Despite being the hero, the one that gets the spotlight, the idolization, the desired life, they often get overlooked by the person they stand opposing. The hero may be the one standing at the end, the one with the win, but the villain is the one who gets the affection. When a villain is on screen or the page, a special kind of attention is paid to them. They demand attention due to their charisma, charm, or blatant usage of evil deeds. When the villains achieve their goal, or at least a large portion of it, they send chills, goosebumps, and worry for all those left standing. Every hero must go through a gauntlet of them to win the day. That includes Spiderman because he is near the top of the list of heroes with the best villains. He has fought his own bad guys and has even taken a shot at other villains that give other heroes problems. Yet, there is a set of villains he has never come across that will provide unique, interesting challenges: the bad boys at DC. Yet, which ones will provide the Web-Slinger with the better match-up?
A common theme among Spiderman villains is their love for animals. Many of them adopt animal motifs. Gorilla Grodd, though, skips the animal motif because he is just a straight-up animal, a very brutal animal. This fight truly embraces the classic rivalry between strength and speed. That is a fight Spiderman is very familiar with, fights that he has come out on top. But Grodd brings an element that very few Spiderman villains have: telepathy and telekinesis. These powers will negate many of the attributes that Spidey has. He relies on his agility, speed, and quickness to get up close to these powerhouses and chip away at them. Grodd makes that useless with his telekinesis alone. He puts a dead stop to skills Spiderman heavily relies on. Another one that Spiderman depends on is his famous Spidey Sense. With his telepathy, Grodd could make that useless as well. For being a full-grown gorilla, Grodd could make himself seemingly invisible to Spiderman. He has the Web-Slinger beat in many of his own skills, including high intelligence. Spiderman has adapted to many different foes much different from him. However, Grodd will have unique defenses for him.
Having a personal tie to many of his villains has made his villains desperate to finish off Spiderman. These fights are bitter and bring a lot of liabilities in the crossfire: New York, its residents, and structures. This could make a certain occult who is fond of owls hate who is responsible. It’s not far fetch to put the Court of Owls inside New York, given so many events happen there in the world of Marvel. The Court holds dear the ancient ways of an old city because they see themselves as the true rulers, be it political or by force. Since Spiderman operates in and has battles that take over the city, he will be at the center of their aggression. They will send out an army of versatile Talons at his head. Since Spiderman rarely comes across villains that span into large numbers, this will be a fight that will force the Web-Slinger to change up his tactics. The Talons are strong by physical strength and by numbers, versatile, and control the real operations of a large city from the shadows. Each Talon has the strength to fight him. The secrets of their immortality and long living could test his scientific intellect. Their shadowy operation could bring in the investigative skills of Mary Jane, which could bring her into the crossfire, luring Spiderman that much further in the fight. It’s an evil group that has the potential to keep Spiderman on guard and alert at every moment.
Poison Ivy controls a large portion of Mother Nature. Plant life under her control could be very versatile, serving as powerful, lethal tendrils, poisonous leaves, nectar, and fumes, and even acting as separate creatures. She’s a villain Spiderman rarely comes across due to the fact she has domain over a large portion of the world. Many other villains are more limited. Their power and powers are limited to their body. Her powers are attached to her and beyond. Needless to say, she provides a lot for Spiderman to worry about. It’s her mastery of knowledge for botany against his versatile knowledge of various sciences. She provides a fight for him, which is both physical and intellectual. If he stays far away, he runs the risk of allowing Ivy’s power to grow. If he gets close enough, he runs the risk of falling under her control. He takes too much time to figure out a way to stop her. She takes over the minds of his male superpowered allies, and that list is long. She is a force rather than a person he has to fight.
Atrocitus is a monster fueled by rage. His immense power comes from raw anger. He is the embodiment of anger. The entire Red Lantern Corps answer to him, which alone tells how much power he has. Atrocitus wants more and more anger to fill up the already immense strength he has. Although a foe like that may seem too large for Spiderman and too aggressive, there is a time – or times – when he can match that type of fire. When the symbiote plagues Spiderman, his light, comedic, playful manner turns aggressive, anxious, impatient, and angry. Everything that Atrocitus already is. If a black-suited Spiderman fights Atrocitus, it will be anger vs anger, aggression vs aggression, alien vs alien. Spiderman is no stranger to fighting aliens. In this fight, he may be outclassed in strength, but a boost of strength by the symbiote will even the fields a bit more. In a creative way, Atrocitus can be lured to Spiderman every time he gets bonded with the suit, and he gets to Earth as fast as he can to absorb that match anger. There, the fight gets complex for the Web-Slinger. He needs the added strength to take on a powerful foe, but the more he has it on, the longer he is prone to get angry, which fuels Atrocitus even more—a clash of brutish beings that determines who harnesses anger better as a weapon.
At first glance, a fight between Spiderman and the Reverse Flash may seem to be one-sided. A lean that heavily leans toward the Reverse Flash. However, Spiderman has proven countless times that he is able to punch above his weight. Although he is a street-level hero, he has taken on cosmic-level threats multiple times. That’s not to say that the Reverse Flash will be a pushover. With his speed, time travel, and tenacity, Reverse Flash could give Spiderman and Peter Parker a life of living hell that the Green Goblin could dream of. This fight could set up an interesting question: can Spiderman’s spidey sense be fast enough to detect Reverse Flash? If it can’t, Spiderman will have to rely on something else. If it can, the odds will be more even, something Spiderman can make work. But the most intriguing part of this fight is that it could bring in the multiverse. Spiderman seems to be the face of Marvel when it comes to the multiverse. For someone who seems to struggle to pay rent, Spiderman interacts will countless versions of his from different universes. While he needs great effort or the help of someone else to get there, the Reverse Flash can get there himself by exerting some of his own power. Perhaps Spiderman and Reverse Flash cross paths because of an overlapping trip to a multiverse. Witnessing the sheer amount of Spidermen and knowing he is small in comparison, Reverse Flash could spend his life destroying them all. And Spiderman has to rely on some to slow down the Reverse Flash.
Spiderman has seen a fair share of different villains. Funny enough, many of his own are very similar to DC villains: The Lizard and Killer Croc, Norman Osborne and Lex Luthor, and Green Goblin and The Joker. But obviously, some DC villains will give him a brand-new fight he rarely sees or sees at all. It’s the grit a hero has to go through that proves how great of a hero they actually are. The more they are tested with various threats, the more they become handed and experienced. No matter the threat, they will at least have more confidence to defeat. Spiderman has proven that by fighting a normal robber, Doctor Doom to Thanos. He proves to be amazing by overcoming threats of all kinds. Yet, the same can be said for villains, too.
