Amazing Spider-Man 2: Who Are The Sinister Six?

With the recent announcement that one of the first Amazing Spider-Man spinoff movies will be The Sinister Six, there was a lot of curiosity regarding which characters might make the lineup. Spider-Man's premiere super-villain team, after all, has featured dozens of characters in a handful of iterations over the years -- and that's not even counting when it morphed into the Sinister Seven or Sinister Twelve. (As an interesting aside, the concept of the Sinister Twelve -- used during the Marvel Knight Spider-Man series and stocked with a lineup of villains secretly financed by Norman Osborn -- is fairly close to what seems to be coming up in the movies. But that's a different conversation.) There hadn't been much in the way of hints as to who might be part of the team, apart from vague clues from the filmmakers that they liked this character or didn't like that one (Kraven is a favorite of both director Marc Webb and star Andrew Garfield, for instance). During the closing credits of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, though, you can use a mobile phone app to access a series of images seemingly implying the identities of the Secret Six as they'll appear in future movies. Okay, so there are a couple of interesting things at play here. First of all, this lineup -- assuming it is the lineup -- doesn't include Electro. Since as Jamie Foxx has said, "you can't kill electricity," and since Foxx remains a marketable star in his own right, there was an assumption on the part of many fans that the film would feature his character. As it stands, without Fox, you've got just Paul Giamatti -- who is a critic's and audience favorite but not somebody who generally drives a big box office -- and Dane DeHaan, who may be a box office draw in five years or so when he's more established, but at this point even those who like him aren't engaged enough to see a movie just because it has DeHaan in it. It's also worth pointing out that while these end credits Easter Eggs might hint at the Sinister Six lineup, TheWrap was quick to point out that their sources have indicated that the final lineup has not been decided upon. The Easter Eggs are just meant to be teasers of a possible lineup.

Kraven the Hunter Arguably, Kraven -- while he might be a favorite of all involved -- is the least logical candidate to actually be part of the Sinister Six. His whole schtick -- that he's the world's greatest hunter and Spider-Man is the world's greatest game -- doesn't lend itself to admitting he needs help. And, yes, he's been a frequent member of the Six over the years, but that was after already having been defeated, humilitated and jailed. Calling in a hunting party might make sense to protect your back after you've been mauled by your first bear and lived to tell the tale...but it doesn't ring true for a first time out.

Of course, if there was a a sixth member not teased here, Kraven could be an interesting adversary for the Six in a movie where we're intended to be rooting for the bad guys. Especially if they went the Ultimate route. Ultimate Kraven had a reality show, and his hunt for Spider-Man (at least at first) was more about publicity than anything else.  That could really jive with the above speculation since hunting a superhero would be huge publicity but kind of controversial. Hunting supervillains, on the other hand... All that said, he could just as easily be implemented in a cool and unexpected way. This franchise, like any movie adaptation of comic book source material, has taken its liberties along the way and Kraven could get a whole other motivation for all we know. Too bad we won't have high-school-aged Gwen around to deliver lines like the one at right.

Doctor Octopus

It's hard to guess what they'll do with Doc Ock. We've seen that Oscorp developed the mechanical arms that constitute his "powers," and so it's likely that he'll be a staffer there -- no real surprise given the fact that everything comes out of Oscorp in this franchise. We might even see him as the one who developed some of the other weapons, like the Rhino armor and the Vulture wings. He also might be a she, of course. If you take this lineup at face value, and consider that introducing a bunch of new characters there won't be much time for any of them to have much of a supporting cast, it seems very male-dominated, and it's getting harder and harder to market movies without at least one strong female character...especially if those movies are big-budget blockbusters that are typically much more scrutinized than the average film. Why would Doc Ock be a candidate for a sex change? A couple of reasons. First of all, he's already been used in the Raimi films -- and memorably so. Harry Osborn's Goblin in this film played second fiddle to Electro and was frankly different enough from his Raimi franchise counterpart to minimize the "been there, done that" feeling. It's hrd to imagine how that could be applied to Doctor Octopus to make Otto Octavius's story  not feel like a remake. The other thing is that there exists, in the Spider-Man canon, a female Doctor Octopus.  Created after Doc Ock was "killed" by Kane during the Clone Saga, she was part of a kind of "next generation" approach of "hipper" heroes and villains that was supposed to take hold along with the Ben Reilly era of Spider-Man comics. Bringing a character with such a limited shelf life in the comics to the big screen seems on the one hand like a really bad idea, but on the other hand there's nothing to say she couldn't be handled much better onscreen, considering that -- again -- we aren't doing literal translations of just about any of these characters.

Green Goblin Harry is a great ringleader for this group of maniacs; he's persuasive, wealthy, powerful, controls the sources of their power and ultimately will do anything to get what he wants, since what he wants is the only way for himself to survive. There's a lot less to say about him than the rest, since there isn't a ton of speculation here. If you've seen the second movie, you know what he's all about and you know that, yes, he's obviously going to be part of the group. Don't be too surprised if he's leading mostly from the rear, though, since the whole endgame is to save his life, so putting himself on the front lines is counterintuitive.

Mysterio/Chameleon

It's not clear whether the smoky image above is representative of Mysterio or the Chameleon. To me personally, it seems like Mysterio. Not only is there the smoke, but Marc Webb has spoken in the past about his affection for the character. Other people online have speculated that it's Chameleon since that looks like an eye hold and Mysterio typically doesn't have one of those. Chameleon, for the uninitiated, is a guy whose face is generally totally white and featureless (think Voldemort) but, having begun his existence as a character as a Soviet spy, his "master of disguise" abilities were taken to the Nth degree. In one memorable storyline, he actually convinced Peter that he had Mary Jane hostage (back when the two were married) and used that to lure him to the bridge where Gwen Stacy died. He continued to fool Peter for a while after the two were in close proximity, meaning that his illusion/life model decoy/whatever was so realistic that it actually fooled him into thinking his wife was standing right there when she was not. Mysterio is basically the same thing, but take away "master of disguise" and make him a master manipulator of perception and reality. If Scarecrow from the Batman universe could control the specifics of what you're experiencing, making it outwardly visible and interactive instead of just making your subconscious fears more real in your mind, that's Mysterio. Whoever it is, you can imagine they'll be the distraction and espionage element. With the Daily Bugle getting more significant in this installment and Peter about to start both college and more regular work at the Bugle, it seems a safe bet that there will be a number of new characters who could potentially be villains in disguise.

The Rhino Him, we've already seen. In fact, the fact that he's so easily taken out (we assume) at the end of the film might make him another character who might not actually be in the Six movie, especially if it's true that the lineup isn't yet locked down. That said, Paul Giamatti is a great talent. While he might not bring in the box office bucks, any filmmaker would be hard-pressed to write him out if you could possibly find a use and a justification for keeping him instead.

The Vulture This is another character who might get radically overhauled. A gender or race-swap isn't totally out of the question. What is probably out of the question is anything resembling his "traditional" look in the comics, which is, let's face it, pretty dated and silly. the fact that they're going for a Falcon-style black metal military look in the first place suggests that it will skew younger and more fit, as opposed to the "old buzzard" look of the aging man with the crooked nose and bald head. Ultimate Vulture is a good candidate for this, though. He's still demonstrably older than Peter and Miles, but he's not decrepit -- which doesn't work well when your only real power to speak of is flight...something Spidey can simulate and characters like Electro, Green Goblin and others can do, too. He's even modeled after actor Jason Statham, which would make for a nice "get" if Sony could swing it since he needs a hit right now after a few box office stinkers but there's a lot of affection out there for him on the part of the fans.