You Can Be Good

At the latest meeting of Vil-Anon, the support group for former villains is introduced to their latest member, the Grizzly. He tearfully tells the other villains how he recently hit rock bottom. He started jumping drunks after the bars closed. He did this by playing children’s music to lure the drunks into dark alley’s for an ambush.

He then tells them about the incident that led him to come to Vil-Anon….

Recurring Characters

Grizzly, Looter, Doctor Bong, Hippo, Porcupine, Mirage

A Grizzly Situation

It was just after happy hour and a man named Gabe says goodnight to his friends. Walking home, he hears children’s music coming from an alley and decides to check it out. He wanders into a dark alley trying to find the source that is playing “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and is ambushed by the Grizzly who leaps down from the fire escape.

After tying up Gabe, the Grizzly takes the money out of his wallet. As he is giving it back, the Grizzly is stopped in his tracks when the drunk pleads for the villain not to kill him. The Grizzly tells him he just wanted to steal his money and decides to come back after buying some slices of pizza. When he comes back, the Grizzly tells Gabe that he wanted to make this mugging an experience. When Gabe asks if the Grizzly is lonely, he admits that this is true.

He tells Gabe about how he was a professional wrestler before becoming a super-villain. He was a terror in the ring until J. Jonah Jameson wrote editorials about his brutality in the ring that got him fired from the league. He remembers how he brazenly trashed the Daily Bugle newsroom because of that.[1] When Gabe questions why he is choosing stealth as a method now, Grizzly gets upset and thinks that the drunk is calling him a coward.

He cuts Gabe loose and tells him to leave but instantly changes his mind. He admits that he is a coward. He talks about how he used to fight with Spider-Man and how the web-slinger would make fun of him, he’d defeated and then go to jail. However, Spider-Man has changed recently and now the wall-crawler terrifies the Grizzly.[2]

After telling Gabe to leave, the Grizzly tries to keep warm with a barrel fire when suddenly he hears the song “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” coming from a nearby rooftop. Completely oblivious to the fact hat he is falling for his own grift, the Grizzly ended up getting ambushed by Spider-Man.

Concluding his story, Mirage points out that Grizzly’s encounter with Spider-Man didn’t end in his death and that perhaps now he is a little less afraid. Shedding a tear, the Grizzly admits that Mirage might be right and decides that he doesn’t want to talk anymore.

Recurring Characters

Grizzly, Spider-Man (Octavius)

Continuity Notes

1. No seriously, that’s how the Grizzly became a crook. Check out Amazing Spider-Man #139.

2. Spider-Man’s personality has changed because his body was taken over by Doctor Octopus. See Amazing Spider-Man #698-700. This remains the status quo until Superior Spider-Man #31.

The Superior Looter

The next person to speak at the podium is Norton Fester, aka the Looter. He tells the others how he got his powers from a strange gas stuck in a meteor. Now he stands before them in a wheel chair covered in casts because he faced the boogey man and lost.

He recounts all of the times that he was defeated and left webbed up by Spider-Man. He was growing tired of it and decided that it was time for a change and to seize the title of the crime king of New York.[1] During his last stint in prison, he was visited by his brother who lectured him once again about giving up his criminal career and returning to his scientific work. However, this fell on deaf ears as the Looter pointed out that Doctor Octopus was also a scientist. Once out of prison, the Looter then teamed up with Basilisk to steal the Ellsworth Sonic Reducer for Hydra and was once again defeated by Spider-Man.

Once out of prison again, Norton decided to get as far away from New York as possible so he could retrain himself and upgrade his equipment. He travelled across America perfecting his techniques and equipment while squaring off against heroes like Steelframe and Vaquero. His first big test was when he terrorized the state of Missouri and battled the Plainsman to the death.

Confident that he could finally achieve his goals, the Looter returned to New York and demonstrated his new, more brutal self to other criminals. However, nobody wanted to form a gang with him because they were all afraid of Spider-Man now. Apparently, the wall-crawler had changed and began brutalizing his old foes.[2] The Looter didn’t take this warning seriously and before he could even commit a crime Spider-Man found him with one of his spider-bots and ambushed by the wall-crawler. Spider-Man broke both of Norton’s legs, his wrist and slashed his face. Brutally beaten, Norton was then left to drag himself to police to get medical attention.

After he was released from the hospital, the Looter decided that this new and brutal Spider-Man was too much and he decided to retire and leave town to see if his brother was still hiring. Unfortunately, he wasn’t which led Norton to come back to New York and join Vil-Anon.

Concluding his story, Norton has come to the conclusion that the sadistic creature that will end up killing you isn’t the Spider-Man on the streets, but the one inside your heart.

Recurring Characters

Looter, Spider-Man (Parker), Basilisk, Sorcher, Delilah, Freak, Will O’ the Wisp, Spider-Man (Octavius)

Continuity Notes

1. Of the battles shown in a series of flashbacks is the Looter’s first battle against Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #36.

2. Since Otto Octavius took over the role of Spider-Man he began brutalizing his foes. At the time of this story Spider-Man brutalized Boomerang, the Vulture, as well as Screwball and the Jester. He also murdered Massacre. See Superior Spider-Man #1, 3-6.