Farley Stillwell

Farley Stillwell is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a scientist best known for transforming Mac Gargan into the Scorpion.

Dr. Farley Stillwell
Farley Stillwell as seen in Amazing Spider-Man #20.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (1965)
Created by	Stan Lee Steve Ditko
In-story information
Alter ego	Farley Stillwell
Species	Human
Abilities	Genius-level intellect

Publication history

Stillwell first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (January 1965), and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist 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 and hired Mac Gargan to investigate. When 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 crackpot, but later saw him as an opportunity to take down Spider-Man. As such, he had Stillwell experiment on Gargan and give him a high-tech scorpion suit. However, Stillwell learns that the process will eventually drive Gargan insane and unsuccessfully attempts to cure him, during which he falls to his death.^[1]

Legacy

It was later revealed that Farley Stillwell had a brother named Harlan Stillwell who used the experiment to create the Human Fly after Richard Deacon held him at gunpoint. After Richard became the Human Fly, he shot Harlan after he served his purpose.^[2]

The Stillwell brothers' technology would also later be used to give superpowers to the Answer,^[3] and the fourth Vulture.^[4]

The sixth volume of Amazing Spider-Man confirms that Regent's minion Shannon Stillwell is the sister of Farley and Harlan Stillwell. In addition, their mother is Melodia Stillwell, who is also known as Madame Monstrosity and similarly specializes in combining animal and human DNA to create her Humanimals.^[5] Farley's father Jeremy Stillwell was turned into an owl Humanimal upon being fused with an owl where an attempt to restore Jeremy to normal resulted in Jeremy's mind being in the owl's body and vice versa.^[6]

Skills and abilities

Farley Stillwell is a brilliant biologist and cyberneticist.^[1]

Other versions

An alternate universe variant of Farley Stillwell from Earth-58163 appears in House of M: Avengers #1 as one of several scientists who gave Luke Cage his powers.^[7]

In other media

Television

• Farley Stillwell appears in Spider-Man (1967), voiced by Tom Harvey.^[8]
• Farley Stillwell makes a cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man episode "Wolfpack", portrayed by Joseph G. Medalis.
• Farley Stillwell appears in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, voiced by Michael Rye.^[9] This version was involved in neogenic research^[10] that would later lead to Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man and the creation of the neogenic recombinator machine.

Video games

A female incarnation of Dr. Farley Stillwell appears in Spider-Man 3, voiced by Nika Futterman.^[11] This version is the head of a science corporation called MechaBioCon who captured Scorpion for use in her military cybernetics and mind control experiments.