The most chilling, totally-not-friendly neighbourhood iterations of ol' Web-head.
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00:00When one looks across the pantheon of characters served up by Marvel Comics over the decades,
00:04it's fair to say that nobody has proven as forever popular as Spider-Man. He's heroic,
00:10he's funny, sometimes, and he always knows how to kick justice right in the face. Except, that is,
00:15when he's being downright evil. And that's what we're here to talk about today. So I'm Jules,
00:19this is WhatCulture.com, and these are the 10 Most Evil Versions of Spider-Man.
00:2410. The Last Stand
00:26Happy Birthday This 2003 run saw a three-part
00:30happy birthday story that found Peter Parker trapped deep in a timeline as the result of a
00:34scheme from the villainous Dormammu. There, Parker was able to see both a younger version of himself
00:39and an older version. For the younger version, this is the Peter who is minutes away from being
00:44bitten by the radioactive spider that would change his life. Should the present-day Parker
00:48hop in and stop this bite from happening, in turn giving him a chance to save Uncle Ben?
00:52But upon glancing at the future Peter, our hero sees a grizzled figure who is about to go down
00:57in a blaze of glory as gun-toting cops circle in on him, should the present-day web-head intervene
01:02here. But the truth is, this future Peter Parker has spent years as a brutal vigilante who's
01:07killed his targets. This bloody path began, as later shown in Grim Hunt, when Spider-Man murdered
01:12Kraven in revenge for the deaths of Kane and the Matty Franklin version of Spider-Woman.
01:17From there, Peter embarked on a downward spiral that pulled inspiration from the Punisher's
01:21playbook. In fact, so extreme were his methods, Spidey was even kicked out of the Avengers.
01:26After years on the run from the law, he lured the police to Aunt May's grave with the intentions
01:30of having the cops kill him, which is where our Spider-Man finds him.
01:349. Pestilence – Enema of the State
01:38It was only a fleeting appearance in a single story, but the Earth-5701 version of Peter Parker
01:43earns himself a spot on this list for just how much of a thoroughly creepy bastard he was during
01:48his outing in 2005's Cable & Deadpool number 15. Ten years on from its release, Marvel Comics
01:53opted to pay certain tributes to 1995's Age of Apocalypse story. As part of this,
01:58Cable & Deadpool number 15's Enema of the State had the Merc with a Mouth accidentally
02:03traveling to an alternate world that was, as Wade put it himself, an Age of Apocalypse.
02:08Upon landing on Earth-5701, Pooley D is immediately greeted by Apocalypse's infamous
02:14Four Horsemen. With Angel leading the charge under the guise of Death,
02:17it's soon revealed that this group's iteration of Pestilence is a sinister,
02:21four-armed, four-legged Spider-Man. What marks this version of old webhead out as a particularly
02:26disturbing one is how he makes comments about wanting to suck the marrow from the bones of
02:31Deadpool, and how he wants to see Wade crippled, starting with his jaw. It's unfortunate that
02:36readers only got to spend a handful of panels with this intriguing and nefarious spin on Spider-Man,
02:40but Deadpool was soon transported to yet another alternate Earth as part of an overall story that
02:45saw him trying to locate Cable. Number 8. Ben Reilly's latest descent into villainy, Beyond
02:51Now, Ben Reilly is someone who long-time Marvel fans have often clamoured to see more of. One of
02:55the few positives to come out of the plentiful clone saga, Ben is a Peter Parker doppelganger
03:00who's a massive fan favourite character for his time as the heroic Scarlet Spider. Even more
03:05grin-inducing for those Reilly fans, he was fully back under the Spider-Man moniker in 2021
03:11as he took over from Peter Parker. Given the Spider-Man name by the Beyond Corporation that
03:15owns Parker Industries and the Spider license, Ben initially butts heads with Peter before his old
03:20pal gives him his blessing. Throughout all of this, Beyond tinkered with Ben's mind, and stripped back
03:26his memories until he became a hollow shell of his former self. Reilly eventually dons his own
03:30green and purple take on the traditional Spider-Man costume, and gives himself the villainous name
03:35Chasm. While Chasm is a new creation who hasn't done as many awful acts as some of the other
03:41versions of Spider-Man on this list, he deserves a spot here for the sheer potential that he has to
03:46cause chaos. After all, one has to remember that Ben Reilly is a carbon copy of Peter Parker,
03:51complete with all of Peter's skills, smarts, and pig-headed will to win, plus now has additional
03:56abilities due to polymer mutations, and that's pretty scary. Number 7. Sinister Spider-Man,
04:02Dark Avengers Sir Mac Gargan is one of Spider-Man's
04:06oldest rivals, with Gargan initially debuting in 1964's The Amazing Spider-Man number 19,
04:11before becoming the villainous Scorpion in the following issue. In addition to a lengthy career
04:16as the Scorpion, Mac at one time also became Venom, which nicely led into him then taking
04:20on the mantle of Spider-Man. So how can somebody with decades worth of evil intentions behind them
04:26be worthy of the Spider-Man moniker? Well, that's because this was all part of a master plan from
04:30Norman Osborn. After Osborn created his own underhanded Thunderbolts team, Mac was present
04:36when the group evolved into the Dark Avengers. Again, a villainous faction headed up by Norman
04:41Osborn, here we have the Venom symbiote tweaked so that it was less erratic and looked more like
04:45Spider-Man during the time that Peter first wore the black suit. As such, Osborn renamed Gargan as
04:51Dark Spider-Man, aka Sinister Spider-Man. And this Dark Spider-Man wasted no time in topping
04:56the heinous acts of his time as Scorpion and Venom, with Mac now intent on eating those who
05:01stood in his way as he became consumed by the addictive aggression of this altered symbiote.
05:06Gargan would drop the Spider-Man name and finally be banished of the Venom symbiote period by 2010's
05:12big time tale, although he would still revert back to his Scorpion persona.
05:16Number 6. Spider Carnage – Spider-Man The Animated Series
05:20Diving into Fox's stunning Spider-Man The Animated Series of the 1990s,
05:25this iconic show offered up one of the most deranged versions of Peter Parker seen in any
05:30medium. While this series brilliantly showcased classic rogues such as Doctor Octopus, Green
05:35Goblin, Kingpin, Hobgoblin, and, of course, Venom and Carnage, it also offered up a skewed
05:40Spider-Carnage rogue towards the end of the show's final season. As is ever the case when
05:44talking about Spider-Man and the 1990s, clones were the hot topic of the day. In the series'
05:50two-part Spider-Wars offering, so powerful was Spider-Carnage that it required a whole slew of
05:55Spider-Men to attempt to bring him down. Featuring Spideys from various dimensions, all brought
06:00together by the Beyonder, this story's big bad is a Peter who not only lost Uncle Ben,
06:05but lost Aunt May too. Emotionally broken and unhinged as a result, the vulnerable,
06:09erratic Parker proves to be the perfect host for the Carnage symbiote.
06:14With a plan concocted around the premise of, I've lost what's closest to me,
06:17so you will lose what's closest to you, Spider-Carnage unleashed a scheme to generate an
06:22interdimensional hull that would destroy all of reality. It would be revealed that Spider-Carnage
06:26was actually a Miles Warren-created clone, something which further pushed this Peter
06:30over the edge, and it took a pep talk from an otherworldly Uncle Ben to finally convince
06:35the villain to cease his plan, with the rogue then sacrificing himself for the greater good.
06:395. Spider-Norman, Spider-Geddon
06:43While the numerous different Earths and realities have seen plentiful Peter
06:47Parkas and various other characters take on the role of their respective world's Spider-Man,
06:51the kicker of Earth-44145 is that the Spider-Man of this realm is none other than Norman Osborne.
06:58If there's one guarantee in comics, it's that Norman always has a self-serving scheme up his
07:02sleeve, and of course, that was clearly the case in the huge Spider-Geddon event. There,
07:07the spiders of multiple realities were all brought together to stop the villainous
07:11inheritors and their plan to dominate the multiverse. Osborne's plan is that Earth-616,
07:16as in our Earth, is an acceptable loss in the grand scheme of things.
07:20To show a further glimpse at Spider-Norman's sinister side, the short time we spend with him
07:25in his own world shows that he's mutated himself into an eight-limbed being, has murdered Peter
07:29Parker, and has been partaking in schemes so crazed that his own son Harry sacrificed his
07:34own life in an attempt to stop him. 4. Doppelganger, Infinity War
07:39Debuting during 1992's Infinity War, Doppelganger is a version of Spider-Man who is a mindless,
07:45ferocious, eight-limbed savage with heinous intentions. The Doppelganger is a demonic
07:50double of Spider-Man. This was all part of a plan from Warlock under his magus moniker
07:54to unleash sinister, evolved versions of certain heroes onto the very heroes from whom they were
07:59copied. But Infinity War was only the tip of the iceberg for Doppelganger, though,
08:02and he'd eventually be the only double to make it out of that arc in one piece.
08:06After being saved by Demon Goblin, old Doppy here resurfaced in 1993 as part of Maximum Carnage.
08:13There, this twisted take on Spider-Man became the obedient, murderous pet of Carnage and Shriek.
08:18Making Doppelganger particularly intimidating, this creature has abilities that not even Spider-Man
08:23has, such as being able to cling to buildings without the need for webbing, having webbing
08:27that is as sharp as glass, and being nearly six times stronger than Peter Parker.
08:323. Patton Parnell, Edge of the Spider-Verse
08:35The best way to summarise Patton Parnell is to imagine your regular Peter Parker,
08:39then completely flip all of his personality traits and characteristics. Appearance-wise,
08:44Patton looks very much like a young Peter. Following in Parker's footsteps, Patton
08:48eventually winds up being bitten by a radioactive spider. But the problem is that Patton Parnell is
08:53an utterly unhinged and disturbed individual. Introduced in Edge of the Spider-Verse,
08:58and calling Earth-51412 home, Parnell eerily enjoys torturing animals, obsessively stalks
09:04his neighbour Sarah Jane, and develops a taste for human flesh. Once bitten by a gnarly red spider,
09:09the youngster fully embraced his dark side and used his newfound abilities for nefarious means.
09:14Said embracing meant transforming into a chilling spider-human creature with eight red eyes,
09:19four arms, and four legs, and who webbed up and then ate people.
09:22The only way that Patton's toothy rampage was brought to an end was, thankfully,
09:26when vampiric spider-sort Morlan turned up and drained the crazed teenager of his life force.
09:312. The Spider – Exiles
09:34Exiles was a book that launched in 2001, with the titular team serving as a group of reality-jumping
09:40heroes. By the time of Exiles number 12, readers were introduced to an iteration of Peter Parker,
09:45who went by the simple moniker of The Spider. Unlike the standard 616 version of Spider-Man,
09:50not to mention most other takes on the wall-crawler, this Earth-15 Peter is a menacing,
09:55eerie figure who relishes in chaos and carnage. Speaking of carnage, this Peter's natural want
10:00for bloodshed and brutality is only further amped up due to the fact that he's bonded with
10:04the infamous carnage symbiote. The basic MO of The Spider was merely that he wanted to kill as
10:09many people as possible and decimate as many realities as possible. That mission was eventually
10:14brought to a stop thanks to a fatal heat blast from fellow rogue Firestar, who Spider had turned
10:19on earlier, that resulted in the death of both. 1. The Flesh Eater – Marvel Zombies
10:25Officially existing in the realm of Earth-2149, Peter Parker was doing the regular Peter Parker
10:31things before a virus ravaged the planet. From what's known about this Peter, pre-pandemic,
10:35he lived with his Aunt May, Uncle Ben was dead, Mary J was his one true, and Parker was swinging
10:40around the streets of Queens, New York. Then, an infected Colonel America bit Spidey and threw
10:45old Webhead's world upside down. Despite doing his best to resist the urges to feast on human flesh,
10:50Spider-Man eventually gives in and takes a bite out of Mary Jane. MJ was merely a
10:54starter here, though, for Peter would then start to eat Aunt May. And the term
10:58start is used here, as the now zombified Mary Jane shuffles into the scene and wants to try
11:03some of that tasty May meat for herself, so Spider-Man properly kills MJ so that he can
11:08keep Aunt May's bones and flesh for himself. As the Marvel Zombies books expanded over the years,
11:14we've seen the undead Spidey lose limbs, witnessed him devour the Aunt May and Mary
11:18Janes of other worlds, and even literally tear off his own skin. Great.
11:23And there we go, my friends. Those were the 10 most evil versions of Spider-Man. I hope
11:26that you enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section
11:30below. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you
11:34soon. Bye.