Greetings True Believers,
For today's showcase, we will visit the Spider-Verse and discuss the origin of the villain known simply s the Spot. You may not realize this, but the Spot has been around for close to 40 years. He has fought many of Marvel's best, including villains, but he will always be known for his association with Spider-Man. Let's take a look at the life of Jonathan Ohnn aka the Spot.
An MIT scientist, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn, was working for the Kingpin to reproduce the radiation levels of the superhero Cloak to find a way to artificially mimic his powers. Working late one night, he succeeded creating a solid black circular portal. In doing so, however, the drain on the city's power became so great, a blackout washed over the city, causing the portal to shimmer and destabilize. Fearful of losing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Ohnn stepped into it. The shock of the transition caused him to pass out and he awoke floating weightlessly in a dimension which he initially assumed was Cloak's dark dimension. He soon realized however that the power shortage caused the portal to send him to a different dimension, a place of half darkness and half light. A seemingly infinite number of portals surrounded him in this place. He managed to find the original portal that brought him there and slipped back through it. When he emerged back into his lab, he noticed his body had undergone a radical transformation. It appeared that the portals from the other dimension had adhered to his skin, covering him with black spots from head to toe. Realizing the spots were portable space warps, he started to think he might be able to use them to defeat anyone in battle. When Spider-Man and Black Cat arrived to confront Kingpin, he appeared before them and announced himself as the Spot. Spider-Man collapsed on the roof, laughing at the name. The Spot ended up winning that first confrontation and warned the heroes to leave the Kingpin alone. He later lost a second battle against Spider-Man because he was tricked into throwing too many of his spots as weapons and not keeping enough to defend himself with.
Spot later formed a short-lived team with Gibbon, Grizzly, and Kangaroo called the Spider-Man Revenge Squad, which was better known as the Legion of Losers. This team fell apart when Spider-Man carted the Spot and the Kangaroo to jail for bank robbery and Grizzly and Gibbon left the group as they disagreed with their teammates' more ruthless approach.
The Spot later helped Tombstone escape from a maximum security prison. As thanks, Tombstone snapped his neck. As they always do in comics, he reappeared alive months later and has been seen off and on since. Well, that is until 2022, when he clashed with Carnage. I don't think that is one death he will come back from.
Publication Information
Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance:
Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #97 (December 1984)
Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #98 (January 1985)
Created by Al Milgrom & Herb Trimpe
Team Affiliations:
- The Hand
- Legion of Losers
- MODOK's 11
- Sinister Sixteen
Powers and Abilities
Using his space warps, the Spot can instantly move himself or any part of his body from one area to another over a theoretically unlimited distance via another dimension nicknamed "Spotworld."
The Spot can control and manipulate the warps to almost any degree he wishes. He can expand or shrink them to any size, or he can join together multiple spots to form one larger warp. The spots are unaffected by gravity and can be placed against a surface or left suspended in mid-air. He can also designate which spots will lead to the spot dimension from those that will instantly lead to another location in this dimension. He can create new spots, or close them entirely by retreating into his dimension and pulling the warp in behind him.
His preferred method of attack is to surround his opponent with numerous spots, allowing him to punch or kick them from unexpected angles across great distances. This proved very effective against Spider-Man as his spider-sense was unable to detect incoming attacks from another dimension.
Due to Spot's connection to "Spotworld", he appears to possess a form of immortality, being capable of speech even after having been decapitated; and if his physical body is fatally-wounded it will disintegrate and reconstitute itself in the Spotted Dimension. (So, I guess there is hope he survived being ripped apart at the hands of carnage.)
Until next time, get your READ on!
