as Stern originally planned. A great waste, because Roger Stern's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 224-251 is one of the best written and most engaging storylines I've ever read in 50 years of collecting. I couldn't wait for each new issue to come out during that run. When Roger Stern was driven off the series prematurely, readers were deprived of having that fantastic run reach its full and satisfying intended conclusion.
I'll always remember what might have been.