5 One-Time Spider-Man Villains We Need to See Again

Spider-Man has some of the most iconic villains of all time as his adversaries. While most heroes have one or even two villains that they can classify as their archnemesis, the Wall-Crawler has three equally important villains to fill that role: Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, and Venom. Even beyond these fan-favorite villains, Spider-Man has dozens more incredible bad guys to trade fists and wits with. There’s Sandman, the Rhino, Kraven the Hunter, Electro, Vulture, and many, many more. However, for as iconic as most of these villains are, they weren’t always classics. Every villain started as a new idea thrown at the wall to see if they would stick, and while these did, many potentially spectacular villains did not.

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Today, we’re going to celebrate those villains that never got more than a single chance to stake their claim and all the potential they still have. We’re going to be looking at five Spider-Man villains that only appeared in one storyline and haven’t shown up to battle Spidey since. All of these villains bring something unique to the table, and I think any one of them could be the next big threat that Spidey has to tackle. Who knows, as unlikely as it is, one of them could be the next Doctor Octopus. I doubt it, but we won’t know until we swing into the deep end.

5) Tendril

Appeared in Spider-Man: The Final Adventure #1—4.

River Verys never had an easy life, but it only got worse when he contracted the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing fasciitis. He underwent extensive treatment and surgery to create a new skin graft, but everything got even worse when he was accidentally exposed to an isotope genome accelerator mixed with Spider-Man’s DNA. Verys was mutated, his entire body becoming organic webbing. With this new form, Tendril could change into any shape he could imagine, alongside enhanced physical capabilities and all the usual properties of Spider-Man’s webbing.

What makes Tendril so interesting is that he takes one of the most iconic and useful tools Spider-Man has at his disposal and turns it against him. Tendril is all but immune to Spidey’s webbing and has way more versatility with his own body. This forces Spider-Man to think outside the box to defeat him, and even makes Tendril the Wall-Crawler’s equal in maneuverability. He’s a very fun idea to play around with, at the very least.

4) Street

Appeared in Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #4.

Street was originally a man named Henry Kramer, who worked for Industrico. He was a nobody, but while they were working on a weather-resistant asphalt, he fell into the mixer and became the living tar-monster that he is today. Street, frankly, is just a really funny villain. His first response to becoming an asphalt creature was to take the streets, pun intended, and smash everything while shouting out his backstory. Still, he has the potential to be an interesting challenge. He could be the asphalt version of Sandman, using his connection to the streets themselves for stealth and to make himself unstoppable. After all, how do you stop the actual living street of New York City?

3) The Thousand

Appeared in Tangled Web: The Thousand / Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #1—3

Carl King was one of the high school bullies who loved to pick on Peter Parker more than anything else. Unfortunately, he noticed Peter get bitten by the radioactive spider and saw him leave his house as Spider-Man. Determined to get the same powers, Carl broke into the lab to find the same spider. Since it was dead, he ate it. Instead of gaining fantastic powers, Carl’s body was eaten from the inside out by a thousand spiders that maintained his consciousness. The sadist that he was, Carl spent the next several years consuming people and wearing their skin, gaining power until he could challenge Spider-Man, whom he was relentlessly jealous of.

The Thousand is a very interesting and legitimately disturbing villain. He was a psychopath through and through, and his multitude of spider bodies allowed him to be practically anywhere. Combine that with his ability to literally liquify a person’s brain in a few seconds, and you have a deadly threat on your hands that pushes Spider-Man in a very specific way. He’s a unique threat that would be very entertaining to see again.

2) Carlyle

Appeared in Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #43—45.

I did say that one of these characters could be the next Doc Ock, and Luke Carlyle certainly tried. He was a con man who managed to trick and kill his way up to the top of the corporate ladder of a tech company. Deciding he needed an upgrade before the cops found out what he’d been up to, Carlyle tricked Doctor Octopus into coming to his company for a supposed tech partnership. Once there, he knocked out Otto and had his scientists copy and reverse engineer the bad doctor’s signature tentacles.

Carlyle walked away from his supervillain kidnapping with six all-new tentacles, enhanced with the most advanced tech on the market. He immediately put these to criminal use, but was eventually stopped by Doc Ock and Spidey working together to bring him down. A new take on a classic is always a welcome change of pace, and seeing how much Carlyle angered Doc Ock was endlessly entertaining. He can definitely do to come back, and maybe steal the gimmick of some other heroes while he’s at it.

1) Big Wheel

Appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #182—183.

Please, Marvel, I need Big Wheel back. He only appeared as a Spider-Man villain once, and that is utterly criminal, because he is so darn funny. Jackson Weele was a corrupt businessman who hired the Rocket Racer to steal incriminating evidence about his embezzlement. However, Racer held onto the papers to extort more money from Weele, which gave him the idea to become a villain of his own to take revenge. He had the Tinkerer create him a giant wheel, which he used to nearly crush Rocket Racer, Spider-Man, and all of New York City.

Big Wheel is, objectively, a dumb supervillain, but he’s exactly the type of dumb fun that comic books can always use more of. Watching the slightly pathetic man drive around in what is essentially a giant LEGO toy is one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen. Big Wheel is not a good villain, but Spider-Man has enough good villains. Every hero can use more Kite-Men, and Big Wheel is exactly that kind of guy for Spider-Man.

Which one-time Spider-Man villain is your favorite, and which one would you like to see make a comeback? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!