Spider-Man has always been one of Marvel’s biggest names, maybe even its biggest, and while intense spider action is one major part of his success, another part is the interpersonal drama that Peter Parker generates like no tomorrow. And what’s more dramatic than a love story? People love to read about love so it’s no surprise that the wall-crawler has had his fair share of relationships over the years, many with normal humans, but also plenty with superpowered women as well. And with the recent revelation that Mary Jane Watson is the new host of Venom, well, that prompted thinking about how all the different people Spider-Man has dated would stack up in an all-out brawl. Spider-Man has dated plenty of powerful people throughout his more than 60 year career. From street-level wonders like the Black Cat to cosmic warriors like Captain Marvel, Spidey has romanced people all across the power spectrum which should make something like this pretty interesting.
Of course, trying to list every single one of Spider-Man’s love interests would be far too much. Especially considering that the majority of them are normal humans. Instead, we’re going to list the top ten most powerful people Spider-Man has ever dated.
Many of you are probably asking; who? Well rest assured, you didn’t miss Spider-Man getting into another new relationship. Chat is actually Peter’s love interest from the alternate universe series Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, which takes place on Earth-20051. Chat is a mutant with the ability to telepathically communicate with animals. That’s great, assuming she’s within running distance of a zoo. In terms of actually fighting, however, she’s a solidly average human. So she earns tenth on the list for some decent potential with the right animal, but everyone else on this list should have no trouble fighting an alligator or two.
Our next entry is the X-Men’s own Marrow, and she’s a weird one. Her relationship with Peter was… strange, to say the least. During a point where she was brainwashed to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. they had her pose as a university student, where she kindled a relationship with Peter Parker, her… teacher. Yeah, it thankfully didn’t last long because her brainwashing wore off and she lost all interest in the wall-crawler.
Anyways, Marrow is, in my opinion, interchangeable with the previous entry on our list. She has combat training and her mutant ability is to grow her bones into weapons like knives and clubs. She’s definitely capable, but no more so than any of the other entries on this list. And they have much more normal relationships with Peter.
I know that this seems like a strange choice, ranking Gwen above the women who can tell a bear to rip people apart or stab you with her elbow, but she might even belong higher. Marvel Comics recently announced that they’re bringing back Gwen in an all new way. She’s being resurrected with a Deadpool-style uniform and Wolverine-like claws. The cover revealing her new look shows her literally making heads roll. If she sports intensive training and maybe even a healing factor when she comes back she might need to sit much higher up on this list.
However, until we actually see what the new Gwen Stacy is capable of, I can’t in good conscience put her any higher. The rest of the people here have plenty of feats we can all see clear as day. Still, the fact that she’s ranked at all is a definite step up from her old damsel in distress days.
Felicia Hardy just may be Spider-Man’s second most popular love interest. And if she’s not second, she’s definitely third, and it pains me that she just missed out of the top five. Black Cat is peak human performance in the Marvel Universe, with Olympian level acrobatic abilities and stealth skills that could make most ninjas blush. Beyond that, she has the power to manipulate probability around her, a bit of a “bad luck” field that makes her enemies slip up, and gives her plenty of advantages. It even offers her some protection against magic by disrupting its flow, which is a nice extra layer to have.
To go alongside her great combat skills and probability manipulations, she also sports some real life cybernetic cat claws that she can extend or retract at will. And she had a whole arsenal of specialized equipment and connections, having frequently worked with powerhouses like Doctor Strange. Still, at the end of the day Felicia is mostly at normal human levels (at least for comic book humans), which is something nobody else on this list can say.
Although she’s best known as Hawkeye’s ex-wife, Mockingbird and Spider-Man did date for a good portion of time during his Parker Industry days. Bobbi Morse graduated top of her class in her S.H.I.E.L.D. training, and sports a plethora of fighting style masteries under her belt. She’s a master of Kung Fu, Taekwondo, and is one of the best in Marvel at wielding batons and bo-staffs.
However, unlike the other entries on this list, she has superpowers that really put her above human level. Mockingbird was injected with a serum that was a diluted cocktail of Captain America’s Super Soldier serum and the Infinity Formula that slowed Nick Fury’s aging. It granted her super strength and agility, alongside a minor healing factor. Potentially, it even means that she could live for hundreds of years. That last power won’t help her in a fight, but it is definitely cool.
Otherwise known as Cindy Moon, Silk was bitten by the same radioactive spider that bit Peter, and granted her much the same powers. Of course, it also gave them a near animalistic attraction to each other’s pheromones, which means that just standing next to each other makes it hard to resist making-out. Not exactly the best basis for a deep relationship. They only dated for a brief time, but Silk still leaves her mark as a part of the extended Spider-Family of sorts.
Beyond the strength, agility, and stickiness that Spider-Man sports, Silk also has the ability to shoot organic webbing from her fingertips. Peter himself said that Silk is even faster than him, though a little bit weaker, and her Spider Sense is even stronger than his. Spider-Man level powers are never something you should take lightly.
Okay, okay, I know I’m stretching the definition of “love interest” quite a bit with this one, but I couldn’t make a list of all of Spider-Man’s relationships and not include the Merc with a Mouth. Spider-Man and Deadpool have a long history of teamwork, and in recent years have even shared the headline in a comic together. While any romantic feelings between the two are definitely one-sided from Deadpool, they are still close. And hey, they even had a (cloned) kid together in that shared comic, so I’m counting it.
Deadpool is the very definition of hard to kill. He might not have any super strength or luck manipulation, but he does have quite possibly the strongest healing factor in the Marvel Universe. We’ve seen Deadpool take down everyone in comics like Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, and his lethality cannot be taken lightly. It might take him a while, but once Deadpool decides to take someone down, he is very hard to stop.
Image courtesy of Marvel Comics
What’s scarier than someone who gets back up no matter how many times you hit them? Someone you can’t hit at all. While they only dated in the original Ultimate Spider-Man run back in the 2000s, they did date, which is more than I can say for Deadpool. Kitty Pride is a mutant threat, to say the very least. A longtime X-Men, Kitty has more than earned thrid place on this list with her ability to phase through anything.
To some that might not sound like all that impressive an ability, and to those people I say you lack imagination. Kitty can phase through anything, and make any part of her tangible at will, including letting her phase through the air and walk on it. She was doing that when she was still a teenager, and now that she’s a grown woman she has shown herself to be one of the most dangerous assassins in the world, if she wants to be. Take a look at what she did during the fall of Krakoa to get an example of just how dangerous she can be.
While it was only for a brief time back while she still went by Miss Marvel, Spider-Man and Carol Danvers did date while they were both Avengers. Not only is Captain Marvel trained in both hand-to-hand and as an Air Force pilot, she also has some of the strongest (and most confusing) power sets in the Marvel Universe.
Carol is a human and kree hybrid. She possesses strength that puts her on the level of heavy-hitters like Thor and the Hulk and can fly at speeds that we don’t even know how fast, but she can fligh between planets, so let that speak for itself. Alongside that, she has her own prenatural sense that alerts her to danger to match Pete’s, called her Seventh Sense. She can also absorb most forms of energy and redirect it as photon blasts, and should she absorb enough energy she can transform into an even more superpowered form called Binary. Basically imagine everything she can already do, but turned up to twelve.
It’s surreal to me that we live in a world where Mary Jane is Spider-Man’s best, most popular, most beloved, and possibly most powerful love interest. I guess it really is true what they say, you can’t beat the classics. MJ isn’t just at the top of this list because I lover her, however, I legitimately think she has a claim to being the strongest of Spider-Man’s entanglements. Don’t believe me? Let’s break it down.
In recent times MJ has gone from being a beloved side character to the mainliner of her own comic in Jackpot. With tech designed by (ugh) Paul, MJ can roll the dice and temporarily mimic the powers of nearly anyone in the Marvel Universe. That’s right. She can randomly gain the abilities of anyone on this list. Granted, there were limiters placed on the gear that prevents her from getting the most extreme highs or lows. So she can’t borrow from the Sentry, but it also means that she won’t accidentally bet stuck with Chat’s powers. (No offense Chat, I still love you)
But even so, MJ can copy the powers of nearly every hero in the Marvel Universe, and potentially throw the Venom symbiote on top of that. Granted, we haven’t seen her combine these powersets yet, and there might even be a chance she can’t, but if she can MJ has jumped from being a hero to a top tier superhero. And even if she can’t combine the two, with all the buff symbiotes have been getting in the last few years, Venom alone might place her at the top of this list. Honestly, I don’t know whether to love or hate all the changes done to MJ recently, but you cannot ignore that she’s earned her place at the top of the pack.
So there we have it, the definitive list of all of Spider-Man’s love interests, ranked by how strong they are. This list isn’t exhaustive, and there’s potential I’ve missed someone in the long, long line of Spider-loves. Still, if this list proves anything, it’s that Peter hit the jackpot with MJ. Let’s face it tiger, she’s just the top of the top.
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