Farley Stillwell

Updated on Jan 01, 2024

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Publisher Marvel Comics Species Human Creators Stan Lee, Steve Ditko		Created by Stan Lee Steve Ditko Abilities Scientific genius Fictional universe Marvel Universe
First appearance The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (1965) Similar Spencer Smythe, Calypso, Mac Gargan, Debra Whitman, Alistair Smythe

Farley Stillwell is a fictional scientist appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

Farley Stillwell first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #20 and was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Fictional character biography

When J. Jonah Jameson first hired Peter Parker, he was amazed at how he managed to obtain pictures of Spider-Man. He hired private investigator Mac Gargan to look into this. When J. Jonah Jameson saw an article about inducing animal mutations into humans, he visited the scientist that established this experiment: Dr. Farley Stillwell. Jameson first thought Stillwell was a crack-pot, but later saw him as an opportunity to take down Spider-Man. When he first went to see Dr. Stillwell in his lab, Jameson had him experiment on Gargan. Farley gave Gargan a high-tech scorpion-suit, and the Scorpion was born.

Shortly after the experiment, Farley ran some tests and found that his experiment wasn't a true success. He discovered that Scorpion would lose his sanity as he got stronger. Creating an antidote, Stillwell headed to where Spider-Man was fighting the Scorpion. Upon learning the side effects of the formula from Stillwell, Scorpion didn't want to lose his powers and climbed up a building. Stillwell went up after him and lost his grip. As he fell, Dr. Stillwell threw the serum at Gargan in a vain attempt to cure him. He missed and fell to his death.

Legacy

It was later revealed that he had a brother named Harlan Stillwell who used the experiment to create the Human Fly after being held at gunpoint by Richard Deacon. After Richard became the Human Fly, he shot Harlan.

The Stillwell brothers' technology would also later be used to give superpowers to the Answer, and the fourth Vulture.

House of M

He appears in a flashback in the series House of M, as Dr. Farley Stillwell was among the scientists who experimented on Luke Cage.

Television

Dr. Farley Stillwell appeared in the 1960s Spider-Man episode "Never Step on a Scorpion", voiced by Tom Harvey.

Wolfpack, an episode of The Amazing Spider-Man, features a cameo from Dr. Stillwell. This is confirmed to be the character by his name tag.

Dr. Farley Stillwell appeared in the 1990s Spider-Man episode "Sting of the Scorpion", voiced by Michael Rye. J. Jonah Jameson hired him to turn Mac Gargan into the Scorpion. When Scorpion wanted Farley to restore him later on, Farley ended up knocked out and hospitalized. In a flashback in "Make a Wish," Farley was the scientist that led the experiment involving neogenics, an accident during this enabled Peter Parker to become Spider-Man. In "The Final Nightmare," Farley was abducted from the hospital by the Scorpion who took him to the laboratory where Spider-Man, Dr. Curt Connors, and Vulture were. While a fight ensued between Spider-Man, Vulture, and Scorpion, Stillwell planned to destroy the Neogenic Recombinator. His motivations were to make sure that monsters like the Scorpion were never created again. Dr. Curt Connors tried to intervene saying that it would help cure him. When Farley asks him what it would cure him of, Curt turned into the Lizard and attacked. Spider-Man took down Lizard as Farley overloaded the Recombinator's transfomer causing it to explode. Farley later explains to Curt that neogenics is too dangerous and states that its secrets will stay with him forever. He then vows to disappear, never to be seen again.

Video games

In the video game adaption to Spider-Man 3, a female Dr. Stillwell (voiced by Nika Futterman) is based on Dr. Farley Stillwell. In the game, she is head of MechaBioCon and uses the Scorpion as a subject for military cybernetics and mind control. She first uses him to break the Rhino out of a prison truck. After Spider-Man defeats the Scorpion at a construction zone and frees him from Stillwell's control, he vows revenge and asks Spidey to help. After Spider-Man and Scorpion defeat the Rhino at MechaBioCon, Scorpion goes after Stillwell, who later pulls a gun on him. Scorpion smacks the gun away and is about to kill her, when she reveal there is no surgery to return Gargan back to normal, but Spider-Man and Dr. Jessica Andrews (an employee who has feelings for Gargan) plead Scorpion not to kill her. Scorpion listens and escapes out the window, and Stillwell is webbed up by Spider-Man and later arrested.

References

Farley Stillwell Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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