Spider-Man has arguably the best villains of all time, other than Batman. However, I think what gives Batman's rogues gallery an edge over Spidey's is Batman's bad-ass female villains. I love how Catwoman, Harley, Talia, and especially Poison Ivy can be bad ass villains without being butch (no offense to anyone). I think Spidey totally needs a female villain similar to Poison Ivy, someone sexy yet dangerous. I think this has been done already, but this is my first post so please humor me and tell me what you think..
I do like Black Cat, but I can't say I'm a fan of Shriek. (That's probably due to my hatred for Maximum Carnage.) Spider-Man definitely needs more female villains. Some of the coolest villains are females (Mystique, Talia al Ghul, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, etc.).
So much of the Spider-Man mythos is based on him being a young man who has lost his father figures and ends up battling older men in positions of power. You are not wrong about there being a void in the female enemies department of his rouges gallery. Females just don't naturally fit in the psychological underpinnings of the character.
How has no one mentioned Shathra yet? She's not drop dead gorgeous, but she was a formidable foe. There wasn't anything between her and Peter Parker besides a desire to kill one another. She was strong enough for him to cut loose and fight brutally, and she could give back the hits she took. Pity, JMS killed her off she had such potential.
So much of the Spider-Man mythos is based on him being a young man who has lost his father figures and ends up battling older men in positions of power. You are not wrong about there being a void in the female enemies department of his rouges gallery. Females just don't naturally fit in the psychological underpinnings of the character.
But Mystique does, along with Lady Deathstrike and Spiral.
How has no one mentioned Shathra yet? She's not drop dead gorgeous, but she was a formidable foe. There wasn't anything between her and Peter Parker besides a desire to kill one another. She was strong enough for him to cut loose and fight brutally, and she could give back the hits she took. Pity, JMS killed her off she had such potential.
I agree with the statement that she's a good villain, though I disagree with the idea that she should have been a permanent addition to his rogues gallery. She was a character that would NEVER stop coming. Her dying was literally the only to get rid of her. The only conceivable way to make her a regular would be if she was the kind of character that couldn't really die (and in her case, this is something that could actually work to this day) and she was more or less temporarily "banished" when she was beaten, only to resume the hunt at a later date; though the problem with this is that you would have to make it so that she was the kind of character who could only "die" a certain way once (in the same way as Freak from BND) and had to be destroyed in different ways each time (but hopefully maintaining the theme of Spider vs. Wasp) so as to make sure that the stories aren't dull and repetitive (Peter must go to some temple, make a blood sacrifice, have spiders eat her, rinse and repeat). I can really see that working, especially if the writer had a VERY long and overreaching arc where over years and years Peter has had to fight her back again and again, needing to become more "spider-like" in order to stay alive, this in turn draws "THE OTHER" more and more into Peter's life, being problematic in that Peter has to find a way to keep his will his own, free of the Other's influence (like how Kaine in Scarlet Spider is currently fighting off the urges of "THE OTHER"), whilst still being capable of fighting back Shathra.
I'm not kidding when I say that I started writing my post fully meaning to say that I thought Shathra had no long-term potential but as I thought about it more and more as I was writing the post I've actually managed to convince myself that the above poster is correct. I think I'll leave it as is for people who like me who thought she didn't have any more potential.
How has no one mentioned Shathra yet? She's not drop dead gorgeous, but she was a formidable foe. There wasn't anything between her and Peter Parker besides a desire to kill one another. She was strong enough for him to cut loose and fight brutally, and she could give back the hits she took. Pity, JMS killed her off she had such potential.
I agree with the statement that she's a good villain, though I disagree with the idea that she should have been a permanent addition to his rogues gallery. She was a character that would NEVER stop coming. Her dying was literally the only to get rid of her. The only conceivable way to make her a regular would be if she was the kind of character that couldn't really die (and in her case, this is something that could actually work to this day) and she was more or less temporarily "banished" when she was beaten, only to resume the hunt at a later date; though the problem with this is that you would have to make it so that she was the kind of character who could only "die" a certain way once (in the same way as Freak from BND) and had to be destroyed in different ways each time (but hopefully maintaining the theme of Spider vs. Wasp) so as to make sure that the stories aren't dull and repetitive (Peter must go to some temple, make a blood sacrifice, have spiders eat her, rinse and repeat). I can really see that working, especially if the writer had a VERY long and overreaching arc where over years and years Peter has had to fight her back again and again, needing to become more "spider-like" in order to stay alive, this in turn draws "THE OTHER" more and more into Peter's life, being problematic in that Peter has to find a way to keep his will his own, free of the Other's influence (like how Kaine in Scarlet Spider is currently fighting off the urges of "THE OTHER"), whilst still being capable of fighting back Shathra.
I'm not kidding when I say that I started writing my post fully meaning to say that I thought Shathra had no long-term potential but as I thought about it more and more as I was writing the post I've actually managed to convince myself that the above poster is correct. I think I'll leave it as is for people who like me who thought she didn't have any more potential.
Someone needs to send this post to Marvel as soon as Peter gets back.
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