After being introduced in Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man
has been a popular character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
With two solo movies and three Avengers movies under his belt, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man
is back in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
With so many characters to talk about in this movie, which are good and which are evil?
I’m Caleb with WickedBinge and this is Spider-Man No Way Home: Good to Evil.
Before we get started, a couple of notes, firstly, MASSIVE spoilers for this movie,
if you haven’t already been spoiled, don’t spoil yourself with this video.
Secondly, we may be referring to certain characters by their actor’s name, you’ll see why
when we get to them.
Finally, we’re going to mostly talk about events only from No Way Home but we may speak
about events from the other movies if necessary.
With those warnings out of the way, we get started by talking about The Good.
Earning our Gold Medal of Good is May Parker.
May is the legal guardian of Peter and his Aunt and is commonly referred to as Aunt May
because of this.
May is all around a good person since the beginning of the movie, she gives Peter the
advice to not answer any questions without a lawyer, hires a highly-respected lawyer
to protect Peter, and helps run the F.E.A.S.T.
center to help and feed people in need.
She is the one who initially convinces Peter to try and cure the villains instead of sending
them back to their deaths.
This makes it even sadder when she is killed by one of the said villains, giving Peter
the great responsibility speech, inspiring him for the rest of the movie.
The Silver Medal of Good goes to Spider-Man from Earth-96283 portrayed by Tobey Maguire.
This version of Peter Parker appears midway through the movie, having been pulled to Earth-199999
through Doctor Strange’s spell.
He soon meets Ned and MJ as well as another Peter, and this leads to him helping our main
Peter.
He helps Peter One deal with the grief of Aunt May’s death by explaining his own story
of Uncle Ben’s death.
It turns out he had also been thinking of a cure for Osborn since their duel long ago.
He tries to be as good as possible and even stops Peter One from killing Green Goblin
despite how dangerous he was.
He is only slightly better than Peter One in this movie, and honestly, all three of
them are on pretty even ground.
Speaking of Peter Parker/Spider-Man he earns the Bronze Medal of Good.
Tom Holland’s version of Peter has to go through a lot in this movie after being framed
by Mysterio.
Not only is his identity revealed to the world but he is slandered repeatedly, even by staff
at his school.
This causes him to seek out Doctor Strange so he can create a spell to make people forget
his identity.
Yes, he does cause the multiversal villains to appear, but he also tries to cure them
so they wouldn’t die, showing how good of a person he is.
However, he falls below Tobey’s version of Peter simply because he did try to kill
Green Goblin in revenge, he is stopped by Tobey’s version and he does give up his
entire life to save the universe by erasing Peter Parker from everyone’s memories.
If it wasn’t for the fact he tries to kill Goblin, he might rank higher than the previous
Spider-Man.
Very tentatively ranking next is Spider-Man from Earth-120703 who is portrayed by Andrew
Garfield.
This version of Peter fought against The Lizard and Electro in his own universe and was pulled
into the MCU through Dr. Strange’s spell.
He does help cure the villains and helps Peter deal with the grief of May’s death, which
are both very good deeds.
The reason he ranks below the other Peters is simply that he reveals that after failing
to save Gwen he stopped pulling his punches, implying that he may have killed plenty of
criminals during his time as a hero.
He does redeem himself in the movie by saving MJ in a very similar situation as Gwen, however,
he is slightly worse than the other Spider-Men.
The next character on our list is the Guy in the Chair, Ned Leeds.
Ned is Peter’s best friend and has been since Spider-Man: Homecoming, he has always
been a generally good kid.
In this movie, he is willing to help Peter in his quest to save the villains showing
he has a good heart.
He is also shown to be quite competent, even with Strange’s Sling Ring, and helpful in
curing the villains.
However, Ned is not a superhero and can be quite dull or egotistical at times, such as
when he is tricked into revealing too much info about Peter.
He’s not a bad guy though, so of course, he still ranks here in the good area.
In a similar spot on the list, Michelle Jones Watson is next up.
MJ is Peter’s girlfriend and a pretty smart person in general.
She is shown to really care about Peter, willing to stop the spell at any moment.
She helps Peter in his quest to cure the villains and tries everything she can to help him deal
with the grief of May’s death.
She’s a fun character and is shown to really love Peter which is part of the reason that
Peter goes through with the spell to make everyone forget him.
MJ is one of our favorite characters and honestly, she only ranks this low out of necessity.
Rounding out the good section of our list is Matt Murdock.
Matt doesn’t appear in the movie very long, but he was the lawyer hired to protect Peter
and explained that the charges probably wouldn’t stick.
He also tells Happy to get a lawyer and stops Peter from getting hit by a brick thanks to
his intense reflexes.
Matt does nothing but good in this movie and it is of course great to see Charlie Cox back
in his Netflix role.
With the good section of the list wrapped up, we move down to the Gray Area of the list.
Starting off our Gray section of the list is Norman Osborn.
Now, let us explain our decision here, we are considering Norman Osborn and Green Goblin
as two separate characters.
In both this movie and the original Raimi movies they are considered two separate entities
in one body.
Norman doesn’t appear very long but tries his best to cure himself and the other villains,
being something of a scientist himself.
He’s still only in the gray because we can’t fully tear him from the Goblin’s actions
and a theory has arrived that his actions are just Green Goblin pretending to be Osborn.
The next character to land in the Gray Area is Wong.
Wong is another character who appears very little in the movie, mostly just towards the
end of Act One.
We find out that he is now the Sorcerer Supreme and has to deal with those issues.
He is the one who tells Dr. Strange not to perform the spell but doesn’t actively try
to stop it.
He was also not in New York for most of the movie so he can’t help.
He only ranks here because he doesn’t have enough screen time to rank anywhere else.
Sliding into the next spot on our list is Harold “Happy” Hogan.
Happy has a much smaller role in this movie compared to the previous movies but he’s
still just as helpful.
He lets May and Peter stay at his condo, and tells Peter to run when the police have him
cornered.
Happy also has the Stark Fabricator that both helps create the cure for the villains and
also carries the Arc Reactor that powers Electro up severely.
Happy ranks here similarly to Wong because he just doesn’t appear for very long outside
of some jokes.
Another character with very little screen time ranks next, being Eddie Brock/Venom.
Brock appears in the mid-credit scene where he is disastrously drunk trying to take in
the history of the MCU.
He does want to go talk to Peter but is then sent back to his universe while Venom wants
to skinny dip.
He doesn’t get to pay his bill and may or may not want to attack Peter if the Let There
Be Carnage mid-credit scene is anything to mention.
He does also drop off a piece of his symbiote in this universe, which does not bode well,
and Yes, in earlier versions of the script he was supposed to fight Spider-Man but that’s
not what we got so he can’t rank lower.
Ranking a bit low is Dr. Strange who is next on our list.
Stephen Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme prior to being dusted by Thanos and is generally
a good guy.
He casts the initial spell to make people forget that Peter Parker was Spider-Man and
does get quite angry at Peter changing the spell.
Throughout the movie, he does what he thinks is right, which is mostly sending the villains
back to their deaths instead of reforming them.
He also initially doesn’t want to cast the spell to erase everyone’s memory of Peter
and is even shown to be quite sad when he does it.
The reason he ranks low is that he does want to send each of the villains to their death
and does give off some evil vibes at times.
However, since he thought he was doing what was right and does end up letting Peter finish
saving the day, he won’t rank lower.
Class bully Flash Thompson is next on our list.
Flash is only really important in the first part of the movie where he is first in disbelief
at Spider-Man’s identity.
He immediately writes a fictitious tell-all book about “being Spider-Man’s best friend”.
He uses Spider-Man’s true identity to try and become famous and doesn’t tell Peter
where to find the MIT Vice Chancellor unless they struck a deal.
Flash is an egomaniac who thrives off of fame, and honestly, he ranks this low because he
doesn’t really do anything productive.
Rounding out the gray area of our list is Albert Cleary.
Agent Cleary is the Department of Damage Control Agent who interrogates Peter, Ned, MJ, and
May during their investigation into Mysterio’s death.
He uses tricks to get confessions out of Ned and tries to guilt trip May into telling him
stuff.
However, he’s not doing this out of bitterness or evilness, he’s just doing his job and
it looks antagonistic from the way we view the movie.
We now move down to the multiversal threats and a true sinister six that are populating
the Bad to Evil category of our list.
The buffer villain on our list who could easily fit in the Gray Area is Flint Marko/Sandman.
Marko, portrayed by Thomas Hayden Church, comes from the Raimiverse alongside Tobey
Maguire's Spider-Man.
Much like the other villains and the Spider-Men Marko was pulled into the universe by Doctor
Strange’s spell.
Much like in the original movies, Marko isn’t really that bad of a guy and only commits
crimes to protect and provide for his daughter.
His entire quest in this movie is to get back to his timeline so he can go back to his daughter.
Yes, he does escape and helps Electro and the others fight the Spider-Men but he just
wants to go home, which he manages in the end.
He is one-hundred percent the least evil of the villains in this movie, hence his ranking
here.
Next on our list is the first truly evil character on this list, J. Jonah Jameson.
Jameson is a glorified podcaster and an obvious parody of controversial news host Alex Jones.
Jameson is the one who provides Mysterio’s footage of Peter’s identity reveal so he’s
partly responsible for that.
He also continually attacks Peter’s character even after the spell that erases his identity.
He even has someone spy on him and try to approach him in person.
Jameson doesn’t care about anyone but himself, even when people are dying, he doesn’t rank
lower because he’s not actively harming people, but he’s pretty close.
Ranking outside the bottom three is Dr. Otto Octavius/Dr. Octopus.
Otto, portrayed by Alfred Molina, comes from the same universe as Maguire’s Spider-Man
and faced him in Spider-Man 2.
He fights Holland’s Parker almost immediately upon arriving, with his tentacles still in
control of his brain.
It is confirmed in both this movie and Spider-Man 2 that when the tentacles have a red dot they
are in control of Octavius and not the other way around.
This is the main reason why he doesn’t rank in the bottom three, that and the fact that
after he is cured he manages to help the Peters defeat Electro, showing he’s not that bad
of a guy.
Grabbing the Bronze Medal of Evil is Max Dillon/Electro.
Electro, played by Jamie Foxx is from the same universe as Andrew’s Parker, originally
being an employee of Oscorp like Connors.
He is transported to the MCU before the moment of his death and doesn’t waste a moment
trying to kill Peter when he arrives.
He really enjoys his new body upon arriving and is initially okay with being cured.
But he then steals the Arc Reactor and gets much stronger, he wants to destroy the container
that holds the spell so that he can stay in the MCU forever.
He does get defeated and has a bit of a heart-to-heart with Andrew’s Spider-Man.
He is pretty bad but he only takes third place.
Snatching our Silver Medal of Evil is Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard.
Connors portrayed by Rhys Ifans comes from the same universe as Garfield’s Parker,
having dealt with him in his own timeline.
Connors used the DNA of a lizard to try and regrow his missing arm, but this caused him
to mutate into this giant lizard creature that had to fight against Spider-Man.
He was immediately captured by Dr. Strange upon being transported to the MCU and warns
Peter of the consequences of trying to cure the villains.
He escapes with the other villains and comes back to fight the three Peters at the Statue
of Liberty.
He then tries to kill MJ and Ned and shows very little respect for the lives of anyone
else except his own.
He is also confirmed to have tried to turn the entire city into lizard people, offering
the same to Electro.
He doesn’t rank lower because his mission started off good, but as always, the road
to hell is paved in good intentions.
Finally, the Gold Medal of Evil goes to The Green Goblin.
Goblin, portrayed by Willem Dafoe, is the darker half of Norman Osborn and arguably
the main villain of the movie.
Goblin not only convinces the other villains to escape and not accept the cures that Parker
had made, but he also kills Aunt May and tells Peter that it’s his fault.
He is absolutely insane and does not care about anyone or anything, barely even himself.
He stabs Tobey’s Parker in the back and pretty much tries to convince Peter to kill
him.
The Green Goblin takes the gold and laps the other villains a hundred times because he
has no redeeming qualities, he is despicable and evil by every description of the room,
because he does nothing but kill and destroy, including the box that holds the spell, causing
the multiverse to start tearing and Peter to cast the spell that makes everyone forget
him.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking.
And tell us what we should cover next.
Remember to hit that notification bell and binge our Good to Evil playlist.
Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies.
But most importantly, stay wicked.