Supervillain Origins: The Sinister Six

Supervillain Origins: The Sinister Six

These guys really hate spiders, so much so that they teamed up! Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we will explore the comic book origins of The Sinister Six.

As with most comic book characters, there are often re-imaginings and different versions to a character’s past. We have chosen to primarily follow the storyline that unfolded in 1964’s The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #01 which expanded upon in 1990’s issues #334-339.

Doctor Octopus originally conceived of this diabolical team-up in response to the webcrawler having regularly foiled his plans. Escaping from prison with only vengeance on his mind, Octopus immediately sought the help of other supervillains that had tried and failed to best the web-slinging hero on their own.

As it turned out, the timing couldn’t have been worse for Spider-Man as the hero was experiencing sudden problems with his abilities. This was caused by a burst of regret and remorse for not having preventing the death of his uncle, while finding himself overcome with the stress of balancing his superhero and teen life.

As Peter Parker found himself a normal teen once more, Doctor Octopus had invited five of Spider-man’s other greatest foes to his hideout. These villains included Electro, Mysterio, the Vulture, Sandman and Kraven the hunter.

Assuming the role of leader, Doctor Octopus revealed his master plan, which consisted of a scheme to force Spider-man to battle them each one by one. This was designed to wear him out. With the order decided by drawing cards at random, each of these cards revealed a location for their battle that would take advantage of their unique skill sets.

The next day, a depressed Peter Parker decided to skip school, going for a walk around the city.

During this time, the Sinister Six captured both Miss Brant, the secretary of the Daily Bugle, as well as Peter’s Aunt May who happened to be nearby. They then instructed the paper’s chief J. Jonah Jameson to tell Spider-man that he would have to rescue their captives.

A powerless Spider-man hoped that the Fantastic Four, Avengers or X-Men could be of assistance, but those teams were unavailable.

Left without a choice, Parker decided to take them on as a normal teenager. This led him to face Electro at the power plant. It was during this battle that Parker regained his sense of purpose and found his powers returning to him.



Defeating Electro by grounding himself and shutting off the power, he went on to his next challenges. These included facing Kraven the Hunter and his tigers in the woods, Mysterio and his robotic evil doppelgangers of the X-Men in his base, Sandman in an iron cell, and the vulture across the city’s skyline.

Finally, Spider-Man came face to face with Doc Oc in a struggle that led underwater. Managing a victory through the use of his webbing, having tangled up Doc Oc, Spider-man saved the captives and had theSinister Six sent to the slammer.

Following this defeat, Doc Oc eventually decided to reunite the Sinister Six, minus Kraven the Hunter who had died.

Plotting vengeance, and aiming to keep the name, they recruited the Hobgoblin to their team. As it turned out, Doc OC had reunited the team only to further his own plan of ruling the world alone. This second iteration of the team was defeated when Sandman had a change of heart and helped Spiderman defeat his former allies.

Following this, the Sinister Six underwent several roster, and even name changes, but all variations continued to seek the same thing, the end of Spider-Man. A popular team-up in any form, the Sinister Six have continued to appear in various media, including video games, cartoons and eventually surfaced within The Amazing-Spiderman live-action film franchise.

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