10 Worst Things Spider-Man Has Ever Done

With great power comes great opportunities to be a jerk.

Superior Spider Man Kills Massacre
Marvel Comics

Spider-Man Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Unfortunately, it turns out that "whatever a spider can" sometimes involves the kind of shady activities you'd expect from a man who's superhero persona is modelled on Mother Nature's most terrifying mistake.

Yes, while the Webbed Wonder may have a reputation as one of the most noble heroes in comics, that hasn't stopped him from engaging in a list of criminal offences long enough to make even Carnage blush.

Now, Peter Parker has never been a perfect hero and even when he tries his best to save the day, sometimes it can go horribly wrong (As Gwen Stacy would no doubt tell you if she could). However, well intentioned mistakes are pretty easy to forgive and so this list is concentrating on the even darker side of Spider-Man.

These are the occasions where Spider-Man didn't just mess up, he seemed to go out of his way to be as big a tool as possible.

With all this dodgy activity (including a surprising amount of murder) piling up, it's enough to make you wonder if maybe J. Jonah Jameson was right about the Wall Crawler being a menace all along. Maybe.

10. He Invaded A Sovereign Nation

Superior Spider Man Kills Massacre
Marvel Comics

One issue with comics tackling a large scale problem is that their often black and white portrayal of morality can gloss over some of the particularly tricky ethical questions.

In a recent storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker (who is now the millionaire CEO of Parker Industries), helped Silver Sable to liberate her home country of Symkaria from Norman Osborn.

The only problem with this was that Osborn had allied himself with the lawfully elected government of Symkaria and so Spidey risked an international incident by invading a foreign nation without provocation.

Of course, in the story the Symkarian government was unequivocally evil and had enslaved the entire country to work in Osborn's weapons factories. However, Nick Fury does bring up that what Peter Parker did was "no different from AIM or HYDRA", using his resources to topple a government and install a leader of his own choosing.

Luckily for Pete, Marvel's latest event Secret Empire kicked in just in time for him to avoid having to answer any questions about how ethically dubious his actions were and future storylines point to him losing his company anyway.

Man, remember when Spider-Man's biggest problem was just trying to stop the Vulture from robbing banks even though he had the flu?

Contributor

I was just a mild-mannered NCTJ accredited journalist until one day I found out the truth... that I could share my nerdy ramblings with people on the internet! It's just like mumbling to myself on the train, but without all the strange looks.