It’s hard to say for certain, honestly. I started reading in a world in which the original Green Goblin was already dead, and that lent the character a certain stature–I didn’t miss him especially because he had always been dead as far as I was concerned as a reader, and I had the replacement Goblins such as Harry or Bart Hamilton to fill that slot. So, to me at least, it was a perfectly acceptable move. But to a reader who had been reading since the 60s, I don’t know if they would feel quite the same. Certainly there were a lot of readers who were wildly upset that Gwen had been killed off, and the Goblin’s death was a part of that.
I started reading ASM with #93, just a few issues after Cap. Stacy’s death (French translations were lagging 6 years behind at the time on this series), so for me the death of major supporting characters was part of the DNA of the series.
I wasn’t happy about Gwen’s death (even as a 10 years old kid, I felt this was a cop-out to get rid of a character who knew Peter’s secret and who’s next logical step would have been to get even closer to him), but the Goblin’s death felt right to me in its poetic justice. Peter doesn’t kill him, he ends up crucified by his own glider, and it doesn’t solve anything.
