10 Most Evil Spider-Man Villains

Spider-Man has the unique privilege of having several arch foes. To many, Doctor Octopus will always be considered the wall-crawler's greatest adversary. Others, who first encountered the character in the eighties and nineties, may differ, and say that Venom deserves that slot (despite the character having been reformed in recent times).

However, while both those characters are iconic Spidey villains, none have enacted as much torment on Peter Parker than Norman Osborn, the first Green Goblin.

The arrival of the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man #14 upped the threat level in the comic considerably, with Gobby always providing Peter with his most difficult challenges. Tragically, about 100 issues later, this back and forth took on an even deadlier dynamic, with Norman throwing Peter Parker's true love Gwen Stacy off the George Washington bridge, which Stacy didn't survive.

This one act alone would've made Norman one of Spider-Man's most evil adversaries, but - to both the detriment of Spider-Man and of Marvel's comics more generally - he didn't stop there. A retcon that came in the climax of the reviled Clone Saga revealed how Norman didn't perish in the aftermath of the Gwen Stacy affair. He had in actuality faked his death, and proceeded to orchestrate an elaborate campaign to destroy Peter's life from top to bottom.

Remember all the evil stuff that Miles Warren got up to? Well, that was all a part of Norman's master plan. None of it makes sense, but essentially all the evil cloning nonsense that the Jackal carried out can also be blamed on the elder Osborn. The cherry on top of this horrendous trauma-cake is that the Goblin was also responsible for Mary Jane miscarrying her and Peter's child - just in case you thought things weren't despicable enough already.