Marvel Champions: Green Goblin Review

The best Goblin story in Spider-Man history. Yup. I said it.

I grew up with the Green Goblin as the primary boogeyman of childhood. Norman Osborn is the flip side of everything that is Peter: ambitious, business-savvy, ruthless, petty, and almost careless with his time under the mask. Norman is Peter's nemesis precisely because everything Peter, by being himself, loses to Norman. He has to step it up, everytime. He has to lose his happy-go-lucky attitude and resolve to beat Norman right to the brink of death in order to stop the nightmare.

So yeah, you could say I have a bit of a personal interest in this pack.

The Green Goblin pack released months ago, I know. But there is a lot in the pack. And I've not played the game as much I've wanted to. Obviously that's going to change. But here's what we got: The Green Goblin pack has two major scenarios- Green Goblin proper and Norman Osborn - along with four side scenarios - Scorpion, Tombstone, Electro and Green Goblin. All six scenarios are excellent, covering a wide selection of situations. Each of them are challenging in their own right.

Mutagen Formula is the Green Goblin scenario proper, where our villain tries to infect the city with his goblin formula. Ole Gobby's gone full Goblin Nation, posing a proper Avenger's level threat. Green Goblin as a villain is always scheming: when he deals damage to the players his threat goes up. Mutagen Formula isn't as minion-happy as, say, Ultron, but it still has a fair number of little folks running out to screw up your day. All in all, Mutagen Formula has been one of the toughest scenarios released for the game so far. It's the Goblin at the top of his game.

Risky Business is my favorite scenario in the tin. Norman Osborn is trying to take over a section of Stark Industries and you have to stop him! I've heard people complain this one is too easy. I mean, it isn't the hardest scenario I've played, but there's some interesting levers to pull here. The villain here is a cross between Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin. Norman Osborn can't attack, but cannot take damage, building a resource that lets him shrug off hits. If you do eat through his shield fast enough Norman switches to his Green Goblin half, who immediately deals everyone on the board unavoidable damage. The Green Goblin has a ticking time clock until he switches back to Norman (and thus stops taking damage). The clock ticks down whenever he would normally scheme, although there are other triggers that his deck contains. The thing is that Green Goblin's attack is higher than normal, so he can bruise you up so badly that you have to flip back to alter-ego... which is when the clock ticks. It doesn't take much. This particular scenario feels like the Norman Osborn from the comics: unstable, smart, and usually destroying himself in the end. Given my love for Norman Osborn this is the scenario I usually find myself defaulting to.

The four side scenarios are really cool. Goblin Gimmicks allows you to port the Goblin madness over to other villains (or maybe just beef up your Goblin!): regen, gliders, pumpkin bombs, the whole scheBANG is in here. Goblin Gimmicks makes your villain just that much more annoying. A Mess of Things introduces the villain Scorpion into the game. He likes to stun folks and then take advantage of stunning you, turning into a whirlwind of death. Running Interference features Tombstone, who mucks around with your alter-ego, sometimes making it impossible to change between the personas. Electro discards cards out of the encounter deck, sending out random bad things based upon what's discarded. And yeah, that gets you closer to the dreaded +1 Encounter Card a player situation. Sometimes those discards take out a huge chunk of the Encounter Deck. Playing against Electro with Thor in the mix would be terrifying...

Anyway.

I think this is a really good scenario pack. The Goblin schemes are extremely flavorful and a good mix of challenges. The side schemes add some interesting stuff to the mix, creating sub-plots that are memorable and challenging. It's not an excellent buy for 20 bucks. I still don't feel like I've gotten to the bottom of the pack.

And that's after six months. So let that speak for itself.