5 Weirdest Spider-Man Villains Of All-Time, Ranked

Over sixty years have passed since the spectacular Spider-Man first swung into action in the pages of "Amazing Fantasy" #15. The wall-crawling superhero has fought some of the most powerful villains in Marvel Comics, from the terrifying Green Goblin — the father of Peter Parker's best friend and the murderer of his first love –– to Venom, the sinister alien symbiote who once used Spider-Man as his human host.

But Spider-Man has appeared in thousands of comics over the decades, and not every villain can be as memorable as Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, or even the Hypno-Hustler. He's also fought incredibly creepy villains like The Thousand – a hivemind of radioactive spiders who wear their human victims like skin-suits — as well as some of the dumbest villains of all time. That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the bizarre, baffling, and just plain weird villains in Spider-Man's expansive rogues' gallery. Look out, true believers, because we've assembled a list of these bewildering baddies. Here are the weirdest Spider-Man villains of all time, ranked. 

Many of Spider-Man's greatest villains are defined by their powerful tech, like Doctor Octopus and his mechanical tentacles or the Shocker's vibro-shock gauntlets. Considerably less impressive is the sometime-supervillain Big Wheel, whose weapon of choice is ... a really big wheel.

Debuting in "Amazing Spider-Man" (vol. 1) #182, Big Wheel is Jackson Weele, an embezzling businessman blackmailed by the skateboard-riding supervillain Rocket Racer. The vengeful Weele hires criminal inventor The Tinkerer who, making fun of his name, creates a huge, car-crushing monowheel for Weele to ride inside. Calling himself Big Wheel, he attacks Rocket Racer, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Racer is currently in a battle with Spider-Man. In the chaos, Weele and his "steel pizza" (as Spider-Man calls it) fall into the Hudson River.

Weele survives the embarrassing plunge and goes to prison, where he joins Vil-Anon, a support group for minor Marvel villains like Porcupine and Dr. Bong. Upon his release, Weele tries to go straight, though his ill-conceived attempts to apprehend villains like Stilt-Man or end New York City traffic jams — all via his giant, laser-firing wheel — are rebuffed by Spider-Man and Iron Man. Big Wheel suffers the ultimate indignity in "Spider-Man Unlimited" (vol. 3) #12. After Weele apologizes for trying to kill him years earlier, Spidey simply says, "Yeah, sure I remember ... vaguely." Us too, buddy.

Spider-Man has frequently fought alongside the Uncanny X-Men, but no amount of time with the mutant heroes could prepare him for the Mindworm. Introduced in "Amazing Spider-Man" (vol. 1) #138, Mindworm is William Turner, whose large cranium and rodent-like features mark him as a mutant from birth. The telepathic Turner feeds on human emotions; as a child, he drains his mother to death, and at an orphanage, he hones his powers by targeting the bullies who mocked him for his unusual appearance.

Dubbing himself the Mindworm, Turner moves into a dilapidated shack in Queens, New York, near Peter Parker's apartment building. Mindworm senses Spider-Man's powerful emotions and attempts to feed on him, even compelling his brainwashed neighbors to try and kill him. In an unusual move for a superhero, Spider-Man smacks Mindworm's ears, breaking his control over his victims and overwhelming his senses with the sounds of their thoughts. 

The story's conclusion attempts to feed on the reader's emotions by revealing Mindworm's pain and profound loneliness. Still, it is all undermined by the villain's ludicrous appearance — not his giant head, note, but the fact that he tries to physically fight Spider-Man while wearing only a tank top, shorts, and sandals. Hey, it was the 1970s.

Peter Parker famously gained his superpowers from a radioactive spider, whose bite gave him the proportionate strength and agility of one, as well as his wall-crawling ability and the predictive "spider-sense" that alerts him of incoming danger. Fortunately for Peter, his spider powers don't include a taste for eating flies, which is also good news for Richard Deacon, aka the Human Fly.

The Human Fly owes his supervillain career to none other than Peter's boss, J. Jonah Jameson. In "Amazing Spider-Man Annual" #10, Jameson pays the mad scientist Dr. Harlan Stillwell to create a superhero for him that will stop "that wall-crawling menace" Spider-Man once and for all. The wounded criminal Richard Deacon stumbles into Stillwell's laboratory at the perfect time to have his DNA "impregnated" with the genetic code of the common housefly. Now sporting wings and segmented eyes, the Human Fly kidnaps Jameson as a challenge to Spider-Man, who dismisses him as "just another insect in this town" before swatting him down.

Deacon's physical mutations accelerate, and by "Spectacular Spider-Man" (vol. 1) #86, he's eating refuse off garbage scows. The Scourge of the Underworld (we promise that's the name this guy has) kills the Human Fly, seemingly putting him out of his misery. Later, a spell cast by the Hood resurrects him with terrifying new abilities, such as acidic vomit. Luckily for Peter Parker, his superpowers could have been much, much worse.

Swarm has perhaps the most jaw-dropping origin story of any Marvel supervillain: He is a Nazi made of bees. First appearing in "Champions" (vol. 1) #14, Swarm was originally Fritz von Meyer, a German scientist and loyal member of Hitler's Third Reich. Living in South America, von Meyer is attacked by a strange colony of radioactive killer bees; they destroy his body, but his powerful mind takes control of the queen bee, and he becomes a "living embodiment of the swarm."

Donning a purple cape and dubbing himself Swarm, von Meyer's body is actually legions of bees animating his human skeleton. He first clashes with Spider-Man in "Spectacular Spider-Man" (vol. 1) #34, swarming Empire State University with his killer bees. Spider-Man defeats Swarm after coating his costume in a special insect repellent, but Swarm proves to be very difficult to squash.

Over the years, Swarm has become a member of several supervillain cabals, including the Sinister Six (ranking rather low among their most intelligent members), the Hateful Hexad, and the Masters of Animal Evil. Fighting him has turned into a Spider-Family rite of passage for Scarlet Spider, Ghost-Spider, and even Mary Jane Watson, who, in "Sensational Spider-Man" (vol. 2) #30, ingeniously scatters Swarm's bees by turning on a sprinkler system. Swarm remains one of the weirdest characters who could actually show up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Meanwhile, a highly sanitized, gender-swapped, non-fascist version of Swarm appears in the animated kid's show "Iron Man and his Awesome Friends." For some reason.

Who was the first actor to portray Spider-Man in a live-action adaptation of his adventures? Not Tobey Maguire, or even the star of the short-lived 1977 "Amazing Spider-Man" TV series, Nicholas Hammond – but Danny Seagren. A performer on the 1970s public television series "The Electric Company," Seagren starred in the show's "Spidey's Super Stories" skits. Marvel adapted the skits into a comic series for elementary school-age readers, resulting in some of the goofiest Spider-Man books ever printed.

"Spidey Super Stories" #8 puts Spider-Man up against the wall — and just any wall, the Wall. Once an ordinary high school student and part-time bricklayer, an unexplained explosion transforms the young man into the "wicked" Wall, a living pile of red bricks with a human face and legs. When Spider-Man takes a day off (in costume) to attend a Mets game, the Wall attacks, declaring that he is "one wall you'll never crawl!" Instead, Spider-Man bounces off the Wall, nailing him with his web-shooters – only for an upset umpire to kick them both out of the stadium.

Spider-Man's battle with the Wall would be immortalized in an episode of "The Electric Company." Seagren plays Spidey, with none other than a young Morgan Freeman playing the unlucky umpire. If nothing else, the unforgettable sight of a sentient wall knocking down one of Hollywood's greatest living actors cements the Wall (pun intended) as the weirdest Spider-Man villain of all time.