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Sandbox / Marvel Comics: Mysterio

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Mysterio

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mysterio_3.jpg

Alter Ego: Quentin Beck

Notable Aliases: Dr. Ludwig Rinehart, Cage McKnight, Gerdes, Nicholas Macabes, Rudolph Hines, Mysty, Spider-Man

Species: Human

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #13 (June 1964)

Expect the unexpected when you see Mysterio!
— Introductory Caption, The Amazing Spider-Man #13, "The Menace of Mysterio", written by Stan Lee

Quentin Beck, better known as Mysterio, is a Marvel Comics character, best known as a villain of Spider-Man. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #13 (dated June 1964).

Quentin Beck was a master special effects man who loved films and making them. However, he always wanted to be in the spotlight and hated being stuck behind the scenes. His acting career never went anywhere, so he decided to take on a new job: supervillainy. As an effects wizard, he decided to frame Spider-Man for a robbery, then in a new costume (complete with a one-way mirror Fishbowl Helmet) would stop Spider-Man so that he would earn the fame he thought he deserved. Exposed and tricked in the attempt, Quentin swore revenge as Mysterio, and became a serious recurring threat to the wall-crawler.

Throughout the years, Mysterio would become a recurring member of the Sinister Six, and even become entangled with the likes of other superheroes in the Marvel Universe, most notably Daredevil. There have also been a few other characters to become Mysterio at various points in time, but Quentin remains the one most associated with the name to date.

Because of his status as one of Spider-Man's most popular rogues, Mysterio has often appeared in other media. He's more or less shown up in every Spider-Man cartoon to date, as well as plenty of video games based on Marvel properties. Additionally, it was intended that Bruce Campbell's cameo roles throughout the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy would've been revealed as various disguises of Mysterio in a prospective Spider-Man 4, but the project was canceled before it could come to fruition. Mysterio ultimately made his live-action debut in 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, who infamously (almost) replaced Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 2.

Mysterio appears in:

Notable Comic books

Animation

Film

Video Games

Mysterio provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 
    #-L 
  • Accidental Murder: Symbiote Spider-Man shows the first time that he killed as a supervillain; while robbing a bank, he forced the teller to open the vault for him, only for her to get accidentally shot by a security guard because of how he dodged the guard's gunfire. The experience shocks and traumatizes him badly enough that Mysterio briefly considers quitting crime… until a symbiote-wearing Spider-Man beats him viciously while trying to arrest him despite Mysterio being defenseless, causing Mysterio to redouble his desire for revenge against the Wallcrawler.
  • Actually a Doombot:
    • Mysterio uses this trick a lot too. Seeing as Mysterio is also fond of holograms and illusions, Spider-Man often cannot tell if he facing the real Mysterio, an illusion, or a robot, and even worse, the same often goes for a lot of other stuff he has to fight when the villain is involved.
      • This has become more complex since the original Mysterio acquired a couple of imitators who also use this identity. And they don't really get along with each other. A storyline in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11-13 (October-December, 2006) had all three Mysterios independently seeking a confrontation with Spidey, resulting in a rather complicated Mêlée à Trois scenario. Spidey has trouble telling which is which and is further confused because the original was supposed to be dead.
      • In Spider-Men, Mysterio doesn't actually have a Ultimate Marvel counterpart. "Ultimate Mysterio" is actually a robot double he was controlling all along.
      • One reason this trick works so often is that Mysterio is a well-established technical genius. His robots are incredibly realistic, so much so that in the Guardian Devil story arc by Kevin Smith, he manages to convince Daredevil, the man who can hear heartbeats, into believing that Mysterio is dead.
      • In The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), Mysterio tries this with Kindred to try and slip out of his deal with him, brainwashing his psychiatrist into thinking he was Quentin Beck and using the shrink as a body double, slipping away as Kindred kills the psychiatrist for speaking his name. Kindred isn't happy about having to kill an innocent, but admits the only reason Mysterio didn't get away with it was his inability to resist his old "Ludwig Rineart" disguise.
  • Affably Evil: Can come off as very likable and snarky at times. On the other hand...
    • Faux Affably Evil: It's not really a good idea to push him. He once nearly drove Spider-Man into irreversible madness.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Mysterio is sort of this. In the mainstream comics, he's rarely, if ever, shown any interest in women and has had a few hints over the years (plus the Spidey standard of occasional Ho Yay). The Sinister Six novels dropped the ambiguously part and made him explicitly gay; said novels are dubiously canon at best but pretty much everyone out-of-universe assumes he's gay at this point, even if the comics have yet to actually say it, though in Ben Reilly: The Scarlet Spider it's revealed that he has a secret daughter named Misty, possibly closing the book on the question of his sexuality, or at least now making him Ambiguously Bi. Then she was revealed to be a gynoid so the ambiguity has returned "Mysterio wanted a daughter so badly, he built himself one."
  • Ate His Gun: Mysterio killed himself this way after finding that Daredevil would not kill him for the death of Karen Page (He also references Kraven's suicide beforehand). He came back but with half of his head missing.
  • Attention Whore: Mysterio, By his own admission, no less! His main goal in life is to become famous, and pretty much everything he does is an attempt to achieve his goal. He was originally a special effects artist in a movie studio, but he didn't think his job was making him famous enough. He tried to get into acting for the extra recognition, but his career never went anywhere. He became a supervillain after a friend sarcastically told him that becoming a criminal seemed like a good way to get famous.
  • Back from the Dead: In a Peter David Friendly Neighborhood arc with a dose of Body Horror.
  • Badass Cape:
    • Mysterio usually has a purple cape to go with his 'fishbowl' and green outfit, which both help negate the cheesiness of the headgear and let him look more, well, mysterious. He's also got eye-shaped clasps attached to hold it on that can even shoot lasers.
  • Badass Normal: Mysterio gets all his abilities from his suit, using psychological warfare, SFX skills, hypnosis, and custom-made gasses to challenge Spider-Man mentally. He also has extensive knowledge of hand-to-hand combat techniques learned as a stuntman, allowing him to engage in combat with Spider-Man despite his foe's superior physical abilities.
  • Big Bad: The main antagonist of Spider-Men.
  • Blatant Lies: When Janice Lincoln (aka, the Beetle) shows up to defend him in court, Mysterio threatens to sue her for using the Sinister Six name, claiming it was his idea (it was actually Doctor Octopus' idea).
  • Breakout Villain: Mysterio was just initially a minor gimmick villain introduced and defeated in the same issue. However, he quickly struck accord with readers, owing to his striking design and potent gimmick, and as a result started getting more and more appearances. Soon he started appearing in other comics such as Daredevil and then he made a particularly memorable and chillingly appearance in Old Man Logan the latter of which increased his notoriety among Marvel’s villains even further. After appearing in numerous cartoons and games (being the Big Bad of both Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions) he finally got a cinematic debut in the MCU and proved to be one of the most well-liked villains.
  • Canon Immigrant: Enforced In-Universe. He was running operations in Earth-616 and Earth-1610 simultaneously with the use of his robotic avatar Ultimate Mysterio. At the end of Spider-Men, he is incarcerated by The Ultimates in Earth-1610 due to his knowledge of Peter's secret identity in Earth-616. However, he eventually finds a means of returning to the 616-universe.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: He enjoys being a supervillain and it shows.
  • Chest Blaster: He has eye designs on his costumes that fire chemical smoke, tranquilizers, or energy blasts.
  • Cool Helmet: He may get flack for wearing a helmet that is consistently compared to a fishbowl, but there's no denying that it contributes to his overall mystique. On at least one occasion, he has used it to pull off some truly unsettling effects.
  • Crossover Villain-in-Chief: Has a turn in this role in Spider-Men, where his portal is responsible for Peter getting sent to Miles' universe. He also serves as their primary opposition in getting Peter home.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Justified. Mysterio could easily reforge his career as a special effects guy and make millions if he really wanted to, but he likes being a bad guy far more than he ever liked his old job. Supervillainy allows him to indulge his Large Ham tendencies.
  • Deal with the Devil: Mysterio made a deal with a demon to escape from Hell, and now a demon has decided to collect on that debt. Demons tend to not forget when you owe them one, as Mysterio finds out when one decides to collect on the debt Mysterio owes in exchange for coming back to life. Also, because it has been so long Mysterio had practically forgotten about it. Making deals with demons is a very, VERY bad idea. Mostly on account that said deal will more than likely benefit them more than you. Just ask Mendel Stromm. Oh wait you can’t. Because he’s dead.
  • Depending on the Artist: While the fishbowl, green suit with square pattern, gold gauntlets, and purple cape is considered his main design, he’s had dozens of other appearances some of which remove the cape while others artists make him look completely different. Such as in the The Clone Saga which replaces the fishbowl with a head of fire similar to Dormammu, a similar look was also used for the Mysterio android who appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man. Even the fishbowl is often drawn inconsistently as usually it’s opaque, but it’s not uncommon for Quentin Beck’s actual face to be visible inside. Not to mention whether Mysterio is wreathed in a smokey aura or not.
  • Depending on the Writer: For any given comic, Quentin was either a genuinely athletic Badass Normal who owed his physique and combat skills to years of stunt work, or a sleazy, portly man who relied on Powered Armour to be a physical threat. The only consistent attribute was that his face was too homely for showbiz, but even then artists can't seem to settle on whether he was bald or had a black bowl haircut.
  • Determinator: Mysterio refuses to back down when faced with the combined might of The Ultimates and two Spider-Men. Twice.
  • Distaff Counterpart: His cousin, Maguire, though she committed crimes as a Jack O' Lantern instead of as a female Mysterio.
  • Driven to Suicide: During Guardian Devil, Mysterio learned he had cancer and wouldn't last long. After making Daredevil's life a living hell, Daredevil defeats him and accuses him of ripping off The Kingpin with his plan to drive Daredevil insane and repeating a "supernatural intruding upon the real world" scheme he had previously used on J. Jonah Jameson. Subsequently, Beck shoots himself in the head while claiming to steal an idea from Kraven the Hunter. What's worse? The only reason he went after Daredevil was that he didn't want to deal with the Spider-Man that was active at the time (implied to be the clone Ben Reilly).
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Guardian Devil, Mysterio complains that nobody gave him credit for his inventions about special effects and illusions while everyone knows George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, etc., despite their work, are less impressive.
    • Defied in The Amazing Mary Jane #2, as the tagline says:
    "MJ VERSUS MYSTERIO! Mary Jane has learned MYSTERIO is the auteur behind her big break! (It figures… who else would make a prestige Mysterio biopic?)"
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Due to a Retcon, Mysterio actually debuted in ASM #2 as one of the "aliens" allied with the Tinkerer, before his official introduction several issues later.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: On occasion, Mysterio has drawn power from legitimate magical artifacts.
  • Enemy Mine: Has teamed up with Spider-Man in Ends of the Earth for one reason: because it sounded like an awesome pitch for a movie.
  • Evil Genius: A stuntman who can build his own android doppelgangers and concoct serums for every occasion.
  • Fake Wizardry: He uses a mastery of special effects to fool people into thinking he's got magical powers. By now Spidey knows full well he's faking it, but the effects are just good enough that guessing the nature of the trick can still be a chore.
  • Faking the Dead: Before his real death in Guardian Devil, faking it was something of a favorite tactic of his.
    Mook: D'ya think he's...?
    Spider-Man: Please. He's Mysterio. He's probably halfway to Hoboken by now.
  • Fame Through Infamy: He's obsessed with being famous, and at first he tried to gain it honestly, through working in Hollywood. After his acting career failed to get off the ground, he decided to become a criminal for the notoriety.
  • Fashion-Victim Villain: He wears what appears to be an upside-down goldfish bowl on his head. This is especially hilarious because he's supposed to be a Master of Illusion, yet he apparently has never thought that it might be a good idea to create the illusion that he isn't wearing an upside-down goldfish bowl on his head. Eventually, they caught on, and when his illusionary gas was enhanced by Dr. Doom, he went around town with the rest of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery in various disguises — a metal band, a punk band, and a schoolboy — with the rest of them as schoolgirls. They didn't know how they appeared.
    • A charming cartoonist named Katie Cook has lampshaded the fishbowl effect.
    • The exact same thing was done in the first Spider-Man Playsation game, if "What If?" mode was activated.
    • It seems that everyone has made fun of Mysterio's headgear — Marvel Ultimate Alliance has Spidey bringing it up if he's part of your team on the helicarrier, for example. In fact, "fishbowl for a head" is Spidey's favorite method of addressing him.
    • They fixed that in Ultimate Spider-Man where he loses the fishbowl and instead just has a vaguely head-shaped cloud of fog drifting above the metal device he wears around his shoulders. It's actually rather creepy but still, the beads he wears around his left hand look kind of silly.
    • He's been described as having been dressed by the Liberace Space Program.
    • Spider-Man: Far From Home faithfully recreates Mysterio's infamous costume and even has Beck himself describe it as "ridiculous", but manages the impressive effort of making it look surprisingly good◊, as well as giving a clever reason for why it's so tacky; it's a clumsy mixture of traits copied from various superhero costumes (Thor's cape, Iron Man's Powered Armor, Dr. Strange's eye motif, etc.) to go along with Mysterio's Fake Ultimate Hero bit.
  • Fishbowl Helmet: Mysterio is infamous for the glass helmet he wears that looks like a fish bowl. Although it's used more to protect himself from his own hallucinatory gas, it also serves to hide who's in the suit, useful if the man inside isn't the real deal.
    • Mysterio's parody from Earth-7840 (the 'Mazing Man-Spider world) IS a fish swimming inside the fishbowl helmet, called "Fish-Terio".
  • Foil: Surprisingly serves as one to Spider-Man at times. He once met with Spider-Man, both of them out of costume and unaware of one another's identities, at a movie theater screening of a classic movie. They are both enamored by the film and even share a heart-to-heart conversation about it afterward. The entire comic this scene comes from actually goes to great lengths to compare and contrast Mysterio and Spider-Man, showing them as having more similarities than they would admit.
  • Freudian Excuse: He was once just an excitable little kid who wanted, more than anything, to make movies and entertain people. It took his abusive father breaking his toys, camera, and spirit before Quentin's lighthearted hopes became twisted desires for fame and power.
  • Gaining the Will to Kill: Symbiote Spider-Man establishes that when Mysterio started out as a supervillain, he never meant for anybody to get hurt or killed, and actually tended to go out of his way to avoid injuring people — especially civilians — too badly in his schemes. When he kills for the first time by inadvertently causing the death of a bystander in a bank robbery gone wrong, he's so horrified, upset, and traumatized by the experience that he considers leaving crime. A vicious beating from a symbiote-influenced Spider-Man puts the kibosh on his retirement plans and the ensuing decades of living the criminal lifestyle plus learning he's dying of cancer (and then coming back thanks to an ill-advised Deal with the Devil) causes him to slowly lose his aversion to violence and become frighteningly willing to kill to get what he wants, even if he still doesn't actively seek it.
    • He goes through similar in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man, where he seems genuinely upset for a time at seemingly killing someone—only to shove down the "guilt and shame" and embrace his super-villainy completely.
  • Gaslighting:
    • An accidental one on Mysterio's part where his criminal activities as an impostor Spider-Man look so genuine that Peter starts wondering if the stress of his double life has caused him to develop a Split Personality. It makes him so paranoid that he seriously considers going to a therapist as Spider-Man but bails at the last minute.
    • Mysterio later does it on purpose. Inspired by Jameson's latest scheme of using word-on-the-street testimonials to slander Spider-Man, Mysterio masquerades as a psychiatrist who publicly diagnoses Spider-Man as crazy. Using elaborate projectors and sets with Alien Geometries, Mysterio was close to convincing Spider-Man that he was going insane and nearly revealing his identity to be rid of the stresses of the double life... were it not for Jameson and Flash bumbling their way into the situation and revealing Mysterio's illusions.
  • Glass Cannon: Mysterio is a master of illusion and setting up traps, but he is still just a normal human behind all the smoke and mirrors. The hard part of any fight is figuring out where he is, but once Spidey can get close, Mysterio usually only has one or two tricks left before Spider-Man takes him out swiftly.
    • Played for Laughs in the Spider-Man 2 video game. When Spider-Man meets Mysterio late in the game, it seems to be the setup for a long drawn-out boss battle (the game gives him about five health bars to diminish). One punch knocks him out.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Mysterio often catches flack for his goofy appearance, his over-the-top persona, and his villain abilities coming from special effects wizardry rather than any physical attributes. Yet his use of said special effects is consistently dangerous, with him being able to make working robots, create realistic illusions, and even nearly drove Spider-Man (and later, Daredevil) insane through his machinations.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: In Symbiote Spider-Man, after inadvertently getting an innocent woman killed during a bank robbery, he seriously considered retiring from the supervillain game out of guilt. Then Spider-Man, who was being influenced by the Venom symbiote at the time, beat the crap out of a defenseless Mysterio, which ended his thoughts of retirement then and there.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: He got cancer from overexposure to the materials he used for his illusions.
  • Insufferable Genius: Besides everything else listed on this page, he's also a bit of a snob when it comes to his expertise in practical effects when the movie industry he was a part of has started to veer towards computer-generated visuals.
  • Knockout Gas: Mysterio has used it from time to time.
  • Large Ham: Is loud and boastful, true to his origins as a showman, to the point of Spider-Man mocking him for it. This is also the reason he doesn't go back to making legitimate money with his special effects skills, as he loves chewing the scenery and villainy gives him the perfect excuse.
  • The Last Dance: Mysterio has terminal cancer that'll claim him in less than a year, so he decides to go out trying to take down a superhero, but quickly realized the last Spider-Man he faced was a clone — then he remembered that shortly after the crisis with Onslaught, when The Avengers were missing and thought dead, he fought Daredevil and realizing they're both considered second stringers, decided for it to be Matt.
  • Legacy Character: Quentin Beck once faked his death so his acquaintance, out-of-work stuntman Danny Berkhart, could adopt the role for a time. Then when Beck actually did die (before somehow coming back), a teleporting mutant named Francis Klum adopted the mantle. There's also "Mysterion", an unknown man who bought Mysterio's suit from Roderick Kingsley and battled the Superior Spider Man.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: In The Gauntlet, Mysterio once wore an elaborate and deformed disguise under his helmet just in case Spider-Man broke it so he could claim he was his long-lost cousin.◊ With Peter distracted, Mysterio proceeded to kick him in the nads and made his escape as his nemesis was hunched over in understandable agony.

    M-Z 
  • Mad Artist: Mysterio is not insane, but he has a real flair for the dramatic, and his crimes are as much about showing off his skills as an artist and performer as they are about getting money or revenge. The Amazing Mary Jane even features him trying to go semi-straight as a legitimate film director...although he had to kidnap and impersonate a Prima Donna Director to get funding.
  • Made of Iron: Usually Mysterio is shown to be just a normal man hiding behind illusions and special effects, and gets easily beaten by Spider-Man once he's able to close the distance and figure out where the real Mysterio is. Some depictions, however, have him able to stand toe-to-toe with Spider-Man and, while not able to beat him in a stand-up fight, can take a lot of punishment, usually enough to lure Spider-Man into another trap. This has been explained sometimes as his stuntman training lets him roll with the blows and exaggerate their effect, making it look like he's taking a lot more damage than he really is.
  • Mask of Confidence: One story established that he has severe confidence issues when not wearing his helmet, to such a point that he is too cowardly to speak to a woman he is attracted to over the phone without donning the mask.
  • Master of Disguise: Aside from his robotics and special effects skills, Mysterio is also an expert at passing himself off as an ordinary person. He used the alias of "Ludwig Rinehart" both in a plot to drive Spider-Man crazy and then as the malevolent manager of a retirement home, and in The Amazing Mary Jane disguised himself as a Prima Donna Director to secure funding to make a movie about himself.
  • Master of Illusion:
    • Mysterio falls into this trope, and he even titles himself "The Master of Illusion". Though his illusions are all based on his previous employment in the special effects industry, they can still be terrifyingly effective (though trying it on an Omega Class psychic? is not a good idea). After Mysterio committed suicide in Daredevil, and returned from the dead, his subsequent appearances revealed that he may or may not have Came Back Wrong, with actual illusion-casting powers. In the Old Man Logan storyline, Mysterio makes illusions so real that it tricks Wolverine into killing all of the other X-Men and breaking him when he dismisses the illusion.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
    • When he came Back from the Dead, he appeared to have supernatural abilities, supposedly gained in Hell. Given that he was already a Master of Illusion, it's impossible to be sure how real these powers were, and in the post-One More Day timeline, he's been sticking to his usual special effects fakery, implying that his demonic phase was more special effects. In general, however, Mysterio has often pulled off things that go well beyond any rational explanations — including being able to fool and escape from Doctor Strange who has universal awareness, suggesting Mysterio may actually have great powers… or his smoke and mirrors tricks simply that good.
      Mysterio: They call me Quentin Beck, the one and only Mysterio. Or maybe the real Beck is dead? I wouldn't trust me on this. I lie about everything.
      • The first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) picks this plot thread up again by revealing Mysterio did make a deal with a certain being to get out of Hell, and that said being has grown fed up with Quentin's inability to live up to the deal. It almost drags him back to hell until Mysterio makes one final desperate plea to be given a bit more time.
  • Morality Pet: Mary Jane, whose friendship after working on a movie together seems to be the start of a possible Heel–Face Turn.
  • Motive Rant: Has quite a speech about his motives in the finale of the Guardian Devil storyline, and implies that there's more still about just how he became a "monster" who would do all these things. Matt, in keeping with acting utterly unimpressed in this issue, spends most of that same time "rambling about how clever" he is isolating the "hum" of his suit's main battery.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Mysterio manages to trap Earth-616 Spider-Man not only in a world where everyone knows who he is, but where his counterpart has been dead for some time, since his portal only opens from the 616 universe. He would've finally been rid of Spider-Man if he hadn't felt the need to open the portal up again to look at his handiwork.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Mysterio, with his rather ridiculous costume and somewhat weak premise (he's a glorified stage magician with a lot of gadgets), often comes off as something of a joke, but every now and then he pulls off something unexpectedly big.
    • In Guardian Devil, a then-dying Mysterio decided to try and drive Daredevil so insane that he almost murders an infant with a ridiculously convoluted scheme, just because at the time Ben Reilly was Spider-Man, and the dying Mysterio wanted a grand exit and felt it would be wasted on Reilly, who Mysterio had subconsciously picked up was not the original Spider-Man]],
    • He once trapped X-Man in an illusion of a perfect reality.
    • He also used a robotic avatar to muck around in the Ultimate Marvel universe, including killing their version of the Kingpin.
    • At the start of The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), Mysterio stages an 'alien invasion' that nearly overwhelms the entire superhuman community of New York.
    • Perhaps his biggest deed happens in the Bad Future What If? Wolverine storyline Old Man Logan, where Mysterio's mastery of special effects reached Game-Breaker levels, in that he was able to manipulate Wolverine, he of the incredible senses and huge amounts of experience with having his head screwed with, into going absolutely crazy and slaughtering the entire X-Men team thinking they were his enemies coming in for a final battle. Not bad for a guy with a fishbowl for a head.
    • Oddly enough, none of these actually happened to his main enemy Spider-Man, at least not in the comics, which suggests that perhaps ol' Fishbowl Head should go find himself a new archenemy (though it's worth noting that Mysterio disguised himself as a psychiatrist and nearly drove Spider-Man insane in one of his earliest appearances).
  • Odd Friendship: He develops one with Mary Jane after using the alias of director Cage McKnight to direct her in a movie.
  • Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Mysterio stepped up his game sometime before Spider-Men; assuming he didn't steal the supplies, he developed an interdimensional portal and a robotic avatar capable of inter-dimensional transmission. Ultimate Tony Stark, the super genius with the resources to develop such technology, admits frustration that he developed the technology before he could, and can't even crack the math to reverse engineer the process.
  • One-Way Visor: His fishbowl-like helmet hides his appearance but allows him to see perfectly clear through it.
  • Only in It for the Money: In Ends of the Earth, this is Mysterio's main motivation for joining up with Doc Ock's current Sinister Six. However, once Ock's plan is revealed, Spider-Man convinces him to pull a Heel–Face Turn, if only for a little bit, due to the fact that the money would be useless should Ock succeed.
  • Perpetual Tourist: During The Gauntlet arc, Mysterio's ultimate goal when he takes over the Maggia is to grab as much money as he can, and "buy an island in the tropics where I can sit under palm trees and drink things out of coconuts".
  • Powered Armor: His suit serves as a containment/protection for his various hologram and gas-based gadgets, but depending on the writer it also has a battery-powered strength-enhancing system. It was far more rudimentary and basic than the ones employed by, say, Iron Man, however.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the Guardian Devil storyline, Mysterio, after learning he's dying, launches an Evil Plan to ruin Daredevil's life and goad him into killing him. Daredevil beats him down; and then after denying him what he wants, verbally tears both the plan and Mysterio to pieces. Not disagreeing, Beck then admits that he does have one more idea to steal — Kraven the Hunter's — and promptly shoots himself in the head.
    Mysterio: D… Do it, hero… K… Kill me.
    Daredevil: I'm not going to give you the satisfaction. You think you can break me? You're a joke and a fraud. Now give me the baby and let's end this.
    Mysterio: A… fraud?! I'm… an artist! I n… nearly drove you… insane!
    Daredevil: You drugged me and killed people. There's no talent in that… just savagery.
    Mysterio: B… but… my dystopian nightmare…
    Daredevil: ...was nothing more than B-Movie material. An amalgam of whorish, clichéd devices. The supernatural intruding on our world? Didn't you use the same schtick on J. Jonah Jameson years ago? And trying to drive me insane? Kingpin nearly did it once. But you're no Kingpin. You're not even close. You think you've spun some sort of grand swan-song epic? Think again. You've just told yet another tale of a so-called super-genius endeavoring to drive his arch-nemesis — or, in this case, his adopted arch-nemesis — insane. Your whole existence is counterfeit. You've never had an original thought in your life. You're a product of too many movies and too much TV. Regurgitating only what's gone before. You're a Human Xerox, at best.
    • Beck then admits that he has one more idea to steal: Kraven's, and shoots himself in the head.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Mysterio did this once on purpose because the real Spidey wasn't available, and made enough of an impression (notably, he indirectly caused the death of Karen Page) that he arguably still has a place among Dardevil's foes. He is still mostly a Spidey villain but when he shows up, there is a higher-than-normal chance that Daredevil will too.
    • Likewise in Old Man Logan he became a villain for Wolverine.
    • He briefly becomes a nemesis of Nate Grey (who, partly thanks to being friends with Spidey, had a tendency to run into Spidey's enemies), and even successfully trapped him in a fantasy world. Unfortunately, Nate is arguably Marvel's most powerful psychic. Needless to say, Karma followed very quickly.
  • Secondary Color Nemesis: Mysterio wears a green bodysuit and a flowing purple cape, the latter of which billows behind him to add flair to his movements.
  • Shadow Archetype: Mysterio reflects Spider-Man's desire for respect and his temptation to use his powers for his own selfish gains instead of helping others. Both were people who felt unappreciated and downtrodden most of their lives and started out using their special gifts for money and fame but while Peter learns with great power comes great responsibility Mysterio stays a selfish jerk.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: He's a firmly B-list villain at best, but his ego is the size of a planet. He's had a respectable career as a villain, but he's not anywhere near the level of the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus. He doesn't take it well when he realizes his true place on the villain ladder.
  • Smoke Out: He's fond of this, as per his illusionist/performer persona.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Years of inhaling the fumes of his green smoke and using untested latex compounds for his masks gave Mysterio terminal cancer.
  • Symbiotic Possession: In Symbiote Spider-Man, Mysterio blackmails Felicia Hardy into obtaining a sample of Spider-Man's mysterious new black suit — actually an alien symbiote. This piece of the symbiote later bonds to Mysterio, who revels in his newfound power and seeks to kill Spider-Man to claim the rest of it for himself.
  • Tricked-Out Shoes: He has used magnetic boots in order to mimic Spidey's wall-crawling.
  • Troll: Dan Slott's interpretation of Mysterio in The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott) seems to realize the fact that he is seen as a Harmless Villain, and rather than snap and try to prove them wrong, he actually just takes the ball and rolls with it. In Ends of the Earth he's even seen killing time playing Angry Birds as opposed to aiding the Sinister Six.
  • Villainous Rescue: In Ends of the Earth, Mysterio had once saved The Avengers from impending doom. Though Tony Stark wouldn't admit it.

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