7 Most Hated Spider-Man Supporting Characters, Ranked

Spider-Man has been one of the most popular marvel Comics characters for many years, but this also means that several of his supporting characters have become irrationally hated for various reasons. This is largely thanks to the fact that fans love Spider-Man so much that they develop a hatred for the characters that threaten to changed things in his life and overall universe. Since Peter Parker is as important as Spider-Man in his storylines, this means there are plenty of options for fans to hate. This also causes people to hate certain comic book creators for changing Peter Parker’s status quo, which is what a storyline like “One More Day” remains such a hated moment in Spider-Man history.

With well over five decades of storylines and supporting characters, here are the most hated Spider-Man supporting characters in Marvel Comics.

7) Ben Reilly

Ben Reilly is a great character, but enough has happened for fans to hate him every time he shows up in Marvel Comics. This is also sad because Ben never asked to exist, and he actually believed he was the real Peter Parker for years. That is the biggest problem and why especially older fans hate him so much. “The Clone Saga” was one of Spider-Man’s most hated storylines, and Ben was the reason for it.

The reason fans hated Ben Reilly was that they believed he was Peter Parker, and when Marvel revealed he wasn’t, it made countless storylines and events suddenly become worthless for fans of Peter Parker. To this day, Peter still hates Ben Reilly, even though Ben has done everything he could to be a hero, and fans usually follow Peter’s lead, and still hate Ben no matter what he does.

6) Carlie Cooper

Carlie Cooper was, at first, the wrong person in the wrong place a the wrong time. It is hard not to find fans who hate “One More Day” when Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson made a deal with Mephisto to trade in their marriage and history for saving the life of Aunt May. This made “Brand New Day” a hard story to get behind, and while Dan Slott did a great job along the way, fans never bought into Carlie Cooper as Peter’s new love interest.

Everyone wanted Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson back together, so they took it out on Carlie. However, over time, things got bad during the run when she had a bland personality and brought little to the table, showing how great MJ was, and this just caused people to want to see her go away. When hated turned to ambivalence, it doomed the character.

5) Debra Whitman

Debra Whitman was part of a terrible Spider-Man storyline where she was daring Peter Parker, and believed he was Spider-Man. However, instead of finding a good way to deal with this possible problem, Spider-Man decided to gaslight Debra, began to actually drive her to madness, and left her broken down with some serious mental health issues, and Spider-Man is supposed to be the hero.

However, the creators made Debra very unlikable over time, and ended up turning her into a character that most fans hated. No one wanted to see Peter dating Debra anyway, so this was an uphill battle. The fact that Spider-Man gaslighting her was seen as a “good thing” shows how much fans disliked her. When she later returned with a book about how Peter Parker “ruined her life,” it made her even more hated than ever, even if Peter kind of deserved it.

4) Nick Katzenberg

J. Jonah Jameson is a Spider-Man supporting character who fans loved to hate. He did everything he could to ruin Spider-Man’s reputation, and while that made him as much of an antagonist as anyone, fans still loved hating him, and never really hated him as a character. The same can’t be said for Nick Katzenberg, someone else from Peter’s life at the Daily Bugle. Nick Katzenberg debuted in Web of Spider-Man #50 and he was another photographer who became J. Jonah Jameson’s new favorite employee.

This was because he was able to snap photos of Spider-Man doing what appeared to be illegal things, and when he often bragged about his success to Peter Parker, it made him even more unlikable. He even ruined Peter’s relationship with Robbie Robertson for a while. When he returned with lung cancer, dying, fans didn’t even care enough, although the one positive point was that it caused Mary Jane to stop smoking.

3) Ashley Kafka

Ashley Kafka has been part of several big Spider-Man storylines, but she often causes more problems than she helps solve. She was a psychiatrist introduced in Spectacular Spider-Man #178 in 1991, as she worked for Ravenscroft Institute, which housed the superpowered criminally insane. She wanted more than anything to rehabilitate the supervillains, and almost always failed.

There were positive moments, as she was a rare example of a mental health professional shown in a positive manner. The more that she made excuses for making things worse when it comes to the criminals she failed to rehabilitate, though, the harder it was to like her. One of her patients eventually murdered her, and she returned as a clone, and since that time, she has been insufferable, especially as Queen Goblin.

2) Michele Gonzales

Michele Gonzales is another character who suffers from the same problem that Carlie Cooper faced. She was a Peter Parker love interest who wasn’t Mary Jane Watson, and fans hated her for it. However, Michele was even worse than Carlie because Michele was almost insufferable, with an annoying personality and an antagonistic relationship with Peter.

The fact that the two slept together despite not really liking each other after a drunken nigh out was in bad taste, and things only got worse from there. The two ended up in a relationship, but no one bought into it and fans just wanted Michele to go away, and when the two finally broke up, it was celebrated.

1) Paul Rabin

The most hated Spider-Man supporting character of all time finally died this month. Paul Rabin was someone that Mary Jane Watson fell in love with while trapped in another dimension for years (although it was only weeks in this timeline). The fact that Mary Jane had a new love of her life made fans hate Paul, and he did nothing to endear himself to anyone.

Whether it was his whining attitude, his terrible manbun, or just the fact that he tried to be Mary Jane’s lover (instead of Peter Parker) and Dylan Brock’s dad (instead of Eddie Brock), fans hated him. Even when MJ broke up with him, fans still hated him with a passion. He sacrificed his life to save Dylan, and fans still celebrated his death at the hands to Torment. No Spider-Man supporting character has been more hated than Paul Rabin.

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