The Spider-Slayers are a series of robots in the Marvel Universe that were specifically designed to hunt down, capture and/or kill Spider-Man.

The first number of robots were originally designed and built by Spencer Smythe with the financial backing of J. Jonah Jameson who piloted them for the pleasure of personally hunting the superhero he hated for capture. However, Spider-Man always managed to defeat each robot in turn. Smythe's continual efforts to perfect his machines backfired on him, leading to himself being fatally contaminated by radiation poisoning from the building materials of his creations. Blaming both Jameson and Spider-Man for this, he attempted, as a final act, to murder them both, but died just before Spider-Man thwarted the attempt.

Later on, Jameson commissioned another scientist, Dr. Marla Madison, to create a sure fire Spider-Slayer. While that attempt failed, he eventually fell in love with her and married her.

Still later, Smythe's son, Alister, who had sworn revenge on Spider-Man, repeatedly attacked the superhero with his own series of Slayers, and was no more successful

Other media depiction

The 1960s animated series had a story that was a faithful adaptation of the first Spider-Slayer story, although the scientist was named John Smythe.

The 1990s series had the Slayers being commissioned by Norman Osborn for hunting Spider-Man.