I don't know that there's enough institutional memory at Marvel anymore for editorial to have suggested it, and I swear there's more examples, but for a new hero you're probably going to fight the Rhino pretty early on. Probably not in your first issue, what with origins and set-up and all, probably the second issue. And he's perfect for it, like an early boss fight in a game--like Spidey's PS1 classic, for example. Rhino is tough, but not too tough; a bad guy but not like a
bad guy (he loves his grandma!) and beating him is a big confidence booster.
From 1995,
Green Goblin #2, cover by Scott McDaniel.
From 2005,
Gravity #2, cover by Mike Norton.
From 2019,
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #2, cover by Sana Takeda. Hey, that's a cheat, Miles had been around for some time then, he was hardly a rookie. But, neither was the next one:
From 2023,
Uncanny Spider-Man #2, "Blue Streak" Written by Simon Spurrier, art by Lee Garbett. Cover by Tony S. Daniel.
During the "Fall of X" event, most of the Krakoan mutants were missing and feared dead. Nightcrawler was hiding out (for certain values of "hiding out") in Central Park, wearing a Spider-Man suit for disguise. Which yeah, probably shouldn't work as well as it does: this issue, a confused Mystique is going on about losing her baby, but clocks him before he can unmask. She accuses him of helping humans and interfering in mutant matters, so Kurt lets her go, in a bit of a huff. He's then briefly visited by the white Bamf, that he isn't sure is a figment of his imagination; before getting a better visitor: Dagger, of Cloak and! Said Cloak had been MIA for a couple days, but might have been in his own bad mood. (Nope!) Kurt tries to reassure her, but after she leaves, he gets attacked by the Rhino!
Anti-mutant organization Orchis currently had control of the Rhino, but their tech guy wonders why Silver Sable International would need him, if they were so slick. Sable advises the reverse was also true, and that Orchis had all but begged to test out Rhino: she saw him only as bait, though. Meanwhile, Kurt was trying to get a red-lit gadget off of Rhino, and Sable recognizes it as similiar to something that had been on Kurt during his monsterized murder-spree. (Which, best recollection; I don't think we saw much of on panel?) While Sable renegoiates her contract, Kurt is thrown off Rhino, into a trap: an electrical field to keep him from bamfing out, then shot with tranquilizer darts and a capture-thing that looks like Doc Ock tentacles. Sable has words for her racist henchman Kremer, while Kurt cuts himself free--with a magic sword? Sable is less annoyed that he's done that, then the fact that said sword hadn't been in his file.
Doped up, Kurt's no match for Sable, who snags him by the "unexpectedly
soft tail." When the Rhino charges them, Kurt is forced to pull an unsafe move: teleporting him and Sable down, into a tunnel. Sable is impressed, until Kurt admits that had been a guess, a leap of faith. In the dark, Sable had his tail in one hand and a gun in the other, and couldn't turn on the light in her helmet; but Kurt recognizes her accent as Symkarian, and tells her about a sunrise he had seen there as a teen. After an explosion knocks her on top of him, Sable kisses Kurt, then apologizes, as it felt unprofessional.
The moment is interrupted by the Rhino, who appeared to be in pain from a malfunction in whatever was controlling him.
Kurt teleports the Rhino, high above the park, and tries to pull the control mechanism off for proof. The white Bamf advises no one would believe that anyway, so maybe don't kill yourself trying; and Kurt acquiesces, bamfing the Rhino over the Orchis control van, crushing it. (The tech guy gets out.) Stuck in a hole, Sable considers this job might be more difficult than she had planned...
