Spider-Man is Marvel’s number one character. He’s an endlessly relatable, lovable hero who fights for what’s right no matter what, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts, as it turns out. Spidey’s endless struggle to do the right thing, even when it comes at the potential loss of life and limb, has kept fans on the edge of their seats since the 1960s. In that time, due to a mix of his status, interesting powerset, and overall fun presence, Spider-Man has dealt with more than his fair share of opponents. He already has one of the most stacked rogues galleries in superherodom, but his grand retinue of opposition stretches far beyond just them.
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Spider-Man has fought a lot, and I do mean a lot, of people over the years. Most of these fights he wins through a mix of speed, power, and his overwhelming intellect. Even though he has a reputation for holding back, he regularly fights people way above his weight class and comes out on top by outmaneuvering them. We’re not here to talk about those times. No, we’re here to talk about the fights that Spider-Man definitely should not have won, but somehow came out on top of anyway. Power levels are never consistent in comics, but these fights are downright egregious. With all that said, let’s swing right into Spidey’s strangest upsets.
5) Iron Man – The Amazing Spider-Man #544
The “Civil War” era was terrible for everyone, but nobody faced worse character assassination than Iron Man. Still, Spider-Man was a close second. He exposed his identity to help sell the Superhuman Registration Act, only for Aunt May to be shot not long after. When the hospital threatened to toss her into the charity ward if Peter didn’t pay immediately, which isn’t how hospitals work, an angry Pete paid Iron Man a visit. He managed to smash Tony’s repulsors and, when Tony tried to hit him with a Uni-Beam, Peter drowned it out and trapped him in a massive supply of webbing.
This is the part that makes no sense to me. Iron Man is well-known to be a decent bit stronger than Spidey, and considering Venom can break out of his webs, I have no doubt Tony should be able to. Regardless of whether he could or not, there’s no way that the Uni-Beam should be swallowed by the webs. This is an energy beam that’s knocked down Thor and blasted through mountains, and Tony cut loose point-blank at Spidey. Even if Spidey’s webs could hold Iron Man, there’s no way this blast shouldn’t have sent him through the street and burned his webs to ash.
4) The Thing – Fear Itself: Spider-Man #3
Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four go way back. All the way to his first issue, in fact, and Spidey and the Thing have gotten along like the best of friends. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the disastrous when the ever-loving, blue-eyed Thing was possessed by one of the Serpent’s hammers, transforming him into an agent of destruction. It also had the added benefit of amping up his already monstrous strength, turning him into an unstoppable beast hellbent on clobbering everything in sight. He tried to bring down Spider-Man, but the Web-Slinger managed to shock him back to awareness with an electric jolt, letting him save the day.
The fight itself was actually great, highlighting how Spider-Man handles an enemy he literally cannot defeat with power alone. The brutality and emotions on display were awesome, but my problem is with how Spidey won. The Hammer of Angrir literally produces electricity, so using that to shock the Thing feels kinda weird. It feels like, given how this hammer operates like a knock-off Mjolnir, it should provide extra protection from lightning specifically. I love this fight, and even if the outcome being a cop-out feeds into the themes, it doesn’t make it any more reasonable.
3) The X-Men – Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars #3
We’ve talked a lot about Spider-Man beating single heroes that he shouldn’t be able to, but how about the time he’s handled an entire team of X-Men at the same time? The Secret Wars (1984) comic saw all of Marvel’s biggest names in heroism and villainy junted onto a world outside of time and space, pitting them against each other. The X-Men befuddlingly decided that the other heroes would never trust them and decided to leave to join Magneto, only for Spider-Man to overhear them and jump into a fight. His goal was to escape the X-Men and warn the others, which, somehow, he nearly did by simply trashing the X-Men.
For context, this team consisted of Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, and Storm. Any of those last three should have been more than enough to bring the Web-Slinger down, but he threw them around like they were nothing. Even at his best, Spider-Man should never defeat all of the X-Men, especially when he made it look so effortless. Professor X eventually wiped Spider-Man’s memory of this event, but even so, the X-Men themselves didn’t stand a chance against Spidey, and considering both Rogue and Colossus could snap him over their legs like a twig, this fight will continuously baffle me. Maybe the X-Men vs. Spider-Man battle will make it to the MCU in Avengers: Secret Wars and seeing it on the big screen will make the whole thing more convincing? Probably not.
2) Firelord – The Amazing Spider-Man #270
Firelord might be the least-known character we’ve covered thus far, but he’s easily the most dangerous. He was an accomplished member of the Nova Corps, and after coming into contact with Galactus, he was transformed into one of his Heralds. The Power Cosmic made Firelord one of the most powerful beings in the universe, possessing flames that could burn hotter than a supernova. He’s not quite as powerful as the Silver Surfer, but that’s still more than enough to take on Spider-Man. After the Web-Head royally ticked him off, Firelord chased Spider-Man all through NYC. Spider-Man tried everything from having him run into a subway to a gas station explosion, but nothing fazed the cosmic warrior.
At his wit’s end and convinced he was dead, Spider-Man leapt at Firelord with everything he had and, somehow, knocked him out with a few blows. Captain America literally had to pull Spider-Man off Firelord. This is, for obvious reasons, insane. As strong as he is, Spider-Man can’t punch harder than an explosion that rocked a city block. Funnily enough, this moment became so infamous that future stories have bent backwards to justify it, solidifying the idea that Firelord has a glass jaw. Heck, they referenced that as recently as “Queen in Black.” This loss made so little sense that the Marvel Universe had to bend around it, and if that isn’t the most successful PR campaign of all time, I don’t know what is.
1) Hulk – Spider-Man Unlimited (2004) #11
In Marvel, there’s no greater example of raw strength than the Hulk. He’s the Strongest One There Is, and that means that he’s a walking gamma bomb that has never stopped exploding. Some of the Hulk’s feats of raw might include holding a mountain weighing 150 billion tons and punching someone so hard the entire multiverse shook. Needless to say, the Hulk is above Spider-Man’s weight class. The Web-Slinger has fought the Jade Giant numerous times, but whenever he’s won, or more accurately, survived, it’s because he managed to trick Hulk or calm him down enough that Banner took control. Not in Spider-Man Unlimited#11. No, in this fight Spider-Man beat the Hulk by having a fire hydrant launch a truck on top of him.
This is probably the dumbest comic book fight that I’ve read so far. The Hulk, as previously established, can literally break through the blocked barrier of time and space with a single blow, but somehow a semi-truck landing on him, again, launched by a fire hydrant, did him in. It was either that or the Hulk threw the truck and then ran underneath it, which is even dumber, so I choose to believe the former. All of this is done in service of making Electro look cool because he predicted Spider-Man’s moves, which somehow makes it leave an even worse taste in my mouth. If you want an example of what a good Spider-Man versus the Hulk scenario looks like, take a look at this clip from Brand New Day.
Power levels are never consistent with comic books. Sometimes the Hulk can leap across the continent, and sometimes he can get stopped by a strong enough piledriver. Still, there’s an expectation to these fights that needs to be maintained, an internal logic, or the entire world crumbles apart, and we remember that we’re reading words on a page instead of looking into another world. Fights like this ruin the immersion and take us out of the books. If everyone can beat everyone without any justification, nothing matters in these books, so we have to at least pretend to have rules.
What comic book fights do you think Spider-Man definitely should not have won? Or ones you think he should have? Let us know in the comments below!
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