Tag: mcu

Happy Monday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with a new entry in an older comic book series: Underrated and/or Underused Villains. Today, we focus on Spider-Man’s overlooked rogues’ gallery. The webhead has plenty of villains to his name, so it makes sense that a handful of villains may qualify. Notice how this list isn’t titled a Top 5. Numerous characters could make this list. If you don’t see your favorite underrated Spider-Man villain on this list, comment who would add.

The characters on this list may lean more toward underrated rather than underused or vice versa. Spidey has a wealth of villains, so we have more than one honorable mention. Let’s get to our list of five underrated/underused Spider-Man Villains.

Honorable Mention: Tombstone

I cheated with Tombstone. He shows up plenty in the comics, receives great adaptations in other media (I can’t wait for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s second season), and seldom gets overlooked as one of Spidey’s better second-tier villains. But I wanted to mention Tombstone. I love this character. One can never have enough Tombstone stories. I can’t wait to see Marvin Jones III (also known as Krondon) portrayal of Tombstone in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Brilliant casting. Krondon also provided Tombstone’s voice in the Spider-Verse series of animated films. I can’t wait.

Honorable Mention: Beetle

Beetle meets the criteria for underrated and underused. His redemption story (told through Thunderbolts) is wildly underrated; I’d love to see a Beetle redemption story in the MCU. Abe Jenkins (the original and most famous Beetle) seldom gets used in media outside comics, and the comics haven’t featured him recently because he’s dead. But no one stays dead in comics forever. Oddly enough, Tombstone’s daughter, Janice Lincoln, has taken the mantle as the new Beetle. So, there’s a chance we could see Janice in the MCU.

No version of Beetle is primarily a Spider-Man villain, and that’s why they make the honorable mention list. Beetle threatens the larger MCU, giving preference to Iron Man and Spider-Man. Abe’s origin story was reworked a bit and used as Mysterio’s backstory in Spider-Man: Far From Home. He craved respect and recognition, so he stole tech, made a super suit, and terrorized the normies. When he joined the Thunderbolts, originally pretending to be a hero, he found the respect and recognition he always craved as a hero, so he became one. Ah! What could’ve been in the MCU? Beetle is certainly one of the most criminally overlooked Marvel villains. But his freelance villainy causes him to just miss the list.

Honorable Mention: Hammerhead

A third honorable mention? Yeah, Spidey has a ton of fantastic villains. We could’ve made a list of 20 underrated/underused Spider-Man villains. Let us know if you’d like to see a second part to this list.

Hammerhead has some of the worst adaptations for a Spider-Man villain. Outside the comics, media portray him as an underling. That isn’t true. Hammerhead is Kingpin’s rival, an equal in every sense. Readers of Spider-Man comics know this, but anyone who only consumes Spidey content outside the comics will wildly underrate Hammerhead as a villain. And Hammerhead has one of the most tragic childhoods among Spidey villains. I won’t spoil it. It’s brutal. There’s a reason Hammerhead’s skull has been replaced with adamantium. Yikes!

Hammerhead just misses our list because he may soon get a good adaptation. Rumors of Hammerhead joining Spider-Man: Brand New Day abound. I’m writing this early and before the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, and there’s a chance Hammerhead could become the Kingpin rival he was always supposed to be. We’ll have to see.

That wraps up our honorable mentions. Let’s see who made the proper list.

5: Doppelganger

Sure, Doppelganger has low intelligence. He barely says more than one word, but Doppelganger has a ton of potential, inside and outside of comics. Doppelganger hails from the dimension of manifestations. The Magus created all of the doppelgangers–they created a doppelganger for everyone in Marvel Comics (kind of like the Bizarros in DC Comics)–to combat their counterparts. Spider-Man’s doppelganger was the only one who made it to Earth 616 (Marvel’s main timeline). Lost, Doppelganger didn’t know what to do and attacked Spider-Man. It was defeated. But Doppelganger was rescued and adopted, in a way, by Shriek. Doppelganger only hates Spider-Man because the one it calls “Mother” (Shriek) hates Spider-Man. Despite its villain status, Doppelganger has conducted heroic deeds, and that’s interesting.

Within Marvel Comics, few creative teams have explored Doppelganger, but when they do, those stories slap. There have been rumblings of a potential Doppelganger sighting in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but unlike Hammerhead, I doubt Doppelganger will get a good story. Fingers crossed.

4: Hobgoblin

Hobgoblin fits the bill of an underrated Spider-Man villain, but he also poses a good question. Can someone be overused and underused at the same time? When Hobgoblin makes it into a Spider-Man story, he dominates for a few years, and then he disappears for almost a decade. And the pattern repeats. Most creative teams who include Hobgoblin in a story are passionate about the character. That’s why Hobgoblin dominates the storylines. This shields Hobgoblin from a lot of “bad” storylines. In fact, Hobgoblin is one of the few Spider-Man villains on this list, and in the honorable mentions, without an awful story.

One does need to establish a Green Goblin before introducing Hobgoblin. Typically, Hobgoblin “borrows” Green Goblin’s gadgets and rebrands them. The Nineties Spider-Man animated series is the only exception I can think of when Hobgoblin appears before Green Goblin. It helps that Mark Hamill voiced Hobgoblin.

Honestly, I like Hobgoblin’s aesthetic more than Green Goblin’s, and I love the purple and green combination. Heck, those are Geekly’s colors. It must be Hobgoblin’s outfit, his more demonic and unhinged look, and that’s ironic. Green Goblin always has some form of mental illness, but usually, Hobgoblin has full control of his mental faculties. That can give Hobgoblin a more sinister vibe. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

3: Chameleon

Chameleon is Spider-Man’s first villain. In his first tale, Chameleon dresses up as Spider-Man to frame him for stealing government plans. This happens a lot for Chameleon. He frames Spidey for crimes he didn’t commit, but Chameleon is more of an espionage character. He has an awesome backstory. Without Chameleon, we may not get as fleshed out a Kraven the Hunter. The two are half-brothers. But Spider-Man creators miscast Chameleon. So, Chameleon may be more of a misused villain than an underused villain, but he is also underused.

Despite being Spider-Man’s oldest villain, Chameleon rarely shows up in other media, and when he does, it’s usually a cameo. I’m hopeful for Chameleon’s role in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s second season. This version of Chameleon has potential. It also helps that Peter Parker’s father (Spoiler: Peter’s dad is alive in this cartoon series) worked as a spy. That could play into Chameleon’s background. We need Spidey to flex his detective muscle. Mysterio triggers Peter’s tingle, forcing him to rely on his Spider Sense. A full-thrust Spider Sense for Mysterio makes sense because Mysterio envelops the area around him with illusions. I could see a low-level twinge with the Chameleon, like Peter knows something’s amiss, but he can’t put his finger on it. Chameleon’s abilities only affect himself. We need better Chameleon stories.

2: Vermin

Before making this list, I knew who would reach the top. One can rearrange or replace any of the previous Spider-Man villains on this list, but the top two are chiseled in stone. You could swap one and two with each other, but we’ll get to number one in a minute. First, we’re talking about Vermin.

Vermin may take the mantle of the most underrated and underused Spider-Man villain. Most Spidey fans (who read the comic book) would say Kraven’s Last Hunt and The Child Within are two of the top three or four stories in Spider-Man history. Vermin features in both stories. Despite those two tales occurring decades ago, Vermin shows up in few other stories. See what I mean about underused? Some Spidey fans may forget Vermin was in Kraven’s Last Hunt. Talk about underrated. Sure, Vermin was Kraven’s pawn, but there’s a killer moment when Spider-Man loses his temper with Vermin. Love this story. We covered it more in a previous post.

And then we get to The Child Within. Ah! So good. A nine or ten-year-old child wanders into the sewers and asks Vermin to accompany him home. Vermin (a rat person) takes the kid to a mansion, but the kid refuses to go inside. By this point, we realize the kid is Vermin’s inner child. The mansion belongs to his parents. At first, Vermin’s parents don’t recognize him. We get Vermin’s tragic backstory, and I’m not going to spoil it here. You should read The Child Within.

Not only does Vermin have few–if any–“bad stories,” he’s featured in two of Spider-Man’s greatest stories. Who could possibly claim the top spot over Vermin?

1: Jackal

If you were to rank Spider-Man’s most important villains (the ones necessary to tell Spider-Man’s story), the list would look like the following:

1) Green Goblin
2) Doctor Octopus
3) Jackal

Spider-Man fans who read the comics know who Jackal is and would agree with this list–for the most part. Spidey fans who don’t read the comics are scratching their heads, wondering who the hell is Jackal? That’s why Jackal is number one on this list. He is one of Spidey’s most important villains, and not enough people know him. Jackal introduced The Punisher, hiring him to take down Spider-Man (during The Punisher’s first appearance), and he’s behind most, if not all, clone storylines. And Spidey has a ton of clone stories. The Clone Saga is the longest storyline in Spider-Man comic book history.

The original Jackal, Miles Warren, was one of Peter Parker’s college professors. Warren, in his mid to late fifties, crushed on Gwen Stacy. Ew. She’s more than half your age, creeper. After Gwen died, Warren blamed Spider-Man for her death. Spidey did web Gwen’s foot, causing her neck to snap. Jackal, pointing out this detail to Spider-Man, poured extra salt into Peter’s guilt. Peter already blamed himself for Gwen’s death. What ensued was a lot of cloning, cloning of Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, and others. Eventually, Jackal would clone himself in an attempt to achieve immortality.

Jackal’s lack of a good adaptation outside of comics reminds me of Hobgoblin’s issue. Jackal is difficult to explain without a lot of setup, like Hobgoblin needing Green Goblin to exist first. Typically, Jackal needs Gwen Stacy to exist. You may even need her to perish. Often, Miles Warren gets introduced, and we never see his transformation into Jackal. And then there’s Jackal’s age. Since Warren is in his fifties, whenever he gets introduced as a side character in a movie or show, people overlook him. Warren appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man film series and Sony’s Spider-Man adjacent movies. Blink, and you’ll miss him. I hope the MCU takes its time to introduce Jackal in the future. Gwen may soon make her debut in the MCU. Jackal may not be far behind.

That’s our list of five underrated and/or underused Spider-Man Villains. There are plenty more villains who could’ve made this list. Let us know who you would add in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.