"I know nine million ways to kill a body and I love every single one of them." Source:
"But isn't that what you want to hear, Doctor? That I was a poor, abused child? That my mother beat me? My father molested me? That I was tortured and hung by my ankles above a pit of broken glass? Well, maybe that's all true. Or maybe... I'm just the inevitable aberration. The soul that's born so black, so twisted, so filled with unreasoning hatred... that there's no explanation. You can't make me sane, Doctor. You can't hope to redeem me. All you can do is kill me. Because, if you don't—I'll break out of here. You have my word on that. And the blood—the glorious blood—will flow like wine!"
Spider-Man has been around since The '60s, and the Web-Slinger has faced many foes. However, a few members of Spidey's Rogues Gallery stand out. Here are the worst villains to inhabit the pages of the comic. For each category, examples are published by order of appearance/publication date.
- Examples from Earth-616's and Death of the Venomverse's Knull; Spider-Man 2099; Eyes Without a Face; the Ultimate Universe; the What If? series; and Marvel 1602 can be found here.
- Examples from animated works (and related comics) can be found here.
- Examples from films can be found here (for Spider-Man Trilogy, The Amazing Spider-Man Series, and Sony's Spider-Man Universe) and here (for Spider-Man: Far From Home).
- Examples from literature can be found here.
- Spider-Man (Japan) can be found here.
- Examples from video games (and tie-in comics) can be found here.
- Examples from unproduced scripts can be found here.
- Halloween Horror Nights featuring Carnage can be found here.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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Earth-616 (Spidey & others)
Recurring villains
Examples
- Carlton Drake is a wealthy industrialist who, paranoid about the end of civilization and wanting to create a utopian New World Order, started the Life Foundation and created an underground bunker for the wealthy elite to shelter in. Seeing everyone other than himself—even his clients—as disposable, Drake had his employees perform unethical experiments, and threatened them with death if they disappointed him. Intrigued by symbiotes, Drake had Venom captured and forced his symbiote to spawn five offspring he bonded to a squad of mercenaries. When Spider-Man stopped him from killing Eddie Brock, Drake self-destructed the bunker and escaped. Diagnosed with cancer, Drake blackmailed a university professor into creating a serum that would cure him and give him spider-powers, intending to weaponize it to make Super Soldiers. Mutated into a monster, Drake later made a pact with Meridius, the King in Black, to restore his humanity and bring the Life Foundation back from financial ruin. Aiding Meridius in his plans by sending mercenaries to kill Eddie Brock and attack the Venom symbiote and Eddie's teenage son Dylan, Drake made a deal with Senator Arthur Krane to elevate the Life Foundation to a position of political power and continued to perform unethical and tortuous experiments on symbiotes.
- Carnage:
- Cletus Kasady:
- Cletus was a psychopathic, prolific Serial Killer even before he bonded with the bloodthirsty alien symbiote and took the name of Carnage, after which he accrued a body count in the tens—if not hundreds—of thousands. As a child, he killed his grandmother and pet dog; tortured his mother; killed the headmaster of his orphanage before burning the orphanage down; and pushed a girl in front of a bus because she rejected him. As Carnage, he became one of the worst enemies of both Spider-Man and Venom. During the Maximum Carnage event, Carnage created a "family" of fellow super villains, using their powers to drive New York into homicidal insanity, and brutally tortured his "father" Venom. Not even his own "family" was safe from Carnage, as he brutalized his "wife" Shriek and then seemingly murdered their "son" Doppelganger when it tried defending her. Later, Carnage raised the Elder God Chthon from his ancient slumber, intent on watching as Chthon slaughtered all of mankind and allowed Carnage to bathe in the blood of billions. Upon dedicating himself to the dark god Knull—secretly planning to take his power for himself—Carnage hunted those who had bonded to symbiotes to consume their codices, slaughtering civilians to empower himself. Carnage forced Eddie Brock to choose between killing Cletus to save his son Dylan or allowing Cletus to kill them both, with either choice unleashing Knull. Posthumously controlling the Carnage symbiote, he allied with Arthur Krane to sow global chaos while corrupting several of the symbiotes left on Earth in the wake of Knull's invasion into a rival Hive.
- Carnage Vol. 4: "Cletus Kasady" is a clone of the original created by the Carnage symbiote to help it answer the question "What is a god?" and establish a religion to worship it. Acting as the Carnage symbiote's apostle, "Cletus"—inspired by the mystery of true-crime podcasts—began murdering people with the same names as the 12 Apostles of Christ, trapping one man in a glass box covered in ciphers to be boiled to death. Hunting down the original Cletus Kasady and scornfully eating his brain to absorb his consciousness, "Cletus" poisoned the elderly Rose Thompson with Polonium-210 to force her son Flash Thompson to weaken the Anti-Venom symbiote healing her, attempting to assimilate it before trapping him in the Darkforce dimension. Hunting down and tormenting Dylan Brock and the Venom symbiote in an attempt to draw out Eddie Brock, "Cletus" tortured Dylan by revealing the full extent of the Venom symbiote's dark past before impaling him through the heart. While superficially charming, "Cletus" is every bit the nihilistic and sadistic sociopath the original was, boasting that the act of murder makes him feel like a god.
- The Carnage symbiote is the first known offspring of the Venom symbiote, and is as much a sadistic and bloodthirsty nihilist as its premier host, Cletus Kasady. Usually subservient to Cletus, it is complicit in the countless crimes he has committed as Carnage but has been separated from him on numerous occasions, acting independently to wreak havoc. When bonded to individuals other than Cletus, the symbiote attempts to take over their bodies to slaughter everything in its path while mentally torturing them into embracing its bloodlust. Additionally, the symbiote facilitated Cletus's conquest of the town of Doverton, Colorado by taking over the town's populace; cut out the tongues of the Superior Spider-Man's soldiers to keep as trophies after being forcibly bonded to Dr. Karl Malus; went on a cross-country killing spree while consuming its interim hosts from the inside-out before returning to Cletus; and made a pact with Norman Osborn to become the Red Goblin—only to later seize control of him and gleefully slaughter an apartment complex. After being resurrected by the dark god Knull, the Carnage symbiote had a falling out with Cletus over their plan to become a god of destruction. Accusing Cletus of having held it back from attaining its true potential, the Carnage symbiote sets out to execute the plan by itself while taking pleasure in watching nebbish serial killer Ken "The Artist" Neely—who desires to become its new host—suffer in his attempts to assist it. Briefly taking NYPD officer Jon Shayde as a host to torture and corrupt him, the Carnage symbiote travels the multiverse butchering dozens of Venoms to absorb their symbiotes, finally killing an incarnation of Knull to apotheosize into a King in Black.
- Cletus Kasady:
Examples
- Daredevil/Spider-Man & Daredevil Vol. 1 issues #124-125: Copperhead started as Lawrence Chesney, who took the mantle of the Copperhead character and enacted his revenge. Copperhead began killing criminals and killed a cop who tried to stop him, but quickly establishes himself as a creepy killer who put pennies on the eyes of the victims he just killed. Copperhead went to Hell after he died and made a Deal with the Devil, returning to Earth as an undead lich. At this point, Copperhead, fueled by nothing more than a burning hatred of Daredevil, began a violent turf war with the Kingpin, which cost the lives of many people. Copperhead used those deaths as sacrifices to the Devil, gathering power from those deaths and using it to transform part of New York into a version of Hell. Copperhead plans to sacrifice Daredevil and Spider-Man to open a portal to Hell and cause the downfall of mankind.
- "Life in the Mad Dog Ward
" & "Return to the Mad Dog Ward" events: Dr. Hope is the chief of the Pleasant Valley Mental Hospital, which he masquerades as an upstanding facility while truthfully using it for nefarious purposes. On the payroll of the Kingpin, Hope forcibly commits innocent, sane people to the hospital as a method of "disappearing" them on Kingpin's orders, drugging them into stupors and subjecting them to heinous conditions. Hope does this not only out of greed, but also so he can perform his own horrific experiments on the patients to agonizingly transform hundreds of them into raving lunatics that he can sell as killers to Kingpin. One of Hope's "successes" is the creation of Brainstorm, who is sicced onto innocent civilians as a test run by Hope. - Spider-Man Vol. 1 issues #8-12—"Perceptions" arc, featuring Wolverine: Krahn is a Chief Inspector of the RCMP, as well as a pedophilic Serial Killer who has abducted, raped, and murdered countless young boys throughout British Columbia. When a benevolent Wendigo unearths the remains of one of his victims, Krahn blames the beast for the murder and exacerbates hysteria over it by leaking details of the case to the public, sparking panicked riots and misguided acts of vigilantism that result in the death of at least one innocent hunter. To keep the charade going, Krahn kidnaps and kills another boy, letting dogs gnaw on him in order to make it look like the child was mauled by the Wendigo. Later getting together a posse, Krahn sets out to slay the Wendigo, which will calm the public and allow him to resume molesting and killing children under more optimal conditions.
- Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 1 issue #225's "The Return of the Green Goblin": Firefist was a particularly sadistic one-shot foe for Peter Parker and Phillip Urich who distinguished himself by burning his chosen prey—the homeless and the destitute—alive with a makeshift gauntlet. An ultranationalist who disguises his sadism under rhetoric, both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin—Phil Urich—are able to unite to take down Firefist, dismissing him as a bully and a common murderer beneath his big words.
- Spider-Man's Tangled Web issues #1-3—"The Coming of the Thousand" arc: Carl King, a.k.a. the Thousand, is a particularly vicious childhood tormentor of Peter Parker who happened to be at the demonstration where the latter was bitten by the certain radioactive spider. He quickly put two-and-two together and decided to get spider-powers of his own by eating said spider. Instead, he was transformed into a colony of a thousand oversized spiders with the ability to crawl into a human body, eat the host's organs, musculature, and bones from the inside out, and wear their skin like a suit, mimicking both the victim's mannerisms and voice. The first person Carl "possessed" in this fashion was his own mother; the second, who he killed intentionally and for no reason, was his father, and the imagery implies that he killed his dad after having sex with him. Since then, he has come to the conclusion that he should have been Spider-Man rather than puny Parker, and has gone through around a dozen bodies every year, several of which were children, in order to become strong enough to overpower Spidey and steal both his body and his life.
- Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 issues #40-42: "Shade", real name Jacob "Jake" Nash, is a criminal who betrayed his cultist cellmate Richard Cranston to steal his ritual that enables access to the Astral Plane. When the ritual was tampered with, Shade gained the abilities of phase shifting and super strength, and began accessing the physical plane by trapping innocents inside the Astral Plane and feeding off their life energy—most often runaway or homeless children—and then uses his time on the physical realm to commit crimes and hire himself out to gang members. When Spider-Man demands to know why Shade is subjecting hundreds of people to the terrible torment of the Astral Plane prison he has constructed, Shade smirks and proclaims "Just for kicks".
- Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do: "Mr. Brownstone", Garrison Klum, is a sociopathic drug dealer with a nasty drive to dominate all those he sees. Having murdered his own mother in youth when his ability to teleport liquids manifested, Garrison continuously molested and raped his own little brother, Francis, on a regular basis through childhood and into teen years. Once discovering that Francis too had powers, Garrison began combining their abilities in a huge scheme to make themselves rich by supplying drugs to the rich and powerful by teleporting the drugs directly into their bloodstream, thus eliminating any physical evidence of drug usage. Continuing to molest Francis at his leisure, Garrison also is known to regularly use his powers to inject paralyzing drugs into people, then rape them, with his main targets being young women and teenage boys. After avoiding an assassination attempt by a rival drug gang, Garrison injects drugs directly into their hearts, killing the entire gang plus the leader's wife with a smile on his face, and uses this same method to kill two customers of his to silence them. When his body count draws the attention of the Black Cat, Garrison paralyzes her with drugs, then attempts to rape and murder her, and continue his rise to becoming the most powerful man in New York.
- Spider-Verse (2014): Solus, father of the Inheritors, transformed himself into a life-devouring monster and then turned his own family as well. Conquering his own Earth, Solus seeks multiversal domination by sending the Inheritors to devour countless "Spider-Totem" users, resulting in the deaths of a multitude of heroes. A monstrous tyrant, Solus has some of the users abducted to be devoured by his family in macabre banquets and even attempts to sacrifice young Benjy Parker to summon the ultimate Totem. Having no care for the children he has made into monsters, Solus leads them into battle to massacre all the Spider Totem warriors during Spider-Geddon, intending on devouring and dominating all they find in their path.
Other Characters
Examples
- Morbius & Venom: Dr. Thaddeus Paine, having lost all tactile sensation from an experimental anesthesia, develops a sick fascination with pain and the limits the human body can be pushed to. Debuting in issue #4 of Morbius, Paine kidnaps dozens of innocents to subject them to horrific experimentation, vivisection, and torture, all without anesthesia, keeping their hacked-up bodies alive, conscious, and begging for death within his laboratory. Paine sees Morbius's physiology as prime fodder for his study, and even forces Morbius to watch him hack up a captive's brain, later musing on how beautiful he is as the enraged Morbius cuts apart his faculty. Reestablishing himself in Long Island in Venom: The Hunger, Paine continues to experiment on people, including Eddie Brock, subjecting him to weeks of torture and using him to lure the Venom symbiote into his clutches—and when finally defeated by having the phenethylamine sucked out of his brain, ends his run converging on his wounded staff to start devouring their brains in a fit of insanity. Of all of Marvel's minor villains, Paine stands out as one of the most viscerally vile on record, with even Morbius stating "never have I seen a creature which more needed killing than you."
- Morbius: The Living Vampire Vol. 1:
- Victor "Vic" Slaughter was a former mercenary turned vampire when he accepted a contract on Michael Morbius. Abandoning humanity and anything good about himself, Vic embraced the savage glee that came with his condition, killing and draining a nurse before embarking on a citywide spree of murder, cannibalism, and rape. Slaughtering everyone who crosses his path, Vic is all but impossible to permanently kill. Returning again and again, Vic butchers innocents with glee, with a body count that few vampires can boast, all to showcase his separation from mankind.
- Issue #25's "Drainage System": Stoker Collins is a jumped-up cult leader who torched a nightclub full of vampire wannabes because they weren't hardcore enough for his taste. Collins begins brutally killing homeless vagrants and exsanguinates them in a way in a way that implicates Morbius; when the two inevitably butt heads, Collins gloats that his soul is "blacker than Mephisto's earwax" and that he murdered all the vagrants purely "for the kicks".
- Venom:
- Vol. 1: "Bob", the CEO of the Ararat Corporation, is an alien entity composed of robotic spiders seeking to end all life on Earth and later the rest of existence for a complete recolonization. Bob created a more sadistic clone of Venom, with which he conducts experiments where countless people get torn to shreds and killed by the creature. Bob sets the creature loose onto a facility, where it massacres all of the scientists there, and later goes on a spree, killing anyone in its path. Bob later orders an entire town to be nuked, killing all of the inhabitants, and ultimately intends to have the clone symbiote merge with the original Venom and destroy all of humanity.
- Anti-Venom—New Ways to Live (featuring The Punisher), written by Zeb Wells: Jorge Valdez is a nasty cartel leader with a personal harem of drugged-up teenage prostitutes. Completely unhinged, Jorge has his own minions massacred for losing him money and forces Eddie Brock's recovered addict friend Jenna Cole to fall Off the Wagon by injecting her with heroin. Jorge later inducts Jenna into his harem, spites Eddie over the phone by calling him to taunt Eddie how he'll be raping Jenna, and goes as far as to order his henchman to shoot every one of his girls rather than let them run away.
- Venom (Remender & Bunn): Crime Master III, Bennett Brant, thought to have been killed, was actually taken in by a criminal organization who chose him to become the new Crime Master. Starting his reign of terror by kidnapping a child on Halloween, Crime Master teaches the boy to kill, convinces him to to kill his parents, and raises him as his new assassin, Jack O'Lantern V. Desiring to become a crime boss, Crime Master hires a scientist to weaponize some Antarctic Vibranium. When the scientist double-crosses him and uses the Vibranium himself, Crime Master is pleased to see his product in action and to get the free advertising. Crime Master sends Jack to capture the scientist, allowing him to kill innocent bystanders in the process. Believing that promoting chaos is good for his business, Crime Master wants to repeat scenes of horror such as this across the globe to make a profit. Crime Master has Jack kidnap Betty, the girlfriend of Flash "Agent Venom" Thompson—and Brant's sister—and straps her to a bomb, only promising to release her if Venom delivers some Vibranium to him, a promise which he does not plan to keep. After Venom tries to assassinate the Crime Master, the latter orders his underlings to kill all of Flash's friends and family.
- Scarlet Spider Vol. 2: Mr. Moctezuma is a human trafficker with ties to the Aztec gods who wants to murder the reincarnation of Huitzilopochtli in order to start the "Sixth Creation". Having sold several people either into forced labor or to be experimented on by the Roxxon Corporation, Mr. Moctezuma believes MarÃa Aracely Penalba, aka Hummingbird, is the reincarnation, so he attempts to kill her by placing her and several other people in a metal crate and have them roast to death; she's the only survivor of this incident. Mr. Moctezuma later sends the Salamander to burn her alive in the hospital, endangering several doctors and patients, and later sends Carlos and Esmeralda Lobo to kill her with promises of bringing back Carlos's brother Eduardo back, killing Carlos when he fails.
- "Minimum Carnage" event: Marquis Radu is a devout protege of Baron Karza himself, who has his own plan to dominate the Microverse and beyond. Inspired by the ancient legends of symbiotes devastating his universe, Radu lures and captures Carnage and Venom in his laboratory, where they are painfully experimented on. Radu duplicates their symbiotes and feeds thousands of people to the ravenous beings as hosts, proclaiming his goal of unleashing an army of symbiotes onto the Microverse until the Enigma Force, and life itself, are devoured. Radu will then assume the place of the Enigma Force as a practical god, enabling him to collapse the Macroverse and all of reality in on itself and remake it in his own image.
- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2018) issues #1-3 & 42: The Snatcher is an elitist and racist creep who enjoys targeting children. Using his power of psychic attacks, Snatcher painfully overrides the minds of dozens of kids to turn them into superpowered slaves that he sells on the Black Market to the highest bidder as Child Soldiers. Getting a sadistic kick from the pain he causes with his powers, the Snatcher fries the brains of any adults that try to stand up to him, and justifies his victim choice by noting their parents are just homeless or immigrant "trash." When Spider-Man and Captain America nearly defeat him, the Snatcher orders all of the children under his thrall to turn their guns on each other in a last-ditch effort to save his own skin.
- Extreme Carnage & Venom Vol. 5 issue #2: Arthur Krane is the Serial Killer son of corrupt New York senator Peter Krane, who hides behind a friendly facade and his father's connections. Arthur conspires to assassinate his father and usurp his senatorial seat, collaborating with the Carnage symbiote when it finds his bloodlust makes him a worthy host. Tricking Agent Anti-Venom into thinking his father is Carnage's host, Arthur and the symbiote murder Peter, Carnage's corrupted symbiotes attacking his supporters at a rally. After being separated from Carnage by Iron Man, Arthur lies and blames the whole event on the symbiote, taking over as New York's new senator. Continuing his father's anti-extraterrestrial policies, Arthur secretly swears fealty to Carnage, using his new political position to empower the diabolical Life Foundation as America's top authority on symbiotes and support Mayor Wilson Fisk's criminal activities.
Other Continuities
Carnage: Black, White & Blood (multiple other Earths)
Examples
- Issue #1:
- "End of the Trail": The Carnage symbiote, arriving on Earth at some point during the late 19th century, takes over an unnamed host and gleefully burns down a church in Kansas with the congregation trapped inside. Attacking a Great Northern Railway train in Montana, Carnage kills all the passengers; massacres the entire populace of Saber, New Mexico; burns down a bank for no reason; and kills a group of poker players only to steal their teeth. Holing up in a cave in the Colorado wilderness, Carnage decorates its lair with the corpses of bounty hunters and townsfolk—impaling several on trees to rot. Hunted down by elite U.S. Marshal Seth Strode, Carnage lures him into an ambush and bonds to him, setting out to use him to commit even more atrocities.
- "You Are Carnage": The Carnage symbiote, captured by the US military, is bonded to an unnamed soldier as a successor to Agent Venom. Should the soldier not possess the willpower to resist its sadistic bloodlust, or choose to give in, the Carnage symbiote takes control of him and gleefully goes on a feeding frenzy in the Metro-General Hospital's maternity ward; brutally slaughters a trio of Ani-Men committing a bank robbery; and/or massacres a squadron of NYPD officers. Recaptured by the military after a horrifying rampage, the symbiote consumes its host from the inside-out until nothing but bones remain.
- Issue #2's "My Name is Carnage": The Carnage symbiote arrives in Nunavut, Canada in 1803 via the Halvorson Meteorite. Spending the next two centuries slaughtering and devouring everything it came across, Carnage comes to be feared as the mythological Qiqion by the local Inuit. Bonding to the Inuit guide Kalik, it uses him to slaughter his companions and then lure in new victims under the pretence of guiding explorers to the meteor. Encountering an expedition sent by H.A.M.M.E.R., Carnage uses Kalik to lure them into the wilderness and picks them off one by one until only Mr. Creary remains. Impressed by Creary's ruthless determination, Carnage tortuously separates from Kalik and bonds to him, murders its former host in cold blood, and declares its intent to use Creary to turn the rest of the world into its hunting grounds.
- Issue #4's "Carnage Beyond": The Carnage symbiote abandons its longtime host, Cletus Kasady, when the latter repents of his murderous ways; the symbiote takes over the comatose Dylan Brock to obtain the godlike power he'd possessed as Knull's acolyte Codex. Under Carnage's control, Codex conquers the Earth and massacres everyone save a few he spares only to torture to death—including his own mother, Anne Weying. Intent on revenge against the Dylan Brock of another universe, the Carnageized Codex impersonates Anne to ambush him, and tries to assimilate Dylan's Venom symbiote while mocking them for being weak. Dismissed as an absolute monster, the Carnage symbiote is torn from Codex's dying body and utterly destroyed by Dylan's King in Black powers.
Others
Examples
- Spider-Man: The Manga issues #7-9 (Earth-70019): Kangaroo is a bloodthirsty, brutish American wrestler with super strength that he abuses with absolute glee. After being blacklisted by his home country's wrestling association for the way he'd horrifically brutalize his opponents, Kangaroo travels to Japan to extend his special brand of cruelty to the locals. Landing on Spider-Man's radar by brutalizing four Japanese wrestlers, Kangaroo proceeds to cause chaos all over the city by assaulting people, stealing, and inciting panic among the masses. After stealing a canister of highly lethal bacteria with the power to kill thousands of innocent people should it go airborne, Kangaroo uses it as a shield to gain an edge over Spider-Man in combat. Once bested by Spidey, a smug Kangaroo decides to fling the canister to the ground which, had it not been for Spider-Man's intervention, would have condemned thousands to die, purely out of rage and spite towards the masses for hating him. Despite appearing before the comic's infamous Darker and Edgier tone shift, Kangaroo stands out as being among the most heinous foes that this incarnation of Spider-Man has fought, even causing Spidey to temporarily quit crime-fighting out of fear of becoming as bad as Kangaroo.
- "Crossover Earth" (Earth-7642):
- Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man: Lex Luthor himself proves to be the most evil version of the character ever seen in the Pre-Crisis continuity. Initially content with causing mayhem across Metropolis for the purpose of luring Superman out, Lex eventually allies with Doctor Octopus and teams up to ostensibly threaten the world with a weather machine. Kidnapping Lois Lane and Mary Jane as leverage and hypnotizing a tribesman to act as the unwilling, murderous guardian of his secret lair in the process, Lex finally reveals the absolute depth of his wickedness when he reveals he simply intends to use the weather machine to annihilate the entire planet as the culmination of his "black ambition", gloating that even after his plan is sabotaged he's still doomed the Atlantic Coast to a tidal wave. Beholden to none of Luthor's more honorable traits here, Lex ultimately attempts to destroy all humanity out of petty spite for never recognizing his genius, horrifying even Doc Ock with how far he'll sink to hurt Superman.
- Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds: Carnage and Joker are Ax-Crazy as usual:
- Cletus "Carnage" Kasady, much like his mainstream counterpart, is a killing-obsessed lunatic driven by sadism. Heavily implied by the narrative to have been the crook who murdered the Wayne parents, Carnage opens the comic being implanted with a microchip alongside the Joker that will "cure" him of his insanity after his latest killing spree. Revealed to have faked his "recovery", Carnage brutally maims several innocents to distract Batman and Spider-Man while he kidnaps the Joker, destroying the clown's microchip and proposing a partnership. This doesn't last long, as Carnage attempts to murder the Joker after a difference of opinion on how to hurt the city of Gotham best. Capturing Batman, Carnage reveals his plan to simply slaughter each and every innocent in Gotham one by one so as to bask in their screams and fear, and attempts to kick off his massacre by killing Batman on live television for all of Gotham to see and despair at. Carnage was utter madman who rejoiced in his "black heart" and depravity, and who wanted nothing more than to butcher every thing in sight.
- The Joker, as usual, is a theatrical sadist who contrasts Carnage's wanton bloodlust with concentrated, depraved flourish, and is possibly the one who murdered Spider-Man's Uncle Ben. Introducing himself in the comic by attempting to unleash a swarm of poisoned bats to drive all of Gotham to fatal insanity, Joker is eventually subdued and briefly controlled under the influence of a microchip that suppresses his insanity. Once freed from the chip's influence by Carnage, Joker initially takes up Carnage on his offer of a partnership, intending to have hundreds of needy children around Gotham horribly killed by his poisoned "presents". Once Carnage turns on Joker for his difference in opinion, Joker attempts to kill him and eventually resolves to release his insanity virus on Gotham anyways, solely to stick it to Carnage for invading on his turf.
- Spider-Man J (Earth-7041): General Wasperus is the vicious, arrogant second-in-command of the mysterious Lord Beastius's forces. Tasked with enslaving millions of Tokyo's citizens, Wasperus uses creations of his own, called Stealth Bees, which latch on to their hosts and turn them into prisoners of their own mind, aware and helpless while Wasperus is free to use them as soldiers and as slaves to carry out his bidding. He demonstrates this on Detective Flynn, a friend of Spider-Man's who he forces to fight to the death, smugly mocking Spider-Man about his predicament while stating that he picked this method of fighting Spider-Man solely for the sake of the look on his face when forced to kill a close ally. When Spidey hesitates to hurt Flynn, a bored Wasperus tries to butcher Spider-Man's young friends Harold and Jean-Marie before threatening to hurt other innocent civilians as well. After freeing Flynn from Wasperus's control and chasing him to his lair, the general fights the heroes himself and states that he intends to keep Spidey alive just long enough to live with the guilt of not saving millions of innocents from enslavement before squashing him like a bug. A dark, serious foe in an otherwise-lighthearted and funny comic, Wasperus proves to be this continuity's nastiest villain by far.
- Spider-Man: India (2004) (Earth-50101): Nalin Oberoi, the Earth-50101 incarnation of Norman Osborn, is the wicked CEO of the Oberoi Corporation, ordering a village full of innocent people massacred to the last to steal a powerful amulet with them. Contacting powerful, ancient demons through the power of the amulet, Oberoi happily sells himself into their service, horribly twisting his associate into a monster he calls Doctor Octopus and trying to have him kill Pavitr Prabhakar, the new Spider-Man, in exchange for his humanity. Oberoi tosses Pavitr's love interest and aunt off a bridge knowing he can only save one, and when Octopus betrays him, Oberoi furiously murders him instead. Only too eager to hand the world to the demons for the subsequent slaughter of all humanity that will ensue, even his own son, Oberoi repeatedly shows he's no less lacking in the spite and ambition that characterizes his 616 counterpart.
- Marvel Adventures Spider-Man Vol. 1 issue #44's "Evil On a Grander Scale" (Earth-20051): Sidewinder, the leader of the Serpent Society, seeks a "reptilian paradise" of sub-human lizard people to rule over. To this end, Sidewinder kidnaps Curt Connors and forces him to become a Reluctant Mad Scientist, testing his Lizard formula on innocent people who mutate and go on to wreak havoc. Dissatisfied that the formula wears off before the transformation can become permanent, Sidewinder fixes this flaw, then plans to poison New York's water system with the formula to degrade millions of people into mindless lizards, forever.
- Spider-Man: Reign (Earth-70237): Edward Saks is Mayor Waters's chief assistant and the real power behind the Reign regime, with Waters just being a puppet. Under Saks's guidance, Mayor Waters turns New York into a Police State, where elections are suspended and armed troops arrest, beat or just kill those who protest against the government. When Spider-Man returns, Saks releases the Sinister Six and sends them after Spidey, threatening to blow them up with micro bombs implanted under their skin if they fail. Jameson confronts Saks and Mayor Waters over their actions and manages to reveal that Saks is in fact Venom. Venom then proceeds to devour almost everyone in a room occupied by his prisoners and his underlings. Mayor Waters announces the creation of the WEBB shield generator, designed to keep super criminals out of New York, but Venom altered it to deliver an army of symbiotes to the people of New York, killing some civilians and turning others into Venom's slaves.
- The Amazing Spider-Girl (Earth-982):
- Norman Osborn himself, murderer of Gwen Stacy and with all his evil deeds from the original continuity before his death, whose spirit lays dormant within Peter, is revealed to have cloned May Parker and raised either the original May or the clone as a weapon. Returning in Peter's body, he intends to snuff out Peter's heroic spirit and gain his revenge by murdering the Parkers. Gleefully attempting to kill May and all her friends, Norman takes Mary Jane and her baby son Benjy to the spot where Gwen Stacy died, intending to hurl them to their deaths to traumatize Peter even more. Styling himself the Goblin God and willing to murder anyone in his path, and with the same legacy of death and destruction behind him, Norman shows against why he is Peter's most despicable nemesis, who will not spare even his own grandson should he stand in Norman's way.
- Issues #9-12: The Carnage symbiote, after escaping S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, proves to be as vicious as ever. It forcibly bonds with May Parker's schoolmate Moose and tries to go on several murder sprees, only stopped by Moose's interference. Carnage kidnaps Peter Parker's infant son Ben and tortures Peter. When Spider-Girl tries to rescue Ben, Carnage attacks a hospital, saying Spider-Girl has to choose between saving the staff or Ben, and throws Ben out of a window. Spider-Girl saves Ben and the staff, but Carnage reveals that he infected Ben with a symbiote, turning Ben into a copy of himself, and orders him to kill Spider-Girl. Carnage offers to cure Moose's father of cancer if he allows Carnage to permanently bond with him, but secretly plans to infect the dad with a symbiote too. When Carnage orders Ben to kill Peter, Spider-Girl has to use a sonic weapon to get the symbiote off of Ben, costing him his hearing.
- Spider-Man: Fairy Tales issue #3—"Eclipse" (Earth-71004): The spider demon is a sadistic Tsuchigumo living in the forest. He would often trick a human into entering the forest and then use his venom to turn them into a Yokai as well, by having them kill a loved one. When Izumi arrives to avenge his parents' death, the Demon mocks him about it and then uses its venom against Izumi. The Demon then kills Izumi's uncle and kidnaps his aunt in order to have Izumi kill her. Even when beaten he tries to goad Izumi into killing him so as to take over his body.
