Beetle

Alter Ego: Abner Ronald "Abe" Jenkins

Notable Aliases: MACH-1, MACH-2, Abe Jenkins, Matthew Davis, MACH-3, MACH-IV, MACH-VII, MACH-X

Species: Human

First Appearance: Strange Tales #123 (August 1964)^note As Beetle; Incredible Hulk #449 (January, 1997) ^note As Mach-1; Thunderbolts #37 (April, 2000)^note As Mach-2; Thunderbolts #57 (December, 2001)^note As Mach-3; New Thunderbolts #1 (December, 2004)^note As Mach-IV; Thunderbolts #144 (July, 2010)^note As Mach-V; The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #2 (October, 2013) ^note As Mach-VII; Thunderbolts Vol 3 #1 (July, 2016)^note As Mach-X

An aircraft mechanic, Abner Jenkins decided to supplement his income through less honest means and built a suit of insect-themed Powered Armor. Starting out as a foe of the Fantastic Four, he came into conflict with Spider-Man, continually redesigning and updating his armor in an effort to take out the Wall-Crawler. After joining the Thunderbolts under Baron Zemo, Abe decided to put his life of crime behind him and rebranded himself as a superhero called MACH I. Serving as a mainstay of the group, he would achieve legitimacy as a superhero and continue to upgrade his armor, eventually becoming MACH-X (and counting).

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See Thunderbolts Founding Members

Boomerang

Alter Ego: Frederick "Fred" Myers

Notable Aliases: Boomer, Fred Slade, Outback

Species: Human

First Appearance: Tales to Astonish #81 (July 1966)

An Australian baseball player who was suspended from playing after being caught accepting bribes, Fred Myers used his phenomenal pitching arm and weaponized boomerangs to become the supervillain Boomerang. Clashing with Spider-Man as a member of Jack O'Lantern's Sinister Syndicate, Boomerang temporarily became a "superhero" called Outback during the Civil War by supporting the Initiative, but returned to a life of crime, and being Peter Parker's annoying roommate!

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: He's this to The Flash villain Captain Boomerang. Both are Australian super villains who fight with boomerangs and are similarly written as unlikable jerks whom even other villains can't stand.
• Ascended Extra: While Boomerang was Spider-Man's foe for a while, he never really got much focus. This changed with the The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, in which he became the main character of the storyline, and it was furthered in Nick Spencer's run, in which he becomes a lot more important as Spider-Man's roommate as well as a subplot with the Kingpin.
• Awesome Aussie: Likes to think he's this and, to give him his due, he has taken on the Hulk armed with nothing but trick boomerangs.
• Badass Normal: Boomerang has no superpowers but can still put up a good fight with his mean throwing arm and trick boomerangs, not to mention his jet boots.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Spider-Man followed Boomerang to his hideout and found him speaking to his former team, it seemed like he was going to return to villainy with a plan to destroy Spider-Man as everyone expected. It turns out his "team" where a bunch of LMD's that he used to play cards with which later malfunctioned.
• Battle Boomerang: His weapon of choice.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Yeah, boomerangs. Seems silly, don't it? But he still got a spot on the Thunderbolts because it works for him.
• Butt-Monkey: Sometimes written as a joke villain, especially in Ultimate Spider-Man.
• Calling Your Attacks: In a guest appearance in She-Hulk, he called out the name of the type of boomerang he was using out loud. She-Hulk mocks him for this, asking if they're voice-activated, or if he is just on an "anime riff."
• Captain Ethnic: As lampshaded in the quote, as is typical of Australians in comicbook land, he ended up with a boomerang theme. Also worth noting is Fred's brief fake hero identity as "Outback", wherein he wore a costume based on the Australian flag.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He frequently betrays his allies if it means he can save his own skin. Unfortunately for him, it stabs him in the back as his former allies plot to destroy him.
• A Day in the Limelight: In The Superior Foes of Spider-Man along with other C-Listers (and lower) villains Shocker, Speed Demon, Beetle, and Overdrive. Though he's the central character and the story is told from his point of view.
• Dirty Coward: Big time. During the Superior Foes series, he tried to talk Bullseye (actually a Life Model Decoy) into killing his girlfriend instead of him, claiming that it would make him suffer and provide more motivation in future face-offs. Needless to say, neither Bullseye nor his girlfriend were all that impressed.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He actually briefly objects when Centurius suggests abandoning a city to monsters during their tenure on the Thunderbolts.
• Faux Affably Evil: He can certainly make himself seem friendly and likable, but it doesn't take much to figure out that he's a dick.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • None of the other supervillains like Boomerang, and with good reason.
  • When he becomes Peter's roommate, he falls into this due to his antics causing Randy and Peter to barely tolerate him.
• Funetik Aksent:
  Boomerang: Ha ha! Ta for that, mate! That was legendary! You throw like a floppin' Sheila!
  Spider-Man: Shut up! You're not even making sense, you—
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Has tried it twice, more out of greed or attempts to reduce his sentence than genuine desire to reform. Both times he went back to be a villain.
• I Know Madden Kombat: Was a major league baseball pitcher before getting kicked out for accepting bribes. It does help him throwing his Boomerangs...A LOT.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Maybe not up to Bullseye's level, but still impressive.
• Jerkass: He's an unrepentant jerk.
• Jet Boots: Boomerang likes to use them as a secondary weapon.
• Kick the Dog: After discovering Jackpot's secret identity, he murdered her civilian husband in front of her and their daughter. When Jackpot reluctantly saved him from Mr. Negative, he was ungrateful, and proceeded to taunt her by threatening her daughter, which nearly caused Jackpot to snap and kill him.
  Boomerang: You know as well as I do I'm not doing any time. I'm either getting witness protection or getting off. So the only way you're getting justice here is to put a bullet in me.
  Jackpot: I may fantasize about killing you... I may talk a good game... but, end of the day, I have to go home to her. And I have to be better than myself. I have to be the person I want her to grow into.
  Boomerang: That's sweet. But what if one day, I decide it might be fun to find out where you're living now... and pay a visit on that sweet girl of yours—
• Manipulative Bastard: He's a greedy, self-important, backstabbing jackass; if you're on his team it's not a matter of if he'll throw you to the wolves but when, and he seems to view everyone as existing to help him get ahead. Yet he's surprisingly good at getting people to go along with him and talking himself out of the messes he makes.
• Morality Pet: He winds up forming a genuine friendship with Spider-Man and though he does backstab in the end it's made clear that he actually feels pretty bad over having done it. This leads to his Heroic Sacrifice during Sinister War.
• Pet the Dog: Despite having an opportunity to ditch Peter and leave him to fend for himself at the bar with no name, he actually stays to protect him and even takes a blast for him.
• Powered Armor: His suit functions as light body armor and is equipped with jet boots.

• Psycho for Hire: He is a mercenary and assassin.
• Redemption Equals Death: During Sinister War he decides to break with everything and save Spider-Man when he's about to be killed by Morlun at the cost of his own life.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He started out as an Hulk villain, but became more recognizable as one of Spidey's foes. He's also tangled with Iron Man, the Defenders and the X-Men.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Despite having a gimmicky move set and a kitsch costume, he's rather arrogant.
• Too Dumb to Live: He's a regular human that picked fights with the Hulk on purpose, it went about as well as you expect. After Hulk badly injures him in their last fight, he stopped bothering the Hulk.
• Trick Boomerangs: The most common ones are exploding "shatterangs" (with enough explosive power to destroy an automobile), "gasarangs" that release large doses of tear gas to disable a target, razor-bladed "razorangs", sonic blasting "screamerangs", and whirling "bladarangs" which cut like buzzsaw blades.
• Villain Worshipper: He seems to have developed a weird fascination for Dormammu in Superior Foes.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Boomerang likes to use his jet boots as a secondary weapon.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: During Dark Reign, he was given the false "heroic" identity of Outback, and wore an Australian flag-themed costume.
• Villainous Rescue: Despite being outnumbered at the bar with no name, he still fought to protect Peter from the other villains and even pushed him out of the way of an attack.

Carnage

Alter Ego: Cletus Kasady

Notable Aliases: The Red Slayer, Friendly Neighborhood Carnage, Poison Carnage, Prophet of the Void

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #344 (March 1991)

A psychopathic serial killer imprisoned for eleven consecutive life sentences, Cletus Kasady met Eddie Brock when the latter, separated from the Venom symbiote by the toxic touch of the supervillain Styx, became his cellmate. Learning of Brock's grudge against Spider-Man, Kasady tried to convert him to his nihilistic philosophy, mocking Eddie over his claims to have once been the supervillain Venom. Repeatedly rebuked, Kasady decided to murder his cellmate, but before he could the Venom symbiote entered the cell and rebonded to Eddie. Venom broke free, leaving the terrified and jealous Kasady behind. Sensing his desire for the power Eddie possessed, a scrap of the symbiote left behind dripped onto Cletus' hand and bonded with him, transforming him into the monstrous Carnage. As Carnage, Kasady proved stronger than Spider-Man and Venom combined, and his symbiote was not only less susceptible to sonics than its progenitor but infinitely more difficult to remove, having bonded to his bloodstream.

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Chameleon

Alter Ego: Dmitri Anatoly Nikolayevich Smerdyakov Kravinoff

Notable Aliases: Peter Parker, J. Jonah Jameson, General Ross, Dr. Turner, many others

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (March 1963)

The first supervillain Spider-Man ever fought, Dmitri was the son of a Russian aristocrat and a servant he married when he fled the Communist Revolution. His mother found him embarrassing, and his father thought him weak. While his half-brother Sergei disliked him, he grudgingly acknowledged his existence, and thus in his youth, Dmitri would try to please Sergei however he could, often putting on little plays while doing all the roles himself. Years later, this would become his job, as he took on the name Chameleon. With a base mask hiding his real face, he developed his skills as an impersonator so well that even friends of his roles were fooled. Unfortunately for him, while his acting is great, his stage combat is much more lacking, and thus he has to fight the Spider-Man with his intellect rather than with his fists.

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• The Blank: Usually; some versions of his mask are more detailed than others.
• Butt-Monkey: While some writers, like Fred Van Lente, have attempted to reinvigorate the character and make him a creepy and credible threat, at the end of the day poor Dmitri always goes back to being a borderline Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
• Depending on the Artist: The mask he wears when he's not impersonating someone: is it white or gray? Cloth, metal, or some flesh-like substance? Is it completely devoid of features, or does it have eyes and a mouth at least? And is it a mask at all? The 1990s Spider-Man cartoon did away with the mask and made the Chameleon a bald albino with a tiny nose and ears.
• Depending on the Writer: Sometimes, the Chameleon's mastery of disguise is upgraded to full-on Voluntary Shapeshifting. Other times, it's just a disguise - and even then, his disguise method alternates between hologram technology and wearable costumes and masks.
• Dirty Old Man: While impersonating Peter during Brand New Day. The writers had to clarify in the letters page that he and Peter's roommate just kissed.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. As mentioned above he and Kraven are brothers, but neither really likes or trusts the other anymore.
• Expy: Of the character Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov. For one thing, both characters are Bastard Bastards from big Russian families.
• Informed Ability: Depending on the Writer his acting and impersonation left to be desired; Aunt May and MJ both saw right through him.
• Master of Disguise: He wears exquisitely made latex masks, is a skilled mimic, and his own mask is equipped with voice changer software. Post-Brand New Day, he's also been seen using holographic masks, and even a special shapeshifting serum, Depending on the Writer.
• Non-Action Guy: He's an actor, not a fighter.
• Only Sane Man: During Grim Hunt, he's the only member of the family to realize that bringing back Kraven is not a good idea, considering he was Driven to Suicide.
• Power Perversion Potential: A very creepy example. On one occasion when he discovered Spidey's secret identity, he disguised himself as Peter with the intention of committing a Bed Trick on Mary Jane. It didn't get further than kissing, however, as she was immediately able to tell he wasn't Peter (it helped that she deliberately slipped him some misinformation the real Peter would have known to be wrong, just to make sure). When MJ called him out on it, Chameleon then turned into a stereotypical muscular hunk, and then a sophisticated-looking older man, to show he could take any physical visage she might fantasize about, before then shifting back to his normal form with the intention of taking her by force anyway. Unfortunately for him, though, that was the moment MJ beat the ever-loving crap out of him with a baseball bat.
• Sanity Slippage: Lost his mind in the 1990s, so the authorities started sending him to Ravencroft instead of prison.
• Shapeshifting: Took a Level in Badass and become more of a mutant than needing masks, although as of his reintroduction in The Gauntlet he's back to using masks.
• Starter Villain: Spidey's first supervillain, until prequels retconned it into being Supercharger.
• Vague Age: He was born and raised in the USSR and worked for the KGB.
• The Voiceless: He wouldn't (or couldn't) speak in his true form in the 1990s animated series.
• White Mask of Doom: Rather easy to mistake it for his actual face, seeing as how he's seemingly never without it.

Doctor Octopus

Alter Ego: Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius

Notable Aliases: the Master Planner, the Master Programmer, the Bowery Bum, the Superior Spider-Man (Peter Parker), the Superior Venom, the Superior Octopus, Dr. Elliot Tolliver, the Cosmic Superior Spider-Man, the Cosmo-Spider, the Cosmo Superior

Species: Human mutate (Later cloned human mutate)

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #3 (July 1963)^note As Doctor Octopus; The Amazing Spider-Man #698 (November 2012)^note As the Superior Spider-Man; The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 4 #25 (May 2017)^note As the Superior Octopus

Born in Schenectady, New York, Otto Octavius had something of an unhappy childhood. His father, Torbert, was abusive and violent towards both Otto and his mother Mary. Otto was determined not to become like his father and put all his effort into his education, regularly scoring top marks. Unfortunately, a combination of Otto's shyness and good schoolwork got him labeled as a "teacher's pet" and he became a target of bullying. Otto eventually became a brilliant and respected nuclear physicist, atomic research consultant, inventor, and lecturer. One of his most iconic inventions was a set of highly advanced mechanical arms controlled via a mind–computer interface to assist him with his research into atomic physics. Unfortunately, there was an accidental radiation leak that ended in an explosion and those wonderful mechanical arms became fused to Octavius' body.

The accident also seemed to have damaged his brain and the scientist turned to a life of crime. His very first criminal act was taking the hospital hostage and proclaiming himself Doctor Octopus, the derogatory nickname that his co-workers had originally given him. In their first encounter, Octopus defeated Spider-Man by tossing him out of a window. Following this defeat Spider-Man considered giving up his heroic career but was inspired to continue his heroic career by the Human Torch and ultimately defeated Doctor Octopus. Since then, the Good (or Bad) Doctor has gone on to become one of the most identifiable members of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.

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Electro

Alter Ego: Maxwell Dillon

Notable Aliases: "Sparky", Guillermo's Lapdog

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #9 (February 1964)

Max Dillon was a man originally defined by being held back from success. His mother smothered him, not wanting him to fail like his father did. While he held dreams of being an electrical engineer, he was convinced by his mother that he was not smart enough for the job, so he instead became an electrical lineman. One day, while working on an electric pole, a bolt of lightning struck it. Miraculously, based on how he was holding the wires, the two bolts canceled each other out, giving Max power over electricity, prompting him to take up a new job: as the costumed villain Electro.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Electro's inferiority complex and self loathing tend to get exaggerated in some adaptations. In both The New Animated Series and Amazing Spider-Man 2 Max is a shy, bullied outcast who finally snaps from his transformation into Electro. Spectacular Spider-Man's version is an otherwise decent guy who just wants to be normal before his isolating condition drives him into violent insanity.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: How much he squanders his potential is really highlighted by an alternate Electro being the first arc villain in Web Warriors. This Electro set himself up as a very rich CEO of a power company, witnessed the battle between the Spiders and the Inheritors passing through his universe, memorized the energy frequencies of their portals to have his Doc Ock recreate dimensional travel, establish an alliance with parallel Electros and become poised to conquer the multiverse.
• Ambiguously Human: According to Magneto, the lightning strike probably did nothing other than activate dormant powers that Max always had. He goes on to imply that Max isn't human or even a mutant, but rather something else.
• Bald of Evil: He was originally a redhead; once he started losing his hair he would blast his scalp smooth.
• Brought Down to Normal: Spidey is able to bring him out of his Power Incontinence and brings him back down to being a normal human without letting him die.
• Character Death: He is killed in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy by his Monster Fangirl and girlfriend Francine (accidentally killed by him in past and "cloned" by the Jackal) that accidentally activates her electric powers, so proceeds to kill Max while using him to power up and willingly joins the Jackal as the new Electro. He ultimately was resurrected in The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) by Doctor Octopus and Kindred in the lead up to Sinister War.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: His self-loathing and emotional outbursts allow him to be made a laughingstock, but when he has his wits about him and stable confidence he could trounce even an admittedly inexperienced Nate Grey (who was nevertheless a Physical God rated on par with the Dark Phoenix) with ease and cause Spider-Man to flee in panic.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Arguably the worst of this out of Spidey's rogues, without the excuse of already being wealthy, or so crazy he cannot think rationally. Electro is a walking solution to every energy crisis on the planet, he could write his own check and be set for life. Instead Electro robs banks.
• Deadly Upgrade: Once incredibly pissed at being trounced by Thor, he browbeat an AIM scientist to convert him into Antimatter energy. This actually made him capable of putting Thor on the ropes, but the transformation was unstable and would have had him explode violently and take out the whole city if he was converted back quickly.
• Dumb Muscle: Nowhere near as bad as Hydro-Man in this regard, but for someone who by all means should be an Avengers-level threat, he does an unbelievably good job at keeping himself down through a combination of a complete inability to plan ahead, a proclivity towards pointless, self-defeating grudges, a major lack of ambition, and his lack of interest in actually mastering his abilities. He's still capable of being a serious threat from time to time just by virtue of his powerset, but for the most part, he's an angry, unintelligent, petty moron who causes all of his own problems.
• Evil Is Petty: His absolute biggest weakness. The man has the potential to be an Avengers-level threat, and if he took the time to train and experiment with his powers, he absolutely would be - and does, on exactly two occasions (one, he almost kills Nate Grey, and the second time he cracks open the Raft at the start of New Avengers). That requires a great deal of effort and ambition, however, and he would much rather put that time and energy towards low-level robberies and/or starting yet another pointless fight with Spider-Man or Daredevil because he's got an axe to grind about his last defeat at their hands.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: invokedGot a fair amount of grief from the pointy lightning bolt mask, until he eventually wised up and swapped it out for a wraparound.
  Spider-Man: Nice costume, Electro! I remember once when I was in a grade school play and I also played a flower.
• Godhood Seeker: In the video game Spider-Man II: Enter Electro he puts together an elaborate scheme to steal a device that enhances a person's bioelectricity and uses it to become an Energy Being.
  Hyper Electro: TONIGHT, ELECTRO DANCES WITH THE GOOOOOOOOOOOOODS!!!
• Iconic Outfit: His green-and-yellow suit with the star-shaped mask, although his latest costume makes him look similar to his Ultimate counterpart.
• Jerkass: He's a complete asshole who cannot function in a team because he always wears out his welcome in short order.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Electro got his powers by essentially being electrocuted by a particularly nasty lightning bolt while repairing a power line. Just as Bruce Banner should have been vaporized when the gamma bomb exploded and Peter Parker should have gotten cancer from the spider-bite, Max Dillon should have been fried, but instead he gains superpowers and absolute control over electricity. Hollywood Science strikes again!
• My Beloved Smother: His mother was overprotective and didn't want him to fail when he was going out into the world.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Not because he's super tough mind you. Rather, he can't be touched while a person is still grounded since he'll zap them instantly. This means you have to be airborne to not get a shock.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Has been powered up twice in the comics and tends to be a lot more powerful in adaptations.
• Power Incontinence: As he's aged his control over his abilities has waned, leading him to turn to the Tinkerer for help. It got worse after SpOck got a hold of him upping his powers to the point he couldn't control them. Spidey's able to rescue him from this and brings him down to normal.
• Psycho Electro: Normally he is a very downplayed version of this trope compared to other media versions. But he went crazy after Superior Spider-Man (actually Doc Ock in Peter body, at that time) experimented on him. He can no longer control his powers (to the point of accidentally frying his ally/lover) and has frequent nightmares of Spider-Man torturing him.
• Revenge Before Reason: One of his biggest flaws; Max would be a lot more successful if he could just get over his petty feud with Spider-Man (and, to a lesser degree, Daredevil; if he's not going after Spidey, it's probably the latter instead).
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Became an enemy of Daredevil for a while, being the first supervillain the Man Without Fear faced, and in general, if Spidey isn't dealing with him, it's probably Daredevil.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Superior Spider-Man converts Electro's unstable body into electricity and stores him next to Sandman in his underwater facility.
• Shock and Awe: Electro can generate massive quantities of electricity, theoretically up to approximately one million volts. He can employ this electrostatic energy as lightning arcs from his fingertips, and his maximum charge is more than enough to kill a normal human. When his body is charged to high levels, he becomes superhumanly strong and fast. He can also glide over power lines by using the electricity contained therein for propulsion, and he has on occasion been shown to actually ride on lightning bolts. He can also absorb the energy of electrical equipment such as a power plant to increase his powers further.
• Stupid Evil: Part of the reason why he never achieves anything worth writing home about. He's had plenty of opportunities to raise his status and/or improve himself, and he's thrown all of them away in favor of yet another opportunity to start shit with Spider-Man or Daredevil, or, if not that, to engage in pointless acts of destruction or some sort of high-risk, low-yield crime that gains him a ton of attention that he can't afford to have and little else.
• Token Flyer: The original incarnation of the Sinister Six consisted of Dr. Octopus, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Vulture, Mysterio and Sandman. Electro was the only one who could fly under his own power. Vulture needed his electromagnetic harness to fly.
• Too Dumb to Live: He once made fun of Venom's weaknesses to sonics and fire... to Venom's face. Venom later nearly beat him death. Honestly, though, this is a big problem he has in general. He has amazingly powerful abilities and should by all means be a huge threat, but he's too stupid and myopic to be able to actually use them to their fullest potential most of the time. On the rare occasions when he does, he's every bit as terrifying as you'd expect him to be, but it doesn't happen often.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Mark Millar's Marvel Knights, it's shown how terrifying someone with electric powers would actually be.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's a little bit more skilled than is typical for this trope, but he still barely uses one iota of his potential and never really bothers to train or expand upon what he can already do. He's still very powerful, but you wouldn't know it most of the time.
• Villain with Good Publicity: During The Gauntlet, he persuades people to rally behind him against government bailouts, arguing that he may be a crook, but he's never gone after the average man. It actually works.

Green Goblin

Alter Ego: Norman Virgil Osborn

Notable Aliases: Green Goblin, Iron Patriot, Gobby, Overload, Super-Adaptoid, Mason Banks, Goblin King, Hobgoblin, Red Goblin

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964)^note As Green Goblin; The Amazing Spider-Man #37 (June 1966)^note As Norman Osborn; Dark Avengers #1 (March 2009)^note As Iron Patriot; Superior Spider-Man #17 (November 2013)^note As Mason Banks; The Amazing Spider-Man #798 (April 2018)^note As Red Goblin

Norman Virgil Osborn was born to a respected and rich family of Osborns. When Normie was a child, his abusive father Amberson ruined the business and became bankrupt. As an adult, Norman worked to regain the family's power and money, vowing never to become the failure his father was. He married, but a year after his son Harry was born his wife Emily died, leaving Norman a widower and single father. He soon proved to be a neglectful parent, ignoring Harry in favor of his main goal: getting more power and money. Eventually he gained full control of Oscorp Industries by framing his business partner Mendel Stromm. In Stromm's papers were notes on a serum he had discovered, which Norman tried to replicate for his own use. He failed. (Ironically, not entirely of his own fault, but Harry, angry that his father was neglecting him, switched some chemicals before the experiment... or maybe he didn't?)

The formula altered Norman's body. He became a superhuman: stronger, faster, more intelligent. Yet the serum also turned Osborn, who had never been entirely stable, into a totally insane psychopath. Norman took on a double life: by day, a respected businessman; by night, a grotesque super-villain mastermind. In his new persona as The Green Goblin, Osborn terrorized New York City with a bat-shaped jet glider, pumpkin bombs, razor bats, and insane laughter, thwarted from taking over the New York underworld only by repeated interference from Spider-Man. Soon, Osborn's interest in becoming the crime-lord of New York diminished; he had become obsessed with Spider-Man and his desire to get revenge upon him.

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Hammerhead

Alter Ego: Joseph (surname unknown)

Notable Aliases: Mr. H

Species: Human cyborg

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #113 (October 1972)

The son of Russian immigrants, Joseph passed himself off as an Italian and joined the Maggia. Mortally wounded in a brawl, he was given a new life when a down-and-out surgeon named Jonas Harrow performed an experimental operation that replaced most of his skull with a steel alloy, giving his head a boxed look but making it hard enough to even block some of Spider-Man's punches. Amnesiac, Joseph took to calling himself the Hammerhead and established a criminal empire in the style of old 1920s gangsters, as the last thing he saw before passing out was a poster for an Al Capone film. Eventually gunned down by the Kingpin, Hammerhead was given a cybernetic adamantium skeleton by Mister Negative.

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• Abusive Parents: When he was a child, his father would beat him with a hammer for misbehaving.
• Bodyguard Crush: Implied to have had something like this towards Silvermane, back when Hammerhead was Silvio's right-hand man.
• Brooklyn Rage: Speaks with such an accent. It used to be even more extreme, with him using outdated and stereotypical Brooklyn gangster slang but he eventually grew out of that quirk.
• Captain Ersatz: Of Flattop from Dick Tracy.
• Disco Dan: He runs his gang in the same style of Prohibition-era gangsters, going so far as to dress in the same style and use the same style of cars, along with Thomson submachine guns.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When he runs into Bombshell, he refuses to fight her on the basis he doesn't hit women or children, and she's both. When she provokes him into a fight (which he handily wins) he not only pointedly doesn't kill her (observing with some disgust "So now I'm the jerk for beating up a girl") but makes sure someone calls her an ambulance.
• Eyes Always Shut: Very squinty.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from being a low-level thug to one of the most powerful mobsters in New York.
• The Mafia: Besides his metal skull, Hammerhead also likes to wield a Thompson submachine gun, to go with his "Prohibition-era gangster" theme.
• Mysterious Past: For a long time, nothing was known about his life before his surgery. Brand New Day reveals that he was the son of Russian immigrants who had lied about his heritage to get into the Maggia.
• Powered Armor: He had a suit made, but it wasn't very impressive. The first time he used it, the Human Torch broke it badly. He got it fixed years later, only for Spidey to break it again.
• The Rival: He used to be this to Doctor Octopus when the latter was trying to control the New York underworld.
• Smarter Than You Look: He looks like your typical Dumb Muscle, but he's actually surprisingly clever and runs his gang efficiently.
• Suddenly Ethnicity: Despite being a walking Italian gangster stereotype, when his past is finally revealed, he turned out to be Russian.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Brand New Day, he was given an adamantium skeleton.
• Unbreakable Bones: Hammerhead had his skull replaced with a strong steel alloy after he was attacked and left for dead in an alley. His skull is so strong it can withstand punches from Spider-Man and burst through brick walls. Later, Mr Negative had Hammerhead's entire upper skeleton replaced with adamantium after he was shot.
• Use Your Head: How he puts his metal-plated skull to good use.
• Villainous Friendship: Had a one-sided one with Silvermane back when they worked together.

Hobgoblin

Alter Ego: Roderick Kingsley

Notable Aliases: Hobgoblin, Hobby, Devil-Spider, The Black Sheep of the Goblin Family

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #43 (June 1980) ^note As Roderick Kingsley; The Amazing Spider-Man #238 (March 1983) ^note As Hobgoblin

In the 1980's, a man stumbled upon one of Norman Osborn's old Green Goblin labs (Norman was thought dead at the time). He decided to modify the arsenal and take up a career as a new kind of Goblin: the Hobgoblin. The identity of this man was kept a secret for several years in the comics before it was revealed to be fashion designer Roderick Kingsley after a string of other Hobgoblins took his place or took the fall for him. Roderick returned from retirement, killing the fourth Hobgoblin, Jason Macendale, and sparked a growing rivalry with the also-returned Norman Osborn. Kingsley retired again but returned after he learned that his twin brother Daniel had been murdered by Phil Urich while looking for upgraded Goblin gear that Norman had been working on. Blackmailing Urich into giving him a cut in exchange for retaining the Hobgoblin identity and his life, Roderick revealed that he had been "licensing out" supervillain identities to criminals. When Urich defected to the Goblin Nation, Kingsley challenged the original Green Goblin to one final duel, sending his butler in his place as the Hobgoblin.

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Hydro-Man

Alter Ego: Morris Bench

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #212 (January 1981)

Morris Bench used to be a common sailor. Then, when his ship was transporting an experimental generator, a fight broke out on deck, and in the scuffle, he was accidentally thrown overboard by Spider-Man. Exposed to underwater gases, unknown radiation from the generator and seawater, by the time Morris got out, he discovered that he could now shift his body into water. Hating his transformation, he blamed Spider-Man for it, and has gone after the web head for revenge several times.

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• Aborted Arc: Marvel Two In One 's reboot issue 3 ended with him encountering a somehow-revived Wolverine but this encounter was never followed up on.
• Adaptational Badass: He's way way more powerful in the cartoons and video games he shows up in and knows how to better use his abilities.
• Dumb Muscle: He has the potential to be a global threat but lacks the intelligence and ambition to be more than a petty thug. He's content to just work for others or enact his own get-rich-quick crimes.
  Hydro-Man: A little while ago I came here treasure hunting, and I met a strange little birdie. She thought her mind-control tricks would work on me. I told her, "Don't you know? You can't control the water." I've been here ever since... waiting for... for... well, I don't actually know why I'm waiting.
  Spider-Man: Dude, you don't even know when you've been manipulated. You give "water on the brain" new meaning.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: Is the hydrokinetic counterpart of Sandman. A few times, he's been able to will himself into steam and ice, but doing so takes a lot out of him, so he rarely does it.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Sandman, when the latter is acting heroic.
• Evil Versus Evil: Vs Ghost Rider's rogue Water Wizard due to a Hate Plague.
• Expy: Sandman with water. Occasionally derisively referred to as such in-universe.
• From a Single Cell: His consciousness is contained within a single water molecule, and so long as it survives it can reconstitute him by coming into contact with any body of water.
• Fusion Dance: He and the Sandman once accidentally combined to form a mindless beast called Mud-Thing. They don't like to talk about it.
• Giant Wall of Watery Doom: He can become one using his powers.
• Making a Splash: Morris has hydrokinesis, and is essentially an aquatic version of the Sandman.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Due to being made of water he's almost impossible to injure.
• Powerful, but Incompetent: This guy could probably utterly destroy Spider-Man, fix most of Earth's environmental damage, get filthy rich, and still have spare time if he actually knew what he was doing. Instead, he goes after Spider-Man, gets careless, and then defeats himself, over and over.
• Shapeshifting Squick:
  Gravity: *kaff* Oh, God. *kaff* Firestar, he got me, and I swallowed! Does that mean part of him's inside me? I'm gonna be sick.
• Supernatural Suffocation: His preferred method of killing people is turning into water and drowning them with his own body.
• Too Dumb to Live: A ridiculously high percentage of his defeats seem to come from him carelessly electrocuting himself. When you're used as a byword for self-defeating stupidity by the Rifftrax crew, it's rarely a good sign.

Jackal

Alter Ego: Professor Miles Warren

Notable Aliases: Professor Warren, The Professor, The Man in Red

Species: Human (Later cloned human mutate)

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #31 (December 1965) ^note As Miles Warren; The Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974) ^note As Jackal

Miles Warren was once a professor at the university where Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy went. He fell in love with Gwen but tried to convince himself those feelings were paternal. This all changed when Gwen Stacy died at the hands of Norman Osborn. Realizing what his feelings were, he blamed Spider-Man for Gwen's death, and when he discovered that it was Peter Parker under the mask, he decided to take revenge. Injecting himself with several experimental serums to make himself stronger and faster, he also began perfecting cloning technology in order to torment Peter. His plot also involved creating Spider-Man clones, which would eventually lead to The Clone Saga. He even cloned Gwen Stacy, but eventually Spider-Man stopped him. Miles escaped, cloning himself numerous times, and resurfaced periodically to torment Peter.

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• Abusive Parents: To just about every clone he made.
• Actually a Doombot: That Jackal that was just defeated, renounces his villainy, and/or was killed? Only a clone, while the real Miles Warren gleefully skulks off to plot behind the scenes.
• Animorphism: Started out wearing a costume, then turned himself into a human/jackal hybrid.
• Arch-Enemy: For a few years, he was siccing super villains after Peter Parker and was a frequent enemy, but from behind the scenes. He is this to the Scarlet Spiders, his own creations, as well.
• Ax-Crazy: The Jackal is a psycho on-par with the Green Goblin. Miles Warren is saner, but mentally disturbed and still dangerous in his own way.
• Badass Normal: Despite starting as a middle-aged college professor with no combat training and probably a sedentary lifestyle, Warren somehow managed to train himself in only a few months to beat Spider-Man into unconsciousness.
• Big Bad: Of the Clone Saga until he was hijacked by Norman Osborn, and some of the Scarlet Spider's stories (both the Ben Reilly and Kaine incarnations).
• Cerebus Retcon: Originally, no real reason was given for why he had a thing for jackals, though in 1995 the one-shot Scarlet Spider Unlimited revealed that he was once an associate of the High Evolutionary, and that one of their creations was a man-jackal that ended up killing Warren's family. However, Ben Reilly suspects that this story is at least in-part untrue, though the Jackal-Man was shown to be real in an issue of Alpha Flight, which gets brought up when the High Evolutionary is explaining Warren's origin to Ben ("There was an unconfirmed encounter in Canada").
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Ekes out a meager living at NSU despite inventing cloning technology and DNA re-sequencing on the fly. Later explained as him actually being a former student of the High Evolutionary whose initial experiments resulted the accidental death of his own wife and child, and the Evolutionary growing suspicious of him and his mental instability in general, resulting in his exile. He needed a job and being a Professor of Biochemistry got him a living wage as well the resources to continue his experiments.
• Demoted to Dragon: Of the new Jackal in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy.
• Dirty Old Man: He's old enough to be Ghost Spider's father, if not her grandfather, and it's implied he thinks of her as his property, no matter what dimension she's from. Even his criminal Earth-65 counterpart finds this appalling, pointing out the sheer age gap in disgust.
• Entitled to Have You: He sees Ghost Spider as this once he learns she's an alternate universe Gwen Stacy, chasing her to Earth-65 while ranting about how she belongs to him. His Earth-65 counterpart, though an unrepentant criminal, is distinctly disturbed by this and points out the age gap.
• Expendable Clone: He's deliberately cloned himself so many times there's no telling where the original is, and half the time even Miles himself doesn't know if he's the original or a clone, and he's more than happy to sacrifice them to trick his enemies into thinking he's dead. His apparent Death Equals Redemption moment in Amazing Spider-Man #149? A clone. The Queen atomizing him with her sonic scream in Amazing Spider-Man #671? A clone.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Played with. One of the reasons that the High Evolutionary kicked him out was that the Evolutionary thought that his cloning experiments stagnated evolution rather than improving the human condition, so in a way Warren is an inversion- he is certainly evil, but he often isn't trying to "evolve" things so much as "preserve" and "recreate" them.
• Freudian Excuse: He was an assistant to the High Evolutionary, who never really cared for Warren due to feeling that cloning was "stagnant" and ultimately useless "junk science." Warren went behind the Evolutionary's back and created a Jackal-Man, and after the Evolutionary fired Warren for this, the Jackal-Man escaped and slaughtered Warren's wife, Monica, and their children, who Warren had started to neglect in favor of his work with the Evolutionary. After the Jackal-Man ran off to Canada, Warren, distraught over his family having been murdered by the very thing that had caused him to become estranged from them, confronted and got into a heated argument with the Evolutionary, which inspired a bunch of the Evolutionary's New Men to forsake the Evolutionary in favor of Warren. The New Men let Warren experiment on them to refine his cloning techniques, and to create the transformative virus that he would later use to produce Carrion. Warren eventually became obsessed with Gwen Stacy, due to her resembling Monica, and after she died, Warren lost what was left of his mind and swore vendetta against Gwen's boyfriend, Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: In the first Clone Saga, Warren cannot reconcile his personality with the evil deeds he's committed and creates "The Jackal": a split personality who dresses like a deranged furry. He later manages to splice his human DNA with animal tissue samples, transforming into a bona fide Jackal (much like his earlier test subjects, which exhibited a Jekyll/Hyde alternation between man and beast).
• Has a Type: Blonde young women, like his wife Monica and later Gwen Stacy.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Was retconned into being a pawn of Norman Osborn in order to wrap up the Clone Saga.
• Hot for Student: He was in love with Gwen but convinced himself that his feelings were paternal until she died.
• Ignored Epiphany: He seemingly had a breakdown in the seventies and took his own life to save Peter and Gwen... but it turns out that was just a clone, and the real Miles came back even more evil than before.
• Informed Species: There isn't much of anything that's really "jackal-like" about the Jackal. His costume looks more like the Green Goblin's than anything else, and unlike villains like the Vulture (who has mechanical wings), the Scorpion (who has a stinger tail that spews toxins and energy blasts), and Doctor Octopus (who has mechanical tentacles), the Jackal doesn't really reflect anything to do with a real jackal. The closest he gets is an association with death, via clone corpses.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Jackal uses a serum to alter the "RNA cells" (just go with it) that affect memory. This is why clones have no recollection of their deaths, or even being cloned in the first place.
• LEGO Genetics: The Jackal's gimmick is his ability to make hybrids of man and animal. The first Warren wore a costume, but his clones are all green-furred gremlins with impressive dexterity.
• Love Makes You Evil: As Professor Miles Warren, he was secretly in love with his student Gwen Stacy and could never get it out of his head that Spider-Man (who he later discovered was another of his students and her boyfriend) was more to blame than the Green Goblin was. Indeed, he tried to recreate her with a clone of Gwen (dozens, actually, but only one shared Ben Reilly's apparent immunity to the degeneration factor). When the second Carrion (Malcolm McBride) appeared (with Warren still believed dead) Spidey called Warren "a sick man obsessed with a dead woman" in disgust. But even when revealed to be alive, he would never let Spidey forget it.
• Loving a Shadow: As per Conway, Miles never really knew the real Gwen or cared anything about her other than her looks and whose cloning are largely attempts for undoing her death in some way rather than moving on as a normal human being.
• Mad Scientist: He's right up there with Doctor Octopus and Norman Osborn in this field. Miles Warren is a genius in the fields of biochemistry, genetics, and cloning.
• The Man Behind the Man: He hired numerous villains to attack Peter, like Tarantula, the Scorpion, or the Grizzly before going in himself. And here's where it gets impressive: he was this to The Punisher in his debut.
• Me's a Crowd: Uses entirely human clones of himself as minions.
  • During the 90s "Clone Saga" the objective behind the Jackal's "Carrion Bomb" is to turn the entire world's population into clones of Peter Parker. Not clones of the Jackal himself, or even a billion Gwen Stacys; just Peter Parker. He's crazy, so it doesn't have to make sense.
• Moral Myopia: A flashback to the moment after the “birth” of the clone that would become Ben Reilly has Warren declare that the clone is clearly “as blind to the value of human life” as his template after Ben "attacked" him. At this point Ben was basically a newborn acting on instinct who wasn’t aware of his full strength and did nothing more than grab Warren’s wrist to stop the other man from hitting him. Apparently, Warren expected his clones to just take whatever he did to them, and doesn't even acknowledge that creating living beings to further his own plans shows that he is the one with no value for human life.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Miles seemingly regained his sanity and was able to save the Gwen Clone before dying in an explosion... but it's later revealed that this was actually a clone, and the real Miles was the one who detonated the bomb to trick everyone into thinking he was dead.
• Non-Indicative Name: Frankly, there isn't anything really jackal-like about him. His costume resembles a Green Goblin knockoff and his main schtick is genetic engineering. The only real excuse for the name is that Warren overheard another professor describing a jackal to his class, and Warren thought that his split personality's name was that of the animal.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Fleeting feelings of compassion led him to save Kaine's life.
  • One of his clones (dubbed "Warren Miles") had no purpose other than being sent out into the world to live the normal, happy life that the Jackal himself once had with Monica Warren, and secretly wished he still had with either Monica or Gwen Stacy.
• Replacement Goldfish: His dead wife had a passing resemblance to Gwen Stacy, who he became obsessed with.
• Revenge: His motivation (initially); he blames Spidey for not saving Gwen Stacy. Nevermind that it was the Green Goblin's fault...
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: After years tormenting Peter Parker, he's shifted his attentions to the Ghost Spider Gwen Stacy.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Jackal's origin and M.O. is alarmingly similar to the late Green Goblin, almost as though he magically rose up to replace the clownish killer. The fact that he wore a green jackal costume despite jackals not being green reinforces this. He, too, suffers from multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia. Of course, Jackal was originally a one-off villain who was buried and forgotten until the second Clone Saga of The '90s and Conway having created him at what turned out to be the end of a run didn't really have plans to do much with him.
• Take That!: Gerry Conway originally conceived of Warren as a stand-in for fans of Gwen Stacy who wanted her Back from the Dead and who saw Gwen's death as Spider-Man's fault and not the Goblin's. Since many young readers were upset about Gwen's death, Conway decided to make the in-page advocate for her return and restitution a creepy professor who had a fixation for her as a student, cared largely about her looks and not her personality, and who created a clone that was entirely like Gwen at the moment of her death rather than who she was when she was alive^note As Conway pointed out repeatedly, Gwen was a dull character who hardly anyone remembers what she was like when she was alive but after her death everyone started caring for her which he found absurd.
• Tragic Villain: To an extent. Warren is a mentally ill man who accidentally got his own wife and child killed when one of his creations got loose. His infatuation with Gwen Stacy may have been because she had a passing resemblance to his late wife. On the other hand, he's so gleefully awful that it's hard to sympathise with him.
• Troll: Takes utter joy in plaguing Peter Parker. Spider-Island alone took super villain trolling to a whole new level. (As if he didn't prove his trolling by cloning Spidey and his dead girlfriend.)
• Unwitting Pawn: Of Norman Osborn, per the end of The Clone Saga.

Kingpin

Alter Ego: Wilson Grant Fisk

Notable Aliases: The Brainwasher

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967)

Fisk began his life as a poor child in New York City, bullied by his classmates due to his obesity. Fisk began training himself in physical combat, using his newfound strength to intimidate the bullies into joining his gang. He was eventually discovered by crime lord Don Rigoletto. Fisk became Don Rigoletto's bodyguard and right-hand man. Eventually, Fisk killed Don Rigoletto and took control of his criminal empire, immediately becoming one of the most powerful figures in New York's underworld. Kingpin enjoyed a long tenure in his new position, but he had made enemies such as the Maggia crime syndicate and the terrorist group HYDRA. The two groups teamed together to oppose Fisk, causing him to flee to Japan. There, he started a spice business in order to regain his wealth. After earning enough money, Fisk returned to New York and started gang wars, in an attempt to bring down the Maggia. With the criminal world in chaos, Fisk was able to step in and take back control.

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Kraven the Hunter

Alter Ego: Sergei Nikolaevich Kravinoff

Notable Aliases: Spider-Man, the Scarlet Spider, the Unhuntable Sergei

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #15 (August 1964)

Sergei Kravinoff was the son of a Russian aristocrat who fled after the communists came to power. When his father remarried, he accused him of dishonoring his mother's name, and tried to make life difficult for his half-brother Dimitri (who would become the Chameleon). Deciding to leave home, Kraven took up being a big game hunter and was quite good at it, especially considering he doesn't like to use ranged attacks, preferring to take down animals as large as rhinoceroses with his bare hands. One reporter, not knowing how to spell his name, shortened his last name Kravinoff simply to Kraven, and so began his legend as Kraven the Hunter. During one such hunt he met Calypso, a jungle priestess who gave him special elixirs which gave him the speed and strength of the greatest jungle beasts. Bored by regular animals, Sergei got a surprise invite from his brother to deal with a new prey: Spider-Man. While faring well against him in their first encounter, Spidey always managed to defeat him in subsequent fights.

Growing more and more frustrated with his life and his failures, Kraven realized that he was fading away, and so decided to do one last hunt. Capturing Spider-Man soon after the hero's honeymoon, he shot him with a rifle, buried him, and then began masquerading as him. However, he hadn't actually killed Spidey, but had tranquillized him. While Spider-Man returned to stop Kraven, Sergei took his defeat with grace as his temporary victory had finally proven his superiority and committed suicide soon afterward. Years later, his wife Sasha and his children Alyosha and Ana enacted a ritual to resurrect him using Spider-Man's blood. This backfired due to them accidentally using Spider-Man's clone Kaine, and Kraven was revived as an immortal being. Wanting nothing more than to die again but unable to be killed by normal means, Kraven took to pursuing anyone tangentially related to Spider-Man.

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Lizard

Alter Ego: Dr. Curtis "Curt" Connors

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #6

Curt Connors was an army surgeon who dedicatedly helped soldiers in war, but who lost his own arm to an explosion. Returning after the war, he began experimenting with reptiles, trying to discover the secret to how they managed to regrow their limbs. After years of research, he believed that he had isolated the chemical compound that gave them this ability, and after successfully doing animal testing, tried the formula on himself.

While it did indeed regrow his missing arm, there was an unfortunate side-effect. The formula also turned him into a giant lizard with super strength, speed and even some wall crawling abilities. It also gave him a new imperative to cleanse the world of mammals so reptiles would rule the Earth again. Thankfully, Peter Parker managed to synthesize an antidote to the serum that allowed Connors to become human again, but it proved only temporary, as Connors continued to struggle with his lizard side which would occasionally come out under stress or certain circumstances.

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• Achilles' Heel: The Lizard is vulnerable to cold temperatures.
• Alliterative Name: Curtis Connors.
• And I Must Scream: At the end of the No Turning Back arc, Connors' human mind is trapped in the Lizard's body during his imprisonment at the Raft — and he intends to stay that way as self-punishment by not letting anyone know it.
• Anti-Villain: Curtis is actually a nice guy and has little-to-no control over what the Lizard does.
• Artificial Animal People: Turned from a human scientist into a humanoid lizard after infusing himself with a serum derived from lizard DNA.
• Ascended Fanboy: A reptile-loving herpetologist who becomes a reptile himself.
• The Atoner: Curtis seeks to make up for the wrongs he commits as the Lizard.
• Badass Labcoat: Even as the Lizard he wears a tattered lab coat...
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animal: ...but no shoes.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just as the Scorpion is about to kill Jameson with his stinger during Smythe's breakout, the Lizard (actually Curt's mind in the Lizard's body) shows up at the last second to save his life.
• Body Horror: His transformations from Curtis into the Lizard can be very disturbing.
• Came Back Wrong: After the Connors persona died in Shed, Morbius tries to bring him back to life in No Turning Back and seemingly succeeds - except the Lizard persona is trapped in Connors' human body. Later, Peter does restore Connors' mind and persona, but it's stuck in the Lizard's body.
• Career-Ending Injury: Losing his right arm ended his surgery and military careers.
• Create Your Own Villain: The Iguana, and the Lizard clone.
• Dad the Veteran: To his son, Billy.
• Darker and Edgier: The Lizard started out as an anthropomorphic reptile with plans of world domination, but over time became increasingly feral and fierce, developing an elongated reptilian snout. In Brand New Day, after eating Connors' son, the Lizard sheds his skin and is sleeker, has hair, spikes on his arm, can talk, and revert humans to a reptilian mental state.
• Death of Personality: Curt Connors suffers this fate in the Shed storyline, when the Lizard persona murders his son Billy. Later, the Jackal clones his son and wife in exchange for his help.
• Depending on the Artist: The Lizard's appearance has changed significantly over the years. He started out as a dark green anthropomorphic reptile with no nose, then grew a long monitor lizard-like snout full of fangs in the 1990s. In Shed, he underwent a third transformation, becoming covered in spines and looking a lot more dinosaur-like. Following the Lizard being trapped in Curt's body, he has assumed a fourth form with light green wrinkly skin and a face more similar to his first form's.
• Depending on the Writer: Is the Lizard an intelligent creature capable of cunning plans and science, or is he a mindless beast who just wants to eat people?
• Despair Event Horizon: The Lizard killing Billy while Connors watches in his mind and can't stop it. Effectively destroys his human side for a while. Later, the Jackal clones his son and wife in exchange for his help.
• Death Seeker: Peter seems to think so at one point during the No Turning Back arc.
• Distressed Dude: If he's not turning into the Lizard or helping Spider-Man, he's probably being kidnapped or held hostage.
• Evil All Along: The basis of two retcons (so far) regarding the Connors persona. Generally retconned out of continuity when a new writer comes along.
• Evil Cripple: Subverted. Connors himself is a genuinely good person when he's human and missing his right arm. The Lizard is evil, but not disabled.
• Even Evil Has Standards: For a long time, the Lizard couldn't bring himself to harm Curt's son Billy. Tragically he eventually lost this moral and murdered Billy in a desperate (and successful) attempt to gain complete control of Curt's body. Later, the Jackal clones his son and wife in exchange for his help.
• Face–Monster Turn: Curt Connors is a good man. The Lizard is a monster.
• Genius Bruiser: The Lizard is sometimes depicted as being just as smart as Connors.
• Genius Cripple: Curt is a genius herpetologist who lost an arm.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Lizard murdered Billy in order to take full control of Curt's body. This worked, but the Lizard was left with crippling guilt afterwards.
• Happily Married: To Martha Connors. Until she died of cancer.
• Healing Factor: The Lizard can recover from injuries that would cripple or kill most others.
• Heroic BSoD: After having to watch his Lizard form eat his son, effectively killing off his human personality, and then still after his human persona was restored.
• Humanity Is Infectious: During the No Turning Back arc, the Lizard, trapped in Curt's body, began to appreciate human things, like music, junk food and video games. This even led to him thinking that Humanity Is Superior. He was actually tempted to stay human, until Spider-Man arrived, forcing him to inject himself with his newly made "cure" in order to defend himself.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Often occurs since Peter is friends with Connors. A few times Connors has actually taken control of the Lizard body, the first time being when Morbius was introduced.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The Lizard is sometimes written as being a monster who eats people rather than turn them into reptiles.
• Immune to Bullets: The Lizard's scales are bulletproof.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Connors' persona and the Lizard's often vie for control of their body.
• Just Think of the Potential!: What prompted him to create a serum to regenerate limbs in the first place.
• LEGO Genetics: Connors turned into a reptilian monster by infusing himself with a serum derived from lizard DNA.
• Lightning Bruiser: Is stronger and faster than Spider-Man as the Lizard.
• Lizard Folk: His original appearance was as an anthropomorphic lizard, and he only became more bestial as time went on.
• Logical Weakness: Being cold-blooded, the Lizard is susceptible to low temperatures.
• Magic Pants: Even in versions where the rest of his clothes are destroyed, including the labcoat, the Lizard will almost always at least still be wearing pants of some kind.
• The Medic: Connors' occupation before he lost his arm and turned to science.
• The Mentally Disturbed: In later stories, he's mentioned as having anxiety and depression. It's also implied that he may have PTSD from his war experiences.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: While Curt used to have to drink a serum to transform, by the time of Shed, whenever the Lizard's persona takes over, he transforms into the monster.
• Misanthrope Supreme: As the Lizard. Possibly as coming from a darker side of his human personality that blames the loss of his arm to humanity's inhumanity during a war.
• Morality Pet: His wife, Martha, and son, Billy. While they were alive, at least.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Lizard has fallen into this after he killed Billy.
• Nice Guy: Dr. Connors is actually a very nice person... when he's human.
• No Ontological Inertia: Loses his arm again whenever he turns back into a human.
• The Noseless: Early versions of the Lizard based on Steve Ditko's original design. He later developed a monitor lizard-like snout.
• Offing the Offspring: In order to permanently take control of their body, the Lizard persona ate Curt's son Billy. Later, the Jackal clones his wife and son in exchange for his help.
• Painful Transformation: In most depictions, Curtis' transformation into the Lizard is agonizing.
• Papa Wolf: In some stories where the Lizard is strangely protective of Billy despite hating all humans. After they are cloned by the Jackal, Connors turns his family into lizards too.
• Prehensile Tail: As the Lizard he can coil his tail around things and carry them.
• Professor Guinea Pig: Partly - OK, mostly - out of desperation to regain the use of his amputated arm, he tested his own experimental serum on himself.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Connors is supposed to be a brilliant scientist who's smart enough to cure cancer, but his experiments often fail and lead to supervillainy instead.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Lizard is a supervillain who wants to lead an army of reptiles and/or people turned into reptiles to take over the world. He succeeds in turning his family into lizards after the Jackal clones them.
• Resist the Beast: But he usually fails at it, of course.
• Sanity Slippage: Seems to have suffered this by the end of Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy; he appears unwilling to accept the fact that, while his lizard formula saved the Martha and Billy clones from degenerating, it has also reduced them to mindless reptilian beasts.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: The Lizard tried to cause this by killing Connors' persona.
• Shapeshifting Heals Wounds: Inverted, in some versions Curt was a biologist who lost his arm and experimented with lizard DNA (since lizards can grow back their tails). He regained his arm, but soon transformed into a Lizard Person with an evil personality.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Curtis lost his arm in a war and never got over it.
• Split-Personality Takeover: The Lizard persona had "devoured" Connors' by killing and eating his own son, and even though he's been reverted to human form it remains in control of the body. Until his human persona was restored, but his body stayed as the Lizard.
• Superpowered Evil Side
  • Connors willingly became the Lizard to fight Stegron the dinosaur man.
  • At the beginning of the Shed arc the Lizard persona kept trying to influence Curtis' behavior, and in general is more powerful and ferocious than him.
• Super-Strength: The Lizard can lift approximately 12 tons.
• Super-Toughness: His scales can deflect small-caliber bullets.
• Swapped Roles: When Spider-Man defeated the Iguana, a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to the Lizard, he later started to mutate into a Lizard Man himself. Instead of Curt Connors transforming and Spider-Man having to track and cure him, the human Dr. Connors was the one who had to track down the Spider-Lizard and turn him back to normal.
• Take Over the World: His ultimate goal.
• Throwing Off the Disability: His motivation for creating the regenerative serum. And what happens whenever he transforms into the Lizard.
• Tragic Monster: It's not like Curt wanted to become a giant lizard monster when he injected himself with the serum, and he tries to fight it from inside as best he can.
• Tragic Villain: Curt injected himself hoping to regain his lost arm, not become a monster.
• Trauma Conga Line: Traumatically lost his arm during military service, had to give up his career as a surgeon, mutated into a supervillain reptile with a split personality, lost his wife to cancer, murdered his own son by eating him as the Lizard, has his human mind trapped in the Lizard's body...
  • And then to make matters worse, the Jackal clones his family in exchange for his help. However, they start degenerating due to them being unstable, so Connors injects them with the Lizard serum to save them. However, they turn into reptiles just like him.
• Verbal Tic: Sssome writersss have the Lizard hisssssing and lisssping sssoundsss.
• Villains Out Shopping: Late into the No Turning Back arc, The Lizard is trying to play himself off as Connors and not arouse suspicion at the laboratory. He plays a video game with Uatu and is surprised to find himself having a lot of fun. He's able to work his gameplay experience into better understanding a chemical to regain his lizard form, but he was quite surprised at how much he got into it.
  "Light. Sound. Hand/Eye Coordination. Fantasy. Imagination. Immersion. Incredible! Power ups! Yes!"
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: In a few story arcs, Connors can control his usually non-voluntary transformation into the Lizard and back.
• Wall Crawl: One of the earliest Spider-foes to truly have this power too.
• The Worf Effect: That time he was seriously injured and defeated by Black Cat twice. The Lizard has superpowers. She did not.

Mr. Negative

Alter Ego: Unknown

Notable Aliases: Martin Li

Species: Human mutate (Darkforce and Lightforce)

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #546 (May 2007)

One of the more recent additions to Spider-Man's gallery, Martin Li was introduced as a philanthropist and the owner of the FEAST homeless shelter. However, it was revealed that he had a split personality and a double life as the photonegative crime lord Mr. Negative. It's revealed that he was once a Chinese gangster smuggling immigrants when his ship crashed. Stealing the identity of one of the deceased, Martin Li, he was captured by Silvermane and given to criminal chemist Simon Marshall. Experimented on, he escaped alongside fellow subjects Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen, awakening Yin-Yang Bomb powers while developing two vastly different personalities - the kindhearted Martin Li, and the villainous Mister Negative. Martin Li established himself as a philanthropist and built a fortune, while Mister Negative set about building a criminal empire. Clashing with the Hood and the Kingpin, Mister Negative was eventually outed as Martin Li by Spider-Man, Anti-Venom, and the new Wraith.

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• Alternate Identity Amnesia: Martin Li is - or rather was - unaware that he had a split personality who was a supervillain.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Is always well-dressed.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: Is a walking Yin-Yang Bomb.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: When he becomes Mr. Negative he has black sclera and white irises.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Li ran the FEAST center among numerous other ventures, and while he was a genuinely nice person Mr. Negative is not.
• The Corrupter: Mr. Negative's powers allow him to corrupt people's souls when he touches them, giving him some measure of Mind Control over them as a result. The more goodhearted the person was prior, the more easily they can be corrupted. It fails when he tries it on the Hood, since the man's underlying power transcends Negative's own.
• Create Your Own Villain: Martin Li cured Eddie Brock of cancer and caused the remnants of the Venom symbiote to bond to his white blood cells. As Anti-Venom, Eddie would be the one to expose his identity as a criminal.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Played with. He's extremely wealthy in his civilian identity, but as a criminal, he mostly doesn't take advantage of his ability to grant superpowers (although in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, he does send ninjas after Overdrive for violating his intellectual property by using superpowers granted by Negative without Negative's permission).
• Dark Is Evil: The Mr. Negative persona.
• Dead Person Impersonation: The real Martin Li was killed when the Golden Mountain slave ship was scuttled.
• Evil Costume Switch: Whenever Li transforms into Mr. Negative, his hair, skin and even his clothes turn into photo-negative versions of themselves. The same thing applies to anyone he corrupts with his powers.
• Face–Heel Turn: After confronting his alternate with the chance to take revenge upon the man that used him as a drug mule, Mister Negative persuades Martin Li to work with him.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Despite being Chinese, he and his Mooks wield samurai swords.
• Healing Hands: As Martin Li he could perform "miracles" such as curing Eddie Brock of terminal cancer.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: The transformation between the two personalities happens at random.
• Light Is Good: The Martin Li persona is a genuinely nice person.
• Master Swordsman: Is skilled enough with a blade to outmatch Anti-Venom.
• McNinja: He employs several of these, known as his Inner Demons, who have the ability to heal from grievous injury.
• Nice Guy: Martin Li is one of the nicest people around. Mr. Negative on the other hand is a complete sociopath.
• Photoshop Filter of Evil: As Mr. Negative.
• Split Personality: Played with, in that both sides are aware of each other but don't interfere with each other for the most part.
• Super-Empowering: One of his main abilities, whether used for corrupting people or empowering his mooks (i.e. granting invulnerability and giving Overdrive his powers). He also accidentally did this to Eddie Brock.
• Super Serum: How he first got his powers.
• Super-Strength: Strong enough to punch Spider-Man through two buildings with one blow.
• White Hair, Black Heart: As Mr. Negative his appearance is photonegative, and thus he has white hair.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: His powers come from the same source as Cloak's and Dagger's, but he possesses both at the same time. Mr. Negative draws on the Darkforce Dimension, while Martin Li appears to be able to use the same living light that comprises Dagger's knives, albeit unwittingly and in a limited fashion.

Mysterio

Alter Ego: Quentin Beck

Notable Aliases: Dr. Ludwig Rinehart, Cage McKnight, Gerdes, Nicholas Macabes, Rudolph Hines, Mysty, Spider-Man

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #13 (June 1964)

Quentin Beck, better known as Mysterio, is a Marvel Comics character, best known as a villain of Spider-Man. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #13 (dated June 1964).

Quentin Beck was a master special effects man who loved films and making them. However, he always wanted to be in the spotlight, and hated being stuck behind the scenes. His acting career never went anywhere, so he decided to take on a new job: supervillainy. As an effects wizard, he decided to frame Spider-Man for a robbery, then in a new costume (complete with a one-way mirror Fishbowl Helmet) would stop Spider-Man to earn the fame he thought he deserved. Exposed and tricked in the attempt, Quentin swore revenge as Mysterio, and became a serious recurring threat to the wall-crawler.

Throughout the years, Mysterio would become a recurring member of the Sinister Six, and even become entangled with the likes of other superheroes in the Marvel Universe, most notably Daredevil. There have also been a few other characters to become Mysterio at various points in time, but Quentin remains the one most associated with the name to date.

Because of his status as one of Spider-Man's most popular rogues, Mysterio has often appeared in other media. He's more or less shown up in every Spider-Man cartoon to date, as well as plenty of video games based on Marvel properties. Additionally, it was intended that Bruce Campbell's cameo roles throughout the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy would've been revealed as various disguises of Mysterio in a prospective Spider-Man 4, but the project was canceled before it could come to fruition. Mysterio ultimately made his live-action debut in 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, who infamously (almost) replaced Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 2.

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Mysterio appears in:

Notable Comic books

• Spider-Man (various runs)
  • Spider-Men (2012)
• Daredevil vol. 2 (1998 — 1999)
• Old Man Logan (2008 — 2009)

Animation

• Spider-Man (1967 — 1970), voiced by Chris Wiggins
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981), voiced by Peter Cullen (episode: "Spidey Goes Hollywood")
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994 — 1998), voiced by Gregg Berger
• The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008 — 2009), voiced by Xander Berkeley
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) (2012 — 2016), voiced by Paul Scheer
• Marvel's Spider-Man (2017 — present), voiced by Crispin Freeman

Film

• Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal (page)

Video Games

• Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin (1993)
• Spider-Man (2000), voiced by Daran Norris
• Spider-Man: Mysterio's Menace (2001)
• Spider-Man 2 (2004), voiced by James Arnold Taylor
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance (2006), voiced by James Arnold Taylor
• Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (2007), voiced by Robin Atkin Downes
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (2008), voiced by Greg Baldwin
• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010), voiced by David Kaye
• Super Hero Squad Online (2011), voiced by Dave Boat
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (2013), voiced by David Sobolov
• Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes (2014), voiced by David Kaye
• Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2 (2016)
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 (2017)
• Marvel Future Fight (2017)
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (2019), voiced by David Kaye

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Mysterio provides examples of:

• Actually a Doombot:
  • Mysterio uses this trick a lot too. Seeing as Mysterio is also fond of holograms and illusions, Spider-Man often cannot tell if he facing the real Mysterio, an illusion, or a robot, and even worse, the same often goes for a lot of other stuff he has to fight when the villain is involved.
    • This has become more complex since the original Mysterio acquired a couple of imitators who also use this identity. And they don't really get along with each other. A storyline in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11-13 (October-December, 2006) had all three Mysterios independently seeking a confrontation with Spidey, resulting in a rather complicated Mêlée à Trois scenario. Spidey has trouble telling which is which and is further confused because the original was supposed to be dead.
    • In Spider-Men, Mysterio doesn't actually have a Ultimate Marvel counterpart. "Ultimate Mysterio" is actually a robot double he was controlling all along.
    • One reason this trick works so often is that Mysterio is a well-established technical genius. His robots are incredibly realistic, so much so that in the Guardian Devil story arc by Kevin Smith, he manages to convince Daredevil, the man who can hear heartbeats, into believing that Mysterio is dead.
• Affably Evil: Can come off as very likable and snarky at times. On the other hand...
  • Faux Affably Evil: It's not really a good idea to push him. He once nearly drove Spider-Man into irreversible madness.
• Ambiguously Gay: Mysterio is sort of this. In the mainstream comics, he's rarely, if ever, shown any interest in women and has had a few hints over the years (plus the Spidey standard of occasional Ho Yay). The Sinister Six novels dropped the ambiguously part and made him explicitly gay; said novels are dubiously canon at best but pretty much everyone out-of-universe assumes he's gay at this point, even if the comics have yet to actually say it, though in Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider it's revealed that he has a secret daughter named Misty, possibly closing the book on the question of his sexuality, or at least now making him Ambiguously Bi. Then she was revealed to be a gynoid so the ambiguity has returned "Mysterio wanted a daughter so badly, he built himself one."
• Ate His Gun: Mysterio killed himself this way after finding that Daredevil would not kill him for the death of Karen Page (He also references Kraven's suicide beforehand). He came back but with half of his head missing.
• Attention Whore: Mysterio, By his own admission, no less! His main goal in life is to become famous, and pretty much everything he does is an attempt to achieve his goal. He was originally a special effects artist in a movie studio, but he didn't think his job was making him famous enough. He tried to get into acting for the extra recognition, but his career never went anywhere. He became a supervillain after a friend sarcastically told him that becoming a criminal seemed like a good way to get famous.
• Back from the Dead: In a Peter David Friendly Neighborhood arc with a dose of Body Horror.
• Badass Cape:
  • Mysterio usually has a purple cape to go with his 'fishbowl' and green outfit, which both help negate the cheesiness of the headgear and let him look more, well, mysterious. He's also got eye-shaped clasps attached to hold it on that can even shoot lasers.
• Badass Normal: Mysterio gets all his abilities from his suit, using psychological warfare, SFX skills, hypnosis, and custom-made gasses to challenge Spider-Man mentally. He also has extensive knowledge of hand-to-hand combat techniques learned as a stuntman, allowing him to engage in combat with Spider-Man despite his foe's superior physical abilities.
• Breakout Villain: Mysterio was just initially a minor gimmick villain introduced and defeated in the same issue. However, he quickly struck accord with readers, owing to his striking design and potent gimmick, and as a result started getting more and more appearances. Soon he started appearing in other comics such as Daredevil and then he made a particularly memorable and chillingly appearance in Old Man Logan the latter of which increased his notoriety among Marvel’s villains even further. After appearing in numerous cartoons and games (being the Big Bad of both Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions) he finally got a cinematic debut in the MCU and proved to be one of the most well-liked villains.
• Canon Immigrant: Enforced In-Universe. He was running operations in Earth-616 and Earth-1610 simultaneously with the use of his robotic avatar Ultimate Mysterio. At the end of Spider-Men, he is incarcerated by The Ultimates in Earth-1610 due to his knowledge of Peter's secret identity in Earth-616. However, he eventually finds a means of returning to the 616-universe.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He enjoys being a supervillain and it shows.
• Crossover Villain-in-Chief: Has a turn in this role in Spider-Men, where his portal is responsible for Peter getting sent to Miles' universe. He also serves as their primary opposition in getting Peter home.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Justified. Mysterio could easily reforge his career as a special effects guy and make millions if he really wanted to, but he likes being a bad guy far more than he ever liked his old job. Supervillainy allows him to indulge his Large Ham tendencies.
• Deal with the Devil: The first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) reveals that he came back from suicide this way.
• Depending on the Artist: While the fishbowl, green suit with square pattern, gold gauntlets, and purple cape is considered his main design, he’s had dozens of other appearances some of which remove the cape while others artists make him look completely different. Such as in the The Clone Saga which replaces the fishbowl with a head of fire similar to Dormammu, a similar look was also used for the Mysterio android who appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man. Even the fishbowl is often drawn inconsistently as usually it’s opaque, but it’s not uncommon for Quentin Beck’s actual face to be visible inside. Not to mention whether Mysterio is wreathed in a smokey aura or not.
• Depending on the Writer: For any given comic, Quentin was either a genuinely athletic Badass Normal who owed his physique and combat skills to years of stunt work, or a sleazy, portly man who relied on Powered Armour to be a physical threat. The only consistent attribute was that his face was too homely for showbiz, but even then artists can't seem to settle on whether he was bald or had a black bowl haircut.
• Distaff Counterpart: His cousin, Maguire, though she committed crimes as a Jack O' Lantern instead of as a female Mysterio.
• Driven to Suicide: During Guardian Devil, Mysterio learned he had cancer and wouldn't last long. After making Daredevil's life a living hell, Daredevil defeats him and accuses him of ripping off The Kingpin with his plan to drive Daredevil insane and repeating a "supernatural intruding upon the real world" scheme he had previously used on J. Jonah Jameson. Subsequently, Beck shoots himself in the head while claiming to steal an idea from Kraven the Hunter. What's worse? The only reason he went after Daredevil was that he didn't want to deal with the Spider-Man that was active at the time (implied to be the clone Ben Reilly).
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Guardian Devil, Mysterio complains that nobody gave him credit for his inventions about special effects and illusions while everyone knows George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, etc., despite their work, are less impressive.

  • Defied in The Amazing Mary Jane #2, as the tagline says:

  "MJ VERSUS MYSTERIO! Mary Jane has learned MYSTERIO is the auteur behind her big break! (It figures… who else would make a prestige Mysterio biopic?)"

• Empowered Badass Normal: On occasion, Mysterio has drawn power from legitimate magical artifacts.
• Enemy Mine: Has teamed up with Spider-Man in Ends of the Earth for one reason: because it sounded like an awesome pitch for a movie.
• Evil Genius: A stuntman who can build his own android doppelgangers and concoct serums for every occasion.
• Faking the Dead: Before his real death, faking it was something of a favorite tactic of Beck's.
  Mook: D'ya think he's...?
  Spider-Man: Please. He's Mysterio. He's probably halfway to Hoboken by now.
• Fame Through Infamy: He's obsessed with being famous, and at first he tried to gain it honestly, through working in Hollywood. After his acting career failed to get off the ground, he decided to become a criminal for the notoriety.
• Fishbowl Helmet: Mysterio is infamous for the glass helmet he wears that looks like a fish bowl. Although it's used more to protect himself from his own hallucinatory gas, it also serves to hide who's in the suit, useful if the man inside isn't the real deal.
  • Mysterio's parody from Earth-7840 (the 'Mazing Man-Spider world) IS a fish swimming inside the fishbowl helmet, called "Fish-Terio".
• Foil: Surprisingly serves one to Spider-Man at times. He once met with Spider-Man, both of them out of costume and unaware of one another's identities, at a movie theater screening a classic movie. They are both enamored by the film and even share a heart-to-heart conversation about it afterwards. The entire comic this scene comes from actually goes to great lengths to compare and contrast Mysterio and Spider-Man, showing them as having more similarities than they would admit.
• Freudian Excuse: He was once just an excitable little kid who wanted, more than anything, to make movies and entertain people. It took his abusive father breaking his toys, camera, and spirit before Quentin's lighthearted hopes became twisted desires for fame and power.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Symbiote Spider-Man establishes that when Mysterio started out as a supervillain, he never meant for anybody to get hurt or killed, and actually tended to go out of his way to avoid injuring people — especially civilians — too badly in his schemes. When he kills for the first time by inadvertently causing the death of a bystander in a bank robbery gone wrong, he's so horrified, upset, and traumatized by the experience that he considers leaving crime. A vicious beating from a symbiote-influenced Spider-Man puts the kibosh on his retirement plans and the ensuing decades of living the criminal lifestyle plus learning he's dying of cancer (and then coming back thanks to an ill-advised Deal with the Devil) causes him to slowly lose his aversion to violence and become frighteningly willing to kill to get what he wants, even if he still doesn't actively seek it.
  • He goes through similar in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man, where he seems genuinely upset for a time at seemingly killing someone—only to shove down the "guilt and shame" and embrace his supervillainy completely.
• Glass Cannon: Mysterio is a master of illusion and setting up traps, but he is still just a normal human behind all the smoke and mirrors. The hard part of any fight is figuring out where he is, but once Spidey is able to get close, Mysterio usually only has one or two tricks left before Spider-Man takes him out swiftly.
  • Played for Laughs in the Spider-Man 2 video game. When Spider-Man meets Mysterio late in the game, it seems to be the setup for a long drawn-out boss battle (the game gives him about five health bars to diminish). One punch knocks him out.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Mysterio often catches flack for his goofy appearance, his over-the-top persona, and his villain abilities coming from special effects wizardry rather than any physical attributes. Yet his use of said special effects is consistently dangerous, with him being able to make working robots, create realistic illusions, and even nearly drove Spider-Man (and later, Daredevil) insane through his machinations.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In Symbiote Spider-Man, after inadvertently getting an innocent woman killed during a bank robbery, he seriously considered retiring from the supervillain game out of guilt. Then Spider-Man, who was being influenced by the Venom symbiote at the time, beat the crap out of a defenseless Mysterio, which ended his thoughts of retirement then and there.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He got cancer from overexposure to the materials he used for his illusions.
• Insufferable Genius: Besides everything else listed on this page, he's also a bit of a snob when it comes to his expertise in practical effects when the movie industry he was a part of has started to veer towards computer-generated visuals.
• Knockout Gas: Mysterio has used it from time to time.
• Large Ham: Is loud and boastful, true to his origins as a showman, to the point of Spider-Man mocking him for it. This is also the reason he doesn't go back to making legitimate money with his special effects skills, as he loves chewing the scenery and villainy gives him the perfect excuse.
• Legacy Character: Quentin Beck once faked his death so his acquaintance, out-of-work stuntman Danny Berkhart, could adopt the role for a time. Then when Beck actually did die (before somehow coming back), a teleporting mutant named Francis Klum adopted the mantle. There's also "Mysterion", an unknown man who bought Mysterio's suit from Roderick Kingsley and battled the Superior Spider-Man.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: In The Gauntlet, Mysterio once wore an elaborate and deformed disguise under his helmet just in case Spider-Man broke it so he could claim he was his long-lost cousin.◊ With Peter distracted, Mysterio proceeded to kick him in the nads and made his escape as his nemesis was hunched over in understandable agony.
• Mad Artist: Mysterio is not insane, but he has a real flair for the dramatic, and his crimes are as much about showing off his skills as an artist and performer as they are to get money or revenge. The Amazing Mary Jane even features him trying to go semi-straight as a legitimate film director...although he had to kidnap and impersonate a Prima Donna Director to get funding.
• Made of Iron: Usually Mysterio is shown to be just a normal man hiding behind illusions and special effects, and gets easily beaten by Spider-Man once he's able to close the distance and figure out where the real Mysterio is. Some depictions, however, have him able to stand toe-to-toe with Spiderman and, while not able to beat him in a stand-up fight, can take a lot of punishment, usually enough to lure Spiderman into another trap. This has been explained sometimes as his stuntman training lets him roll with the blows and exaggerate their effect, making it look like he's taking a lot more damage than he really is.
• Mask of Confidence: One story established that he has severe confidence issues when not wearing his helmet, to such a point that he is too cowardly to speak to a woman he is attracted to over the phone without donning the mask.
• Master of Disguise: Aside from his robotics and special effects skills, Mysterio is also an expert at passing himself off as an ordinary person. He used the alias of "Ludwig Rinehart" both in a plot to drive Spider-Man crazy and then as the malevolent manager of a retirement home, and in The Amazing Mary Jane disguised himself as a Prima Donna Director to secure funding to make a movie about himself.
• Master of Illusion:
  • Mysterio falls into this trope, and he even titles himself "The Master of Illusion". Though his illusions are all based on his previous employment in the special effects industry, they can still be terrifyingly effective (though trying it on an Omega Class psychic? is not a good idea). After Mysterio committed suicide in Daredevil, and returned from the dead, his subsequent appearances revealed that he may or may not have Came Back Wrong, with actual illusion-casting powers. In the Old Man Logan storyline, Mysterio makes illusions so real that it tricks Wolverine into killing all of the other X-Men and breaking him when he dismisses the illusion.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • When he came Back from the Dead, he appeared to have supernatural abilities, supposedly gained in Hell. Given that he was already a Master of Illusion, it's impossible to be sure how real these powers were, and in the post-One More Day timeline, he's been sticking to his usual special effects fakery, implying that his demonic phase was more special effects. In general, however, Mysterio has often pulled off things that go well beyond any rational explanations — including being able to fool and escape from Doctor Strange who has universal awareness, suggesting Mysterio may actually have great powers… or his smoke and mirrors tricks simply that good.
    Mysterio: They call me Quentin Beck, the one and only Mysterio. Or maybe the real Beck is dead? I wouldn't trust me on this. I lie about everything.
    • The first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) picks this plot thread up again by revealing Mysterio did make a deal with a certain being to get out of Hell, and that said being has grown fed up with Quentin's inability to live up to the deal. It almost drags him back to hell until Mysterio makes one final desperate plea to be given a bit more time.
• Morality Pet: Mary Jane, whose friendship after working on a movie together seems to be the start of a possible Heel–Face Turn.
• Motive Rant: Has quite a speech about his motives in the finale of the Guardian Devil storyline, and implies that there's more still about just how he became a "monster" who would do all these things. Matt, in keeping with acting utterly unimpressed in this issue, spends most of that same time "rambling about how clever" he is isolating the "hum" of his suit's main battery.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Mysterio, with his rather ridiculous costume and somewhat weak premise (he's a glorified stage magician with a lot of gadgets), often comes off as something of a joke, but every now and then he pulls off something unexpectedly big.
  • In Guardian Devil, a then-dying Mysterio decided to try and drive Daredevil so insane that he almost murders an infant with a ridiculously convoluted scheme, just because at the time Ben Reilly was Spider-Man, and the dying Mysterio wanted a grand exit and felt it would be wasted on Reilly, who Mysterio had subconsciously picked up was not the original Spider-Man]],
  • He once trapped X-Man in an illusion of a perfect reality.
  • He also used a robotic avatar to muck around in the Ultimate Marvel universe, including killing their version of the Kingpin]].
  • At the start of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), Mysterio stages an 'alien invasion' that nearly overwhelms the entire superhuman community of New York.
  • Perhaps his biggest deed happens in the Bad Future What If? Wolverine storyline Old Man Logan, where Mysterio's mastery of special effects reached Game-Breaker levels, in that he was able to manipulate Wolverine, he of the incredible senses and huge amounts of experience with having his head screwed with, into going absolutely crazy and slaughtering the entire X-Men team thinking they were his enemies coming in for a final battle. Not bad for a guy with a fishbowl for a head.
  • Oddly enough, none of these actually happened to his main enemy Spider-Man, at least not in the comics, which suggests that perhaps ol' Fishbowl Head should go find himself a new archenemy (though it's worth noting that Mysterio disguised himself as a psychiatrist and nearly drove Spider-Man insane in one of his earliest appearances).
• Odd Friendship: He develops one with Mary Jane after using the alias of director Cage McKnight to direct her in a movie.
• Only in It for the Money: In Ends of the Earth, this is Mysterio's main motivation for joining up with Doc Ock's current Sinister Six. However, once Ock's plan is revealed, Spider-Man convinces him to pull a Heel–Face Turn, if only for a little bit, due to the fact that the money would be useless should Ock succeed.
• Powered Armor: His suit serves as a containment/protection for his various hologram and gas-based gadgets, but depending on the writer it also has a battery-powered strength-enhancing system. It was far more rudimentary and basic than the ones employed by, say, Iron Man, however.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the Guardian Devil storyline, Mysterio, after learning he's dying, launches an Evil Plan to ruin Daredevil's life and goad him into killing him. Daredevil beats him down; and then after denying him what he wants, verbally tears both the plan and Mysterio to pieces. Not disagreeing, Beck then admits that he does have one more idea to steal — Kraven the Hunter's — and promptly shoots himself in the head.

  Mysterio: D... Do it, hero... K... Kill me.
  Daredevil: I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. You think you can break me? You're a joke and a fraud. Now give me the baby and let's end this.
  Mysterio: A... fraud?! I'm... an artist! I n... nearly drove you... insane!
  Daredevil: You drugged me and killed people. There's no talent in that... just savagery.
  Mysterio: B... but... my dystopian nightmare...
  Daredevil: ...was nothing more than B-Movie material. An amalgam of whorish, clichéd devices. The supernatural intruding on our world? Didn't you use the same schtick on J. Jonah Jameson years ago? And trying to drive me insane? Kingpin nearly did it once. But you're no Kingpin. You're not even close. You think you've spun some sort of grand swan-song epic? Think again. You've just told yet another tale of a so-called super-genius endeavoring to drive his arch-nemesis — or, in this case, his adopted arch-nemesis — insane. Your whole existence is counterfeit. You've never had an original thought in your life. You're a product of too many movies and too much TV. Regurgitating only what's gone before. You're a Human Xerox, at best.

  • Beck then admits that he has one more idea to steal: Kraven's, and shoots himself in the head.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Mysterio did this once on purpose because the real Spidey wasn't available, and made enough of an impression (notably, he indirectly caused the death of Karen Page) that he arguably still has a place among Dardevil's foes. He is still mostly a Spidey villain but when he shows up, there is a higher-than-normal chance that Daredevil will too.
  • Likewise in Old Man Logan he became a villain for Wolverine.
  • He briefly becomes a nemesis of Nate Grey (who, partly thanks to being friends with Spidey, had a tendency to run into Spidey's enemies), and even successfully trapped him in a fantasy world. Unfortunately, Nate is arguably Marvel's most powerful psychic. Needless to say, Karma followed very quickly.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Mysterio wears a green bodysuit and a flowing purple cape, the latter of which billows behind him to add flair to his movements.
• Shadow Archetype: Mysterio reflects Spider-Man's desire for respect and his temptation to use his powers for his own selfish gains instead of helping others. Both were people who felt unappreciated and downtrodden most of their lives and started out using their special gifts for money and fame but while Peter learns with great power comes great responsibility Mysterio stays a selfish jerk.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He's a firmly B-list villain at best, but his ego is the size of a planet. He's had a respectable career as a villain, but he's not anywhere near the level of the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus. He doesn't take it well when he realizes his true place on the villain ladder.
• Symbiotic Possession: In Symbiote Spider-Man, Mysterio blackmails Felicia Hardy into obtaining a sample of Spider-Man's mysterious new black suit — actually an alien symbiote. This piece of the symbiote later bonds to Mysterio, who revels in his newfound power and seeks to kill Spider-Man to claim the rest of it for himself.
• Troll: Dan Slott's interpretation of Mysterio seems to realize the fact that he is seen as a Harmless Villain, and rather than snap and try to prove them wrong, he actually just takes the ball and rolls with it. In Ends of the Earth he's even seen killing time playing Angry Birds as opposed to aiding the Sinister Six.
• Villainous Rescue: In Ends of the Earth, Mysterio had once saved The Avengers from impending doom. Though Tony Stark wouldn't admit it.

Rhino

Alter Ego: Aleksei Mikhailovich Sytsevich

Notable Aliases: Alex O'Hirn

Species: Human mutate (Gamma)

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #41 (October 1966)

An immigrant to the United States from Russia, Aleksei was approached by some mobsters to earn money by participating in an experimental treatment. The treatment helped give him a new suit that imitated the toughness of a rhino's hide and increased his strength past that of Spider-Man's. Initially directed to kidnap J. Jonah Jameson's son, he was stopped by Spider-Man, and became a recurring threat from then on.

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• Animal-Themed Superbeing: He's a supervillain based on a rhino.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Downplayed. His unique physiology allows him to survive in outer space with little issue, but he still requires an oxygen mask for the breathing part.
• The Brute: Bulky and stupid, but occasionally has startling moments of insight.
• Characterization Marches On: In his origin, it was mentioned he got smarter due to the process; however, everyone wrote him as dumb afterwards. Recently, he's gone back to being written as being of at least average intelligence but who knows how long that will last.
• The Chew Toy: For a time, Deadpool shrunk him down to about the size of a hamster and kept him as a pet. He eventually got revenge on Deadpool, though.
• Clingy Costume: He can't take off his outfit unless it's surgically removed.
• Death Seeker: By the end of Ends of the Earth, it's revealed that he's the only member of the Sinister Six in on Doc Ock's real plan to wipe out 99.92% of all Earthly life, as he feels that a world in which his beloved wife could die so horribly simply doesn't deserve to live. He ultimately commits suicide by drowning, taking Silver Sable with him.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • His intelligence and how strongly affixed his costume is. The first time he took on the Hulk, his costume was more of a slip-on thing, while other writers have made it clear that he can only go to the bathroom due to a tiny flap and he can't get laid. This has since been fixed and he can put it on and take it off at will. Mark Waid once explained this by claiming the mutation was unstable regarding his intelligence, then had it stabilized in that same story.
  • His Russian origins gets played up or downplayed depending on the writer as well. When downplayed, he typically gets depicted as a blue-collar criminal similar to Sandman and Shocker.
  • Sometimes Spider-Man can beat him as casually as any other member of his rogues gallery. Other times, he's portrayed as The Juggernaut and Spider-Man talks about how Rhino makes his heart skip a beat and how he's far above all the other villains playing dressup, with Peter always needing luck or preparation to beat him.
• Determinator: Once fought Hulk for days, on a traveling spacecraft, in orbit around the sun.
• Dumb Muscle: Rhino is defined by this trope. Unless he's fighting against other heavyweights like Hulk, there is little chance of defeating him with brute strength. However, it is very easy to trick and outsmart him. The only reason why he has the suit is because his superiors thought that Rhino's strength would be easy to command because of his stupidity. The Leader recruited him for this express purpose; the Rhino was one of the few who could reliably fight the Hulk and simultaneously submit to his will. All the others were either too weak or too ambitious in their own right.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • His fight with Spider-Man in The Origin of the Species is short-lived as Spider-Man reads him the riot act for trying to start a fight when Spidey has a baby in tow. Rhino, much to Spidey's shock, actually does drop the fight and leave of his own accord in response.
  • In the End of Hell story where he goes up against Daredevil, he admits he doesn't want to wreck churches but will anyways since he's being paid to. However, he decides he'll wreck the cathedral for last and gives the people inside ten minutes to clear out.
  • In the more recent years, Rhino has shifted to being a muscle for hire but it gets established in Miles Morales Spider Man and later reaffirmed in Devil's Reign that child trafficking is a moral line he won't cross.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His dearly departed wife, Oksana, was the first person to get him to actively try to be a better person. After her death, he doubles down on villainy and directly worked to end the world. He's since gotten into a better headspace, and even teamed up with Captain America and the other Spider-Man to rescue Oksana's niece to honor her memory.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Becomes a heck of a lot smarter in Flowers for the Rhino. So much so that he sets up a complicated gambit to ensure his own defeat then reverses the process because it made his life far less interesting.
• Genius Bruiser: Briefly in Flowers for the Rhino.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door/Love Redeems: For a while, he gives up his life crime when meet and marry a waitress, Oksana. Unfortunately, she is later killed by the new Rhino. Aleksei donned the Rhino suit again; easily defeated and killed the New Rhino returning to villain's side.
• Morality Chain: His wife, Oksana. She doesn't last long. By the end of Doctor Octopus' latest scheme, he's gone completely insane. Octavius offered him not any sort of wealth or status, but the opportunity to watch the world burn.
• No Name Given: The Rhino was initially unnamed, though he sometimes went by the alias "Alex O'Hirn", which became his official name in the Ultimate Marvel continuity. His real name was ultimately revealed to be Aleksei Mikhailovich Sytsevich.
• No-Sell: Rhino is the first person to get hit by Miles Morales' Venom Blast and just get up like it was nothing. To elaborate on how impressive this is, even guys like Venom or demons like Blackheart got knocked out for at least a few minutes after a hit like that.
• Pet the Dog: Misses his dead mom and wife, and since said wife's sister is a drug addict, he's quite protective towards his niece-by-marriage, Tanya.
• Punny Name: His alias Alex O'Hirn, with O'Hirn being an anagram of "Rhino".
• Rhino Rampage: He's a rhino guy whose main method of attack is charging straight ahead.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: More well-known as a Spider-Man villain, the Rhino nonetheless has been quite the foe for the Hulk and Deadpool as well.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Downplayed but present as a result of him being an opponent of both the Hulk and Spider-Man; While he is almost always portrayed as one of Spidey's most difficult foes physically while comparatively only being a mid-tier foe for the Hulk, the amount of punishment Rhino can take and the exact level of strength he has shows some major disprenancy. In a 70's comic, Rhino once fought the Hulk for three days straight on the outer hull of a spaceship circling the sun, whereas a comic in The New '10s had him whammied when Miles Morales tricked him into falling a few stories.
• Super-Strength: His limits are around 80 tons without his suit, and over 100 with it. When first hired by the Leader, he had his powers boosted further in preparation for a bout with the Hulk.
• Taking You with Me: Drowns himself and Silver Sable to make Spider-Man break his promise of not letting anyone die.
• Wedding Smashers: His first fight with the Hulk had him ruin Betty Ross and Bruce Banner's wedding.

Sandman

Alter Ego: William Baker

Notable Aliases: Flint Marko, Sylvester Mann, the Quarryman

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #4 (September 1963)

William Baker became a crook in his youth, but didn't want his mother to know about it, so went by the alias Flint Marko while doing jobs. One day on the run from his latest heist, he briefly stopped at an empty beach to hide. Unfortunately, the beach was empty because the military was testing a nuclear bomb there. Caught in the explosion, Baker had his body molecules bounded with the sand around him, turning him into a literal sandman. Since then, the grainy villain clashed with Spider-Man many times, though in more recent years, he's gotten away from the supervillain gig, and taken on more heroic stances.

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• Alternate Company Equivalent: Batman villain Clayface is usually considered his DC counterpart, being another ground-based shapeshifter.
• Anti-Hero: Originally a full villain, but these days he's this.
• Blob Monster: Can become soft sand or hard rock.
• Book Dumb: Not very well educated but he can be clever in a pinch.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Eventually revealed to be the main reason the Heel–Face Turn didn't stick; his old partner, the Wizard, used a device to turn him back into a criminal.
• The Brute: Frequently employed purely for the fact he can turn his hands into sledgehammers.
• Complete Immortality: The "Cracked Hourglass" two-parter reveals that Marko has this, or something very near to it. An alternate version of him tried to possess his past self to escape the heat death of the universe, but failed and ended up in an And I Must Scream scenario, left floating in the void.
• Distaff Counterpart: Quicksand has similar powers but is a woman.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: True to his codename, Baker can freely manipulate sand, which his entire body is comprised of. The sand functions identically to, and appears to be, normal flesh. However, he can convert all or parts of his body into animated sand at will.
• Enemy Mine: Teamed up with Spidey a few times, once concerning his father in Friendly Neighborhood.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Keemia, as of Brand New Day - they're not actually related, but she thinks of him as a dad. Even before he met her there's his parents, whom he deeply loves.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • He has a less venomous relationship with Spider-Man than the wallcrawler's other adversaries, even when he's not playing the good guy. Has teamed up with him in the past.
  • Sandman also has a rather cordial relationship with Ben Grimm despite his past as a member of the Frightful Four. The two have been drinking buddies in the past and have even worked together on rare occasions.
• From a Single Cell: Similar to Hydro-Man, his mind is contained within a single grain of sand, which can bring him back if it survives and is exposed to more sand.
• Future Badass: His alternate future self demonstrates that, aside from near immortality, that he has the potential to overcome his weakness to water and turn himself to glass at will and lend his sand powers to someone else.
• Glass Cannon: Nearly impossible to hurt, but if you bring water or fire into the mix...
• Heel–Face Turn: For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Sandman got sick of crime and went straight. He actually joined the Avengers as reserve member for a while. That lasted a good twenty years, real world time.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Then his old teammate the Wizard stuck him in a machine and brainwashed him to be evil again. Since then, he's been in an identity crisis where it seems the good and evil inside him, along with his sanity, can shift as easily as the sand that makes up his body.
• Hidden Depths: One special focused on him depicted him with artistic aspirations, with a desire to make something that lasts after seeing his elaborate sandcastles wash away at the beach.
• Iconic Outfit: Rarely seen without his green striped shirt and brown pants.
• Jerkass: He's often a selfish, greedy thug. Sometimes he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but that depends on the writer.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Mostly of injustice but he did try to go straight for a time with Silver Sable's Wild Pack.
• Logical Weakness: He can be turned to mud or glass by water or extreme heat.
• Me's a Crowd: He seems to have taken a page from Agent Smith: the drawback is that his different bodies can act out subconscious urges without him even being aware of it.
• My Suit Is Also Super: The reason he always wears that green striped shirt and brown pants ensemble is that they're what he was wearing when he got his powers. They're effectively part of him now, and he can shapeshift and re-form them at will. For a while in the Silver Age, he did wear a custom-made costume made of unstable molecules that could shapeshift with him (provided by the Wizard), but he eventually stopped using it.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: He could change the density of his body so that one moment he was hard as a rock and the next moment Spider-Man's punches just hit loose sand.
• Noble Demon: Pretty nice and reasonable when you get to know him, and very caring towards his family even when he's playing the bad guy.
• Palatial Sandcastle; Showcased the ability to do this for Keemi when they meet on the beach, able to use the excess sand to raise a huge structure.
• Parental Substitute: Towards Keemia, who views him as her adoptive father.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: After Spider-Man, he fought The FF for some time with the Frightful Four and Hulk in the 1970s.
• Sand Blaster: As his name implies, the Sandman can transform into sand and manipulate his body in this state. He can also absorb or merge with sand in his vicinity.
• Sentient Sands: He is made out of sand (you might have guessed it from his name), stemming from when he hid out on a beach to evade the law, only for said beach to become the test site of a nuclear bomb, with the radiation bonding his molecules to the sand around him.
• Single Substance Manipulation: He has very limited telekinetic abilities over sand. He can draw sand from his immediate area towards himself, and then absorb it to increase his mass and strength.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Spider-Man: Chapter One retconned him into being Norman Osborn's cousin as a way of explaining their similar hairstyles. This was quickly rendered Canon Discontinuity, but was mentioned in the walkthrough guide for Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro.
• Super-Empowering: The "Cracked Hourglass" two-parter reaches a climax when he learns centuries earlier than his alternate future self that he can lend his sand controlling powers to someone else.
• Superhuman Transfusion: Betty Ross once inadvertently received a blood transfusion from him. It turned her into a glass statue.
• Super-Strength: As a consequence of having a body composed of animated sand, he possesses phenomenal superhuman strength, able to lift up to 85 tons under optimal conditions.
• Technically Naked Shapeshifter: He can alter the color of his sandy body to resemble clothes, although it's largely cosmetic and not detailed enough to make a convincing disguise.
• Underestimating Badassery: Has been on both sides of this trope. Sometimes its heroes thinking someone who dukes it out with a spider guy can't be that tough. Other times its things like getting bitten by Venom and temporally dying.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can shape his sand-state body into any continuous shape he can imagine, including his forearms into weapons like hammers, spiked maces, and large fists, stretching, elongating, deforming, expanding, flattening, or compressing all or portions of his body at will, like Mr. Fantastic, phase through small openings, etc.
• Weaksauce Weakness: First defeated by a power vacuum. Water can really slow him down, and intense heat turns him to glass.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: High chance he will live to the heat death of the universe, which is something he acknowledges as pretty heavy. He figures this out after already facing his mortality when he has trouble maintaining his human form, but this turns out to be his human form itself dying.

Scorpion

Alter Ego: MacDonald "Mac" Gargan

Notable Aliases: Scorpion, Venom, Spider-Man III, "Sinister" Spider-Man, Virus, "Kilgore Trout"

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964)^note As Mac Gargan; Amazing Spider-Man #20 (January 1965)^note As Scorpion; Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #10 (March 2005)^note As Venom; Dark Avengers #1 (March 2009)^note As Spider-Man; Venom Vol. 4 #25 (July 2020)^note As Virus

Mac Gargan was a two-bit private eye who was hired by J. Jonah Jameson to find out Peter's connection to Spider-Man. When Gargan was unable to get results, Jameson financed an experimental treatment to make him strong enough to beat the Wall Crawler. Experimented on with radiation and genetic transfusions, Gargan donned a suit based on the spider's natural enemy: The Scorpion. With his robotic stinger-tipped tail and greater strength, the Scorpion was always difficult to deal with, but Mac Gargan lacked smarts. The procedure had also driven him insane, and while he continually upgraded his suit and tail, he couldn't rise above B or C list villainy for the gallery. Gargan was approached by the Venom Symbiote, which offered him a chance to become an A-list villain in exchange for killing Spider-Man.

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Shocker

Alter Ego: Herman Schultz

Notable Aliases: Quilty

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #46 (March 1967)

A career bank robber, Herman Schultz built a DIY battle suit for himself using a set of "Vibro-Shock Gauntlets" that could launch blasts of concentrated air vibrated to high frequencies. Despite defeating Spider-Man in their first encounter — mostly because Peter had a broken arm — Shocker remained a thief and mercenary, acting as a subordinate to more megalomaniacal villains.

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• A Day in the Limelight: The Superior Foes of Spider-Man story line is this for him as he is a main character there.
• Affably Evil: Tends to be pretty friendly.
• Badass Bookworm: He's a smart guy and puts up a good fight, and has updated and improved his costume and blast gauntlets based upon past encounters with Spider-Man.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: When She-Hulk visited him in his home and not only did she not simply beat answers out of him, she bought him Chinese for dinner, Herman was willing to blast himself in the head with his own gauntlets in order to jolt his memories a bit.
• Beneath Notice: He deliberately avoids cultivating notoriety as a supervillain in order to avoid the attention of any hero who could easily crush him or would go for the kill.
• Beware the Nice Ones: After getting bullied around by Boomerang once too often, he snapped and went rogue, beat the rest of the Sinister Six within an inch of their lives, and used Silvermane's head to become head of the Maggia.
• Beware the Silly Ones: While his outfit looks rather dumb and he often comes off as The Chew Toy, he's not someone you should take lightly.
• Blow You Away: Crosses with Make Me Wanna Shout; his Vibro-Shock Gauntlets work by sucking in and compacting air, then vibrating it rapidly inside the gauntlets' interior. Once it's built up the right level of vibrations/pressure, he expels it as a concussive force blast. It's often mistakenly portrayed as an electrical attack in animated media, no doubt due to his choice of moniker.
• Butt-Monkey: Nowadays he's not very highly regarded, despite the fact he's actually one of Spider-Man's more successful foes. The only person that seems to give him any respect is The Hood, though Spidey and Daredevil are quite aware that he's the real deal and are smart enough to tread carefully around him.
• The Chew Toy: Is a C-list villain who is rarely taken seriously anymore. In his case, he doesn't particularly mind his reputation as long as it keeps other heroes off his back and/or (in the case of the Punisher) from putting a bullet through his head.
• Clothes Make the Superman: His gauntlets and insulated suit are what give him his powers, especially later reiterations of the suit; Schultz redesigns his equipment regularly, and after working with minor X-men villain Unus the Untouchable, he got the idea to insert "contact plates", which trigger sharp bursts of pressure on detecting impact. This deflects physical strikes, makes him very difficult to get a grip on, and makes his physical attacks extra powerful due to trip-hammer vibration.
• Consummate Professional: Compared to other supervillains, he behaves more like a professional career criminal rather than the typical madman.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He may not seem like much, but he's a skilled fighter, engineer, and a veteran supervillain. Shocker actually exploits this; if nobody takes you seriously, then you have the element of surprise and aren't being actively targeted by the heroes. So many people overlook his long career, the fact that he's actually good at what he does, and he's even better at flying under the radar. You could count on one hand the number of times he's been imprisoned. Lastly, Spider-Man regards him as a legitimate threat and knows to be extremely careful when fighting him. Interestingly, Shocker regards Spider-Man and any other heroes he encounters as occupational hazards of the life he's chosen and never makes it personal. Only his so-called "teammates" have made the mistake of pissing him off enough for the badass to really come out.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Addressed in Venom's 2016 series. When being interviewed in jail about why he didn't use his engineering knowledge to attain a legitimate fortune, Herman quickly points out that since his criminal record predated his more impressive engineering feats, the taint of it would sabotage most attempts to find legitimate work, despite his impressive talents. Thus, career bank robbery seems the most pragmatic way to go.
• The Don: After the events of Superior Foes, he's became the boss of the Maggia crime family.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: His quilted, padded outfit is pretty dumb-looking and makes him the subject of a lot of jokes, despite the fact that it has a functional and necessary purpose.
• Friendly Enemy: "Friendly" is a stretch, but he has absolutely nothing against Spider-Man, Daredevil, or the vast majority of the other heroes he runs into and views run-ins with them as part of the job description and little else. The Punisher is the only exception, purely because Shocker is entirely aware that Frank will shoot him without a second thought and will pursue him to the ends of the earth if he ever takes an interest in him.
  • He actually ends up becoming friends with Star-Lord when the Guardians of the Galaxy end up stranded on Earth for a while. This is aided by the fact that since Peter is a cosmic based hero, the odds of him ever actually opposing Shocker were slim to none. Him admitting to being a thief as well also helped Shocker trust him despite being a hero.
• Genius Bruiser: Is a self-taught engineer who built his weapons and suit himself.
• Have a Gay Old Time: People mock his name a little more these days.
• Honor Among Thieves: He believes in this to an extent, which was why Boomerang's version of the Sinister Six was able to manipulate and backstab him so frequently. Granted this mindset has earned him the trust and respect of some powerful figures in the underworld, including Silvermane and Javelyn as well as a few loyal friends in the villain community.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: He wears a somewhat ridiculous looking yellow-and-brown costume, and has no superpowers without his gauntlets.
• Laughably Evil: In one issue of Ms. Marvel (2014) he crosses the Hudson River and tries to set up shop in Jersey City, where Ms. Marvel, who is decidedly less powerful and experienced than the average hero in Manhattan, is the only cape known to regularly patrol the streets. He has a blast, openly strutting around and making use of a rickety treehouse like structure for his "aboveground lair".
• Lethal Joke Character: Half of the real world population seems to think he's just a joke character... but more people need to remember that he's got one of the best records of fighting Spider-Man. His victories rival those of Doc Ock! One time he even defeated Spidey with the help of fellow Lethal Joke Character Trapster (a.k.a. Paste Pot Pete). The only reason they let him live was that their employer told them he'd double their pay if they let him go.
• Nice Guy: Known for being very affable and friendly when off the clock.
• Non-Indicative Name: His suit does not allow him to use electricity. He creates shockwaves.
• No-Respect Guy: Not many people take him as seriously as they probably should. Shocker doesn't mind, as it means he doesn't end up as a target for bigger superheroes like the Avengers or psycho vigilantes like the Punisher.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Invoked by Shocker himself. The reason he moves to New Jersey is due to the surplus of heroes and villains in New York while he's considered a C-List villain there. But since New Jersey hardly has any heroes, he could easily become a threat here.
• Nothing Personal: Shocker's only interested in money, not petty things like revenge. Spidey, Daredevil, and anyone else trying to scrap with him is merely an occupational hazard and nothing more.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Shocker may seem like he's not much of a threat, and people generally don't take him very seriously, but Spidey and Daredevil know he's actually pretty dangerous.
• Only Sane Man: For Spidey's rogues gallery in general.
• Pragmatic Villainy: A big part of his character. He has a very businesslike approach to his work, which means that he avoids holding or acting on grudges (because there's no money in going after Spidey, Daredevil, or someone else while off the clock, and unless he's getting paid to do it, he's not going to go beyond doing what it takes to get them off his ass), keeps a low profile (because making too big a name for yourself tends to put you on the Punisher's radar), and sticks to activities that are relatively low-risk and have good returns.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He simply treats supervillainy as a job and generally has no grand ambition other than trying to get by and make some money.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He recently moved to New Jersey and antagonizes Ms. Marvel after he felt New York had too many superheroes.
• Say My Name: One of his more memorable schemes involved causing mass blackouts in Manhattan that when viewed from above spelled out SHOCKER.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: How his tenure on the Thunderbolts ended; upon seeing how violent Mr. Hyde and Troll were and having the nanites controlling him disabled, he decided to run while he still could.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He shows signs of this during his fights with Ms. Marvel, the most notable being when he brags about his Supervillain Lair, which is pretty much a glorified tree fort.
• Took a Level in Badass: That time he upgraded.
  Shocker: I've made a few changes to my entire vibro-shock system. I miniaturized the vibro units and spread them all over my costume. At the first hint of a sneak attack, the vibration shield is thrown up and... well... I'm sure you're feeling the results right through your fillings just about now. Needless to say, but I will anyway, I also increased the power of the units. For years I spent so much time moaning about always losing to guys like you, and then, one day, it came to me. I think I was watching some infomercial about taking charge of the power within... or something like that. Anyway... I realized that I hadn't bothered to update my vibro technology since I first started out with this gig. As you can probably tell... I was successful when I tried. I like to think my mother would have been proud of her boy. What do you think? Don't worry. You can get back to me on that.
• Villain Decay: Sadly happened to him nowadays where current day is more of a jobber.
• Villainous Friendship: Used to have one with Hydro-Man, but after Morris screwed up several jobs for the duo and sold Shocker out to Hammerhead for money, Herman no longer works with him. He also appears to be friendly with Diamondhead and the second 8-Ball.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: For a long time in the 90s, he was terrified of Scourge, believing the notorious villain-killing vigilante was hiding in every shadow waiting to gun him down, and that everyone who spoke to him could be Scourge in disguise. The Kingpin was even able to make him flee in terror in the middle of a battle he was winning simply by having a henchman shout Scourge's catchphrase. Ironically, there's no proof at all that he was ever on Scourge's hit list at all. He's also justifiably afraid of the Punisher and has had encounters with him (and lived to tell the tale), but while he does take pains to stay off his radar, he's never been anywhere near as paranoid as he was with Scourge.

Spider-Slayer

Alter Ego: Alistair Alphonso Smythe

Notable Aliases: The Ultimate Spider Slayer

Species: Human cyborg

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #19 (November 1985)

The son of Spencer Smythe, Alistair Smythe picked up where his father left off, targeting Spider-Man, Jameson, and their loved ones with his own Spider-Slayers in an attempt to avenge Spencer's death. Alistair initially worked for the Kingpin, but his vendetta resulted in him being paralyzed from the waist down. Realizing his robots were not enough, Alistair constructed a suit of Powered Armor and called himself the Ultimate Spider-Slayer. He was defeated but broke out of jail and continued improving the Spider-Slayer robots and his own armor. Alistair eventually assembled a group of supervillains with grudges against Spider-Man and Jameson and equipped them with advanced powered armor, succeeding in killing Jameson's wife. He was sentenced to death, but broke free with help from his Spider-Slayers. Mortally wounded by Jameson and Spider-Man, he attempted to transfer his consciousness into the latter's body, only to die discovering another supervillain had beaten him to it.

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• Attack Drone: The Spider Slayers are some of the few major Marvel robots to not be sentient in anyway, as most are piloted remotely, occasionally with the user's face transmitting on a built in screen.
• Avenging the Villain: His entire motivation is avenging his father Spencer's death.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: His armor was equipped with claws and arm-blades.
• Cyborg: As the Ultimate Spider-Slayer, he has physically enhancing cybernetics implanted in his flesh.
• Dead Guy Junior: Like his father, he's a genius at mechanical engineering.
• Evil Cripple: Downplayed Trope. He was paralyzed while trying to kill Spider-Man.
• Freudian Excuse: He's got pretty good reason to be angry at Jameson, given how the latter and Spiderman were indirectly responsible for his father's madness and death, leaving him and his mother all alone.
• Grand Theft Me: Tried to pull one on Spider-Man before dying but discovered Otto Octavius had beaten him to it.
• Killed Off for Real: At the hands of the Superior Spider-Man.
• Killer Robot: The earlier Spider Slayers were initially designed to capture Spider-Man, but the newer models were built as lethal as possible by Alistair.
• Legacy Character: A variation. He took over from his father Spencer as the master of the Spider Slayers and eventually gave himself the Spider Slayer Moniker.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Spider Slayers. Unlike the Sentinels, the don't possess advanced A.I and serve as weaponized drones for anyone behind the controls.
• Powered Armor: After being crippled he built himself a suit of cybernetic armor. He later upgraded to a biomechanical version.
• Progressively Prettier: He lost a lot of weight between his first and second appearances and managed to shave the beard and get a haircut before the third story that he was part of. Nowadays, he looks genuinely attractive under his armor.
• Robot Master: Like father, like son.
• Shoulders of Doom: His armor had a pair of forward-facing blades on them.
• Sketchy Successor: Doc Ock believes he is not even half the plotter his father was.

Tinkerer

Alter Ego: Phineas Mason

Notable Aliases: Dr. Walker, Hophni Mason, Mr. Fixit, The Terrible Tinkerer, Tink

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May, 1963)

A technological genius, the elderly Phineas Mason serves the underworld as the Tinkerer, creating and repairing the gear of innumerable supervillains. Preferring to remain in the background, the Tinkerer rarely commits or becomes involved in schemes that will bring him into direct conflict with superheroes and the authorities.

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• Auction of Evil: He holds these and sold the Venom symbiote at one.
• Ballistic Discount: Don't you dare try that with the weapons he makes for you; he engineers special fail-safes in his products for idiots who do.
• Car Fu: After being hired by The Kingpin to kill Spider-Man, he tried to do it by weaponizing and remotely controlling the Spider-Mobile.
• Cool Old Guy: If you keep on his good side.
• Cruel Mercy: The Punisher let him off "light" by damaging his spine, leaving him confined to a wheelchair for a few months.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: It's revealed in Secret War (2004) that he was being paid to create supervillains by Latveria, as a means of causing mayhem in the United States. He also does legitimate repair work for people's appliances and electronics in his spare time and is willing to help almost anyone who pays him, including the government and heroes like Black Cat.
• Deadpan Snarker/Grumpy Old Man: Tact is not one of his strongpoints.
• The Dragon: For a while, he had one known as Toy, a Scary Black Man who turned out to be Just a Machine.
• Enemy Mine: After his son was infected by the Carrion virus, Phineas helped Spider-Man work on a cure for the disease.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He deeply cares for his family, and wept when Toy was destroyed by Spider-Man.
  Tinkerer: Don't go away Toy — I need you! Friends don't leave each other! If you go away, I'll be all alone... I don't want to be alone... I don't want to be alone...
• Even Evil Has Standards: He usually abhors killing, regarding it as an absolute last resort. After accidentally shooting a couple he irrationally blamed for his son's supposed death, Phineas resuscitated the husband, but was unable to save the wife. When the man, who had become a supernatural vigilante known as the Judge, tried to get even, his powers failed to work on the Tinkerer because Phineas was genuinely wracked with guilt and remorse over what he had done.
• Evil Old Folks: He appears to be about the same age as the Vulture, whom he debuted alongside.
• Family Theme Naming: Invoked when he fakes having a good sibling named Hophni Mason, who is actually a robot suit so he can gather intel on heroes and villains.
• Gadgeteer Genius: A premier one of the Marvel Universe. Since he cobbles most of his inventions together from scraps and junk, he has a fairly low overhead and thus is a go-to guy for the budget conscious super-villain.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He was arrested and imprisoned in the Negative Zone during the Civil War... despite being in retirement, which he promptly came out of.
  Tinkerer: When I was arrested for not being registered, I was committing the unforgivable crime of taking my grandchildren out for ice cream. When I tried telling the gestapo that I had retired from tinkering after that so-called Secret War, they accused me of rabble-rousing and dragged me to this hellhole without due process. I've been in this jail your friend and leader designed ever since.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: About the only time it surfaces is if the situation involves someone close to him.
• My Little Panzer: Destructive toys are among the objects in his arsenal.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: In his first appearance, he was working alongside extraterrestrials and was implied to be one of them. Years later it was revealed that the "aliens" were just men (including a pre-Mysterio Quentin Beck) in costumes. Subverted later after it turns out he really was in contact with alien AIs called the Vedomi and sold out the Earth after losing his faith in humanity.
• Starter Villain: One of the first two villains to face Spider-Man, the other being the Vulture. It took longer for him to return, though.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: Was this for the Judge, being the one who killed him and his wife.
• Villainous Breakdown: After the deaths of his son (who was retconned into still being alive in a later story) and one of his grandchildren, he lost the will to live, but was snapped out of it by Franklin Richards.

Tombstone

Alter Ego: Alonzo "Lonnie" Thompson Lincoln

Notable Aliases: Lonnie Tombstone

Species: Human mutate

First Appearance: Web of Spider-Man #36 (March 1988)

Born in Harlem, Lonnie Lincoln was bullied for his albinism, and in-turn bullied Joe "Robbie" Robertson into becoming his friend. After high school, Lonnie took to crime, becoming a criminal called Tombstone. As Lonnie worked his way up the criminal underworld, Robbie took a job at the Daily Bugle. When Tombstone murdered a New York mob boss, Robbie was terrified at the idea of confronting him, but after twenty years found the courage to testify. When Robbie confronted him, Tombstone snapped Robbie's spine, an act which brought him into conflict with Spider-Man. Breaking out of jail and abducting Robbie, Tombstone acquired superhuman abilities after being exposed to an experimental chemical, Diox-3, at an Oscorp plant during a fight with Spider-Man. Tombstone has since worked for the Kingpin and Hammerhead, has been a member of the Norman Osborn's Sinister Twelve, and a powerful crime boss in his own right based in Brooklyn, where he's caused the local Spidey some grief.

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• Adaptational Badass: In most continuities, he's a brutal enforcer who does other people's dirty work. He assumes the role of the Kingpin in The Spectacular Spider-Man due to legal issues (and it works).
• Albinos Are Freaks: Tombstone is an albino African-American and was regularly bullied in his youth due to his albinism.
• Badass Normal: His original role in the comics.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Until he got actual superpowers.
• The Bully: He was both a bully in high school who never grew out of it and a victim of bullying himself. He would always exploit or take advantage of those weaker than him while his own bullying was the result of being an Afro-albino.
• Embarrassing First Name: Robbie reveals in the 2022 series that Lonnie's full given name is actually Alonzo.
• Enemy Mine: More than once he has teamed up with heroic figures like Daredevil or Robbie to face down worse threats.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's actually very close to his daughter, even if he objects to her desire to be a supervillain (instead encouraging her to be an Amoral Attorney).
• Even Evil Has Standards: Averted. His old associate Aaron Davis (previously the criminal Prowler) claims that Lincoln used to respect the code but hasn't for a very long time.
  • Later partially restored — after he and Robbie try to break their children up, they both accept the relationship and agree to "leave the kids out of it".
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Spider-Man expresses sympathy for Tombstone's bad childhood, Tombstone's response is a blunt, "You're a weird dude. Get out of my house."
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Subverted, as Tombstone objects to his daughter's dreams of becoming a supervillain since he thinks that as a Columbia Law School graduate, she's much too intelligent for such things and would be better off as a corrupt lawyer, which he considers crime that you can't get arrested for.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: He often whispers when he talks, mostly in the comics. Whether he does it intentionally or whether he can't speak up for some physical reason seems to be Depending on the Writer. The 2022 series had Tombstone explain that he speaks softly to get people to lean in close to better hear what he is saying, making them more vulnerable to attack, especially from his Scary Teeth.
• Faux Affably Evil: He was like this originally, especially when dealing with his "friend" Joe Robertson. After calling it "quits" between them, he dropped the act.
• Freudian Excuse: His albinism lead to him being ostracized and bullied by everyone around him as a child, until he finally realized that he had to toughen up and become a "man-eater" to get by in life. He even calls Spider-Man out for stereotyping him as nothing but a "bad guy" without giving any thought to the cruel past he had gone through.
• Good Parents: As far as supervillains go, Tombstone was for the most part a great father towards Janice, even though he was also a horrible influence.
• Papa Wolf: To his daughter Janice, a.k.a. Beetle II.
• Professional Killer: His job in his earliest appearances. He tended to broaden his repertoire as a villain later.
• Scary Black Man: A rather bizarre example, as, despite being technically black, he's an albino, meaning that his skin is chalk white.
• Scary Teeth: Lonnie files his down to shark-like points.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Tombstone bullied Robbie Robertson when they were at school together — later, even after becoming a full-fledged supervillain, Tombstone still took every opportunity he could to cajole and intimidate Robbie.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Tombstone is vicious enough to hold his own against Marvel's other colorful gangsters, strong enough to fight Spider-Man, and his dialogue balloons are always edged with a dotted line to underscore how soft his voice is.
• The Starscream: He once worked for Hammerhead and decided to take over shortly after becoming an Empowered Badass Normal; it didn't last long, but he came back later and took over Hammerhead's gang by force a second time. It lasted a little longer that time, but not by much.
• Villain Respect: He's always willing to praise even his foes like Spider-Man or Bruiser for facing him down without fear, or begging for their lives when he's about to kill them.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He delivers a harsh retort to Spider-Man when the latter tries to chalk him up as a cliche supervillain, pointing out that while people realize that aggressive animals in nature must have a reasoning for their actions, heroes like Spidey will brush off the trauma of "bad guys" to make themselves feel better. It affects Spider-Man so much that he actually apologies to Tombstone for what he went through.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Thanks to his albinism, Tombstone's hair is as white as his skin, and he's a ruthless supervillain with a lot of death on his hands.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • When he meets the Snatcher, a psychic who specializes in mind controlling children, he enthusiastically begins a business partnership to give him a steady supply of minions.
  • Starling, who can't be any older than eighteen, mentions a friend of hers who was killed by Tombstone.

Venom

Alter Ego: Edward Charles Allan Brock

Notable Aliases: Anti-Venom, Toxin II, Sleeper

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #298 (March 1988)^note As Eddie Brock; The Amazing Spider-Man #299 (April 1988)^note As Venom; The Amazing Spider-Man #569 (October 2008)^note As Anti-Venom; Venom #17 (May 2012)^note As Toxin; Venom First Host #3 (August 2018)^note As Sleeper

Formerly one of Spider-Man's greatest foes (to the point that he was one of the big three) Venom is essentially an monstrous Spider-Man with all his powers, even greater strength, and the ability to trick Peter's Spider Sense, making him easily among the more dangerous of Peter's foes. However, over time the man underneath the symbiote, Eddie Brock, and his symbiote has gone through numerous changes to become a more complex character and famous anti-hero.

When the symbiote rejected Brock, Eddie felt adrift for some time, but later dedicated himself to making amends, becoming the more heroic Anti-Venom. However, his brief stint at full heroism came to an end when he surrendered the Anti-Venom symbiote to cure New York during the 'Spider-Island'' arc and later was forced to become the second incarnation of Toxin. However, as of now, Eddie has sacrificed the Toxin symbiote and is back to being Venom.

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Vulture

Alter Ego: Adrian Toomes

Notable Aliases: Falcon

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #2 (May 1963)

All Adrian Toomes wanted was to get rich off his inventions. However, his business partner swindled him out of the fortune that would've been his. One thing his partner didn't take from him was his ultimate invention: an electromagnetic harness that allows the user to fly. Finishing the harness, Toomes sought revenge on his ex-partner as The Vulture, but Spider-Man stopped him, leading Toomes to swearing vengeance on the hero instead.

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• Affirmative-Action Legacy: He mentored his biracial granddaughter Tiana Toomes / Starling, an up-and-coming anti-heroine who uses a similar flight suit, but with feathery red wings instead of her granddad's metallic green ones.
• Badass Bookworm: He makes powered armor and goes toe to toe with Spidey.
• Bald of Evil: Toomes, like the bird he's named after, has a bald head.
• Berserk Button: Being copied, even if Toomes himself was the one who gave the rip-offs their knowledge and gear (though he's made an exception for his granddaughter, Starling).
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Going by official Marvel stats, which may or may not be outdated at this point, he's able to lift up to 700 pounds, which is a lot by real life standards but still within the capability of humans who are big enough to handle it. Going by all the things he's been able to do over the decades, from taking hits from the superhuman Spider-Man to smashing through solid concrete to knocking over giant trucks with a single kick... you'd think he was legitimately superhuman.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Without his suit, he's a normal old man.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: One of the subversions who started out trying to use his inventions to make money legally. However, he was cheated out of his rightful share of the profits by his Corrupt Corporate Executive partner, so he used his flight suit to make money as a criminal.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • In the Mark Millar twelve-parter, his costume is black and red... and it actually works!
  • Three new Vultures (Blackie Drago, Clifton Shallot, and Jimmy Natale) were introduced over the years, intended to be more formidable replacements. Adrian outlasted them all, and in the case of Drago, defeated him so badly as payback for Drago stealing his gear and gimmick that the man retired from villainy. Shallot was last seen being sent to jail, and Natale made the mistake of agreeing to kill the Punisher.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Toomes has a big extended family and genuinely cares about at least some of them.
  • In 1980, he had a nephew who was loyal to him. When he was shot by a gangster they were trying to kill, he wept and then went berserk at seeing the one family member who cared about him die. Later in 2004, he learned he had a sickly grandson and went on a crime spree to pay for his treatment.
  • Another grandchild, Tiana Toomes, was introduced in 2019. Per her backstory, Adrian has been an active part of Tiana's life since she was very young. He saved her and her mother from financial ruin after his son walked out on them, taught her to fly as a teenager, and generally encourages her to be a better person than he is.
  • An Aryan gang leader who was in the same prison as Toomes threatened his daughter's family to force Toomes to build him a flight suit so he could escape. Toomes lived up to his end of the bargain...but the flight suit eventually took the gang leader so high into the air that he suffocated, even as Toomes arranged for a gang of black guys who were the Arch Enemies of the Aryan goons to gun them down as they were about to murder Toomes' family.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He is disgusted when his son Frankie walked out on his wife and daughter and took care to provide for Lenora and little Tiana in Detroit even as he menaces New York.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: See quote.
• Evil Old Folks: Toomes is a geriatric supervillain who wears a bird-themed flight suit.
• The Fagin: Post-Spider-Island, he uses children to steal for him.
• Green and Mean: Like many other enemies of Spider-Man, his suit is green.
• Grumpy Old Man: His default mood.
• Informed Ability: A lot of official Marvel stats place his strength level as being able to lift up to 700 pounds. However, a lot of his feats of strength seem to suggest that he's actually superhuman and far above any human-level weightlifter.
• Kick the Dog: In the Lifetheft story, he drains the life out of Mary Parker's clone, killing her and causing an enraged Spider-Man to beat him unconscious. This is treated with the same gravity as if he had actually murdered Peter's real mother.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Post-Spider-Island he takes to using children as a go-between for his crimes and keeps the riches for himself.
• Morality Pet: As far as his granddaughter Tiana can recall, Adrian has never been anything but a kind, supportive granddad who looked after her and her mom after her father abandoned the family. Adrian guaranteed that every cent of monetary aid he gave Tiana and her mom came from a legitimate source, and even taught Tiana to fly, which is a huge change of tune given his usual disdain for copycats. When she cuts off contact after learning of his murderous past, he gets so royally pissed that he immediately and near successfully tries to murder Spider-Man.
• Never My Fault: He blames Spider-Man for Tiana finding out about his past and cutting ties with him for murdering people. As Spidey points out after narrowly defeating him, his reaction to this wasn't introspection but to go out and murder some more. Ironically enough, she only found out because he freaked out seeing Spider-Man while in civilian garb and she confronted Peter trying to protect him based on all the lies he fed her.
• Only Sane Man: In the very first Sinister Six team-up, the Vulture was the only one who advocated that all six of them attack Spider-Man together, as opposed to making him fight them one at a time. After he was outvoted, and his turn did come up, he forced Spidey to remove his web-shooters before the fight ("otherwise I'll just fly away") as he knew the webs were the only reason Spidey won last time.
• Pet the Dog: See Even Evil Has Loved Ones.
  • In "Hunted", he stops Rhino from killing Spider-Man, telling him that they are on the same side and will face a better chance of survival if they stick together.
• Powered Armor: Even his original costume qualified, but in recent decades, it has become more metallic.
• Power Parasite: Depending on the Writer, he can drain his victims' youth as a result of stealing their abilities.
• Starter Villain: The first real recurring enemy for Spidey. Though he shared his first appearance with the Tinkerer, he was the first villain to take Spidey on twice when came back after just five issues.
• Took a Level in Badass: Post Spider-Island, he's become The Fagin whose new harness gives him limited control over gravity, giving him Flight and Super-Strength.