Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s story still sets up the perfect excuse for Spider-Man: Brand New Day to debut its own Green Goblin, despite the last MCU Spider-Man movie tying up the story of Willem Dafoe’s version of the character. As the fourth movie in the immensely successful MCU Spider-Man series, there’s plenty of excitement about Spider-Man: Brand New Day already.

However, there’s also a lot of pressure consequently on the film already too, especially because Spider-Man: No Way Home set such a high bar for the series. That said, it’s possible it also set up a justification for the MCU’s main version of Green Goblin to appear in its sequel, despite No Way Home focally featuring another version of the villain in its runtime.

Spider-Man Has Already Met & Dealt With One Version Of Green Goblin In Spider-Man: No Way Home

The MCU timeline has already had Tom Holland’s Spider-Man encounter Green Goblin in his adventures as a hero. However, this is pulled off in a way that means we still have no real idea what the MCU iteration of Norman Osborn is like, and indeed if there is actually one on Earth-616.

Spider-Man: No Way Home sees the MCU’s Peter Parker meet not just his own variants in the form of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Spider-Man, but also their various movie villains. While the film’s story provides these villains redemption arcs, things are a little trickier for Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn, who once again becomes the Green Goblin.

However, Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s ending does see the threat of Dafoe’s Green Goblin resolved. Norman’s sanity and thus control over himself are restored after he’s injected with the Anti-Goblin Serum creator in the final act of the movie, seemingly bringing this particular threat to an end.

While this may be the first and last time we see Green Goblin in the mainline MCU, it also exacerbated some hopes that the main MCU universe would get its own iteration of the antagonist. Indeed, the approach taken with this story does make one potential angle far more interesting for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and onward when it comes to the Green Goblin himself.

Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Story Justifies Peter Meeting The MCU’s Version Of Green Goblin

Spider-Man: No Way Home left Peter Parker in a unique position, both in that he lost all his civilian ties, and in that he has an awareness of who became villains in other universes. As such, if he did indeed end up hearing about or meeting Norman or Harry Osborn, it would make sense for him to take an interest in them to make sure his world doesn’t have its own Green Goblin unbeknownst to him.

With Peter Parker conventionally meeting Harry Osborn in college – which the MCU character is heading into now – it’s easy to see how he could meet the younger Osborn, and end up doing recon on him and his father. After Spider-Man: No Way Home proved the threat of the villain via Dafoe’s antagonist killing Aunt May, it seems impossible for the hero to ignore his universe’s variant.

This doesn’t necessarily have to mean Norman is Green Goblin already, and indeed an ironic twist of fate wherein Spider-Man checking he isn’t a villain creates his villain origin story could have a nice full-circle feeling to it. Whatever the case, this could further justify Peter specifically befriending Harry, while also setting up for a new villain.

Spider-Man checking in on his universe’s version of Green Goblin as a solo mission would also make a lot of sense given he’d no doubt find it essentially impossible to explain why he had concerns about Norman to other heroes. With The Punisher confirmed for Brand New Day, this feels doubly true, since it’s likely Castle would simply kill Norman.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Introducing Or Teasing The MCU’s Green Goblin Could Be Great For The MCU

The MCU has given Spider-Man plenty of interesting moments with villains. However, it’s also suffered from a common approach to the franchise’s antagonists, wherein Peter faces a villain who’s entirely dealt with by the end of the movie and who doesn’t get to crop up again as a more long-term threat or figure.

While the Green Goblin Spider-Man met is now dealt with and back in his home universe, playing on this story by raising the possibility of the main universe getting its own version does have natural potential. Indeed, this could easily be spun to be dramatic or more comedic, since Peter’s distrust of Norman would seem needlessly paranoid to anyone else.

Much in the way that finally bringing back the likes of the Scorpion could benefit the MCU by making its story feel more long-term and lived-in, even so much as teasing Earth-616’s Green Goblin could help the different chapters of Spider-Man’s story feel more tied together. Tying together the old Spider-Man trilogy to the new movies more also couldn’t hurt.

Keeping audiences unsure about whether this Norman Osborn will become an outright villain would have notable entertainment value, since even those with no prior knowledge of the franchise could easily get engrossed in Spider-Man trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. However, whether this becomes a part of Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s story will only be clear later down the line.