He almost revels in his second-rate status, remarking on one occasion that at least it keeps him off the radar of guys like The Punisher. Not that this makes him particularly successful:
Captain America: What the hell do these kids [the Young Avengers] think they're doing? Spider-Man: Making the Shocker look like an idiot. Which — granted — isn't tough, but is always entertaining.
In one story, a group of heroes is moving through a superhuman prison, vigorously expositing about the potential damage that the villain they're after could cause. In the process, they run by the Shocker's cell.
Wolverine:[smirking] Yeah, we wouldn't want the Shocker to get out — then we'd really be in trouble. The Shocker:[arms crossed petulantly] Shut up!
He's fallen to the point that he no longer appears on the local news's supervillain alerts even though Stilt-Man did. Desperate, he teams up with a similarly washed-up Hydro-Man to knock over ONE bank and retire. You feel pretty bad for him when Spider-Man not only stops them, but the Shocker accidentally evaporates Hydro-Man and injures himself to the point that his ribs are sticking out of his chest. "You always said I looked like a pincushion..."
But contrary to his reputation, the Shocker actually has a fairly high success rate against Spidey. He once proved himself to be a Not-So-Harmless Villain when he captured Spidey and, in a fit of rage, delivered a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that nearly killed him. Even The Hood mentioned that he had great respect for the guy.
Another time he teamed up with fellow loser the Trapster (see below), had Spidey at their mercy and only didn't kill him due to suddenly getting a call from their boss informing them that their pay would be doubled if Spidey lived. Ever the pragmatist, Shocker accepted though he remarked that if he killed him, he would "save a fortune on therapy bills".
While the "regular" Shocker has his moments of competence and Not-So-Harmless Villain, his Ultimate Marvel counterpart consistently fits this trope. Even in the video-game adaptation, he ends up being the Warmup Boss. It actually got to the point where the mere sight of Spider-Man (who never dignifies him enough to call him "Shocker") was enough to send him running in terror.
Since moving to the cast of The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, his status as a massive joke has been played up greatly, though he's more unlucky than incompetent.
The Rhino sometimes gets this treatment. Recently, he underwent a Heel–Face Turn, but this is doomed to fail. There was a two issue story about him in a Spider-Man spinoff focusing on the various other characters in Spidey's life, with his idiocy being what makes him so pathetic. However, he ends up becoming super-intelligent via super science and ends up getting the girl and becoming the strongest crime boss in New York, along with figuring out Spider-Man's true identity. He goes back to being dumb, however, when he ends up being miserable by not being able to connect with people anymore. The Rhino did however gain some notoriety in the "Ends of Earth" storyline, where he held onto Silver Sable so that she would drown with him in a flooding shaft. However, both of them turned up just fine later on, and Rhino briefly tried to retire from supervillainy. It's ironic that Rhino is treated like this as he is probably pound for pound the strongest villain in Spidey's regular Rogues Gallery and has actually fought and matched the Hulk multiple times, if he wasn't so dumb and brutish most of the time he'd be absolute nightmare.
The Kangaroo is another Spider-Man villain that was a big joke. Originally, a boxer named Frank Oliver gained some impressive leaping abilities by studying kangaroos in Australia, but he couldn't cut it as a crook with such skills. Then he gained super-powered leaping abilities from Dr. Jonas Harrow, but even that didn't help him much. Harrow then used a pain-inducing implant to force him to steal a radioactive isotope... which reduced him to a pile of ashes when he tried. (Harrow was pretty much an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain himself.) But this got worse. Someone actually admired this guy, and years later, became a new Kangaroo. This one may have fit the Harmless Villain trope more if he weren't so serious about it. After many failed attempts at crime, he seemed to be killed during the Ends of Earth storyline by the villainess Lady Deathstrike.
Without a doubt, the White Rabbit, who Spider-Man has also fought on occasion (well, okay, three times), was one of the worst:
According to what she herself says, she was a bored young woman who married an aging millionaire (roughly translated, she was a Spoiled Brat and a trophy wife) who inherited his fortune after he died. (She claims that she "cleverly" killed him and he "died happy", but her stories really aren't very reliable.) Why did she turn to crime? Because she was bored. Seriously, the Lewis Carroll theme worked for Batman's enemy the Mad Hatter, but not for this woman, and the only reason she can get Mooks to work for her is because she can pay them more than they could get working for other crooks. The only reason she isn't a Harmless Villain is, as Spider-Man says, she's very likely capable of murder, and could very well kill someone (or maybe herself) in her insane desire to have fun. In fact, the White Rabbit was such a joke, she was beaten up once by the Grizzly and the Gibbon, two other Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains that Spidey had honestly believed were no threat!
The White Rabbit actually once teamed up with another guy like this called the Walrus (the name was inspired by The Beatles song, apparently). He claimed to have "the proportionate speed, strength, and agility of a walrus". (Walruses are hardly fast or nimble, and while strong they are larger than a man; which means he'd be slower, weaker, and clumsier than his namesake.) Upon being told of the Walrus's "powers", Spider-Man asks in disbelief if he's actually serious. After responding in the affirmative, Walrus then lands his only major hit on Spider-Man... because Spidey was doubled over in laughter. A few pages later Spidey proceeded to knock him out with one flick of a finger. Ironically, he does have Super-Strength and is incredibly tough and durable (almost Immune to Bullets) and he might make a somewhat competent crook if he just wasn't so stupid.
She did manage to become a Not-So-Harmless Villain once, but managed it by dumb luck. While dating the assassin Arcade, the two tried to capture the Black Cat and Wolverine for a Murderworld-style hit. The plan failed and ended with the two villains deposited in the Savage Land, and she stole a goat's head from a shrine, which led to her being Captured by Cannibals. Arcade managed to flee, leaving her to her fate (calling her stupid as he did), but this is where the dumb luck comes in: the goat's head was a sacred relic, and the savage warriors started worshiping her. It was very easy after that for her to gain revenge on Arcade. Sadly, this success didn't last. Her next appearance was as a member of the Hood's Gang, and who defeated her? Spider-Man's former wife, Mary Jane, who did so defending her boyfriend at a night club.
The Spot played a role in Mark Waid's Daredevil, in which it seemed like he'd managed to Take a Level in Badass. Nope, it was someone else with the same powers, but who was much more ruthless and inventive in using them. Also he was using the Spot as a power source and DD had to rescue him.
Slyde:
A villain who claims that his parents were gunned down by the Hulk and Captain America, and whose primary mode of attack is the "Slyde Punch", which is just a jab to the ribs. He gets taken down and hauled off to jail with incredible speed. As it happens, he's just a guy going through a midlife crisis who decided to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man instead of just buying a Corvette or something.
One origin story had him as Jalome Beacher, a chemical engineer at a company later to be revealed a mob front. His main achievement? Making a non-stick chemical that can be applied to virtually anything. When he got fired, Slyde coated a white speed-skater's bodysuit in it. According to That Other Wiki, he could glide at about 30 miles/hr, and the coating made him unable to be directly webbed by Spidey. Pads in his gloves let him hold onto objects so they wouldn't slip out, and his maneuverability was much better than most. His brother Matt, though, was killed by Elektra, and Jalome himself would be killed by Underworld, the nigh-invulnerable hitman of Hammerhead.
In fact, Spider-Man has enough of these that they've several times teamed up as the "League of Losers". Ironically, even though they're so ineffectual that they actually call themselves this name, they generally manage to give Spidey a run for his money every time, to the point that he feels a little bad for himself that he actually took a few punches from guys like the Spot.
