How Every Villain In Maguire"s Spider-Man Trilogy Discovered His Identity

Spider-Man is one of those superheroes who do his best to keep his identity a secret for the safety of his loved ones, but in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, the villains that Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man came across ended up discovering his identity in different ways. After a long process with a lot of obstacles, Spider-Man finally made his big screen debut in 2002 in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, which explored the character’s origin story and saw him battle his very first enemy: Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), who the audience saw become the Green Goblin after an experiment went terribly wrong.
The success of Spider-Man made way for Spider-Man 2, one of the best superhero movies ever made. In it, Spider-Man faced Doctor Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who after an accident during his latest project, ended up becoming the villain Doctor Octopus. Meanwhile, Peter’s best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) started his own villainous path, which reached its peak in Spider-Man 3. Along with Harry, Spider-Man 3 also saw the arrival of villains Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), who bonded with the Venom symbiote, and just like the Green Goblin and Doc Ock, they all learned Spider-Man’s identity, as he either unmasked himself or they were simply at the right place at the right time for the big reveal. Here’s how every villain in Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy discovered his identity.
Norman Osborn/Green Goblin Norman Osborn was the father of Peter’s best friend, Harry, and he was a scientist and the founder and owner of Oscorp, a multi billion-dollar multinational corporation. Norman wanted to secure an important military contract, so he experimented on himself with a performance-enhancing chemical that was actually quite unstable, and the experiment didn’t go well. The experiment killed Norman’s assistant and made him go insane, developing a villainous alter ego that became known as the Green Goblin. After killing the members of Oscorp’s board, the Green Goblin offered Spider-Man to join his side, but as the latter refused, their rivalry began. In one of their fights, the Green Goblin slashed Spider-Man’s arm, and that seemingly unimportant wound gave his identity away.
After their fight, Peter returned home for Thanksgiving dinner with Aunt May, who invited Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), Harry, and Norman. During dinner, Aunt May pointed out that Peter’s arm was bleeding, with Peter saying that he “stepped off a curb and got clipped by one of those bike messengers”. Norman immediately recognized the wound and left, but the Green Goblin used this new discovery to target Spider-Man, realizing that the only way to defeat him was by attacking his loved ones. In the original timeline (that is, not the one that continued in Spider-Man: No Way Home), the Green Goblin was impaled by his glider, and Spider-Man took his body to the Osborn house, where Harry saw him.
Doctor Octopus Spider-Man 2 introduced Doctor Otto Octavius, a nuclear scientist working on behalf of Oscorp and Peter’s role model. Oscorp, now led by Harry, was financing Octavius’ fusion power project, but a public demonstration went horribly wrong. In order to handle hazardous materials, Octavius wore a harness of robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence, but a power spike caused the fusion reactor to destabilize, and as Octavius refused to shut it down, it killed his wife and burned the inhibitor chip that blocked the arms from his nervous system, thus now granting them control of Octavius, who decided to re-try the experiment. The now-called “Doctor Octopus” needed the isotope tritium to fuel his reactor, so he made a deal with Harry: he would give him the tritium, and Doc Ock would give Harry Spider-Man.
In order to push Peter to reveal Spider-Man’s identity, Doc Ock kidnapped Mary Jane and took her to his lair. Once there, Spider-Man unmasked himself in front of Doc Ock to persuade him to stop the nuclear reactor, which was putting the whole city in danger. In a moment of full consciousness, Octavius commanded the tentacles to obey him and chose to sacrifice him in order to destroy the reactor, while Spider-Man saved Mary Jane, who at that moment also learned his true identity.
Harry Osborn/New Goblin As Harry saw Spider-Man leave Norman’s dead body at his house, he blamed the web-slinger for his father’s death and swore vengeance against him. Harry actually learned Spider-Man’s identity before his transformation into a villain, as it happened in Spider-Man 2 and he became the New Goblin in Spider-Man 3. Doctor Octopus fulfilled his part of the plan with Harry and delivered him an unconscious Spider-Man, who Harry unmasked before killing him as he had planned, but was truly shocked to see that his best friend was behind the mask.
At the end of Spider-Man 2, Harry found his father’s Green Goblin equipment and became New Goblin in Spider-Man 3, where he fought Spider-Man, but their first fight gave Harry partial amnesia. Harry eventually recovered and continued messing with Peter, but after his butler revealed to him that Spider-Man wasn’t Norman’s murderer and his father was actually impaled by his own glider, Harry joined Spider-Man’s fight against Venom and sacrificed himself to save Peter and MJ.


[圖擷取自網路，如有疑問請私訊]