A Web of Woeful Spider-Man Foes

Speaking of Backwards Men, DROM, THE BACKWARDS MAN makes for a better sci-fi short story subject than a super-villain. For reasons unknown, Drom's infant self was swapped with his elderly body moments after birth, leading to a backwards-speaking, backwards-aging supervillain, who basically only had life-energy draining powers at his disposal and an arsenal consisting of special machinery to translate his gibberish and to process his food. He also has a magic mirror that does nothing save be utterly essential to Drom's survival, and extremely easy to smash, in that order. Which, given this is Marvel Team-Up, and not Antique Mirror Fancier it eventually, inevitably, is. The most forgettable villain in Spidey's history is literally forgotten after he devolves to infancy, then nothingness. Drom's first and only appearance was in Marvel Team-Up #13.

Who started out as a henchman for the Kingpin? Who does kingpin still consider his worst henchman ever, even worse than Turk? Who was given his powers by ubiquitous Marvel Universe Mad Scientist Dr.Harlan Stillwell? Who was genetically engineered to spontaneously generate whatever superpower he needed to deal with a given situation? Who squandered that awesome power being the lamest most generic villain ever? Who has a giant white phallic symbol pointing at his groin? Who has a girly wee tassle atop his pointy purple head? Who should NOT be allowed to dress himself ever, ever again?? Who is a response to a question no one asked?? THE ANSWER, that's who!

Speaking of which, answers were in short supply during the much-reviled FACADE "saga" in which much was made of the identity of the armored mystery man. Longtime Peter Parker rival Lance Bannon was killed by Facade, and an elaborate mystery was built around his identity, with suspects ranging from J. Jonah Jameson, to John Jameson, to some business guy nobodies introduced during the story's beginning. It doesn't matter, because Spider-Man fought Facade, the armor was destroyed, and a shadowy figure slipped away, vowing to return. The mystery of Facade was never solved and never addressed again, with the infamous Clone Saga taking over the Spider Man spotlight soon after. Who knows, maybe Facade was another Spider-Man clone, lowering the bar for the clone suckage to come.









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Some Less-Than-Spectacular Spider-Man Foes

Hey, Pennsylvania readers! Did'ja know Spider-Man once made a visit to your friendly neighborhood? Too bad he only had time to visit a prison and the Appalachian backwoods. This was during a story that had Robbie Robertson imprisoned for covering up some past crimes of Tombstone, his lifelong tormentor. Since, as far as big-city comic book writers know, Pennsylvania is crawling with inbred hill-folk, it only stands to reason that Spider-man's one recorded visit to the state would lead him head first into the buck-toothed, in-bred-ed-est hillbilly clan possible. "BANJO" was actually a ten year old kid mutated by radiation from Three-Mile Island into a hulking disfigured brute, seen above. Don't you love that custom logo, like this guy was ever going to be used again?

DISCLAIMER: At no point in this story is Spider-Man ordered to "Git them panties off! Git 'em right on off now, y'hear?" a la Deliverance. More's the pity.

SKINHEAD was a (lower-case) skin head racist who ran afoul of Spidey and his one black friend, the Rocket Racer. Later, while escaping the authorities, he ran into the Empire State University lab and found some bad web-fluid Peter had been working on. He got drenched with the stuff while fighting Rocket Racer, and it turned him into a protoplasmic horror in short order. Yes, apparently bad web fluid can make mooks into monsters. It's entirely possible Jameson was right!

Daredevil #300, in which Daredevil finally, decisively, defeated the Kingpin was barely off the presses before Web of Spider-Man was trying to cram a half-assed NEW KINGPIN down our throat. Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk rapidly gained 300 pounds and shed his hair to take over his father's empire in the much reviled "Name of the Rose" storyline before quickly disappearing. Not to worry though: the Web of Spider-Man guys couldn't backpedal fast enough, and the new Kingpin's next appearance revealed him to be Richard's friend, who had undergone plastic surgery as part of some convoluted scheme. Then of course, the real Kingpin returned soon enough, and the whole thing was ignored. That's commitment to your story, guys!

P.S Pretty much every version of the Rose sucked, too. Especially the "Blood" one.



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