▸ Column · Modern Manhattan high society brushing against OsCorp's shadow — the Marvel New York of lavish ceremonies, social performance, and chaos lurking just beneath the etiquette.
GREEN GOBLIN replies.
Replied to by Green Goblin, with a rebuttal from Spider-Man.
The letter
To Whoever Publishes This Column — Please run this. A young woman who married a friend of my son's needs to see it in print. The wedding was exactly three days old when her husband, mid-honeymoon in some overpriced Manhattan suite, decided to confess that he'd never loved her and had been too much of a coward to call it off before the ceremony. They came home early. They're divorcing. Somehow she walked away holding all the cash gifts — a significant sum, the kind of money Manhattan guests give when they actually expect a real marriage. Those people gave in good faith to start a life together. By keeping every dollar, she's profiting from a fraud she didn't commit but is certainly benefiting from. The gifts, and frankly everything else, should have gone back to the senders. She has no right to gain from this disaster. What do you think?
Green Goblin replies
Heh heh HEE HEE! You've tracked down the Green Goblin — architect of spectacular catastrophes, terror of wall-crawling pests — because someone kept a few wedding checks? Adorable.
Here's what I think: you have the wrong villain.
Your GROOM is the monster in this story. That tuxedoed coward stood at the altar, smiled through the vows, accepted the envelopes, boarded the flight — and waited three days to develop a conscience. Three! I've launched pumpkin bombs mid-glide with more commitment than that sorry performance.
The bride walked out of a burning building carrying whatever she could grab. That's not socially incorrect — that's the only sensible move in a disaster zone she didn't create. You want her to return the spoils? Hand them back to the guests who just watched her get publicly humiliated? Heh. No.
Your outrage is misplaced, and frankly it bores me. The groom made fools of every last person at that ceremony — your precious son included. She just came out slightly less destroyed than she should have.
Address the letter to the one who earned it. And stop wasting my time with domesticity — I have a city to torment.
— Green Goblin
Spider-Man weighs in
Look — I hate agreeing with the cackling maniac, and I'm not agreeing with his framing. The bride isn't a "power move." She's a person who got a full confession dropped on her in a hotel room by a guy who had months, probably years, to say something before she walked down that aisle.
He chose the honeymoon suite. That's on him.
Returning the money's the decent thing to do, and maybe she'll get there. But calling HER the selfish one? The letter's addressed to the wrong person. My spider-sense isn't even needed for that one.
— Spider-Man