Ranking the MCU Films (so far) part 4

Posted by comiczombie on October 10, 2026

Dare I try to do the nearly damn impossible and rank the film entries in the MCU?
It’s a very daunting task, because how do you choose between some of these? How can I justify not putting Thor: Ragnarok or Black Panther in the top 10? Is recency bias really a thing? How can I have Endgame so low, or Fantastic Four so high? What the f*** am I even doing?

The important thing to remember with the below list is that these are ranked not by cinematic achievement or a carefully plotted out chart or an algorithm to determine what are truly the best MCU entries. These are based solely on how much enjoyment I derive from them. You might think I’m a madman, or that finally (FINALLY!) somebody truly gets you, but regardless of whether or not you disagree with my choices (I’m sure Erik will have a completely different breakdown) I hope you enjoy reading!

If you haven’t already, you can check out part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

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10 (More) Great Spider-Man Stories

Posted by comiczombie on August 9, 2025

Spider-Man, obviously, is one of the most popular characters in comic books (or movies, or cartoons, or video games, or…) and has been for decades now. His popularity has meant for most of the 60+ years of his publishing history he has had more than one ongoing title running simultaneously. Not counting what if…? or Ultimate stories (those would need to be different lists), I wanted to pick out 10 tales of the webbed wall-crawling wonder that will show you why he, his villains, and his cast of supporting characters are second to none.

I should point out this is NOT a top 10 list, in that these are not ranked in any particular order, nor are they the 10 BEST Spider-Man stories, or my absolute favorite 10. These are just 10 cool stories that maybe slipped your radar or were out before you were reading Spider-Man and/or were born. I imagine I will revisit this topic, because it was hard to narrow it to just 10 for this article.

So, if you haven’t read these, do yourself a favor and check them out, and if you have read them, well… good.

Check out our first installment of great Spidey stories here, and check out some X-Men recommendations here and here!

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Top 100 Comic Book Villains Master List

Posted by ErikSlader on June 7, 2025

Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly, we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

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10 Great Spider-Man Stories

Posted by comiczombie on October 24, 2024

Spider-Man, obviously, is one of the most popular characters in comic books (or movies, or cartoons, or video games, or…), and has been for decades now. His popularity has meant for most of the 60+ years of his publishing history, he has had more than one ongoing title running simultaneously. Not counting what if…? or Ultimate stories (those would need to be different lists), I wanted to pick out 10 tales of the webbed wall-crawling wonder that will show you why he, his villains, and his cast of supporting characters are second to none.

So, if you haven’t read these, do yourself a favor and check them out, and if you have read them, well… good.

* * * * * *

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Top 100 Villains 20-11

Posted by comiczombie on February 19, 2024

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Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

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Top 15 Rivalries

Posted by comiczombie on January 13, 2023

Comic books are filled with rivalries. Some are friendly, like Archie and Jughead, and some are… not so friendly. While the friendly ones are fine, and can often inject plenty of drama into stories, it’s the really vitriolic ones that grab our attention and are typically the ones we remember the most fondly. With that in mind, below are my top 15 rivalries in comics. Plenty of these rivalries have had backstories fleshed out after the first time we saw them, like our first entry, but for ‘first altercation’ I’m going with the first published fight or confrontation between them, and not the backstories that were later filled in.

Who makes up your favorite rivalry? Did they place on the list? Let us know!

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Why “INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE” is still one of the Best Comic Book Movies of all Time!

Posted by ErikSlader on January 4, 2022

With the recent release of “Spider-man: No Way Home” (see our review on the Comic Zombie podcast), it really got me thinking about another Spider-man movie that also just so happens to deal with multiversal shenanigans: “Into the Spider-verse”! So I recently revisited this groundbreaking animated movie and not only did it hold up extremely well, I’d argue that it’s easily one of the best comic book movies ever made!

2018’s “Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse”, written by Phil Lord (of ‘Lego Movie’ and ’21 Jump Street’ fame), directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman – is about the origin of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as the newest Spider-man in a multiverse teaming with spider-themed heroes!

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The …um… other Spider-man Movies! (Part Two)

Posted by ErikSlader on April 14, 2015

So we covered the flawed, yet still pretty awesome, trilogy of Spider-Man films here, and while there was still plenty of room for stories to tell with the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man and the universe Sam Raimi crafted, Sony Pictures decided that Spider-Man 3 was to be the last installment in the series. They rebooted the franchise, and drafted director Marc Webb (kind of ironic) and cast Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man for the new series. The new franchise improved on the work the previous group did in a lot of ways, most notably casting and effects, and had some missteps of their own, which we will try to cover below.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012)

Directed by: Marc Webb

Starring: Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker / Spider-man), Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy), Rhys Ifans (Dr. Curt Connors / The Lizard), Dennis Leary (Captain Stacy), Martin Sheen (Uncle Ben), Sally Field (Aunt May), and Chris Zylka (Flash Thompson)

Plot: Peter Parker is bit by a genetically modified spider gaining the proportionate strength and agility of a human spider. When his Uncle Ben is killed by a robber he could have stopped, he learns that ‘with great power must come great responsibility’. Now, as Spider-Man he must battle the monstrous Lizard to save the people of New York, and as Peter Parker explore his new relationship with Gwen Stacy while working with Dr. Curt Connors to learn more about the mysterious death of his parents and his father’s work they may have been killed for.

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The Amazing Spider-Movies! – Part One

Posted by ErikSlader on March 19, 2015

Check out our Podcast Episode on ranking the Spider-man movies here!

Because you demanded it, we’re back with more breakdowns of the super hero movies you love, hate, and love to hate! Last time we covered the terrifying highs and gut wrenching, suicide inducing lows of the Batman franchise. This time we’re going with something a bit lighter, the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb Spider-Man franchises. That’s right, five movies of web slinging, cool villains, not so cool villains, great character moments, horrible character misfires, great casting, worst case scenario casting, all of it. From Raimi to Webb, Dunst/Howard to Stone, Maguire to Garfield, we’ll cover it all.

First up, the one that started it all, and really kicked the super hero movie craze of the early 21st century into gear…

Spider-man (2002)

Directed by: Sam Raimi

Starring: Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Willem Dafoe (Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson), James Franco (Harry Osborn), Cliff Robertson (Uncle Ben), Rosemary Harris (Aunt May), J. K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson), Joe Manganiello (Flash Thompson), Elizabeth Banks (Betty Brant), and Bruce Campbell

Plot: Peter Parker is bit by a genetically modified spider gaining the proportionate strength and agility of a human spider. After his Uncle Ben is killed by a car jacker and he learns the killer is a man he could have stopped before, he tragically learns the lesson ‘with great power must also come great responsibility’. Now, as Spider-Man, he tries to balance fighting crime and the new menace of the Green Goblin with his personal life, which includes his now widowed Aunt May, his best friend (and son of his new enemy) Harry Osborn, and the girl he loves, Mary Jane Watson, as well as a new job taking pictures for J Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle.

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Top 10 Spider-Man Villains

Posted by comiczombie on August 28, 2014

As I argued in the first Not-So-Great Debate, Spider-Man has the greatest rogue’s gallery in all of comics. This menagerie of maniacs, aliens, and general all-around freaks is top-to-bottom awesome. That said, there is definitely a cream of the freakshow crop when it comes to the ol’ webhead’s villains, and with that in mind, here are my top ten:

1. Dr. Octopus

Old bowl cut is one seriously nasty bastard. One of Spidey’s first villains, Doc Ock has been a staple of the rogue’s gallery for over 50 years now. But what puts him at the top of the list? Well, for one, he was responsible for the death of Captain George Stacy, so there’s that. He’s also extremely dangerous, and crazy smart. He formed the Sinister Six, and has led many of their incarnations against Spider-Man. He once held NY hostage with the threat of nuclear annihilation, and didn’t even bother asking for a ransom until AFTER he had armed the bomb and set the timer. He even tried to marry Aunt May (ew) in order to obtain access to an island she had inherited that had a nuclear reactor on it.

More recently, and perhaps most famously, he discovered the beatings he’s taken over the years were killing him, and used his last few months to try to imprint his consciousness into every machine in New York, and used his Sinister Six to essentially hold the whole world hostage before, in his last few days, transferring his consciousness into Spider-Man’s body, leaving Peter Parker to actually die in his nasty old body while he took over the body of Spider-Man!

After upgrading some tech, and hiring a bunch of henchmen to do his bidding, Ock spent a good bit running around as the “Superior Spider-Man”, wrecking the crap out of Peter’s personal life before eventually giving Peter his body back to do what he couldn’t, which is deal with the next goon on the list. It is his time in Peter’s body, combined with the fact that he actually pulled the switch off and the total bastard way he did it that earns Ock the top spot on the list.

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