Amazing Spider-Man #586
Daddy’s Little Girl
Years Ago
At the dinner table, Bill Hollister ignore’s his wife and grills his daughter Lily over the fact that she had not been able to get a single honors class that semester. Bill openly laments that he doesn’t want to have to worry about his daughter “marrying right” in order to amount to something in life. Also at the table is Carlie Cooper who offers to do Lily’s nails after dinner, but Lily isn’t in the mood, saying she’s tired and plans on going right to bed.
Ten Years Later
Now the Menace, Lily Hollister is amazed that she has managed to do what other super-villains have failed for years: defeating Spider-Man. However, she decides not to kill the wall-crawler as she wants her father to be elected mayor of New York City. As Bill Hollister is the district attorney, she decides the best way to do that on the night before the election is to allow Spider-Man to get arrested, which would be seen as a victory for her father.[1] After bludgeoning Spider-Man into unconciousness, Menace flees the scene.
She returns to the Hollister home where she reverts back to human form. She quickly calls one of her campeign assistants and tells him to put in a poll as something huge is about to happen. As she hangs up the phone she is caught in costume by her boyfirend, Harry Osborn. At first Harry is speechless as he tries to process this revelation and then he starts feeling sick. Amused by all of this, Lily changes out of her costume and says what he’s thinking: that Lily was only interested in him because he used to be the Green Goblin and never really loved him.[2] When she starts patronizing him, Harry loses his temper and slaps Lily across the fact. When she hits him back it with enough strength to send Harry flying across the room. Recovering from the blow, Harry tells Lily that she’s sick. However, Lily counters this by asking if Harry or his father were crazy?
That’s when she reveals that she knows that Harry’s father was the original Green Goblin before him.[3] She learned this by reading a journal that she found in Harry’s closet. She recounts how it happened early on in their relationship. After all the late hours Harry spent at the Coffee Bean, Lily feared that Harry started taking drugs again and began snooping around.[4] That’s when she uncovered his hidden diary. As she mocks Harry for how whiney the diary was, Harry tells her that she is sick and needs help. That’s when Lily says that she isn’t like him and blames everything on her father. Although she feels that her father would have preferred a daughter and loved Carlie Cooper more than her, she has always taken responsibility for her own decisions. That’s when she admits that her father played a role in her becoming Menace, but not in the way Harry thinks, saying that she isn’t sure his father even knows what she has become.[5] She explains how she found Norman Osborn’s secret cache of Goblin weapons hidden in his office. She pauses to do a sidebar, telling him how she recently kissed Peter Parker, saying she only did it to keep him from uncovering the same secret room.[6]
At first, when she discovered the secret room, she figured she could tell her father and finally bust Norman Osborn once and for all as there was enough evidence to damage his reputation forever.[7] That’s when she knocked over a vial of a new version of the Goblin formula, which was absorbed through her skin. This new concauction didn’t just give her the usual Goblin abilities but also the ability to transform into her Menace form. Transforming for the first time, Lily realized that she could use these new ability to help her father’s run for mayor. Harry thinks that Lily has gone insane, but she insists that she is perfectly fine and can control herself. To demonstrate this, she transforms into her Menace form. Harry questions her logic, and Menace explains that at first she attacked her father’s opponents until Lisa Parfrey died, she realized that sympathy could be a powerful tool and started attacking her father’s campeign.[8] As she returns to human form, she tells Harry that her plan worked out well. After she is finished laying out her entire scheme she stops to ask Harry why he hadn’t noticed that she is wearing his engagement ring, saying that she has decided to marry him after all. She then tells Harry they can sort out their problems after her father wins the election and leaves to prepare for an upcoming press conference. As she leaves, she tells a stunned Harry that she can’t wait to become the next Mrs. Osborn.
Later, Harry returns to his father’s office and goes into the secret room. There he grabs a chemical vial, a weapon, and mounts a Goblin Glider.
Recurring Characters
Menace, Harry Osborn, (in flashback) Carlie Cooper, Bill Hollister
Continuity Notes
This is retelling the battle between Spider-Man and Menace from last issue but from Menace’s perspective. The reason that Lily was able to defeat Spider-Man so soundly is because he just suffered a gunshot in Amazing Spider-Man #584.
Harry was the second Green Goblin on a number of occasions. The first time was in Amazing Spider-Man #136-137. The last time he was the Goblin was in Spectacular Spider-Man #200. As explained in Amazing Spider-Man #581-582, Harry’s father took him off to Europe for rehabilitation and when he returned again in Amazing Spider-Man #545, he was totally cured.
Lily also adds that she doesn’t believe that Norman has been framed over the years either. Norman has been the Green Goblin since Amazing Spider-Man #14. Osborn’s identity has been publicly outted on two different occasions. The first was in Spider-Man: Legacy of Evil #1, when Ben Urich published an exposé on the Osborn family. Osborn forced a retraction when he bought the Bugle in Spectacular Spider-Man #249-250. Later, Osborn was exposed again in The Pulse #1-5. This second exposé wsa later retratected by the DB’s current owner, Dexter Bennett, in Amazing Spider-Man #569.
Harry struggled with drug addiction in Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 and had a relapse in Amazing Spider-Man #119-120. When Harry was off in Europe, the cover story was that Harry was in rehab for another relapse.
Harry’s fear that Norman had an affair with Lily isn’t outlandish considering Norman was revealed to have had an affair with Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, as revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #509-514.
Lily kissed Peter back in Amazing Spider-Man #573.
Lily mentions, in passing, about Norman’s legitimacy and “what happened with the Skrulls”. Norman’s “legitimacy” is regarding his becoming leader of the Thunderbolts in Thunderbolts #110. The “Skrull thing” is a reference to the fact that it was Norman Osborn who killed Queen Veranke during the final battle of the then-recent Skrull invasion in Secret Invasion #8. This made Osborn a hero in the eyes of the American people and he was put in charge of SHIELD.
Menace started her attacks on Randall Crowne and Lisa Parfrey in Amazing Spider-Man #549. Parfrey’s death by Goblin Glider happened in Amazing Spider-Man #551 as Menace fought both Spider-Man and Jackpot.
