Sony's Spider-Man Villain Slate Is Inferior Until It Includes Superior Foes
Following the massive success of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and Tom Holland's portrayal of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Peter Parker's wall-crawling superhero is more popular than ever. Although, if you're confused by Sony Pictures' approach to their Spider-Man movies, you're not alone. On one hand, True Believers around the world can hardly wait for "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse" to finally hit theaters next year. On the other hand, every live-action project that gets announced by the studio is just getting weirder and weirder, and we're not even talking about the Madame Web movie that appears to follow the younger years of the elderly spider-hero that most fans remember from the 1990s "Spider-Man: The Animated Series." Instead, it's all of these works that put various members of the friendly neighborhood web-slinger's rogues gallery front and center.
Regardless of how one may feel about the Tom Hardy movies, it's understandable why they would want to capitalize on the popularity of Venom and Carnage. It's a little less understandable why they were succeeded by the Living Vampire Morbius. And now there are films in various stages of development that feature Kraven the Hunter, Chameleon, El Muerto, and Hypno-Hustler. That's right. The obscure character that uses disco to hypnotize people gets to suit up and appear in a feature film before Scorpion, Hobgoblin, or the Black Cat.
If Sony is so keen on continuing to expand on Spidey's villains (especially the most bizarre and oblique ones) without the hero himself ever really showing up, then there's already an easy solution in the annals of Marvel Comics that could help them do that. The studio should adapt the comic series "The Superior Foes of Spider-Man."
Friends or foes
Introduced in the summer of 2013 during an era where Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker's brain so he could inhabit his old foe's body and prove that he is a superior Spider-Man, "The Superior Foes of Spider-Man" by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber joined "Superior Spider-Man Team-Up" as the new books that would further explore the new status quo in the Marvel Universe that basically saw Otto Octavius take over his nemesis' life and "do it better." This series followed the Sinister Six, but not the more well-known iteration that included Doc Ock. No, Spencer and Lieber's all-new Sinister Six included a roster of low-level villains. In fact, after their sixth member Living Brain was out of the picture, there were only five members: Boomerang (Fred Myers), Shocker (Herman Schultz), Speed Demon (James Sanders), Overdrive (James Beverly), and the new Beetle (Janice Lincoln).
This book picks up after Myers finds himself in prison for his most recent crimes. With the help of The Chameleon, he tricks his teammates into bailing him out and talks them into one more job that would secretly repay his debt to the notoriously twisted master of disguise. Though Boomerang tells them it's a jewel heist, in reality, they're supposed to steal the head of former New York crime boss Silvermane from the current kingpin, The Owl.
Along the way, the team has to deal with fairly everyday things in the life of a super criminal. For example, Lincoln, the daughter of feared hitman Tombstone and the sixth person to take up the Beetle mantle, is trying to find her place in the criminal community. Meanwhile, Schultz is trying to reconcile his long-time friendship with Myers with the fact that he constantly gets double-crossed by the same man.
You've met the best, now meet the rest
Essentially combining James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" with the short-lived NBC superhero sitcom "Powerless," the extremely funny "The Superior Foes of Spider-Man" delves into a corner of the Marvel Universe that we seldom get to see as in-depth on screen. This criminal underworld is rich with interesting characters with varying degrees of morality and though the reader isn't necessarily rooting for these villains to succeed, ultimately, there is a great sense of empathy in the storytelling in between the punchlines and the punches. I mean, yeah, you do kinda want to see Boomerang get the best of his superpowered parole officer Mach VII here and there, but you know they're still bad guys.
That's really what makes this perfect for a successful Sony/Marvel collab. Unlike other comic movies that focus on a villain as a protagonist, "Superior Foes" could be a much more thoughtful and enjoyable experience that doesn't take itself too seriously. These characters are also lesser known for the most part (except arguably The Shocker), so the studio can take more liberties without facing too much pushback from the fanbase. And as we said, this story can still be independent of Spider-Man and whatever crime he's fighting at the time, but if they do decide to bring in Peter Parker down the line, there's a great storyline from "Amazing Spider-Man" where Spidey's alter ego becomes roommates with Fred Myers and hilarity ensues.
With lovable rogues becoming so popular thanks to "Peacemaker," "Harley Quinn," and "Loki," it really seems like the perfect time to unleash a live-action adaptation of "The Superior Foes of Spider-Man" on the world. Otherwise, True Believers can look forward to the upcoming films starring Iguana or Jack O'Lantern.