Intro

 

Circle circle spot dot, now you got the loser shot.

 

There’s something special about a loser supervillain. Supervillains can be frightening. Remember that time Dr. Destiny tortured a diner full of people to death? It was like Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? but written by Harlan Ellison. Neil Gaiman said that out of all the things he had written, that was the story that disturbed him the most. Remember when Kraven traumatized Spider-Man?

 

Remember when Brainiac forced Superman to stare at the light of Krypton’s destruction when it finally reached Earth so that he could see with his supervision its destruction down to the smallest detail, a torture which made him enter a berserker state whenever he saw a bright flash?

 

But when you got a supervillain that can’t walk the walk, or even talk the talk, you got someone almost uniquely pathetic. When superheroes are losers, there’s a chance they could still be dangerous. If they can’t command respect, they can still demand fear. But when supervillains are losers, they’re pitiful. I think this might be because to be a loser superhero, you can strike out on morals while still retaining your powers and prowess. But if you’re a supervillain, you’re already compromised when it comes to morals. They can’t lose their hearts, so they lose they’re fangs, and the end result is something like a spastic, misbehaving child, a grown man in a ridiculous costume making threats he can’t possibly back up.

 

There’s a lot of loser supervillains out there. The Gibbon. Stilt-Man. Ten-Eyed Man. The Eraser. But today, we’re only going to look at two. Two worthless specs in the unforgiving world of comicdom. They started their careers as legitimate threats, though given how they’re usually treated, you’d be forgiven in thinking they were always losers.

 

Polka-Dot Man, punching bag of Batman and the Batfamily, vs The Spot, who Spider-Man sometimes notices.

 

Who is the biggest loser among the losers?

 

Polka-Dot Man

 

 

“Call me Mr. Polka-Dot! An odd name, but an apt one–for I shall use my inventive dots to make my name known throughout the underworld! Watch–!”

 

Have you ever wondered what polka-dots are, exactly? 

 

Well, first, what’s a polka? Polka is derived from the Czech word pulka meaning half, as in the half-steps of the Czeck polka dance. The polka dance, along with the distinctive music that accompanied it, became something like an early meme in the 19th century. It got popular in Prague in 1835, then from Prague made its way to Vienna in 1839, then Paris in 1840, and finally made its way to the United States in 1844. The world was briefly in the grips of “polkamania” for anything related to the dance. There was the polka hat and polka jacket, but only the polka dance and polka dots seemed to last.

 

Dot patterns were somewhat common in European folk art, so naturally they got associated with the world’s most popular European folk dance, thus polka-dots entered the noosphere.

 

At around the mid-20th century, there was a brief revival of polkamania. Frank Sinatra sang Polka-dots and Moonbeams, though I personally prefer the instrumental version by Bud Powell. Some songs are just better without words. Brian Hyland sang Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini, and when he performed it on the Dick Clark show in 1960 they disturbingly used a child instead of a grown woman under the justification that a young woman in a tiny bikini was risque, but not a small child.

 

Comics have always been trend chasers. Dazzler cashed in on disco, Vibe cashed in on breakdancing, and Polka-Dot man cashed in on polka.

 

I didn’t they were good at chasing trends.

 

Before COIE, Polka-Dot Man had one, and only one, appearance–which means researching him was really easy! He showed up in Detective Comics 300 in 1962…and that was it before he re-emerged post-crisis as a persistent loser with the history of Detective Comics 300 presumably intact, more or less.

 

Fun fact–it’s only on the cover that he’s called Polka-Dot man. In the story, he calls himself Mr. Polka-Dot. I think this adds to how pathetic he is. No one gets his name right. Ever.

 

Another fun fact–Polka-dots, under strict definition, are uniformly sized, regularly spaced dots. Polka-Dot Man’s design isn’t. Polk-Dot Man fails at being polka-dotted.

 

So here’s Polka-Dot Man’s story–Batman and Robin are patrolling Gotham, as they do, when they find some thugs entering Spot Service Carpet Cleaning Co through the skylight. They aren’t wearing primary colored costumes, so you know they’re up to no good stalking about on rooftops in the middle of the night. The Dynamic Duo investigate and run into their boss–Mr. Polka-Dot!

 

He demonstrates his gimmick by using a buzzsaw dot to cut down a curtain over Batman and Robin so he and his gang can escape with the loot on a flying dot platform. The meteoric career of Polka-Dot Man begins! From his polka-dotted lair, he launches a dot themed crime wave, because it wasn’t enough to just have a gimmick if you were a Batman villain, you had to commit. If you were, so say, Captain Fire, you couldn’t rob an ice cream parlor and make your lair in an abandoned amusement park. You had to rob the hot tamale stand and hide out in an abandoned sauna. Those were simply the rules of the game.

 

He steals the black pearl from the turban of a visiting emissary from not-India and nearly kills Batman with a fireball dot before escaping in a bubble dot. Then he robs the Domino Gaming Company (this one?) and Ink Spot Nightclub (this one?) and all Batman can do is SEETHE and COPE. Then he kidnaps Robin with a gas dot.

 

Now let me digress here–Polka-Dot Man is unironically cool. Think about his gimmick, really think about it. He’s got Batman’s utility belt but its better.

 

–Weapons are distributed around your body. There’s no single object on your person that if your opponent takes away you’re out of gadgets.

 

–Weapons are contained in dots. Only you know which dot does which. When Batman takes out a batarang or grapple, opponents can guess its function. Not so with the dots. Batman points a bat-taser, even the dumbest thug knows “move away from the end.” What do you do if a dot is coming at you? You don’t know if its going to shoot a laser beam or turn into a buzzsaw or multiply into a swarm of flying fists. Yes, he does have a dot that does that. Go check out his power and abilities section if you don’t believe me. Point is, if you’re up against a dot, you don’t know what its going to do let alone how you can respond to it.

 

–Weapons are neutralized on contact with your costume. No chance of misfire from someone hitting you hard.

 

–Weapons are incredibly transportable. They’re like the capsules from Dragon Ball. You can stuff whatever you want inside a thin little circle.

 

–Weapons dissolve when left alone, meaning no one is going to reverse engineer your technology.

 

Am I saying I want to see a serious take on the Polka-Dot Man? Hell yes I am.

 

Dare you doubt the power of dotmania? Batman didn’t. Batman could only defeat the Polka-Dot Man by using dots against him.

 

With Robin captured, Polka-Dot Man forces him to write a letter to Batman which will lead him to a trap–but Robin secretly makes Braille impressions in the letter which tips him off to the ambush and tells Batman where Robin is really kept. Then Batman finishes Polka-Dot Man with pure dotmania.

 

 

Respect the dots.

 

So, what happened to Polka-Dot Man after 1962?

 

Not much. He was like Mr. “Zero” Freeze. He had his moment, and then he was gone, off to comic book limbo. But everyone eventually gets out of comic book limbo, no exceptions. But where some people get a really good break after leaving limbo–Mr. Freeze being perhaps the best example going from a literally who to one of the most beloved Batman villains of all-time–others get really bad breaks.

 

In 1996, 34 years after he was last seen in comics, he finally escaped limbo and showed up on the very first page of the very first issue of Batman: GCPD.

 

 

So he got off limbo and meth, I see.

 

Armed with just a bat and no gimmicked dots, he breaks the knee of a cop, but Detective Bullock takes his bat away from him and beats him so bad with it that he gets sent to the hospital and sues the GCPD.

 

I don’t think the writer read his story.

 

This brief appearance permanently colored the character. Before, he was just weird. Now he was a loser for life.

 

In 2003, he cameo’ed in Batgirl: Year One 5 as a drunk in a bar who argues with the bartender. Bartender takes out a bat and conks him over the head with it.

 

Poor guy just has a weakness to bats. It’s like how Jason Todd has a weakness to crowbars.

 

In 2005, he cameo’ed in Nightwing 104 as part of the Nightwing: Year One storyline. Nightwing and Batgirl throw him through a window of a stripper club as part of their date. He has one line–”hoop!” as he’s thrown through the glass.

 

In 2008, he cameo’ed up in Ambush Bug: Year None 4, continuing the running gag of him showing up in Year One books. Here he’s an inmate in Batman’s Secret Space Prison For Embarrassments From His Past. We don’t even see him fully, just his arm and part of his body.

 

So when does Batkek become an inmate?

 

Polka-Dot Man would die in 2009 in the pages of Final Crisis Aftermath: Run. He and a bunch of other Z-listers became minions for old Doom Patrol villain General Immortus in exchange for him having old Batman villain Dr. Milo operate on them to increase their powers. We don’t actually see what all Dr. Milo did to Polka-Dot Man, but whatever powers he got couldn’t have been too game changing as a falling manhole crushed his head. At least he had the dignity of dying quick. Poor Condiment King died begging for his life as the Human Flame ripped his face apart with his bare hands.

 

It was the Identity Crisis era. DC was trying really, really hard to prove they weren’t for kids.

 

How’s burning bridges with the demographic that historically carried you for decades working out for you now, DC?

 

In 2020’s New Year’s Evil special, Polka-Dot man’s back can be seen in a bar visited by Poison Ivy, so he apparently got over being dead. Typical comics. Later that year in Harley Quinn’s Villain of the Year Awards, we get to see him wear a suit–but not a polka-dotted suit. Missed opportunity there, DC, could have had wore a black-and-white polka-dot suit over his costume, would have been a funny joke.

 

And let’s be real, in something as cringe as Harley Quinn’s Villain of the Year Awards, you need all the jokes you can get.

 

Now in 2021, you’d think DC would do something with him now that interest in him is at an all-time high with him showing up in The Suicide Squad…but no. He had a cameo in DC Love is a Battlefield in a bar with a bunch of other Batman baddies. Catwoman lights his cigar with her whip as a party trick. Then when a brawl breaks out, he gets his ass kicked by the Eraser.

 

And he would. The Eraser actually can fight hand-to-hand.

 

And that’s it. That’s really it. That’s all the Polka-Dot Man material. If you don’t believe me, check his comicvine page yourself.

 

Is that lame? Well, yeah.

 

But what did you expect? It’s the Polka-Dot Man.

 

Polka-Dot Man’s Powers And Abilities

 

 

 

Gimmicked Dots

 

As explained in the above pic, Polka-Dot Man is a gadgeteer. Imagine Batman’s utility belt, but all the weapons and tools come in dots attached to Polka-Dot Man’s body. When the dots are on his body, electric wires neutralize the dots and keep them inert. When they’re ripped off, they activate and carry out their pre-programmed function.

 

Cooler than the utility belt? Yes. They even disintegrate after some time, like Spidey’s webbing, to keep from becoming clues.

 

Buzzsaw Dots

 

These red dots expand when thrown and turn into spinning buzzsaws. Polka-Dot Man used one to drop a curtain on Batman and Robin, because sixties Batman could still be foiled by theater pratfalls.

 

Flying Platform Dots

 

These dots grow into giant flying platforms so Polka-Dot Man can make a getaway with his loot and crew. Never underestimate the utility of a pack mule. Every time I played wizard in Dungeons and Dragons I made sure to get Tenser’s floating disc because when you can have a shelf follow the party, everyone loves you.

 

Sun Dots

 

Polka-Dot Man knows Tenser’s floating disc and he knows fireball. This dot grows into a tiny sun that’s not only blinding but destructive. It nearly killed Batman, but Robin, who was standing behind Batman so he wasn’t blinding, shoved Batman out of the way so that the sun hit a column instead.

 

God, imagine the world where Batman got killed by Polka-dot Man…probably a better world than the modern DC setting.

 

Bubble Dots

 

The second time Polka-Dot Man fought Batman he upgraded his getaway ride from a floating platform to a floating bubble that Batman was unable to put a bat-rope around.

 

Presumably, it’s bulletproof…but we don’t exactly know that for sure.

 

Fist Dots

 

My personal favorite, and it’s really beyond words. It’s like Captain Boomerang turning himself into a boomerang. You just have to see it.

 

Take a look:

 

 

This is why I love comics.

 

Gas Dots

 

Every gadgeteer worth their salt has some kind of gas weapon that instantly drops their opponent and Polka-Dot Man is no exception.

 

Goggles

 

They do nothing. Batman blinded Polka-Dot Man with a flare batarang and the goggles did nothing. But hey, they give him creepy skeleton-socket eyes, so that’s neat, I guess.

 

In the Lego games, the eyes are different colors, which gives Polka-Dot Man a warmer, more inviting appearance. I mean, he might as well. He looks like a frosted pop-tart. The skeleton-eyes add nothing to his menace. He could have one of Leatherface’s people-masks on his face and it would still add nothing.

 

Polka-Dot Man’s Stats

 

 

Polka-Dot Man’s Strength

 

–Without his dots, Polka-Dot Man’s pretty useless. Batman wasted him with one punch after he tripped over a globe trying to run away. When he assaulted Officer Foley in GCPD, he only gave him light injuries before Detective Bullock took his bat away and beat the crap out of him with it.

 

–Sun dots are able to blow up a column.

 

Polka-Dot Man’s Speed

 

–Is surprisingly mobile with his Flying Platform Dots and Bubble Dots. They not only provide him mobility, but cover from weapons.

 

The Spot

 

 

“I beat Spider-Man before! If I do it again, I’ll know it wasn’t just a fluke!”

 

Classic Spot

 

Okay, a little background lore, because we’re dealing with Spider-Man, and Spider-Man books usually have lots and lots of plots and subplots. They didn’t call one of Spidey’s books Tangled Web of Spider-Man for nothing.

 

It’s 1984. Dagger of Cloak and Dagger is being fought over by the two biggest gangsters in the NYC–Kingpin and Silvermane. Kingpin wants Dagger so he can use her healing powers to bring his wife Vanessa out of her coma and Silvermane wants Dagger because she accidentally sucked the light out of him–as in the light of his soul–turning him from a cyborg gangster with the personality of a Metallikat to a cyborg gangster with the personality of the Terminator–the original Terminator, not one of the ones with a soft spot for children. Silvermane relentlessly, single-mindedly hunted Dagger in an attempt to regain what she had stolen from him.

 

One big bad guy vs bad guy fight later (Spider-Man comics were great for these) and Silvermane is restored, but Kingpin’s wife is still in a coma and what’s worse, he lost his top minion the Answer during the fight (Bullseye isn’t on his payroll yet). Kingpin tasks his researcher (his criminal empire is so vast and so well-organized that he’s got his own superscience R&D section) Johnathon Ohnn with researching Dagger’s powers and finding a way to replicate them artificially, but Johnathon thinks Dagger’s partner Cloak holds more promise.

 

Eventually, he’s able to create an orb of darkforce in his lab–a spot of darkness, if you would.

 

 

With typical comicbook scientist caution, Johnathon touches the mysterious orb of darkness and falls into another dimension. This is a dude that would totally fall for the sphere of annihilation trap in Tomb of Horrors.

 

He finds himself in a dimension…not of darkness, but of darkness and light mixed, a dimension spotted like a Dalmatian. He dubs this dimension the spot dimension.

 

I would have called it the Dalmatian dimension. You’d never get another chance to call something the Dalmatian dimension outside dogscape. Google that one if you dare.

 

The Spot is different among Marvel’s darkforce users in that he technically doesn’t draw upon the darkforce dimension but the spot dimension which is related to the darkforce dimension but still distinct. Think of it like the dimension next door to the darkforce dimension.

 

That the Spot technically failed in his attempt to get Cloak’s powers would foreshadow all his future endeavors.

 

 

Johnathon is momentarily trapped in the spot dimension, but then he notices a cluster of spots looks similar to one he saw when he went into the dimension, and its a good thing he does because otherwise this would have been the ending to one of those pre-Marvel Age horror anthology stories instead of the beginning to a Marvel Age supervillain story.

 

Going through the cluster, Johnathon finds himself back in his lab–but he’s changed. He’s now white (well, whiter) with strange black spots covering his body. He finds that he can stick his hand into the spots. Understandably worried, he finds through experimentation that he actually has nothing to worry about. He hasn’t been cursed, he’s been empowered.

 

He finds that he can choose to either have the spots “link” to another spot or to the spot dimension. He can stick his hand through a spot and it’ll come out either through another spot or in the dimension. He finds that he can peel off and throw his spots and that they’ll stay floating in mid-air. He finds that he can stretch spots, compress spots, and combine spots to make portals of any size he wants. He even finds that he doesn’t have to worry about looking like a freak in public. Through what I call “civilian mode,” he can compress all his spots down to a single spot on his chest and takes away his white coloration to boot.

 

Feeling pretty good about himself, he decides to weigh his options–he could become the Kingpin’s’ #1 minion now that the Answer’s dead, or he could go into freelance supervillainy, but first he wants to test himself, and that means picking a fight with Spider-Man!

 

It doesn’t go well for him.

 

Peter usually waits a few seconds after hearing what his opponents are called before making fun of them, but here he hears that the Spot is called the Spot and breaks down laughing.

 

Ouch, not a good debut!

 

Because of the Spot’s weird interdimensional nature, he’s able to nullify Peter’s spider-sense so that Spidey can’t detect his punches until they hit him. That’s good. But because he has normal human strength, his punches don’t really do anything to Spidey. That’s bad.

 

After harassing Spidey for a bit, the Spot retreats and declares victory. Well, sure man, if Joe Biden can claim victory despite transparently losing I guess you can to. Victory for the Spot! But despite his victory, he decides to test himself again against Spider-Man for the big 100th issue of Spectacular, but this time he loses so conclusively that even he can’s spin it as a win. Though he reveals to Peter that his spots provide him excellent protection against being punched in the face–a fist just goes right through a spot into the spot dimension–Peter realizes that he’s limited in the number of spots he has. The Spot can’t simply summon more spots from the spot dimension, he’s limited to what’s on his body, so when he throws out a lot of spots to try and overwhelm Peter JoJo style, Peter just aims for all the exposed white on his body and nails him.

 

Spot, his confidence broken, retreats to the spot dimension, but Peter follows him and tells him he better shape up or he’s going to come into that dimension and kick his ass, and the Spot promises that he’s learned his lesson.

 

Poor Spot wasn’t even the most pressing thing on Pete’s mind during the whole drama. He came in way behind Kingpin, Black Cat drama, and black suit drama, because, as previously mentioned, tangled web of Spider-Man isn’t just a title for one of his books.

 

The Spot must have taken Peter’s words to heart, because he wouldn’t make a return to comics until 1997 in J.M DeMatteis’ Spectacular Spider-Man where he teamed up with the Gibbon, Kangaroo, and Grizzly to take revenge on their mutual nemesis Spider-Man as the Spider-Man Revenge Squad…or as Peter called them, the Legion of Losers.

 

Ouch!

 

Yeah. He was kind of threatening when he first appeared, but now the Spot is stuck firmly in the loser category.

 

Spider-Man is so not intimidated by the League of Losers that he allows them to defeat him just so he can see the next step of their plan is. Turns out, they don’t really have one, and they dissolve into petty in-fighting.

 

It wasn’t a good outing for the Spot at all, but he did demonstrate an interesting ability–he held Spidey in “spot shackles” by putting his limbs through four spots. Why Peter allowed this to happen to him while he was pretending to be unconscious, I don’t know, but it’s a good thing the team self-destructed, because if the Gibbon and Grizzly didn’t knock out the Spot I don’t think he would have gotten free. Apparently, knocking him out makes any spots not attached to him vanish.

 

In 2001, the Spot showed up in, of all places, Carlos Pacheco’s Fantastic Four, where the Gideon Corporation uses him as a component of a device to enter the Negative Zone. This wouldn’t be the only time the Spot would be captured and used as a portal device.

 

In 2002, the Spot would return to Spidey books with Daniel “I ruined Deadpool” Way’s Spider-Man’s Tangled Web as the cellmate of Tombstone, unable to escape prison because of one of those power-jammer plot device things that often shows up in comics.

 

 

He becomes Tombstone’s “special friend” and his power is that he’s full of holes. Ha ha. I get it Way. You are so clever.

 

At the end of the story, Tombstone manages to get the Spot’s powers to activate and it allows the both of them to escape prison, but Tombstone being an edgy boy snaps the Spot’s neck afterwards.

 

Then in 2007, the Spot is inexplicably alive in the pages of Fred Van Lente’s Super-Villain Team-Up, MODOK’s 11 as a member of the eponymous team. How did he get over being dead? Something-something sliding timeline, something-something multiverse, it’s comics, roll with it.

 

Apparently still sour on the idea of teams from his time on the Legion of Losers, the Spot sells out his teammates to the Mandarin, who punishes the Spot for being dishonorable by using his dark ring, which has ties to the darkforce, to trap the Spot in his own spot dimension.

 

 

 

My man, did you learn nothing from your time with Tombstone? Don’t make deals with supervillains when you’re D-list. They will betray you because the writer thinks its funny.

 

Poor Spot. He went from being dead to having a fate worse than death. But the Spot is anything if not persistent.

 

Fred Van Lente would bring the Spot out of dimensional exile in The Amazing Spider-Man 589 and kick off his edgy phase.

 

The Edgy Phase

 

 

Yeah, this is the story where that famous panel you see sometimes on /co/ came from.

 

While trapped in his own spot dimension, the Spot realizes that by concentrating, he can project himself Phantom Zone style into the physical world. But no one can see him. It’s only when he focuses on his young son that he’s able to finally project himself out of the spot dimension Wally West style (Linda, Jai, Iris…help me NOW!).

 

Unfortunately, he finds that his son has been hospitalized by Russian gangsters in a gangland hit gone wrong, Punisher style, so the Spot flips his shit and starts killing Russian gangsters Hotline Miami style. He even starts to wear one single large dot on his face to symbolize his descent into edgy-hood. He’s so edgy now that he doesn’t even speak. Ohhhh so spoopy!

 

I’m surprised Van Lente didn’t start calling him Blood Spot, or the Hollow.

 

Spidey manages to keep their leader alive, but this is only because the Spot wanted him alive so that he would live the rest of his life in fear of little dots.

 

As seen in the page above, a Spot out for blood is a very different Spot indeed. He even upgraded his spot defense to a spot counter.

 

Fred Van Lente seemed to have liked the Spot, or at least his version of the Spot, so he used him in his Dark Reign: Mr. Negative series in 2009. The Spot apparently rethought his stance on teams and joined Mr. Negative’s gang before joining the Hood’s gang as a double agent. That’s a man, Spot. Everyone with taste knew the Hood’s gang sucked. Mr. Negative wasn’t that cool, but holy God he’s charismatic compared to Bendis-wanked Hood. Spot didn’t do much other than stand in group shots.

 

Mark Waid then used the Spot in 2010-2013 in his Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil runs. In Amazing Spider-Man, the Spot is back to being full-time on Mr. Negative’s supervillain gang…and he gets beaten off-screen by Spider-Man. Damn. I kind of wanted to see how Spidey would handle the Spot now that the Spot can make him punch himself. In Daredevil, Daredevil stops the Spot from kidnapping a mafioso’s little girl and does better against the spot’s spot swarm attack than Spidey does thanks to his radar sense not crapping out like the spider-sense. His radar sense even, somehow, lets him tell that the Spot is filled with “teleportation energy.” What, they don’t share reports on the darkforce in superhero circles? DD should know what that is.

 

DD struggles against the Spot until he tackles him through one of his spots…and beats him off-screen.

 

Okay, stop that writers. How are Daredevil and Spidey beating the Spot now? Does the Spot keep falling for that old “throw out too many spots, don’t have enough left to protect myself” trick? He really shouldn’t at this point. How the hell are the beating a guy that can flip their punches back at them? Show don’t tell you hack frauds! If you can’t think of a good way for the hero to beat the villain, give the story to a better writer.

 

Later in Daredevil, the Spot gets captured off-screen by a darkforce themed narcos cartel and–what, again?

 

I’m convinced the Spot’s kryptonite is not having the camera on him. The guy could have the infinity gauntlet and still lose as soon as the camera cuts away. It’s like he has the reverse of Squirrel Girl’s inexplicable ability to defeat opponents off-screen.

 

These narcos hook him up to a machine and use him to, get this, turn women into drug mules by implanting spots in their wombs.

 

I don’t get it Marvel, how come you guys lost the child demographic to manga? I just can’t figure it out.

 

The Spot also turns into this:

 

 

Some people just try way to damn hard to win twister, you know?

 

So, the Spot has died, been Phantom Zone’d to his own dimension, saw his child hospitalized, possibly for life, and got turned into Ball of Arms Man.

 

How could it get worse for him?

 

Bendis writes him.

 

In 2017, Bendis, the writer Bendis, used the Spot in his Jessica Jones series. It was pretty forgettable. He beat up Jessica Jones, so that’s cool, I guess, but then Carol Danvers beats him up, so eh, swing and a miss. He talks again, which is good, though that’s probably because Bendis doesn’t actually read about the characters he gets his greasy fingers on and not Marvel realizing that silent Spot is cringe.

 

In 2018, Bendis got a run on Spider-Man and included the Spot on his version of the Sinister Six, the one led by Mile’s uncle Aaron. He didn’t do much, didn’t say much, and was basically just the team’s transportation.

 

Later in 2018, he made a cameo in Marvel’s yawn-inducing Infinity Wars event, again as a flunky in a team of supervillains. Again, he didn’t do much, but he did kick Star-Lord in the face, so props for that. It seems the Spot has really found his calling as a team player. Good for him!

 

Still in 2018, he cameo’d in Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man run hanging out in the infamous Bar with No Name.

 

In 2019, he showed up in Peter “Die Gypsies, Die” David and Greg “Tracemaster” Land’s Symbiote Spider-Man, a shameful stab stab of relevance featuring “lost stories” from back when Spidey wore the black suit. That means these stories take place in…the 2010’s? Sliding timeline sucks. Always have.

 

It’s revealed that the Spot roomed with Mysterio at M.I.T and that they’re drinking buddies. After a loss to Spidey, Spot teases Mysterio about his losing streak and claims that even Power Pack could beat him, and then Peter David rags on Mysterio in a narration box saying that it eventually would happen in Power Pack 55.

 

Alright, look, shut up about that. Ragging on Mysterio for losing to Power Pack was lame when Kevin Smith did it in Daredevil: Guardian Devil and it’s lame here. The kids beat Kurse. They would kick Spidey’s ass.

 

Later in 2019, he showed up in Kyle Higgins’ Winter Soldier as a goon hired to kidnap Bucky’s Bucky RJ. He kicks Bucky’s ass by using a spot to straight-up rip off his arm. Bucky should be glad the Spot isn’t a killer, otherwise that spot would have gone at his head, not his arm. Desperate, Bucky tackles the Spot through a spot into the spot dimension, but the spot just kicks his ass with his spot swarm move.

 

Yeah, all those punches really hurt when you aren’t a spider-person.

 

But you know the best part? The Spot is talking again. Thank you based Higgins, Spot trying to act like Jason was so cringe.

 

Bucky gets rescued by a distraction from RJ, gets his arm back, and knocks the Spot out with a taser blast from behind. Bucky did this while still in the spot dimension where the Spot said he could “Move things around as I see fit.” I really wish Death Battle didn’t downplay his stealth abilities in Bucky vs Jason, Bucky may very well be the stealthiest character in Marvel. He is good.

 

Later, back over in Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man, he’s used as a tool by Norman Osborn and Kingpin. First Kingpin uses him by hooking him up to a device which amplified and concentrated his connection the darkforce dimension, basically turning him into a darkforce gun. The Spot was not happy about this, but there wasn’t much he could do about it being hooked to a machine. Kingpin used what I like to call the “Spot Remover” to first penetrate a darkforce dome HYDRA placed over New York City so he could do some wheeling and dealing on the outside then to put a resurrected and demon-possessed Harry Osborn (Oh Nick, why?) in a darkforce prison. Norman, still having feelings for his son, released the Spot in exchange for the Spot releasing Harry from the prison. Cloak better watch out if he ever runs up against the Spot since he seems to be able to control and dismiss darkforce constructs now.

 

Nice callback to the Spot’s origin as a researcher for Kingpin, Spencer, but demon-Harry Osborne still sucks.

 

And that’s the spotty career of the Spot. He’s currently free and pissed at Kingpin. The obvious direction for his story to go is for him to seek vengeance on the Kingpin. That would be interesting–Kingpin vs the last person he should have ever pissed off.  A Spot that wants to kill someone is entirely different from his usual self–he’s a teleporting assassin who can hide on dark colors. But it’s unlikely we’ll see the Spot trying to rubout Kingpin, not only because modern Marvel is allergic to good ideas, not only because Kingpin has Joker-level character shields, but because…it’s the Spot. When it comes down to it, he’s just not all that good. He get close to hitting the mark, but he’ll never make the bulls-eye.

 

The Spot just can’t ever seem to hit the spot.

 

The Spot’s Powers And Abilities

 

Dimensional Spots

 

The Spot is covered in darkforce spots that link either to other spots or to the spot dimension. The Spot and others can travel through these dots, but the Spot is the one that determines where the spots link to. The Spot can also physically touch and manipulate his spots, making them as small or as large as he wants. The Spot can peel off and throw his spots and they can stay in the air in defiance of gravity.

 

The Spot is limited in the number of spots he can use. He can’t “summon” spots out of nowhere and must use the spots on his body. This leads to his big weakness–though the spots on his body can protect him from attacks, if he throws out too many, he’s left with a lot of target area for his opponents to exploit. This was how Spidey originally beat him, he tricked the Spot into spotting too hard.

 

Spot Counter

 

Originally, the Spot was only able to make blows that hit the spots on his body travel harmlessly into the spot dimension, but over time he learned how to make attacks bounce back at his opponents leading to the famous panel where he makes Spidey punch himself.

 

Spot Swarm

 

The Spot’s bread-and-butter. He throws out a bunch of dots which surround the opponent and then starts throwing punches and kicks at them from all angles. Against an opponent with super-durability like Spidey, this attack is little more than a nuisance, but human level-opponents eat one hell of a beating.

 

Civilian Mode

 

A utility power, to be sure, but I’m including it here because its interesting. The Spot can shrink and compress all his dots into a single dot on his chest and in doing so remove the white coloration of his body. This allows the Spot to blend-in among normal people.

 

Spot Shield

 

By combining several spots together, the Spot can create a large shield that absorbs attacks. He only used this one against Spidey to absorb a webbing net Spidey threw at him, but there’s no reason he can’t continue to use it. It’s a very solid defense, imagine Captain America’s shield but it’s a portal to another dimension and you go there if it touches you.

 

Spot Shackles

 

A move the Spot used to restrain Spidey while he was part of the Legion of Losers. Four limbs, four spots, and it’s a fairly solid way to score an incapacitation win against an opponent. Very few opponents are a threat when they’re reduced to a floating torso and head.

 

The Spot’s Stats

 

 

The Spot’s Strength

 

–While his punches can’t hurt someone with the durability of Spider-Man, they are able to rock people like Bucky.

 

–He could theoretically strand people in his spot dimension since if you don’t know the right dot to pick, you’re pretty much stranded.

 

–He can use his spots to slice people apart and did just that to disarm Bucky.

 

–Though he’s not so good at taking a punch, he can mitigate attacks through his spots and even flip attacks back at his opponents. This only applies to the spots on him, the white area is fair game, and if he throws too many spots out he increases the target area on his person.

 

The Spot’s Speed

 

–As you might expect, the Spot has great maneuverability and can attack an opponent from virtually any angle. He’s not as fast as Daredevil, who had no problem parrying his spot storm.

 

–His maneuverability is limited by how far he can toss his dots. It’s worth noting that he doesn’t summon dots out of the blue, every dot has to come from his body, and once he’s thrown them he has to physically retrieve them. After Spider-Man scared him, Black Cat found the poor guy picking up all the spots he threw around earlier. He gives the impression that he can “open up” spots by placing spots ahead of time…though given how modern writers are, it’s likely they’ve abandoned this limitation going by how modern art depicts his powers.

 

So Who Wins?

 

The Spot beats the Dot.

 

This one wasn’t too hard to figure out. When it comes to guys with natural superpowers vs gadgeteers, the guys with natural superpowers tend to win.

 

If we’re talking strict Death Battle rules, Spot wins in a second. He portal-cuts Polka-Dot Man’s head off like how he cut off Bucky’s cyborg arm. But the Spot normally isn’t that ruthless. If he fights Polka-Dot Man in-character, Polka-Dot Man has a chance.

 

Like, a 5% chance of winning.

 

Let’s start with the biggest advantage the Spot has here–he can actually throw hands. Yeah, against a guy like Spidey, his blows are baby taps, but look at how he turned Bucky into hamburger. Polka-Dot Man’s platform isn’t going to help him avoid getting punched as the dots have pretty good range. Polka-Dot Man only has one answer to the Spot’s bread-and-butter of “throw out spots, throw limbs through the spots,” and that’s his shield dot. Remember that the Spot can’t teleport his spots. He’s limited to what’s on him and how far he can throw those spots. He wouldn’t be able to summon a dot inside the shield. That being said, putting up the shield dot means Polka-Dot Man can’t attack. Remember, his dots activate when he takes them off his costume and perform pre-programmed actions. He can’t leave a clump of dots on the

 

The spot shield counters pretty much everything Polka-Dot Man has. Fist dot? Spot shield. Sun dot? Spot shield. The gas dot would be the hardest for the Spot to deal with, and it’s Polka-Dot Man’s best chance to win, but the Spot could counter it either by spot shielding the dot before it activates or by escaping the gas cloud by retreating to the spot dimension.

 

Polka-Dot Man’s best strategy is to throw all the dots out, put the shield up, and cross his fingers. But even when under a barrage of weird projectiles, there isn’t anything the Spot can’t solve with a spot shield, and if things get too hairy, there’s always the spot dimension.

 

That’s probably how the fight would end. Polka-Dot Man fires everything, puts the shield up, and the Spot scrambles to block everything. Eventually the sun dot looks like it’s going to hit, the Spot vanishes as if he’s been disintegrated, and for a moment, Polka-Dot Man thinks he’s won. But then he sees a tiny black spot outside his bubble that starts to grow…

 

The Spot isn’t naturally bloodthirsty unless pushed to extremes, so it’s likely he’d spare Polka-Dot Man and just shove him and his bubble into the spot dimension with a really big dot shield. Fight outro is the Spot throwing Polka-Dot Man and his bubble at Spidey like a giant beach ball.