Brothers Grimm (comics)

The Brothers Grimm are two sets of twin supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The first appearance of the first Brothers Grimm came in Spider-Woman #3. These were a pair of identical, magically animated mannequins created by doll collector Nathan Dolly (also known as Mister Doll) and his wife Priscilla.^[1] During their initial appearances only one was ever seen at a time and the singular identity, Brother Grimm was used instead of their true plural name. After three return appearances in Spider-Woman, they perished in issue #12.

Although the characters were introduced while Marv Wolfman was writing Spider-Woman, their origin and identities were not revealed until Mark Gruenwald's run on the series. Questioned as to whether he had told Gruenwald the characters' origin or Gruenwald had come up with it himself, Wolfman admitted that he could not even remember if the origin he had envisioned for the characters was the same as the one ultimately used by Gruenwald, except that "Brother Grimm" actually being two people was his intention from the beginning.^[2] Though Wolfman could not remember how the Brothers Grimm were created, he has said he is confident that they were designed by penciler Carmine Infantino: "I usually gave the artist a concept of what I wanted and then let them have a field day with it. Carmine created brilliant designs in The Flash, so I would certainly have bowed to his expertise."^[2]

The second Brothers Grimm appeared in Iron Man #188. They later join the group Night Shift alongside other lesser-known villains.

Fictional character biography

First Pair

Brothers Grimm
The first Brothers Grimm and Priscilla Dolly
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Spider-Woman #3 (June 1978)
Created by	Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino
In-story information
Alter ego	Jake and William Dolly
Abilities	Costume granted matter production

Mister Doll, real name Nathan Dolly, is a criminal who can mystically harm a person by harming a doll whose features he can reshape to resemble the victim's.^[3] While creating the Brothers Grimm dolls, Nathan's consciousness is trapped simultaneously inside both doll mannequins. These mannequins mail themselves to Nathan's wife Priscilla and transfer their life forces into two human-sized versions.^[4]

Priscilla names the two Jake and William after the historical Brothers Grimm and believes them to be her sons, a delusion which they play along with.^[4] The "brothers" have sharply opposed personalities, rarely could come to agreement, and as such pursued separate criminal careers.^[5]

Priscilla plans to use her occult knowledge to transfer Nathan's mind from the mannequins to a living human body.^[4] To this end, Jake abducts Jerry Hunt to use for the body, and William captures Spider-Woman to coerce Magnus the Sorcerer to perform the transfer.^[6] Spider-Woman pulls Hunt out of the spell at the last moment, and Nathan's consciousness disperses.^[4]

Second pair

Brothers Grimm
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Iron Man #188 (Nov 1984)
Created by	Dennis O'Neil, Luke McDonnell, and Steve Mitchell
In-story information
Alter ego	Percy and Barton Grimes
Team affiliations	Masters of Evil Night Shift Anti-Arach9
Abilities	Costume granted matter production

Twin brothers Percy and Barton Grimes are born in Fresno, California. They work as realtors, and while exploring a theatre they own, they find the original Brothers Grimm mannequins. On a whim, they decide to try the costumes on and become gifted with the powers of the original pair.^[7] The Brothers Grimm later became professional criminals and join the Night Shift.^[8] In later appearances, the Brothers Grimm join the Hood's gang, the Masters of Evil, and Anti-Arach9.^[9][10][11]

Powers and abilities

Both pairs of Brothers Grimm had powers which were somehow related to the Brothers Grimm mannequins built by Nathan Dolly. Both pairs of Brothers Grimm possess the ability to conjure, with the appearance of sleight of hand, a variety of small novelty items from within their costumes. Each of these items has a unique offensive capability; long strands of nearly unbreakable thread, corrosive eggs, pies filled with blackbirds, paralytic "stardust", fast-growing bean seeds, and many others have been used. They could also emit poisonous smoke from their hands. They could fly by means of floating five-pointed "stars" and small cloud banks which are solid enough to stand on.