Very little is known about the criminal known as the Tinkerer. First encountered by Spider-Man early in the webspinner's career, he appeared to be the leader of an alien task force attempting to control the world. Though Spider-Man stopped the "invasion", the Tinkerer got away leaving behind only a rubber mask, leaving a confused Spider-Man to ponder just who or what the Tinkerer really was.

Years later, Spider-Man learns that the Tinkerer is an ordinary man who has an extraordinary talent for anything mechanical, and his "aliens" were really movie stuntmen in costumes, doing his dirty work.

The Tinkerer has in recent years been inventing armor and weapons for various super-criminals, including the Beetle, the Big Wheel, Hobgoblin (Jason Macendale), and the Constrictor. To date Tinkerer has eluded capture.