Quentin BeckMysterio

Mysterio is a master illusionist who never gets the credit he deserves. Seeking fame, he turns to a life of criminal conquests, and uses his Hollywood training as a special-effects artist to craft mind-bending visions. His goal: take down his number one enemy, Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man.

Making an Entrance

Quentin Beck suffers a lonely childhood; his father spends more time talking to Quentin’s late mother than to him, and belittles Quentin on the rare occasions when he deigns to speak to him. His sole companions include his neighbor, Betsy Schneider, and his cousin Maguire, whose father, Vincent, gives Beck an old movie camera. 

Beck grows up to become a successful Hollywood stuntman and special effects designer, but eventually becomes frustrated with his lack of recognition and turns to crime. Hired by Phineas T. Mason, AKA Tinkerer, Beck teams up with a group of his Hollywood colleagues, all disguised as aliens, to steal industrial and military secrets, until Spider-Man’s interference disrupts their scheme.

Inspired by this encounter and a Daily Bugle article, he begins studying Spider-Man. Mechanically duplicating the Super Hero’s powers, Beck commits several robberies disguised as the web-slinger, then fights and defeats the real Spider-Man in the costumed guise of Mysterio. Supported by Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, Beck defeats Spider-Man again in an abandoned movie studio, then boasts how he has achieved it all. Unknown to Beck, Spider-Man records him, and Mysterio ends up defeated and arrested.

Master Illusionist

Beck is a skilled prestidigitator, hypnotist, stuntman, disguise artist, chemist, special effects designer and roboticist.

Mysterio’s costume can emit various gasses, including a mildly sedative smokescreen, a knockout gas, a will-sapping hypnogenic, and a powerful hallucinogen. The suit enhances Beck’s strength. His helmet contains a half-hour air supply, and a sonar device that allows him to navigate through his own smokescreen and disrupt Spider-Man’s spider-sense; the helmet also projects a “psychedelic power” effect. His gloves can emit a web-dissolving spray, fireballs, or electric bolts. Magnetic plate springs in his boots allow him to leap great distances, and his cape is electrically charged. His costume and cape also feature multiple hidden holograms, lasers, mirrors, and other illusion-casting devices. He occasionally carries rubber-duck grenades, a tranquilizer dart gun, an electromagnetic disruptor pistol, and “monster” prosthetics lined with needles to make a victim feel they were undergoing a painful transformation. While posing as Spider-Man, he wears a costume with suction cups in the palms and soles and a nylon-based “web-shooter.”

Beck employs various combat and surveillance robots, and also uses robotic duplicates of himself to avoid capture. He uses a flying sphinx-shaped craft equipped with a virtual reality engine, which can project holographic illusions anywhere within a five-mile radius. As a member of the Sinister Six and Sinister Seven, Beck occasionally uses high-tech firearms. He briefly possesses a digital imaging transmission (DIT) chip, which allows him to create television programming using only his thoughts. He frequently uses elaborate sets and costumed actors to enhance his illusions.

Since his apparent return from Hell, Mysterio has been seen to teleport and generate and manipulate hellfire.

Super Hero Foes

Spider-Man is Mysterio’s superhuman foe. At first obsessed with him, Mysterio artificially mimics the wallcrawler’s natural abilities and poses as Spider-Man, framing him for criminal acts. He creates a separate identity, Mysterio, to defeat the criminal “Spider-Man” and receive the hero recognition he craves so much after receiving little recognition in Hollywood. They share many battles and Spider-Man typically defeats Mysterio’s illusions, which land him in jail.

The superpowered children, the Power Pack, Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, Moonbeam, AKA Dead Girl, and Edith Constance Sawyer, AKA U-Go Girl, all face off with Mysterio at one time or another. Together or separate, they typically defeat his illusions, sending him to jail or even Hell itself.

The homicidal clone of Spider-Man, Kaine, goes on a killing spree to murder Spider-Man’s foes, and Ben Reilly, AKA Scarlet Spider, another clone goes up against Mysterio in his attempts to protect himself and the Sinister Seven from Kaine. Mysterio comes up against Reilly again later, but ultimately suffers defeat and capture by the authorities.

Super Villainous Allies

Quentin Beck is raised by his father Elmore, who pays little attention to him since he spends most of his time grieving his late wife and Quentin’s mother, Henrietta. Beck’s closest friends growing up include his cousin Maguire, who later becomes Mad Jack, and his neighbor, Betsy Schneider whom he later dates.

Out-of-work movie extras and stuntmen join Mysterio and all disguise themselves as ersatz aliens to steal industrial and military secrets. First hired by the Tinkerer, they operate out of The Tinkerer Repair Shop, but they disband after Spider-Man interrupts their plans. Mysterio reunites the “aliens” when he needs to do so.

Mysterio often allies himself with others to take down his ultimate foe, Spider-Man, including the Sinister Six and Sinister Seven, Bentley Wittman, AKA Wizard, Norman Osborn, AKA Green Goblin, and he even trains apprentices to help him in his criminal acts. His students include his cousin Mad Jack, Daniel Berkhart, AKA Mysterio, and Conundrum.

A History of Illusions

Next, Beck joined with Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus, and four other criminals to form the Sinister Six, but they had no better luck defeating Spider-Man as a group than they did as individuals. Beck then posed as psychiatrist Dr. Ludwig Rinehart, who convinced Spider-Man that he was going mad and could only be cured by revealing his secret identity. Just as the hero was about to do that, however, he was interrupted by Jameson, who had just learned that “Rinehart” was a fraud. His plan spoiled, Beck was sent back to jail. 

Upon his release, Beck abducted Jameson and framed Spider-Man for the publisher’s murder. Imprisoning Jameson in a simulated Hell, an emboldened Beck began dating Betsy Schneider. He came to suspect that Betsy was only using him to further her writing career, however, and cruelly rejected her, sending her into the arms of would-be Super Hero, Joe Smith. Beck then unleashed his experimental virtual reality engine on New York City, but Spider-Man defeated him while Smith deactivated the VR engine.

In yet another revenge plan, Mysterio allied with the Wizard to manipulate Spider-Man and Johnny Storm, AKA Human Torch, into destroying one another; after that failed, Beck escaped prison and devised a series of elaborate traps in an abandoned amusement park, convincing Spider-Man that he was only six inches high. Spider- Man again overcame the illusions and defeated Mysterio. 

After a failed attempt to rob subway turnstiles to fund further vengeance against Spider-Man, Beck was sent back to jail, where he taught his cellmate Daniel Berkhart the secrets of his illusions. Faking his own death, Beck readopted his Ludwig Rinehart alias and assumed control of Long Island’s Restwell Nursing Home, running a scam to bilk his elderly patients, who included Parker’s Aunt May, out of their life savings. 

After amassing a tidy sum, he ran afoul of the Burglar who had killed May’s husband, Ben. Seeking a massive fortune that gangster Dutch Mallone had hidden in May’s house, the Burglar offered to cut “Rinehart” in on the heist. Figuring he could dispose of the Burglar once he knew the treasure’s location, Beck faked May’s death so the Burglar could abduct her. Her nephew recognized “Rinehart,” however, and confronted him as Spider-Man after battling various illusions. Beck escaped, and Peter later confronted the Burglar, who died of a heart attack. In a subsequent attempt to acquire the money (which, unknown to Beck or the Burglar, had been eaten by silverfish years ago), Beck reunited his team of ersatz aliens to interrogate May’s nephew, unaware that he was Spider-Man.

Defeated by Spider-Man and his friend Debra Whitman, Beck soon escaped jail and challenged Spider-Man to a duel at the Daily Bugle, where he encountered the alien Chief Examiner (whom Spider-Man had mistaken for Mysterio) before Spider-Man humiliated him once more. Around this time, Beck also began training three apprentices: his cousin Maguire, Daniel Berkhart, and the enigmatic Conundrum.

After a failed plot to make Spider-Man believe that he had killed an innocent bystander, Beck was left in dire financial straits. The Headmen hired him to capture Jennifer Walters, AKA She-Hulk, with an invasion force of fake Toad Men, but he quickly betrayed his employers to Spider-Man upon realizing they had cheated him out of his fee. 

Mysterio then tried to terrify the inhabitants of an apartment building into selling it to him, only to be exposed by the preteen super team, Power Pack. 

Doctor Octopus subsequently coerced him into rejoining the Sinister Six in a plot to hold the world for ransom, but Beck bailed when he realized that Octopus was using the group for his own ends. Beck and the remaining four members of the Sinister Six briefly sought vengeance against Octavius, but instead let themselves be drawn into a scheme to gain control of Hydra’s orbital weapons. Feeling distrust towards Doctor Octopus, he planned to betray him and the others to showcase his power. During a heated battle against a plethora of heroes, Beck turned the heroes against each other, only to be knocked unconscious by Michael Collins, AKA Deathlok. 

By now somewhat unhinged, possibly due to exposure to his own hallucinogens, Mysterio recruited Spider-Man’s old agent Maxie Shiffman in a failed attempt to loosen the wallcrawler’s grip on reality. 

Norman Osborn subsequently hired Beck to help fake his son Harry’s death, replacing the comatose Harry with a convincing fake corpse. After attending Robert Brasman, AKA Brass Bishop’s auction of the corpses of Chinese mutants Silver and Auric in Canada, Beck hired a man to impersonate Spider-Man and publicly unmask himself, thus framing the real Spider-Man as an imposter. The scheme briefly succeeded, even fooling Jameson, but once more Mysterio went down in defeat.

After homicidal Spider-Man clone, Kaine, killed Dr. Octopus, Beck posed as Octavius’ lawyer “Mr. Gerdes” to acquire Octavius’ information on various underworld figures. Manipulating Octavius’ cousin, Elias Hargrove, into reuniting the remnants of the Sinister Six, Beck stole a disk containing the information, but was forced to destroy it to escape the Scarlet Spider, another Parker clone. With Kaine continuing to murder Spider-Man’s foes, Beck joined the Sinister Seven at Jason Macendale, AKA Hobgoblin’s behest. Their attempt to kill Kaine failed, although Beck nearly manipulated Spider-Man and Kaine into killing each other. 

Returning to his showbiz roots, Beck assumed the identity of Randolph Hines and set up a TV network, “Mystery Vision,” which sent addictive subliminal signals to viewers, who became mesmerized by it. Using armored criminal David Breyer, AKA Armada, as his lackey, Beck tricked the new Spider-Man, Reilly, into becoming part of his programming by planting receivers on his costume’s lenses. Uncovering the plot, Reilly destroyed Mystery Vision’s transmitter—and while a backup generator continued to broadcast their programming, the ratings plummeted without the subliminal messages. Exposed as a fraud, Beck was arrested once more. 

Escaping from jail, Beck and Armada made Spider-Man believe that he had been shrunk by trapping him in a giant set full of deadly robotic toys. Once more, the web-slinger was victorious, but Mysterio escaped, leaving Armada to take the fall. He next collaborated with his old special-effects colleague Garrison Peabody to fake a series of Super Villain attacks on New York in order to drive the sales of superhuman damage insurance, but was foiled by Daredevil. 

Gustav Fiers subsequently recruited Beck into a new Sinister Six in an attempt to destroy the world’s financial system. While in Ravencroft Asylum following that scheme’s failure, Beck discovered that the chemicals he used in his various gasses and poisons had given him terminal cancer. Desiring to make a grand exit from the world, and unwilling to “waste” his talents on a replacement Spider-Man (and apparently unaware that Parker had become Spider-Man once more), Mysterio targeted Daredevil. 

Murdering and impersonating special effects legend Jonathan Curtain in order to acquire his fortune, Beck bought knowledge of Daredevil’s secret identity from Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, and began systematically destroying Murdock’s life. After framing Foggy Nelson for murder, hiring Bullseye to murder Karen Page, and manipulating Murdock into believing an infant was the anti-Christ, Mysterio revealed himself as the plot’s mastermind. He tried to goad Daredevil into killing him, but the hero mocked Beck instead—prompting Beck to fatally shoot himself. Afterwards, Berkhart claimed Beck’s Mysterio mantle and allied himself with Maguire Beck to torment Beck’s enemies.

Beck was apparently one of the deceased super menaces who joined the ghostly Pitiful One’s rampage in New York City before Doctor Strange and Dead Girl stopped them. As punishment, deceased X-Force member U-Go Girl, teleported Beck and Sergei Kravinoff, AKA Kraven the Hunter, to a deeper layer of Hell.

Suffering in Hell for his sins for what seemed like an eternity, Mysterio was found by the demonic Kindred—the shared identity of the cloned Stacy twins posing as Harry Osborn. Kindred offered Mysterio a deal, do his bidding and be restored to life with abilities. The apparently demonic Mysterio manifested at Midtown High School to observe the conflict between Spider-Man, Berkhart and Francis Klum, AKA Mysterio, another one of Beck’s would-be successors. After challenging Klum to defeat his adversaries, Beck encountered the supernatural being Ero (then masquerading as school nurse Miss Arrow) and urged her to keep Parker on as a teacher at Midtown High.

Kindred also offered him a portal to a new life in another universe, Earth-1610, where a teenage Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, existed. Mysterio spent time there but also sent android avatars of himself through the portal.  While in reality-1610, Mysterio succeeded at slaying the Kingpin of Crime of Earth-1610, and the deed was witnessed by Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat. He continued to go up against Earth-1610’s Spider-Man, suffering defeat at every turn. Mysterio soon caught Black Cat stealing from Fisk’s office, only to drive her away and find what she was after: the Zodiac Key. Using the key, he toyed with the Cat but his machinations caught the attention of Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, and Spider-Man. Mysterio took Iron Man down by using the key to destroy his armor, and Mysterio fought the remaining heroes. Iron Man soon defeated Mysterio’s avatar and recovered the key. 

In his home reality, Mysterio soon rejoined Doctor Octopus and the Sinister Six in his home reality of Earth-616. But in a strange turn of events, he betrayed Doc Ock and helped Spider-Man root him out from his hideout.

His crooked plans as a criminal in reality-1610 were eventually upended by the Spider-Men of that world. Locked up and interrogated by that reality’s Iron Man about Galactus, Mysterio revealed that Galactus was defeated by his world’s Reed Richards, and suggested that they contact their own Reed or his world’s. 

After the Multiverse ended and was subsequently restored, Mysterio found himself back in his world and up to his old ways, out to get revenge on Spider-Man. He hacked into Parker Industries’ Webware network to send out illusions to control people. The merc with a mouth Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, noticed that both Spider-Men, Parker and Morales, were suffering from a mass hallucination and helped put a stop to it by driving his buggy into Mysterio. Deadpool, not wanting to kill anyone, gave him CPR, saving his life. Mysterio was airlifted to a hospital. 

While recovering from head trauma, shattered bones, a punctured lung and spleen, Mysterio soon had Spider-Man and Deadpool as visitors. Deadpool left him a strange device by his bedside, which he used to torture Parker in Limbo, where Parker was stuck. Deadpool soon rescued Parker, and Mysterio made his escape from the hospital.

When Beck’s android daughter Misty Beck, AKA Mysteria, reached out to him to become Mysterio again, she coaxed him with knowledge of a temple of Cyttorak, which contained the being’s power. However, Mysteria attempted to slay her father, and Mysterio in turn stabbed her to obtain the power of Cyttorak for himself, becoming Mysterio once again. Scarlet Spider intervened and blaming him for Misty’s death, he lashed out with his new power from Cyttorak. It the battle, Mysterio lost his hand, but Cassie St. Commons, AKA Dusk, and ally of the Scarlet Spider, helped Beck to the hospital so that it could be reattached.

Mysterio spent time in the Bedford Hills Psychiatric Hospital until Claudine Renko, AKA Miss Sinister, pulled him out to help her against Logan from Earth-21923. They joined a newer iteration of Hydra, but Mysterio soon found out that his boss and her allies were going to betray him, so he allied with Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, and Logan instead. He then used an illusion to escape while the heroes fought the villains, and made his way back to the comfort of Bedford Hills.

He soon began seeing Kindred and coordinated a successful escape from Bedford. Posing as Ludwig Rinehart again, he made therapist Dr. Winhorst believe he was Mysterio, allowing Beck to survive Kindred’s assassination, though Winhorst perished. Beck continued living in disguise, but this time as Cage McKnight, producing a sympathetic biopic about Mysterio with lead actress Mary Jane Watson, a close personal friend to Peter Parker. McKnight avoided her and when she cornered him about it and threatened to quit, he revealed his true face. He begged her to stay on and help him tell his story to make right by someone he failed, the person she was slated to portray. Convinced, she continued working with him on the film, which faced an attack by the Savage Six. Mysterio, MJ and the crew fought them off successfully.