Jason Macendale - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Jason Philip Macendale was a former CIA agent who was recruited out of college to become an agent for the organization. Unfortunately, Macendale quickly proved himself to be a liability to the organization, due to his violent nature and amoral personality. This rejection turned Macendale to crime, as his anger at the US government for firing him as a covert agent led to him becoming a mercenary and ultimately a costumed terrorist, as he adopted the costumed alter ego of Jack O'Lantern.

The character debuted as a villain in the pages of Machine Man volume 1 #19, before becoming a regular nemesis for Spider-Man, meeting him in battle the first time in Spectacular Spider-Man #56. The character became entangled within the story of the mystery of who was Hobgoblin, having been hired to retrieve the villain's lost battle van.

Wishing to increase his underworld status, Macendale formed an alliance with the villain, who at this time was using brainwashed journalist Ned Leeds as a proxy to ensure that no one would know that the villainous Hobgoblin was really fashion designer Roderick Kingsley. The two worked together, but the brainwashing treatments used on Ned Leeds to make him Hobgoblin began to affect the writer's sanity, ultimately leading to him doublecrossing Macendale to try to kill Spider-Man when the two were in the middle of a desperate chase across the city to evade arrest by a horde of police officers.

Macendale vowed revenge against Ned Leeds, ultimately arranging for his murder via agents of the super-assassin known only as the Foreigner. Upon killing Leeds, all known copies of the Hobgoblin's weapons and costumes were handed over to Macendale, who took over the identity in order to steal Ned's "notoriety" within the supervillain community.

Sadly Macendale's scheme was foiled by his own arrogance: not only was he exposed as the new Hobgoblin, but he lost several major battles against Spider-Man. This made Macendale a laughing stock in the supervillain community, who by this point knew of how he gained the costumed identity by way of murder.

His ultimate humiliation came when he attempted to steal the Green Goblin's secret formula for superhuman strength, resulting in a confrontation between himself and Harry Osborn, who donned his father's Green Goblin costume to defeat him. Although Harry's reluctance to return to the Goblin identity hampered his performance at first, he was able to trick Macendale by doubling back around a building during a chase and emptying his bag of pumpkin bombs onto his foe. When Osborn pointed out that he would have used the strength-enhancing formula against Macendale if he had access to it, Macendale fled in rage and disgrace.

Said battle with Harry Osborn came just as the events of the Marvel crossover Inferno began to unfold, as demons invaded New York City. Dejected and humiliated, Macendale foolishly offered to sell his soul to N'astirh in exchange for the power of a demon. N'astirh refuses the offer, considering Macendale's wretched soul to be worthless to him. However, in return for amusing the demon's twisted sense of humor, N'astirh fused a demon to Macendale anyway, just for making him laugh. Enhanced by the demon's power, Macendale would return to battle Spider-Man once again, nearly killing the web-slinger until he was saved by the intervention of Mary Jane Watson.

As an independent mercenary and criminal, Macendale would clash with many other heroes, including Ghost Rider, Sleepwalker, Doctor Strange, and Darkhawk. He would also join two reformed incarnations of the Sinister Six.

Eventually, Macendale's personality was overcome by the insane demon who shared his body, a condition made worse by Macendale's vanity; a side-effect of being bonded with a demon was that the villain's handsome facial features had been twisted into an exact replica of his Hobgoblin mask. To cope with his now inhuman appearance, Macendale began to consider himself an agent of God sent to Earth to kill sinners. This led him into conflict with Ghost Riders Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze and Spider-Man; during the battle, a blast from Johnny Blaze's "Hellfire Shotgun" destabilized the demon within Macendale, long enough for him to briefly regain his sanity.

During a later four-way fight between Macendale, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, and Doctor Strange, the heroes realized that Macendale's insanity was partly caused by despair over losing his handsome face. To try to calm the monsterous man/demon, Doctor Strange agreed to cast an illusion spell upon Macendale that caused Macendale to see his true face in reflections of himself. This helped Macendale enough that he was ultimately able to expel the demon from within himself, with the demon referring to itself as the Demogoblin. As Hobgoblin, Macendale was stiff-armed by Doctor Octopus into joining the 2nd incarnation of the group the Sinister Six, which twice tried to take over the world, failing due to counter measures by Spider-Man, the Hulk, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four, and many more heroes. In a rare event, Macendale teamed up with Spider-Man to defeat the duo of Demogoblin and Doppelganger.

By this point, Macendale was desperate to regain his standing as a villain and attempted to assassinate Moon Knight and Nick Katzenberg on orders by the Foreigner, only to be stopped by both Moon Knight and Spider-Man. Coincidentally, Spider-Man turned him over to the authorities.

Once more powerless, Macendale would return and obtain the strength formula of Kraven the Hunter, which enables him to easily defeat his demonic doppelganger, Demogoblin, before Demogoblin ultimately died saving a young child in battle.

Macendale was defeated once more by Spider-Man along with Coldheart, during an attempt to kidnap Jason's long-lost son. However, Macendale's reunion would be an unhappy one as Macendale attempted (unsuccessfully) to use his son as a hostage to avoid going back to jail. He would remain in jail for some time before being freed by Gaunt, sending him into combat against Ben Reilly. In exchange for doing Gaunt's bidding, the scientist turned Macendale into a cyborg, complete with removal of one of Macendale's eyes with a new high-tech cyborgnetic eye. He failed however and was once again arrested.

It was at this point, that a tired and annoyed Jason Macendale went on trial for his many crimes. Found guilty on several counts, including convictions for acts caused by both the Roderick and Leeds Hobgoblins, a disgusted Macendale responded by revealing that Ned Leeds "was" Hobgoblin. This caused Roderick Kingsley, fearful that Ned Leeds being outed as Hobgoblin would expose him being the brainwashed pawn of the real Hobgoblin (Kingsley), to break into the prison holding Macendale and to execute him. Firing a blast of pure energy from one of his gloved gauntlets, Kingsley mocked Macendale's failures as a villain before atomizing him.