A Friendly Neighborhood.
I actually don't have much to say today...so...

The first major Spider-Man villain was The Chameleon who showed up in Spidey's 1st issue. He's has a smooth featureless white mask for a face, and no one knows what he looks like underneath. He can of course disguise himself as just about anyone. He uses that to commit crimes. That's the Chameleon.

The second major villain was in the 2nd issue, The Vulture. He's a creepy, predatory bird-faced old man in a green suit with wings. He flies. It was some formulat that gave him the power to fly. In fact many of Spidey's earliest and most prominent villains were scientifically astute. The Vulture was never that impressive, but he did manage to hand Spidey his own @$$ a number of times.

The third issue featured a character that all the world is now familiar with, Doctor Octopus. Slightly shorter, certainly dumpier, and a whole lot geekier than Alfred Molina, Doctor Octopus was a great villain. He was a man of science who followed that Mad Scientist credo that his immense intelligent should lead him to fame, riches, and power. The great thing about Doc Ock is that he's a terribly week looking villain for the most part, but was always immensely powerful and dangerous.

Fourth villain up for a fourth issue was The Sandman who due to being exposed to nuclear reaction found his body at first fused with sand and later reformed of it. Though he normally maintained a fully human appearance, he could mold himself to any of a number of shapes or slip away through cracks where he would reform elsewhere. Again, though not of science, he was the result of science gone wrong, another common feature of Spidey villains. The Sandman is extremely strong and difficult to fight because of his continually shifting form, so Spider-man always had to come up with creative ways of stopping him. Also, The Sandman had some of the coolest drawn hair in comic's history.

Fifth was Doctor Doom. Fantastic Four cross-over villain. I'm not talking about the Fan Four.

Peter Parker's buddy Doctor Curt Connors was trying to use reptilian regeneration science to build himself an arm for one he'd lost in the sixth issue. Problem was, he got back his arm, but the Lizard genes took him over and turned him into a monster, The Lizard! What always made for great conflict was that The Lizard was vicious, but Pete never liked the fact that he had to beat his friend's @$$ in order to subdue him.

Seven saw The Vulture come back, and Eight had Spidey fighting some no-name, The Living Brain. Nine, however, had Electro, one of my favorite villains if only for his looks. Donning a green suit streaked with gold lightning bolts, and one of the kookiest lightning bolt pattern mask of all time, Electro took to the life of crime. I don't remember his origin exactly, but two quarters and a jelly sandwich say it had something to do with him being struck directly or indirectly by lightning.

Issue Ten had the largely laughable villain mob, The Enforcers. Though they appeared many times over the years, I wouldn't call them major villains. The big dumb guy, Ox, was kinda fun.
Eleven and Twelve were a two-parter with Doc Ock.

Issue Thirteen featured another favorite of mine, the fish bowl headed, Mysterio! Mysterio was an unidentified specialist in illusions and special effects. His issues were always surreal and bizarre fun. I'm still undecided on whether it was cool or a letdown that every time Spider-Man found Mysterio behind all the bullsh!t that he usually beat his @$$ in nothing flat.

Back to science gone awry was Issue Fourteen's landmark creation, The Green Goblin. It wouldn't be for another 25 issues (2 years) before we would discover that the orginal (and best) Goblin was the father of Pete's best friend Harry Osborne. The Green Goblin was every great villain rolled up into one: super strong, stocking a full arsenal of strange deadly weapons, able to fly on a dangerous rocket glider, and being totally deranged. Petty crime to world domination, the Goblin tried it all as long as it was Evil. Truly great stuff. Several other folks (including Harry) would become the Goblin over the years, but no one beat Norman Osborne for hilarious lunacy and true evil.

By that time in his year and three issue lifespang, Spider-Man attracted the attention of one of his other ultra-classic villains, Kraven the Hunter. Kraven was a typical figure with the dark Joe Stalin features that were the trademark of every Russian villain from Boris Badanov on up. However Kraven's greatest thrill, the big hunt, gave his costume a little more flair than the standard dark had and coat of the Cold War killer with it's Lion's head vest, the belt of claws and the leopard skin pants. Late in his career, Kraven's character was given great treatment when his obsessions and manias for capturing and killing Spider-man finally led to his suicide following all his failures. Unfortunately, I understand like the original Green Goblin who also died a great death, the original Kraven's been brought back to life.

Issue Sixteen had Daredevil and Spidey duke it out under the mechanations of one of the lamest villains ever The Ringmaster. If not for Double-D (that's Daredevil), I would've likely pretended issue sixteen didn't exist, and just skipped to the Green Goblin in #17, or the return of The Sandman in #18 and #19.

One could argue that I've left out a figure who was always something of a major villain to Spider-Man all along, newspaper man, J. Jonah Jameson. Well, Jonah was responsible for many a plot against Spidey, but perhaps none more so than Issue #20. Jonah hired a thug to undergo an experiment that would give him super strength and graft a large robotic tail onto his back. What would be the more logical creation to stop a man-sized spider than The Scorpion? The Scorpion's got both a coolness and lameness to him. In the right hands, he rocked and socked.

#21 had fun but minor insect-themed villain The Beetle, who I actually liked better with the weird and lame suction cups on his hands. Still, the Beetle's big time compared to The Clown and The Master of Menace in #22 (they might be lamer than the Ringmaster, but I've never read the issue). The Green Goblin was back in #23, and then I don't know what the hell is going on in #'s 24 or 25 before the Goblin would sweep up again in #'s 26 and 27. #28 saw the first appearance of the Molten Man who showed up another time or two. #29's another Scorpion appearance, but #30's a total mystery (maybe it's the return of The Clown and The Master's of Menace but they were too ashamed to give them another cover).

I'm stopping there. I don't know what I was doing in the first place. The Kingpin, who would be more of a major Daredevil villain, shows up 20 issues later in #50. In #46 was one of my other favorites, though a minor villain, who had a wonderfully bizarre costume, The Shocker. Sure some major villains would show up many years later, but in the first four years, Spider-Man had pretty much establish bad guys whose @$$es he would be beating for the next 40 years.

Cheers.