Supervillain Origins: The Shocker
Herman Schultz was once a brilliant mind with a gift for engineering. Rather than use his skill to pursue legitimate goals, he dropped out of high school to become a career thief and safecracker. Despite his brilliance, the police soon apprehended him. There he secretly developed a device capable of releasing powerful high frequency vibration waves through the air. Using it to escape, he redesigned the device for portability in the form of gauntlets, created a heavily insulated suit to shield him from its effects and took on the identity of the Shocker. Join WatchMojo.com as we explore the comic book origins of the Shocker.
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Supervillain Origins: The Shocker
He’s the most badass villain to ever wear a quilted costume. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we will explore the comic book origins of Herman Schultz, otherwise known as the Shocker.
As with most comic book characters, there are often re-imaginings and different versions to a character’s past. We have chosen to primarily follow the storyline that unfolded in 1963’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” #46, and was expanded upon in the issues 72 and 151.
Herman Schultz was once a brilliant mind with a gift for engineering. Rather than use his skill to pursue legitimate goals, he dropped out of high school to become a career thief and safecracker.
Despite his brilliance, the police soon apprehended him. Sent to prison, he used whatever materials he could find to secretly develop a device capable of releasing powerful high frequency vibration waves through the air. Not only designed to level the cement walls imprisoning him, tit would prove effective at ripping open vaults.
Using it to escape, he fled from prison and redesigned the device for portability in the form of gauntlets. Due to necessity, he created a heavily insulated suit to shield him from its effects, which would also protect him from enemy attacks.
Taking on the identity of a supervillain called the Shocker, he began mounting large profile crimes. However, he was soon confronted by Spider-Man, who was still injured from a recent battle with The Lizard. As such, the hero proved unprepared and unable to defeat the vibration-powered criminal.
Despite this, Spidey soon tried again and succeeded in defeating his new adversary. He accomplished this by webbing the criminal’s thumbs away from his gauntlet triggers. Unable to unleash devastating vibrations, the Shocker was knocked out and sent back to prison.
Eventually escaping yet again, the Shocker began dating an exotic dancer while continuing to menace the city with several ambitious schemes. These included stealing a youth restoring formula, which was contained on an ancient tablet, and taking control of New York’s power grid. This was done in order to hold the city ransom for the hefty sum of one million dollars. The criminal even went as far as to spell his own name through darkened sections of the city.
A constant threat, The Shocker has remained one of the tougher and less sympathetic villains that Spidey has faced. This is not only due to constantly modifying his suit and gauntlets, but overcoming deep-rooted confidence issues to become a cocky and arrogant professional hit man.
While the Shocker has bested Spider-Man in half of their confrontations, he prefers to work with others whenever possible to tilt the odds. This has led him to join organizations such as the Masters of Evil and the Sinister Six.
One of the earliest and most iconic Spider-Man villains, the Shocker has become infamous for his quilt-like costume, and ability to pummel the web crawler with sonic vibrations. Due to this, the oddly dressed character has remained a staple of the series for the past several decades, continuing to appear in various forms of media.
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