Ultimate Marvel Puts a Twist on Little-Known Spider-Man Villains From the ‘90s

May 7, 2025, 10:15pm

Quentin Beck’s Mysterio may be the Master of Illusions, but Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man pulled off a trick right in front of our eyes. April’s issue #16 revealed that the fishbowl-helmeted Mysterio — the most mysterious member of the Kingpin Wilson Fisk’s Sinister Six, which included Martin Li/Mr. Negative, Walter Hardy/Black Cat, Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter, and Mole Man — is actually Gwen Stacy-Osborn, Oscorp CEO and the wife of Harry Osborn (secretly the vigilante Green Goblin).

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But Ultimate Mysterio is also Quentin Beck, because there isn’t one Mysterio. There are five. Gwen took the place of her late father, George Stacy, in the mystical collective called Mysterio, a cabal that knows the truth about Marvel’s new Ultimate Universe: Earth-6160 has been altered by the Maker (a multiversal Reed Richards), who rules the world from the shadows with his secret council of supervillains.

“The world is a lie. And only through embracing those lies and becoming a master of them can we truly see,” Gwen said when undergoing the Mysterio ritual. “Our craft is old. Older than the lie. Our power is ageless. The amulet passed from sire to spawn. One to wear it. Five to share it. We are… Mysterio.”

After Oscorp absorbed Stane/Stark Industries following the deaths of Norman Osborn, Obadiah Stane, and Howard Stark, Gwen learned the real history of the world. “The world is an illusion fabricated by one man,” she told the gathering of Mysterios. “One man telling a lie big enough to deceive all of humanity.” (Hickman’s Ultimate Invasion revealed that the Maker used time travel to remake the world, a divergent reality that would have resembled Earth-616 before the Maker’s interference in the year 1963.)

The issue then revealed that Gwen-Mysterio faked Harry’s death in Ultimate Spider-Man #14, and that she killed Kraven when he unmasked and hunted Spider-Man and the Green Goblin in the Savage Land. With the world believing him to be dead, Harry’s Green Goblin and Gwen’s Mysterio could take the fight to the Maker.

It’s a twist rooted in the main universe. At a time when Harry Osborn had succumbed to the Goblin Formula (dying in 1993’s Spectacular Spider-Man #200), Peter Parker learned that Norman Osborn survived being impaled by his own Goblin glider (in 1973’s classic Amazing Spider-Man #122) and that the original Green Goblin masterminded the Clone Saga (in 1996’s Spider-Man #75). Marvel published a one-shot comic, Spider-Man: The Osborn Journals, explaining the events leading up to the retcon and how Norman pulled the strings while in hiding in Europe.

Norman was drawn to the Cabal of Scrier, a secret, centuries-old group who sought the acquisition of unlimited wealth, power, and control in the name of the supernatural Scrier. He took over that shadowy cabal and later joined another in the Gathering of Five.

1998’s Sensational Spider-Man #32 was the first issue in the five-part Gathering of Five spanning issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man and adjectiveless Spider-Man, named after the gathering of five people and five ancient artifacts to grant them power through scientific and supernatural means.

Whereas the Ultimate Mysterios pass an amulet between their five members, the Five’s ritual was based on five fragments that, when gathered, would grant five “gifts.” Invoking the Rites of the Five ritual was a risk, but once he acquired all five fragments, Norman had his Five willing to be granted one of five “gifts”: Power. Knowledge. Immortality. Madness. Death.

In 1998’s Amazing Spider-Man #441, the Five cast the spell and each received their “gift”: Power (Osborn), Knowledge (Mattie Franklin), Immortality (Gregory Herd), Madness (Morris Maxwell), and Death (Madame Web). Except the ceremony of the Five had one more twist: the gift of Power was actually Mattie’s (who became Spider-Woman), and Osborn’s “gift”
was something he had all along: Madness. Like with Mysterio, everything was not what it seemed to be.

Ultimate Spider-Man #16 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.