He uses some of Osborn's files to blackmail prominent figures, and attempts to buy Osborn's old corporation Oscorp and merge it with his own. These schemes bring him into conflict with Spider-Man. Among Osborn's notes, Kingsley also finds incomplete remnants of Mendel Stromm's strength enhancing potion and was obsessed with finding the complete formula or perfecting the incomplete notes. During his various criminal activities, Kingsley repeatedly loses to Spider-Man, as he lacked raw physical power. Kingsley eventually perfected the strength-enhancing formula, but, aware that Osborn was driven insane, Kingsley opts to test on someone else first, tricking small-time hood Lefty Donovan after using a mind-control device developed by Gerhard Winkler (Osborn's former employee). With Donovan having administered the Goblin formula and then in the Hobgoblin costume to fight Spider-Man, Kingsley monitored his pawn's vital signs and behavior from a distance. When Spider-Man overwhelms and unmasks Donovan and the brainwashing begins to fail, Kingsley acts to protect his identity by programming Donovan's glider to crash into a building, instantly killing Donovan. Judging the experiment a success, Kingsley immerses himself in his completed formula derivative and gains greater strength than the original Goblin. He uses this strength to battle Spider-Man and the Black Cat. Despite his increased abilities, he is still narrowly defeated by Spider-Man. Worse, he attracts the attention of powerful criminal interests who perceive him as a threat, including the Kingpin. It is also revealed later that during this time, after the Hobgoblin made his appearance, Norman (presumed to be dead at the time) made a brief return to New York City in an attempt to deal with this Goblin, but ultimately abandoned this for the sake of schemes against Spider-Man. After a bitter encounter with Spider-Man, Kingsley discovers he had been followed by Daily Bugle reporter Ned Leeds having discovered his lair. Kingsley captured Leeds and brainwashes the reporter with Winkler's device into being the Hobgoblin. Kingsley discovered that Leeds had been working with Richard Fisk on a plan to bring down the Kingpin's empire as Richard adopted the Rose crime lord identity, using Leeds to handle some negotiations, and fooling many criminals into believing that his pawn was the Hobgoblin and hoping to use the Kingpin's downfall to advance his own interests. As Leeds gets too erratic to function as a decoy, Kingsley arranged for Leeds to be assassinated by Jason Macendale and the Foreigner while on a