6. Slyde
Slyde suffered one of the worst indignities that can happen to a Z-grade character. He died and nobody noticed, to the point that another writer put him in a later book with no explanation for the resurrection. It’s easy to see why Slyde’s death would slip past editors’ attention. Slipping around is Slyde’s whole thing. Chemical engineer Jalome Beacher created a chemical impervious to friction. But when his business partners cheated him, Beacher used his chemical on a silver suit to become Lube Man Slyde!
Slyde manages to annoy Spidey a few times, as his resistant suit gives Spider-Man’s webs nothing to grab. But he mostly serves as a bit player in larger team-ups, joining the Thunderbolts or working for the Kingpin. However, Slyde refused Hammerhead’s offer to form a team during the superhero Civil War, a decision that cost him his life, at the hand of Hammerhead’s enforcer Underworld. But then, two years later, Slyde shows up again in X-Men/Spider-Man #3 (written by Christos Gage and drawn by Mario Alberti), without explanation. Of course, Spider-Man’s opening quip probably explains it all. “Maybe you’re just so lame I forgot all about you,” Spidey jokes, a cold line even before Iceman shows up to freeze him.
5. Iguana
The Lizard debuted in 1963, and has remained one of Spider-Man’s most compelling and empathetic villains. In 1978’s Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #32 — written by Bill Mantlo, penciled by Jim Mooney, and inked by Frank Springer — Spidey thinks he’s about to fight the Lizard when a giant green monster trashes Empire State University. But upon seeing Dr. Curt Connors knocked out on the floor, Spider-Man observes, “My shadowy and serpentine attacker isn’t the Lizard I know and loathe… but something completely different!”
“Completely different” is a real overstatement, and not just because the Iguana is another lizard monster. The Iguana come to be when Connors mutated a small Iguana, which somehow gave him Connors’s memories. Honestly, it’s not a bad setup, and the Iguana works as an antagonist in a one-off story. But Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, and Nick Spencer have all brought back the Iguana in the past decade, stretching his already thin threat credibility. Spencer had the good sense to kill off the Iguana during the “Hunted” arc, and Iguana will stay dead if he knows what’s good for him.
4. Spidercide
Of course, a character from the Clone Saga has to make this list. The Clone Saga, the winding and tangled story web from the 1990s, gave us the cool Peter Parker clone Ben Reilly, but it also spawned dull characters such as Kaine and Spidercide. Spidercide emerged as a Peter Parker clone in 1995’s Amazing Spider-Man #399 (written by DeMatteis, penciled by Mark Bagley, and inked by Larry Mahlstedt), only to learn that he had been engineered by Dr. Miles Warren to kill the other clones.
This clone soon took the name Spidercide and an edgy ’90s costume to go with it. Spidercide has largely remained a relic of the Clone Saga, where he belongs. However, when DeMatteis and artist David Badleón revisited the era for the 2022 miniseries Ben Reilly: Spider-Man, Spidercide returned as a serial killer who murdered women who went on dates with Peter Parker/Ben Reilly. Even when reimagined for the 2020s, Spidercide can’t shake that tacky ’90s edge.