Villain Profile: Electro

He's a living Lighting bolt and he's going to strike Spider-Man.

Hey, folks. Sorry to do this again, but I need to postpone my Spider-Man: No Way Home review until next month. I’ve got some real-life issues that took too much of my focus to do that write up. Instead, I’ll be doing the villain profile for one of the villains featured in the film. Who? Why, Electro of course. Electro is one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains, often battling the wall-crawler, but never getting to bug zap Peter Permanently. Despite this, he’s inarguably one of Peter’s most powerful villains and always bounces back to try again. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Iconic? Yes. Stupid?
Also yes.

Maxwell “Max” Dillion had one of your box standard villain origins, his father abandoned him and his mother when he was a kid, mama Dillion worried that Max would leave her too so tried to keep him close and even sabotaging his dreams of becoming an electrical engineer to keep him close to home before she died when he was in his 20s. He had his own failed relationship, where his wife left him for an engineer who made more ambition than he did, making Max more resentful and angrier. While out repair powerlines one day, Max was struck by lightning. Rather than barbequing him, the strike triggered a mutation in Max, turning him into a living electrical capacitor. Just the simple movement of his muscles generate bolts of electricity. Initially, his powers were weak, but he stole Stark Industries tech to supercharge and enhance himself further. He kept to small crimes until he jumped up to murder, electrocuting a small-time thug he owed money. He dubbed himself Electro, then, and set his sights on the Daily Burgle for his first big crime. He broke into the office off Editor-in-Chief J. Jonah Jameson and stole his safe before Jameson’s own eyes. For some reason, Jameson thought Electro was Spider-Man in disguise, prompting Peter to clear his name for like the 47^th time. Electro was initially hard to defeat, his electrified body effectively making him a bug zapper to Spider-Man’s touch, but Peter eventually got him using a firehose to short him out.

 

Electro returned to battle Spider-Man as a member of the original Sinister Six, working under Doc Ock. He was the first of the Six to battle Spider-Man, leading the wall-crawler to a Stark Powerplant where Electro supercharged himself. Peter, believing himself to have lost his powers earlier, realize this wasn’t the case when he dodged Electro’s lightning strikes. Spider-Man was able to shut down the powerplant, cutting off Electro’s power and defeating him. He handed over a card telling Peter where to go to fight Kraven the Hunter. FYI, the original Sinister Six was Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture and Doc Ock. Yeah, wasting one of your heaviest hitters in the first fight when Peter is at his freshest is very dumb, but Otto obviously wanted to be the one to kill him, and Otto is always willing to sacrifice a plan to get vengeance.

 

I don't think there've been heroes
that have gotten as many kinds of
burns as Peter Parker.

While Electro’s personal beef is with Spider-Man, he often works as a mercenary for other criminal types, so he’s faced off against several MCU heroes. He’s mostly gone up against Spider-Man allies and friends Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. His power has grown substantially over the years, making him a threat to all these heroes. He’s also been approached once or twice to join the Brotherhood of Mutants by Magneto. Apparently, he’s powerful enough that Magneto is willing to overlook the fact he’s not a natural born mutant. He’s joined several iterations of the Sinister Six and is usually the most powerful single member. Despite his immense electrical powers, he’s more of a follower than a leader so he’s more often than not working for someone else other than for himself. Power doesn’t make you smart.

 

Max Dillon was once a normal man with some skill as an electrical engineer. He gained his superpowers after being struck by lightning while holding live high-tension wires. He gained the ability to generate and absorb electrical energy, up to one million volts. While charged, he’s also superhumanly strong and fast. He’s can fly, initially just over electrical wires using the electricity within to give him lift but has since evolved to fly on electrical currents themselves. He can manipulate magnetism to a degree, much like Magneto. If he has an external power source, he can further enhance his powers. His biggest weakness is due to short circuiting. Throw water on him and he’ll overload and be rendered powerless for a short time. But, if he has enough power, he can protect himself from water by generating a powerful enough electromagnetic field to vaporize water. He also has a minor ability to control electronics.

 

Electro is one of Spider-Man’s more powerful and recurring villains. Most shows will include him at one point or another, and he appears sin most games. I’ll focus on the versions that I have some experience with.

 

The first Electro that I was introduced to wasn’t technically Max Dillon. In Spider-Man: TAS, he’s introduced as Rheinholt Schmidt in the multipart episode Six Forgotten Warriors. He worked alongside the Chameleon to manipulate Spider-Man, the Kingpin and the Insidious Six to gather the keys to activate the Red Skull’s doomsday weapon. He’s the biological son of Red Skull and Chameleon his stepbrother. They retrieve the Red Skull from the extradimensional prison he’d spent the last 50 years fighting Captain America in. The doomsday weapon it turns out is a device that turns Schmidt into Electro. Spider-Man, with the aid of the Six Forgotten Warriors and Captain America, recapture Red Skull and throw Electro into the prison as well, defeating him.

 

If I poked his face, would I lose a finger?

Max Dillon appears in the Spectacular Spider-Man. He appears in the episode “Interactions.” He’s an electrician hired to upgrade the electrical filter on a tank of electric eels. Dr.’s Kurt and Martha Connors are running an experiment to try to turn genetically modified electric eels as an energy source. An accident occurs and he’s electrocuted by the eels. He starts emitting a powerful electrical field and put into quarantine. He frees himself and goes on a violent spree. Peter battles him twice before drawing him back to the Connors lab to try to stop him. He’s able to knock Electro into a pool of water that shorts him out and knocks him out. He goes to prison but is released early for good behavior. This turns out to be a ruse in “Group Therapy” where he frees Doc Ock, Vulture, Sandman, Rhino, and Shocker to form the Sinister Six. They’re able to overcome Peter at first but are kind of obliterated by a Venom controlled unconscious Peter a short time later. He returns as part of the Sinister Six in “Reinforcements” and “Shear Strength.”

 

All these years later, I still wonder what
was with that chip in his head.

Jamie Foxx portrayed Max Dillon in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. This version is a nobody looser that worships Spider-Man, having a little shrine to the webslinger in his apartment. He’s saved by Peter from being hit by a speeding truck which makes him idolize him more. Max is forced on his birthday to fix a powerline at the Oscorp Electrical plant. An accident occurs and he falls into one of the tanks of electric eels that they’re experimenting with for power. Max is seemingly killed, but is revived at the hospital with blue skin and lightning powers. He stumbles into Times Square, where Peter tries to talk him down. But, a sniper shot sets “Electro” off and he starts attacking everyone. Peter is able to stop him by hosing him off and he’s taken to Ravencroft for study. He’s freed by Harry Osborn, who wants to use him to get control of Oscorp back and get payback against Spider-Man. After getting Harry into the building and killing his rivals, Harry lets Max take over the city’s power gird as payment. He faces off against Spider-Man, who with help from Gwen Stacey can trap him long enough to get the grid up and running again, overloading Electro with power. This version, by the way, is designed after the Ultimate Comic’s run, which ditched his Green and Yellow costume for a blue skin look.

 

Name a bigger suit upgrade.

Foxx returns as Electro in Spider-Man: No Way Home. He is one of five villains brought into the MCU from alternate realities when Peter accidentally ruins a spell Doctor Strange was trying to use to make people forget he’s Spider-Man. He’s initially a sort of electrical wraith, but after absorbing enough electricity takes on physical form again. Though now looking like Jamie Foxx and not the nerd caricature he was in his own dimension. He’s captured and brought to the Sanctum Santorum. Upon learning that most of these villains will die upon returning to their home dimension, Peter choses to try to help them rather than send them back to die. Dr. Strange initially disagrees, but Peter traps him in a mirror dimension so he can work. Peter and an in-control Norman Osborn make a device to free Doc Ock from his tentacles’ control and make a device to drain enough of Electro’s electricity to return him to normal. He has a pretty good moment when he and Sandman agree that they need to be careful where they fall. Before the device finishes, Norman switches back to the Goblin and the villains all riot. Electro steals an arc reactor and hooks it up to himself. He and the other villains escape, only to be drawn to the Statue of Liberty to battle Spider-Man (MCU), Spider-Man (Raimi) and Spider-Man (Webb). He’s depowered, and laments that he’s a nobody again, but his Spider-Man tells him that he, Max, was never a nobody. Both are returned to their home dimension in the finale. His inclusion in this story is a bit odd, as the villains that were drawn in were supposed to be people that know Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and Electro freely admits he didn’t even know Peter was white in the finale. But whatever. Oh, and when he’s using the Arc reactor for power, when he unleashes electricity, his face has the Star shaped pattern of his classic costume in lightning to form.

 

He has appeared in nearly every Spider-Man game. He’s the central antagonist of Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, where he, Shocker, Sandman, Beetle and Hammerhead work to steal a device that powers up him into living lightning. He’s ultimately defeated and imprisoned with his cronies. He also appears as one of the Sinister Six in Marvel’s Spider-Man on the PS4. Funnily, he’s voiced by Josh Keaton, who has played Spider-Man several times. Over the course of the game, Peter dubs him his first real super-powered villain, as up to that point in his career he’d only fought guys in suits. He and Vulture fight Spider-Man together and are ultimately defeated together.

 

Electro is one of my favorite villains of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, mostly for his immense electrical powers. If I could give myself powers right this second, they’d be lightning powers. He’s flashy and flamboyant, and its always a treat to see him give Spider-Man electrical burns. Thankfully for Peter, he’s kind of dumb so Max has never run much risk of outsmarting and defeating Peter. I really enjoyed his return to the MCU, as Foxx is just fun to watch as this villain that is kind of high on living in a new universe. The movie doesn’t confirm if Peter curing the villains did anything, but I hope if it did, that Electro got to keep his sexier look in his home dimension. I’d hate to both lose my powers and my new looks in the same blow. He’s one of Spider-Man’s most powerful villains that he faces on a regular basis, so we’ll probably see him again in more projects. He’s the Lively Lightning Lobbing ‘Lectrician, Electro. Ha, been a while since I’ve done the alliteration thing, I missed it. Have a good night, everyone. 

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