This page is for characters that debuted in The Sinister Six Trilogy:
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The Gentleman/Gustav Fiers
The Gentleman provides examples of:
- Aristocrats Are Evil:
- An archetypal example. Being born into wealth and nobility has made him a fantastic egotist. He considers wealth, power, and "breeding" the real qualifiers for personhood. Consequently, he finds the vast majority of the human race insufficient.
- Been There, Shaped History: The Gentleman was aboard the Titanic when it hit the iceberg, caused the Hindenburg disaster to evade capture, collaborated with Henry Ford to profit off of World War II, ran immigration schemes out of Casablanca, and made money off the Tet Offensive.
- Big Bad
- Canon Immigrant: The Gentleman would later appear in the comics, making his debut in the Civil War II: Kingpin limited series.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He refers to himself as an "investor in chaos".
- Celebrity Resemblance: When he first meets the Six, Mysterio exclaims that he looks just like Boris Karloff. This also means the audience has an idea of what he looks like.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- His hobby. When he has someone who's bothered him murdered, he keeps track of their children and arranges for various misfortunes to befall them in the course of time.
- On one occasion where an agent was sent to apprehend him, he came back a few days later blinded, with his tongue cut out, and in the throes of a hopeless heroin addiction.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Averted. The Gentleman justifies his decision to leave his enemies' children alone as this, but in his case 'standards' refers to things he won't do because he considers it beneath him rather than out of any moral consideration. He only avoids killing children so that he can have a more sporting time of it by facing opponents who understand why he's doing this and might even try to resist him, rather than him not wanting to cross a line.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Gentleman all over, utterly incapable of understanding why Peter would act as Spider-Man rather than find a more profitable way to use his powers.
- Evil Old Folks: Is said to be well into his 90s (the Vulture, who is of a similar generation, muses that this is basically the only thing he likes about the Gentleman).
- And despite his advanced age, he's still spry and athletic. He puts it down to superior genes, and has plans to live for another twenty years or so.
- Fatal Flaw: He likes to bet BIG on his major schemes, making everything dependent on their success. This has paid out fantastically several times, but gets to the point where the stakes are so high the heroes can't let him succeed.
- Faux Affably Evil
- For the Evulz: While the Gentleman considers himself a businessman seeking profit above all else, he is shown to be very sadistic when dealing with his enemies; one scene reveals that he earned the enmity of his long-time foe Doctor George Williams when he not only set up a bomb to kill Williams' wife on their wedding night, but even arranged for a congratulatory telegram to be delivered just after the bomb went off.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: It's repeatedly clear that the Six only tolerate him because he's paying them and his plan seems like it will be a success, and ultimately his attitude provokes the Chameleon and Octavius to try and kill him.
- Karmic Death: The Gentleman, who always put wealth above anything else, is killed by the Chameleon and has all of his fortune stolen from him. To rub salt in the wound, a detective whose life the Gentleman ruined confronts him as he lays dying. He thinks he has the final laugh until the detective points out he'll die a pauper, having expended most of his wealth by paying the Six and buying the treasures that have just been stolen by Octavius. The detective then lays a penny on the opposite end of the room and leaves knowing the Gentleman will try to crawl for it. The icing on the cake comes after the Gentleman's death; with no friends or family to claim his body, Fiers is dumped in an unmarked grave in Pauper's Field, alone and forgotten, while Williams lives another six months and has a funeral attended by thousands.
- Kick the Dog: Any time discussion of the Gentleman's past comes up it's just an excuse for him to do this with a smile.
- His treatment of Pity is also an intentional example. He's purposely kept her child-like conscience intact, so people can watch him order her to do all sorts of things she finds repugnant. From his first appearance in the first chapter, he enjoys withholding food and the comfort of a bed from her, and orders her to kill anyone who might accidentally enter her room in the hotel suite.
- Minor Major Character: To the Spider-Man mythos. Despite his only strong appearances being here, he's revealed to be the one who gave the names of Peter's parents to the second Red Skull, who then had them killed. If he hadn't done so, Peter would never have been an orphan, never been raised by Ben and May, and likely never become Spider-Man.
- No Name Given: As revealed at the end of the second book, his real name is Gustav Fiers.
- Pet the Dog:
- The only person he ever shows real affection for is his brother Karl, whose death initiates his revenge on Spider-Man.
- He is willing to acknowledge when other people have done something or achieved something that genuinely impresses him, such as when he mentions to one of the jewellers he's visiting that the man's store does offer quality goods.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: On top of his fantastic classism, he considers anyone outside of certain parts of Europe sub-human.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: This is about the only reason the Gentleman is a real threat aside from his ruthlessness.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: The Gentleman is always in an impeccable tailor-made suit.
- Siblings in Crime: Gustav Fiers, aka The Gentleman, and his anarchist Professional Killer brother, Karl Fiers, aka The Finisher. For those unaware, Karl Fiers was the man who killed Richard and Mary Parker for Red Skull II.
- Smug Snake: The Gentleman, who is not nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is, as he underestimates the Chameleon and Doctor Octopus.
- The Sociopath: The Gentleman, his brother Karl, and all the members of the Sinister Six, most notably Dr. Octopus.
- Troll: When he's approached by colleagues for an estimation on the Day of Terror's death toll so they can bet on it, he gives them an inflated number unlikely to happen.
- Underestimating Badassery: The Gentleman is finally defeated because he underestimates the Chameleon and Doctor Octopus, believing that he could always see through the Chameleon's disguises and that he had the perfect means to control Octavius. However, he is shot by the Chameleon as the other villain was posing as his latest driver, who then takes his place just before Doc Ock reveals that he had already deduced how the Gentleman intended to betray them. As a personal kick, while he's dying Fiers wonders if the Chameleon had been planning something like this for years and let Fiers see through his disguises in the past until the moment arose for Chameleon to act against the Gentleman at the moment of greatest possible profit.
- Villain Ball: The Gentleman quite possibly would've gotten away to enact the last part of his plan to release the catalyst over New York City had he not insisted on betraying the Six and being a dick to the Chameleon.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Right: He's come close to being captured four times, and in three out of four cases covered his tracks by blowing up the venue and making his escape in the carnage.
- Xanatos Gambit: On par with the trope namer. At every point of his plan, he notes he can readjust should personnel or targets die, and up until the end he's one step ahead of everyone. He only fails because of the aforementioned case of Underestimating Badassery for Chameleon and Octavius.
Pity
The assistant and henchman of the Gentleman. A young lady who does not speak, does nothing unless commanded, and who is as formidable an opponent as any one of the Six. She has been raised with the most stringent psychological conditioning, and yet has been left with an entirely intact conscience, so that she might be tormented by the knowledge of her actions. Her parents were people who offended the Gentleman in some way, and after killing them, he took her as his ward so that he could further take vengeance on them.
In addition to Super-Strength, reflexes, and acrobatic skill, Pity also possesses the ability to project darkness in any shape or intensity, making her a particularly tricky opponent to fight head-on.
The character Pity contains examples of:
- Brainwashing: Has been under the Gentleman's thumb from a young age, and does nothing without his say so, including drinking or sleeping.
- Casting a Shadow: She can create a field of darkness of any shape or size, from covering someone's head to covering a whole building. Not even sonar or infrared can penetrate it. And on top of that, she can make it so that it DOESN'T work on the Six, meaning Spider-Man has to fight them all while THEY can see and he can't (fortunately his Spider-Sense is still able to work normally).
- Dark Action Girl: Serves as one for the Sinister Six.
- Domestic Abuse: While the core of her personality is described as brainwashing, the real dynamic of her relationship is this, as the Gentleman keeps her isolated, starving, and constantly longing for his next scrap of mercy.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has vertical scars running down her cheeks. The Gentleman did this intentionally to make her look more nonthreatening.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: It's revealed in the final confrontation that Pity can also create light that makes those who see it feel good rather than just her darkness; people explicitly speculate that the Gentleman just never allowed her to use that light because he figured it was of no use to him.
- Meaningful Name: As lampshaded in-universe, it's what people automatically feel for her, but something she isn't allowed to act on.
- No-Sell: Spider-Man only ekes out a victory against her when he ignores her vulnerable aura and punches her in the face hard as he can.
- Psychoactive Powers: While she forms larger shapes of darkness easily, she tends to radiate waves or shapes of it when she's stressed during combat.
- Schmuck Bait: An advantage of her vulnerable look is that people take it easier on her in a combat situation.
- The Speechless: Doesn't speak. The Gentleman says it's a measure he implemented a few years ago to keep her docile.
- Training from Hell: In addition to extensive psychological conditioning, she has been instructed by terrorists and secret agents to be an effective infiltrator, combatant, and assassin.
- Worthy Opponent:
- Just as strong and agile as Spider-Man, and even better trained. Every move he uses on her she wriggles out of quickly, and her hits are hard enough to leave him bruised and angry. He describes their first fight as being like Inigo Montoya fighting the Man in Black.
