Sinister Six

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Sinister Six are a team of supervillains in Marvel Comics, drawn mostly from the enemies of Spider-Man. When the first five recruits gathered, each refused to give up the honor of killing him. So they let a random drawing decide who would fight first. That choice, made by criminals too proud to share a victory, doomed their first attempt. Yet the team came back, again and again, under different leaders and with different numbers of members. Sometimes it grew far past six. Sometimes it shrank, or turned up in worlds where nothing else matched the original. How did a team that failed so badly at the start become a lasting part of Spider-Man's story? Why does the count in its name keep changing? And who keeps pulling the group back together? The answers begin with a prison break and two kidnapped women.

  123

• 2. A Rogues Gallery Assembles

  ›

  The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, dated October 1964, introduced the Sinister Six to readers. Doctor Octopus, who first appeared in issue #3 of the regular series, led them. The other founders had also arrived in that early run. The Vulture debuted in issue #2 and the Sandman in issue #4. Electro followed in issue #9, Mysterio in issue #13 and Kraven the Hunter in issue #15.

  Two defeats at Spider-Man's hands had left Doctor Octopus cut off from his tentacle pack. The pack broke free and helped him escape from prison. Once out, he contacted every known supervillain who had clashed with Spider-Man. Only five answered: Electro, Kraven the Hunter, the original Mysterio, the Sandman and the original Vulture.

  Aunt May and Betty Brant, a secretary at the Daily Bugle, became the bait. The villains kidnapped both women to force Spider-Man to come to them, one fight at a time. Spider-Man beat the villains in sequence. He also mocked them for choosing solo duels over a team effort, and he did it in front of Doctor Octopus, who fell last. But Doctor Octopus's appetite for conquest outlasted the defeat. In The Amazing Spider-Man #334-339 he began recruiting again.

  4123

• 3. Plots Against Each Other

  ›

  In The Amazing Spider-Man #334-339, Doctor Octopus signed up Electro, Sandman, Mysterio and Vulture. For the sixth seat he took the demonic Jason Macendale version of Hobgoblin, because Kraven the Hunter had recently died. The pitch to his team was world conquest. In truth it was a trick, because Doctor Octopus planned to rule alone. His scheme was to release a chemical that would cause pain in anyone who tried to use cocaine. He would then sell the cure to the rich and powerful.

  The Sandman had reformed by this point, and he was blackmailed into joining. He helped Spider-Man defeat the team and stop the conquest. A final problem remained. The chemical was eating away the ozone layer, so Spider-Man had no choice but to release the cure into the atmosphere himself.

  Spider-Man #18-23 turned the team against its own leader. Electro, Mysterio, Vulture and Hobgoblin reunited to take revenge on Doctor Octopus. To lure in the Sandman, they hit his foster family with a bomb and let him believe Doctor Octopus had ordered it as punishment for betrayal. The Sandman secretly asked Spider-Man to shadow the group as insurance. It did not help much. Doctor Octopus, armed with newly reacquired adamantium arms, easily beat the other four. He turned the Sandman's body into glass and nearly killed Spider-Man.

  The arrival of police changed the terms. The defeated villains agreed to serve Doctor Octopus in return for help escaping. They went on a rampage, stealing advanced weapons and technology from several sources, including an alien dimension and a facility specializing in cybernetics. To fill the sixth seat, they recruited Gog. The rampage ended at a Hydra base, where Spider-Man faced them alongside Ghost Rider, Deathlok, Nova, the Hulk and Solo. Most of the villains were jailed again, but the Vulture and Hobgoblin got away.

  The Sandman, meanwhile, had a grudge to settle. He had been turned back into a villain by his former ally Wizard. With the second Mysterio, he formed a new Sinister Six. The original Mysterio had killed himself after a fight with Daredevil. Venom temporarily took Doctor Octopus's place, joined by Electro, the Vulture and the second Kraven the Hunter, another son of the dead original. The goal was revenge for the glass. The team lost again, and Venom, betrayed by his teammates, turned on them. He nearly killed the Sandman and badly hurt Electro and Kraven before the mysterious Senator Ward separated him from his symbiote.

  5123

• 4. Counting Beyond Six

  ›

  Hobgoblin built the Sinister Seven to hunt Kaine. Kaine had killed Doctor Octopus and the Grim Hunter, who was Vladimir, a son of Kraven the Hunter. The Seven included the Beetle, Electro, Mysterio, Scorpia, the Shocker and the Vulture. They found Kaine and a battle began. Then Spider-Man saved Kaine from being executed. The two worked together and defeated the Seven.

  In Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Norman Osborn was unmasked in public as the Green Goblin and imprisoned. From his cell, he called on villains who also hated Spider-Man and whom his fortune had financed for years. Mac Gargan led them in his absence and kidnapped Aunt May. His threat was to kill her unless Spider-Man freed Osborn. Spider-Man, helped by the Black Cat, did so, and then met the Vulture, Sandman, Electro, Chameleon, Lizard, Hydro-Man, Shocker, Hammerhead, Boomerang and Tombstone. Osborn, back in his Goblin costume, named them the Sinister Twelve.

  Captain America, Iron Man, Daredevil, Yellowjacket and the Fantastic Four rescued Spider-Man and the Black Cat. The furious Goblin kidnapped Mary Jane Watson and Spider-Man followed. They fought on a bridge, though not the one where Gwen Stacy was killed. Osborn gave up a clue to Aunt May's location before he was knocked into the river. She was found safe, and the other heroes arrested the rest of the Twelve.

  During the Civil War storyline, a Sinister Six of Doctor Octopus, Grim Reaper, Lizard, Shocker, Trapster and Vulture formed. Captain America and his Secret Avengers stopped them off-panel. S.H.I.E.L.D. then found them bound and subdued. Later stories pushed the number much higher. Mojo and the Chameleon abducted Spider-Man and his X-Men students to fight the Sinister Sixty-Six, made up of holographic stand-ins for his many enemies. A separate Sinister Sixty appeared in a story where Spider-Man played with a cancer patient named Nathan. In their imagined game, Nathan became Spider-Bite, and they stopped the Stilt-Man's army at Grand Central Station.

  Smaller teams kept appearing too. Swarm led the eighth incarnation, with the third 8-Ball, Delilah, Killer Shrike, the third Melter and Squid. It surrendered once the Hellion defeated Swarm. Aaron Davis, the uncle of Miles Morales, bought a modified Iron Spider armor and formed his own team with Bombshell, Francine Frye's Electro, Roderick Kingsley's Hobgoblin, the Sandman and Spot. Their first mission was to steal a decommissioned S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. A.I.M. operative Squid Kid, who called himself Scientist Supreme, assembled Apostate, Mysteriant, Rhinoceress, Willow-Wisp and an amnesiac Billy Connors, known as Lizard Boy. They targeted Stanley Osborn and ran into students from Avengers Academy.

  7123

• 5. Plans To Conquer Earth

  ›

  The Big Time team formed after the Origin of the Species storyline, in which Doctor Octopus gathered Spider-Man's enemies to target Harry Osborn's baby. He believed the child carried some of Norman Osborn's DNA. When the baby did not, only the Chameleon, Electro, Mysterio, the Rhino and the Sandman stayed with him. They reformed the Sinister Six anyway.

  Their first plot used Micro-Octobots to blow up an Air Force base. Spider-Man, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four stopped it. Next came a Caribbean island scheme involving a zombie pirate crew. Spider-Man and the Future Foundation realized that the Doctor Octopus, Electro, Rhino and Sandman they fought were robots. Only Mysterio and the Chameleon were real. Meanwhile the real Doctor Octopus slipped into the Baxter Building to find specific technology plans.

  While Mount Etna erupted and the adult Avengers dealt with it, Tigra and the Avengers Academy students found Electro breaking into a French laboratory. The rest of the team was with him. They overpowered the students, and Doctor Octopus stole a device containing self-sustaining power. They then fought the Intelligencia, where the Chameleon had infiltrated the group disguised as Klaw. The Six took the Intelligencia's Zero Cannon, a weapon that alters Earth's gravity field to send chosen objects into space.

  The Apogee 1 Space Station was the next target. Doctor Octopus and Mysterio coordinated Octobots that had taken over some of the crew. When Mysterio noticed that some of the Octobots had been disabled, Doctor Octopus ordered the rest to finish the mission and destroy the station. He pressed a button that moved the station toward Earth. Spider-Man, the Human Torch and John Jameson evacuated the crew. Doctor Octopus then told his team that his master plan was about to begin.

  That plan was the Ends of the Earth storyline. Doctor Octopus activated a giant antenna array called the Octahedral, which in turn woke a ring of satellites he named the Octavian Lens. The Lens sped up the greenhouse effect and heated the planet. He hacked televisions around the world to explain what the satellites were doing, then shut them down. He claimed he could save the world "at a price".

  At the Palazzo Senatorio, world leaders and the planet's greatest minds met to discuss his supposed offer. The Avengers crashed the assembly, and Spider-Man captured the Chameleon, who was posing as Vice President Al Gore. Spider-Man let him go but secretly attached a Spider-Tracer. It led the heroes to the Mediterranean Coast, where the rest of the Six waited. The Six subdued the Avengers, and Spider-Man was taken down when he tried to seize control of Doctor Octopus's tentacles with his helmet.

  Doctor Octopus then named his demands: control of 200 missile facilities and two billion dollars for each member of the Six. Spider-Man called on Horizon Labs for help. With the Black Widow and Silver Sable, he defeated the Sandman at a missile facility in the Sahara Desert. Doctor Octopus then ordered the U.N. to kill Spider-Man. At the next raid, S.H.I.E.L.D., acting on U.N. orders, attacked the heroes and let the captured Rhino go. At the final facility, Spider-Man learned that every satellite had already launched. But this turned out to be a deception by Mysterio and the Chameleon. Spider-Man defeated the Chameleon when he attacked in a "Doc-Ock" suit of armor. The heroes then convinced Mysterio to help them find Doctor Octopus's base.

  There they met a new Sinister Six made of mind-controlled Avengers. Iron Man, still under Doctor Octopus's control, knocked out the Black Widow and Hawkeye. Spider-Man's new training, and Captain America subconsciously holding back, let Spider-Man and Silver Sable beat Spider-Woman and Captain America. Mysterio used an EMP generator to shut down the Octobots controlling Thor, Iron Man and the Red Hulk. The Rhino tried to drown himself and Sable to break Spider-Man's will. Spider-Man still destroyed Doctor Octopus's arms and equipment and hauled him off to a doctor.

  12389

• 6. Superior And Sinister

  ›

  The Marvel NOW! event brought the Superior Spider-Man, which was Doctor Octopus's mind in Spider-Man's body. He met a new Sinister Six of Boomerang, Overdrive, the Shocker, Speed Demon, Living Brain and a female Beetle. They attacked Horizon Labs, and he beat them with a power-dampening field. He prepared to kill Boomerang, but the still-living consciousness of Peter Parker stopped him. Otto handed the villains to the NYPD and the EMTs.

  That group, minus the Living Brain, then starred in its own series, The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. They stormed the Owl's base, where he captured Overdrive and Speed Demon. The Beetle tried to blackmail him into releasing them while secretly calling for back-up. Unimpressed, the Owl prepared to execute her, until reinforcements arrived in the form of Tombstone, who turned out to be her father.

  Later the team allied with the Owl to rob the Chameleon, whose valuables included a portrait of Doctor Doom. Together they became the Sinister Sixteen. Besides Boomerang, the Beetle, Overdrive, the Owl and Speed Demon, the group included Armadillo, Bi-Beast, Clown, Cyclone, Human Fly, Kangaroo, Man Mountain Marko, Mirage, Scorcher, Shriek, Spot and Squid. The team finally broke up after Boomerang betrayed everyone, himself included.

  After Peter Parker's memories were deleted, the Superior Spider-Man took the Raft as his new base and renamed it Spider-Island. He began collecting former Sinister Six members and storing them in his underwater lab, apparently planning a team of his own. First he took the grain of sand that held the Sandman's consciousness. Thor helped him defeat Electro after Electro returned to Earth. He took the Chameleon out of S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. A villain he took for Mysterio, robbing a bank, was an unnamed man who had bought the costume from Hobgoblin. The Vulture, who wanted revenge for two earlier beatings, was the last he beat.

  The resulting mind-controlled Superior Six debuted when Lightmaster invaded Alchemax. Lightmaster hoped to steal an invention that would work in sync with his own light powers. The Superior Six fought the Wrecking Crew, hired by Lightmaster. Then the second Sun Girl launched a widespread attack and the Superior Spider-Man lost control of his team, which turned on him. He and Sun Girl had to join forces to beat them.

  In the lead-up to Sinister War, Doctor Octopus dug up an unexpectedly empty casket while looking for his missing memories. Kindred sent a centipede into his ear and knocked him out. Kindred then offered help recovering those memories, on the condition that Doctor Octopus gather five more people. He promised to solve the Sandman's immortality problem, resurrected Electro with his powers intact, and enticed Kraven the Hunter by promising a hunt for the Lizard. He forced Curt Connors to use the Isotope Genome Accelerator, which split him from his Lizard side. Kindred completed the Six by having Mysterio join.

  The Savage Six struck the premiere of a film that Mary Jane Watson and a disguised Mysterio had worked on. The Sinister Six moved in to take Mysterio, and Doctor Octopus knocked out Spider-Man. Later, Mysterio, the Lizard and Electro posed as the Black Cat, Wolverine and the Human Torch, using illusions. The Lizard sprang the trap too early. Peter appealed to Doctor Octopus's better nature, and the villain hesitated, but pressure from the others pushed him to act. That bought Peter time to break free. In the end, Doctor Octopus used Black Ant's technology to knock out the other villains after finding that Kindred had planted centipedes in all their brains. Octavius said he disliked being used, though he still would not help Peter further.

  212324221

• 7. Other Worlds

  ›

  Mister Sinister assembled the Age of Apocalypse version, in a limited series for that story's 10th anniversary. It contained Cloak and Dagger, Sonique, Sauron, Blob and Phoenix. Avataars: Covenant of the Shield #2 gave the idea a medieval fantasy twist. The Six Most Sinister were led by the Goblin King, with the Huntsman, Jolt, Mysterium, Sandstorm, Talon and Tentaclus. They ran a tollbooth in the Webwood.

  The Marvel 1602 world, Earth-311, had a Sinister Sextet in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 4) #1. It included Canice Cassidy, Electro, Hobgoblin, Karnov, Magus and the Serpent. A future team from the Marvel 2099 timeline, in Spider-Man 2099 (vol. 3) #11-12, included Venom, the Goblin, Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, Electro and the Sandwoman. The Goblin turned out to be a mole helping Spider-Man 2099. Doctor Octopus killed him, and Venture replaced him.

  Zombified versions turned up twice. In Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, the Vulture, the Sandman, Electro and Mysterio made a minor appearance. In Marvel Zombies Return, a team worked for the Kingpin until a dimension-hopping zombified Spider-Man attacked and converted all but the Sandman.

  The 2015 Secret Wars brought three Battleworld versions. In the Spider-Verse tie-in, issue #2 showed a group in the domain of Arachnia, working for Mayor Norman Osborn. Osborn also used the name for the fugitives Spider-Gwen, Spider-UK, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man India and Spider-Ham. In Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (vol. 1) #2, a team in the domain of the Regency worked for the Regent and captured naturally powered superhumans. When sent after Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus died, Hobgoblin was caught in an explosion and the Vulture was incapacitated. The Regent replaced them with the Beetle, Boomerang and the Rhino.

  The miniseries Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow made J. Jonah Jameson, as Spider-Slayer, the leader. He formed the group in response to Peter Parker bonding fully with his symbiote suit and killing or assaulting his enemies. After Eddie Brock killed Octavius in an attempt to join, Parker grievously injured Brock. He also killed the Rhino, Electro and Mysterio, until a burning building forced the symbiote off him. Realizing he was wrong about Parker, Jameson saved him while Kraven retreated.

  In Spider-Man: Reign, a possible future gave the world the "Sinner Six": the Scorpion, Electro, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, the Sandman and Hydro-Man. Mayor Waters, New York's fascist mayor, recruited them by implanting microchips that would detonate if they left the city. Their task was to kill Spider-Man in return for freedom. Spider-Man defenestrated the Scorpion, killed Electro and Hydro-Man, and subdued Kraven and Mysterio. The Sandman gave his life to get Spider-Man the detonator.

  Other versions are lighter or stranger. In the Spider-Man Adventures magazine, Doctor Doom formed a group with Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, Electro, the Rhino, the Sandman and Eddie Brock as Venom. On Earth-803, the steampunk Six Men of Sinestry were led by the Green Goblin in Spider-Verse #1. The Spider-Ham 25th Anniversary Special offered the Swinester Six of Earth-8311: the Green Gobbler, Doctor Octopuss, Sandmanatee, Eelectro, the Buzzard and Mysteriape.

  The Ultimate Marvel imprint, on Earth-1610, produced the Ultimate Six. It began with the Sandman, Doctor Octopus, Kraven the Hunter, Electro and the Green Goblin, with Spider-Man as a temporary member. They illegally altered their own genetic codes and were jailed by S.H.I.E.L.D. After a breakout and the recruitment of the Vulture, Doctor Octopus began to doubt himself, and the Goblin killed him. Spider-Man eventually killed the Goblin as well.

  On Earth-6160, in Ultimate Spider-Man (vol. 3), Wilson Fisk led a Sinister Six that carved up New York's underworld by borough. Fisk held Manhattan, Mister Negative held Queens, Walter Hardy held the Bronx, Sergei Kravinoff held Staten Island, Mysterio held Brooklyn and Mole Man held the underground. Fisk formed it to counter the emerging vigilantes Spider-Man and Green Goblin.

  3839404243

• 8. Screens And Pages Beyond

  ›

  In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the team was renamed the Insidious Six. The Kingpin assembled Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, the Shocker, the Chameleon, the Rhino and the Scorpion to settle a debt with his enemy Silvermane. Spider-Man, temporarily without powers, was overpowered and unmasked, but the villains assumed Peter Parker had come to fight them because he could not find the real hero. When his powers partially returned, Spider-Man beat them. Later, in the five-part episode "Six Forgotten Warriors", the Vulture replaced Mysterio, who had died in an earlier episode. The Chameleon betrayed the group to help his foster father, the Red Skull, and the team disbanded for good.

  The Spectacular Spider-Man introduced its Sinister Six in the episode "Group Therapy". Doctor Octopus, the Sandman, the Shocker, the Vulture, the Rhino and Electro organized a jail break through Hammerhead. In "Reinforcement", Doc Ock took the Master Planner alias and rebuilt the team with Kraven the Hunter and Mysterio in place of the Shocker. The team was defeated again, and only Mysterio was arrested at first. In later episodes the Sandman faked his death, the Rhino was caught, and Spider-Man defeated the Vulture and Doc Ock in "Gangland".

  Ultimate Spider-Man used the team across several seasons. In their self-titled episode, Doctor Octopus, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, the Rhino, the Beetle and a mind-controlled Lizard attacked, and Spider-Man beat them with fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. trainees. In "Return of the Sinister Six", the Scorpion replaced the Beetle, and the team wore high-tech armor made from stolen Oscorp technology. The fourth season, Ultimate Spider-Man vs. the Sinister Six, saw Doc Ock secretly build a Sinister Seven with help from Hydra. Scarlet Spider served as his mole before defecting to the heroes. In the finale, "Graduation Day", Doc Ock formed the Superior Sinister Six, and Spider-Man freed the brainwashed villains before persuading Doc Ock to surrender.

  In Spider-Man (2017), the Osborn Commandos were a fighting force assembled by Norman Osborn. They were Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, the Rhino, Alistair Smythe and Steel Spider. Doc Ock went rogue and mind-controlled them, renaming them the Sinister Five. In the episode "Hobgoblin" Pt. 1, he also controlled Spider-Man to make a sixth member. Harry Osborn, as the Hobgoblin, freed Spider-Man and the rest. By the end of the first season, all of them had been defeated and arrested.

  In December 2013, Sony announced two spin-offs of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, The Sinister Six and Venom, with Drew Goddard attached to write and direct the first. The end credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 showed weapons and technology belonging to the Rhino, the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Mysterio and Kraven the Hunter, with the Green Goblin as the leader. Goddard, however, wanted a more classic version with the Sandman and Doc Ock as leader. The film was set for the 11th of November 2016. After the February 2015 announcement of a new Spider-Man franchise with Marvel Studios, the spin-offs were postponed and eventually canceled.

  An email from Amy Pascal, leaked during the Sony Pictures hack, revealed a plan for Tom Holland's Spider-Man to appear in a Marvel Cinematic Universe Sinister Six film. Goddard was confirmed as director in April 2014, and the film was believed canceled by November 2015. Venom reached theaters on the 5th of October 2018. That same month, Goddard said his script could eventually be used, and by December Pascal confirmed Sony intended to use it. In the post-credits scene of Morbius (2022), Adrian Toomes approached Dr. Michael Morbius to form a team. Director Daniel Espinosa said he wanted Norman Osborn in it.

  After the financial failures of Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter, and the underperformance of Venom: The Last Dance, Sony announced it would stop making spin-off films without Spider-Man. That most likely includes this one. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse still mentions the group. On Earth-42, where there is no Spider-Man, a broadcast by Jameson names the "Sinister Six Cartel" running amok in New York.

  Video games have featured the Sinister Six many times. Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six has Doctor Octopus, Electro, Sandman, Mysterio, the Vulture and the Hobgoblin. Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six has Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Sandman, the Vulture, the Scorpion and Kraven the Hunter. The MS-DOS game Spider-Man: The Sinister Six has Doctor Octopus, the Chameleon, Mysterio, the Hobgoblin, the Vulture and the Shocker. Spider-Man Unlimited has a multiversal team invading dimensions to harvest iso-8 crystals, backed by an army of Sinister Soldiers.

  In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, the team gathers Spider-Men to sacrifice to Doctor Octopus's machine. Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel: Contest of Champions, Marvel: Future Fight and Marvel Strike Force each use their own line-ups. In Marvel: Contest of Champions, the Grandmaster hires them to eliminate Spider-powered champions. In Marvel: Future Fight, they work with A.I.M. And in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, the Green Goblin frees the others from the Raft after obtaining the Time Stone, and Venom defects to the heroes at Spider-Man's urging.

  Marvel's Spider-Man gives the team its most detailed game story. Doctor Octopus frees the Vulture, Electro, the Rhino, the Scorpion and Mister Negative from the Raft. Doc Ock wants revenge on his former business partner turned mayor, Norman Osborn, a goal he shares with Mister Negative. He promises the others their greatest desires. The group easily beats Spider-Man in their first fight, then splits to attack Oscorp properties. Doctor Octopus takes the company's Devil's Breath virus and releases it in Times Square, hoping to expose Norman's crimes, and Manhattan descends into chaos. Spider-Man captures the Vulture, Electro, the Rhino and the Scorpion, and beats Mister Negative before he can steal the antidote. Doctor Octopus escapes with the antidote and Norman, but Spider-Man saves Norman, recovers the antidote and defeats him. The Six end up back on the Raft, and Norman resigns from the mayor's office out of shame.

  The team also appears in Adam-Troy Castro's trilogy of Spider-Man novels, formed by the Gentleman with an original character called Pity. It appears in the stage musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, with the original character Swiss Miss and former research scientists transformed by the Green Goblin. It also appears in Marvel Universe Live! and in the Return of the Sinister Six expansion for the Marvel United board game.

  5455666870