MacDonald "Mac" Gargan is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as an adversary of the superhero Spider-Man. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964) as a private investigator hired by J. Jonah Jameson to learn how Peter Parker took pictures of Spider-Man. In the following issue, Jameson decided to turn Gargan into a deadly adversary for Spider-Man through a barely-tested procedure, which left Gargan with an unremovable scorpion-themed armor and the predatory instincts of the arachnid. Driven insane by his mutation, Gargan instead turned to a life of crime as the Scorpion, and went on to menace both Spider-Man and Jameson, whom he held responsible for his transformation. Since then, having finally removed the armor, Gargan has also served as the third host of the Venom symbiote, and a member of the Dark Avengers as Spider-Man, but eventually returned to his Scorpion alias as it kept him alive due to the strain both the neural-armors and symbiote put on his body. Since his debut during the Silver Age of Comic Books, the character has featured in various Marvel-endorsed products and media adaptations, such as feature films, television series and video games. He made his live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), portrayed by Michael Mando. Publication history The character was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Gargan first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #19 (December 1964) and first appeared as the "Scorpion" in The Amazing Spider-Man #20 (January 1965). He also appeared as the main antagonist of the first two issues of Ms. Marvel (Ms Marvel #1-2, January 1977). Years later, he became the third "Venom" in Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #10 (2005) and the third "Spider-Man" in Dark Avengers #1 (2009). He appeared as a regular character in the Dark Avengers series from issue #1 (March 2009) through issue #16 (June 2010). Mac Gargan appeared in the character's first own four-issue miniseries, Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man. The comic was released in June 2009 and was written by Brian Reed, with art by Chris Bachalo. In 2010, Gargan returned as Scorpion, in the "Big Time" story arc from The Amazing Spider-Man. Fictional character biography Scorpion Mac Gargan was a private investigator initially hired by J. Jonah Jameson to find out how Peter Parker is able to