Although I do love me some Batman my favorite super hero has always been Spider-Man and with that I always tend to land on the side of Spider-Man when the who has the best rogues gallery arguement comes up.
Either way I figured to celebrate the awesomeness and depth of Spider-Man's rogue gallery I would do a count down of top 30 Spider-Man villains. The fact that 30 are being named puts him above most other heroes rogues gallery, seriously how man other heroes out there have enough villains that you can name 30 of them? Well ok Batman. Despite the fact that I am only naming 30 I had to wittle the list down from over 50 villains that I could think of but lets face it if I made a top 50 list there would be some real losers on there as well.
Honorable Mention, The Burglar:
Real Name: Unknown
First Appearance: Aug 1962's Amazing Fantasy Vol. 1 #15
About: There isn't much to this guy but I feel I have to put him on this list somewhere even if it is only a honorable mention. While not one of the most evil people Spidey has come up against or having any powers at all The Burglar has affected Spider-Man's life more than any other villain that he has come up against. The Burglar killed Peter's beloved Uncle Ben, thus instilling his Uncle's famous words of "With great power comes great responsibility" in him forever and creating your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
#30 Tarantula:
Real Name: Anton Miguel Rodriguez
First Appearance: April 1967's Ghost Rider #2
About: The Tarantula was originally created by the South American republic of Delvadia to be a counterpart for Captain America. He has finger claws and spike toes on his shoes built into his costume which are more often then not poisonous and is a rather skilled hand to hand combatant. Soon enough things would sour between The Tarantula and Delvadia and he left to New York to begin a criminal career where he has run into Spider-Man several times. For the most part he worked as a goon for hire but was a pretty pathetic one losing to a host of heroes like Captain America, The Punisher and of course Spider-Man time and time again.
#29 The Trapster:
Real Name: Peter Petruski
First Appearance: Jan 1963's Strange Tales #104
About: Trapster is a guy who invented a crazy glue gun which rivals Spider-Man's own webbing. While usually a Fantastic Four villain he has tangled with Spider-Man his fair share, pitting his paste against Spidey's webbing. Originally he went under the name of Paste-Pot Pete and although he quickly changed his name to The Trapster the Paste-Pot Pete name has stuck to him (no pun intended) and has become a point of mockery brought up by Spidey pretty much every time they face off much to the chagrin of Trapster.
#28 Kaine:
Real Name: Kaine (Clone of Peter Parker)
First Appearance: Dec 1994s Web Of Spider-Man #119
About: One of the few good things that the unfortunate clone saga brought us was Kaine. Kaine was the very first clone of Spider-Man as opposed to Ben Riley as most people thought. The Jackal however hated Kaine as he considered him a flawed and imperfect clone due to Kaine's quick degeneration process. Kaine's powers are also slightly different from Peters. Along with all of Peter's powers Kaine also has a much stronger spider-sense that actually gives him small glimpses into the near future. He is also much stronger then Peter. Kaine was also the man responsible for the death of Doctor Octopus, who pretty much returned from the dead half a year or so later. These days Kaine has completely reformed though and is the new Scarlet Spider.
#27 Vermin:
Real Name: Edward Whelan
First Appearance: August 1982's Captain America #272
About: Edward Whelan was a brilliant genetics researcher who worked as an assistant to Armin Zola (Nazi!), but when Whelan objected to use humans as test subjects Zola's employer, Baron Zemo (another Nazi!!) decided that Whelan would be the next test subject turning him into a cannibalistic rat-man who was dubbed Vermin, naturally. Vermin has for the most part not been that much of a threat he mostly keeps to himself in the sewers of New York however he will defend his territory at all costs. Once after burying Spider-Man alive, Kraven The Hunter, who had taken up Spider-Man's mantel decided to find a suitable foe to prove his superiority, hunted down and defeated Vermin. Soon after his defeat Kraven released Vermin who then nearly killed the real Spider-Man. Vermin's human personality was mostly lost in the experiment that created him and now although his humanity does briefly reappear from time to time he has more of a child like quality to his speech and how he feels about things.
#26 The Spot:
Real Name: Jonathan Ohnn
First Appearance: Dec 1984's Spectacular Spider-Man #97
About: As a former scientist for The Kingpin, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn experimented on Cloak's (of Cloak and Dagger fame) dark dimension which provided him with the ability to teleport by opening portals in space. Donning a horrible costume and dubbing himself The Spot he started a life a crime but his crimes were easily foiled by Spider-Man and The Black Cat. Spot although a brilliant scientist was never that good a villain even to the point where he teamed up with fellow crap villains Kangaroo, Gibbon and The Grizzly to from the appropriately named Legion of Losers, though it was Spider-Man who dubbed them this. Once again Spot along with his new cohorts were easily defeated by Spider-Man. Spot unlike the rest of those characters in The Legion Of Losers is the one with the most potential and has recently really stepped up his game in the last few years.
#25 Swarm:
Real Name: Fritz Von Meyer
First Appearance: July 1977's Champions #14
About: Swarm is a Nazi (Yes another Nazi!) scientist who's real name is Fritz Von Meyer, need I say more??? Ok so I'll say more but you have to admit that that was one hell of a lead off. I've always liked Swarm a lot even if he has never been that big of a villain. While studying killer bees (as if a Nazi would waste his time on any sort of non-killer bee) Fritz decided to try to control them via a psychic beam but was instead completely consumed by a maddened swarm but if there's one thing we've learned is that you just can't keep a good (bad) Nazi down and he somehow became the bees master in the process (comics everyone!) Not content to just steal money Swarm has much grander plans like the Nazi that he is he has tried to conquer the world on several occasions but is always stopped by Spider-Man who thinks of brilliant tactics in fighting a swarm of bees like covering his costume in raid and putting the stuff in his webbing to disrupt Fritz's psychic link with bees. God I love fictional Nazis!!!
#24 Mister Negative:
Real Name: Martin Li
First Appearance: Jan 2008s Amazing Spider-Man #546
About:The newest villain on my list. Of all of the new villains that came out of Brand New Day Mister Negative is the best. Mister negative is a mob boss with some neat powers, he can heal with his touch which is different for a villain but he also has mental control over others, super human strength and of course change his appearance to give himself the look of a negative photo. In one of the better cover ups for a mob boss Mister Negative runs a homeless shelter helping those on the streets in need and even cured a dying Eddie Brock of his cancer while giving him the power to become Anti-Venom at the same time which would be something that would come back to bite him in the backside more then once. Of all of the villains that were introduced in the Brand New Day storyline Mister Negative has the feel of a classic Spider-Man villain more then any of the others and that alone is reason enough o include him on my list.
#23 The Jackel:
Real Name: Miles Warren
First Appearance: Dec 1965s Amazing Spider-Man #31 as Warren, Feb 1974s Amazing Spider-Man #129
About: Although not one of the most threatening villains Spider-Man has ever face The Jackal has caused him more grief then nearly any other. The Jackal is the villain who is was mostly behind the entire clone saga since it was him or cloned Peter in the first place. He was thought dead for years but returned in the '90s to be a thorn in Spider-Man's side in very big way revealing to Spider-Man that he was actually the clone he had created years earlier and the person who was thought to be the clone now going under the name of Ben Riley was in fact the real Peter Parker. The stress of the situation was more then Spider-Man had ever gone through before and made him eventually pass the role of Spider-Man on to Ben Riley since both believed only the real Peter Parker, which at that time was thought to be Ben, should be Spider-Man. The Jackal was eventually killed but his legacy lived on with the new Spider-Man. Eventually of course it was revealed that Ben was the clone all along and was then killed by the returning original Green Goblin, Norman Osbourn, who was revealed to be the mastermind behind the whole clone saga. God that storyline sucked! So yeah The Jackal, not so much a threat himself but lots and lots of grief, and lost Spidey fans, came with him. Oh yeah and it turns out he wasn't killed off with him returning yet again during last years Spider Island in which he infected everyone in New York with Peter's spider powers.
#22 Hydroman:
Real Name: Morris "Morrie" Bench
First Appearance: Jan 1981s Amazing Spider-Man #212
About: Here's a guy who has all the potential in the world to be one of Marvels most powerful villains, I mean he can turn into and to a small extent control water for petes sake, but due to his own short sidedness, ego and obsession with taking out Spider-Man among other small beans things is little more then a second stringer above the likes of The Kangaroo and The Gibbon, but way out of the league of guys like Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom or even The Vulture. Instead Hydro-Man seems content with his crappyness when he is just one big move from taking that next step. Alas though that seems like its out of Hydro-Man's reach as he has no sense of judgment and focuses solely on killing Spider-Man, and poorly at that.
#21 Hammerhead:
Real Name: Unknown
First Appearance: Oct 1972s Amazing Spider-Man #113
About: On paper Hammerhead is a mostly lame villain. He's a 1920's-30's style gangster with a baby blue pinstriped suit and a head made of adamantium that he uses to ram people with as though he were a common billy goat or a lamer version of The Rhino. But once again lame premise or not Hammerhead is a character who has worked time and time again for Spider-Man sure hes only a C grade Spider-Man villain who has never had a definitive story, the closest being a couple issue story arch that just came out last year that revamped the character, but hes still a fun character that's always fun to see pop up every now and again.
Well that will do it for part one of this three part series on My Top 30 Spider-Man Villain's be sure to come back again in the next few days for Part 2 which will feature #20-11 and feature a lot more of Spider-Man's bigger villains.
I would love to see more of Vermin. Has a lot of potential.
ReplyDeletevery cool man! Truth be told I haven't heard of most of these guys, but they sound pretty sweet... Mr Negative seems kinda cool
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