The Amazing Spider-Man #20

January, 1965

Illustrated by Steve Ditko, Written by Stan Lee

The Coming of the Scorpion

Issue #20 introduces another classic Spider-man villain, Mac Gargan, the Scorpion. J. Jonah Jameson is intensifying his harassment of Spider-man and has hired a private detective, Gargan, to follow Peter Parker. Jonah wants to find out how Parker gets all these spectacular pictures of Spider-man so that he can somehow use this relationship to damage the webslinger.

During the investigation, Jameson comes across a news article about Dr. Farley, who has created a serum that can “cause artificial mutations in animals” (Page 4). For instance, he can make a rat swim like a fish or a fish breath oxygen. Jameson decides that this doctor, for the right price, could mutate a human to be stronger than Spider-man. And he is right. Thus, Mac Gargan becomes the Scorpion.

The Scorpion is a mean bastard and beats Spider-man within an inch of death twice before finally losing. During the series of fights, Dr. Farley is chasing the Scorpion down because he has realized that the serum he created is not finished working. He realizes that “the more his strength increases the more his evil nature will take over." (Page 11) Farley believes that the serum will erode Gargan’s morals and he will become a super-villain. But this isn’t necessarily telling the whole story.

The way Farley talks, Mac Gargan was a standup guy before the procedure. But Gargan’s not a stand-up guy; he’s a thug. He’s too shady to be a cop, so he takes small gigs trailing people for under-the-table money. And he’s clearly hurting for money. Right before the procedure that will turn him into the Scorpion, Dr. Farley says, “Your body would become more powerful than Spider-man’s…but I don’t know how it will affect your brain.” (Page 6) Gargan answers “Who cares? I’m getting $10,000 for my part in this…and I’d do anything for that kind of dough” (Page 6) His morals were already questionable before the serum entered his blood.

This got me thinking. There are a few examples of what Spider-Man's foes did before they acquired their powers . The Lizard was a biologist, for instance, and Electro was an electrician. Dr. Octopus was a physicist; Sandman was a career criminal recently escaped from jail. The Green Goblin, we’ll soon come to find out, is a brilliant business man and inventor, Mysterio was a stuntman. Dr. Doom is a computer genius and ruler of a small country and The Scorpion is a lowly private detective.

The Lizard tried to cure himself of his disability and went insane. Dr. Octopus was in a lab accident and was driven insane. The Green Goblin drank his own strength serum and lost his mind. Dr. Doom had his face disfigured in a failed experiment and went nuts. All of these men were brilliant and, if not entirely good, at lease neutral and law-abiding. They were decent citizens who were involved in accidents and then became criminally insane.

Max Dillion, before he was Electro, was an electrician. He was asked to save a man stranded on a pole and he said, “Forget it! I don’t do anything for nothing. How much bonus will you give me?” (AS #9, Page 11) His accident didn’t affect his mind at all. He was evil to begin with.

The Sandman has no history but crime. In fact, one could assume that he dropped out of high school to begin his underground life. This is why he threatened Peter Parker’s high school principal in AS #4 by saying “Know what? I never graduated school. Maybe this is my chance to get a diploma (Page 11). He was already evil before his accident.

Mysterio was a stuntman for the movies and longed to be in the spotlight. Nothing ever happened to him. His mind is completely intact. But he went on a string of robberies and fought Spider-man several times, eventually joining the Sinister Six.

And back to the Scorpion. Though Dr. Farley’s serum might make him insane, he was clearly a ne’er-do-well before the injection.

The pattern is clear: If you’re educated you must have been driven crazy by something, but if you’re a blue collar worker you were already evil.

It’s even evident in some of the side characters. In AS #8 the two nameless workers who wheel in The Living Brain robot plan to steal it. “Then it’s a deal,” the first one says, “The first chance we get we steal the brain.” And the other answers, “We’ll make a fortune out of it and skip to some other country.” (AS #8, Page 5) And in issue #9, Electro stages a prison break to help him fight the police and the inmates are instantly chaotic. The prisoners are split between those those wanting to join Electro and those wanting to randomly run amok. None of them want to serve out their terms and work at being model citizens. After Spider-man knocks a few of them around, a prisoner shouts, “We didn’t realize how soft we had it in our nice quiet cells” (AS #9, Page 18).

And now, in issue #20, poor, hyper-educated Dr. Farley is riddled with guilt over creating the Scorpion. He risks his life and tracks the villain down saying, “I can’t live with the knowledge that I’m responsible for you!” (AS #20, Page 13). The reader is made to sympathize with the doctor. His conscience will punish him justly for his crimes. Fortunately for the good doctor, the Scorpion throws him off a building. He dies before his conscience can really get to him.

And this is the crux of it. Those who are intelligent, the comics teach us, could never be evil because their great intellect would torture them with the knowledge of the evil they’ve committed. Something must have happened to them to make them that way. The uneducated, however, will jump at any chance to gain fame and riches. They will not think twice about hurting innocent people so long as they can drag themselves out of the gutter at another’s expense.

It’s an odd lesson and I don’t know exactly what to make of it. It doesn’t seem like a great moral to teach, and I’m sure Stan Lee didn’t set out to push this agenda, but the examples happen over and over again.

It could be an elitist view in the style of Ayn Rand: Those who are down should stay down. They are there for a reason and rising to another level is the equivalent of theft.

It could be anti-communist sentiment, prevalent in the early sixties: Everyone cannot be treated equally, because people will react differently to similar situations. Certain people cannot be trusted to play their part fairly.

Or, it could be as J. Jonah Jameson says at the end of AS #20, “I know now that anyone with too much power is liable to turn into a menace sooner or later.” (AS 20, Page 20) Jameson, in his own way, believes that power either seeks out those that are corrupt or corrupts those that are good.

Jameson's life morale makes him the antithesis of Peter Parker. Jonah's credo is like the bizarro world version of “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s true, Jonah would argue, with great power does come great responsibility. Therefore, no one should have great power.