Background

Alistaire Smythe is the son of Professor Spencer Smythe. His father's fatal obsession with Spider-Man resulted in the young boy being rejected and ignored. Smythe grew to be a fat, greasy, creepy, self-centered misogynist mad-scientist-in-training - and inherited his fathers infatuation with our web-crawling hero.

Smythe found a job with the Kingpin, where he used the crime lord's resources to track down Spider-Man in the now classic Amazing Spider-Man Annual #19. Implanting a tracking device into Aunt May's hat, Smythe hoped to kidnap her and lure Spidey to a trap. Instead, he took Anna Watson and Mary Jane, who managed to trick him into thinking she was Spider-Man. The trap ended in disaster, with Alistaire losing not only his job, but nearly his life, as his flying saucer crashed into high-tension lines.

In Amazing Spider-Man #291-292, Smythe returns... wheelchair bound, and as determined as ever to track down and destroy his arachno-foe. Smythe is now fully reliant on his Spider-Slayers, as he chases Peter Parker across the country (Peter being on the trail of Mary Jane Watson, for purposes matrimonial). Of course, this attempt also ends in crushing defeat, and an intimidated Alistaire Smythe faces an enraged Spider-Man after he is forcefully peeled from his latest ride-in Spider-Slayer.

In the Invasion of The Spider-Slayers (Amazing Spider-Man #368-373), Alistair Smythe enlists the reluctant aid of the patients of the psychiatric institution, including the former assistant of Mendel Stromm, to which he has been committed. He escapes, and attacks Spider-Man (and the Black Cat) with the usual range of Spider-Slaying toys. In the final climactic battle, it is revealed that Alistaire has undergone surgery to be come himself, The Ultimate Spider-Slayer. Sadly for him, he's still not good enough to beat our wall-crawling hero.

Alistaire Smythe was nearly killed by Dr. Octopus II in the Virtual Mortality story line from the Scarlet Spider titles. He returned after the Reboot, once again to exact vengeance on Spider-Man. He failed miserably, and was KO'ed by J. Jonah Jameson with a baseball bat.

Alistaire tried to avenge his family by forcing John Jameson into transforming into the Man-Wolf, shortly after his marriage to Jennifer Walters, the She Hulk. Instead, the transformation helped John realize his destiny as Star God. Smythe returned after the defeat of Norman Osborn's Siege on Asgard. Mac Gargan, the Scorpion, had been one of Osborn's right hand men during the Siege, when he was bonded to the Venom symbiote. Gargan and the symbiote were later separated, which was causing Gargan to slowly die. Smythe broke Gargan out of jail, and performed a few upgrades on him, in order to, you guessed it, take final revenge on their mutual enemy, J. Jonah Jameson.

Smythe returned Gargan to his status as the Scorpion, with a life saving new suit of armor. Alistaire had also upgraded himself as a spider slayer, and formed a small army of other insect themed killers. The insectoid army attacked the Jamesons at a shuttle launch in which John Jameson was an astronaut. Scorpion took on Spidey on the shuttle, while a swarm of Smythe's "locusts" attacked the Senior and Junior J. Jonah Jamesons and Glory Grant. Other locusts attacked Marla Jameson at a day spa and Robbie Robertson at Frontline. Spider-Man defeated Smythe and sent him to Rykers Island, but only after Marla was killed.

He didnt stay there long, as he was taken to a facility in New York after the infestation of Spider Island. The Jackal and the Queen were mutating average citizens into human spiders and Mayor Jameson was losing patience with the slow pace of research by Reed Richards to end the crisis. Jameson expected Smythe to build spider slayers to end the crisis, which Smythe refused to do. Instead he chose to mock Jameson, (after learning that he had also been infected and was changing into a man spider) calling him The Black Widower. In a rage, the mutated Jameson tore out Smythe's throat.

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.