Spider-Man to fight four villains, romance two women. Aunt May to give up waiting, rescue self in the nick of time.

There’s lots of chatter going on lately about our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and for the most part we’ve been expending a near-Herculean effort not to spoil everything as we’ve not shown the determination to do with X-Men, Superman and – given enough lead-time – Die Hard.

But it hasn’t been easy, what with the flooding of the Internets with Exclusive! Spidey set pictures and the rampantly reported announcement by Avi Arad that Spider-Man 3 will involve not one, not two, but four villains for our Webhead to take down.

Way back in January when Spider-Man was only planning to tangle with two badguys, Burbanked speculated about this issue, worrying that Spidey could succumb to TMHOP Syndrome. So now that he’s got four foes, are we thinking that the franchise is about to go all Schumacher on us?

No, not really. In fact, we feel pretty good because of the beauty and wonder of our beloved blogosphere.

Here’s an excellent string of comments on The Movie Blog in which a handful of the site’s monthly million visitors (and congrats to everyone at TMB; feel free to loan a few – really only 11, 570 or so – to Burbanked. We promise to return them fed and entertained) debate the possible identities of SM3’s fourth villain. Some excellent suggestions are made, including:

• Kingpin – although we agree that rights issues could prevent this
• Lizard – this was actually foreshadowed in the first SM, and then we got to see Dr. Connors in SM2
• Carnage – seems like this would be a bit overwhelming with the presence of Venom
• Rhino – LOVE the suggestion in the comments that Spidey and Rhino could duke it out pre-credits
• Mysterio – not a fan. Dude wears a fishbowl on his head.
• Kraven – never understood the allure; Magnum P.I. in leopard skin.

Quite the rogues gallery. Another suggestion we’d make – although it’s a similar rights situation with Kingpin – is that we’d like to see Spidey take on Juggernaut as we remember him doing from at least one comic book in our ill-spent youth. Perhaps Juggy’s shaken off that rather ignominious bumping into the wall as he was relegated to do in X-Men The Last Stand and he’s ready to fight against a more worthy superhero. You know, one who isn’t a teenage girl.

There’s no doubt; second sequels are hard, evidenced by the backlash against the likes of X-Men, Terminator, Blade, Alien – and even something as beloved as Indiana Jones. Raimi and his writers have their work cut out for them, but we’ll keep the faith until we’re fooled again.

Sometimes, on good days, we’re still optimistic like that.