"ROGUES"
Membership: Beetle (Abner Jenkins), Boomerang (Fred Myers), Jack O'Lantern (Steve Levins), Scorpia (Elaine Coll), Shocker (Herman Schultz)
Purpose: To collect the bounty on the Spider-Man skeleton
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Pro, Spider-Man (Ben Reilly)
Base of Operations: Mobile
First Appearance: Spider-Man Unlimited I#12 (May, 1996)
History: (Spider-Man Unlimited I#12) - While swinging through the city, Spider-Man was beset by the Beetle, the Shocker, Jack O'Lantern, Scorpia, and Boomerang, all seeking the Daily Bugle's $100, 000 bounty for a skeleton in a Spider-Man costume, which Spider-Man had been photographed with. Upon realizing they shared a common goal, the five villains decided to unite and split the bounty. After a twenty-minute-long battle, however, the webslinger managed to escape.
The Rogues regrouped and split up, tracking Spider-Man's movements. The Shocker spotted him leaving the hotel room of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker, and the Beetle tracked Spider-Man (who himself was tracking the Pro and his hostage, Peter Parker) to a cemetery on Staten Island. Once the wall-crawler had taken the Pro down and grabbed the skeleton, the Rogues struck, coming at him from all sides. Jack O'Lantern took out Spider-Man, allowing the Shocker to grab the skeleton. His triumph was short-lived, however, as he was immediately tranquilized by the Pro. Spider-Man snagged the skeleton from the Pro, but quickly lost it to the Beetle. As the Beetle made a break for it, Spider-Man ran into the remaining Rogues and took them out in rapid succession, shooting Boomerang full of paralysis stingers and throwing Jack O'Lantern at Scorpia. He then snagged and pummeled the Beetle, finishing him off with a stinger.
Comments: Created by Evan Skolnick, Paris Karounos, Steven Butler, Steve Geiger, Randy Emberlin, Derek Fisher, Scott Hanna, & Al Milgrom.
They were never formally identified as the Rogues in the story, but they used the callsigns "Rogue Three", "Rogue Two", etc., so I'm callin' them the Rogues.
The spontaneous teamwork shown by super-villains (usually not a cooperative lot) here is easily explained by their familiarity with one another. Boomerang, Shocker, and Beetle were all charter members of the Sinister Syndicate; Shocker, Beetle, and Scorpia were in the Sinister Seven; and Beetle and Scorpia both worked for Silvermane. As for Jack O'Lantern...well, he must've hit it off with the Shocker, because they were partnered up against the Hood.
The whole Spider-skeleton thing is a long, complicated story, but in brief: when Spider-Man defeated his clone in Amazing Spider-Man I#149, he dumped the clone's corpse in a smokestack. Much, much later it was revealed that the clone had lived and become Ben Reilly, and it was subsequently revealed that Reilly was in fact the real deal. But then, that same smokestack was demolished, and a skeleton in a Spider-Man costume was discovered amongst the rubble. Uh-oh. Much was made of this, but it turns out the Jackal put a specially-preserved clone in there, to mess with Parker and Reilly. What a jerk.
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The "Rogues" have no known connections to...
images: (without ads)
Spider-Man Unlimited I#12, p32, pan1 (main image)
Appearances:
Spider-Man Unlimited I#12 (May, 1996) - Evan Skolnick (writer), Paris Karounos,
Steven Butler, Steve Geiger (pencilers), Randy Emberlin, Derek Fisher, Paris
Karounos, Scott Hanna, Al Milgrom, Steven Butler (inkers), Eric Fein and Ralph
Macchio (editors)
Last updated: 06/10/07.
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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