Background

Dr. Jonathan Ohnn was a scientist working for Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, during an unusually intense series of attacks; crimelords Micah Synn and Silvermane, as well as heroes Spider-Man and the Black Cat, encountered the Kingpin during this time.

One of the toughest blows in this period came when Fisk's henchman, The Answer, disappeared after restoring the light-heroine Dagger. The Kingpin expected his scientists to create a new henchman, and the earliest lead came when devices in the Fisk Building successfully analyzed the radiation frequency of Dagger's partner, Cloak.

Ohnn made it his job to duplicate the frequency, and, working late one night, he succeeded, creating a portal into Cloak's Dimension of Darkness. However, the drain on the city's power was so great that, before New York City could black out, the portal shimmered.

Desperate to see where the portal led before it could disappear entirely, Ohnn stepped inside. He passed out from the shock, waking up in a dimension of half-darkness, half-light; the portal to this new dimension was created when the power shortage affected the radiation wavelength. Ohnn found the correct portal home in a realm of portals; the dark half of this dimension appeared as floating black spots.

When Ohnn stepped back into his lab, he was covered in the spots from that other dimension, and though he didn't realize it at the time, the rest of his body was pure white. When Ohnn tried to brush the spots off his body, his hand sank into one. After the initial shock, Ohnn realized the spots were portable space warps, and this discovery started him thinking that he might be capable of defeating anyone in battle. He decided to test his powers against an enemy, and Spider-Man and the Black Cat were the first to arrive at the Fisk Building.

The two heroes arrived on top of the building, disabling the security devices. After they finished, the Black Cat tried to enter the building, only to run into a space warp and land several blocks away. After she vanished, Ohnn stepped through another space warp, and announced himself to Spider-Man as The Spot. Spider-Man collapsed on the roof, laughing at the name.

Spider-Man finally did get up and throw a punch, only to have it sink into a space warp on Spot's body. Spider-Man emerged from their first battle largely unharmed, since Spot's punches are those of a man with below-normal strength. However, Spot was the clear victor, and he came away from the fight with a better understanding of his powers.

Using the roof of the Fisk Building as his expected future battleground, Spot left several space warps scattered in various positions. Spider-Man arrived again to face the Kingpin, and Spot appeared and fought him instead. Spot was more aggressive in their second fight, scattering more and more space warps to attack Spider-Man from any position. This proved to be Spot's downfall, as he eventually threw enough of the spots off his own body that he left himself vulnerable to attack. With just a few punches, Spider-Man traumatized the Spot into believing that he was not cut out to be a super-villain.

Despite largely favorable fan response and an appearance on a classic Spider-Man poster ("Old and New", featuring older Spider-Man characters on a poster half with the original costume, and newer characters on the poster half with the black pre-Venom costume), The Spot has apparently not reappeared, taking his beating by Spider-Man quite seriously.

The Spot then disappeared out of sight for a long time, only to resurface years later in spiderman_spectacular.246 as part of the Legion of Losers, a team of misfit villains also featuring Grizzly, The Gibbon, and The (New) Kangaroo.

The Spot was killed by Tombstone after helping the pale faced criminal escape from prison.

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.