Spider-Man’s Weirdest Villain Only Appeared Once, But He Remains 1 of Marvel’s Best Memes

There might not be a Marvel Comics hero with more bizarre villains than Spider-Man. Over his time in comics, Spider-Man has fought a guy named Big Wheel, whose weapon of choice is a giant rolling wheel, and the Kangaroo, a villain whose power is to leap like a kangaroo. Even some of these weird villains became weird cult favorites over the years, and the Kangaroo from the Ultimate Universe was actually also Miles Morales’s first villain. However, when it comes to the weirdest villains that Spider-Man ever faced, the Wall has to top the list. The most shocking thing about the Wall is that he only appeared in one comic book, but almost every Spider-Man fan knows who he is.

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The Wall debuted in comic book form in Spidey Super Stories #8 (1975) by Jean Thomas and Winslow Mortimer, and that was his only appearance in Marvel Comics. Despite this, the Wall has become a meme, and even now, over 50 years later, there are Spider-Man fans who know who he is, and he remains a hilarious joke character from the post-Silver Age era.

The Wall Is a Product of Spider-Man’s Electric Company Appearances

Before heroes like the Hulk made his way to television, Spider-Man was a regular on The Electric Company, a PBS series that existed to help kids learn and taught valuable life lessons along the way. This also wasn’t an animated series in the traditional sense, because it was a semi-live-action segment on the series. In Season 4, Danny Seagren began appearing in “Spidey Super Stories,” where he spoke in word balloons that encouraged kids to read. This led to the segment called “Spidey: Up Against the Wall,” where Spider-Man was at a New York Mets baseball game, in costume, while also wearing a baseball cap.

Suddenly, a new villain showed up called the Wall, wreaking havoc on the baseball field and even knocking down the umpire, who was humorously played by Morgan Freeman in one of the actor’s earliest roles. The narration said that the Wall was a former high school student who was turned into a giant wall. Spider-Man then showed up (holding a hot dog) and saved the day. Morgan Freeman’s umpire then threw out both Spider-Man and the Wall, while threatening him with a $50 fine.

There were 29 “Spidey Super Stories” episodes on The Electric Company with Spider-Man dealing with villains that never appeared in the main Spider-Man comics from Marvel. Instead, the Spider-Man villains here were mostly goofy bad guys that were often easy to beat. There was one episode where he fought Dracula (played by Morgan Freeman), but most included silly bad guys like the Wall, the Spoiler (he spoils people’s fun), the Bookworm (who eats kids’ books), and the Tickler (he tells bad jokes). There was also a villain called Sandman, but this was just a villain who used magic sand to knock people out and rob them.

The Wall Only Appeared in One Spider-Man Comic But Became a Meme

It is shocking that the Wall is such a popular character because Spidey Super Stories is not a book that is readily available, and it isn’t even offered as a digital read on Marvel Unlimited. That is because Spidey Super Stories featured kid-friendly, lighthearted stories that were an actual tie-in to the PBS educational series, The Electric Company. The best part of these comics is that they took the short skits from the TV show and gave more depth to the stories. In Spidey Super Stories #8, Spider-Man fought the Wall at the baseball game.

In this retelling, the origin story slightly differed from the one in the narration from the TV skit, which called him a high school student named Joshua Waldemeyer involved in a tragic chemistry experiment, where he was transformed into the evil Wall. The comics actually show the accident as a wall falls onto Joshua, who was once a happy student but is now an angry, sentient wall. He then showed up at the baseball game, where Spider-Man was wearing the same Mets cap he wore in the TV skit. The story was similar, with the Wall knocking over the Mets player and the umpire before Spider-Man was eventually able to beat him with his webbing. The comic also showed the aftermath with Spidey and the Wall sitting on a bench, with Spider-Man wondering who won the game. To this day, there are still memes that show up with Spider-Man fighting the Wall, and even people who have never heard of The Electric Company likely know about this cult villain.

Did you see the original appearance of the Wall on The Electric Company? Let us know your thoughts on the character in the comments below.

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