Background

Quentin Beck had the typical super villain childhood. His mother died at an early age and his father mocked his desire to become an actor in Hollywood. This left him a very shy, self conscious young man.

Beck started his career as a Hollywood stuntman. He later branched into special effects, and within a few months was one of the industries top special effects designers. But Beck grew tried of his continual backstage role and wanted something greater. Unfortunately, he didn't have the looks to be a Hollywood actor. He also had an accident on a set he was working on. An actor caught on fire after one of the pyrotechnic special effects went wrong and Beck was blacklisted from the industry. One day a friend jokingly told him to take out one of the new costumed crime-fighters, that were popping out of the woodwork at the time, if he wanted to make a name for himself. Beck took the idea to heart and began planning to frame and then kill the fledgling Spider-Man.

A skeptical man, Beck doubted that the so called "Marvels" were anything besides creative charlatans who faked their powers. As he set about replicating Spider-Man's powers, he was having trouble coming up with a convincing way to copy his wall crawling ability. He tried to get advice from a fellow special effects expert, Ray Bradhaus, but he refused to divulge his secrets. Mysterio gassed him and then tore apart his mansion, looking for clues as to how he had created a scene in a movie where a monster crawled down a wall. He eventually found what he was looking for, the monster itself. Beck defeated the creature, thinking it was merely a clever special effect. After he left, Bradhaus was awoken by Dr Strange, whom was also a fan of his. It was then that Bradhaus admitted that the computer effect industry had been killing his stop motion effects company and he had used dark magic to create the creature.

After arriving in New York from Los Angeles, Beck entered into a partnership with the Tinkerer to steal industrial and military plans. The two men pooled their genius and developed an alien disguise to mask the true nature of their crime. The scheme was foiled by Spider-Man, but the hero did not see through the villains' disguises. After more planning and study of his foe, Beck attacked Spider-Man as Mysterio, under the approval of the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson, but was soundly defeated.

Mysterio accepted Doctor Octopus's invitation to join Vulture, Electro, Sandman and Kraven the Hunter in the Sinister Six, a group made up of former spider-foes all looking for revenge. Mysterio used robotic versions of the X-Men to attack Spidey, who quickly realized that he wasn't fighting his old allies. Using his Spider-Sense, he found the control room and easily defeated Beck.

Mysterio has fought Spider-Man many times since then, never once hesitating to use innocent people as pawns. He and the Wizard tricked Spidey and the Human Torch into battling each other. Naturally, they discovered the plot and defeated thier enemies. Beck used Maxie Shiffman, Peter Parker's agent before he became a crime fighter, to lure Spidey out to do battle. Most notably was his prolonged campaign with the burglar to recover a fortune from Aunt May's house, which he eventually discovered had been eaten by silverfish.

Beck's self confidence never seemed to really rebound, as he often worked with other criminals. He re-joined the Sinister Six three times. He was used by Doc Ock, tried to get revenge on Ock and reformed the Six to rid themselves of the criminal killer, Kaine. After Kaine killed Octavius, Beck and others (Vulture, Jason Macendale and Electro) tried to steal his adamantium tentacles, but were stopped by Spider-Man and the Scarlet Spider.

He started planning his final revenge, but his long-time enemy Spider-Man was no longer who he knew, but a clone. Ben Reilly faced off against Mysterio and his ally, Armada, when they created the MysteryVision TV channel. MysteryVision was an addictive broadcast that turned its viewers into mindless zombies. I assume the point was to keep people watching the channel, earning Beck inflated TV ratings and thus, mucho dinero.

While being imprisoned in Ravencroft, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and lung cancer, both afflictions beyond help, and both caused by the chemicals Beck had used for years in his illusions. With the maximum estimate of one year to live, and deemed sane and no longer a danger to society, they released him. Not wanting a revenge on such a mere clone, Beck remembered his past meeting with Daredevil, and how intrigued and interesting he was. He bought all the information about Daredevil from the Kingpin, and elaborated a complex plan to drive him mad. He hired Daredevil's nemesis, Bullseye, who killed DD's love, Karen Page. Beck destroyed Foggy Nelson's relation with Liz Osborn and he almost made DD kill an innocent baby. But when it came down to it, Beck's plan to have an insane Daredevil killing him failed, because Matt Murdock wouldn't give him that pleasure. Instead, he breaks him down with words. Beck says his final move is stolen from Kraven, and shoots himself.

Before his death, Mysterio trained his cousin Maguire Beck, the person inside the Conundrum costume and his friend and one-time stand-in Daniel Berkhart in the use of his technology. Berkhart would become his successor, seeking to avenge his friend by tormenting Spidey and Daredevil, as well as pursuing his own personal agenda.

Beck briefly appeared post posthumously at Midtown High. He confronted Miss Arrow, telling her that he knew what she really was. His new masters were watching her, and they wanted to know if she had what it took to kill Spider- Man. She didn't appreciate being lectured by a dead man.

Beck achieved his greatest victory over Spider-Man and never even knew it. Years before he died, he was hired by Norman Osborn to create an elaborate illusion to fool Spider-Man into thinking that Harry Osborn was dead. He also created a genetic duplicate for the funeral (which came in handy when Harry's "body" was exhumed in the "Dynasty of Evil" story) and falsified the autopsy report.

Beck made his big encore after Mephisto erased Peter and Mary Jane's marriage. Being a master of illusion made faking his death to be a very simple matter. He used an animatronic Silvermane to fool the dead criminal's gang into thinking their boss was back. He started a gang war with Mister Negative and nearly escaped with 3.5 billion dollars after killing a lot of Maggia mafia thugs. As he and Daniel and Francis were escaoing NYC in a trash barge, Spider-Man arrived and ruined the escape. Beck launched a surface to air missile at the docks, which were full of cops responding to the fight scene between Mr Megative, "Silvermane" and Spider-Man. Spidey caught it with his web and swung it back to the barge, destroying the ship. Daniel asks if Quentin may have survived, to which Spider-Man replies "Please. He's Mysterio. He's probably half way to Hoboken by now."

Later, Beck is sunning on a rooftop, wishing he were on the tropical island that he had intended to buy with his stolen money. He is approached by the Chameleon, who offers him a job working for the Kravinoffs. Mysterio agrees, and helps fool Spider-Man into trusting Chameleon (posing as Ezekiel Sims). "Ezekiel" took him to the Kravinoff mansion, where he was to be sacrificed to resurrect Sergei Kravinoff. Mysterio and Chameleon rejoined forces as members of the Sinister Six. Doctor Octopus was dying and was planning one last scheme to put earth in its place. However, before he could do that, the Six attacked a group of super criminals called the Intelligencia (M.O.D.O.K., Wizard, Red Ghost, Klaw and Mad Thinker). The Intelligencia had created a machine that used earth's magnetic field to propel any spot on earth into outer space. Ock wanted this threat to his plan destroyed. While the rest of the Six physically fought the Intelligencia, Mysterio was happily playing Angry Birds while his illusions distracted the Red Ghost and his Super Apes.

Quiz: Quick Quiz on Mysterio.

Thanks To:

The assistance of the Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.

Some of the above information is extracted from the various versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent Marvel Encyclopaedias.