Do Spider-Man's villains suck?

[The Overlord]

Whatever order you put them in, it's Spider-Man, Batman, Flash and Fantastic Four in the top 4.

When thinking about the great rogue galleries, people tend to forget that The Fantastic Four has Dr. Doom, Galactus, The Skrulls, The Super Skrull, Annihilus, Psycho-Man, Molecule Man, Hate Monger, Mole Man, The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, Puppet Master, Red Ghost and his Super Apes, The Frightful Four, and even Namor could be thought of as a FF villain. That's quite the line-up of heavy hitters. That's a group of villains that, by and large, will wipe the floor with most heroes or teams of heroes.

I think the Frightful Four are garbage villains (how are Wizard or Trapster even remotely compelling and they do not seem in the FF's league unless the writers are dumbing down the FF to make this work), Red Ghost seems like an outdated Cold war relic, Mad Thinker and Mole Man are wasted potential, you can't just name a rogues gallery and say they are great, you have to back up that claim. Frankly I think the FF's rogues gallery needs a massive revamp and to me a powerful villain is not as important as a interesting, a villain with a dull personality who can beat a bunch of heroes, is still a dull villain. Doomsday can defeat most heroes, he is still just a plot device, not a character.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Whatever order you put them in, it's Spider-Man, Batman, Flash and Fantastic Four in the top 4.

When thinking about the great rogue galleries, people tend to forget that The Fantastic Four has Dr. Doom, Galactus, The Skrulls, The Super Skrull, Annihilus, Psycho-Man, Molecule Man, Hate Monger, Mole Man, The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, Puppet Master, Red Ghost and his Super Apes, The Frightful Four, and even Namor could be thought of as a FF villain. That's quite the line-up of heavy hitters. That's a group of villains that, by and large, will wipe the floor with most heroes or teams of heroes.

I agree with this. The Fantastic Four have the best rogues in the Marvel Universe. And definitely better than Spider-Man's.

As a rule, DC has better villains than Marvel does. Like consider Vandal Savage, Dr. Destiny, AMAZO, Starro, Chronos the Time-Thief, Grodd, Deathstroke, Sinestro, Darkseid. But Fantastic Four alone allow Marvel to catch up.

And Superman would probably be third. Or maybe the X-Men?

Superman historically has always bad a weak rogues gallery. Originally Siegel and Shuster since they more or less were inventing the superhero genre had Superman (not yet capable of flight) fight ordinary bad guys, and so on. Lex Luthor was just some red-headed thug, and then he got accidentally bald in a printing error and the version of Lex you have now was created later and modeled on Dr. Sivana over at Fawcett's Captain Marvel (now Shazam). As Neil Gaiman said: "Compared to most A-list comic characters, he has almost no memorable villains. Think of Batman, locked in eternal combat with nocturnal freaks like the Joker – or Spider-Man, battling megalomaniacal weirdos like Dr. Octopus. For Superman, there’s pretty much only bitter, bald Lex Luthor, forever being reinvented by writers and artists in an effort to make him a worthy foe. Superman’s true enemies are disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, jet planes tumbling from the sky, enormous meteors that would crush cities. Superman stands between humanity and a capricious universe." (https://www.wired.com/2006/06/myth/)

My favorite Superman bad guys are Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzsptlk. The latter especially is a really unique kind of villain. To me those two are his greatest villains but they also take Superman to a higher dimension and plain and away from the Clark Kent side of things. So while they are better than Luthor, you get to see Superman/Clark Kent more in action when he's dealing with Lex than with them. And Superman simply doesn't work without Clark Kent. The X-Men have interesting villains: Magneto, Apocalypse, Juggernaut, the Hellfire Club, Mr. Sinister (Jackal isn't fit to shine his shoes), the Sentinels, William Stryker, Phoenix, Mystique, Sabertooth among others. Although a movie like LOGAN works without any real special villains. And the mutant/discrimination theme works without there really needing a bad guy. So there you have a case where you have great villains and the issues on how they fit in the fabric of the general story and concept of the heroes.

In general, I think the two greatest villains in comics are The Joker and Dr. Doom. Dr. Strange also has quite an underrated bunch of villains: Dormammu, Nightmare, Shuma-Gorath. Nightmare tussled with Ultimate Spider-Man and that was great. Iron Man has maybe the worst rogues for any major superhero.

Spider-Man's rogues is better than average. But they aren't as good as it should be or could be, and there's still some issues with how they cohere.

[The Overlord]

I agree with this. The Fantastic Four have the best rogues in the Marvel Universe. And definitely better than Spider-Man's.

As a rule, DC has better villains than Marvel does. Like consider Vandal Savage, Dr. Destiny, AMAZO, Starro, Chronos the Time-Thief, Grodd, Deathstroke, Sinestro, Darkseid. But Fantastic Four alone allow Marvel to catch up.



Superman historically has always bad a weak rogues gallery. Originally Siegel and Shuster since they more or less were inventing the superhero genre had Superman (not yet capable of flight) fight ordinary bad guys, and so on. Lex Luthor was just some red-headed thug, and then he got accidentally bald in a printing error and the version of Lex you have now was created later and modeled on Dr. Sivana over at Fawcett's Captain Marvel (now Shazam). As Neil Gaiman said: "Compared to most A-list comic characters, he has almost no memorable villains. Think of Batman, locked in eternal combat with nocturnal freaks like the Joker – or Spider-Man, battling megalomaniacal weirdos like Dr. Octopus. For Superman, there’s pretty much only bitter, bald Lex Luthor, forever being reinvented by writers and artists in an effort to make him a worthy foe. Superman’s true enemies are disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, jet planes tumbling from the sky, enormous meteors that would crush cities. Superman stands between humanity and a capricious universe." (https://www.wired.com/2006/06/myth/)

My favorite Superman bad guys are Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzsptlk. The latter especially is a really unique kind of villain. To me those two are his greatest villains but they also take Superman to a higher dimension and plain and away from the Clark Kent side of things. So while they are better than Luthor, you get to see Superman/Clark Kent more in action when he's dealing with Lex than with them. And Superman simply doesn't work without Clark Kent. The X-Men have interesting villains: Magneto, Apocalypse, Juggernaut, the Hellfire Club, Mr. Sinister (Jackal isn't fit to shine his shoes), the Sentinels, William Stryker, Phoenix, Mystique, Sabertooth among others. Although a movie like LOGAN works without any real special villains. And the mutant/discrimination theme works without there really needing a bad guy. So there you have a case where you have great villains and the issues on how they fit in the fabric of the general story and concept of the heroes.

In general, I think the two greatest villains in comics are The Joker and Dr. Doom. Dr. Strange also has quite an underrated bunch of villains: Dormammu, Nightmare, Shuma-Gorath. Nightmare tussled with Ultimate Spider-Man and that was great. Iron Man has maybe the worst rogues for any major superhero.

Spider-Man's rogues is better than average. But they aren't as good as it should be or could be, and there's still some issues with how they cohere.

I disagree, I like Spidey's villains better then the FF on average.

FF has Doom, Galactus and then you start getting into some dregs. Mad Thinker is a cool concept that is hardly ever used well, Red Ghost is a Cold War relic and Wizard and Trapster are garbage characters.

The FF had Doom, but Spidey has a much better selection of compelling villains then the FF.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I disagree, I like Spidey's villains better then the FF on average.

FF has Doom, Galactus and then you start getting into some dregs. Mad Thinker is a cool concept that is hardly ever used well, Red Ghost is a Cold War relic and Wizard and Trapster are garbage characters.

The FF had Doom, but Spidey has a much better selection of compelling villains then the FF.

The Puppetmaster is great. A really underrated and unique villain, that secretly I think should be transplanted to Spider-Man for a few stories because I think he'd be a good match for someone like him. Mole Man is pretty cool and interesting and he shows up in Renew Your Vows (which actually has Spider-Man going against Marvel-wide rogues and outside his traditional wheelhouse. For instance, Mr. Sinister shows up). Then Annihilus, lord of the Negative Zone. And you have Namor who in two issues goes from random hobo that Johnny Storm runs into and then turns out to be ruler of Atlantis.

But you know Dr. Doom himself is better than every single Spider-Man rogue combined. So all you need is one.

It's generally true what the OP says that Spider-Man's rogues generally stand apart from his stories and are not very well connected to the themes and overarching story. Guys like Kraven and others give Spider-Man trouble when he has fought off Juggernaut and Firelord, and survived the Hulk and in that one JMS issue, Peter hints to MJ that he could take out the Hulk if it came down to it. And Wolverine and others take out minor rogues like them with no problem. But that to me is the problem of editorial and others not properly controlling the borders. For me this is not a bug, it's a feature. At the end of the day, the story is about Peter Parker and his supporting cast and his W/L balance. The supervillains and others are complications on top of this but it's not at the heart of what the stories are about. The Fantastic Four need a rich rogues gallery because by themselves they are fairly bland, or rather Reed and Sue Richards are really bland. The Thing and Johnny Storm are cool and fun, and they make you care for the FF and even then Johnny Storm is a far more interesting character as a supporting member to Spider-Man than in the FF. So the FF as a story depends on the villains and others responding to the FF, challenging them, and so on.

[Chubistian]

Spider-Man's rogues gallery is one of the best. It has so many classic villains, but it's also open to receive new ones. Also, when good writers really want to, they can surprise you by showing how much of a threat one of those villains can be, and not being PIS. Wolfman's short sting in ASM is a clear example, depicting one of the most effective plots created by Mysterio. The dude even left Spider-Man to drown in a pool, and after he managed to save himself at last minute, almost dying drowned, he discovered that even the water was an hallucination! That's what I call a real badass. He did another amazing plot in Kevin Smith's debut (and only?) arc on Marvel Knights Daredevil: Devil Guardian.

Another great example would be the treatment Kraven and Harry received thanks to J.M Dematteis, or Norman Osborn and his continuing reinterpretations. Depth, presenting a big threat or both, Spider-Man's rogues gallery can, and had, accomplished those things over and over

[SpiderClops]

I cannot believe someone, a Spider-Man fan at that, on Spider-Man sub-forum no less, made this thread. I mean, seriously?!

[Frontier]

Whatever order you put them in, it's Spider-Man, Batman, Flash and Fantastic Four in the top 4.

When thinking about the great rogue galleries, people tend to forget that The Fantastic Four has Dr. Doom, Galactus, The Skrulls, The Super Skrull, Annihilus, Psycho-Man, Molecule Man, Hate Monger, Mole Man, The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, Puppet Master, Red Ghost and his Super Apes, The Frightful Four, and even Namor could be thought of as a FF villain. That's quite the line-up of heavy hitters. That's a group of villains that, by and large, will wipe the floor with most heroes or teams of heroes.

I think Luthor, Zod, and Brainaic alone put's Superman at the top four bar none.

Like, past the Joker Luthor is probably one of the most iconic and famous Supervillains in comics.

[SpideyCeo]

Spider-Man has, arguably, the best rogue gallery in comics.

At the very least, they're in a very tight race with Batman, The Flash and the FF's rogues.

Who the hell would ever ask if they suck? 'Cause clearly they don't.

I disagree, Batman villains are beyond Peter in terms of threat competence and sheer charm, Peters villains are bland and bitter old men who have no staying power unless they fit the badass mold like venom, carnage and kingpin.

I simply don't take any of Spidey adversaries seriously because they have a horrible record of being linked by other heroes villains and written as bland idiots who have no idea who to do crime or get popular as villains without Spidey. The only real good villains are the ones who are Peters intellectual and physical equal.

[SpideyCeo]

Ask almost anyone and they would probably agree Spider-Man has the second best rogues gallery, just behind Batman. They may not get as many in-depth and complex stories told about them in comparison, but they all get their highlight moments that make them stand out, and are just really memorable in general thanks to their designs and personality.

I thought Spidey was third behing Batman and x-men. People only like the badasses of the Spidey villains, the ones that are as smart or strong as Spidey.

[SpideyCeo]

Spider-Man's rogues gallery is one of the best. It has so many classic villains, but it's also open to receive new ones. Also, when good writers really want to, they can surprise you by showing how much of a threat one of those villains can be, and not being PIS. Wolfman's short sting in ASM is a clear example, depicting one of the most effective plots created by Mysterio. The dude even left Spider-Man to drown in a pool, and after he managed to save himself at last minute, almost dying drowned, he discovered that even the water was an hallucination! That's what I call a real badass. He did another amazing plot in Kevin Smith's debut (and only?) arc on Marvel Knights Daredevil: Devil Guardian.

Another great example would be the treatment Kraven and Harry received thanks to J.M Dematteis, or Norman Osborn and his continuing reinterpretations. Depth, presenting a big threat or both, Spider-Man's rogues gallery can, and had, accomplished those things over and over

Only three are arguably as famous as the top 6 Batman and superman villains. Joker, Two face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Clayface, and Ras Am Ghoul or Bane. Lex for Superman.

Outside of Norman Osborn, Venom and Ock, the rest of Peters rough gallery are basically cited as boring versions of Batmans with silly costumes and are not as famous.

[Vegeta]

I thought Spidey was third behing Batman and x-men. People only like the badasses of the Spidey villains, the ones that are as smart or strong.

Eh, most of the X-Men villains are considered heroes now. Hard to have the best rogues gallery when 90% of them have reformed.

[SpideyCeo]

Eh, most of the X-Men villains are considered heroes now. Hard to have the best rogues gallery when 90% of them have reformed.

You could say the same for spider-mans, the only villains that stay evil despite being popular as Peters are Norman and Cassidy. The others are too generic and dumb to have the ability to commit any wide scale problems for Peter without heavy cis. Like Chameleon, Kraven or the Negative Man.

[Chubistian]

Only three are arguably as famous as the top 6 Batman and superman villains. Joker, Two face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Clayface, and Ras Am Ghoul or Bane. Lex for Superman.

Outside of Norman Osborn, Venom and Ock, the rest of Peters rough gallery are basically cited as boring versions of Batmans with silly costumes and are not as famous.

Cited as boring versions of Batmans silly costumes by whom? Batman rogue gallery might be the most popular one, but Spiderman’s doesn’t have anything to envy to Superman’s. As much as I like some of Superman’s villains, Lex Luthor is the only one I have seen that is very popular outside comics. Zod would be the next one and he’s miles away from Lex. How many Superman villains have hit the big screen? As far as we know, maybe Spider-Man’s villains are more popular, taking into account how many movies, videogames and tv shows he has had and how frequently this have been

[Agent Z]

I fail to see what is complex about Batman villains. Most of these guys are outdated caricatures of mental illness. Some of Spider-Man's villains by comparison actually feel like, you know, people.

In theory, yes, but man sometimes the writers just write these characters to fit whatever story the writer has this week, rather than crafting a story for these characters.

Shocker is a good example of this, people say Shocker is the most rational of the Spidey villains, yet one of his big stories is one where he tried to kill 12 innocent people because some psychopathic crime boss paid him to? So does his rationality reflect any sort of real moral compass or is pure pragmatism on behalf of an amoral psychopath who would commit any crime, no matter how vile, for profit? I'm not the writers have even given this question any deep consideration.

It would also be nice if they gave Shocker a motive for using his scientific skills for crime, rather then using them money legitimately. That's a villain who could use some real fleshing out.

The Shocker is considered rational in that unlike most super villains he doesn't fall victim to petty grudges. At no point has anyone claimed he is a moral person so I don't even know why this is a question.

Killing innocent people for money isn't moral (and again no one has ever tried to argue Shocker is a moral person) but it's pretty normal compared to poisoning a city's water supply for laughs.

[Agent Z]

I am not someone who has been a fan of how Spider-Man's rogues have been done in that period you describe.



At the end of the day are any of these villains more complex or interesting than Peter Parker himself? Has there even been a single bad guy who you could root for to win over Spider-Man? In the case of Batman, at various times, Catwoman, the Joker, Scarecrow, Clayface, and of course Two-Face, have been far more interesting, compelling, humane than him and a good part of why people liked the Adam West Batman series is that audiences, especially grown-ups, openly rooted for the villains over him and Robin.

Spider-Man's villains are interesting, well-designed, and properly conceived but their primary function at the end of the day is for Peter to beat them up. They don't have any depth, nor do they need to have, any depth beyond that.



I am just using that as indications of how people outside the comics business look and approach these characters. Why is Dr. Octopus not shown as the thug-in-labcoat that he is in the Master Planner? Making Octopus sympathetic/tragic takes away from the unambiguous positive feelings of triumph that Peter had at the end of that. He's not supposed to be someone you feel bad about seeing brought down. But manufacturing sympathy and motivations diminishes him from the function he was supposed to be play.

In a movie, you attract a name actor or a character actor to play the bad guy so you need to make him more complex and interesting and by doing that you make a movie that's supposed to be about Peter Parker into a dual-protagonist movie. That doesn't work too well too often. Especially in Spider-Man 3 where Harry Osborn has a character arc and development at the expense of Peter and others, and that was one of the things that killed the movie since Harry Osborn should never be more complex than Peter, or the story stops working as a Spider-Man story.

I cannot fathom anyone unironically rooting for the Joker to win.