Spot (comics)

The Spot (Dr. Jonathan Ohnn) is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe and appearing as an enemy of Spider-Man and Daredevil.

Publication history
He was created by Al Milgrom and Herb Trimpe. Ohnn first appeared unnamed in Spectacular Spider-Man #97 and became the Spot in the following issue #98.

Fictional character biography
As a scientist working for the Kingpin, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn was assigned to reproduce the radiation levels of the superhero Cloak to find a way to artificially mimic his powers. Working late one night, he succeeded, creating a solid black circular portal. In doing so, however, the drain on the city's power became so great, a blackout washed over the city, causing the portal to shimmer and destabilize. Fearful of losing a once in a lifetime opportunity, Ohnn stepped into it; the shock of the transition caused him to pass out.

He awoke floating weightlessly in a dimension which he initially assumed was Cloak's dark dimension. He soon realized however that the power shortage caused the portal to send him to a different dimension, a place of half darkness and half light. A seemingly infinite number of portals surrounded him in this place. Making swimming motions, he managed to find the original portal that brought him there and slipped back through it.

When Ohnn emerged back into his lab, his body had undergone a radical transformation. The portals from the other dimension had adhered to his skin, covering him with black spots from head to toe. Realizing the spots were portable space warps, he started to think he might be able to use them to defeat anyone in battle. When Spider-Man and the Black Cat arrived to confront the Kingpin, he appeared before them and announced himself as the Spot. Spider-Man collapsed on the roof, laughing at the name. The Spot ended up winning that first confrontation and warned the heroes to leave the Kingpin alone. He later lost a second battle against Spider-Man because he was tricked into throwing too many of his spots as weapons and not keeping enough to defend himself with.

Later, the Spot formed a short-lived team with Gibbon, Grizzly, and Kangaroo II called the Spider-Man Revenge Squad, which was better known as the Legion of Losers. This team fell apart when Spider-Man carted the Spot and the Kangaroo to jail for bank robbery, and Grizzly and Gibbon left the group as they disagreed with their teammates' more ruthless approach.

Sometime later, the Spot was captured by the organization Gideon Trust and was forced to open a portal to the Negative Zone. Gideon Trust hoped to investigate and exploit the natural resources of the Zone for their own purposes, but were defeated by the Fantastic Four who were trapped there.

The Spot also appeared in the Spider-Man's Tangled Web series, in which he helped Tombstone escape from a maximum security prison. As thanks, Tombstone snapped his neck.

Despite this, he reappeared months later and arranged a meeting with Slyde. Both were upset at the reports of Hydra capturing or killing lesser-known supervillains. When the Spot arrived, both he and Slyde were quickly captured by a brainwashed Elektra. They were then resurrected by The Hand to join Hydra's army of superhumans and assault the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, however the Spot was taken out by Wolverine during the attack.

The Spot returned in Civil War: War Crimes, recruited as part of Hammerhead's supervillain army. However, as Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. forces attacked their forces, it remains unknown if the Spot is currently incarcerated with other villains, somehow escaped, or amongst the casualties of the raid.

The Spot appeared in MODOK's 11 as part of a team organized by the villain of the same name to steal a weapon/power-source named the Hypernova. In the book, the Spot's intelligence seems to have been reduced to the point that he brags about having once been defeated by Spider-Man. He is showing a self-serving streak and in #3, it was revealed he'd defected to Temugin in return for a larger paycheck. He runs out on the rest of the team - leaving them to die - the instant they get the Hypernova. The Temugin immediately afterward trapped the Spot in the dimension he originally gained his powers from. The Temugin felt he couldn't trust the Spot not to backstab him like he had MODOK's 11.

In the Brand New Day issues of Amazing Spider-Man, the Spot is seen in the "Bar With No Name".

The Spot returns in "Amazing Spider-Man". His son had been injured and is now in a coma as a result of a drive-by shooting. In revenge, Spot begins killing members of the Russian Mafia.

In Dark Reign crossover, he is one among many supervillains who joined the Hood's crime syndicate. It is later revealed he is serving as a mole for Mister Negative (a fellow Darkforce powered villain) under the promise that he will be cured once the Maggia crime families are killed.

During the Origin of the Species storyline, Spot is among the supervillains invited by Doctor Octopus to join his supervillain team where he promises each of them a reward in exchange that they secure some specific items for him. Ever since Lily Hollister's baby was stolen by the Chameleon, Spider-Man had been going on a rampage against any villains involved. The police ended up getting a web ball containing Spot, Diablo, and Overdrive.

Later, the Spot was working together with a man in a kidnapping scheme to kidnap the little girl of a mafia family during the wedding involving both their family and another mafia family but was unaware that Daredevil heard a rumor about this hit and defeated the Spot before he could succeed. After being embarrassed so, the Spot is captured and restrained and its powers are used by a new individual called Coyote, working for an unknown figure trying to bring Daredevil down.

Powers and abilities
Using his space warps, the Spot can instantly move himself or any part of his body from one area to another over a theoretically unlimited distance via another dimension nicknamed "Spotworld."

The Spot can control and manipulate the warps to almost any degree he wishes. He can expand or shrink them to any size, or he can join together multiple spots to form one larger warp. The spots are unaffected by gravity and can be placed against a surface or left suspended in mid-air. He can also designate which spots will lead to the spot dimension from those that will instantly lead to another location in this dimension. He can create new spots, or close them entirely by retreating into his dimension and pulling the warp in behind him (making a quiet "poit" sound).

By concentrating, he used to be able to revert to his human appearance. When doing this, the spots merged to form one large black void in his chest, though this was easily covered with a shirt.

His preferred method of attack is to surround his opponent with numerous spots, allowing him to punch or kick them from unexpected angles across great distances. This proved very effective against Spider-Man as his spider-sense was unable to detect incoming attacks from another dimension, effectively negating this ability (and although the Spot's lack of super-strength meant that his punches did not actually do much damage even when they did connect, the cumulative effect could prove dangerous in an extended fight). The same phenomenon was true when Spot flung Spider-Man through a warp and he reappeared in this dimension too close to a wall to dodge. However on Daredevil, who also has superhuman senses, this trick does not work, as his Radar Sense could easily detect the teleportation energy in the Spot's body, making it simple for him to tell where the Spot was going to attack from. The Spot can also move the spots on his body to protect himself from physical attack by positioning one in the path of a punch or kick, causing the attack to pass harmlessly through a warp.

Other versions
In the comic Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn (shown in his Spot form) appears in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier with the other heroes who survived the Zombie plague. Spot looked a lot like a white Deadpool. In the comic Marvel Zombies vs. The Army Of Darkness he is again seen uninfected and still working for Dr. Doom, in which Spot destroys his enemy, the zombified Spider-Man's lower leg in order to protect himself from being infected. This version of Spot actually has a cybernetic right arm; which came after since an unnamed zombie civilian attacked and bit his right arm, causing it to be infected. Believing he has no choice, Ohn cut off his infected right arm and eventually replaced it with a cybernetic prosthesis (shown with only 3 fingers, plus looking like one of Dr. Octopus's tentacles) that allows him to fight and shoot out repulsor blasts, pretty much like Iron Man's gauntlets do to the same thing. Spot's fate is not yet shown.

The Ultimate version of the Spot appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man #111. Not much is known about him, except that his name is Frank, and he worked for Roxxon Industries, where an accident gave him his powers. He has similar powers to his 616 counterpart, being able to use the "spots" on his body to attack his opponent from long range. After a fight with Spider-Man, he is apprehended. The main difference in appearance between the Ultimate version and his 616-counterpart is that his spots flow around his body like a lava lamp instead of staying put. From an illustrator's point of view he is not drawn with a Dalmatian-like pattern, but is instead penciled as a white figure and covered in black ink blots when the page is inked.

Television

 * The Spot appears in the Spider-Man: The Animated Series episode "The Spot" voiced by Oliver Muirhead. In this episode, Jonathan Ohn is fired from his work by Tony Stark (Iron Man) for Ohn's work involves creating dimensional portals. Since the events of the episodes "Venom Returns" and "Carnage," Stark thought it would be best if Ohn's work were shut down. Kingpin locates Ohn, pretending to appreciate Ohn's job of creating portals, and gives him a job with a woman whom he loves named Dr. Silvia Lopez (voiced by Wanda De Jesus). As weeks pass, Ohn and Lopez finish their work but Ohn falls into one of his portals, becoming the Spot when a whole group of portals attached to him. He then develops the ability to create portals with his mind. Kingpin was frustrated with Ohn and considered his and Lopez's explanation to be very vague. Spot used his portal-creating abilities to rob banks and jewelry stores to get more money to fund his research. He then deduces that he works for a criminal like Kingpin and wants to take over the empire after witnessing Lopez talking to Kingpin. During the confrontation, the Kingpin uses the captive Lopez to have the Spot capture and kill Spider-Man. Spot confronts Spider-Man, but the hero defeats him using his Spider-Sense to find the right portal that would enable him to attack Spot. Spider-Man is aware that if the Spot fails, Lopez would die and the two start to work together. In a battle to defeat Kingpin, it was discovered that one of Spot's portals was left open to the point where it grows so big it had the potential to engulf the Earth, starting with New York City. Spider-Man, the Spot, Lopez and Kingpin work together to take down the portal. However, the Spot cannot completely close the portal from the outside. He jumps in but not before Lopez expresses her love for him, and hangs onto him. They were both sucked in and have not been seen since. However, his portal technology would return in the form of the Time-Dilation Accelerator and the device would be used by several other characters like The Hobgoblin and then Green Goblin. An alternate reality version of the Spot appears in a cameo as Dr. Ohn in "I Really, Really, Really Hate Clones" in which the Scarlet Spider explains the origin of Spider-Carnage. In this reality, Ohn works for the Kingpin and accidentally releases the Carnage symbiote through one of his portals.