So over the past few weeks I’ve written many angry tweets and posts about how Peter and Harry and even Liz have been sacrificed on the altar of making a murdering war criminal child abuser Nice, and I still think that, but Gold Goblin is actually annoyingly good. Mostly because unlike the current ASM run it is actually presenting Norman as a monster. It’s just the other characters I’m baffled by, y’know?

Like Liz! Now I’ll grant Liz is pretty morally corrupted herself by this point (most recently she tortured Dylan Brock, a teenager, even if she was a bit sad about it) but she has no reason at all to be friendly to Norman, a man who threatened the son she loves. Why is she doing this?

Harry mention #1! Liz speaks about Normie here but not Stanley, so I’m very curious about what Stanley’s parentage is even considered to be in-universe, since he’s the son of a clone.

And now for an unexpected surprise! But a trigger warning ahead for animal abuse.

Norman meets the dog he killed in Spectacular Annual #14. That happens to be one of my very favourite Osborn Stories so I’m glad it’s still remembered!

Norman tries to justify himself by telling the dog he was saving it from an even worse death, but good people don’t make those sort of justifications.

And it’s starting to dawn on him that he can never really be a good person, either. He has a chat with Ashley Kafka, not knowing she’s now Queen Goblin and holding all his sins inside herself.

Unsurprisingly, Norman can’t live with the guilt and the demon dogs anymore.

Yep! That there is the Norman we know. Kafka knows it too, so she chooses that moment to transform into Queen Goblin and remind Norman of what he’s done to her as well. She doesn’t plan to be the vessel of Norman’s sins for much longer.

As Queen Goblin looms over Norman, Harry appears as one of the ghosts dragging him down.

“Hey dad, have you ruined my son yet?” Ghost Harry asks. Clearly he has a rather different opinion than Liz on whether Norman should be around Normie.

Norman shakes off Ashley, leaves a screaming voicemail for Peter about why he never mentioned that his sins were possessing someone else, vows to kill Queen Goblin, and encounters Ghost Gwen once more. I like the parts with Gwen very much, I much prefer this pissed-off, vaguely demonic being to Gwen as a saintly innocent angel yet again.

Awww, guess Ghost Gwen has a talking dog sidekick now.

Norman is clearly reverting back to his old self, and if he kills Ashley Kafka, who’s to say the sins won’t just go back into him? I guess we’ll find out next year.