Everyone loves Spider-Man. From his relatable hardships to his charismatic quips, Spider-Man stories have always defined the superhero genre. A key element of these stories, however, are the villains. Spider-Man has one of the most iconic rogues’ galleries of all time—Green Goblin, Electro, Doctor Octopus, Venom—chances are, if you’ve heard of Spider-Man, you’ve heard of his foes. Some of these nefarious villains don’t appear as often as the others. They fall to the wayside because they just don’t have the same staying power in comics or screen presence in film. But I’m here to shine some light on these absurd antagonists and their strange backstories.
Justin Wheele, aka “Big Wheel” was introduced in 1978 as a conniving businessman and criminal. After being insulted by fellow villain Rocket Racer, Justin Wheele seeks the help of yet another villain known as Tinkerer. Tinkerer builds a literal giant metal wheel as a vehicle for use by Justin Wheele. Wheele, officially becoming Big Wheel, drives the wheel around New York, rolling it up buildings and endangering civilians. After a brief confrontation with Spider-Man, Big Wheel loses control and drives straight off a building, drowning in the Hudson River. Truly an embarrassing fate for somebody whose only strength is a giant metal wheel.
There’s also Paste-Pot Pete; a man with a supervillain name so laughable, Spider-Man bullied him into changing it. Despite showcasing a decent record of villainy within the Marvel Universe, facing opponents like the Fantastic Four, Paste-Pot Pete was humbled by Spider-Man’s humorous reaction to his name. He then changed his name to “Trapster” and developed new pastes. Oh I forgot to mention, his powers are literally just shooting adhesives and other substances out of these blaster things. As he became more of a serious threat following his embarrassing run-in with Spider-Man, he eventually learned to replicate Spider-Man’s webbing (one of the only people Peter Parker has ever known to even get close to the webbing formula).
The Spot is a bit of a different story. Despite a great amount of disrespect from the comic book writers, repeatedly making him a “villain of the week,” low-level criminal, Jonathan Ohnn would later become a true threat in mainstream pop culture. Ohnn, while working for mob boss Kingpin, created a portal that wiped out power across New York. Stepping through it, he entered the “Spotted Dimension,” a funny-looking pocket world which grants Ohnn with the ability to create portals at will—with the unfortunate drawback of said portals being attached permanently to his skin. Ohnn’s goofy appearance as The Spot is treated mostly as a joke across multiple decades of Spider-Man comics. It wasn’t until Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was released in 2023 that The Spot was seen for the horrifying power that he actually holds. That’s what’s so genius about Spider-Man’s villains: they’re tragic, they’re silly, but they always have another trick up their sleeve. The writers don’t just let the silly ones vanish. They bring these characters back with great improvements, revitalizing their less popular antagonists for a modern audience.