Everyone is always clamoring for characters like Carnage and Black Cat to show up in the films as well, and I already covered those in part one of my list (which you can read here on ComicBookMovie.com), but what about those villains that are not as well known?
How do you bring some of the more obscure Spider-Man villains into the film franchise, and why should they be given the chance to shine in the first place?
1. Dr. Miles Warren, aka The Jackal
Not the Green Goblin. None of them. Or Demogoblin. Or Hobgoblin. Or Jack O'Lantern. Or Protogoblin... |
We may never have to see The Jackal in the form of a monstrous green goblin-esque creature (seriously, how many villains are similar like that for Spider-Man?), but Dr. Miles Warren is such an easy character to incorporate into the films that it's astounding that they haven't yet.
Wouldn't it make sense for him to be a biologist and/or geneticist working for Oscorp and one of the chief people responsible for the research on characters such as Lizard and Spider-Man himself? Couldn't he be influential in working on these serums that create these hybrids?
Considering the character's connections to Gwen Stacy and how, in this film's universe, Gwen was an intern at Oscorp, why not make him someone that she worked with that had a fondness for her? If she does in fact meet her maker [insert Stan Lee joke], Warren could have a grudge against Peter for getting her into trouble.
We don't need to get crazy here and do the Clone Saga storyline, but there's no need to create a character like Dr. Ratha if you have someone like Dr. Miles Warren waiting in the wings.
2. Morlun
This is a tricky one to deal with, as Morlun is nowhere near as well known as even some of the other characters on this list. Yet that could work as a benefit in a film adaptation more than to its detriment. Advertising a movie in which Spider-Man fights Morlun is going to sound ridiculous, but we've probably reached a point where any superhero film that is big enough, like Spider-Man, doesn't necessarily need a villain to carry the weight of the movie. Just merely advertising another Spider-Man movie would be good enough.
Morlun presents an opportunity to do something totally different and stray from the average outline of superhero films. You don't need to tie the villain's origin into Oscorp or make Peter responsible for making him who he is. There's no requirement that Morlun be a sympathetic character. Instead of keeping things as basic and grounded into science as possible, you can go into the oddball side of things and go with the crazy cult storyline.
Totems? Peter dying and turning into a more evolved spider? What??
That might be the reaction that most would have, but eventually we're going to get tired of the same old thing. Even though this has the chance to be absolutely absurd and completely ridiculous to a bad level, who knows? Maybe there's more potential to it than what we can view at the surface.
3. Beetle
Let's be perfectly frank here. Nobody is ever going to request Beetle from among all the characters that they want to see on film, even if they're given choices entirely made up of characters we've already seen. Abner Jenkins, Janice Lincoln, or any of them are just not popular enough characters, nor do they have anything going for them that would give anyone a reason to argue that they should be more popular.
As a quick fight sequence, however, Beetle could be fun. He's essentially a poor man's Iron Man, and for a character with such exciting aerial visuals as Spider-Man, a flight-style duel has the potential to be quite awesome for a throwaway action piece.
It also expands the universe more by showing that there are people out there that Spider-Man has to deal with on a regular basis who aren't exactly the most important villains.
4. Chameleon
When they've official run out of ideas, why not just go with something as simple as Chameleon as a backup character? He essentially only has one story, and it's repetitive as all hell when it comes to the comics and television series, but that doesn't mean as a one-shot it can't still be entertaining.
The story of an impostor messing around with the life of Spider-Man—whether it be acting as a fake Spidey himself or pretending to be various people that Peter Parker deals with on a regular basis—is worthwhile enough that it could be interesting if given the right twist.
This is by no means good enough to revolve an entire film around, but a cameo of sorts could be cool.
A question to make you ponder: who would you like to see be the actor behind the white mask?
5. Hobgoblin
Spider-Man purists will probably disagree with me on this one, but I'm actually more fond of the idea that Harry Osborn is the Hobgoblin and none of the other ones like Ned Leeds, Roderick Kingsley, or Jason Macendale even exist. It just would make more sense to me if Harry in Amazing Spider-Man 2 were dressed up and called "The Hobgoblin" rather than "The Green Goblin," and then have ANOTHER "Green Goblin" in #3. The distinction could be that Harry is the Hobgoblin, but Norman is "the Green Hobgoblin, oh fuck it, we'll just shorten it to Green Goblin."
No matter what the case, this is now the third time we're getting a Green Goblin on screen, and it looks like we'll get a fourth in Amazing Spider-Man 3, yet there's been no love shown for Hobgoblin, which is a shame.
6. Spider Slayers
I'll admit that this is mostly because I grew up with the animated series in the 1990s, in which Spider Slayers were all the rage because Spider-Man could destroy them, unlike his other enemies who couldn't be killed off. Because of that, this enemy has just ingrained itself into my brain, and deep down, the child in me wants to see a live-action version of the fights that (in retrospect) kind of sucked in the cartoon but amped up to the crazy level we expect action to be nowadays in movies.
Be it Alistair Smythe, Norman Osborn, Otto Octavius—it doesn't matter who creates them, I want Spider Slayers, and I purely want them for action sequences and nothing more.
There's no story that needs to be put in place or anything. I just want explosions and missiles and giant spider robots blowing up all over the place while Peter makes snarky comments about finding their weak spots and everything else that the animated series was, but more.
So what are some other villains that you'd like to see brought to life from the Spider-Man series? Let us know in the comments below!
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