Spider Man / Tropes Q to Z

• Real-Place Background: The Marvel Universe was renowned for being set in New York as opposed to the fictional cities of DC heroes, but even then Spider-Man still stood out originally for being the most tied to the city since the Fantastic Four had global and cosmic adventures while Doctor Strange likewise was an esoteric figure. A number of famous stories and plots use real-life places and monuments. Most notably, Gwen Stacy died at the George Washington Bridge (though confusingly Romita Sr. modeled it on the Brooklyn Bridge) and it's not uncommon for real-life tourists and visitors to treat the real bridge as a memorial to her fictional death. Likewise, Peter and MJ's famous Make-Out Point is at the top of the Empire State Building, celebrated as their spot since "The Wedding" annual, and revisited in Matt Fraction's "To Have and to Hold" as well as Spider-Island.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Curt Connors' experiment to help people with missing limbs, like himself, caused him to transform into The Lizard, a monstrous reptile who detests all "warm-blooded" life (though it probably goes without saying that he doesn't like spiders either). In the well-loved '90s cartoon, he looked a great deal like a giant, very anthropomorphic Anole. The latest revamp of Connors gives him the ability to activate the "lizard brain" of humans, encouraging them to act like reptiles. Apparently, lizards are really sexually aggressive and mindlessly violent towards their own kind. Who knew? Komodo, who might count as a Distaff Counterpart of The Lizard, manages to be an exception. She was Connors' lab assistant and stole some of the formula that turned Connors into the Lizard, perfected it (for herself, anyway), and used it to grow new legs. Even though the use of said legs requires her to stay in her reptile form, she's still able to change back and forth (though being human means her legs go away), and in reptile form, she suffers no desire to Kill All Humans.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Spider-Man has one in The Death of Jean DeWolff. The Sin-Eater is murdering people left and right, and one of his victims is Captain Jean DeWolfe. As she was one of Spider-Man's friends and supporters, he takes her death very hard and this adventure very personally. Ultimately, Spider-Man finds the Sin-Eater (who has no superpowers, by the way) and brutally beats him to a pulp. If not for Daredevil, Spider-Man seemed quite likely to kill him.
  • In the Grim Hunt storyline, the Kravinov family had been messing with Spidey for weeks and eventually killed several of his superpowered friends. Spider-Man goes berserk, taking out the whole clan and even used his wall-crawling grip to tear off a chunk of Sasha Kravinov's face.
  • And of course, there was right after the events of Civil War when Aunt May is shot by an assassin sent by the Kingpin after Peter exposes his identity to the world. Donning his black costume to let everyone know that he means business, he tears across New York until finally locating and delivering a huge beatdown on the Kingpin, threatening to finish the job if he can't find a way to save Aunt May (we all know how that turned out). In an issue of What If?, the assassin shoots (and kills) Mary Jane instead, causing Peter to snap and actually kill the Kingpin.
• Rogues Gallery: His gallery includes the Green Goblin^note a Corrupt Corporate Executive with a Mad Bomber Split Personality after taking a Psycho Serum, Hobgoblin^note a sane, albeit sociopathic fashion designer who uses a modified Goblin arsenal, Doctor Octopus^note a Mad Doctor who has four mechanical arms fused to his back, Venom^note a mentally troubled reporter bonded to an alien symbiote, sharing a hatred for Spider-Man, Electro^note a man who controls all forms of electricity, Mysterio^note a failed special effects artist who uses his technology to become a villain, Sandman^note a crook whose molecules are fused with sand particles Kraven the Hunter^note a big game hunter with the abilities of a Super Serum, the Vulture^note an old businessman who utilizes a electromagnetic winged harness, Carnage^note a psychopathic Serial Killer bonded to another symbiote spawned from Venom's own, the Lizard^note a scientist with a Split Personality which transforms him into a humanoid reptilian, the Rhino^note a brute with his skin fused with a rhino-like hide costume, Black Cat^note a master cat burglar who goes by her father's words to "never settle for second best", the Scorpion^note an investigator turned insane Psycho for Hire trapped in a scorpion-esque armor, the Shocker^note a robber who created an insulated battle suit with vibro-shock gauntlets, etc. Together with Batman and Superman's, it's considered probably the most well-known Rogues Gallery in all of comicdom.
  • The villains are also good examples of villains crossing over to fight new heroes besides their traditional sparring partners. Electro, for example, has become an enemy to Daredevil as well as Spider-Man, while Spidey himself has thrown down with the enemies of everyone from Iron Man to the Hulk to Captain Marvel.
    • A glaring example is Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin. He's become so closely associated with Daredevil that both the 2003 movie and the Marvel Studios/Netflix series used him as the Big Bad.
    • Dark Reign upgraded Norman "The Green Goblin" Osborn to a universe-wide villain when he took over the Avengers.
• Rogues Gallery Showcase: The original "Sinister Six" story was this more than anything, as the story featured Spider-Man fighting each of his enemies one on one rather in a group.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: A regular import-export trade exists in the rogues gallery between Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes:
  • One example that is practically the Trope Codifier for this effect: Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime. He began as a Spider-Man villain, and a generic villain mob-boss at that. Frank Miller revived and reinterpreted him as a major threat (modeled on The Octopus from Will Eisner's The Spirit) during his run on Daredevil, making him Matt Murdoch's archenemy and playing a relatively smaller role in Spider-Man stories after that. Miller's Fisk became an iconic and influential supervillain of The '80s inspiring the Post-Crisis take on Lex Luthor which in a case of Lost in Imitation later inspired the Post-Clone Saga Norman Osborn.
  • It almost happened with The Sandman. After the first two battles he had with Spidey, he became an almost exclusive Fantastic Four villain for the next 10 years. And later on he had a Heel–Face Turn and temporarily joined The Avengers. A similar situation happened with the Rhino, who for a while clocked more time as a villain in The Incredible Hulk.
  • Mysterio did this once on purpose because the real Spidey wasn't available, and made enough of an impression (notably, he indirectly caused the death of Karen Page) that he arguably still has a place among Dardevil's foes. He is still mostly a Spidey villain but when he shows up, there is a higher-than-normal chance that Daredevil will too.
    • Likewise in Old Man Logan he became a villain for Wolverine.
    • He briefly becomes a nemesis of Nate Grey (who, partly thanks to being friends with Spidey, had a tendency to run into Spidey's enemies), and even successfully trapped him in a fantasy world. Unfortunately, Nate is arguably Marvel's most powerful psychic. Needless to say, Karma followed very quickly.
  • Boomerang, a standard Spidey foe, was initially a villain to the Hulk. He was moved to Spidey when it became clear that a monster like the Hulk was a little out of the weight class of a Badass Normal with trick boomerangs.
  • Spider-Man has also tussled with a few of Fantastic Four's villains (since historically he has had the closest bond with them). Most notably Doctor Doom has appeared in some major stories, being the first Marvel Wide villain Spider-Man fought in the Lee-Ditko era, when he accidentally kidnapped Flash thinking he was Spider-Man (of course, Doom has fought pretty much every hero in the Marvel Universe at one point or another). Their paths also crossed a number of times, most notably in recent times being in the 50th issue of JMS' run where Spider-Man saves his life from a terrorist attack when Peter, MJ, Captain America and Doom were all stranded at the Denver Airport on account of a storm.
  • One of Spider-Man's all-time greatest battles with any villain was with the Juggernaut, an X-Men villain, in The Amazing Spider-Man #229–230. This battle got a sequel during the Grim Hunt arc. Then later, Spider-Man fought Firelord, a former Herald of Galactus, who was a villain of The Avengers in ASM #269-270. Both villains were intended to establish Spider-Man as the ultimate underdog, battling enemies beyond his wheelhouse, and defeating them on his own when usually they gave both the X-Men and the Avengers problems and needed a super-team to take them down.
  • Shriek started off fighting Cloak and Dagger but more commonly fights Spidey since, due to their relative obscurity compared to Spidey. She's also well-known as Carnage's girlfriend.
  • As of Dark Reign, Norman Osborn has become an archenemy of the entire Earth-based Marvel universe, second only to Doctor Doom before being downgraded and returning to Spider-Man's titles in Dan Slott's run.
  • Beetle IV, or Lady Beetle, started out fighting Captain America before quickly being moved to Spidey's corner.
  • Shocker has been a consistent Spidey villain, outside of his stints with the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts. As of 2018, however, he's moved to New Jersey and started tangling with Kamala Khan.
  • Interestingly, Arcade debuted in Marvel Team-Up, a series about Spidey teaming up with different heroes, but quickly became an X-Men villain before antagonizing the Avengers Academy without ever crossing paths with Spider-Man. In The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), he's resurfaced as a Spidey foe once more.
• Rousseau Was Right: Depending on the Writer. A running theme in Spider-Man stories, at least after Ditko left (since his run of stories generally had one-dimensional villains and his later objectivist turn was explicitly anti-Rousseauian). Spider-Man often believes that even his enemies are capable of being good or reforming, since as an imperfect man with the blood of his Uncle on his hands, he is himself trying to be a better person.
  • The incident with letting the robber run straight past him taught Peter that doing the right thing matters more than anything else in the world, sometimes even including love, happiness, and getting revenge for a lost loved one. Peter believes in caring for others so hard, just one homeless girl who was a fan of his that he missed on the street and is on death’s door by the time he finds her — breaks his heart even though she died loving him.
  • One Marvel Christmas Special has J.Jonah at the children’s ward trying and failing to teach the kids that Spidey is a selfish freak and only met with a collective “No you’re wrong geezer” as all the children share stories about how Spider-Man has visited and comforted them in their illness, including the terminal cases.
  • Notably both Norman and Goblin, and Harry Osborn became sympathetic and still from time to time affect some sympathetic traits (albeit in the case of Norman since The '90s he's been shown as pure unadulterated scum). Recent examples include Eddie Brock and Doctor Octopus somewhat. Even The Sandman has done a turn or two as a hero.
  • This is also the case of Spider-Man's supporting cast. Most obviously Flash Thompson, Peter's high school bully who via Character Development becomes a better person, apologizes to Peter and later dies a hero. Then there's J. Jonah Jameson who Peter respects for his good qualities and Hidden Heart of Gold but begrudges for his dislike of Spider-Man and his smear tactics. Even JJJ has turned around now after Peter revealed his identity to him.
• Run the Gauntlet:
  • Spidey's first battle with the Sinister Six was one of these, where he was forced to battle the Vulture, Electro, Kraven, Sandman, Mysterio, and Doctor Octopus one after another to save Aunt May and Betty Brant. This has been explained as being so each villain would have a chance to get the "honor" of killing Spidey himself. Spidey has since called this a "bone-headed method of teaming up" and in all subsequent fights, the Six attack en masse.
  • Gently parodied in Spider-Girl's fight with the Savage Six — the entire issue was one big homage to the entire first Sinister Six issue, the leader of the Savage Six employed the same method of attack, and his brother, also a super-villain, called him an idiot. The final fight (between the exhausted hero and fresh villain) is thoroughly subverted when Spider-Girl calls in a few favors, and the last villain is confronted by just about every hero in the Marvel Comics 2 'verse. He wisely surrenders at that point.
  • Norman Osborn once claimed that only a gauntlet would work against Spider-Man since the webhead is "good with groups," using the opponents' powers against them and causing infighting.
  • After a period where the classic villains were put aside to focus on new faces, there was an arc titled "The Gauntlet," where the Kravenoff family set up Spidey's classic Rogues Gallery to fight him one after another and wear him down. The cover for the first collected volume encapsulates the trope almost perfectly - Spider-Man lies battered atop his fallen enemies.
  • In the novel Revenge of the Sinister Six, Spider-Man lampshades the fact that whenever the Six get together, he always takes them down faster than when they fight him one at a time, and it's because when they overwhelm him, he's no longer able to hold back so much. To punctuate the point, while he's doing this, he's also dodging Doctor Octopus' robotic arms...before crushing his real ones.
  • A Spider-Ham anniversary issue lampshaded the origin of the Sinister Six with Mysteriape of the Swinester Six suggesting the same and getting mocked for it.
• Sanctuary of Solitude: Venom's origin story: Eddie Brock, down-on-his-luck reporter, is contemplating suicide in a church◊ while Spider-Man is trying to escape from the Symbiote. After he successfully drives it off, it bonds with Eddie, and Venom is born.
• Save the Villain: Shortly before the Gathering of Five arc, Spidey actually had to rescue Norman Osborn, and this Trope can be combined with What You Are in the Dark for that occasion. The Kingpin sent Nitro the Living Bomb to assassinate Osborn, which resulted in him, Spidey (in his civilian identity as Peter Parker) and Norman's little grandson Normie trapped in an elevator that was about to collapse, both of them pinned. Norman, being the Magnificent Bastard he is, actually took this time to gloat a little, telling Peter that he had no idea whether or not the security cameras were still working, and telling him that any displays of Super-Strength by Peter could possibly give him away to anyone who was watching. Of course, Norman was just as strong, but claimed he was unwilling for that very reason. (Or maybe he was waiting until the last second, or was actually unable to free himself, just too proud to ask for help. We may never know.) Eventually, Peter had to take the chance to save Normie (and found out quickly that the security cameras had been quite broken by the explosion) and might have considered leaving his enemy to fall. But when Normie begged him to save his grandfather, he relented, and helped get Norman out. Even then, Norman couldn't help but goad him a little, telling him that if he had done nothing he would have been victorious in their feud. (And this would be a very large turning point in it; Norman would perform the Gathering of Five to gain more power to prevent things like this again, would be driven far more insane, his identity of the Goblin would be revealed, and his enmity with Spider-Man would become much deadlier than before.)
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up:
  • Averted with Flash Thompson, originally a rampaging Jerk Jock, who comes back from his overseas military service much wiser and more mature. He actually forms a friendship with one-time target Peter Parker, as both men have grown since their high school days. Flash was never all that bad compared to other bullies. He later becomes a superhero in his own right, as Agent Venom.
  • Played straight with the Garth Ennis story, "The Thousand", where the villain turns out to be a guy who bullied Peter when they were kids. He saw Peter get bitten by the spider and saw his first display of powers. He then promptly went back and ate the dead spider, hoping that'd give him Spider-Man powers. Instead, he turned into a thousand spiders that could take over a person by eating them from the inside.
  • Played very straight with Tombstone, who bullied Joe "Robbie" Robertson when they were at school together, and grew up to be a full-fledged supervillain.
• Screens Are Cameras: The earliest versions of the Spider-Slayer robots work this way. The robots would seem to have no technological need to project the face of whoever remotely controls them onto a TV screen mounted on the robot's "head", but that's exactly what they do.
• Second-Face Smoke: J. Jonah Jameson does this a lot; Spidey has found ways of reversing it on him once in a while.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: In "To Have and To Hold", a SHIELD agent who was formerly MJ's bodyguard in Los Angeles where they were friendly in a period where she and Peter were briefly separated tries to signal an interest in her, which she rebukes:
  Mary Jane: "Is that what you think we were? You work my security detail for a few months and now — now you’re Mr. S.H.I.E.L.D. man here to rescue me from my big, bad life? He’s my husband. You’re just some dude."
• Seductive Spider:
  • The Queen is a villainess with mystical control over spiders and is an extremely sexy woman who uses both her beauty and mental powers to seduce and control others. She once chose Spider-Man as her "mate"; unfortunate for him, as he was both married at the time, and "mating" meant that he would be the one impregnated, not the other way around.
  • Silk and Spider-Man mutually-secreted hormones that made the two of them irresistibly attractive to one-another. Even though they eventually decided they were Better as Friends, whenever they had a conversation, it was always laced with heavy Sexual Euphemisms and unintentional (as well as intentional) flirting.
• Selective Obliviousness: Following One More Day, the spell that erased all public knowledge of Spider-Man's secret identity also created a "psychic blindspot" that basically imposes this kind of view on other people concerning the secret. As long as the spell behind the blindspot was intact, even if others were faced with a stack of evidence pointing to the fact that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, nobody would be unable to put the pieces together unless Spider-Man was explicitly unmasked in front of them. As an example, when Norman Osborn found a camera fitted with a motion detector focused on a tracker in Spider-Man's suit, Osborn concluded that Spider-Man took pictures of himself and used Peter Parker as his front man to sell the photos, unable to make the more logical deduction that Peter and Spider-Man were the same man.
• Sexy Secretary: Betty Brant, J. Jonah Jameson's secretary was Peter Parker's first love, although she was not terribly sexpot. She briefly got replaced by Glory Grant, who was sex on two long legs.
• Sexy Stewardess: In The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski) #51, while doing a favor for an aging crime boss (don't ask), this was once attempted on Spider-Man. Since this happened during the period he and Mary-Jane were back together, the results were quite humorous.
  Spider-Man: *from inside a large amount of webbing he's put up to keep the scantily-dressed "attendant" at bay* Just slip the food through the webs and no one gets hurt.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Mary Jane Watson and Black Cat have moments like this especially when they are alone with Spider-Man. Given that they are both Ms. Fanservice and their seductive personalities, it makes sense.
• Shout-Out:
  • Probably the most of any Marvel character outside of Deadpool, as Spider-Man's quippy nature and slight geekiness makes these easy. It goes far enough that at one point when he shows up in Runaways, and the characters begin to say "Look! It's—" he interrupts with "That's right... I'm Batman."
  • In Amazing Spider-Man #306, the cover is a homage to Action Comics #1. In the proper story, Peter sees one copy of Action Comics #285 -the final issue of the "The Unknown Supergirl" story arc- and mentions he "had a crush on the girl in the mini-skirt".
• Sick Episode: Peter was always getting sick for an issue or two, but then his spider-strength would allow him to recover in record time. Unfortunately, he always happened to get this right when the Monster of the Week showed up.
  • The most famous is probably Spider-Man having a cold The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
  • A special mention goes out to the Grim Hunt storyline, in which the villains actually plan their attack to take place when he's sick using the precognitive abilities of Madame Web.
  • One comedic short in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual (2014) had Spider-Man terrifying a group of villains by not speaking, which is considered a massive Out-of-Character Moment for him, as it meant he was pissed. Actually, he had laryngitis this time.
• Sky Surfing: The Green Goblin and Hobgoblin can do this with their respective Goblin Gliders.
• Sleeps in the Nude:
  • Johnny Storm sleeps in the nude, he claims due to heightened body temperature thanks to his fire powers. Peter discovers this when he lets Johnny crash at the Baxter Building (currently the home of Parker Industries) and finds Johnny asleep in his bed. And the only thing Johnny has to cover himself with is Peter's pillow. Peter is definitely not amused.
  • In Amazing Spider-Man 2018 #9, Peter is sleeping naked on his bed when he's woken by Silk who begins Eating the Eye Candy, partially fueled by the pheromones that make them attracted to each other.
  • Rather infamously done in Spider-Man: Reign, where the initial printing of the first issue was recalled because it showed the schlong of the aged Peter Parker as he sat nude in bed.
• Spider Limbs: A lot of instances of this trope have cropped up over the comic's history.
  • Firstly, there's arch enemy Doctor Octopus and his four back-mounted mechanical tentacles.
  • Then there is the Iron Spider armor Tony Stark gives Spider-Man in the Civil War has three retractable arms.
  • There's also Midnight Sons rogue Spider-X, who has bony spider-limbs.
  • Pre-dating the Civil War Iron Spider armor, a possible future Spider-Man was shown to be a genius with Powered Armor using a similar system to Doc Ock's. Interestingly, the future Goblin serving as his nemesis had equivalent technology on her armor as well.
  • Spider-Man once had a teenage fanboy named Ollie Osnick who built himself a set of mechanical spider legs and tried to become Spidey's sidekick. Since he was a clumsy, out-of-shape teenager with no combat experience, it was a good thing that Spider-Man was able to talk him out of it before he hurt himself. A few years later, he reemerged as the Steel Spider, having gotten into shape and learned some hand-to-hand fighting ability in the interim. After beating up some guys who'd attacked his girlfriend, he decided to hang up the costume but then reemerged during the Civil War on the anti-registration side. His super-hero career apparently ended when he fought the Thunderbolts and Venom bit off and ate one of his arms and he was imprisoned in the Negative Zone.
  • The Superior Spider Man adds similar waldoes to his second costume. Makes sense, since he's actually Doctor Octopus after stealing Spidey's body and life. They are destroyed during the "Goblin Nation" arc.
  • The third and fourth Spider-Woman both possessed these at different points. Originally they were a power of Charlotte Witter (Spider-Woman IV), as a result of genetic manipulation by Doc Ock. After a lot of back-and-forth power-stealing, the limbs — along with the other powers of all three other "Spider-Women" — ended up with Mattie Franklin (Spider-Woman III).
  • This has happened to Spidey before, but he managed to cure his condition thanks to the help of Dr. Curt Connors (a.k.a. the Lizard).
• Stacy's Mom:
  • For a time in The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski), where the Sins Past storyline was taken as a legitimate event in Spider-Man's history, Norman Osborn was this to Gwen Stacy. Fits with Love Father, Love Son, as she also dated Harry Osborn for a time. Sins Past was ultimately revealed to be an elaborate ruse by a Harry Osborn A.I. in The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), using hocus pocus from Mysterio and clones to deceive Spider-Man into thinking Norman and Gwen had a relationship.
  • Norman had an affair with his son's fiancee Lily Hollister as well (After she had turned into the Goblinesque Menace), and for a time was believed to be the father of her child (later plot twists established Harry as the real father, and later runs would reveal Post-OMD Harry himself was in reality a clone of the long deceased original). Norman is not a very nice person.
• Statuesque Stunner: Stunner, who's over seven feet tall and looks like a bodybuilder in a skintight leotard. True to her name, she is described as breathtakingly beautiful, and in her first appearances, brags about how beautiful she is to some patrons at a bar, who judging by the smiles on their faces, don't disagree. It's later revealed that the reason why she's so beautiful is because she's actually a virtual reality construct (tangible hologram) controlled by Angelina Brancale. Angelina is an obese woman who wants to be thin and beautiful, so Doctor Octopus, another Spider-Man villain and her lover at the time, gives her a machine that allows her to be a Stunner.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Until approximately The Amazing Spider-Man #38, Spider-Man had organic real-time Character Development going from 15-year-old teenager to high school student, to freshman at college similar to other Marvel characters at the time which averted Comic-Book Time. When this Early-Installment Weirdness ended (mostly because it became clear that Stan Lee's trope-playing and trope-defying approach which he saw as best a temporary fad, had led to a lasting series of IP), Marvel adopted a new approach called "the illusion of change" as a result of which Peter Parker's aging and situation has frozen into more or less what it was since he was in college. He's at best in his mid-twenties and has been so since the late-60s.
  • The only major status-quo change since Peter graduated high school was when he married, an event that happened mostly by accident mostly because it was unexpectedly popular as an idea among the regular public. It lasted for 20 years in real-time where multiple generations of readers saw Spider-Man as the married superhero. Marvel editors and executives spent most of their time since then backpedaling and reversing Peter to single status. They succeeded after Civil War in the regular continuity at least.
  • Spider-Man is the street hero, and he's still struggling, a bit of a Butt-Monkey and a loner hero among the superhero continuity. The situation changed briefly in the run-up to the Civil War and stayed in place until Superior Spider Man alienated him from the superhero community again.
  • Mary-Jane Watson remains Peter's on-off Love Interest and no matter how many girlfriends and dates Peter and she have, they almost always return and start dating again sooner or later.
• Story Arc: Whenever single writers work on an extended run, they tend to create a particular serialized plot and story either dealing with a particular story or villain, or on a character and thematic level, this allows them the satisfaction of providing their readers a conclusion of some sort even if the serialized nature continues. The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee & Ditko), The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski) and The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott) have their own pages dealing with stories in their runs. For other writers:
  • Lee-Romita's arc was more episodic but the overall theme was to give Peter a social circle and a series of friends, and try and have Peter get some direction for the future. Peter also struggles in this arc with his duties as a superhero and as friend and boyfriend (to both Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy), getting neurotic because he keeps lying to them. This story arc gets resolved three times. The first is when Captain George Stacy, his second father figure after Ben's death and Spider-Man's first friendly authority figure dies, which also throws a wrench in his relationship with Gwen. Harry Osborn's drug issues create problems in his friendship with him, and then after Stan Lee left, it ends conclusively in Conway's The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
  • Gerry Conway's story arc which began with the death of Gwen Stacy and concluded in Issue #149 was essentially ending Peter's college era, and moving on from Gwen and falling in love with Mary Jane. Their growing friendship, love, and relationship which includes their First Kiss and ends with Their First Time (and probably Peter's first) was intended by Conway to signal Peter finding and overcoming tragedy and suffering, and experiencing a more adult romance than before. It also marked the end of Peter's Coming of Age Story from teenager to man.
  • Roger Stern who came over more than fifty issues after Conway left during which Spider-Man was run by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman who tended to avoid big story arcs, dealt with Peter at the midpoint of his youth. Where after leaving college he goes to graduate school and is considering becoming a serious scientist. He also introduced the Felicia and Peter romance and towards the end the love triangle between them and MJ. Likewise, Stern introduced the Hobgoblin mystery and the overall thematic arc is what people think of and expect of Spider-Man such as Felicia imagining Spider-Man as being a more sophisticated man than her, and Spider-Man as an object of wish fulfillment and heroism. The theme of masks and social roles is also dealt with deeply.
• Stranger Behind the Mask:
  • There was an early storyline, where the masked Crime Master, built up as a major threat similar to his predecessor Big Man (who had been Daily Bugle reporter Frederick Foswell). However, unlike Big Man, when Crime Master is shot and killed by police during the story climax, it's revealed that the man is completely unknown to both Spider-Man and the reader, though the police identify him as a fugitive. Spidey lampshades it by thinking "Sometimes, the culprit isn't always the butler."
  • When Peter unmasks Electro, since he has no connection to Electro's civilian identity Max Dillon, he has no idea who it is.
  • Despite lots of foreshadowing that he may be Harry Osborn (among others) when the fifth Green Goblin was unmasked, he turned out to be... nobody. Literally, it was some kind of Artificial Human created by Norman Osborn.
  • It's easy to forget this, but Venom was originally done like this. During Venom's introductory story arc, Spidey was being stalked by this maniac in the black symbiote suit he'd discarded who seemed to know his identity and monologued angrily to himself about how Spider-Man had ruined his life. He was seen unmasked early in the story, but the readers were unable to identify him, leaving them puzzled about who this mystery man actually is. Then when he finally captures Spider-Man and unmasks himself before him... he's a completely original character, whose backstory was Retconned into an existing Spider-Man story (the infamous Sin-Eater arc). Even worse, Peter knows who Brock is (although not to the extent that they knew each other in Spider-Man 3), making this a Stranger Behind The Mask for the readers only, verging on Remember the New Guy?.
  • Happened again during The Clone Saga, thanks to an editorial screwup. In an attempt to clean up the out of control storyline, Marvel retconned everything into being the work of a mystery man named Gaunt. He was intended to be Norman Osborn, the only villain with the credibility to pull off such a wide-ranging plot, but one writer didn't get the memo and dropped hints that Gaunt was serving a more powerful villain. They did an Author's Saving Throw by making Osborn this more powerful villain, and Gaunt was eventually unmasked as... Mendel Stromm, Osborn's business partner in his pre-supervillain days and a D-list villain called "The Robot Master" who'd had all of two previous appearances: the first in 1966 and the second in 1986, a full ten years before The Clone Saga.
  • Subverted at the end of Superior Spider Man. For over a dozen issues, the Goblin King has been dropping increasingly broad hints that he's Norman Osborn but always refuses to take the mask off. At the climax, Spider-Man rips off his mask, only to discover it's... some redheaded guy with a mustache he's never seen before. It turns out it really is Norman Osborn — he'd gotten plastic surgery since his original face had gotten too well-known.
  • Flipped on Spidey himself during the Mark Millar run in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #4, in which an injured Spider-Man is abducted from his hospital bed by the Vulture, who angrily tears off the bandages covering his face and is completely deflated by the realization that he and his criminal buddies have been losing to a "nobody" for all this time.
• Tear Off Your Face: Peter once ripped part of Norman Osborn's face off when he stuck to it with his stickum' powers during American Son. Not how Stan Lee imagined it being used, but awesome regardless.
• Teeth Flying:
  • Venom's teeth often go flying when Spider-Man gives him a beating. Not that it matters much, since they grow back in seconds.
  • During Spider-Man's first fight with Tombstone he knocks out several of his teeth.
  • In "The Mortal Past" from The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #28 after Carnage's friend Billy tricks him into taking off his costume so he can kill him as Cletus Kasady, Spider-Man takes advantage of the situation while he's more vulnerable in this state so he knocks him unconscious with a punch knocking out one of his teeth in the process.
  • In The Amazing Spider-Man #122, during Spider-Man's beatdown of The Green Goblin for killing his girlfriend Gwen Stacey, he knocks out some of his teeth.
• Then Let Me Be Evil:
  • While it never actually happens, Spider-Man comics have repeatedly teased the reader with the possibility of Spider-Man becoming a menace due to the All of the Other Reindeer mentality of the world around him. In the Ultimate Spiderman comics, Nick Fury was particularly worried that all of the tragedy and bad publicity in Peter's life would drive him to villainy — and given the combination of Peter's intelligence, determination, and superpowers, that would be a very bad thing.
  • The closest it came in the mainstream Marvel Universe was during the Acts of Vengeance, when he gained the godlike powers of Captain Universe, which he could not control, making the New Yorkers more scared of him than ever. The fact that super-villains were attacking him for no seemingly reason at all (something that was happening to the entire hero community during the crisis) only made him angrier. Finally, during his battle with the robot T.E.S.S. One, the insults from the people he was trying to help made him lose his temper, and he screamed, "You want a menace?? I've got your menace right here!!" And then he blew T.E.S.S. One to smithereens. (He may have eventually truly fallen into this trope had he not been able to win their respect by saving the city and winning their respect again — at least for a while.)
  • The Scorcher, a Spider-Man foe, reportedly started out like this. According to his origin story, research scientist Steven Jamal Hudak was framed for embezzlement by a co-worker and had to go into hiding to avoid his arrest. Being a wanted man with little chance of finding work at his chosen field, Hudak used his scientific knowledge to build a Powered Armor and started a career as a freelance mercenary.
• Thinks of Something Smart, Says Something Stupid: In the Omega Effect crossover, Spider-Man meets up with The Punisher. When he sees that Frank Castle has a female sidekick, Spidey thinks to himself◊ that cracking a joke about it will just piss Frank off—but he can't stop himself from saying it.
  Spider-Man's internal monologue: Of course... The Punisher... and he's brought a friend. Who's a girl. Don't say it resist the urge he'll kill you don't don't—
  Spider-Man: So I see you've started dating again.
  Spider-Man's internal monologue: Stupid mouth!
• To Catch Heroes, Hire Villains: In early comics, J. Jonah Jameson hires villains, or in the case of the Scorpion, helps create them in order to try and take down Spider-Man.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Spider-Man's writing team is making all his classic villains either take a level in badass or be replaced by stronger and more dangerous counterparts (Vulture, Rhino). Doctor Octopus took control over all of New York's technology with his last appearance, Chameleon (written by, already mentioned above, Fred Van Lente) returned to his original ways, becoming a perfect — and dangerous — impersonator and assassin. Electro can now turn into lightning and destroyed the Daily Bugle building, Sandman can make multiple copies of himself (some of them are murderous), Mysterio took control over the Mafia Maggia with his tricks. Not so classic White Rabbit has been turned from a complete joke into a dangerous drug dealer and crazy killer and together with the Spot and a bunch of C-List Fodder villains — Scorcher, Speed Demon, Bloodshed, Squid, Lightmaster, and Answer — almost destroyed Mr. Negative's criminal empire and defeated his immortal servants and Hammerhead (they lost only because Negative brainwashed Spider-Man and sent him to fight them).
  • Spider-Man is all about taking a level in badass. That's essentially what happened to Peter Parker from the very start!
    • And in Spider-Island, after losing his spider-sense and having to learn how to fight without it (Spider-Fu), it has returned and now Spider-Man is even more dangerous! Baddies beware.
    • He's done this multiple times over the course of his career as he has grown from a raw teen hero into a mature adult one. He's added tools, refined his webshooters, even gotten training from Captain America (who had pointed out to him that relying on instinct in a fight isn't always a good idea).
  • Although never exactly weak, Norman Osborn went from being Spider-Man's enemy (who Spider-Man constantly defeated) the Green Goblin, to being the man who killed Gwen Stacy, to being the one behind The Clone Saga, to taking over the entire Marvel Universe in Dark Reign.
  • Mary Jane Watson started off as just a flirtatious, free-spirited love interest for Spider-Man. As time went on, she became his main love interest, and was strong enough that she once beat one of his enemies up with a baseball bat and hardly ever gets captured; she seems well able to defend herself from villains and even rescued Spider-Man when she needed to.
  • Also, Spidey's one-time girlfriend Betty Brant. After the murder of her husband Ned Leeds, she went from one nervous breakdown to another, was brainwashed by a cult for a while, and in general, was a Damsel in Distress. Eventually, after a long absence from the comic, she came back packing heat and knowing martial arts, intent on finding answers to the reasons behind Ned's death. Even Spidey was shocked at the change she had underwent. During Peter David's run on Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man (shortly before One More Day), the highlight has to be Betty saving Flash and Spidey from Arrow using a shotgun with silver bullets (she's a Daily Bugle reporter).
  • Joke character Hammerhead got this treatment, as part of becoming The Dragon for Big Bad Mr. Negative. He got a reinforced skeleton (made out of canonical Nightmare Fuel^note that is, it actually gives Spidey nightmares... despite the fact that he never actually saw it) and strength and durability upgrades including a Kevlar throat. The very first thing he does is utterly stomp Spidey. As Peter is lying on the floor with a dislocated jaw, he says "Why aren't you a joke anymore?"
  • Anthony Davis was a second-rate C-List Fodder supervillain known as the Ringer, who was humiliated by Spider-Man before being unceremoniously murdered along with 17 other supervillains by the villain-killing Scourge. A later retcon would reveal that Davis was Not Quite Dead when he was found by a group of agents from the technological terrorist group A.I.M., who were investigating the site of the massacre to steal the technology of the dead villains. He got better when A.I.M. turned him into a cyborg with advanced laser weapons and teleportation powers. Now calling himself Strikeback, Davis proved to be a much better fighter than he ever was as the Ringer, defeating the Vulture, Stegron, Boomerang, and Swarm one after another when he reappeared.
  • Spider-Man writer Fred Van Lente has been doing this in general with a few F-list villains, taking them and making them into genuinely capable threats. The best example is the Spot, who is developed by Van Lente into a mute killer who's been driven insane by his being trapped in an alternate dimension and who can now only communicate by writing in his own incomprehensible language of dots. We also see just how legitimately terrifying the powers of even the lowliest super-villains can be. More recently, Van Lente has been writing background stories featuring some of the classic Lee/Ditko/Romita villains in the new Web of Spider-Man series that began in late 2009.
    • The Spot always had what should have been extremely dangerous abilities. He was just too stupid to use them effectively.
    • In their first encounter, the Spot beats Spider-Man badly. In their next encounter, Spidey knows what to expect and has the endurance to take his "only" normal human level hits until the Spot has used his powers too much and has given an open spot for him to attack. Thus he is only defeated by his overconfidence.
    • This predated Fred Van Lente's work. The first definitive example of the modern age of Spider-Man comics was Scorpion, formerly an incredibly dim C-List villain at best, becoming the new Venom and thus gaining not only knowledge and experience of how best to fight Spider-Man, but also getting a considerable physical boost despite already being physically (if not mentally) capable of going toe-to-toe with Spidey.
    • After a pretty successful stint as Venom (see Thunderbolts and Dark Avengers), he is back as the Scorpion in an even MORE powerful scorpion suit. Spidey still bests him, but he certainly has the powers to be a threat these days.
• The Topic of Cancer:
  • Used as a Fate Worse than Death in one version of Venom's origin. It turns out that Eddie Brock has cancer which, through hormonal imbalance, causes fits of rage, ruining his life. The symptoms also attract the Venom symbiote to him. The symbiote wants to take over Peter but ends up attached to Brock and unable to switch hosts again. It has the power to stop the cancer from spreading but can't afford to cure it as it relies on it for food. This leaves Brock superpowered, angry, and in constant pain — for the rest of his life. It ended up being cured sometime later thanks to Mr. Negative soon after Eddie surrendered the symbiote to be bidden off. In Venom (Donny Cates), it is suggested that Eddie's cancer wasn't actually cancer, but the symbiote manipulating his mind and body to make him think he did, thus they could stay together.
  • A minor but very creepy villain named Styx is at one point called "living cancer". He's a victim of Playing with Syringes trying to find a cancer cure by way of Acquired Poison Immunity — by exposing him to mutagens. Instead, it gives him the power to make anything he touches wither and rot. The experience also twists his mind — if his ability wasn't limited to touch, he would be an Omnicidal Maniac.
  • In Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Vol 2 #1, it's revealed that Aunt May has cancer and she's terrified of letting Peter know. When she finally does, one of the things he does is head for Doctor Strange (he was taking a kid there after he had accidentally broken his arm and the kid had no insurance) and start to ask for help. Strange cuts him off and suggests that he just take the time to be with her... and also to not take up deals with interdimensional demons (which Peter agrees to).
• True Love Is Boring: Outright stated by Word of God as the reason behind the Retconning of Peter and Mary Jane's divorce. And even before One More Day, writers and editors tried to break up, kill off, or otherwise end Peter and MJ's relationship time and time again. Also one of the reasons Gwen Stacy was killed. Nobody at Marvel was ready for a married Spider-Man yet, though in the case of Gwen, her being boring was also a reason (since MJ isn't, it's a lot harder to keep her out of Spider-Man's life).
• Unbuilt Trope: While obviously later writers didn't get the memo, the original Clone Saga by Gerry Conway was a Deconstruction of characters coming Back from the Dead, being fixated on The Lost Lenore, and not dealing with grief in a mature way. In that story, Prof. Miles Warren who became the Jackal (and who was intended as a one-time villain who died at the end of the story) is a stand-in for fans of Gwen Stacy who hounded Conway and others for killing off the character, and who likewise blamed Peter Parker and not the Green Goblin for her death. While the Gwen who came back is revealed later to be a clone, initially Peter and everyone assumed she was real, and Peter's still conflicted about Gwen's return because he's not the same person who loved her anymore, he has moved on and his feelings for MJ are stronger than his grief for Gwen, because unlike Miles Warren, who had a lecherous and creepy obsessive fixation for Gwen (putting her on a pedestal and fixating on her looks), Peter's at heart a normal and optimistic guy and indeed he overcomes his Clone Angst when he realizes that since he's now in love with Mary Jane, he's the real deal since the clones are all fixated on his past with Gwen. In other words, Conway's story is a proto-deconstruction to a number of comic tropes that came afterwards (i.e. Death Is Cheap, Status Quo Is God, Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest especially as it came to be seen in the wake of The Dark Phoenix Saga) and why even should Gwen return, his feelings he once had for her would not be enough to renew a relationship which contrasts heavily with Cyclops dumping Madelyne Pryor for the revived Jean Grey even when he had married and had a child with her. It also contrasts completely against the spirit and intent of the second and more notorious Clone Saga which was a stunt intended to return Peter "back to basics" and reverse his Character Development.
• Useless Spleen:
  • In the novel The Venom Factor, Venom states that when he finds whoever is responsible for the murders (that Venom is being wrongly accused of) he will eat his spleen. Spider-Man comments that this is an odd choice of organ to target and that Venom likely doesn't even know where someone's spleen is.
  • Comes back in the Spider-Man: Sinister Six Trilogy where Spider-Man casually jokes about Venom wanting to eat his spleen. He speculates that it's not specifically the spleen he's after, they both just think it's a funny word.
• Very Special Episode: Spider-Man has been a very popular character for very special episodes. Select narm-filled issues show our hero:
  • Saving a young boy from being molested by his female babysitter by telling the tale about how he was molested as a kid by an adult friend named "Skip", who had an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Ben◊. Marvel has stated, however, that the story is not canon.
  • Foiling a plot to inflict the youth of America with teen pregnancy by giving advice about sexuality.
  • Saving a stoner from jumping off a building. This mess was actually paid for with tax dollars, mind you.
  • Teamed up with Storm and Luke Cage to combat Smokescreen. Guess what this one is about
  • Teaming up with the Rangers and a paraplegic superheroine to teach the Calgary Stampede a lesson about road safety.
  • Spider-Man is also known for one of the better Very Special Episodes. Stan Lee was asked to write a very special episode about drugs by the government, and, instead of creating a Long-Lost Uncle Aesop to focus the story on, he chose to use an existing character, with bonus points for being a rich white male with known emotional issues. The Comics Code then refused to approve the comic, which was the beginning of the end for the CCA.
  • All these various issues would later be collected in a TPB "Spider-Man Vs. Substance Abuse".
• Vile Vulture: Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes is a villain who stylizes himself as a vulture by using a winged suit to rob banks and try to kill Spider-Man. His vulture-like appearance is aided by the fact that he's bald and has a fairly prominent, pointy nose.
• Villain Over for Dinner: Aunt May and Mary Jane have a tendency to be visited by Spidey's foes in civilian garb.
  • Venom visited them both, although Mary Jane knew who and what he was and spent a long time terrified of him. He visited Aunt May as "a friend of Pete's". However, it has to be noted that due to Venom's twisted sense of fair play, neither Mary Jane nor May were ever in any danger. Venom never made any threatening moves toward either of them, and Eddie Brock even chatted with May in a very friendly manner and helped her with household chores. Brock even gave Peter his word that he would never harm Aunt May. Later MJ took out the Chameleon when she realized that he wasn't Peter.
  • Norman Osborn did this a lot, obviously since he was one of the first villains to learn of Peter's secret identity. Though, a few of these times, even he wasn't aware he was the Goblin. Norman's son Harry did the same. Once again, Mary Jane was aware of what Harry had become and almost had a Heroic BSoD because of it. Remember, Mary Jane was friends with Harry and even dated him at one point.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Some versions of Spider-Man give Spidey him this sort of connection to Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. Especially when the Green Goblin's son is not living up to his father's expectations.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: The Amazing Spider-Man may well have invented'' this trope, and Peter's constant struggles to keep his life on track while fighting crime shows up in almost every other incarnation of the series. In fact, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spider-Man around this very premise. They wanted a young superhero who, unlike the then-popular "sidekick" depiction of such a character, had to simultaneously deal with the social and emotional pressures of becoming an adult... and the parade of crazy costumed baddies.
  • While Peter in later comics would become an adult in the main continuity, many adaptations would further lean into Peter struggling between being a high-schooler and a superhero. In comic books, the Ultimate Spider-Man would be best known for showing the concept in the light of the 21st century.
  • Peter Parker's successor as Spider-Man Miles Morales likely falls into this trope, both in the Ultimate Universe and the mainstream continuity.
  • Spider-Gwen follows a teenaged alternate version of Gwen Stacey who was bitten by a radioactive spider and similar to Peter has to find balance between her normal teenage problems and the life as superheroine Spider-Woman/Ghost Spider.
• Walking Wasteland: Carrion and Styx.
• Wife-Basher Basher: Cardiac usually doesn't concern himself with this kind of criminal (as a vigilante, his goal is to punish people who hurt others and do horrendous things but use legal loopholes and technicalities to escape justice). However, in one issue, while he is staking out a place, he sees a man assault his wife in a nearby apartment, and decides he can't "in clear conscience", let it happen. (Unfortunately, while he is teaching the wife-beater a lesson, it gave his true target more of a head start than he'd have liked.)
• Will-o'-the-Wisp: There's a villain named Will o'the Wisp, who most often fights Spider-Man. He can control his density and hypnotize targets.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
  • If you're a scientist introduced by name in the Spider-Man comics, you're usually one issue away from your experiments turning you into a deranged Supervillain. Especially if your name conveniently sounds a lot like the type of experiment you're conducting...
  • In almost every incarnation of Spider-Man, when he gains access to the power-enhancing abilities of the symbiote, he ends up becoming irrationally angry and cocky. Interestingly, this doesn't actually apply to the original comic book version of Spider-Man; he wore the symbiote suit for about a year without any ill effects, and it wasn't until the suit wanted their relationship to be a little more intimate than Spidey was ready for did he realize it wasn't such a great idea. The '90s cartoon was responsible for the "symbiote makes you a psychopath" aspect, which eventually came into play in the comic universe, however it was shown in a What If? issue in 1989 (5 years before the premiere of the animated series) that if Spider-Man kept the symbiote it would have possessed him mentally and physically, and eventually would have killed Peter.
  • Spidey's Arch-Enemy, the Green Goblin, in his original portrayal, was this. He was a distant father whose business practices were not always scrupulous, but he had redeeming traits, such as genuinely loving his son, and saving Gwen Stacy's father's life. Then the formula that gave him his powers drove him insane, though periodic bouts of amnesia restored him to his former self. After he killed Gwen Stacy, however, he was rewritten as always being sociopathic, with the kinder personality that he possessed during his periods of amnesia being a false personality. The Goblin formula probably enhanced his insanity, however.
• Wolverine Publicity:
  • As Marvel's Breakout Character, Spider-Man became the company mascot and in the early issues often appeared in multiple titles, predating Wolverine by more than a decade having passed even Wolverine and Deadpool in over-saturation as he is now either a member or guest-starring with the three big teams in the Marvel Universe—including the X-Men, the Avengers (both teams), and the new Fantastic Four (known as the FF); plus his own book is released twice a month.
  • Interestingly in Spider-Man's early issues, the Fantastic Four made appearances to boost the newcoming Spider-Man's popularity. The Human Torch made campus speeches in Peter's school, and Dr. Doom became the first Marvel-wide villain Spider-Man tussled with.
  • Recent comics have seen Spider-Man fall into Iron Man's orbit around the time he was getting his big push in the movies. He, Aunt May, and MJ moved into Stark Tower, Peter wore a suit designed by Tony Stark (Iron Spider), joined his side during the Civil War (before switching over to Team Cap midway), and in recent comics, Peter has even become Iron Man-lite in that he runs his own business and claims to be Spider-Man's employer and backer, while MJ actually transitioned from his supporting cast into Tony's for a while.
• Womanliness as Pathos: Gwen Stacy is a constant source of angst and turmoil for Peter, resulting in the circumstances her death being retreaded several times throughout publication, as well as many stories that resulted directly from her death or the events immediately leading up to them. For example, The Clone Saga started when Stalker with a Crush Miles Warren cloned both her and Peter Parker as revenge for Peter letting the object of his affection die. The story Sins Past revealed more details about her past, including that she cheated on him with his archenemy Norman Osborn and bore two children.
• Wring Every Last Drop Out Of Her: Aunt May has been on the verge of death for six decades.
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back: In one story, Peter is going undercover at a club for Vampire Vannabes. He dresses in what he thinks is appropriate goth gear, only for an Edward Cullen lookalike to taunt "The nineties called, they want their vampire back!"
• Yandere:
  • The Venom symbiote is a total Yandere for Spider-Man. Its thought process can be summed up as "That bastard! How dare he kick me out! Didn't he realize how awesome I was?! Well screw him! I hate him, I hate him, I want him to die! He deserves to suffer for hurting me! But then... I won't have him! I know, I'll kill off everything he loves and then force him to take me back! Then it will just be us together forever...". It's even been discussed once in Marvel Age Spider-Man and in The Spectacular Spider-Man, in which both times Peter pretends to apologize to the symbiote and asks if it wants him to be its host again, which it does, and both times Peter mentions that it's acting like a jealous ex-girlfriend. Also, take a look at the What If? take on The Other storyline, where Peter doesn't come back to life and the symbiote immediately abandons its current host to merge with Peter's body, becoming a new monstrosity called "Poison". It wants Peter so badly it doesn't even mind that he's dead.
    • On the flip side, Brock is this to the symbiote itself. Or rather, was. As Anti-Venom, he's now dedicated himself to destroying it. and even before that, he hated all other symbiotes (and with good reason, because Carnage was a killer who sickened him) and he devoted himself to killing them.
  • Carnage: Cletus Kasady and his symbiote have this relationship, with the latter willing to do whatever it takes to reunite with its beloved host when they're separated.
  • Spider-Man's former wife Mary Jane was actually plagued by two male versions of this trope, which were, oddly enough, connected. The first, and more obvious one, was her wealthy and Axe-Crazy landlord Jonathan Caesar. His first attempt to kidnap her failed, leading to his arrest and imprisonment, but even while behind bars, he was able to use his money and influence to make her life miserable, blacklisting her among the modeling profession until she managed to gain a role in the Secret Hospital soap opera.
    • The second one was much more subtle. After Caesar was paroled, a few folks who assaulted or abused Mary Jane (including a deluded fan of the soap opera and her angry director) were either murdered or assaulted. Mary Jane suspected it was Caesar's doing, especially when Peter himself was almost a victim, but Peter tended to doubt it, claiming that the attacks didn't fit his MO. Peter turned out to be right. The true culprit was the second Yandere (known only by his last name, Goldman) who had claimed to be a policeman, but was really only a clerk working for the NYPD. When Caesar made a second attempt to kidnap Mary Jane, Goldman murdered him in cold blood, and when Mary Jane rejected him, tried to shoot her too. But she tricked him into to getting close by offering to reveal the future plot of the soap (saying they'd have to change it if she were dead) and was able to knock him out with her purse. (Kind of makes you wonder what she kept in it... Bricks?)
  • One of the worst involved with Spider-Man's life is possibly Miles Warren, the orchestrator of everything that went down in The Clone Saga. He has always had one motivation for everything, and that is his unhealthy crush on Gwen Stacy. He seeks revenge on Peter not only for her death, but for having loved her when he couldn't. Ben seriously calls him out on this during the Final Battle, telling him, "Get this through your sick head, the Green Goblin killed her, Peter did not!" and Peter himself, during the Dead Man's Hand one shot, tells him, "Still hung up on Gwen, huh? Some things never change." The biggest irony is, Gwen's clone eventually fell in love with and married a far-more lucid clone of Warren (which the real one had abandoned as a failed experiment) so it's possible if Warren had not been such a lustful madman, the real Gwen might have been more accepting (or maybe turned him down in a way he could have accepted).
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Mister Negative. By day, Martin Li is the kindly, charitable owner of a soup kitchen whose visitors seem to be miraculously cured of their various ailments. By night the color-inverted Mister Negative is a ruthless gangster who warps Li's charitable works to his own criminal aim (unless it's Li who's covertly redirecting Mister Negative's efforts towards good).
• Zorro Mark: Kaine uses his wall-sticking powers on your face and pulls his hand away, resulting in the disfiguring "Mark of Kaine." Yeeowch. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the person he's doing this to is typically already dead.