So, the most recent Ultimate Spider-Man, Warriors[1], has me thinking about Peter Parker’s foes. Most of the time, they’re dudes that were changed by science like he was, only with more sinister results. Most of them are bit characters, because there are always way more villains than heroes, and the heroes never permanently lose. (Mostly.) You’ve got the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, with whom he shares pretty much a familial bond.[2] But otherwise, most of what he faces is a generic stream of similar villains that he can quite easily quip to death, even without the spider powers. But then there’s the Kingpin.

Wilson Fisk is just a rich guy mob boss type. His henchmen are all just folk too; Elektra has no special mutant or science-run-amok powers that I can figure, and just about everyone else he works with isn’t big-time enough to have a recognizable name. He could be Spider-Man’s least interesting foe, and yet instead I think he may be the best of the bunch. He’s scary smart and he has the power that money brings, even though he’s been laying low due to legal difficulties for practically the entire run of the comic. I guess it’s a lot like Lex Luthor with Superman: the only person who can really compete with an unstoppable force is the one who can out-think it. And okay, Kingpin is a bald rich guy, so maybe there’s a little bit of larcened[3] idea in the character at that. But I don’t really care, because the more important of the two is original, and nowhere near an unstoppable force anyhow, which leaves Kingpin free to be even more of a puppet-master. Case in point: the book that I just finished reviewing, albeit in footnote one.

[1] The actual book? Of course it was fantastic. What do you expect me to say instead, at this point? In a way, there were way too many bit characters from previous continuity (and, okay, also from previous events in this series), but in another way, that managed to work and be really cool itself, even though that kind of thing usually pisses me off. Which is why I keep writing paeans to Brian Michael Bendis. Whatever he’s selling, I apparently keep buying it.
[2] I mean, Norman Osborn created him, and the paternal vibe has been there ever since. All too readily, Harry Osborn falls into the overlooked brother role, and Otto Octavius, self-created but still in Osborn’s employ when it all happens, kind of feels like part of the family to me too. The last part may be a stretch, I admit, but I’m impressed with how neatly Bendis shoehorned the other three characters into these roles, just as though they had always been written this way.
[3] Is that even a word? I bet not.