10 Bad Comic Book Villains Who Were Still Better Than Steppenwolf

Okay, you know we've got bad things to say about Justice League when we suggest that anything about Spider-Man 3 is favourable by comparison.

Long before Warner Bros/DC turned their movies into frenzied tug-of-wars between the director's vision and several phone books' worth of producers' notes, Sony nailed that particular routine with the less-than distinguished closing entry in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.

The film's efforts to take Tobey Maguire's wall-crawler in a darker direction clashed badly with Raimi's goofy humour and a bizarre decision to introduce musical elements, and the whole thing quickly descends into a garbled mess.

It's a clear case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, both off-camera and on: and one of the key problems is the overabundance of villains. Raimi seems most invested in Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, and by his own admission had no real interest in Topher Grace's Venom, but was also obliged to pay off the ending of Spider-Man 2 by showing James Franco's Harry Osborn pick up the mantle of the Green Goblin from his late father.

As much as Maguire and Kirsten Dunst look like they've had enough of their roles by this point, no one looks like they want to be there less than Franco, and you really can't blame him given what he has to work with here. Still, beats Dane DeHaan's mercifully brief Goblin turn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And, yes, beats Steppenwolf as well.