One of Marvel's most popular characters, Peter Parker became everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man after a radioactive spider bit him during his high school years. Fans have watched Peter grow over the years into the superhero he is today, though they have also seen a few other characters take on the title as well.

While there are a number of different takes on Spider-Man who have appeared across Marvel's multiverse, there have been quite a few different heroes (and villains) who have called themselves Spider-Man in their mainstream reality. Among these, only one of them can boast about being the strongest Spider-Man.

Updated by Sage Ashford on November 30th, 2023: This list has been updated to reflect changes in CBR's formatting.

15 Hobie Brown/Prowler Pretended To Be Spider-Man To Keep Peter's Identity Secret

When Spider-Man first met Hobie Brown, he wore the costumed alter ego of the villainous Prowler. However, Spider-Man convinced Brown to reform, and Prowler became an on-again, off-again hero. When Peter Parker ran his own company, he "hired" Spider-Man as his personal bodyguard. He also secretly hired Hobie Brown as Prowler to carry out a few covert missions for him.

One of Hobie Brown's jobs was to impersonate Spider-Man in order to keep Peter Parker's secret identity hidden now that he was in the public eye. Prowler wore a special new suit made by Parker Tech that could alter its appearance to look like Spider-Man's suit. It also replicated Spider-Man's webbing and slightly enhanced Hobie Brown's normal human strength.

14 Timespinner Pretended To Be Spider-Man To Join The Avengers

Kang the Conqueror employed a few different tactics over the years on his mission to destroy the Avengers. In one of his earliest schemes, Kang the Conqueror created a powerful android facsimile of Spider-Man. The android posed as Spider-Man and attempted to join the Avengers, but the android led them into a trap.

The Spider-Man android beat the Avengers on his own, though the real Spider-Man soon arrived and defeated it. The android reappeared years later with new abilities and became known as Timespinner. Its webs could alter the timeline or rapidly age others, and it took the combined efforts of Ben Reilly/Spider-Man and the Avengers to destroy Timespinner and fix the timestream.

13 Selim/Spider-Man Was Designed To Be A Perfect Clone Of Miles Morales

Peter Parker faced his own clone problems over the years, though Miles Morales recently dealt with his own version of the Clone Saga as well. A dangerous AI known as The Assessor captured the youthful Spider-Man and experimented on him. This eventually led to The Assessor's creation of three surviving clones named Selim, Shift, and Mindspinner.

While Shift and Mindspinner's bodies were unstable and mutated, Selim was a near-perfect physical replica of Miles Morales. He impersonated Spider-Man and stole scientific equipment so he could create a cure for the Assessor's clones. Selim shared the same strength as Miles Morales, but the faulty cloning process gave him a limited time to live.

12 Flash Thompson Gained Strength When He Became Agent Anti-Venom

While Flash Thompson made a name for himself in the superhero community as Agent Venom and then Agent Anti-Venom, Flash Thompson was also one of the first characters to impersonate Spider-Man. He first dressed as Spider-Man to play a joke on Peter Parker, though Doctor Doom kidnapped him, hoping to ally with the "villainous" wall-crawler.

Unfortunately, Flash Thompson didn't have the spider abilities to go along with his ruse, which made him one of the weakest versions of Spider-Man. Of course, Flash grew even stronger when he became a member of Venom's extended family of symbiotes, making him a match for most Spider-People.

11 Mattie Franklin/Spider-Woman Gained More Power During Her Adventures

A young girl named Martha "Mattie" Franklin gained incredible abilities after she took part in a magical ceremony known as the Gathering of Five, where each recipient gained either power, insanity, knowledge, immortality, or death. Mattie was a fan of Spider-Man and decided to become a superhero during a period when Peter Parker had briefly retired.

She soon created her own costume, and Mattie Franklin became one of the many variants of Spider-Woman. Mattie originally had super-strength like Peter Parker, though she gained additional power from a villain named Charlotte Witter, and it included additional spider arms and psionic abilities. Unfortunately, much like Kaine, her inexperience led to her death during the Grim Hunt.

10 Dr. Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus Stole Spider-Man's Powers For His Own Usage

The villainous Doctor Octopus suffered in his frequent battles with superpowered characters, which damaged his body and left him near death. His final act as Doctor Octopus was to use his advanced technology to take over Spider-Man's body, though Peter Parker's memories continued to influence him.

As the Superior Spider-Man, Otto Octavius had the same powers as Peter Parker, but he outfitted his costume with advanced technology and improved on most of Parker's gear to enhance himself further. Though he wanted to prove he was the strongest Spider-Man, Doc Ock eventually returned control to Peter Parker, acknowledging that Parker was stronger than he was and could succeed where he had failed.

9 Norman Osborn/Spider-Man Relies On Both Strength And Science

Spider-Man and his allies discovered their place in the larger multiverse as avatars of the Web of Life and Destiny in events like Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon, which introduced several alternate Spider-Man. One of these variants was actually Norman Osborn, whose own experiments transformed him into the dark version of the web-slinger.

Norman Osborn had standard Spider-Man powers, though he embraced the additional arms that Peter Parker only briefly dealt with. This made him a strong threat to the gathered Spider-Men and later Otto Octavius after he returned to his Superior Spider-Man identity in a newly cloned body.

8 Ai Apaec/Dark Spider-Man Was The Perfect Spider-Man For Norman's Avengers

The New Avengers defeated the first roster of the Dark Avengers and they disbanded after the Siege event. So Norman Osborn gathered a new team of villains to continue impersonating the Avengers' heroic identities. He enlisted a South American god known as Ai Apaec, who had become known as the Decapitator due to his preferred method of dealing with his enemies.

Ai Apaec was a chimera with a semi-human torso on top of a giant spider body. Osborn was able to use another formula, helping Ai Apaec resemble a six-armed human when he became the second Dark Spider-Man. His incredible strength and durability, and venomous fangs made him one of the strongest Spider-Men, but he apparently died after he was shrunk and stepped on.

7 As Chasm, Ben Reilly Draws On The Power Of Magic More Than Strength

Jackal made several Peter Parker clones over the years, but the most successful first encountered Peter Parker during the original Clone Saga. He secretly left New York for five years to try to create his own life. This clone eventually returned to the city and created the new identity of Scarlet Spider and even briefly reclaimed the title of Spider-Man when Peter Parker retired.

Ben Reilly's story ultimately ended when Norman Osborn killed him and his clone body degraded. However, The Jackal brought Ben back years later, and he again reclaimed the title of Spider-Man. Unfortunately, the Beyond Corporation betrayed and transformed Ben into the villainous Chasm. His strength increased as well, though his weakened mental state also increased his vulnerability.

6 Miles Morales/Spider-Man Is Still Growing But Already Has Incredible Power

Miles Morales first appeared in the Ultimate Universe as the new Spider-Man after the death of Peter Parker. However, he eventually transferred to the mainstream reality after the Secret Wars event where he continues to operate as Spider-Man alongside Peter Parker.

One of Oscorp's genetically modified spiders that had initially transformed Peter Parker also bit Miles Morales. However, Miles gained alternate abilities that included adaptive camouflage, as well as a powerful "venom blast." In modern comics, Miles has been teaching himself how to mold his venom blast energy into objects, like a sword. These powers are sure to get stronger as Miles gets older.

5 Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 Uses His Powers To Protect People In The Future

In the early '90s, fans met a new Marvel world set 100 years in the future. Miguel O'Hara was a geneticist whose dark transformation into Spider-Man 2099 began after his boss forcibly addicted him to a drug known as Rapture. O'Hara used his own genetic modification process to merge his DNA with a spider to clear himself of Rapture.

As Spider-Man 2099, O'Hara gained the proportionate strength of a spider along with paralytic fangs, retractable talons, an advanced healing factor, and enhanced eyesight. He also gained low-level telepathy in place of the usual spider-sense. This turned him into a great hero of the future. He also spent some time stranded in the present day where he worked closely with Peter Parker.

4 Max Borne/Spider-Man 2211 Uses His Powers To Protect The Future

Both Peter Parker and Miguel O'Hara met another Spider-Man from the future named Max Borne. As Spider-Man 2211, he joined an organization known as T.O.T.E.M., or the Temporal Oversight Team Eliminating Mistakes. He became a Timespinner and used his advanced technology to replicate Spider-Man's natural abilities and protect the timeline.

Spider-Man 2211 had four robotic arms on his costume that greatly increased his strength, allowing him to lift around 25 tons. This made him one of the strongest versions of Spider-Man in any era, though other characters with multiple arms could challenge him as well.

3 Peter Parker/Spider-Man Has Had His Strength Vary The Most

While there have been Spider-Men who have been stronger than Peter Parker over the years, none of them have ever surpassed him as the true Spider-Man. This is due to more than just his physical capability, as his never-ending dedication to power and responsibility has proven to be his real strength.

Like other similarly powered characters, Peter Parker has the proportionate strength of a spider that has grown as he's aged. Peter can usually draw on new reserves of strength by focusing on the lessons he's learned from his family members and lost loved ones, inspiring him to push past his physical limits to save the day. At varying times, Peter's strength has made him the most powerful Spider-Man, often allowing him to lift up to 25 and even 40 tons. However, various "resets" have pushed him back down to more reasonable levels.

2 Mac Gargan/Scorpion Used The Symbiote To Elevate His Strength

While Mac Gargan is better known as Scorpion, he also spent some time bonded with a bloodthirsty Venom symbiote. As Venom, he became a new version of the powerful villain, leading to his placement on Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers.

Norman Osborn created a formula that allowed the massive Venom symbiote to replicate the form of Spider-Man so he could impersonate the wall-crawler along with Osborn's other team of villains. While his time as Dark Spider-Man was short, Gargan displayed incredible strength, both due to his own enhanced physiology and the abilities of the symbiote.

1 Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider Experienced Several Mutations That Increased His Strength

One of Spider-Man's most iconic villains is Dr. Miles Warren/The Jackal. Gwen Stacy's death broke the geneticist, and he became hell-bent on ruining Peter Parker's life. Jackal created several Spider-Man clones over the years. That included the failed clone named Kaine who became a powerful villain after he began to degenerate.

Kaine later returned to warn Parker of the Kravinoff family's "Grim Hunt" that sought to sacrifice Spider-Man in order to bring back Kraven the Hunter. Kaine posed as Spider-Man during a battle with the Kravinoffs which ultimately cost him his life. He came back and found his calling as a new Scarlet Spider, but his powers were slightly different than Spider-Man's.