The Superior Foes of Spider-Man

Reflecting on his life, Boomerang complains that everybody wants to know about Spider-Man, his most constant foe. They never ask about Boomerang. They never want to know about his life or how, before getting his ass handed to him, that this was going to be a big score. He figures this is because most villains don’t know when to quit while they’re ahead.

Boomerang thinks back to his early life when he was just Fred Myers, a pitcher for a major league baseball team. His career came to an abrupt end when he was caught up in a bribery scandal. Disgraced, Myers was going to commit suicide when he was approached by members of the Secret Empire who recruit him as one of their operatives. Because he was Australian, they decided to make him Boomerang. When the Secret Empire was shut down, he still got to keep his gear and continued his criminal career.[1] He regularly clashed with Spider-Man and Silver Sable, and was part of various crews from time to time.[2]

Ultimately, Boomerang managed to save enough money to purchase a new costume and start a crew of his own. This crew includes all the right archetypes: The pretty boy (Overdrive), the cute girl (Beetle), the pain in the ass (Speed Demon), and the coward (the Shocker). He calls them the Sinister Six, even though there are only five members on the team. However, despite their best laid plans, Boomerang still found himself webbed up onto a lamp-post by Spider-Man.

When Shocker and Speed Demon visit him in prison, Boomerang tries to get them to go to his apartment in Queens to feed his birds. Herman thinks it’s too far out of his way, while James mocks him for having birds and suggests that he should take up a pirate theme for his criminal identity. Fred resigns to the fact they won’t help and tells them that his land lady will feed the birds as long as they go to the pet shop and buy the seed.

Speed Demon and Shocker actually comply with this request. When they arrive at the pet shop a mother is buying a dog for her daughter. This reminds Speed Demon of Skippy, his childhood pet and tells the little girl that his mother sold Skippy for drugs. When he suggests that she name her dog Skippy, she tells him that she has decided to name him Inspector instead. This leads to an argument between the two over how stupid that name is. Speed Demon gets so annoyed that he strips off the trench coat and hat he is wearing over his costume as he has decided to rob the pet shop. The Shocker apologies profusely for his partner, but Speed Demon insists on stealing a bulk bag of bird seed, as well as Inspector, as a lesson to the little girl to never call a super-villain stupid.

The pair bicker all the way back to Boomerang’s apartment which is at the top of a five story walk-up. Once they arrive at the door, they discover that neither one of them has the keys. Speed Demon races off and comes back seconds later with the keys, but by then the Shocker has learned that the door was already unlocked. They suspect that someone is inside the apartment and are shocked to discover Hammerhead taking a shit in the bathroom. Giving the mobster privacy to finish his business, Hammerhead comes out of the bathroom. As it turns out Hammerhead was the “land lady” who was going to feed the birds. This was all code because the bird seed was actually used to smuggle stolen diamonds to be delivered to Hammerhead.

That’s when Hammerhead notices some of the diamonds are missing, prompting Speed Demon to make a hasty retreat. This leaves Shocker behind to take a beating so bad he ends up in the hospital. James calls Fred in prison to tell him what went down. Boomerang explains that this is just part of a much larger shipment that was was delayed.[3] He wants Speed Demon and Shocker to join him when he carries out the next heist. The pair agree and begin working on scraping the money together to get Boomerang’s bail. He tells them to hurry because he hasn’t been making any friends in prison.

They then put in a call to Beetle and Overdrive to help on the heist. At first, the Beetle doesn’t want anything to do with Fred Myers because he’s a dick. However, when she hears about the heist, she decides to join up because she is holding up a comic book shop and the experience of trying to steal valuable comics turns out to be more trouble than they’re worth.

Back at prison, Boomerang pays a visit to “Hammerhead”, who is now in jail. However, this is actually the Chameleon who was posing as Hammerhead in order to convince the rest of the Sinister Six to take on this job.[4] However, this ruse was all to get the Sinister Six back together and there is no real job. Worse, the Chameleon expects Boomerang and his crew to do a job for him, pro bono. Although Fred used deception and lies up to this point the end result is that his crew has gotten back together and paid his bail. He’s glad to be out of prison and while he and his teammates celebrate, Boomerang fantasizes about what he is going to do now that he is out. He hopes that this time he’ll finally beat Spider-Man, beat the rap, and run this town. He believes this because the law of averages says that things might finally go his way. However, like an omen of things to come, Fred is snapped out of his fantasy by one of his enemies from prison. He reveals that he got early released and punches Myers out.

Recurring Characters

Sinister Six (Boomerang, Beetle, Shocker, Overdrive, Speed Demon), Chameleon, Inspector, Secret Empire (flashback)

Continuity Notes

1. Boomerang’s early career as a member of the Secret Empire was chronicled in Tales to Astonish #81-84 and 86-88. Boomerang’s claim that he had nothing to do with the Secret Empire’s downfall at the time is accurate. During this time, the Secret Empire was shut down due to the efforts of SHIELD and the fact that their leader, Number One, accidentally blew himself up like an asshole.

2. Boomerang mentions how he worked on a couple of crews in the past. These would be the Sinister Syndicate (first formed in Amazing Spider-Man #280), and the Masters of Evil (in Thunderbolts #24)

3. Boomerang says the diamond shipment was delayed because of the Origin Bomb attack. This is in reference to the evolutionary bomb dropped on Earth by Ex Nihilio in Avengers (vol. 5) #1.

4. Boomerang points out to the Chameleon that Hammerhead doesn’t talk like an old timey gangster anymore. As explained in Amazing Spider-Man #113, Hammerhead was deeply inspired by gangster films set in the 1930s. Depending on the writer this usually meant Hammerhead talked like an old time Italian mobster. However, this was dropped more recently when Hammerhead signed up and got an upgrade from Mister Negative in Amazing Spider-Man Extra! #1.

Continuity Errors

In the panels where Boomerang is working for the Secret Empire, Boomerang is depicted wearing the wrong costume. When Boomerang worked for the Secret Empire he wore a red and white costumed and tossed tiny discs (it looked really fucking dumb) Instead he is depicted as wearing the trademark blue and purple costume and using actual boomerangs. However, Myers didn’t adopt this look until Iron Fist #13, long after he stopped working for the Secret Empire.

One could assume that since this is Boomerang recounting these events, he likely embellished his super-villain career because, like I said, the costume he wore while working for the Secret Empire looked really fucking stupid.