With the release of the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home, the eighth live-action Spidey movie, the number of major villains for the Friendly Neighborhood superhero still hasn’t cracked into some of the heaviest hitters. Across the first three films we got major Spidey villains like Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, and Venom; The Amazing Spider-Man series only gave us The Lizard, Electro, and The Rhino (though it teased and set up twice as many others); and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has faced The Vulture, Mysterio, and versions of Shocker, Hydro-Man (albeit fake), and The Tinkerer.
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For Spider-Man: No Way Home, it doesn’t seem like ANY new Spider-Man villains will be introduced into the canon of the MCU or live-action Spider-Man franchise. The plot for the film so far indicates a multiverse-centric clash with baddies from the original two franchises making their way into the MCU to take on Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. Confirmed ne’er-do-wells that will return are Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, Jamie Foxx as Electro, and what appears to be Thomas Haden Church as Sandman and Rhys Ifans as Lizard. With so many different Spider-Man villains, is it really worth it to focus on the repeat offenders?
With that in mind, there’s still plenty of Spider-Man villains who would make for great feature film antagonists. Here are our picks for the next big-screen adventure.
Chameleon
The first actual supervillain that Spider-Man faced in the pages of his self-titled comic book series has yet to make an appearance on the big screen. Chameleon’s abilities, being a master criminal and master of disguise, are an inherently cinematic concept and would allow the cast of any Spider-Man movie to stretch their legs as he could potentially pose as them in some sequences, not to mention the potential for posing as other Marvel heroes.
Actor Numan Acar is credited as a “Dimitri,” prompting speculation he was supposed to be The Chameleon, but that has not been proven to be the case.
Kraven the Hunter
The master game hunter and Olympic level athlete poses a unique threat to Spider-Man. Despite having no powers of his own, his ability to hunt huge wild animals gives him an even playing field with the webslinger. His inability to outmatch Spider-Man however is what leads to his most famous storyline, Kraven’s Last Hunt, so being made a fool out of the Marvel hero would actually be good for him ahead of having a weighty storyline. Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been tapped to play the part in a solo film, but we want to see him and the wallcrawler together.
Scorpion
Though Michael Mando appears as Mac Gargan in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and an animated Scorpion appeared in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a proper live-action Scorpion with a giant swinging stinger tail and a big green suit hasn’t been seen. Among the countless Spider-Man villains, Scorpion might very well have one of the coolest appearances across the rogue’s gallery. His origins being tied to J. Jonah Jameson also open up storytelling possibilities for Spider-Man and his connection to The Daily Bugle founder.
Mister Negative
The philanthropist/secret crime lord is a recurring villain in superhero comics but what separates Mister Negative from the others in that regard is that he has multiple personalities, with the good side unaware that the evil one even exists, at least for a time. Take that into account along with the fact that Mister Negative’s powerset channeling the Darkforce and Lightforce make him a major threat to Spider-Man and a visually unique looking character.
Spot
A minor villain by all standards, the character can open and travel through portals that appear in the air, on surfaces, and even on his own body. Considering how wacky his costume and power set are in the pages of Marvel Comics however it would be disappointing to see Spot get turned into a generic scientist gone wrong on the big screen, Marvel must embrace his aesthetic and abilities as they’re seen in the source material.
Tombstone
Spider-Man’s comic history of fighting gangsters hasn’t been explored much at all in the feature films and rather than going up against generic ones he needs to fight the most unique gangster in his rogue’s gallery. Described by the wall-crawler himself as “Cold as ice, hard as marble,” Tombstone is a physical and criminal threat in a way unlike others (even Kingpin). In addition to Spider-Man, Tombstone has fought many a Marvel hero, so introducing him on the big screen could be the perfect path toward crossovers with other characters and films.
Black Tarantula
A super-powered cartel leader, Black Tarantula makes moves in New York as a means of expanding his enterprises, tasked with defeating Spider-Man by the other gangsters as a means of forming an alliance. What gives Black Tarantula the potential to be very interesting Spider-Man villain on the big screen is the idea of legacy. The character is a title that is passed down from fathers to sons, making them perhaps the perfect villain to take on, say, a Peter Parker Spider-Man who is perhaps about to hand off the mantle to a Miles Morales Spider-Man.
Black Cat
Though Felicity Jones was cast as Felicia Hardy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ahead of a planned appearance as the villain, it never came to fruition. The Spider-Man equivalent of Catwoman from DC Comics, Black Cat is a great foil for the wall-crawler because she functions as both antagonist and love interest. Beating Spider-Man in a physical fight is one thing, beating Spider-Man and getting away because you briefly flirted with him and he thought that he might have a chance is something that none of the others on this list can get away with.
Kingpin
Michael Clarke Duncan and Vincent D’Onofrio have played the character in live-action in various Daredevil projects, and though Spider-Verse gave us a Liev Schreiber Kingpin inspired by Bill Sienkiewicz, a live-action Kingpin hasn’t fought Spider-Man just yet. What makes the dynamic between the hero and villain in this pairing so compelling is in their status to the outside world and how we as the audience know they live. Wilson Fisk is a wealthy, criminal overlord, and Peter Parker is a working class (often poor), street level superhero. There’s also the physical dynamic between them as the gigantic Fisk towers over Peter almost at ever turn.
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