History Headscratchers / SpiderMan1

** Maybe he requested to be anonymous at first.

** Maybe Norman was planning to talk a new board out of it, or perhaps not so subtly threaten them.

** Most likely. Peter was so socially awkward and lacked so much self-confidence as his normal self that he probably saw himself as a complete nobody towards Mary Jane. At most someone she knows, but that's about it. And when you lack confidence in yourself to that extent, you often times also manage to convince yourself that that's just how it is, and the world around you is like it too. Which often times causes you to not realize how obvious your feelings towards a girl/guy actually are to those around you. You assume that because you feel detached from that person yourself, people around you won't attach you and them together either, even in terms of noticing you like them. To put it simply, Peter probably assumed that no one actually realized Because in his head, he was the last person anyone would even think to associate with MJ.

* Additionally, Norman walking out is immediately followed by a tense argument between him and Harry regarding Mary Jane, which may have seemed more important to him. The focus, as it were, would be less "hmm, Norman just left suspiciously after seeing the wound the Green Goblin gave me" and more "my best friend's dad called the girl I'm crushing on a gold digger, my best friend apparently thinks that's not important because he has an apparent raging inferiority complex and really low self-esteem, and then they all walked out on Thanksgiving." The whole "balancing my personal life and being Spider-Man" thing is somewhat of a theme.

** The big celebration earlier in the film may have been intended to be followed up with fireworks, which are generally shot off over the harbor in NYC. Possibly the Goblin's attack on the event led to the fireworks show being postponed to a later night, and the children (who were dressed like a kiddie sports team, not Girl Scouts) were taking the skyway to have a good view? That would also explain why so many pedestrians were on the bridge at that hour, to throw things at the Goblin: they'd come to watch the show from the bridge.

** Peter is an orphan and a teenager - possibly even a minor, if he's ever skipped a grade - and Ben's death left Aunt May as his only guardian. The Goblin can't mess with Peter if winds up living out-of-state with some distant cousin's family.

** Peter is an orphan and a minor, and Ben's death left Aunt May as his only guardian. The Goblin can't mess with Peter if he's sent out-of-state to live with some distant cousin's family.

* Spider-Man's origin story. Originally it was a radioactive spider-bite, which makes no sense but at least this explains why it doesn't happen again, because it was a freak accident and the spider probably died from the radiation shortly afterward. But the movies changed it to a "genetically-engineered" spider. This means that someone or someones ''designed'' that spider to give superpowers. Surely this plot point should have come up again? Maybe one of the scientists that worked on the spider gets a little suspicious once a spider-powered superhero starts making headlines? Tries to duplicate the results? No?

* In the climax of the first movie, what the hell are girl scouts doing on a field trip to Roosevelt Island at one o'clock in the morning?

** It's been a while since I saw the movie, but did Harry know that Norman was the Green Goblin in this movie? Or was it only at the end of Spider-Man 2 when he found out? If not, he probably assumed Spider-Man stabbed him. As for why he'd assume Spider-Man would do that, well he woke up to find his father dead. I doubt he's going to think 100% rationally.

*** Except that there's no motive, and also no precedent for thinking that Spider-man is a murderer, even with JJ's exaggerated libel. Harry didn't know yet that his father was the Goblin, so if spider-man is the murderer, it would appear that he just randomly murdered Norman for no reason whatsoever, when he has never demonstrated that tendency in the past. It would make much more sense for Harry to conclude that Spider-man just "knows something" about Norman's death that he's hiding or at worst that spider-man was indirectly responsible for his death in some way (like maybe Norman was a bystander caught in one of Spidey's battles), rather than jumping straight to the conclusion that spider-man committed murder.

* How wasn't Harry killed when the disintegrating pumpkin bomb killed the board of directors.

** I thought he just hit the board hard enough to knock himself out. Not particularly consistent with later power levels but justified by RuleOfFunny.

* How come Peter never suspected that Norman was the Goblin after the latter saw that "bike messenger" wound and left in a hurry? Especially since this is, in-universe, some hours before Goblin terrorizes Aunt May and makes the enmity personal. Unless ClarkKenting is in full force here (which it could be, as unlike the Goblin, Spidey doesn't change his voice at all when in costume), it's surreal that nobody, especially Peter, never put the two together.