The 20 greatest (and 10 worst) Spider-Man villains of all time

6th Worst Villain: Morlun

When Marvel hired J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame as the writer of Amazing Spider-Man, little did fans realize this would lead to some of the most controversial moments in the wall-crawler’s history. Among these was the idea that the radioactive spider which bit Peter Parker was, in fact, the emissary of a mystical spider god. This also meant that, despite most of his villains being science fiction based, Spider-Man needed more supernatural enemies.

So in Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 #30, Straczynski , along with artist John Romita Jr., gave Peter Parker his own personal Doomsday and Bane in the form of Morlun.

Basically, Morlun is a vampire, the kind someone who read one too many Anne Rice novels would dress up for goth parties and sci-fi conventions. Only instead of feasting on blood, he drains energy from people with totemic qualities, and spider-totems, like Spider-Man, in particular. Not exactly a very in-depth character, especially one so out-of-step for a more “street level” superhero.

Yet for some reason, perhaps on the strength of Straczynski’s, “Coming Home,” readers mistook Morlun for an unstoppable badass. Or perhaps becauseMorlun has the dubious distinction of ripping out and eating Peter Parker’s eye in the otherwise inconsequential crossover, The Other: Evolve or Die. Never mind that he died twice during both stories.

Then fans learned Morlun belonged to a whole family of steampunk-themed, inter-dimensional vampires called The Inheritors during 2014’s epic Spider-Man event, Spider-Verse. And the reason Morlun kept coming back to life? It’s because he and his fellow Inheritors are also clones. Eventually, the various Spider-Men and Women exiled Morlun and the Inheritors on an alternate Earth ravaged by a nuclear holocaust–as radiation is their one weakness–and readers bid them all good riddance.