Every Marvel's Spider-Man Boss Fight Ranked

If a villain ever lived up to their name, it’s Screwball. The social media obsessed let’s say “villain” tasks Spidey with completing numerous acrobatic challenges all to get the perfect shot for her many followers. As the challenges progress however, so does the threat as you’ll soon be tasked with disarming bombs scattered around the city within a time limit all while dealing with her heavily armed “followers”. This will eventually lead to a combination of all three in which you’ll need to disarm the devices, deal with her followers, and do so while trying to get the perfect shot. The whole experience is more an exercise in frustration than a challenge. All of this culminates in a rooftop chase which Screwball orchestrates to continue snapping shots of Spidey before he finally takes her down. It’s enough to make you wonder if you’ve got a screw loose for jumping through all her hoops.

Another encounter in which you spend more time fighting the henchman than the big boss herself, Silver Sable literally leaps onto the scene and schools Spidey in a thing or two while warning him to keep his distance. While most of your encounters with Silver Sable take place within cutscenes before she becomes an unwilling ally, it's her many agents that no longer follow her orders you have to contend with. With numerous checkpoints and outposts, Sable’s “Death Troopers” as Spidey loving refers to them, pose just as much challenge as Sable herself, except with jetpacks and rocket launchers. You do eventually face her at the beginning of the Silver Lining DLC but this encounter is more about staying out of her way rather than actually incapacitating her.

Another boss encounter that lives up to its name, the more challenges you complete for Taskmaster, the more it feels like a task you simply need to complete rather than something you look forward to. Taskmaster tasks you with various challenges throughout the city before you finally encounter Taskmaster who poses quite the challenge. Staging a cheap surprise attack as Spidey swings through the city, Taskmaster already starts the encounter off on a sour note. Having studied Spidey’s attack patterns and tactics in each challenge, Taskmaster will utilize everything he learned studying Spidey and throw it back at the wallcrawler so you better be good at dodging and making your attacks unpredictable if you want to teach Taskmaster a real lesson.

Kingpin knows this is the tutorial, right? Spider-Man might’ve been used to battling Kingpin for the last eight years but for gamers’ first encounter with the crime lord, Kingpin holds nothing back as though he’s been waiting for this moment all these years as well. An absolute tank, Kingpin’s confidence at the beginning of the fight should have immediately set off the player's Spidey-Sense. Even with the turrets on his side, Kingpin prefers to keep things old school and despite his size, can quickly close the gap and use his enormous frame to knock Spidey off his feet. As a successful businessman, Fisk has quite a few goons on his payroll although they’re nothing but an obstacle standing between Spidey and his prize. As long as Spidey is quick enough, he’ll soon hang Kingpin out to dry.

Though your first encounter with Shocker amounts to virtually nothing more than a game of cat and mouse as you chase the shockingly fast villain through the streets of New York, it's the second encounter that epitomizes the phrase “bigger and badder”. Interrupting his not-so-subtle bank robbery, Shocker is willing to bring the house down just to defeat Spidey. His targeted attacks can do quite a lot of damage both to Spidey and the environment and his defensive shield keeps the wallcrawler at arm's length until they’re brought down. The fight takes another turn once all of the pillars are gone forcing Spidey to stay constantly on the move snatching any small pieces of debris to interrupt Shocker’s shock waves. Shocker might think he has Spidey on the ropes but the webslinger will bring the world crashing down on Shocker before the fight is done. We hope more than just the money was insured.

With Wilson Fisk behind bars, every low level mobster wannabe sees their opportunity to fill the void left by Kingpin. Hammerhead seeks to eliminate the competition and armed with one of Silver Sable’s experimental Project Olympus, he’s definitely got the best shot of filling Fisk’s big shoes. His inexperience with the suit however means that as long as Spidey keeps his distance while dealing with Hammerhead’s thugs, he doesn’t pose a substantial threat. At first anyways. After being defeated and resurrected, Hammerhead returns as cyborg, all but his Hammerhead replaced robotic components. The mechanized abomination poses a much more substantial threat this time around armed with holo-shields and deadly laser beams in addition to his normal attacks that can knock Spidey clean off his feet. Only with Silver Sable’s help is Spidey able to bring the hammer down on Hammerhead’s glowing weak point and unplug him for good.

Nearly every villain Spider-Man faces believes themselves invincible, but Tombstone is the only one able to make that claim and back it up. Completely invulnerable to Spidey’s attacks, Tombstone will shake off the most devastating of the wallcrawler’s assaults like swatting away a fly. It’s only by subduing Tombstone and administering an antidote for his condition that Spidey can hope to gain the upper hand. But Tombstone isn’t going to give up his powers willingly. He hits like a truck and the longer the fight goes on, the more aggressive he gets, throwing everything he and his gang can get their hands on at Spidey. Even without his powers, Tombstone can still crack a whip as his battle with Spider-Man sends his whole world up in flames. In the end, Tombstone is one of the only villains Spidey faces who knows when to quit and we’ll drink to that.

They say two heads are better than one, but at least one of those heads needs to be in charge, let alone have a plan, which neither Scorpion nor Rhino have beyond competing to take down the Spider. While the initial battle against Rhino isn’t overly difficult as long as you stay out of his way, once Scorpion joins the fight, dodging the two at once could send anyone’s Spidey-sense haywire. Both are easy enough to aggro into obvious traps and if you’re clever enough you can even use Rhino’s charge attack to take Scorpion out of the fight early. Rhino still presents an obvious challenge being completely impervious to straightforward attacks but thanks to the construction site, there’s more than enough equipment to crack his horn. In the end, the two are more of a threat to each other than Spidey ever was.

Whereas Scorpion and Rhino were more a danger to themselves than anyone else, Electro and Vulture bring the fight to Spider-Man as they choose the arena for battle. Their combined abilities force Spidey to remain airborne and unfortunately these two work much better as a team than the previous combo fight. Attempting to focus on one at a time becomes nearly impossible as they consistently come to one another’s aid forcing Spidey to routinely switch tactics for each villain mid fight. Once all the generators have been taken out, Electro is grounded, but without his co-op partner to protect, all of Vulture’s attention is now squarely on Spider-Man. Vulture’s suit enables him to quickly zip around the area but with quick use of Spidey’s zipline, he quickly clips Vulture’s wings and sends the bird back to his cage.

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Mr. Negative

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Although you face Mister Negative numerous times throughout the game, it’s the final encounter that proves the most difficult, not only in challenge but emotionally as well once you learn Li’s tragic backstory. Mr. Negative fights with more purpose than many of the other villains and his emotional state keeps his attacks unpredictable, and this is all before his powers become unhinged and he battles Spidey in the nightmarish Negative Zone. The shadow clones he uses don’t pose much of a threat beyond their sheer numbers and aggression, but Li’s demon shadow is something else entirely. Only by using debris from the environment can Spider-Man free Mr. Li from his demons and return to the real world but even then, the true fight has only just begun.

The buildup to this fight is palpable and masterfully crafted as players witness the bond between Peter and Doctor Octavius as well as the Doctor’s gradual evolution into the villainous Doc Ock. With the stakes higher than ever, Spidey goes toe to toe with the eight armed mechanical menace atop a Oscorp Tower where neither holds anything back knowing what’s at stake. Octavius’s arms give him a ridiculous range and the elemental damage he inflicts can be shocking, forcing Spidey to use all the tactics he’d mastered from his previous encounters with the Sinister Six. The revelation that Doctor Octavius knew that Peter was Spider-Man sends Peter over the edge, literally, as the two continue their battle along the side of the skyscraper. Although Spidey can dodge Octavius’ physical attacks and will finally unplug the mad doctor, the emotional scars will last forever.