Mac Gargan

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Mac Gargan, a Marvel Comics supervillain, once said he would go through anything "just so long as the pay is good!" That line tells you most of what you need to know about the man before the costumes. Gargan began as a private investigator, a working detective with an eye on his fee. He first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #19, dated December 1964, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. From that modest start he became one of the most persistent enemies of Peter Parker, the hero known as Spider-Man. What did one job offer cost him? Why does he hate a newspaper publisher more than the hero who keeps beating him? And why would he later choose to climb back into armor that strains his body?

  2224251

• 2. Becoming the Scorpion

  ›

  J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle, wanted to know how Peter Parker managed such remarkable photographs of Spider-Man, and he hired Gargan to find out. The detective's snooping set off Peter's spider-sense, and the teenager slipped away without any trouble.

  Farley Stillwell was the specialist Jameson turned to next. Together they offered Gargan a barely-tested procedure meant to give a person the useful traits of a single animal. The animal was a scorpion, chosen because scorpions prey on spiders. Stillwell also fitted Gargan with a club-like mechanical tail.

  The Amazing Spider-Man #20, from January 1965, introduced the finished Scorpion. He beat Spider-Man twice. But the treatment damaged his mind, and the predatory instincts of the arachnid took over. Gargan turned on the man who had paid for his change. Spider-Man stepped in and won their third battle.

  In the 1977 Ms. Marvel series, Scorpion botched a revenge attempt against Jameson and fought Ms. Marvel. The failure left him even more unstable, and he ended up dumped in acid. His sanity kept slipping, and he became convinced that his costume could not be removed. Spider-Man showed him that the monster existed only in his own mind.

  Years of defeats left the Scorpion depressed. He wandered the sewers, and his thoughts grew clearer than at any time since the transformation. He decided to quit. Then he met Spider-Man, who was himself depressed and in crisis. Gargan pleaded that he was a changed man. Spider-Man ignored him and beat him savagely. By his next appearance the old psychopathic Gargan was back, and Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly defeated him.

  His next employer would be Norman Osborn, and Osborn's first gift was information.

  2426272829

• 3. Osborn's Weapon

  ›

  Norman Osborn told Gargan who Spider-Man really was, though the circumstances behind that revelation are left unexplained. Osborn attached an order to the secret. If he were ever captured and jailed, Gargan was to kidnap Peter's Aunt May.

  Spider-Man did defeat Osborn, and Osborn was imprisoned. Gargan carried out the order and took May. He then summoned Peter with a demand. If Peter ever wanted to see his aunt again, he would have to break Osborn out of jail.

  Soon afterward the Venom symbiote approached Gargan with an offer of new abilities, and the two bonded. Gargan became the third Venom, a change shown in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #10, published the 12th of January 2005. The new power gave him an extra edge as part of Osborn's Sinister Twelve.

  Later, as Venom, Gargan joined the Thunderbolts. Electrical implants were used to keep the symbiote in check. Gargan said aloud that he feared how much control the creature held over him. Even so, he grew addicted to the strength it gave him.

  That addiction would be tested when Osborn built a team of Avengers of his own.

  3234353631

• 4. Spider-Man of the Dark Avengers

  ›

  Dark Avengers #1, published the 21st of January 2009, presented Gargan as the third man to wear the name Spider-Man. Norman Osborn had formed the team and handed new identities to some of his former Thunderbolts.

  The disguise needed work. Gargan, as Venom, had grown more beast than man, and Osborn watched him devour a Skrull. Osborn then gave him a medication that shrank the symbiote back to the size it had when Spider-Man first wore it. Gargan could still grow into the larger form whenever he chose.

  The team's first mission was against Morgana le Fay. She turned the figure the story calls "Venom-Spidey" into a giant demonic monster, which tried to eat Ares. Venom coughed Ares back up, but her magic lingered. From then on Gargan would randomly lose control of himself.

  Gargan stayed a regular in the series from issue #1 through issue #16, dated the 12th of May 2010. He also headlined the 2009 miniseries Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man, written by Brian Reed with art by Chris Bachalo. It was his first solo comic. According to Diamond Comic Distributors, issue #1 was the 45th best-selling comic of June 2009. Issue #2 ranked 68th in July.

  During the "Siege" storyline, Osborn planned an invasion of Asgard. Gargan and the other Dark Avengers protested. Osborn promised the team freedom from servitude if they fought alongside the Initiative. Following a setup by Loki, they attacked and overwhelmed Thor. Then Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man arrived, and in that fight Gargan was forcibly separated from the symbiote.

  The separation would soon show up in his medical condition.

  4042435657

• 5. Temper and Appetite

  ›

  While waiting for an official offer from the Thunderbolts, Gargan pressed his agent for the financial details of the proposed deal. He demanded particular talent for the writing of his story. Then he killed six S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had come to bring him in, all of them "capekiller" operatives. He meant to cooperate. But his agent had told him the rights to his life story would be worth more if he raised the body count first.

  Greed is only one of his drivers. Justin Hammer learned that Gargan is poor at following instructions and worse at cooperating with other villains. His great weakness is a furious, irrational hatred of Jameson. He has ignored his employers' orders just to go after the Daily Bugle's publisher.

  Bonding with the symbiote and serving Osborn changed none of that. As Spider-Man he started a drug war. Photographs of him committing cannibalism reached Jameson, who was by then Mayor of New York. The plan endangered Osborn's schemes and the heroic reputation of the whole Dark Avengers team. It failed. Gargan had to make peace with Jameson in public, in the Spider-Man costume, which embarrassed him badly. All through the handshake he secretly fantasized about killing the man.

  The cannibalism was not a one-time lapse. Gargan severed and devoured the arm of Steel Spider. After that taste of flesh, he went on to consume the bones of Swarm, eat Eleven, and devour the limbs of criminals.

  Eddie Brock, an earlier Venom host, kept some inhibitions about hurting bystanders. Gargan, who had little regard for others to begin with, lost whatever was left.

  3638576425

• 6. Anatomy of the Armor

  ›

  Seven feet long, the Scorpion's mechanical tail was cybernetically controlled and built on a framework of tool steel. It could whip through the air at 90 miles per hour. Over the years it carried an electric generator, a spike that sprays acid, and a low-density plasma projector. Gargan could use it as an extra leg or coil it behind him to spring at least 30 feet.

  The suit itself was a full-body battlesuit of two layers of light steel mesh, separated by a thin layer of insulated rubber. Inside it, the treatment had spliced scorpion genes into his own. He gained strength, stamina and durability, along with speed, agility and reflexes that echo Spider-Man's. He climbs walls by punching holes in them, and his grip resembles a real scorpion's pincers.

  He is stronger and tougher than Spider-Man, but a far weaker hand-to-hand fighter. Spider-Man therefore wins with tactics and wit.

  The symbiote raised those abilities well above their old levels. It can imitate the Scorpion tail or serve as a fifth limb. It lets Gargan shoot webbing, climb walls, disguise himself as other people or blend into a background. Spider-Man's spider-sense cannot detect him. The alien's superior instincts improved his fighting skill, and the costume heals grave injuries with remarkable speed. Claws and tendrils serve him as weapons. When Venom is injured or enraged, it can add mass and strength to match any threat.

  In the smaller Spider-Man form, he is even more agile than as Venom. He keeps all of Venom's powers except the claws, tongue and teeth, which he can regrow at will. The medication also lowers his will to fight and makes him more sympathetic.

  The armor he would wear next was built to keep him alive.

  253353553

• 7. Scorpion Again

  ›

  At the Raft prison, during the "Big Time" storyline, Gargan was in bad shape. Removing the symbiote had caused medical problems, a side effect of his original genetic mutation. Alistair Smythe broke him out and fitted him with a new Scorpion suit. It included a life-support system to stabilize his condition. Smythe also persuaded him to join a plan for revenge on Jameson.

  The new suit was larger than the old one and wired into his body, which made him a cyborg. It had a stronger tail, mechanical pincers and bulletproof protection. Smythe changed his biology as well, giving him a "scorpion-sense" to rival Spider-Man's spider-sense. He could survive a fall at terminal speed.

  The design had one flaw, an unprotected jaw. During the "Dying Wish" storyline, Peter Parker was trapped in Doctor Octopus' dying body. He called for help in stopping Otto Octavius, who occupied Spider-Man's body. Scorpion and Hydro-Man went with Parker to Stark Industries to look for Tony Stark and walked into a trap.

  In a safe area they found Spider-Man's friends and relatives, and Scorpion planned his final revenge on Jameson. Octavius then accessed Spider-Man's memories of Aunt May and the times Scorpion had threatened her. He retaliated by punching Gargan's jaw off. Gargan woke in the Raft's infirmary with a metallic apparatus in its place. Later, after working for Alchemax, he received a new jaw.

  In a prelude to the "Hunted" storyline, Kraven the Hunter captured him for the Great Hunt, grouped with other prisoners as the Savage Six. During "Carnage Reigns," he joined Agent Julia Gao's Cape-Killers. He also turned up in the 2019 Absolute Carnage series, the 2020 Ravencroft series and the 2022 Miles Morales: Spider-Man series.

  4647491821

• 8. Other Faces and Verdicts

  ›

  In the Exiles series, a version of Gargan is a heroic member of Heroes for Hire until Magik kills him. In Spider-Man: Reign, he belongs to the Sinner Six and dies fighting Spider-Man. In Spider-Verse he runs with Verna's Hounds. In the Ultimate Marvel universe he is a Mexican mob boss who works with Prowler.

  The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, with Carl Banas as the voice, made the Scorpion even more villainous after Farley Stillwell transformed him. Spider-Man: The Animated Series, voiced first by Martin Landau and later by Richard Moll, began with a neurotic, balding private eye. The Neogenic Recombinator gave him green skin, fangs and claws. He tried to break into a nuclear reactor, hoping more radiation might restore him.

  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gave the role to Joaquín Cosío as Maximus Gargan, a cybernetically enhanced gangster. Michael Mando played Gargan in Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017, as a ruthless criminal with a scorpion tattoo on his neck. He is set to return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, listed for 2026. In the 2025 series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Jonathan Medina voices a version who leads the Scorpions gang and later gets scorpion armor from Otto Octavius.

  Video games often treat him as a boss. The 2002 Spider-Man game and Spider-Man 3 cast him instead as a tragic anti-hero, hunted by the people who experimented on him. In Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man helps him escape the corporation MechaBioCon. In Spider-Man 2, Kraven the Hunter captures and kills him.

  Critics have been generous. Marc Buxton of Den of Geek called him "one of Spidey's greatest foes." Pierce Lydon of Newsarama named him among the best Venom hosts in the comics. IGN ranked him 10th among its top 25 Spider-Man villains and called him the "most iconic villain to call himself Scorpion." Game Rant placed him 11th among 28.

  Ethan Stewart of Collider put him on a list of villains fans want to see in the MCU, writing: "Since 2017, fans have been wondering when Scorpion will fully be brought into live-action."

  6869727374