The 10 WORST Spider-Man Stories of the 2010s!!

With my 10 Best Spider-Man Stories of the 2010s list out of the way…

 

https://www.spidermancrawlspace.com2019/11/the-10-best-spider-man-stories-of-the-2010s/

…it’s now time to take a look at the ten stories from this decade that hurt. To be honest, I’m not usually a fan of lists like these as I feel it’s more fun to write about things I like rather than dislike. However, as I stated in my 10 Best article, the 2010s were a very rough decade for the web-slinger as far as I’m concerned—so rough that I feel it deserves to be discussed in depth. There was so much mediocrity this decade that it was honestly tricky to differentiate the truly terrible from the simply dull. Tricky, but not impossible. So without further ado, here are what I consider to be the bottom of the barrel, the lowest of the low of Spider-Man’s weakest decade yet.

Once again, this is just my personal opinion and if you disagree with me, feel free to sound off in the comments below. Let’s begin!

 

10.) Crossroads

by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman

This issue sees Betty Brant being hospitalized after a viscous mugging/assault.

This naturally sends Peter Parker into a fury as he relentlessly hunts down the mugger as his arachnid alter-ego to bring him to justice.

Truth be told, this is actually a pretty solid premise with some effective drama. So why is it on this list? Because of its ending. You see, Spider-Man eventually tracks down the perpetrator and is about to subdue him when he suddenly gets a call from Aunt May chastising him for not being at the hospital for Betty.

What exactly does May mean by saying she was disappointed in him when his Uncle Ben died? She elaborates:

Because Peter, a scared teenager who just found out his father figure was murdered, wasn’t there to comfort her, the grown adult. Yeah.

This is an absolutely detestable thing for May to say. She knows better than anyone (except for maybe Mary Jane Watson) just how deeply affected and hurt Peter was by his uncle’s death—maybe even more so than May herself was. So for her to throw this in Peter’s face in a cheap attempt to guilt him is nothing short of cruel, insensitive, mean-spirited and very out of character for May. It really does cast her entire character in a selfish light since she was more concerned about her own pain than her young nephew’s.

But then it somehow gets even worse. Spidey, feeling deeply affected by May’s emotional low blow, actually lets the dangerous mugger go so he can visit Betty in the hospital.

Yes, because rushing over to visit your friend who is already surrounded by loved ones at the hospital is clearly the immediate priority over stopping a violent criminal who you can easily subdue in roughly a few seconds with your abilities. I mean, it’s not like Peter letting a criminal escape has ever had disastrous consequences, right? This is made even more distracting because Peter actually has a flashback to that moment earlier in the issue.

Spider-Man does end up tracking the mugger down and catching him by the story’s conclusion, but that doesn’t change the fact that he could have very easily injured or even killed someone else during that time Spidey decided to let him go.

What began as an admittedly effective hook soon devolved into two of the most grossly out of character displays I’ve seen this entire decade. I understand what the writer was going for, but the execution just made Aunt May come off as very unlikable and Peter incredibly irresponsible. That is why it earns a spot on this list.

 

09.) Spider-Verse

by Dan Slott, Oliver Coipel and Giuseppe Camuncoli

This is undoubtedly going to be a controversial choice as I am well aware that many people really enjoyed Spider-Verse (Comic Book Resources even recently named it the single best Spider-Man story of the entire decade). For me, however, all this arc really does is reinforce everything I dislike about Dan Slott’s writing.

For starters, there are way, way too many characters crowding this arc. Some will say that is the entire point as it’s every spider-related character coming together, but all this does is create a very disjointed narrative that has far too many facets competing for space. The Inheritors killing all of the Spider-People is supposed to be shocking and intense, but who really cares when we know nothing about most of them and when they are clearly just there to die? This isn’t a slasher film, it’s a superhero story. Having this many disposable characters does not make for an engrossing saga.

Sorry to repeat myself, but this just comes off as a really cheap slasher movie…and not the good kind like Friday the 13th or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Speaking of The Inheritors, talk about your stereotypical boring antagonists. Instead of being interesting or even cool characters, they’re your basic pure evil, mustache-twirling archetypes who are all indistinguishable from each other in terms of personality.

Not only that, but their power levels are radically inconsistent. In one instance, they’re strong enough to kill Captain freaking Universe without even breaking a sweat…

…and in another, that exact same Inheritor is immediately killed by Kaine’s spider-form before he can even react.

I’m sorry, but that is bad writing.

But what is probably most obnoxious about Spider-Verse is that it is constantly plugging for different comics throughout the entire story. Want to see the Spider-People take down The Inheritors’ cloning facility? Check out Scarlet Spiders #1!  Want to see their mission set in the 1960s cartoon world? Check out Spider-Verse Team Up #2! Want to see Spider-Woman infiltrate The Inheritors’ lair? Check out Spider-Woman #3! Want to see a complete story? Too bad, go read those tie-ins!

What should have been a celebration of all things Spider instead ended up being just another modern event comic: overlong, poorly-paced, inconsistently plotted, unnecessarily convoluted and a general slog to get through.

 

08.) The Parker Luck

by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos

After a year and a half absence in his own book due to the events of Superior Spider-Man, Peter Parker, the one true Spider-Man, is finally back. So what does Dan Slott first decide to do with him?

Make him look like a complete fool obviously. But that is only the beginning of this arc’s problems.

Again, Peter Parker had been out of the picture for over a year. So naturally his return will feature a story that focuses on him, right? Wrong! Instead, the focus is on a brand new character:

Okay, I’ll be optimistic. What are they going to do with her?

Make her and Peter compelled to mate with each other due to being bitten by the same radioactive spider. Okay…well at least we’ll finally see Spidey in action again as a competent hero, right?

Nope, he is going to be completely upstaged by a character just introduced in this very arc.

Instead of being a triumphant return for Marvel’s flagship character, The Parker Luck is a hollow shell that makes Spider-Man look either incompetent or inconsequential in his own book as he is constantly outdone by a brand new creation that the writer appears to be more interested in. This is the point where it began to feel as though Slott was getting bored with the title character.

But the absolute worst aspect of this arc that ensured its place on this list was the woefully misguided reinterpretation of The Black Cat.

After being sent to jail by Otto Octavius during his bout as the “Superior Spider-Man”, she vows vengeance against the wall-crawler for unmasking her and ruining her life.

Never mind the fact that Felicia Hardy’s identity was already public knowledge, her life is still somehow completely ruined. The Cat even states that she doesn’t care that Doctor Octopus was controlling him and is going to kill Spider-Man anyway.

What is this nonsense? Turning The Black Cat into a psychotic crime boss willing to kill anyone who gets in her path towards exacting vengeance on the one man she loves and trusts above all else for something she even acknowledges wasn’t his fault is nothing short of pure character assassination. Felicia is a character who has been written very poorly by various writers over the years, but this takes the cake. I’ve always maintained that Slott should have left after Superior Spider-Man and his work on The Parker Luck does nothing but reinforce that belief.

 

07.) The Clone Conspiracy

by Dan Slott, Jim Chung and Cory Smith

Speaking of character assassination, wouldn’t it be a great idea if one of the few redeemable aspects of the infamous 1990s fiasco The Clone Saga is brought back and completely butchered for no reason? No? Well that’s exactly what happens here.

The plot begins mundanely enough with Spider-Man hot on the heels of Miles Warren aka The Jackal as he conducts yet another nefarious cloning experiment.

However, it’s soon revealed that the real mastermind behind the operation is none other than Ben Reilly, Peter Parker’s clone and the original (ha) Scarlett Spider.

We’re then treated to the gruesome details of Ben’s return…in a tie-in.

Ben going crazy from being repeatedly killed by Warren actually does have some story potential. Maybe Dan Slott will take a Jason Todd/Red Hood approach and have Ben try to do some good through violent means…

…or he’ll just turn Ben into a cackling madman that wants to kill everyone on Earth and replace them with clones so he can control them. That works…not at all.

If bringing back a long-dead fan favorite character just to completely ruin him wasn’t bad enough, The Clone Conspiracy is a boring slog that does nothing new with the material it has. We’ve seen Peter interact with a cloned Gwen Stacy, we’ve seen The Jackal try to kill everyone and replace them with clones, we’ve seen the characters debate about whether or not the clones are actual people. There is absolutely nothing original, unique or interesting here that hasn’t been handled far better in the past (namely the 1970s Clone Saga).

So all we’re really left with is a cliched clone comic that only serves to remind readers of one of the worst eras in the webbed-wonder’s history. No thanks.

Oh yeah, Spider-Gwen and Kaine also make guest appearances.

Because by god, we haven’t seen enough of them or anyone else taking the spotlight off of the main character, have we?

 

06.) The Peter Principle

by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman

Before you ask, no, I did not hate Superior Spider-Man. In fact, I actually quite enjoyed it…for the most part. While I would deem the series a success overall, it definitely had its ups and downs—particularly towards the beginning. The second issue in particular was so appallingly awful that I almost stopped reading it altogether.

The plot (if you can even call it that) of this comic is as follows: Doc Ock, inside Peter Parker’s body, repeatedly tries and fails to seduce Mary Jane Watson while the real Peter’s consciousness (yes, really) watches on in disgust.

When his repeated attempts to get into Mary Jane’s pants backfire, Otto simply taps into Peter’s intimate memories of her and masturbates to them.

I’m not kidding, that’s really what the entire issue boils down to. What the hell? Why was this necessary? How does it advance the plot? Furthermore, who wanted to see this? This is the kind of juvenile trash you would read on a fan-fiction forum instead of an actual comic.

On top of this, “Ghost Peter” is one of the most obnoxious and unnecessary additions I’ve ever seen in a story. His only purpose is to comment on how ridiculous the entire situation is and point out Superior Spider-Man‘s biggest flaw: the fact that nobody can tell Peter is acting like an entirely different person.

All Ghost Peter’s presence did was forcibly remind everyone that this new status quo was only temporary and killed any and all suspense. Thankfully, Superior Spider-Man would improve significantly as it progressed, but that doesn’t change how horribly written this early issue was.

 

05.) Fall of Parker

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage and Stuart Immonen

I had some vague hope that Dan Slott’s run might improve to a degree with the collapse of Parker Industries and the launch of Legacy, but this story pretty much snuffed out that faint glimmer of optimism forever.

For starters, I am absolutely sick of Peter Parker being portrayed as an inept loser. He just lost his company and instead of trying to make amends or search for a job, he instead sulks around his girlfriend’s apartment feeling sorry for himself while wearing her infamous “Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda” t-shirt.

Speaking of his girlfriend, Peter contains little to no chemistry with Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird. Bobbi even comes off as more annoyed and even disgusted with Peter when she has to tell him to wake up and get a job, labels her food telling him he can’t eat it and sticks a humiliating newspaper article of him to the refrigerator with magnets spelling out “HA HA”. I’m sorry, why should we like seeing these two together again?

If this wasn’t humiliating and emasculating enough, he needs said girlfriend to save him from Grifter of all people because Spider-Man has become so incompetent that he can’t even bring down a D-list joke villain on his own anymore.

Peter also decides it’s more productive to ditch is best friend (who is only trying to help him) so he can avoid responsibility for all the jobs he’s ruined by doing mundane things like helping old ladies with their groceries, moving parked cars, taking selfies with people and playing jump-rope with children.

Good to see Peter knows where his priorities lie.

Then we’re treated to yet another dumb and pointless fight sequence between Spidey and The Human Torch (as if the first in vol. 4 #3 wasn’t bad enough) because the two of them are apparently idiots who are incapable of talking things out like reasonable adults and, you know, friends.

How is this the same guy who wrote the excellent Spider-Man and The Human Torch mini-series back in 2005?

And to top this all off, we get an extended appearance and conflict with a character I honestly can’t imagine anyone caring about, Clash. Seriously, is anyone interested in him at all?

Lastly, you have the final issue of this mess that only serves to highlight how unlikable Bobbi is and makes you question why Peter would even be with her. Bobbi giving a lecture on how trying to design a machine with a male voice is “suppressing the female voice” is the kind of nonsense you would find on Tumblr, not a superhero comic (at least good ones).

And then there’s her little “Sand-Man” remark.

Stuart Immonen’s artwork is the only thing I liked in this entire arc.

 

04.) The Favor

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage and Mike Hawthorne

Remember way back in Amazing Spider-Man #503-504 when Loki owed Spider-Man a favor? And how readers had to wait about 14 years for that particular plot point to have some kind of follow-up? Well in 2018, Dan Slott finally decided to address that long-lingering story thread…and it sucked.

First of all, Loki reaching out to Spider-Man to give him his favor came off as very random since it’s been so long and the fact that Spidey has had far tougher times in the past than now. Where was Loki during Civil War?

It ends up not mattering because Spider-Man ends up completely wasting his wish in order to undo his own idiocy.

The only reason those creatures escaped is because Spidey decided to be stupid and start swinging his fists around mystical artifacts because…Loki annoyed him a little, or something? Yes, I know it’s revealed that Loki placed the vase prison there hoping Spidey would smash it, but he didn’t force him to act like a moron and start punching objects for no reason.

Even though they defeat the bugs, Spider-Man’s stupidity ends up getting an innocent bystander killed. So what does he use his long-standing favor on?

14 years of waiting with so many possibilities and this is what we get? Slott wasting the entire premise just so people will stop bringing it up?

Oh and on top of all that, Peter Parker and Bobbi Morse break up off-panel after Slott spent the last several issues trying to convince readers that they were actually a good couple. Their reason for splitting up? Because, in Bobbi’s own words, they have absolutely nothing in common.

Everything about this issue feels like a deliberate jab at the readership and that is why it ranks so high on this list.

 

03.) Venom Inc.

by Dan Slott, Mike Costa, Ryan Stegman and Gerardo Sandoval

To describe everything bad about this story would take multiple articles in of itself. So instead, I’ll just give you the cliff-notes version.

Spider-Man is taken over and turned evil off-panel…and never once does he even try to resist the symbiote’s influence.

Lee Price is one of the most boring and generic villains I have ever had the displeasure of reading about in my 23 years on this Earth.

The dialogue is nothing short of atrocious.

The plot is a near-incomprehensible mess with way too much going on.

The climax actually rips off Planet of the Symbiotes, one of the worst Spider-Man stories ever made and somehow manages to suck just as badly.

In the end, all Venom Inc. managed to do was further tarnish the image of Venom, a character who was once one of Spidey’s best villains and delivers yet another tedious, never-ending, awfully-written symbiote story. Remember when these things were actually cool? It’s getting harder and harder to recall for me.

 

02.) Worldwide

by Dan Slott, Christos Gage and various artists

Yes, I am including the entirety of Amazing Spider-Man Volume 4, the wretched Parker Industries era, here. I’m going to be completely blunt and honest: I hated this volume. Hated it. There really wasn’t a single good story this entire volume and I’m being completely serious when I say that. At best, the stories were okay. At worst, they were some of the most excruciating Spider-Man comics I’ve read in years. I would actually rank Volume 4 down there with Denny O’Neil’s run on Amazing Spider-Man, Terry Kavanagh’s stint on Web of Spider-Man, The Clone Saga and the Howard Mackie relaunch. Yes, I really did think it was that bad and I don’t feel I’m exaggerating or being too harsh.

First of all, making Peter Parker into a globetrotting billionaire who is the face of his own company was a very flawed concept. No, not because it’s too different and far from the norm, but because it basically turns him into a second-rate Tony Stark absent of his own unique identity—something Dan Slott himself actually acknowledges and tries to poke fun at in the first issue.

If it was a small startup company with limited success, that would have worked much better and been more unique. Becoming an Iron Man knockoff was just an ill-conceived notion that didn’t feel as if it were really thought through.

Worse though is that Peter himself really had nothing to do with the creation and success of his own company. As we all know, Dr. Octopus was the one who established Parker Industries back in Superior Spider-Man and made it a success through later manipulation of the stock market as revealed in Vol. 4 issue #29.

So all Peter really ended up doing was taking credit for something he didn’t do and fly by the seat of his pants.

Even worse, Peter was shown to be an utterly incompetent CEO throughout the entire volume. His employees (among others) were constantly pointing out that his decisions were harming the company and that it will eventually crash if he continues as is. But Peter arrogantly ignores everyone around him and continues his self-destructive path without heeding any of the advice people are giving him.

At one point, he even ducks out of an important board meeting because he doesn’t want to be there and would rather attend an inconsequential “training session” with Miles Morales.

Why should I root for this guy? He’s thoroughly incompetent and embarrassingly oblivious throughout the entire volume. In other words, this just isn’t the character I know and love.

Concept aside, the stories themselves in this volume are just completely dull and lacking in any kind of excitement or interest. Villains like The Zodiac, Mr. Negative, and Regent aren’t engaging in the slightest and stories centered around them fail to generate any enthusiasm. The Zodiac was a bland terrorist organization with little personality or fleshed-out motivation seeking to take over the world. Mr. Negative is a rather generic mob boss who has now set his sights on vengeance towards a character who has wronged him in the past that we’ve never even heard of. Regent has a very cliche backstory that was clearly ripped from the Civil War film and is one of those laughably overpowered super villains who can easily defeat most characters in the Marvel universe, but is then taken down like a complete chump during the story’s climax because the plot demands it.

Even good villains like Norman Osborn are botched due to poor writing. Turning Norman into a wannabe dictator of Symkaria with a disfigured face (sure, why not?) was a cliche, lazy move that failed do Spider-Man’s greatest enemy justice.

Other than Anna Maria Marconi, the supporting cast was almost non-existent this volume. Did anyone seriously care about the Parker Industries employees? They were so underdeveloped and inconsequential that I could barely remember any of their names. The worst of the lot has to be Lian Tang. She shows up one issue, randomly becomes Peter’s girlfriend, betrays him and his company to The Zodiac, but is instantly forgiven simply because she was trying to help her ill mother.

I’m sorry, but that’s terrible writing. You’re going to immediately forgive someone you just started dating who sold out you and your company to a terrorist organization just because she did it for her mother? Not to mention that she never even bothered to ask you, her boyfriend and the owner of one of the biggest tech companies in the world, for help first? Peter is compassionate, but not stupid. Furthermore, why should I care? Tang was so laughably underdeveloped that she would completely disappear for issues at a time.

In conclusion, this was easily one of the lowest points in the web-spinner’s 57 year existence. Take that in, readers.

 

01.) One Moment in Time

by Joe Quesada and Palo Rivera

Is it really surprising that the unwanted sequel to One More Day, the single most despised Spider-Man story in existence, topped this list? This arc merely serves as a blatant and cynical agenda to make sure Peter Parker remains single and to tear down Mary Jane Watson’s character.

This abomination begins with the explanation for why Peter and Mary Jane never got married.

Because an out of shape thug hurls a cement block a dozen feet in the air and somehow manages to nail Spidey in the head with pinpoint accuracy. They then both stumble off of a building with the thug landing on top of the wall-crawler.

That right there should be enough to tell you just how moronic and illogically written this travesty is, but there’s more.

Remember in One More Day when Aunt May was dying from her bullet wound and basically every character in the Marvel universe told Peter that she is going to die and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do—to the point where Peter made his wildly out of character deal with Mephisto? Well here, Peter manages to save May by performing basic CPR.

Yep. And the comic makes it clear that Mephisto didn’t have any involvement in this.

But most insulting is when Mary Jane finally decides to break up with Peter. After being almost killed by a masked gunman hired by The Kingpin (who ends up being the same thug who made Peter miss his wedding because Joe Quesada thinks that’s clever), Mary Jane decides she can no longer handle Peter’s life as Spider-Man.

You see, getting attacked, kidnapped and/or nearly killed by supervillains like The Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom, Tombstone, Alistair Smythe, The Chameleon, Phreak, Kaine, Morlun and countless others is fine, but an overweight human with a gun? That’s when it’s time to call it quits.

I could go through the entire story page by page explaining why it fails on ever level, but this isn’t a review; it’s a summation of why I think it’s a bad comic. And I think it’s bad because of this: One Moment in Time is a total insult to anyone who is even remotely familiar with the characters. It deliberately mischaracterizes them to suit Quesada’s narrow-minded agenda: that Spider-Man needs to be single no matter how idiotic the premise and reasons are. This is the worst kind of story; one that does not care about established characterization and throws it to the gutter in order to reach a pre-determined conclusion.

In doing so, it creates one of the most poorly-written, cynical, lazy comics I’ve ever read. One Moment in Time isn’t just the worst Spider-Man story of the decade, it might very well be the worst Spider-Man story of all time. Yes, I would actually put this below One More Day. Again, it’s fitting that the only story that can surpass One More Day‘s awfulness is its sequel.

 

So what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Did I leave any off? Did you actually like some of these comics? Let me know in the comments below!